“We called God for a comment, but he hasn’t returned our calls.”

The Latter-day Saints Church has been upsetting some of its members. Last fall a policy was issued from the church saying that members in same-sex marriages are “apostates” and their children cannot be baptized until they are 18 (Mormon kids are normally baptized at age 8), and then they can be baptized only after repudiating their parents’ homosexual lifestyle. The Church, which fought same-sex marriage for years, then ultimately lost to the Supreme Court, has come off as vindictive. And that was after a period immediately following the decision where they sounded (almost) conciliatory to gay Mormons. Some members, gay and straight alike, feel betrayed.

This caused a thunderstorm of emotion and upset for those Latter-day Saints. There were some demonstrations held, and there were members speaking to local TV news, voluntarily and publicly resigning from the Church.

In the LDS Church this kind of protest causes a lot of consternation on Temple Square. The Church is not in the business of arguing its beliefs, nor engaging in debate with its members. Devout members are there to believe what they are told. As the quote from the LDS magazine, The Improvement Era of June, 1945 says:  “When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God.”

This has always seemed very ham-fisted to me. Substitute “government” for church and it sounds like what would come down from the leaders of a totalitarian political regime.

After a few weeks of protest the Church issued an edict to silence the dissent. They went to the revelation card. This is from an article on the process they claimed they used to come to the decision to make apostates out of same-sex couples, and forcing repudiation from their children:

Quotes from “Mormon gay policy is ‘will of the Lord’ through his prophet, senior apostle says” by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 23, 2016:

“After same-sex marriage became legal in several countries, including the United States, the LDS Church's top 15 leaders wrestled with what to do, weighed all the ramifications, fasted, prayed, met in the temple and sought God's guidance on the issue.

“. . . That led to the Utah-based faith's new policy regarding same-sex Mormon couples — that they would be labeled ‘apostates’ and that their children would not be allowed baptism and other LDS religious rites until they turn 18.

“‘Each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation,’ [Russell M.] Nelson, next in line for the Mormon presidency, told the faith's young adults in the first official explanation of the hotly debated policy's origins. ‘It was our privilege as apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President [Thomas S.] Monson.’”

“Nelson explained that revelation from the Lord to his servants is a sacred process.

“‘The [three-member] First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together and share all the Lord has directed us to understand and to feel, individually and collectively,’ he said. ‘And then, we watch the Lord move upon the president of the church to proclaim the Lord's will.’”

The way it is explained sounds much the same as another about-face in Church policy, when in 1978 the ban on black people holding the priesthood was reversed.

Here is an official LDS Church version of the 1978 revelation on allowing the priesthood for people of African descent:

“According to first-person accounts, after much discussion among the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on this matter, they engaged the Lord in prayer. According to the writing of one of those present, Bruce R. McConkie of the Twelve: ‘It was during this prayer that the revelation came. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon us all . . . From the midst of eternity, the voice of God, conveyed by the power of the Spirit, spoke to his prophet. The message was that the time had now come to offer the fullness of the everlasting gospel, including celestial marriage, and the priesthood, and the blessings of the temple, to all men, without reference to race or color, solely on the basis of personal worthiness. And we all heard the same voice, received the same message, and became personal witnesses that the word received was the mind and will and voice of the Lord.’”

Neither of the explanations of these changes says that God appeared to the Apostles or First Presidency. And no reporter can ask for God's phone number. It seems that God is never around to answer questions when we need a statement or a clarification.

There are Mormons who claim the President of the Church (known as “Prophet, Seer and Revelator”) meets regularly with Jesus in a room in the Temple. But the Church leadership is careful not to spread that kind of talk. They “feel the spirit,” they don’t claim God approaches with a flaming sword and makes a proclamation. The stories about meetings with God and/or Jesus go back to Joseph Smith and his First Vision, which is pictured in this official LDS Church painting of the “event”:

For an American-born church, this depiction makes God and Jesus into Caucasians, and American-looking to boot.

There is also a story of Lorenzo Snow, Church President from 1898 until his death in 1901, meeting Jesus in the Salt Lake Temple. That story may have been the genesis for a comment I read on a Facebook posting about the Church’s new policy on gay married couples being apostates, as “I trust President Monson, because he talks to Jesus every day in the Temple.”

At the time of the 1978 change in granting the priesthood to black people, most Mormons believed that black people were cursed with a black skin by God. It was what was taught, and a belief held, even though it is now claimed it was never from God. A couple of years ago the Church released an official explanation that it was a policy put into place by Brigham Young, who was following the racial prejudices of the era. So why petition God to remove the policy?

We shall have to see whether 40 years from now there will be another “revelation” in regards to the policy on same-sex marriage apostasy.

More dumb jokes to tell at a party

A magician worked on a cruise ship, and the audience was different each week, so he did the same tricks over and over again. The captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick.

Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show, “Look, it's not the same hat!” or, “Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table!” or, “Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?”

The magician was furious but couldn't do anything. It was, after all, the captain's parrot. Then one stormy night on the Pacific the ship sank, drowning almost all who were on board.

The magician found himself on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the sea, as fate would have it, with the parrot.

They stared at each other with hatred, but did not utter a word. This went on for a day, then two days, and then three days.

On the fourth day the parrot could not hold back any longer. He squawked at the magician, “Okay, I give up. Where's the fucking ship?”

**********

 A man was sitting at home on the veranda having drinks with his wife. He said, “I love you.”

She asked, “Now, is that you or the beer talking?” He replied, “It’s me...talking to the beer.”

**********

A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was a very good-looking woman and determined to keep the ranch, but knew very little about ranching. She decided to place an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand. Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk.

