Day 146: War Movies

Justifiably so, the TV channels this weekend are being inundated with war movies and war-themed television shows. "The Green Berets." "Band of Brothers," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Midway," and so on. I guess like a lot of people whose dads were both John Wayne fans and a fan of war movies, I've seen my share and then some. I've lost count of how many viewings of "Bridge Over A River Kwai," "Fort Apache," "Patton," "The Dirty Dozen," "The Deer Hunter," "Sergeant York," "Apocalypse Now," and the like that I've seen. When I was a kid, I watched movies with a slaw-jawed, engrossed look on my face. As a kid, war movies were purely a matter of good guys vs. bad guys. They were purely comic books being acted out in real life. A hero stands tall against a menacing threat, loses some buddies along the way, but eventually overcomes the evil that once loomed large. Cut and dried. Black and white. War movies were what they were and nothing more or less to me. 

It wasn't until sitting through "Platoon" in college with a group of my friends in a small movie theater in Kearney, NE, however, that war movies took on a different meaning. We had heard and read a lot about this movie from Oliver Stone. We had heard it didn't pull any punches. That it wasn't pleasant. That it would change you. For whatever reason, maybe a lack of maturity, it wasn't until Platoon that I started to "get" war. I saw it in a different light. Started to understand there was something bigger at play here than just good guys vs. bad. "Platoon" left a mark on me, and it was a mark I needed to have and feel. "Platoon" opened up the door to a completely different world I had failed to recognize existed. It scared me. It choked me. I brought tears to my eyes. It shocked me. War movies had never done that before. War movies up to that point were entertainment. "Platoon," despite Oliver Stone's faults, educated me. It wasn't necessarily an education I went looking for, but when I found it, I learned--more than I probably was ready for. 

I'm thankful for that experience though. War shouldn't be something that you spend a couple hours watching on a big screen and then get up and carry on with your day. I remember vividly watching "The Big Red One" while in high school purely and solely because Lee Marvin was in it, and I really liked Lee Marvin. I remember watching "Fort Apache" over and over, often with my dad, solely because I took pleasure in seeing Henry Fonda humbled. I remember watching "Apocalypse Now" only because I heard and read that Brando was legit bonkers and I wanted to see for myself. Thanks to Platoon, though, when I watch those same movies in present day, I can really "watch" them. I can really feeling the intent and purpose. When I watch "Full Metal Jacket" I'm no longer watching primarily to revel in R. Lee Ermey shouting some of the greatest lines ever from a drill sergeant. I'm watching to witness a man's breaking point and to be reminded that we're are fragile. 

Today, I understand the importance and necessity of war movies. I understand war is a story that needs to be told, truthfully and honestly. It's a situation that we shouldn't just read about in newspapers and Web browsers. War and all the courage and bravery and corruption and breaking of souls that comes with war should be watched. It should be examined. Most of all, war movies should be agents of change. We should heed the messages they tell. We should examine them for what they contain. And we should learn from them so that directors can stop making them. So that they become relics and piece of history and not an indictment of the present. 

I've great, great respect for every veteran. I've great respect for their husbands and wives and children, as well. I'll watch war movies this weekend, but I'll do it with hope. Not fascination. 

Day 145: Revenge of the weeds

I come to you fresh off a trip to the ER with a head full of morphine and Valium. I'd like to say it was a band of ninjas who took me out, but that's not the case. No, it was weeds that have me on the couch wincing in pain. Picking weeds dealt me a death blow this morning, and now I'm in old man mode. Bending over, pulling crabgrass, and bending back up ctrippled me hardcore. As crappy as I feel and as disappointed as I am that I'm not doing all the things I had planned, I'm grateful for modern medicine that has me feeling like I'm floating on a cloud with Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin and we are about to jam. Also thankful for a patient wife. But I swear if I cant run in the Warrior Dash that I've been training for since January I'm going to drop bombs on the weeds in my yard and hunt down their families and their children. Now, I've got some jamming to do.

