Category: History

Halloween: The Movies are Horrible

hallow2Reprinted by popular demand.

As of right now, it’s less than 10 days until Hallowe’en, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to take much more of this.  Make no mistake: I love Hallowe’en.  It’s my favourite occasion after Christmas, St Paddy’s Day and the Summer Solstice (I think I was a Druid in a past life.)  The problem is, like a lot of good things on this planet, idiots have got hold of Hallowe’en and they’re hell-bent on ruining it.  Every year it’s the same: one minute after Columbus Day, they trot out the Horror movies.  Then it’s wall-to-wall gore until the sugar shock wears off November 1st.  For the last nine days, our 500 channel universe has been turned into a butcher shop, and it doesn’t look like the carnage is going to let up any time soon.  So far, I’ve managed to avoid Friday the 13th in about 20 of its repetitious incarnations, Nightmare on Elm Street parts 1 through 35 and the entire Halloween franchise — except for about three minutes of Resurrection when I got the wrong Mike Myers.  If I don’t see a decent movie soon, I swear I’m going to buy Netflix.

Let me put this into perspective so we’re all on the same page.  Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, what’s-his-name with the hockey mask and anybody else with a chainsaw, pick axe or pointy stick have nothing to do with Hallowe’en.  These guys and their horrible movies were invented by Hollywood to cash in on the universal need for teenage boys to get close to teenage girls — who are looking for an excuse to let them.  (This little drop of human nature BTW, hasn’t changed since the Stone Age, but now it’s worth millions.)  That’s where horror movies came from — not from Hallowe’en.  Hallowe’en has never been about half-naked young women and dumbass young men getting their entrails splattered from here to Main Street.  Nor is it about the lunatics, maniacs, evil spirits and just plain nasty folks who stalk them.  These are all modern creations, designed to separate unsuspecting youth from their money.

For the record, here’s the Twitter version of how Hallowe’en came about in the first place.  Despite all the ghosts and hallowgoblins, Hallowe’en actually started out as a quasi-religious holiday, back in the way back days.  This was at a time when Christians were battling Pagans for the collective souls of the European multitudes.  Religious marketing was at its cutthroat best.  As I’ve said before, the early Christians weren’t stupid, and they incorporated a lot of pagan traditions into their rituals to ease the masses into accepting Jesus as their personal Saviour.  In those days, pagans (and most Christians) believed that unsatisfied souls walked the night, and they could, on occasion, mete out some pretty mean-spirited (pun intended) retribution on the living — if they saw fit.  The church decided that November 1st, Hallowmas, a day that already honoured the saints, would be a good opportunity for people to pray for the souls of the recently dead; thus, aiding their journey to heaven and getting them away from the God-fearing living.   Since midnight masses were de rigueur in those days, the church services took place at night or on All Hallows’ Eve.  (Sound familiar?  We know it in its corrupted form as “Hallowe’en.”)  However, the nouveaux Christians of the day continued to hedge their bets.  On their way to church, they wore cloaks, masks and even costumes – all to disguise themselves from the assembled apparitions who were hanging around consecrated ground, awaiting prayers of deliverance.  In addition, some of the poorer members of the parish would accept coins or food from the wealthier patrons to add their prayers for the dear departed.  That’s it: the time, the place, the costumes, the tricks and the treats.  There’s a lot more to it, but for bare bones, it serves our purpose.

hallow3If you notice, there were no chainsaws, axes, heavy mallets or ball peen hammers.  There were no knives, swords, machetes, garden forks, shovels or soup spoons.  Nobody got stabbed, jabbed, poked or prodded.  Nobody was torn limb from limb, dismembered, eviscerated or even bruised.   It wasn’t a bloodbath, nor even a slight rinse.  Originally, and for most of its history, Hallowe’en was spooky, creepy, perhaps even a little frightening, but murder and mayhem were never on the agenda.  It’s only recently that it’s been turned into a three-week multi-channel splatterfest.

Friday:  How to Write a Horror Movie

The Huckleberry Hounds of War

autumn2As Bugs Bunny once said to Yosemite Sam, “Of course, you know this means war.”  Yeah, I’m talking about the comic book opera being played out between London, Washington, Congress and Damascus.  Don’t get me wrong. I’m the first guy in line to see a smartass like al-Assad get slapped.  However, let’s put things into perspective: there isn’t a schoolboy alive who hasn’t seen this playground scenario a hundred times.  Some kid thinks he can get away with murder (in this case, literally) and some other kid says, “No, you can’t.”  Good luck trying to talk that one out over a juice box.

But I’m also declaring war on all those wishful thinkers out there who wouldn’t recognize reality if it dropped an Acme anvil on their heads.  Get the message, you wily coyotes: the hard truth is, you’re never going to catch the roadrunner and bullies exist.  They’ve been living on our planet since Fred Flintstone had to defend himself against the Neanderthal hillbillies, two caves over, who kept stealing his fire and peeing in the water supply.  From that primeval moment until the present day, human history has been a running battle between those of us who want to be left alone to grunt and scratch as we see fit and a bunch of scuzzy buggers who never seem to see it that way.  Wake up and smell the Sarin, people!  Bashar al Assad is one of those guys who thinks the rules don’t apply to him.  We all know these folks; we’ve met them a million times.  He and his Ba’ath Party buddies are simply pumped-up versions of those morons from grade school who got their kicks beating up the little kids.  They’re bullies, and no amount of pink shirts is going to change that.