She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than the drunk. He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching. For weeks, the two of them worked, and the ranch was doing very well.

One day, the rancher's widow said to the hired hand, “You have done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels.” The hired hand readily agreed and one Saturday night went into town. One o'clock came, however, and he didn't return. Two o'clock and no hired hand. He returned at three-thirty. Entering the room, he found the rancher's widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him. She quietly called him over to her.

“Unbutton my blouse and take it off,” she said. Trembling, he did as she directed. “Now take off my boots.” He did as she asked, ever so slowly. “Now take off my stockings.” He removed her filmy nylon stockings gently and placed them neatly by her boots. “Now take off my skirt.” He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the firelight. “Now take off my bra.” Again, with trembling hands, he did as he was told and dropped it to the floor.

Then she looked at him and said, “If you ever wear my clothes into town again, you're fired.”

Beware, brothers, beware

Men, Valentine’s Day is over for another year, and that gives us a year to continue walking on the eggshells that are relationships. While on February 14 we can bestow on our wives and girlfriends flowers, candy and cards, those other 364 can be fraught with peril for us. We have to tread carefully through the minefield of communication with our distaff side, and we can freeze with terror (at least, those of us with experience) when we hear that awful question: “Does this make me look fat?”(1)

So many jokes have been written about this simple question that whole sitcom episodes have been based on it. But it really is no laughing matter. That question, answered improperly, can cause much pain, argument and tension. I think it should be specifically banned in wedding vows for the bride: “And do you, Daphne Jane, promise to love, honor, and obey and to never ask your husband if your apparel makes you look fat?”

There are variations on the question, though, which are equally loaded for an unsuspecting male. Those may be as simple as “Do you like my new hair style?”(2) or as deadly as, “Do you think my legs are as good as your secretary’s?”(3) Better rehearse some answers in your mind before opening your mouth. Beware, brothers, beware.

What brought this whole subject to mind were these two items from my local daily newspaper, which coincidentally, appeared on the same day. They reminded me that even after 47 years of marriage I need to always be on my guard.

Click to enlarge.

My advice for answers to loaded questions:

(1) To any question with the word “fat” answer with a smile and a soothing voice: “You look wonderful, honey. I think you look fabulous.” Avoid the word fat at all costs, even when she uses it. Even saying, “No, you’re not fat” puts the word in her mind as coming out of your mouth.

(2) Answer to new hairstyle should be, “It makes you look much younger. I love it.”

(3) For a question such as this, fraught with danger, always say something like, “I have never noticed her legs. You’re the one with sexy legs.” A further admonition might be that when this question comes up, it is because she has already caught you eyeing other women, and this is a trap. There may be no answer that will satisfy her, and your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination does not apply in a domestic matter. Better have a bag packed.

The prescient Playboy cartoon, and a doctor's view through rose-colored glasses

Since the Supreme Court upheld lower courts on the legality of same-sex marriages, the idea of gay people marrying has been fair game for cartoonists. This is an example:

Or is it? I have misled you, because the cartoon comes from the October 1968 issue of Playboy. Cartoonist Dennis Kennedy appears prescient. If he is still around, I hope he realizes how his punchline has a meaning now he probably wasn’t aiming for in 1968.

On the same page of that issue is a letter from a physician who saw the need to end the abortion laws that varied from state-to-state in 1968. Basically he was calling for a federal mandate, like the same-sex marriage debate of nearly 50 years hence, that would make abortion legal in all 50 states. Here is the letter:

“REPEAL ALL ABORTION LAWS

We must put an end to all abortion laws. Liberalization is insufficient, expecially when one considers that total repeal of abortion laws would produce the following benefits:

The increased number of abortion requests would make the medical community aware of the need for extensive contraception and sterilization programs, and this long-standing need would at least be responded to.

Illegal abortion would almost disappear. Most abortions would be performed in hospitals that, by their standards of safety, show proper regard for the ‘sanctity of human life.’

The status of women would be improved, because each would be allowed to regulate her own bodily functions. (No woman should have to plead a case to obtain an abortion.)

Mental health would improve, because sane attitudes toward sex would eveolve as a result of lessened anxiety about unwanted pregnancy.

Poverty would diminish, since families would be smaller and better suited to their incomes. An important side benefit would be happier homes.

The era of wanted children would arrive at last. Almost every child would be planned and joyfully anticipated.

Appreciable amounts of public funds would be saved, because there would be no less need to wage war on poverty and to provide welfare support.

As these primary benefits spread their beneficial effects throughout our society, the general rise in happiness would be incalculable. Is it any wonder that so many physicians and clergymen favor the complete recall of abortion laws?

H. B. Munson, M.D.
Rapid City, South Dakota”

Dr Munson thought out his argument, but was wrong on almost every point. Abortion was made legal by the United States Supreme Court five years later in 1973, and has had heavy pushback ever since. The doctor’s optimistic predictions did not take into account those who see abortion for any reason as murder. That hasn't stopped some individuals from themselves committing murder against abortion providers, and five doctors have been killed. Munson was partially right about contraception improving. I remember when a man had to travel to a neighboring state for a vasectomy because it was illegal in Utah. Laws can change as society changes, even in Utah.

The idealistic view of what life would be like after abortion was legal across America reminds me of the same sort of talk before Prohibition was inflicted on the American public in 1920. Instead of the rosy future the anti-liquor forces were promising when liquor was abolished, what really happened was it turned America into a nation of lawbreakers.

