Category: AAA-Very Very Best

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The Sand Creek Massacre

Sometimes people who read about events like the Sand Creek Massacre become passionate about the injustice they have read about and make overly broad generalizations about American history that make it easy for jerks like James Dobson to assert that such commentary only comes from the “fringe” and that America is fundamentally a good nation that consistently — until “Leave it to Beaver” got cancelled — seeks to do the will of God.

This is the story about an act of terrorism committed by our noble forefathers, by soldiers under the direction of their commanders, of whom one, that we know of, refused his orders.

This is a classic template for the treatment of native peoples by the U.S. government. A treaty is negotiated in which the native peoples concede vast quantities of valuable land to the white settlers and move off to a new reservation on lands the whites consider worthless and undesirable. Then something of value– gold, in this case– is discovered on the reservations, and a new treaty is “negotiated”. In this case, the Cheyenne were generously offered a new reservation 1/13th the size of the land they were given originally, and slightly out of the way of the stampeding settlers headed for the gold rush.

Some militants among the Cheyenne thought they had been tricked and cheated. That seems a reasonable assumption. Nevertheless, some native leaders felt they had no choice but to accept the new treaty– or be massacred. In this instance, it didn’t matter. Shortly after the new treaty was signed, on November 29, 1864, the Colorado Militia attacked an undefended encampment and slaughtered 150-200 old men, women, and children. Many of the soldiers committed rapes and atrocities.

Some of them took genitals and scalps for souvenirs, which they proudly displayed to admiring crowds in Denver.

“to admiring crowds…”

Is the average American complicit, in any way, with the genocide that was the basis of the rapid expansion of the American frontier in the 19th century? What about those “admiring crowds”– masses of people who clearly approved and encouraged the slaughter though most of them never lifted a finger, personally, against native peoples. They admired. They received the murderers kindly. They embraced them morally and literally. Just as the citizens who forgave William Calley thereby revealed their complicity in the Viet Nam atrocities.

I personally haven’t read any American history books lately– and I’m curious about whether they pay any attention to stories like this. They would be wise to. If you find out about these things when you are older, you almost have to come to the conclusion that your parents and teachers and government have been deceiving you all along– maybe those big tax breaks for oil companies don’t make sense after all….

Even the government was shamed by this one.

The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War concluded:

Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand Creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deed he and the men under his command had performed.

Jis’ to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek. His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What der yer s’pose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? I tell you what, I don’t like a hostile red skin any more than you do. And when they are hostile, I’ve fought ’em, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would.

— Kit Carson to Col. James Rusling[37]

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The Scariest Song Ever Recorded

Which is it? “Monster Mash”? Theme from “The Exorcist” (Tubular Bells)? “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”? “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”? “Sympathy for the Devil”?

Nah. The scariest lyrics I have ever heard are those in the sidebar to the right: “You Don’t Own Me”. And you can draw a line from that song through the 60’s and 70’s to Lindsay Buckingham’s “I’m So Afraid”, or, more indirectly, “The Chain”, and you would have the darkest, fiercest, most frightening lyrics imaginable. And unique. Can you think of another song like it?

And please, please, please, in the name of all that is decent and respectful and witty, don’t cite “I am Woman”. (Helen Reddy claimed that she wrote the lyrics while Ray Burton wrote the music; his recollection is that she gave him some scraps of ideas but he is the one who turned it into a set of lyrics and a song. Reddy performed the song at– get this!– the 1981 Miss World competition. Reddy used the money she earned from the song– while repeatedly claiming she “wrote” it– to buy mansions, speedboats, limousines, and jewelry. She squandered almost all of the money and went through an acrimonious divorce in 1982.)

But if you said “I’ve Never Been to Me” is it’s evil twin– it’s polar opposite– damn right!

Now– you may have noticed that this proto-feminist lyric was written by… yes, two men. Turns out that one of them, John Madara, is also associated with the ridiculous “Dawn of Correction”, a song that testifies to the absurdity of it’s own message. Look it up sometime– it’s an answer to “Eve of Destruction”. But don’t mistake it for a right-wing response like Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets”. “Dawn of Correction” points out that things aren’t so bad– we have the Peace Corps, and the United Nations!

