THE HUNGER GAMES: Starved for Meaning

Before seeing the intended feature film, two movie previews juxtaposed together revealed that the most obvious, and perhaps best, trailer mash-up for this year will be “Twilight: Breaking Wind: Part Two” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” That my computer-literacy tops out at around updating a blog stops me from creating the fan-trailer myself—well, that and I now I feel the joke has been acknowledged and drained of its comedy. Measurably more shocking, and for the first time in a long time, two hours later I found myself in a very, very small circle of dissenters and carping faultfinders holding an abysmally low opinion on the year’s first megahit: “The Hunger Games.”

It’s been several excursions to the movie theater since I’ve been subjected to a film trying to say so much so incoherently. As if floating in outer space, I could see the vastness of an idea yet it all seemed empty and for the longest two-hours suspended in existentialism since “Synecdoche, New York,” I never found my footing. Fantasy and sci-fi films can be wonderful with their ability to transplant the audience in a new universe that can tell us so much more about our own. Like tourists in a new country, movie audiences witness new customs and people—each of which can make us adapt to something better or at least force us to defend our own way of life. Alas, the world of “The Hunger Games” makes less sense than Candyland and swaggers with more pretension than Cranium.

Shot with the standard “dystopian future” camera lens, the universe is most prominently ruled by a massive, aimless, vindictive government. The government, seeking to punish its own people for a failed rebellion…unnecessary exposition…so now there’s an annual Death Sport event. Unlike “Gamer,” “Running Man,” “Battle Royale,” “Death Race 2000” and the aptly-named “Death Sport” among other movies, the TV-event of the future is not just allowed, but actually orchestrated, by the federal government. Is this a commentary on the shows featured on C-Span and their relation to Roman gladiators? Sure, why not. It’s not like you’ll find a stronger message.

More perplexing than the origins, the televised “Hunger Games” are mandatory viewing—so it can’t really be said that this society of the future itself is bloodthirsty. Nor can it be said that television has degenerated into the ultimate low of humanity—a slide that started with “Real World” or possibly “The Newlywed Game.” And since the young “tributes” are mostly a lottery bunch, it can’t be said that the society is obsessed with fame. So the kids aren’t psychopaths, they aren’t volunteers, they aren’t professionals, they aren’t confused or scared and we end up with no real point, theme, or motivation. It’s the kind of ideological mess that can really make one appreciate “EDtv.”

“The Hunger Games” is a conglomeration of half-articulated ideas. For every point the story makes about power, sacrifice, rebellion, morality, hope, love, violence and maturity, there are explicit lines, characters and moments interrupting, reversing or negating the reflection. Beyond that, no character is forced to confront any fear, desire, loneliness, guilt, jealousy or anger. Sadness is summed up with two-minutes of ‘the weepies’ and promptly forgotten.

Accepting morality? Comes quick, lingers and is ultimately unnecessary. While real teenagers, as bloated with angst as they may be, see themselves as 7-feet tall and bulletproof, “The Hunger Games” features the opposite: young people instantly accepting of death, yet not needing to. Everybody’s life is just beginning, yet the characters have no plans, desires or expectations at all. Basically, they have neither reason to do, nor opinion about, anything.

I suppose some book-reader will say something along the lines that the winner of the competition brings food to their town, but a fight for gluttony hardly seems worth appreciating. Frankly, I was disappointed that overweight adolescents were so under-represented, as they make up nearly 20% of the teenage population in this Pizza Bagel nation.

As a film, there are no visceral treats to be had. Costumes are hand-me-downs from “The Fifth Element.” Unexplainable technology comes late and abrupt. There are absurd coincidences. The characters do things because the plot calls for it. Woody Harrelson is pointless with a level of self-importance only Woody Harrelson can muster. There are more absurd coincidences. Action scenes are filmed with the schizophrenia of Paul Greengrass, where visuals are so blurred that only the stock “shink!” sound of a knife being unsheathed clues the audience into the idea that a weapon has entered the fray.

I spent most of 2007 wishing for a weapon to enter The Fray.

Again, though, there is no reality in “The Hunger Games.” There are no real people, many of whom are just explicitly given numbers for the virtues of narrative dehumanization. There are no real rules or direction. “Important” elements such as the much-sought sponsors are disregarded as little more than inconsistent deus ex machinas. Is this about commercialism? There’s not a brand to be seen. Is it about loyalty? Not a betrayal worth note. Is this a tale of wilderness survival? No, because they are murderous kids. Is this a tale of surviving high school? No, because there are conveniently-timed killer wasps, poison berries and monsters. Is this about losing innocence? No, the protagonist does nothing the least bit questionable. Does anything unexpected happen at any time at all? No.