A well-known side effect was it made organized crime even more organized, and left us with a deadly legacy probably as bad or worse than the nation of drunkards we had before Prohibition. It also established a template for criminals on how to handle the illicit distribution of drugs a few decades later.

I don’t pretend to know the answer to handle that problem. Many people love their liquor and drugs. No one claims that either or both are not harmful. Banning them and making users into criminals hasn’t worked. It is the Law of Unintended Consequences in action. One hundred years ago when Prohibition was becoming a reality, its proponents were caught up in their view of it being a universal answer to an age-old human problem. No one thought that the problems caused by the law would have repercussions that so far have stretched out for nearly a century.

Mad Max and Star Wars, high tech remakes

As if I needed a reminder that I am growing older than the target audience for TV and movies, I was surprised by the news that many film reviewers picked Mad Max, Fury Road as the number one film of 2015.

Even the usually more intellectual New Yorker, in its May 25, 2015 review of the movie by Anthony Lane said, “ . . . for better or worse, Mad Max: Fury Road gathers up all that we seem to crave, right now, from our movies, and yanks it to the limit. For anyone who denied that Titus Andronicus could ever be mashed up with The Cannonball Run, here is your answer, and we are only too happy to follow Nux as he cries, ‘What a lovely day!’ and accelerates into a whirlwind of fire.”

That character Lane mentions, Nux (Nicholas Hoult), is probably the only actor I noticed acting. For the most part the actors of Mad Max, Fury Road, are hidden behind makeup or masks, have sparse dialogue, and their characters are under extreme stress while in fast-moving vehicles, surrounded by explosions and gunfire. No time for chit-chat. Max, played by Tom Hardy, and Charlize Theron playing Furiosa, both of whom I think are fine actors, have basically one expression they wear throughout the movie. Like the characters Keanu Reeves usually plays, their parts don’t require any emotional depth. Fury Road is a dash for survival, so there are no grins or quick quips while facing imminent doom.

And that dash for survival is the second thing that keyed me to Mad Max, Fury Road being a remake of The Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson. My first tip-off was in the current movie’s opening sequence, where Max grabs a two-headed lizard and jams it into his mouth, chewing it up. It amps up the ewww and yuck factor of  the Road Warrior. There is a similar sequence at the Road Warrior’s beginning where Max is eating out of a dog food can. The chase scenes in both are similar, although the bits of action business that are done in the new version are different. The chase scenes are sped up to what looks like about twice the speed the vehicles were actually going. There is a lot of jumping from vehicle to vehicle. That was true in Road Warrior, also. Director George Miller read my mind, that people are getting tired of CG effects, and went when he could with all stuntmen and live action stunts. I can appreciate that, at least.

There are some other things I like about the movie. The cinematography is excellent. I like the theme of empowered women. But when you boil down what is seen on screen you have a chase movie, where the main characters go from point A to point B while being chased, then decide to go from point B back to point A, still being chased.

If you put your brain in neutral, it is easier to accept the post-apocalyptic absurdities played out in over-muscled vehicles by over-muscled people. It is an enjoyable movie, but top movie of 2015? I don’t have a vote for best movie, but if I did this would not be at the top of the list.

I also ask myself, what would Pauline Kael think of this movie?

Sally and I saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens in a theater right after New Year, when people went back to work and kids went to school. We shared the theater with 25 or 30 people who looked to be in our age group. I wonder if they had the same feelings Sally and I did? No one seemed overly enthused or jubilant at seeing this latest chapter of the franchise (the first one done without its creator, George Lucas). I would have been willing to wait a month or two so I could hear some more about the movie, but Sally's hairdresser said it was great, and I don’t want to argue with her over her hairdresser’s opinion. What happened to me was the phenomenon of watching a movie and having it make so little an impression that I left it in the theater when it was over. I cannot remember more than a couple of things about it.

Once again it is a combination of factors, including my age, but first and foremost I think the movie was seriously over-hyped, as Star Wars chapters tend to be. If the movie could not be brilliant, at least the marketing was top notch. They put the toys out well ahead of Christmas, and then opened the movie on Christmas day. The holiday was blurred with the movie. My feelings about the movie blend into how I feel about Christmas, that it is a big build-up for a small payoff.

Not for the Disney company, though, which probably made hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing and royalties before anyone paid to see the actual movie in a theater. By then, if the audience was disappointed, it would be too late.

Like Mad Max, Fury Road, the new Star Wars is a re-hash, even a remake of earlier movies. The one scene I can remember is the one where Han Solo confronts his son, and it is a flipped around version of Darth Vader and his “Luke, I am your father” showdown.

When I wrote a post about the early hype for the movie, “Built-in disappointment with the next Star Wars” in May, 2015, I said I would skip the movie until it came on cable. Well, I obviously chose to see it, anyway. I am not sorry I did, because it keeps me from watching it when it eventually comes to cable. And I definitely will not bother with any subsequent movies.

As The Who would say, “Won’t get fooled again.”

The nude vampire girl; or, Mathilda May made quite an entrance

Warning, NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

Also not for those too young to be looking at nudity on the Internet. Kids, be good and leave now. I mean it.

Lifeforce, a movie directed by Tobe Hooper and released in 1985, is unusual. It is unusual because it had talents like John Dykstra (2001 A Space Odyssey) on special effects, and Henry Mancini doing the music. It has actors like the underrated Steve Railsback (Helter Skelter) and British actors Peter Firth (Equus), Frank Finlay (The Three Musketeers) and even Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard himself!) But it was made by Cannon Films, a company with a checkered reputation for pure exploitation and frankly, many of its movies were crap. The documentary, Electric Boogaloo, currently appearing on Netflix, tells the history of Cannon and its executive producers, Menahem Goran and Yoram Globus.