So, unsurprisingly, the writer of the most feminist lyric of the 60’s is a liberal.

So what’s so scary about “You Don’t Know Me”? It’s the affront to the most fundamental of all human needs. We often think of it as the need to love. But in it’s naked form, isn’t it really a lot more like the desire to be loved, to be needed, to be indispensable to someone we badly want to be indispensable to?

There is the shock of “don’t say I can’t go out with other boys”– an attack on one of the most fundamental assumptions we hold about love relationships: it’s exclusivity. I don’t need you– so our relationship depends on whether or not I want you. And if I want someone else, I’m not going to allow anything in our existing relationship– the poor boy– to be an impediment to my pursuit of those other relationships.

It gets worse! “Don’t try to change me in any way”. Yes, yes, we all claim that we love our beloved just as they are, and almost none of us mean it. In fact, the ability to manipulate someone goes right to the essence of our relationships, as much as we all passionately deny it. And once again– if you won’t change because I want you to change, doesn’t that really mean that my power over you– because you love me so much– is really limited? That my fantasy of you suffering because you have lost my affection and approval is deflated and empty?

But the pinnacle of horror isn’t even expressed until we get to “I don’t tell you what to say/Oh [I] don’t tell you what to do”. To some people, that sounds a lot like “I don’t care what you do”, and that is the last, fatal statement on a relationship that has entered the terminal phase. But doesn’t it really mean that I accept you as you are, and that I love the qualities you have, not the ones I imagine you have after I have fixed you up? I think so. But that’s not where most of us are at. It’s not what — if we were honest– most of us really want from a relationship.

The sitcom “Cheers” had one thing right– Diane and Sam like each other but both recoil in horror at the prospect of admitting that either of them needs the other. When Diane succeeds in teasing even a modest admission from Sam, that he does kind of like her, she immediately mocks and humiliates him. It’s all very high schoolish– craving the power to refuse. To be “old enough to repay/ but young enough to sell” as Neil Young put it.

You Don’t Own Me
by John Madara and Dave White Tricker.

You don’t own me,
I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me,
don’t say I can’t go with other boys

And don’t tell me what to do
And don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display, ’cause

You don’t own me,
don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me,
don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay

Oh, I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

A-a-a-nd don’t tell me what to do
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display

I don’t tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want

I’m pretty fed up with the Internet song lyric sites telling you that this is Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, or Elvis Presley’s “Suspicion”, or Madonna’s “Don’t Cry for me Argentina”.

The songs belong to the composers and writers, not the singers. The songs will return again and again as other artists cover them, and the constant tag should be the name of the composer.

By the way, in terms of female empowerment, “I Will Survive” is not only a crummy song, but it was also actually written by a man. So much for all that audacious self-satisfaction. But then again, as I said, truthfully, it’s a horrible song. [Added 2018-11]

Another horrifying extraordinary song of personal autonomy “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should be” (written by Carly Simon and… wait for it… yes. A man: Jacob Brackman, 1971):

You say we can keep our love alive
Babe – all I know is what I see –
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love’s debris.
You say we’ll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you’ll cage me on your shelf –
I’ll never learn to be just me first
By myself.

You owe it to yourself to listen carefully to this song, with the lyrics before you: it’s one of the finest songs of the 1970’s, and one of the most powerful statements about the realities of women and men and romantic love, ever.

So why, oh why, oh why, are the lyrics by a man (Jacob Brackman, a friend of Simon’s from high school)? Why!? Can’t a woman eager to proclaim her need for independence and self-realization at least write her own lyrics about it? Jeez! The best I can hope for is that she told him how she felt and he put it into very, very elegant words. But it’s still disappointing.