Day 144: The Long Weekend

Ah, the four-day weekend. The four-day Memorial Day weekend, to be precise. An entire Friday of laziness. An entire Monday of laziness. I needed you four-day weekend. You couldn't have come at a better time. I'm exhausted and wiped out. I'm mentally fatigued (that doesn't take much, in my case). My wires are frayed. I need recharging. I welcome you with open arms, and I'll squeeze every last drop out of you I can, trust me. 


It's been a long week and longer month. It's been challenging and difficult. It's been a lot of time devoted to things other than myself, which is good, but I feel neglected, like I'm drifting, which isn't good at all. Refocusing is a must from time to time, and I'm pretty good at recognizing when those times are. Fortunately, this time falls on a long weekend, giving me two extra days to get my stuff together. There's a lot of stuff. More importantly, it gives me time to unwind and push the pressure and stress of daily life aside where it belongs. I need a lawn chair, tree, cool drink, and time. That's it. Just time. 

Day 143: Round 1, Ring The Bell Already

Relying only on yourself will forge you into a Hattori Hanzo blade that can chop the head off of any foe that stands before you. – Jason “Mayhem” Miller

Very much feeling this way today, and I find it positive. I find it reinforcing. I find it reaffirming. I find it empowering.

Today, I want to stand alone, battle alone, enforce my will alone. No offense, but I don’t want your help today. I want to find out exactly what I’m made of.

Look, there’s nothing at all wrong with asking for help, nothing wrong in seeking out assistance if needed. That’s the basis of humanity in my book. Ask for help and you shall receive it without question and without payment expected. That doesn’t make you weak or fragile. That doesn’t make you less intelligent or inferior. It makes you real.

But today, I don’t want assistance. Today, for whatever reason, I woke up wanting to prove myself, wanting to prove my mettle over and over and over based on my own merits. I woke up feeling as if today life was going to throw a series of never-ending inconveniences and responsibilities and tasks and duties and barriers my way. But I’m not going to shy away from them. I’m feeling very much as if I’m looking forward to the next pile of crap to fall out of the sky on my head.

Today, I want to take it all on and either fail or succeed but do it without any crutches. Without any excuses. Today, I don’t want to be propped up, picked up, or helped up. I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want to be consoled. If I fall, leave me lying. Leave me bleeding. The time spent on the ground will give me a chance to find out if I have what it takes to get up and get hit again. Spending a few minutes with my face in the dirt will give me a chance to find out how that dirt tastes and decide if I’m going to get up and spit it out or accept my lot.

Today, life, do your best to knock me on my ass. Punch me in the face as hard as you can. Play me for a sucker. Throw your insults my way. Belittle me. Challenge me. Push me and pull me. Trip me up. Make me take wrong turns. Doesn’t really matter. By day’s end, I guarantee you will not have broken me. Today, I’m feeling bad ass and full of fight, and that I find positive. It doesn’t happen nearly enough, and I intend to take advantage of it.

Day 142: Birthday, Carnivals, Fireworks & Freedom

Tomorrow is the last day of the school year for my kids. Despite being out of school for, jeez, going on three decades, I still get that tingly little excited feeling in my bones that only came from knowing another school year has ended.

The summer has always been my time. My season. My wheelhouse. I hate winter and the cold weather it brings. Although I think fall is pretty and the weather comfortable, it generally depresses me knowing that winter is just around the corner. I don’t particularly find joy in breaking out my warm clothes, and I don’t take joy in watching plants die. Spring lifts me up, but only temporarily. All it takes is one nice day in March to get me thoroughly excited, only for a late snowfall a week later to smash my enthusiasm to bits. (Although all bets were off this year in Nebraska, where the makes-no-sense-at-all weather turned out 90-degree days consistently in April and barely enough snowfall all winter long to make even one decent snowman.)