And so in what is likely to be my most controversial review since that Justin Beiber movie, I can only remember disappointment, confusion and boredom while watching “The Hunger Games.” Here is a movie that could have been so much bigger if only it had more focus. Too serious to be fun and too simple to be smart. Too broad and too thin. Familiar ideas and bland characters. B-actors and D-dialogue. So despite the cerebral yearnings, “The Hunger Games” is still just candy, albeit with a different name.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Harry S. Truman Museum (part four)

The last section on the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum:

And “The Upset of the Century” is exactly what Truman pulled off in the next room. The museum literally puts the writing on the wall as quotes from politicians and journalists line the entryway, describing the impossibility of a Truman victory and the inevitability of Truman getting embarrassed and smacked around harder than Steve Buscemi in…well, any movie that Buscemi is in. Truman, though, campaigned ferociously while Thomas Dewey (R-NY) sat back and asked his advisers what color the drapes in the Oval Office should be.

The Hall of Failed Campaigns is full of bad hair cuts...

that and crazy people.

Dewey had lost the 1944 presidential election in small part due to his mudslinging and so spent most of 1948 spouting absurdly cautious platitudes, characterized in the press as: "Agriculture is important," "You cannot have freedom without liberty" and "Our future lies ahead." Unfortunately for Dewey, his political moderation regarding Communism and previous support for Truman’s international efforts (the Truman Doctrine, etc.) failed to energize his supporters and Truman got to add a couple more rooms to his presidential library.

However the next few rooms contain hardly anything for Harry Truman to celebrate. Like for many presidents, the next four years proved even more domestically tumultuous than the previous four. Compounding the frustrations, every political, cultural and even moral discussion circled back around to the single issue of the day: the Cold War. The next several exhibits followed the evolution of the Cold War from the Red Scare to nuclear escalation, propaganda films, the trials of Alger Hiss (that snake!), and culminated with the McCarthy investigations.

For the climax of our trip, Tyson and I were subjected to an interactive theater experience titled, “Spies in Government: How Far Do You Go To Find Them?” The point of the show seemed limited, focusing on the hypothetical and generalities rather than the specific history of the singular event. Obviously, it’s important to connect history with modern life, but this presentation failed to go four minutes without noting Internet privacy and wire-tapping. Even when the show stayed historical, it maintained an apologetic tone—again, implicitly rejecting current invasions of privacy.

The film—though it was more dimensional than a film—grudgingly admitted that Truman was just too politically weak to stand up against the blatantly obvious “red baiting.” That he despised communist fear mongering is increasingly regrettable when one remembers he had contributed to the origins by adopting NSC-68. By 1951, Truman was stuck in the, US-led but UN-supported, Korean conflict and had no hope of winning another term, which was still a legal possibility. The man had become a lame duck, plucked by the skyrocketing television news media, an opposition Congress, Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur and the administration’s infighting and corruption.

Most audaciously, the video itself repeatedly snapped on bright overhead lights and boomed portentous questions at the audience. Tyson and myself sat subjected to this impersonal interrogation, struggling to cognitively orient ourselves and stammer answers to faceless accusations. Most of the vindictive and belittling questions fell along the lines of, “do you know anyone who has ever expressed sympathy for communist sympathizers,” “have you ever felt hesitation about joining the U.S. military,” and “has the show ‘Amos ‘n Andy’ ever influenced your politics?” The first-hand interrogation experience was jarring, mean-spirited and annoying; which I guess made it fun, informative and sympathetic.

Winding down the energy of being taken out behind the woodshed by a voice recording, our journey led into the exhibit of “America in 1952,” where I really began to feel the evolution of the country’s culture in just the period of one administration. An entire wall was lined, floor-to-ceiling, with Life magazine covers, pictures and articles. Essays, quotes and quips displayed sentiments so much like today’s culture that the sentiments themselves emerged as cliches. We in live in a cynical time, wrote one person, not in 2011, but in 1952. If we are the most powerful nation on Earth, why are we always so scared, wrote another, again, not in 2011, but in 1952. Fortunately, athletes and movie stars stole enough column space to avoid the readership—then and now—from getting too introspective. And just like that, Truman was out of the White House with a sub-30 percent approval rating, which is about the same percentage of modern Americans who have passports.