And one more, from The Mamas and the Papas (John Philips)

You gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you want to do it with
…you don’t understand
that a girl like me can love
just one man…

There is something uncannily poignant in that — she’s young and naïve, and at that moment, he’s the only man she will ever truly love. And she may be right– she may find someone else, but it will never be the same. Written by…. a man.

And, okay, one more yet– from “The Chain” by Lindsey Buckingham

And if you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain.

I almost forgot. This one might be the scariest of all– Lindsey Buckingham, again, whipped into a despairing frenzy at the thought of being unable to express or receive love, thereby condemning himself to solitude. You have to hear this one to receive the full effect– like John Philips, Buckingham works a lot of his magic around the arrangements and performance, rather than the lyrics: (From “I’m So Afraid”)

I been alone
Always down
No one cared to stay around
I never change
I never will
I’m so afraid the way I feel

And yet one more– Lucinda Williams “Side of the Road”

If only for a minute or two
I wanna see what it feels like
to be without you
I wanna know the touch
of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind

It must be said: at least Lucinda wrote her own lyrics.

But then again, isn’t she a lesbian?

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Dylan’s Back Pages: Lies that Life is Black and White

There is a video on Youtube, taken from one or another of the many Dylan tributes over the years, in which Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison, all together on stage at the same time, take different verses of Bob Dylan’s 1964 classic “My Back Pages”.

“My Back Pages” is a rarity. There a great songs and there are great summations and there are great insights, but rarely are they combined into a single unified work– if you could call the mad sequence of disjointed images and ideas “unified”.

You have to hear “My Back Pages” in context. When Bob Dylan arrived in New York in 1961, he quickly established himself as the voice of the protest movement– funny name, isn’t it?– and wrote several defining songs of the civil rights era, including “Blowing in the Wind”, “The Times, They Are A’Changin'”, “A Hard Rain”, and so on. The intensity and power of his words moved people. He became a messianic figure, a prophet of change, and figure upon which an entire generation seemed to pin it’s hopes for remaking the world.

Had Dylan been a politician, he might have found this role congenial (see Obama). But as an artist, it alarmed him. First, he didn’t entirely believe in “the cause” of the protest movement– he embraced it’s values, but he was all too aware of how the cause could become corrupted, and how individuals within any movement can become “pawns in the game”. And with the death of John Kennedy, of course, he saw what was really going down.

It’s hard for anybody to admit they were wrong. It is impressive to see anyone embrace the idea that he was completely wrong about anything. But that’s what “My Back Pages” is about: “I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now.” A line of sarcasm. I was “wiser” when I embraced dubious causes. Now, I am younger, less confident that I get it. Less sure that this path leads to anywhere but disillusionment.

In some ways, “My Back Pages” could be construed as a neo-con’s lament: I used to believe in noble causes, that the world could be made better with grand schemes and revolutionary movements. Now I have come to realize that man’s nature itself is corruptible, and that causes become ideologies, and that evil must be addressed.

Dylan sings, “lies that life is black and white/spoke from my skull, I dreamed”. Pure Dylan– “spoke from my skull” and then, “I dreamed”. He doesn’t even offer you the consolation of thinking you should read his lips, or that he actually spoke the lies. Is this Dylan’s real, and most amazing, contribution: that truth is more important than any cause or dream? Of all the movements and causes that have come and gone, the most persistent outrage in the eyes of the world is to hold truth above all else. That communism failed. That humans really only seek after themselves. That victims can be complicit.

I don’t object that much to the term “protest movement”, though it sounds like it means to reduce visionary political action to “protest”, as if were defined only but what it was against, or by the act of being against anything at all. Why should I object? When you look at the state of American society and culture in the 1950’s, anybody with any kind of independence of spirit and sense of curiosity would be, by definition, in opposition to the prevailing values of that generation.

One of the best lines in any Dylan song: “Fearing not I become my enemy/ in the instant that I preach”.

The Who’s contribution (Pete Townshend): “Meet the new boss/same as the old boss”. (Won’t Get Fooled Again)

The Beatles: “When you talk about destruction/don’t you know that you can count me out” (Revolution)

Creedance Clearwater Revival: “Five-year plans and new deals/wrapped in golden chains”.