When Lifeforce came out I remember it had odd and mixed reviews. No reviewer really knew what label to put on it, science fiction, horror, action picture, psychological thriller...the documentary shows Leonard Maltin calling it “berserk.”

What the movie also had, besides dessicated corpses sucked of their lifeforce by a space vampire (done with mechanicals in that pre-CGI era), was Mathilda May. May, who was French, had been a model and a ballet dancer. She also had an incredible body. A quote by Tobe Hooper from the documentary is, “Finding Mathilda May was an achievement. One of the most striking young women I’ve ever seen.” Indeed! From the moment she comes back to life in a laboratory on Earth, until she exits the facility, leaving behind some carnage of stupified men with their lifeforces now kissed out of them, in three-and-a-half minutes she presents the most incredible introduction of any “striking young woman” I believe I have ever seen in a mainstream motion picture.

TV GUIDE, 1967: “Are Injuries Wrecking Pro Football?” Plus Mia Farrow, Don Knotts...even the Beatles

The October 21, 1967 issue of TV GUIDE caught my eye at the local antiques mall. First, a beautiful picture of Mia Farrow on the cover, less than a year before Rosemary’s Baby would be released.

Doe-eyed Mia.
All contents Copyright ©1967 Triangle Publications.

The cover is about Ms Farrow’s return to TV (after Peyton Place) for a broadcast of Johnny Belinda. The sidebar gives a synopsis:

I thought it sounded interesting, so I checked the IMDb, only to find the program may not exist anymore. It hasn’t been seen since its initial showing, and no one has a story for what happened to it. Some reader on the IMDb comments board suspects the video tape was erased and therefore the show is lost. If so that would be too bad. It may turn up some day, sitting in a box in some former network executive or producer’s closet. Stranger things have happened.

It must have been sweeps week on network television the week of October 21-27, 1967. There are Don Knotts, Bob Hope, Sophia Loren specials. Don Knotts warranted a three page article, here reprinted in full, which tells us he left the Andy Griffith Show to be a movie star, and he was...in movies that played in drive-in theaters in rural areas. Well, that wasn’t too bad in those days. Roger Corman made a fortune with movies for that circuit. Knotts did all right for a few years, then appeared again on televison in Three’s Company in the seventies.

Included for fellow blogger Kirk Jusko,* a TV ad with Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk from Star Trek as unwitting television salespeople. RCA owned NBC, so Star Trek did double duty; going where no man had gone before, and selling color televisions for their network.
As mentioned, the Beatles were featured in their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. I am not sure if this was the first network showing of the movie or not, but it was an event. Richard Lester’s movie is a perfect time capsure of the 1964 Beatles and Beatlemania. Although it was only three years since it had been released, by 1967 the Beatles had moved far beyond their 1964 image.

The summer of '67 was the Summer of Love. The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released, and words from the song, “Summer Rain,” by Johnny Rivers said it all: “All summer long we were dancing in the sand; everybody just kept on playing ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.”
Speaking of the Summer of Love, here are Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller as the last hippies in the far-off year of 1997.

As we have found out since his death, Bob Hope believed in free love all his life.
We have been seeing specials on television the past couple of years: Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and The Wiz. But there have been stage plays on television back to when I was a child in the 1950s. (Peter Pan with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard was a big event in our house every year). So Kismet seems right in with the history of showing musical theater on TV. I am interested because one of my favorite all-time actors, José Ferrer, plays the lead. In 1965 Ferrer starred in the play Oedipus at the University of Utah. My girlfriend’s parents gave us tickets. Before the curtain went up I went to the men’s room, only to realize there was a thin wall between the men’s loo and the dressing rooms for the actors. I could hear Ferrer, with his booming voice, telling jokes to his fellow actors. I don’t remember exactly what was said, except I remember I stood at the urinal for a long time, listening.

Was it standard for Ferrer to tell jokes, maybe to alleviate the tension and butterflies before a show?

I also noticed the sidebar for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which was on its first annual repeat...and has been shown every year since.

The Peanuts specials have been money in the bank for the network since they were originally produced almost 50 years ago.
We finally get to the article on injuries in football ruining the game. What I found particularly interesting was the article focused mainly on injuries to the knees, ankles, shoulders, etc., from being hit and from the player hitting the ground. My curiosity about the current talk about concussions was covered quickly with the author saying: “. . . the game has the finest equipment in history, because sporting-goods firms as well as the Government cooperated in the design and development of football gear. The modern helmet, for instance, stems from military research and has virtually eliminated the head injury, so feared in the past.” [Emphasis mine]

Can it be the League has conspired for decades to keep the seriousness of brain injuries and concussions out of the news? We now know that many players develop lifelong problems, some lives severely shortened because of concussions and trauma to the brain. It had to be obvious to those who had been in the game their whole lives that players taking hard hits to the head later had problems, including dementia. I believe the NFL adopted a tactic from the tobacco industry playbook, to claim that “there is no solid proof” or that “further investigation needs to be done,” knowing full well their liability, and that the players were expendable and less important than the bottom lines of both the League and the team owners.
My wife and I subscribed to TV Guide from the seventies until at least some time in the nineties, when our local listings could not keep up with cable TV. I wish I had saved issues of the magazine. I am sure there are many things written and published then that would be pertinent for today.


*Kirk Jusko has been writing an epic history and commentary on the original Star Trek in his blog, Shadow of a Doubt. The link will take you to episode 12 of 15, and you can work your way around from there.