"There sure are a lot of foreigners in those other countries."

Working as a quiet epilogue, a simple photo gallery transitioned Tyson and myself back into the real world. Perhaps it was because the photos were of Truman in his happiest moments, shared with JFK, Mickey Mantle, Harpo Marx and others that every thing felt proper. The pictures, quotes and film clips showed a nation that forgave, and even praised, the formerly unpopular president; in no small part thanks to his political transparency, especially when compared to the Vietnam and Watergate disasters.

Perhaps the experience felt like waking up because we were finally in the first (and only) exhibit to have windows into the museum’s courtyard; allowing the soft embrace of daylight to nudge us awake from our historic dream. It was like leaving a movie theater, except more gradual and more personal. We weren’t being ushered out by a bunch of bow tie-wearing, snot-nosed, punk teenagers, but rather methodically leaving on our own accord. Somehow, the control meant a lot but still allowed at least myself to feel an emotional toll after two and a half hours of darkness interchanged with artificial light, film strips and back lit displays. I was physically drained, with my brain still running a marathon on nothing more than caffeine pills and a Hi Boy burger.

-So I know this place in K.C., started Tyson, that serves $1 tacos and $2 margaritas on Wednesday.

I had to look at my cell phone to check the day. Forget about the time, it was Wednesday and that was good enough for me. I won’t be president next week. I won’t even be a senator, married, or even able to pass the Army’s physical fitness test. Sighing to myself, I knew I was just going to be some guy who has fun in Kansas City. Then again, at this point in his life, so was Harry Truman. And with company like that, I don’t know, I think just maybe everything’s going to be all right.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Harry S. Truman Museum (part three)

Visiting the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum:

Back onto the main floor, Tyson and I embarked on the linear path through Truman’s administration, starting with the country elbow-deep in the most widespread war the world has ever known. Quite the kickoff, really. The exhibit was mostly old newspapers stretched out and enhanced and back lit for easy-reading access, if one had the time. Yes, most of the papers were dominated by headlines such as, “V-E Day,” “Second Atomic Bombing” and “Japan Surrenders,” but the small articles kept me far more busy. Unexplainably, it was simply impossible to find the birth announcement of Helen Mirren.

Immediately following the newspapers, there was a dark room—actually the whole building had rather soft, or non-existent, lighting—dedicated to the “Decision to Drop the Bomb.” Now I haven’t been to many presidential museums, but I doubt any of the buildings were built to tarnish, scold or unabashedly deride a President’s legacy; and I think that is a problem and a notion that should be fleshed out some other time. As one would expect, for this moment, the museum’s audio clips and presented data took the stance that Truman’s decision was courageous.

However, there was also an admission that one can only be courageous if there is controversy. If dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was obviously the right thing to do, nobody would care Truman made the decision. Not shielding the reality of 1945, the museum also acknowledged racist propaganda in this section and the possible influence it had Americans. What I really appreciated though was the book and pen at a counter asking museum patrons what they thought about the decision to drop the A-bombs. Flipping through the pages, some people were with Truman but most were just signing their names or making shout-outs. There were a couple of doodles, notations and even short essays, but nothing more graphic than a G-rated bathroom stall.

After that, we led ourselves into post-war America, an exhibit of vintage televisions, vintage refrigerators and vintage cardboard cut outs. It seems even presidential museums can’t escape the public’s insatiable demand for 3-D attractions (“It’s like they’re coming right at me!”). Nearby, I wandered into what I assumed was a dedication to Truman’s love for Halloween. The whole next hallway was creepy, with wind sound effects, darker than usual lights, carefully cut ruins, shadows and manufactured despair. I entirely expected a skeleton on a spring to be launched out of a plastic coffin.

-What is this, a haunted house, I sneered out loud.

-It’s post-war Europe, said Tyson.

-Whoops.