10 Years After Undead: “Tax the rich/feed the poor/’til there are no/rich no more” (I’d Love to Change the World)

Updated November 2008, in the cusp of an Obama victory.

What if Obama turns out to be a stooge of the establishment, a man who talks big but ultimately plays by the rules, compromises with mediocre corporate and military apparatchiks, and starts a war so he can look tough for the next election?

What if the Bush Administration– desperate– brokers a deal with Obama to relieve those soldiers and CIA agents who participated in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo– and, of course, all the administration officials who authorized them to do it? What if Obama signs it, fearing divisions in the government, or the possibility of hard-right Republicans blocking the rest of his agenda?

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Dexter

I just happened to catch part of a new TV series tonight– “Dexter”. As far as I can tell, this is a new low or high in television drama: Dexter is a heroic serial killer splatter-analyst who only tortures and murders “deserving” victims. And there it was– in the first episode I watched– Dexter duct-taping a slime-ball to a table in some remote location and perusing his collection of knives and then asking the victim if he was guilty. The victim tried to be evasive– for a second or two– but a quick jab in the head clarified his position and he confessed. He did it. Yes, he offed the girl. Now kill me please.

Dexter does not fly. He does not have x-ray vision. He can’t transport himself from one location to another in the flick of an eye. He can’t bend steel rods with his bare hands. If he did those things, the show would be a fantasy instead, and many people would not watch because they would find the premise silly. I think. But these same people see a man taped to a table being threatened with a knife and somehow believe that he would confess to a heinous crime right away because… because why? Because he believes the man wearing the saran wrap on his face is going to let him go if he only tells the truth?

No wonder over 30% of the population supports George Bush and Dick Cheney. Bush and Cheney are right. If you catch an Islamic fundamentalist and torture him, he will tell you the truth. He won’t make anything up. And it’s enjoyable to inflict unspeakable suffering on deserving individuals, regardless of whether we have an investigation and trial first.

Do most Americans believe this scene? Do they actually believe that torture makes people tell the truth, as opposed to what they think their torturers want to hear so that they will stop the torture?

The CIA doesn’t even do us the courtesy of demanding new information to prove that that the adduced evidence has any kind of validity. They supply the names. “Is Ahmed Mohammed from Egypt a terrorist?” “No? Yes? Which is it you want me to say?” “Whatever is the truth Hamdi.” “Yes, he is a terrorist.” “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes, yes, please don’t hurt me.” “Okay. Thank you. Call the White House and tell them we kept America safe for another day.”

Dexter’s adoptive father knew that he had problems. But Dexter’s problems aren’t the result of an addiction to porn– James Dobson didn’t consult on this series, though he should have (to make it even more stupid)– but the result of some kind of mysterious abuse he suffered before his wise adoptive father steered him towards a constructive expression of his dark impulses: there are evil people out there… people deserving of your deviant attentions…. So Dexter resolves to join the police force so he can find out who, exactly, out there, is “deserving”. And no one is more deserving in Bush’s American than the mythical serial killer — who everybody knows dun it– who gets off on a technicality. Hell, why doesn’t Dexter just off all the lawyers, and the ACLU, and journalists, and environmentalists… and get it over with? Because, in this tract of American entertainment, I’ll bet you Dexter is an environmentalist– but not one of those extremist tree-huggers! He believes in clean coal, and planting grass on those open pit mines once we’ve extracted all the carbon.

All this beauteous dismemberment and sadism, and the concomitant warnings about “adult” content… and Dexter, it turns out, like Bush, is hilariously chaste. No sex education here! Dexter is dating a lovely blonde mother of two– after all, sooner or later someone Dexter personally cares about will have to be imperiled– it’s as inevitable as Dr. House himself becoming sick– but he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Alleluia. At last a program with some family values. At last something James Dobson can approve of for white middle America to watch in between spankings!

Go Dexter Go!