The union man, Joe Hill

Joe Hill was executed a hundred years ago. He was killed by a firing squad in the Utah State Prison. Joe, a member of the International Workers of the World (the IWW), was a union man. He was troublesome to the powers that be, those monied interests that don’t want workers asking for too much.

Since the police were most often on the side of the money and not the worker, they were sent in to break up strikes and labor disputes, often with force. It isn’t hard to believe they could have framed Hill for a murder to shut him up. As history shows, it worked exactly the opposite way, and Joe Hill became a martyr to the labor movement.

I was a union man for over 30 years. In Utah that branded me as something of a troublemaker. Utah is a right-to-work state, and business owners think people should be content to earn minimum wage and live in poverty.

Pat Bagley, cartoonist and historian, whose work appears in The Salt Lake Tribune, did this series on Joe Hill in early September, 2015. I like Bagley’s work and have shown it before, and I want to share this with you. I hope someday Bagley will expand this into a graphic novel.

Copyright ©2015 The Salt Lake Tribune.

Joe Hill was a songwriter, and when he was gone he had songs sung about him.

Pete Seeger sings “Joe Hill.”



Utah Philips sings a couple of Joe Hill’s songs:

Held at bay by barking dogs

My last couple of posts have been about my elusive memory. Some memories, even important ones, have faded, other minor memories stand out. Why? The vicissitudes of brain functions, I suppose.

For instance, I woke up the other day with a sharp memory of being held at bay by two large, barking dogs.

It was in 1976. I had just gotten the job I would hold until my retirement in 2009. As a condition of employment I was expected to get a physical. I was working for the local school district, and the physical was necessary to make sure I wasn't a walking disease factory when entering schools. In 1976 I did not have a regular family doc, and because I had a deadline of 30 days I checked around for the name of a doctor I could see quick. A family friend told me a college friend of his, Dr Steve, had a practice in downtown Salt Lake City. I made an appointment.

The day of the appointment I was allowed to take time off work. I drove into Salt Lake, but there was a problem finding parking. The medical building was close to a residential section of town, so I drove to a street lined with houses, and parked. I had a couple of blocks to walk, but that was no big deal.  Or at least when setting out I didn’t think so. A block into my walk two large dogs, a German Shepherd and a mixed breed, ran out of a back yard and confronted me. They were barking and snarling, and worse, they were blocking the sidewalk. In those days, just like today, there were restrictions on dogs running free, but those hounds were off-leash. I stood on the sidewalk, held at bay. I tried crossing the street. No good, they ran ahead of me and blocked me there. In frustration I yelled out, “Hey! Whoever owns these dogs! Call them off!” Maybe everyone was at work, or at least did not want to get involved. I saw no one in a window, no one in their yard, just those dogs. After several minutes I was frustrated, running late. I finally just walked back to my car, checking over my shoulder to make sure the dogs weren’t following. They stood like sentinels, watching me leave.

Powerful jaws and big fangs, intimidating!

I drove back to the medical building, where this time I got lucky and found a spot.

When I was led by the nurse to the examining room she walked me past Dr Steve’s office. He was sitting at his desk, reading a medical file, and smoking a cigarette. Even in 1976 it seemed odd to see a doctor smoking. It was a relief to me, since in those days I was a smoker and figured it lessened my chances of him lecturing me about quitting. As it was I quit six months later.

Why worry about smoking? Your doctor smokes!

I got through the appointment all right. The exam was quick. I answered some questions and he did his doctor thing, pronounced me in good health, wished me good luck on my new job, and I was on my way.

I didn’t think any more of it. A month later I got a note from our personnel office saying I had not completed my requirement for a physical, and I was in danger of being fired. I called Dr Steve’s office and was assured they had sent the form to the personnel director, but when I went in person to explain that to the Personnel Department, I ran into the human equivalent of the barking, snarling dogs. My memory goes blank when I try to think of her name, but she was fairly well known for being hard to get along with. She seemed constantly irritated. She was snappish, ill-humored and at times belligerent.

When I joined the school district a lot of the people working there had been there since World War II, even before. The longtime employees were part of my parents’ generation. This being Utah they were also almost universally Latter-day Saints. I knew I did not make a good impression because of my beard and shoulder-length hair (and the aforementioned smoking, which offended Mormons even more than my appearance), but I thought my natural charm (har-har) would win her over. No chance. I had a better chance with those dogs than I had with her. I asked to speak with the personnel director, but she kept me at bay. Like the dogs. All I could do was tell her what the doctor’s office had told me, and I left her office with a warning that my job was on the line.

The secretary I mention has nothing to do with Christina Hendricks’ role as office manager on Mad Men. I just like pictures of Christina Hendricks.

A week or so later it filtered down to me that the secretary had found the doctor’s note. Whew.

There is a bit more to the story. What happened was that I was not a threat to the health of schoolkids. In fact the opposite was true. Kids were always sick, and walking into a school was an invitation to pick up any germs or medical condition going around. My first five years with the organization were filled with me being ill, having a cold or sore throat every few months. I still did not have a family doctor, so I called Dr Steve’s office, only to find out he no longer practiced locally. I asked the family friend who had recommended him. He told me that Dr Steve had confessed to his wife he was gay, she divorced him and he moved with his boyfriend to Arizona.

A couple of years after that I heard from the same friend Dr Steve had died of a “strange disease” that attacked the immune system of gay men. He was the first case of AIDS I ever heard of, before there was even a name for it.

After awhile I built up my own immune system, and didn’t catch every stray bug loose in the schools. One day a kid as tall as me was walking by me in the hallway, turned his face toward me and coughed. I yelled, "Cover your mouth when you cough!" Three days later I had a cold complete with bad cough. When remembering that I also remember the barking sound he made when he coughed.