Yeah. Kind of bleak. I guess it was necessary to set the stage though for the Cold War origins in the next, much larger, brighter, room. The Cold War gallery had, among other stuff, a nine-screen video display that chopped up archival footage with well-choreographed, editing craft. The Berlin Airlift, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and formation of NATO and the UN are given appropriate weight and credit, including a whole bunch of mini airplanes hanging overhead. Disappointingly, the mini airplanes were just models and not the actual airplanes Truman tried to have airmen fly to Europe.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any exhibits or displays regarding the declassified report NSC-68—the 58-page memo that unnecessarily escalated the Cold War to an apocalyptic discussion. In short, NSC-68 advocated “a policy of calculated and gradual coercion,” a proposed effort to militarily contain both the USSR and the spread of communism worldwide. According the report, its writers and some of its readers, civilization itself was at risk if the Soviet Union was allowed its buffer zones and satellite states. In actuality, the Soviet Union never had the means to launch proper invasions into anywhere they didn’t already have their feet during WWII, nor did they really possess much ambition, what with struggling with their own starving neighborhoods and all. Ultimately, NSC-68 set the stage for the next forty years of American international politics, including (but not limited to) supporting totalitarian, military chieftains who snubbed, or executed, communists or just people they didn’t like and could call communists.

The museum noted the Potsdam Conference, the last meeting between the major Allied forces before the close of the war, but I believe they underplayed the real-life drama of the situation. During the conference, British PM (and anecdotal wizard) Winston Churchill found out that he lost the general election and was replaced by Clement Attlee. This was largely a result from Churchill calling Joseph Stalin a tyrant and proposing that the UK and US invade Russia after defeating Nazi Germany. Yes, people were willing to accept Stalin was a murderous dictator who desperately tried to ally himself with Hitler only a few years earlier, but the British people, and world in general, were just warred-out. On the American side, Truman had ascended to the presidency only months earlier (becoming the first American president not named FDR in over 12 years) and just earlier that week found out about the successful testing of a nuclear bomb in New Mexico.

During the negotiations, Truman told Stalin that America had “a new weapon of unusually destructive force.” Baffling, and even disturbing, President Truman, Stalin appeared disinterested. Though Truman was immediately suspicious, it would take several more years to discover that Stalin had successfully planted Russian spies in the Manhattan Project and, in all real likelihood, knew more about the atomic bombs than President Truman himself.

Still within international affairs, though in a separate exhibit, was the opportunity to explore Truman’s decision to recognize Israel. Like several of the other exhibits up to this point, the display was a detailing of the controversy, though unlike the others, this was a controversy I was only marginally aware existed. I am aware of the contemporary conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I was not aware that Truman’s own administration was divided so sharply; specifically, that George S. Marshall (of the famed Marshall Plan) promised he would never vote for Truman again if America recognized the nation of Israel. Marshall’s thinking was that recognizing Israel meant risking America’s access to Middle Eastern oil reserves and the calamitous results of paying 50 cents per gallon. While America eventually recognized and defended Israel, several Arab countries didn’t. And many still don’t seem comforted that most Americans cannot actually recognize Israel on a world map.

But between Israel, the escalating Cold War, Civil Rights battles and a lulling post-war economy, Truman seemed destined to go down as a one-term president. Any other election result would be the political upset of the century.

Next week on Past Times: The Political Upset of the Century.

KONY 2012: Historical Irrelevance

I haven’t seen many films lately—except repeated viewings of “Life in a Day”—so I feel justified enough in reviewing a short film, and that the online movie has achieved an unrivaled explosion of popularity only compounds my enthusiasm, with some false sense of superiority, to end several discussion points surrounding, after “Charlie Bit My Finger,” the second most viewed video involving child abuse: “Kony 2012.”

To me, the most amazing aspect of the documentary is that millions of people sat through an entire 30 minute video—about 10 times the length of the usual YouTube clip. If there wasn’t this movie, 80 million people would have just watched talking dogs, talking children and morons struggling to sing. To me, any documentary—mass-marketed as it may be—is the opposite of mindless escapism (YouTube videos or, to a larger extent, the Michael Bay Industrial Complex) that smug viewers deride at every opportunity. Factual imperfection can be forgiven, intellectual ambition can be appreciated.

Although it’s not even factual imperfections that raise the most repeated criticism: that “Kony 2012” simplifies a complex problem. That a 30-minute video, already a little stuffed with pathos filler material, can not detail the history, opinions, views and ramifications of an entire war, country or person should be obvious. More importantly, I don’t think the video makes such an assumption. There is never a message saying, “Congratulations! You watched a short documentary, you are now an expert on morality, legal codes, history, violence, politics and activism.” In fact, the video explicitly proclaims a modest ambition to only get Joseph Kony’s name “out there.” Further education is expected. Mission freaking accomplished.

Principles are what you believe in; politics are what you are willing to sacrifice for your principles.