I say it’s peculiar that after all of the reversals of verdicts due to DNA testing in the past few years, television audiences are still so eager to believe that it’s easy to identify who the real murderer is and the TV hero– serial killer or not– never makes a mistake when he goes out there and exercises a little vigilante justice on our behalf.

And America never tires of enjoying the carnage as long as the fig leaf of just desserts is employed correctly. I am not a monster just because I enjoyed the scene in which he butchers a man because the man deserved it. I am not a bad person just because I tuned to this station to watch this show because I couldn’t wait to see some kind of sadistic violence… no no– not me.

This is why audiences have the perversity of Dexter backwards. Dexter is not really a serial killer who conceals his true nature behind the façade of a police man.

In fact, behind the façade of a serial killer, what we really have a is a policeman.

And that is why Dexter may well be the sickest, most obscene program ever broadcast on television. It seriously invites the viewer to enjoy fantasies of dismemberment and torture and inflicting unspeakable pain on human beings under the fig leaf of retributive justice. If you had any shred of belief left in the basic decency of human beings, pray that this show gets cancelled because too few people watch it.

I’m being coy here– okay. I said that Bush and Cheney believe that an Al Qaeda operative would not make things up under torture. But that’s ridiculous. Of course he would, and I have to theorize that most people involved, the torturers, the authorizers of torture, and the monsters in the Bush Administration, and maybe even the victims themselves, all understand that it doesn’t matter if they make things up– all the better. Name names. Tell us what they “did”. They will be arrested, which constitutes proof that the torture worked. They will be tortured and asked if what the first torture victims said was true. Of course it was. Torture works. Lives have been saved. Americans can rest easy tonight in their trailer parks and school gyms and gated communities: Bush and Cheney have preserved your way of life. And it only took a little torture.

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Hallelujah

I learned that love was desperation and cunning, flagellation and mysticism, grunting and grasping and kissing and licking and scratching for the tiniest fragment of grace in a world of obscene emotional brutality.

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Canadian Songwriter Hall of Fame

I didn’t know this until recently, but there is a Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. It’s purpose is “to honour, celebrate, and educate Canadians about the outstanding accomplishments of Canadian popular music songwriters and those who have contributed significantly to their legacy.”

I’m not sure what the distinction is between “outstanding accomplishments” and those who made contributions to “their legacy”. How could you make a contribution to a “legacy” unless you were a great songwriter who would be worthy, therefore, of inclusion, for your “outstanding accomplishments”? More words=more important. More better.

Unless… don’t tell me they are going to honor promoters and agents and producers? Oh no… they probably are. That would be more than a shame: it would be ridiculous. There is already a music hall of fame for the hucksters and the promoters: leave the songwriters alone.

But then…

This year’s entries: “Sugar Sugar”, recorded by the Archies in 1969, and “Far Away Places” (recorded by the immortal Ray Conniff and his orchestra), and “Clap Your Hands”– all “outstanding accomplishments”?

Yes, these stunning lyrics are now immortalized in the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame:

Sugar Sugar
Honey Honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you.

I’m not making those words up. “You got me wanting you”. The raw authenticity of that unrestrained emotion must have impressed the judges or Board of Directors or whoever it is gets to stand in front of a group of solemn reporters and music executives and explain why “Sugar Sugar” deserves to be immortalized in this awesome way. My question is this: how did they manage to get into the Hall of Fame ahead of Gino Vanelli and Corey Hart?

Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman are in. So is Gordon Lightfoot, and Leonard Cohen. Does that mean all of their songs are in? I see “Sugar Sugar” listed but not “Suzanne”. “Four Strong Winds” and “Universal Soldier” but not “You Were on My Mind” or Buffy Sainte Marie. No Poppy Family yet even though Susan Jacks had the loveliest midriff of any singer-songwriter blonde singer chick ever, of that era.

Okay, so there is a list of the songs which, I presume, earned the song-writer entry into these hallowed corridors.

And now— Paul Anka. I think it is fair to say that the Canadian Songwriter Hall of Fame and Paul Anka were made for each other.

