Arrested Development: The Godfather of TV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOONRISE KINGDOM: The Creepy Detail

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

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

Uhhh...

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

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

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

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

Nothing personal, Wes.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The National WWI Museum

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued...

BERNIE: Real Failings and Virtues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The body baths say "friend";

the top-buttoned shirt says "mad man."

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

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

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

MEN IN BLACK 3: Political Gibberish Fun

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

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

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

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

Do I need to draw you a map?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, snap!

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Lousy cheap Greeks…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued...

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum

This is my real life, 4-part, journey to the second presidential museum I ever visited, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum:

The billboards along I-70 intermittently advertised adult stores and decried the immorality of abortion, neither one of which directly related to our destination: the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum. My roommate (Matt Gieschen) and I flew down the interstate, blanketed by overcast skies. It had rained earlier and was predicted to rain later. But that was in Lawrence; 100 miles east ago and storms move eastward, generally. Then again, in Kansas, one needs to pack swimming trunks and a parka on the same weeklong trip. It was as likely to rain on our trip as it was to become sunny as it was to tornado or rain fire and frogs. Which is all to say TV meteorologists in the area are either grossly underpaid or grossly unnecessary. A temperament regarding the uncontrollable elements of nature can develop amongst Kansans; and a similar temperament is necessarily for anybody wading through and rising above the uncontrollable elements of war and politics. Such is the case of former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I guess that’s why the man got his own museum.

Ostensibly, the United States Interstate Highway System—championed by then-President Eisenhower—was built over several years to connect the country’s major cities, but I can speculate that the President had a hand in making sure his hometown of Abilene was also placed roadside. Having a map, though never needing it, Matt and I exited the interstate and followed the main road into the downtown area of Abilene. A few summers ago, I had worked for the Kansas State University agronomy department and driven around Kansas, often driving through towns that may have been completely abandoned. Abilene, though, is one cosmopolitan step higher, advertising a “historic” downtown area, and possibly a number of other attractions that have stabilized the city’s population around 6,700 since 1960. We drove past a number of places that would have entertained us for lunch, but one stuck out for Matt—as he ferociously vouched for it, despite having never actually eaten anywhere in the town. And so we ended up at Kuntz’s Drive-In.

The Kuntz diner (pronounced with a hard ‘u,’ like “moon,” not “fun”) was a rustic drive-in that likely inspired the uber-chain Sonic--which now looks fancy and modern, what with its intercom system and all. Eating in one’s car never appealed to me, so Matt and I got lucky that there were also tables under the elongated, tin, canopy. Really, I’m not much of an outdoorsman, so this didn’t appeal to me either, but Matt was having fun living out “American Graffiti” memories. Our waitress vastly over-estimated my grasp of eatery after throwing about food descriptions like a Southern auctioneer; but I managed to catch some phrases such as “battered,” “deep-fried,” “extra bacon” and, I believe, “double-buttered.”

-Uh, I’ll have that last one, I stammered.

-And I’ll have the pulled-pork sandwich, said Matt with far more confidence.

Any sense of surviving the day without a clot of cholesterol the size of a golf ball lodged in my pulmonary artery went by the wayside when we were then told the large fountain drinks were 99 cents—a penny cheaper than the small size. About twenty minutes later, I had literally lost my straw in the 44-oz cup and Matt was trying to get his change from our second waitress.

-The total is twelve bucks, she said.

-Here’s a fifty. Keep four.

-Okay, here—

-No, I said you keep four, I get the rest.

-Wait. Okay.

-Twelve plus four—

-Wait. Let me think.

-If you give me that ten back…

-What? No. Nineteen plus twelve…

-What?

-Make sure to carry the one, I said—not helping at all at this point.

-Almost…lets start over.

-No, this one.

-Okay there.

-Thanks.

-Thank you.

When we finally got to the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, we learned it wasn’t so much a library and museum as it was an “Eisenhower Center”—or, equally accurate, a district of Abilene. The 22-acre site was comprised of two parks and five buildings—separating the Library, the Museum, the Visitor’s Center (gift shop/auditorium), meditation place and Ike’s boyhood home. The museum and the library were two large, complimentary, buildings facing one another as if rivals built for similar, yet mutually exclusive, visitors. In between the two structures, stood a statute of General Dwight Eisenhower with his hands on his hips, in full 1940s military garb and appropriately not facing either of the buildings but sporting a modest smile. Standing at the statue, I looked where Eisenhower was looking and saw nothing but green grass for fifty-by-seventy yards. Wow, I thought alongside the 34th President of the United States, this would be a bad ass field for ultimate Frisbee.