Would you donate one hour of your life to save a child soldier? Would you donate twenty bucks to save a child soldier? Would you donate anything AT ALL just for the possibility that an innocent person might get to hug their family again?

As a variation on the original, common criticism, how can anyone insult another person learning anything? Sure, watching the “Kony 2012” doesn’t make anybody an expert on the entire situation. But neither would anybody be an expert after watching a 100-minute documentary. Or reading a book. Or reading two books. There will always be facts, nuances, technicalities and perspectives lost or sidelined for the sake of comprehension. No body of work on any subject can be all-inclusive.

So how is more people knowing ANYTHING about Joseph Kony, or any criminal, worse than people knowing absolutely nothing? The video isn’t exacting spreading a rumor or tarnishing some guy’s previously good name. Moreover, the video isn’t political or really even opinionated. The United Nations has a list of war criminals: fact. Joseph Kony tops the list: fact.

The second most common criticism of (the people who watched) the video I have heard is that just watching video doesn’t change anything. Again, I don’t see how it hurts anything either. And at least some benefits have to be acknowledged. If one in a hundred people donate any money to Invisible Children or other charities, isn’t it still better to reach more people? If any percentage (under 100) of the donated money is used for “administrative costs,” isn’t there still more money helping more people than when 80 million less people had watched “Kony 2012”? How is donating twenty dollars to a charity that might help other people in any capacity worse than using that same twenty dollars to get drunk on malt liquor during Spring Break? We are all selfish, just to different degrees.

No video will ever create world peace, in the sense that most people understand it. But what if “world peace” was understood to be a journey, not a destination? Then isn’t increased education, increased discussion and increased empathy an improvement upon the status quo? Noting the irrelevance of any single person in changing the course of the world is entirely inaccurate. A small group of people, even individuals, have changed the world as many times as the world has changed. A lot of people doing their own thing is the only way the world can change; indeed, it’s the only way the world ever has changed.

You don’t have to quit your day job, sell your TV and move to Africa to help your fellow humans. In fact, such neo-colonialism is exactly what modern Ugandans denounce, and emphatically remind Americans that Joseph Kony himself is not likely in Uganda at all anymore. We don't just need to crush monsters, we need to build up peace. The movie doesn't empower foreigners, it connects strangers.

Like being selfish, or any other aspect of the human condition, there are degrees. Doing anything to help anybody is still better than doing nothing and helping no one.

What I think really drives some critics is the fear of “the masses.” As seen in the video, the Kony 2012 movement has grown by the thousands of participants, and with Invisible Children’s new campaign increased many more times over. The large scale protests can honestly be described as hoards of people, yelling and chanting as passionately as they are unintelligibly. Basically, to the cynical eye, they look like zombies. And the smell of social crusaders doesn’t help. The videos of protesters and speakers also send the message that this is all they do because it’s all we see them do.

Fanaticism can be regrettable, as can misdiagnosing it.

We can’t end violence in the world, but how is the world worse for stopping just some violence? The controversy of ending witch burnings in America didn’t stop witch burnings in one day—but there was a last one. And after that last one, there were no more. It didn’t end violence, but it was a good step. Similarly, we won’t end war by the end of 2012, but we—as a world—can stop the specific occurrences and dissuade the future ones. We have before.

Modern society is complex, in America and Africa. History is equally so. It may be “fashionable” to support a cause against child soldiers or other atrocities, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t do some good. Again, it certainly does more than sedating millions with stimulus overload at the nearest multiplex. South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Algeria and Uganda have all suffered extraordinary bouts of violence in the last century, but they all involved different parties, tactics, consequences, people and motivations.

Intelligence is the toleration of ambiguity.

Understanding other viewpoints is not the same as justifying them. Understanding why terrorists attacked the World Trade Center is important to being able to stop future terrorism. Saying Adolf Hitler killed millions of people because “he was crazy” is not wrong, but it is not complete. Timothy McVeigh did not blow up a building because he hated the architecture, and to completely disregard his justification only keeps the door open for continued violence. Like almost all criminals, Joseph Kony acted in a way he almost certainly felt was justified. Yes, he has his own side of the story, but that does not excuse his actions.

Listening is not a weakness.

Fighting social issues is difficult when they remain in the abstract and easy when they can be personified. Fighting Joseph Kony is easier than fighting homelessness, but given the success of “Kony 2012,” shouldn’t other filmmakers and moral crusaders just be more inspired to pick up their own good fight? Success exists. Innovation is the antidote to apathy.