And I would like to start a movement. I would like to organize a petition drive to keep Neil Young out of the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

Furthermore, I think we need to form a musical commando squad to parachute into the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and excise Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot before they find out that someone has decided that their life’s work is at least as good as “What a Friend we Have in Jesus” and “Aint Nobody Here but Us Chickens”.

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Cape Buffalo Taser

There is a famous video on Youtube of an amazing encounter between a herd of cape buffalo and a group of lions in Kruger National Park in South Africa. You’ve probably seen it. A herd of unaware cape buffalo are strolling along a river bank towards several lions lying in the grass snoozing. The lions wake up, smell lunch coming, and approach the buffalo. The buffalo become a little tentative, pawing and snorting, until the lions make their move. The buffalo turn to flee but the lions pick out a juvenile and tackle him on the fly and roll him into the river. While five lions try to drag the wailing buffalo onto dry land, two crocodiles suddenly emerge from the surface of the water and a ridiculous, horrifying tug-of-war ensues. The lions eventually prevail, but just as they are getting ready to dine, lo and behold, the herd of buffalo return, shyly, teasingly. Individuals charge forward, change their minds, and return to the herd. Finally a bold one or two take a run at the lions. One of them actually flips a lioness into the air. She flees, and as the adult buffalo close in, one by one, the other lions abandon their meal. Miraculously, the juvenile has survived and runs back to the protection of the herd.

There is another video on youtube of a herd of students listening to John Kerry speak. Some security guards are nearby, dozing. One student boldly asks a difficult question. You can hear that he has become emotional– bad move. The security guards move in and try to remove him from the herd. And the rest of the herd sits on their hands and does nothing, except for one young woman who screams at the guards. The crocodiles join in and hold the boy down while the security guards taser him several times. The herd does nothing. The herd sits on their hands. That’s nature. Survival of the strong. Fortunately, some tourists were there at the time to capture this exciting moment of American democracy in action.

 

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Billy Graham’s Irresistible Sexual Allure

The great American evangelist Billy Graham, who has never been caught in the slightest scandal– depending on how one defines “scandal”–, has a strict personal policy of never being alone with any woman except his wife. Since he doesn’t listen to her– she didn’t want to be buried at the new Billy Graham Theme Park, but he buried her there anyway, so that more tourists would come– Graham thinks this has kept him free of sin. (In fairness to Billy, it appears that his son, Franklin, is the driving force behind the burial decision, but Billy clearly had final call.)

And what kind of idiot decides that to visit Billy Graham’s wife’s grave is some kind of edifying experience?

It is very, very odd that Billy Graham has never been quite so public about a vow to never, ever be alone in a room with a man with a lot of money. Or a man with a lot of political power. Or a man who wants to create the impression that he is very devout and prays deeply and sincerely for a long time before bombing the shit out of a country?

Does this practice do him credit? How creditable is it to know that Billy Graham feels that no one should have confidence in his ability to resist the advances of an attractive woman in a room alone with him? And how creditable is it to the women with whom he interacts professionally, to know that they can never have a solo meeting with this very important evangelist (who has body guards and limousines) but their male colleagues can?

And of course, Billy is missing the most important flaw in his prophylactic little policy: who knows if the man he is meeting with, alone, isn’t a homosexual? What if Billy himself….

Obviously, Billy Graham should never be left alone with anyone… and that includes the President of the United States, even if he does want to pray before invading and bombing and destroying a country under false pretenses.  Or, like Bill Clinton, confess to a scandalous sin and ask for help in praying for forgiveness (probably the most absurd thing an American evangelist has ever consented to– Bill Clinton couldn’t pray without your assistance?  What kind of religion is this?)

You might object– the President of the United States? Are you mad? Do you honestly think the President of the United States would be so foolish as to…. oh my goodness! I’m right!

It has been said that Graham’s practice is “wise”, not only because it helps him resist temptation and remain “pure”, but because it also makes him less vulnerable to false accusations. Of course, the same could be said about meeting with men with money or political power: someone might believe that Graham compromised his principles so he could use someone’s private jet or limo or hotel room, or get invited to the White House or something. Or is that just in my filthy mind?