And when I tell you this story I ain’t just a'woofin'.

Honorable Discharge

Two score and seven years ago, {or 47 years for those of you who might not know that a score is 20 years}, I was released from the United States Army, and resumed my life as a civilian. I had been drafted in late 1966, and I spent one year, 11 months and 10 days as a soldier.

A series of events had caused me to be drafted, and then it became time to get on with my life.

I did, and here I am.

I have here my Honorable Discharge from the United States Army as proof that I did what I was told to do, and stuck out the whole time. (Note: I did put my pseudonym on the digital copy of the document, and redacted my service number. I don’t want someone reading this and stealing my identity, something we never thought about in those days.) You might notice that it says I was actually discharged on November 29, 1972, because that was six years, minus one day, from the time I became a soldier. In those days an enlistment was actually six years. Two years active duty, two years active Army Reserve, and two years inactive Reserve. Because of Vietnam the Army Reserves were all filled up with folks avoiding the draft, so there was no room in those Reserve units. Despite the law, it became four years inactive Reserve.

It does not matter now. It is all over.

A year or so ago I ran into one of my old Army friends. Ralph and I have known each other since the day we entered the Army. There were six guys I was with, all of us from the same hometown, who for some reason — maybe our cards got stuck together — did our entire hitch together. But Ralph is the one I have seen the most over the years. Always by accident, but when we do see each other we have watched each other grow older, grayer and fatter. On running into him in a restaurant he said, "Did you know ol' Dick M. died?” No, I did not, and told him so.

I asked him, “Did you know Wally T. died?” Wally had died at age 52, in April, 2000. “No, I didn’t know that,” Ralph said. Ralph added, “Do you know that Johnny W. has really bad diabetes, and has had several toes cut off?”

“No,” I said, “I did not know that.” Dick M., Wally T., and Johnny W. were members of our group of six. At one time in the mid-seventies Johnny had lived just a couple of blocks from me, but had moved before 1980, and I had not seen him since.

After Ralph and I shook hands and parted company I went home and checked out the obituaries online. There was no obit for Dick M., but two of his brothers were listed as having died. What I found out online was Dick M. was listed as the owner of a car repair shop, the same shop his uncle had started years before, and where Dick had worked when he got drafted.

Another couple of months later I ran into Ralph grocery shopping. I told Ralph about Dick M., saying I thought Ralph was mistaken. Dick was not dead.  Ralph seemed a bit shocked. I said what I had read online was that Dick M. had closed his auto repair business and petitioned the city council to rezone the property to a single family dwelling, so he could live there. The council thought it was fine, as long as he promised to clean all of the cars out of the yard. Ralph’s only answer to that was “Huh!” Then he said, “Did you know Johnny W. finally died from complications of diabetes?” No, I did not know that. So, remembering how Ralph sometimes got things confused I looked online and this time Ralph was correct: I found Johnny’s obituary.

In the first couple of years after we all received our Honorable Discharges when we ran into each other we passed the time talking about being married and our jobs. We also reminisced about our days in the Army together. Once, early on when I ran into Ralph we were in a store. It was December or January. I was talking to him about our nights in Germany, of being on guard duty in the middle of winter. He said, “Yeah, that was a lot of fun.” I said, “Freezing our asses off at 2:00 in morning was fun to you?” He laughed, as did some other customers in the store. My voice carries.

For some reason Ralph and I seem to occasionally be in the same place at the same time. That isn’t true of anyone else I know. I never run into old friends from high school. Once in a while I see someone I worked with at the school district, but high school, no. The fact that I graduated from high school 50 years ago (Class of '65) is probably the reason. Some of my friends have died. One high school buddy called me 20 years ago to tell me he was the boss of a printing plant in the Midwest where the Victoria’s Secret catalogs were produced. I never heard from him again, and can’t find him on Facebook (I’d like to get on the mailing list for those catalogs). Maybe he’s dead now, too. Another old friend called me up out of the blue just before I retired, and when we got through the pleasantries and how-ya-doin’s he revealed the purpose of his call was to ask if I knew where he could find a job. I gave him what information I could, but I never heard from him again, either.

The further away I get from high school the less it matters. It was such a long time ago. The same holds true for my time in the Army. There was a time a few years ago when I wrote several posts for this blog about some of my Army experiences. When I was finished I just did not do much thinking about them again.

It is almost like I never went to high school, except I have my yearbooks and my high school diploma as evidence I did. The Army is the same. On a day like today, Veterans Day, it is kind of nice to hear “Thank you for your service,” but for me, a peacetime soldier in a wartime Army, who was never in combat, or shot at by an enemy, the experience is becoming somewhat vague. I don’t think much about it except on days like today (I was released from active duty on this day, Veterans Day, November 11, 1968) or when I look on my wall and see that framed Honorable Discharge.

Oh, and when I bump into Ralph in the grocery store.

Watching The Exorcist again for the first time

The other day I sat down to watch some DVDs, old horror movies, to write up in this column before Halloween. The missus is gone in her role as professional petsitter and house-watcher for vacationers. I am alone at night this week with only the creaking and settling of my 45-year-old house to keep me company, unless I turn on the television to drown out the other ambient noises of my environment.

The Exorcist was first on my list. How many years had it been since I had seen it? I thought back, and as I watched the movie I came to a startling conclusion. I had never seen this movie before! I “remembered” some parts, but others were a total surprise.

What had confused me after four decades are false memories of actually seeing it. Having heard so much and read so much about the movie (plus reading the novel) had tricked my brain into thinking that at some point I had watched it.