At the very, very least, I can appreciate Invisible Children for setting a couple of solid, protest tenets. Firstly, there is an end in sight. Any number of things can happen to Joseph Kony before now and 2013. What we know for sure, though, is that “Kony 2012” will end. Beyond that, the organization gives people specifics; perhaps not in information (that’s the individuals’ responsibility), but in action. Nobody is talking about the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Westboro Baptist Church or Yippies—and all petered out of the news with no specific success. Calling your own demise is important, whether it’s setting a limit to your gambling losses in Las Vegas, protesting or promising “six seasons and a movie.”

It may seem odd to spend so much time defending an ultra-popular YouTube video, but I feel the critics need to be noticed, questioned and answered. This video is not controversial, controversial people just like condemning it. “Kony 2012,” flawed or not, did something right--that’s enough and anything else is just extra.

Sometimes we are 7 billion people with our individual histories; other times we are one world with one history. We need to appreciate both.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Harry S. Truman Museum (part two)

At the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum...

The 20-minute documentary chronicled Truman’s genealogy, his boyhood years, his rise through local politics and culminating with his swearing into office—not to be confused with his plain-spoken or profane nature in office. The video itself was dry, though presented enough information to work as a necessary prologue for wandering around the museum. In my notes I have written down that the video was called, “Who the Hell is Harry?” but that may have been a joke to myself.

According to the flick, as a young man, Harry Truman worked on his family’s farm even though he regularly wanted to go to Toshe Station to pick up some power converters—no wait, that’s Luke Skywalker. For real, Truman always wanted to go into Kansas City because he liked the theater performances, concerts and some girl named Bess—who, and this is as corny as it is real, was the target of Harry’s affection since they were six-years-old and in Sunday School. Defying the captivating presentation, two of the audience members walked out and presumably went to the AMC Theater to watch some mess starring Paul Bettany.

Continuing on with Harry’s life, the future president finished high school, dropped out of college, proposed to Bess—who turned him down—and went back to working on his family’s farm. Unmarried, living back at home, with no significant education, Harry found himself where I fear myself to be heading. I think Young Harry also got turned around, and possibly lost, in the streets of Kansas City. Not yet ready to be inspirational, Truman volunteered to join the Armed Forces during WWI at the ripe old age of 33. Neither the video nor the museum’s later exhibits more than glanced at the oddity of Truman’s situation, but I feel it’s pretty clearly a case of the guy just being angry at the world and wanting to fight anybody. More than enough times, just rejected by girls, friends and jobs, I’ve been thrown into ham-fisted fits of rage and wanted to destroy things.

Eventually Truman won the war for the Allies after actually gaining the attention, and saving all, of his fellow soldiers with profanity-laced diatribes when under enemy fire. Decorated, Truman came back to Kansas City, made friends with (remember this part) Tom Pendergast—who was the uncle of an Army buddy—and proposed to Bess, again. Correctly believing Harry Truman had achieved several power-ups, she accepted.

Also, the man had, like, 200 goddamn croissants stuffed in his pockets.

Now, Tom Pendergast is a character whose identity has not been clarified by history, at all. Today, as in the 1920s, Pendergast was a civic leader and businessman; or he was a Democratic party boss who had his fingers in at least the Kansas City jazz, liquor, protection and gambling industries. Inarguably, the man owned a cement company that was put to work when Truman got into local office. But, really, owning a cement company is somewhere between a waste management business and a laundry mat place on the list of cliché, “legitimate,” endeavors owned by the mob. Pendergast, apparently able to vote more than once, was/is entirely credited with getting Truman twice elected to country judge—which was not a judicial position but rather just a commissioner who handled public contracts. Truman was a fairly likable guy, but had just recently closed his men’s clothing store in K.C. and needed a job. Pendergast, meanwhile, needed somebody likable, but also controllable. With this partnership, Truman and Pendergast build roads into the future and throughout Kansas City.

In 1934, Truman asked for Pendergast’s help to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Peculiarly, senators have less local power than commissioners do but Pendergast seemed to at least give in to Truman’s new ambition. Perhaps Pendergast wanted a friend in D.C., but to historians, this was when Truman first started to outgrow the fishbowl Pendergast had put him in. The senate race in 1934 became unusually bloodstained as the election was cited as the cause for four murders and dozens of fistfights, beatings and gun-wielding threats. As it turned out, Truman’s senatorial colleagues were unimpressed by this third-world style democracy and often referred to Truman during the next six years as, “the Senator from Pendergast.” Criminally dangerous or not, “Boss Pendergast” was arrested in 1939—and this is just a case of history being unoriginal—for tax evasion. When will criminals learn that bribes need to be reported to the IRS?