From A Christian Writer in the Christian Reformed Church’s Official Magazine: The Banner:

‘The students seemed to like it. I didn’t but then my wife, jokingly, keeps threatening to buy me one of those caps with “Old Fogie” plastered on the front, except the word emblazoned across the brim isn’t “fogie”. You know.’

Am I mistaken or did this writer just substitute the word “fogie” for “fart” because he thought “fart” would offend his reading audience? This man takes himself seriously as a writer. How can anyone else? This man is afraid of words, he can’t stand them, he can’t face them, he can’t digest the full breadth of reality because his aesthetic sensitivity is so delicate that he would collapse into a black hole of dainty-quainty tea-times and pewter plates and water-colour sea-scapes… FART. There. Now I understand.

I realized later that the “f” word in the ball cap might be something other than “fart”. Not likely. I doubt his wife would have offered to buy him such a cap, even jokingly. But maybe she has a more interesting sense of humour than I assume….

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The Poetic Enola Gay

The Enola Gay

Captain Paul W. Tibbets Jr. is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. His work is stunning and amazing and most original, and utterly, transcendent. He is the author of the “the vilest act ever committed by a soldier is actually the purest, most noble, and kindest act ever performed by a soldier”.

Paul W. Tibbets was the captain of the Enola Gay. His mission, on August 6, 1945, was to drop the most powerful bomb ever made on the Japanese soldiers hiding in Hiroshima.

As you might think… there were also 450,000 mothers and grandmothers and children in the area of Hiroshima that ended up being under the bomb that Paul Tibbets dropped.

People who love Tibbet’s poetry, become enraged when you suggest that there was something tragic about the bomb. That’s because they can’t tell the difference between poetry and a limerick. Paul Tibbets thinks he has written a limerick. But he should learn to be a man and accept that what he has written is a poem, and a real man can use naughty words in a poem. You can forgive a great poet for his filthy language because a great poet cares more about the truth than anything else.

The only thing is… Paul Tibbets still believes he has written a limerick…

It is one thing to say the filthy language is okay, because it’s the truth. The filthy language is unpleasant and frightening and regrettable, but we are adults who live in an imperfect world and sometimes the imbalance of good and evil is so great that we need to use powerful, harsh words to put our feelings about this imbalance into a poem.

It is quite another to say, as many Americans seem to, that there is no filthy language there at all. Not a word.

And then there is the possibility that this poem was never written for the Japanese, who only wanted to keep their emperor. It was an atomic love letter to the Russians, to let them know that our radioactive hearts were overwhelmed with desire for their own filthy words.

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That Contrived Inspirational Teacher Movie: “Freedom Writers”

Just once, I would like to see a movie about a young teacher who doesn’t care about his students, can’t wait to move on to a better paying job, and doesn’t want any students intruding on his private life ever. And, it turns out, is a pretty good teacher. And he has a principal who really tries hard to manage his school well, and retain good staff. And when this teacher wants to take a field trip, his principal says, “of course– we take field trips all the time.”

This scenario is more likely than you think: life is not a Hollywood movie. What makes a good teacher? Dedication is one factor. Loving students is important. But, surprisingly– to Hollywood– it helps to be smart. To be competent. To know how to do a good job.

Not going to see that movie. Ever. We have been conditioned by the movies (see list below) to believe that good teachers care deeply, personally about their students, have all the time in the world for them, evenings, and weekends, and really don’t need the slightest academic ability because most of his or her skills will only be applied to “real life” problems, like gang violence and poverty and … well, not sex anymore– those “gang members” in “Freedom Writers” seem to be absolutely celibate. Doesn’t seem to be any thing in their journals about their boyfriends or girlfriends… They might be getting shot at, but at least nobody’s hitting on them… I guess these are unusually spiritual gang members.