When The Exorcist came out in late 1973 it was a huge hit, much like Star Wars would become a few years hence. In Salt Lake City the movie showed at one theater, the Regency, for a long time. Everyone who wanted to see it had their chance. My memory is not tricking me in remembering people who were scared before they went into the theater. A guy I worked with told me he was so terrified before the movie started that he was hyperventilating. I also got the blow-by-blow descriptions of what went on in the movie from people who wanted to share the experience. I usually stop people before they launch into lengthy descriptions of movies. First, it is boring, and second, I don’t want any spoilers. But The Exorcist was different, and it was because I had read the William Peter Blatty novel and knew the ending. When people wanted to describe it to me I did not stop them. Because the demonic dialogue was much more profane than other movies of that era the guys I worked with loved to repeat it. I knew all of the dialogue, including the famous “Your mother sucks cocks in hell!” line.

The ouija board showed up in the movie. Some people, including my mother, felt the ouija board to be demonic. Somehow we had a ouija board in our house in the early sixties, and played it like a parlor game. One day Mom threw it into the incinerator and burned it. Someone had told her by using it we were “letting Satan in.”

So, besides me being possessed by untrue memories, how true is the story of the exorcism that inspired the book and movie? A lot of myths have grown up, and there are various versions of the story. I personally like the version from Strange Magazine, “The Strange Hard Facts Behind the Story That Inspired The Exorcist”, which demonstrates the author, Dean Opsasnick, did his homework.

The 1949 event involved a young boy in Maryland, who had been given exorcisms by more than one faith (Episcopal, Lutheran and Roman Catholic), and that later it was revealed it took “20 to 30 rituals of exorcism” before the devil was cast out of the boy. In the movie it took a lot less to get the demon out of Regan.

But beyond the artistic license, director William Friedkin, who apparently believes in possession, in the January 2014 issue Fangoria magazine said he thought the evil was directed at Father Karras. Friedkin explained: “When we meet [Father Karras] [he] is on the verge of retiring from the priesthood. He believes he has let his mother down. He tells the older priest, who is his mentor, that he feels he's losing his faith. It gives the demon an opening to show him that human beings are nothing but animals and worthless, and that his faith is in itself worthless.” In my opinion of course the chain of events that led to the girl’s possession and doom to the priest came about because Father Merrin unearthed the devil in Iraq.

Considering the troubles we have had in Iraq over the years, I wonder if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their gang of neocons weren’t possessed by demons in getting us involved. (I’m only half-joking.)

Another thing I noticed when the movie was first run in theaters was how many people were claiming they were going back to church. Other reports told of people who thought they were possessed by demons. To me those stories meant that people were giving credence to the supernatural rather than admit they might have a mental illness.

Something else were articles exploiting the actress who played Regan, young Linda Blair. The articles worried about how she would survive such a role, as if she was really possessed. I am sure to Ms Blair it was an acting job, not a lifestyle. It got her roles in movies, and then at age 18 she was busted buying cocaine and it cost her. She still acts, but has gone on to an animal rescue organization she founded.

Everyone has seen the pictures of young Linda Blair as the demon-possessed Regan. This is a lot nicer.

 ...And when she grew up! Very nice!

The Exorcist is still a good movie. I don’t believe in demonic possession, but I understand why people related to it.  In 1973-74, when it was playing theaters we Baby Boomers were still young and still looking for our way. The movie affected a lot of people, for better or worse.

And before I forget, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pyramid scheme

Nick Redfern’s 2012 book, The Pyramids and the Pentagon, is enormously entertaining. Redfern is a reporter who writes about subjects like UFOs and the paranormal. In this book he draws parallels between some of those subjects and the interest in them by the United States government. My natural skepticism gets in the way of actual belief, but I like all his books, anyway. I am interested in why people believe in such things.

In the “pyramids” part mentioned in the book’s title he also goes into the subject of ancient astronauts, and how, for instance, they helped the Egyptians build the pyramids. I’ve never understood why aliens from space would help in such an endeavor, but the stories have gone around for many years and there are a lot of people who believe them. Personally, stories of alien mentors and their out-of-this-world technology seem less credible than the more prosaic explanations, that the Egyptians got the job done without anyone else’s help, and did it using a their muscles and the technology available to them at the time.

(If aliens had helped them it would have been nice if they could have left a few snapshots of the work in progress lying around in the burial chambers for archeologists to find.)

Human beings are tool builders, and some rare humans have a gift for invention, especially during times of need. Our species could not have survived without brains and invention, and glory be, opposable thumbs. So why credit the hard work of building the pyramids to aliens? Why do some people look at the work and logistics involved and think there is no way those old-time Egyptians could have done the job? Evidence shows they did, whereas stories that they were helped by aliens are conjecture at best, fantasy most likely.

I remember when Chariots of the Gods? by Erich Von Däniken came out in 1968, and I thought that popular book had been the origin of such stories. But Redfern reaches further (much further) back to retell a story told 1100 years ago by Abu-al-Hasan Ali al-Mas'udi, a prolific writer of over 30 volumes of the history of the world, based on his own experiences and collection of stories during his many travels. As Redfern explains it:

“. . . al-Mas'udi noted that in very early Arabic legends there existed an intriguing story suggesting that the creation of the pyramids of Egypt had absolutely nothing to do with the conventional technologies of the era. Rather al-Mas'udi recorded, tantalizing, centuries-old lore that had come his way during his explorations strongly suggested the pyramids were created by what today we would most likely refer to as some fom of levitation.