In 1940, lawyers Lloyd Stark and Maurice Mulligan both challenged Truman in the primary race and President Franklin Roosevelt, gently, voiced support for anybody who wasn’t Truman. Odds be damned, Truman won for the first time entirely in his own right and received a standing ovation when he reentered the Senate. Perhaps this was more of a message about the power of incumbency, but whatever, the museum marks the event as a power stomp for the man, so I’ll—oh wow, I almost forgot about the museum.

After the documentary, which ended some time ago in this tale, Tyson and I went into the White House Gallery, a general overview room that seemingly warms up patrons for the forthcoming barrage of information, videos, games, pictures, tidbits and gibberish. The deified centerpiece of this introductory room was the display of the iconic “Buck Stops Here” sign. About the size of a desk nameplate, the wooden sign was protected behind a thick, possibly bulletproof, glass case that towered into one’s headspace. Indeed, the desk ornament was nearly protected like the Declaration of Independence, likely with lasers and guard dogs. More over, the museum had at least three, but upwards of twenty, patrolling guards who were old enough to have been childhood friends with Harry Truman. Watching the patrol routes, I just imagined the possibilities of an “Ocean’s 11” sequel involving stealing the, apparently priceless, paperweight.

In the same room, I was far more captivated by the display of the President’s Daily Schedule, the sample day being February Something, 1950. It was pretty staggering that the President held, and probably still holds, meetings with national security advisors, agency directors, governors and heads of state for about 15 minutes a pop. A small blurb off to the side had a Truman quote, wherein he estimated he signed his name about 600 times a day. If I had a penny for every time he signed his name over just one week, I’d have $42. That may not sound like a lot, but remember: that’s a hell of a lot of pennies.

Tyson, to his end, was more interested in a sculpture in the room, a present a Mexican artist gave to Harry Truman as part of a request for citizenship. Inexplicably, the story ends there so it has to be anybody’s guess as to if the thoughtful gesture/artistic bribery was successful, legal, hilarious, and/or tragic. Tyson commented on our own situation, at a museum on our own free will, even paying to visit, while getting pushed around from room to room by grade schoolers on a field trip. Tyson thought we had reversed ourselves from fifteen years ago, but when we would have paid money to stay home and watch TV. But I felt the exact same as I used to feel: genuinely excited to be at a new place with old friends.

Before following the main, zigzag path of the museum, we took the deviation into the lower level, and a route I would recommend for the sake of the day’s narrative. The basement—though maybe that phrasing makes it sounds like the attractions are exposed pipes and a wet-dry vac—was a series of exhibits regarding Truman, with special emphasis on interactions and games. Make a Truman Campaign Button! Write a letter! See the three huge, and bad ass, cars they seemingly built the museum around because there is no way those 1940s Chryslers squeezed down the stairwell. A few of the games made somewhat circuitous connections to Truman, such as the “Stick Your Hand in one of the Holes” to feel a representation of something from the President’s life. SPOILER: His bones aren’t in any of the holes. Yet another game was simply “dress like Harry and Bess Truman” wherein kids got to put on random jackets and shoes too raggedy for the Salvation Army. I was so frantically scribbling all this down that I nearly missed what had captured Tyson’s attention: a display about Truman’s involvement with the Freemasons.

-That’s the Eastern Star, and it sometimes represents Lucifer, Tyson pointed out.

-Uh huh, I said while noting that a sitcom about the Freemasons would be television gold.

Wanna know more? Too bad, Freemasonary ain't free.

To be continued...

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Harry S. Truman Museum

For the next couple of weeks, I'll entertain with a chapter from my theoretical, unpublished, road trip, historical non-fiction memoir.

Visiting the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum:

-President Harry Truman rooted around with 1930s Kansas City gangsters, I said.

-Really, asked my friend Tyson Gough.

I shrugged and hoped my coy ambiguity would let my friend’s imagination go to far deeper and darker secrets than actually surround the nation’s 33rd President. Being a pupil of history academicians, I am endless fascinated by real-life events; and having the moral clarity of a movie producer, I never let good facts get in the way of a better story. Tyson was a recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute and so while he had no problem engaging himself intellectually, I knew he was only going to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum with me because he expected a certain degree of entertainment. And I just wanted an audience. I think that’s why—oh sonova-!

