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.