“The incredible story that al-Mas'udi uncovered went like this: When building the pyramids, their creators carefully positioned what was described as magical papyrus underneath the edges of the mighty stones that were to be used in the construction process. Then, one by one, the stones were struck by what was curiously, and rather enigmatically, described as only a rod of metal. Lo and behold, the stones then slowly began to rise into the air, and like dutiful soldiers unquestioningly following orders, proceeded in slow, methodical, single-file fashion a number of feet above a paved pathway surrounded on both sides by similar, mysterious metal rods. For around 150 feet . . . the gigantic stones moved forward, usually with nothing more than the gentlest of prods from the keeper of the mysterious rod to ensure they stayed on track, before finally, and very softly settling back to the ground.

“At that point, the process was duly repeated. The stones were struck once more, rose up from the surface, and again traveled in the desired direction, for yet another 150 feet or so . . . until the stones finally reached their ultimate destination. Then in a distinctly far more complex feat, the stones were struck again, but htis time in a fashion that caused them to float even higher into the air. Then, when they reached the desired point, they were carefully, and with incredible ease, manipulated into place, one-by-one, by hand and nothing else, until the huge pyramid in question was finally completed.” The Pyramids and the Pentagon, pages 69-70.

Fun story! As Redfern states, “manifestly astonishing.” Indeed it is.

But it is from an old book, and is part of a history collected from those who told tales from the oral tradition going back for generations. Those folks grappled for explanations and came up with such fabulous tales, much colored by superstition of a world of the unseen and mysterious, ruled by God (or gods).

The story is too far-fetched to be believed. When a story goes into the realm of magic (via “magical papyrus” and levitation rods) I assign it to the “untrue” column, especially when the magic involves the unlikely help of aliens from another star.

It just does not give enough credit to those who labored in the service of the Pharaoh, and the thinking of the era, that his monument was of paramount importance in their religion. Architects and planners had to work all of this out using primitive tools, and they had to make it so because that was the will of Pharaoh. To me that achievement seems much nearer to supernatural than does some fantastic story of levitation tools provided by alien interlopers.

The Wire re-seen

Recently I watched all five seasons of HBO’s excellent series, The Wire, on DVD. I binge-watched, six episodes per day until I had finished.*

When it was first run I watched it every week, and missed some of the nuances I saw this time. Characters in minor parts in one season became major characters in the next. There were foreshadowings of events to come, which showed me the creators of the series had mapped out what they wanted to accomplish in the long term. Each season had a theme. A team of actors made their way through each season, keeping a continuity, although we saw some major changes in some character’s lives, and some just stayed the same through the end. In its original run from 2002 to 2008, I thought it to be a very good television program. I have upped my estimation of it. I believe Breaking Bad to be the best serial television program I have ever watched, and it would take something momentous to knock it off its number one ranking, but The Wire is a close second. They aren’t remotely the same (except for drugs being the raison d'etre for the characters), but each in its own way just has its way of kicking other series to the curb.

 I can’t believe my good luck in finding the complete series for $5.00 at a local thrift store. It is made in China (Chinese writing on the back and inside). It is shown in English, with the choice of Chinese subtitles.

So...that puzzled me. Why would the Chinese be interested in such a show?

I see The Wire as the story of a city in dire straits, and despite its problems, people trying to hold it together. Baltimore is the setting. But when you watch it you know the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce probably had fits in its vision of the city. it is a bleak and terrible place, with drug dealers on every corner. As envisioned by the filmmakers, the cops can barely keep the lid on the garbage can that is the drug trade in a city with thousands of vacant houses and no jobs or hope for much of the population. It would be a great propaganda tool for any communist government to say this is life in a typical American city. Drug dealers, murder, crime, crooked cops, compromised policing, corrupt city and state officials. They could sell it as American hopelessness in the face of problems they cannot control, either because of lack of money or even desire to improve.

But I see The Wire as more than that. We all know we have these problems in America. but in America there is also a hope, some optimism that things will at some point be corrected, problems solved, or at least put n the right track. That may be naïve on my part, but I believe that there are always those who are working toward making life better for others. They have varying degrees of success, but I never feel hopeless about the future. I could not face the day if I did. Could a program like The Wire be made in China, showing the problems that their large cities face? I don’t think so.

In 2008 I wrote in a post for this blog about The Wire. With some editing, here is what I had to say:

I believe if Shakespeare were alive today he might be writing for the HBO series, The Wire. Unlike The Sopranos or Six Feet Under, The Wire doesn't fall into the doldrums those series fell into as they gasped out their last episodes. Where The Wire has succeeded is by including in each season a major plot involving some aspect of life in Baltimore. In Season Two it was the dockworkers, in Season Four it was the school system and a group of students, and in this, the last season, the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

The characters in The Wire are Shakespearean. The major players, the police, are flawed but interesting. The characters I like the most are people like Bubble, the junkie trying to clean up, Marlo Stanfield, the druglord working with the most murderous pair of hitmen ever presented on TV, and the best of all, Omar Little, the gay stickup man who goes solely after drug money.

Michael K. Williams as Omar.

All of these characters are deeply flawed by their criminal lifestyles, but are also understandable as being part of the environment of life on the streets in Baltimore.

Like Shakespeare, the plots can twist and turn around until they show their true purpose, but also like Shakespeare the play's the thing: While you're watching The Wire you're watching major drama that builds until the ultimate conclusions, then leaves you walking away shaking your head, thinking, “Man, I'm glad I stuck that out!”

*Yes, I had other things to do, but the beauty of retirement is I can do something like this occasionally without feeling guilty about ignoring more “important” things.