I looked over my shoulder at the highway exit we just missed, a piece of pavement that had might as well been a sandwich fallen into the dirt. Tyson shuffled the Google Map pages I had printed out hours before and squinted in the blue and yellow road outline. What if we get back onto Swope Parkway, I suggested.

-Swope was some famous guy in the history of Kansas City, Tyson informed me for reasons that escaped me then and now.

Eventually we turned around, got onto some other road and turned around again and ended up at our larger-scale destination, Independence, Missouri—a Kansas City suburb that allows its residents to claim de facto city citizenry when trying to impress other Midwestern, Wonder Bread eaters. Like a cartoon hobo lifted by the aroma of a window-cooling pie, I knew we were close to the museum but also knew I was hungry—not just for presidential trivia, but for food. And food we found first.

Or did it find us...?

(Also, that one in the top-right is clearly bleeding.)

The 1970s are not dead, they’re just shoved into and contained within miscellaneous burger places throughout the Midwest that are just esoteric enough to be thought as “mom ‘n pop” stands, yet have the pre-printed mascots and neon lights of a (former?) chain fast food joint. In this case, Tyson and I ate at Hi-Boy just off Highway 24 and were the youngest customers by at least two world wars. While eating, we absorbed the glances from the Class of 1917, who were ready to challenge us to fisticuffs for the sovereignty of their lunch territory.

Fake wood panels and straws without paper wrapping aside, we enjoyed ourselves enough. Most importantly, the food was actually pretty good. I didn’t have the guts to try a “fried pickle,” but at least the Hi Boy burger beat back my hunger until I could once again be a part of the cosmopolitan culture I have grown more accustomed to.

-So what happens this fall, with no school, asks Tyson.

-I don’t know, I said, my lease is up in July and that’s the edge of the map.

Ever since “The Graduate,” young people having a quarter-life crisis is as cliché as it is real. Recently, I have begun to suspect nobody is actually an adult but rather everybody is just hoping they’ve fooled everyone else. It would then seem the only hope we have to become whatever it is we want to become is to go out and find one-part opportunity and two-parts inspiration. From weeks earlier through lunch to when we finally got to the stone-faced museum building down the road, I was just praying Harry S. Truman could help me out.

The general admission into the museum was $8, though I really just wanted to hand the lady behind the counter a single dollar and say, “The buck stops here!” While getting kicked out of the Truman museum for being belligerent would be a great story, it wouldn’t be my story…today. Instead I gave the lady the money and a “Buy-One, Get One Free” coupon I had found on the Independence, Missouri tourist website that morning. I nodded to Tyson.

-You can buy the first round of drinks later, I suggested.

-I think you’re getting the better half of that deal, said the lady—though I’m still not sure which one of us she was referring to.

Regardless, we went past the counter and I saw brochures for other tourist sites, including several of the other nation-scattered presidential museums. Like some raving Black Friday shopper, I raced nobody over to the stand and started filling my pockets and arms with glossy paper directing me to Springfield, Yorda Linda, Atlanta and other places I’ve never had any reason to ever visit. Tyson, to his end, walked closer to and inspected the absolutely giant mural that dominated the museum’s lobby.

-Is that Thomas Hart Benton, said Tyson with slightly less enthusiasm than when he had ordered a Hi-Boy burger less than an hour ago.

Yes, the mural was, we learned. A mural of Native Americans meeting white settlers, both people seemingly aggressive in their exchanges with peaceful home lives behind them. Tyson told me about Benton and the man’s pupils with such casual expertise I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just making stuff up. Frankly, I still don’t know or really remember enough of the details to keep me from embarrassing myself. The size of the mural spanning the wall offered more scope than the content, but maybe that just makes it more accessible.

I looked off to the side and saw something even more accessible, a movie theater with a short film about Harry Truman starting in about as long as it took us to walk across the lobby. Once inside the maybe 80-person auditorium—with four other people—the doors closed automatically behind us, invoking the fantasy of a historian sliding into the theater just in time, only to reach back to grab his knocked-off fedora and have his hand caught between the doors. As was, Tyson and I took our seats and I hoped this wouldn't be the second Truman show I regretted watching.

Burn on that movie....from 1998.

To be continued...

(Next Week: I make fun of Melrose's Place and Scottie Pippin.)