No, I’m an unabashed summer fellow. I love hot weather. I love hot temperatures. I love hot summer nights. I love hot summer mornings. I love camping and swimming and gardening and the park and star gazing and playing in the sprinkler and a good run or two down the Slip n’ Slide. Popsicles geek me to the extreme, and curling up in an air conditioned basement under a thin blanket, watching a late-night movie while the temps soar off the chart outside is nirvana. I love my grill. I love my golf clubs. I love my guitar under a shade tree. I love my lawn chairs, and I love the beads of perspiration and slight backache that comes from a good weed-pulling session.

For as long as I can remember, though, my summers have been defined and scheduled and regimented and revolved around three key events, the first being my birthday in early June. While I still in grade school, the few weeks spent between the last day of school and my birthday were agonizingly brutal. They seemed to last forever, as if the calendar was moving backward. The anticipation for MY DAY was murder. Every year, I tried to refrain from thinking about my birthday, but as each day successfully dropped off the calendar, my excitement only climbed skyward another notch. My birthday was important to me. It was vital. It was one of two times a year that I got new stuff. I got presents. I got to choose my meal. I got to choose my cake. And I got to choose a friend to stay over all night. My birthday was my reason for being.

After my birthday came the Fourth of July, the next great summer event. Fireworks, picnics, watermelon, family, horseshoes, badminton, softball games, fried chicken, potato salad, and explosions deep into the night. The wonder. Time standing still. With the July 5, however, came a certain bit of dejection for me, as Independence Day represented the halfway point of the summer being over. Fewer days until school started than less. Reality crashing in.

After the Fourth, came the Stir-Up days, my town’s annual celebration to honor its citizens and just have fun. Three days of carnival rides, baseball tournament games, watermelon feeds, parades, more carnival rides, carnival games, and yes, more carnival rides. Back in the day, the smart boys hit the carnival with their friends and wisely spent their quarters on games that offered up useful prizes. Pocket knife combs. Baseball helmets. Cool beer glasses. Rock posters. Mirrors and more. The suckers like me, though, asked a girl to go with them for the night. Less money to spend on yourself and more to spend on her. Less rides to squeeze in for one person because you spent for rides for two. And the pressure to win a prize you could proudly say you won for her was sizable, and I didn’t do well under the pressure. Still, I remember fondly sitting in the Octopus or Ferris Wheel all alone with certain girls over those junior and high school years, feeling as if I was somehow older and very much on top of the world, and feeling wonderment in the world. More than those memories of girls, though, thinking about the carnival takes me back to being a little boy and walking the few blocks from our house to the busy downtown streets with my parents, nearly wetting my pants in the excitement of knowing I would soon be on the rides that I could see peaking over the top of the bank and see through the branches of the trees. Those neon colors beckoned me. I remember fondly now, sitting awake late on Friday and Saturday nights as the clock stretched past 10 and 11, sitting in my bed, hearing the voices and music and sounds from the carnival drifting those a blocks from downtown to my dark room, wishing I was still on one of those rides and wishing I was still playing one of those games. That memory remains as vivid as it does precious to me.

After the carnival, until I grew older and went on my way to college, the last event of the summer was the rodeo, an annual event in my town and the representation for me that school was only weeks away. Another summer was about to end. Another season of swimming every day all day was coming to a close. Another three months of bliss was soon to fade away on the calendar.

I still think very much about those events now when summer starts creeping closer and closer. I still love the anticipation that my birthday generates, as if I’m still a little boy and I’ll soon be eating my mom’s cheesecake. I still get a thrill out of the Fourth of July, but these days it comes mostly from watching the wonder on my kids’ faces as the fireworks explode. I still venture back to the Stir-up Days parade each summer, but now with a young daughter of my own. Each time, as she’s gathering candy and pointing out the horses and fire trucks, I feel the yearning to permanently reside in that small town or any other growing stronger and stronger. The sense that I’m missing out on little events grows more intense. Mostly, though, summer has always been about freedom for me, and I get great satisfaction in still being able to experience even a sliver of the freedom I felt so strongly during the summer days of decades ago.