Or could it be the Erin Gruell has provided us with a sanitized version of the story? One wonders, of course, what else she has chosen to leave out. She certainly didn’t omit even the tiniest fragment of student adulation of her. In the film’s most disingenuous scenes, the head of her department, wildly caricatured– if you believe the movie, she has made it her purpose in life to sabotage good teachers–opposes the demands of her students that she continue to teach them into their junior and senior years. We are given to understand that there isn’t a single other worthy teacher in the system, and that it is only right and good that Gruell should never apply her special gifts to the new, equally needy students entering grade 9.

There’s not much in the film about how learning really takes place, how students actually learn to write and express themselves, how students acquire self-confidence, how teachers pass on skills and techniques. It’s really all about what a lovable, heroic person Ms. Gruell is, and to make her as lovable as possible, the movie leaves out all the little potholes and pitfalls of real life. That’s not inspirational: it’s delusional.

Did you notice my deception in the first paragraph? I was wrong, of course. There is one movie that actually tells you about a dedicated but rather chilly professor who comes to realize that he has wasted most of his life: “The Browning Version”. If you find yourself getting extremely nauseated by “Les Choristes” or “Dangerous Minds” or “Freedom Writers” some Saturday night, go and rent “The Browning Version” (if you can) and take the cure. Even better: rent “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and try to understand how charismatic, visionary teachers may not be a good thing.

Of all of these, aside from “The Browning Version”, “To Sir, With Love” is probably the least smarmy, and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” is probably the most smarmy and gooey, and “Dead Poet’s Society” is the phoniest. Most of these films create a straw man villain to inject some tension into the story– invariably a principal or Board Member who really, really wants the students to be bored and oppressed.

If you liked most of these movies, I’ll bet you’ve never seen “The Browning Version” or “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. You should. You must.

It is a dose of reality, a cold bath of truthfulness and authenticity, in a field of mushy, indeterminate ideals and beliefs. The truth is that any of the teachers in these movies could just as well be Jean Brodie, teaching her little brood the blessing of Fascism, and inspiring them with misguided fervor. The truth is that the high school band in “Mr. Holland’s Opus” would never have played that well in real life. The truth is that the poetry in “Dead Poet’s Society” didn’t express much about the lives of any of the characters in the movie because if it had, the audience would have been as frightened of real poetry as real people are frightened of real poets in real life.

And “Brodie” is the only one of these films to recognize that there is a danger in charismatic teachers. Make it a double feature: “Dead Poets Society” and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. Which film has more truth?

Copyright © 2007 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved. July 20, 2007

The problem with “Freedom Writers”…

I’m sure a lot of the events in the film really happened, even if not quite as depicted in the movie. I’m a former teacher: even good students don’t quite prostrate themselves before good teachers the way these kids did. There’s always at least one smart ass, or more, and not all students are little angels waiting for an encouraging teacher to see the good in them.

By half way through the movie, I didn’t trust anything it was showing me. That doesn’t mean I believe all of it was false– just that the movie clearly set out to “Hollywoodize” the story. I didn’t believe the head of the English Department could be that ridiculously obstinate, or that a rival teacher would be so transparently jealous of his “honor students”. I really doubt that the real students were as disinterested in sex as these students were, or that all of them would conveniently lose their personalities during the second half of the film so we could all focus on how amazingly grateful they are to Ms. Gruell.

There’s a story here, probably a really good one. And if it had been told honestly, it would be an inspiration to us all. You would think, wow, there is hope for mankind. But I can’t think that about this film– it is so rigged.

Inspirational Teacher Movies, Ranked:

The Gems:

  1. The Browning Version (Michael Redgrave)
  2. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith)
  3. To Sir, With Love (Sidney Poitier)
  4. Up the Down Staircase (Sandy Dennis)
  5. Asphalt Jungle

The Stinkers:

  1. Freedom Writers
  2. Les Choristes
  3. Mr. Holland’s Opus
  4. Lean on Me
  5. Dead Poet’s Society
  6. Stand and Deliver
  7. Dangerous Minds
  8. The Substitute

About Schools:

  1. Ridgemount High