However, it’s not actually the bullies of our world who are the problem.  They’re easy to spot: just follow the blood stains.  Our real problem is those misguided Good Samaritans who are controlling the agenda.  They are somehow under the delusion that we’re just one honest dialogue away from a political solution with Bashar and his ilk.  They are convinced that reasonable people can reason with a guy nasty enough to spray paint an unsuspecting population with poison gas.  It boggles the mind.  Unfortunately, these pie-in-the-sky debaters are part of the problem not the solution.  And, let’s be clear, this isn’t just the Barack Obama’s Sylvester and Tweety Show.  I’m looking at you venerable Parliament of the UK.  Remember what happened the last time the British decided not to take action over “… a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.”  You Brits ought to be ashamed of yourselves.  My point is, as we theorize and chatter about who did what to whom and how many dictators can dance on the head of a bloated corpse, the bad guys are taking time to reread their ruthless manual and reload.  Then, when, invariably, push comes to shove in Syria, it’s going to take twice as much time, three times as much energy, and four times the body count to finally get rid of these clowns.  Regime change on the ten year plan isn’t pretty; just ask the marines in Afghanistan.

The fact is, the Pollyannas of our time, and their abhorrence of history are condemning our children and/or our grandchildren to eventually die in that same “far away country.”  Their abject ignorance is just as deadly as al-Assad’s poison gas.  Therefore, let it be known, that I, for one, am no longer willing to let you off the hook just because you’re dumber than the average bear.  After all, Yogi never got it right even when Boo Boo pointed it out to him.  So, get out of the way, or, as the man said, I will “Cry havoc and loose the Huckleberry Hounds of war.”

Prince George of Cambridge: A Media Doll

royalsUnless you and your pals have just spent the last nine months contemplating the darkest rings of Uranus, you realize the world has a new celebrity, Prince George of Cambridge.  At this writing, he’s still trending somewhere in the stratosphere of ’08 Obama numbers — literally billions of people have stopped whatever they were doing to take a look at the little guy.  Rihanna and Chris Brown can only dream about this kind of coverage and even Kanye Kardashian’s Instagrams of Kim’s North West passage didn’t generate numbers like these.  The babe who will be king will now remain in the media’s spotlight for the rest of his life, his destiny shaped by his grandmother, Princess Diana, arguably our planet’s first World Celebrity.  I’m not going to go into the wherefores and the whys of Princess Di (I have a low threshold of death threats) except to say that the camera loved grandma so much that poor George doesn’t stand a chance.  Good on ya kid, welcome to the fishbowl.

Even the most rabid royal haters have to admit that, in the Age of Entertainment, being born to the purple is not what it used to be.  Back in the day, before Di was shy, royals commanded a little respect.  In the 30s, for example, Edward VIII’s indiscretions with Wallis Simpson (which were considerable) were not public knowledge, or even a matter for media speculation, until Edward himself threw the monarchy under the bus for the woman he loved.  Likewise, Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, was not above getting down and dirty with young men barely old enough to know better.  These lapses in protocol were common knowledge on Fleet Street but never made it past the editor’s desk.

These days, however, it’s open season on anybody with even a drop of blue blood in their veins.  The Slime from the Check-out Line magazines are oozing with salacious pics of any number of in-name-only aristocrats who are so far removed from the monarchy they need a GPS to find Buck House.  Anyone any closer to the Crown Jewels gets the Full Monty media treatment, complete with round the clock telephoto lens.  George’s uncle Harry, for example, has his own phalanx of 24/7 watchers whose only purpose on earth is to digitize the boy’s every move just in case he gets into the tequila again and goes commando.  Honestly, if I were Prince Henry of Wales, I’d be suing Clark County, Nevada for false advertising.  “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?”  Don’t make me laugh!

There are those who would argue that being royal is a public job with plenty of perks so they need to suck it up.  However,The Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge Leave The Lindo Wing With Their Newborn Son let me put that into perspective.  Unlike Lindsay Lohan and the League of Extraordinary Bimbos, William, Kate, Harry and company do not actively seek the media’s attention, nor can they walk away from it.  They are politically obligated to make themselves available.  They cannot whore photo opportunities of their child to the highest bidder a la Brad and Angelina Jolie nor stand down and refuse to participate.  George is going to be on the cover of People, like it or not, because he’s news, not because mom and dad need the publicity.  William and Kate have already sucked it up by showing up, babe in arms, on the steps of the hospital.  They’ve fulfilled their end of the bargain.  The problem is the media, lawless barbarians that they are, will not adhere to theirs.

I’m not so naive as to think that this brand new Prince of Cambridge’s life will be his own.  His obligations to the United Kingdom and the world began when he was born and they will be documented, with or without his permission.  (BTW, would you put up with that?)  However, it frightens me that our cultural cult of celebrity somehow equates baby George’s symbolic contribution to the continuity of our society with Miley Ray Cyrus’ new hair style.  They’re different and they need to be treated differently.  George Alexander Louis Windsor will be remembered by history, if, for no other reason than he exists whereas the former Hannah Montana won’t make it past Disney’s Hall of Fame.

Tuesday: The Real Purpose of the Monarchy