Day 141: Downtown

I'm fairly positive that I'm a country person by heart. I just like the peace and quiet and solitude and chance to breathe and think and feel without anyone imposing his or her will on me or crowding my existence. But there's something to be said for being downtown, whether it's the main street of a small little community or the sprawling city streets of a major urban center.

There's a buzz and vitality and energy that you can't produce elsewhere. There's a sea of faces and mass of humanity that generates a pulse that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. There's a whole universe of classes and sophistication and rawness. It's a blender. A big, fat pot of likenesses and differences. There's a cleanliness and dirtiness that comes together and drifts apart. There is a violence and anticipation that forms metal. There are options and diversity at play. There's inclusion and separation, and it all exists in the same few blocks.

The smells of a downtown are limitless. The sidewalk spring your steps, make you walk at a faster pace.The viewpoints are always changing. The voices blend and separate, floating higher and then into the gutters. There is a desperation that oozes from downtown streets that you can't feel or see in any other environment. There's sadness and joy. There's discovery. There's adventure.

I don't get downtown nearly enough. I don't get to be part of it or let it take me where it wants nearly enough, either. That's a shame because when I do make the time and do give myself over to a downtown's power, I'm usually better for it. I'm usually renewed and enlightened in some way. At the least, I'm left feeling energized and  full of possibilities and that opportunities are really awaiting me, not just existing as a figment of my hope and desire.

In another life, I'd live atop a tall building in a loft full of character and charm. I'd invite my sophisticated friends over after work to discuss the latest in world events. We'd drink out of nifty glasses that we'd clink together and refill until our heads became woozy and light. We'd eat little but partake of other substances because our only responsibility would be to outdo each other, a task we'd take seriously and with intent. We ride the elevator down to the main floor and hit the city streets with bad intentions. We'd stalk our prey with no regret and enter habitats that only the brave would dare to go. We'd power our way to success and live under no illusions. We'd know our roles and our places. In another life, I'd own no car because I wouldn't need one. My wardrobe would be tailor made, and my bedroom would be a target for the adventurous. I'd be the sole lord of  my manner, and I'd do business each and every day. Important business.

I love the downtown life and fantasize about what it can offer me. I'll never be a downtown citizen. I know that. But I often find myself envious of them and where they reside.

Day 140: BIll Moyers & Tom Morello

I love being surprised. I love it better when the surprise brings together entities and/or people that I never expected to come together. Today, one of those surprises happened in the form of Bill Moyers speaking with Tom Morello for an hour.

One of the things I really like about my life is that I have a diverse group of friends that provide me with a whole lot of different perspectives. For that reason, I can conceive that about half of my friends knowing who Bill Moyers is and about half knowing who Tom Morello is. Somewhere in the middle there is a smaller group of friends who knows who both men are. An even smaller group probably respects both men as much as I do and  possibly for the same reasons. Man, my greatest wish right now would be to expand that group.

Morello I respect because he lives the type of life that I want to live but don't. He backs his words with actions. He takes to the street. He fights for those who can't fight for themselves. He represents the downtrodden. He's a union man. He's a fighter. He's a agent for change. The fact that he does all this through music, first with Rage Against The Machine and then as The Nightwatchmen only makes him more endearing to me.

Moyers I respect because he tells the stories that need told. His work speaks for itself. His commentary should be mandatory listening and reading. His journalistic pedigree is stellar. Moyers is what media can and should be across the board.

Today on Moyers & Company, Moyers and Morello came together for an hour of conversation. 60 minutes of intelligent dialogue. I would have listened even if I wasn't already a fan, but I am, and their meeting only made me realize what I already knew but seem to put on the back burner periodically: I can and should be doing more. Doing more for the poor. Doing more to battle class warfare. Doing more to make my words heard. Doing more to speak for those who can't be heard. Doing more to make the country I live in and love a more equitable, more tolerant, more free nation for everyone who resides in it, not just those who can afford it.

I'm not sure of the game God plays sometimes, but I truly believe he introduces us to moments he means for us to live. He played all the right moves with me today. Thanks for that.