The epitaph, “Champion of Peace” was carved at the feet of Eisenhower and I began to get the sense that Eisenhower didn’t just campaign for peace but rather was the biggest victor when peace came. And behind Eisenhower, was another field, and behind that were five large, monoliths—seemingly lifted from the Stanley Kubrick film 2001:A Space Odyssey. This pavilion or memorial had various quotes inscribed; though with a balance, theme and purpose I could not figure out. Baffled by the structure’s dignity, Matt and I myself walked over to the library, knowing of an exhibit that would act as a minor distraction to the rest of our trip.

The exhibit, housed in a single room, was “the Eight Wonders of Kansas” and, as Kansans ourselves, was everything we feared. I wanted it to be good. I wanted to say it was exciting, educational or otherwise worthy of anybody’s time in a successful effort to strike back against every Wizard of Oz joke any of the current 2.8 million Kansans have had to endure when wandering outside of the state’s border. Instead, I could only roll my eyes at the unashamed desperation. Specifically, the “Eight Wonders” were lifted from the eight cultural elements that (apparently) drive tourism: architecture, art, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history, and people. Each of the Eight Wonders had eight examples and each of them was described as “historic” or “unique” possibly eight times. Matt became excited at the sight of a display for Wheat State beer, but became reciprocally disappointed when the bottles had long since been emptied and locked behind glass. Drenched in Kansas pride and without any beers, Matt and I reaffirmed the day’s purpose and went to the Visitor’s Center’s auditorium for the next showing of what had to be the most concisely titled Presidential documentary ever: “Dwight Eisenhower: American.”

THE AVENGERS: We Have Feelies

The novel “Brave New World” was written by Aldous Huxley in the 1932 and set in the year 2540. And unless a 3-D movie adaptation comes out of Hollywood within the next ten years, I fear the story will be lost. At this point, it would not be ironic for “Brave New World” to essentially become one of the ‘feeley’ movies the literary masterpiece dryly predicted and condemned—such a fate is inevitable. In the novel, citizens by the millions voluntarily sedate themselves with various drugs and conglomerate at entertainment megaplexes to witness visual and auditory sensory overload. It is an extraordinary future unlike any other hypothesized and one of such bleak mindlessness that it is nearly impossible to ever imagine happening in our real world.

Several stories set in some dystopian future (“V for Vendetta,” “1984,” “Fahrenheit 451,” etc.) often employ totalitarian governments that ban books. In Huxley’s chilling world, such censorship is largely unnecessary. Books are not feared in “Brave New World”; they are irrelevant. They are a relic of a simple and boring time. Indeed, just calling something “history” is as much an insult as a fact. The newest and shiniest things are best.

Books,unlike video games, are not interactive. In fact, they are not active at all. They are passive and when they are presented to a passive, futuristic, audience, books are disregarded. Trivial distractions and instant pleasure rule the world of “Brave New World.” Character work eight hours a day, sleep another eight hours a day and will damned if they have to waste their time learning or exhaust themselves thinking for those precious eight hours remaining. The characters want to be indifferent because that is the easiest way through life.

Nihilism. Egotism. Hedonism. Narcissism. 

The dream of every individual, in Huxley’s story, is to be stress-free. Unending bliss is the end goal of their lives. The shared experience of vacuous entertainment is the perpetual centerpiece of vacuous discussions and such interactions are strung together for an appropriate amount of time before blossoming into vacuous relationships.

In “Brave New World,” Alpha males pad their glamour muscles and boast their many sexual conquests. And the best women? Why, they can hold a glass of wine with those butt cheeks. These are the desirables for all other characters and if they were to deny such by pointing to more virtuous qualities, it would only be a deflection that has as much subtlety as the euphemisms of a 16-year-old boy.

If any part of this review dabbled in cynicism, I apologize; such reflection on “Brave New World” is only meant to sting of acceptance. The world is becoming more urban. With the internet, the world is becoming more connected. With planes and high-speed rails, traveling is becoming faster. Yet at no point in human history have more people lived alone than they do now.

We are losing a sense of each other and (like Huxley’s characters) we cling to easy stimuli in droves and defend ourselves as just trying to escape the rigors of life. If only everybody in the world could afford ten bucks a week and be subjected to the latest, greatest entertainment marvel; perhaps then, the world would be able to avenge those who have suffered pain, growth, loss and curiosity. And then, only then, we would all be able to achieve the dream of Huxley’s characters: bliss.