Good Riddance April

Well, that was undoubtedly the strangest month we’ve ever experienced.

Which got me thinking about Aprils and their endings as the gateway to Spring.

This time last year, for instance, the wife and I had just returned from a long, relaxing weekend at Cape May.

Three years ago, we just returned from a long, relaxing weekend at Sanibel Island.

Five years back I had my own long solo weekend (the wife and little ones were vacationing down in Hilton Head) which I spent mostly binge-watching Survivorman. Hmm. That’s something in common with today’s April. Binge-watching, I mean.

A decade ago this time I was unemployed, preparing for another heart surgery, musing about the architecture of spacetime and the zen qualities of subatomic particles, while reading deep science fiction like A Case for Conscience and not-so-deep science fiction as Tarnsman of Gor.

A dozen years back I was torturing myself with Hegel and Hell’s Kitchen and trying to figure this whole blog thing out.

Twenty-seven years ago this April I found myself newly single and salved my lonely and fractured ego with a deep-dive into cinema – The Razor’s Edge, The Mission, The Last Temptation of Christ, Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi, Glengarry Glen Ross. I know this because I blogged about it in 2010. And I also note that recurring binge-watching theme.

Yeah, but this April was undoubtedly the strangest April I’ve ever experienced.

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Couch Potatoes

Like just about everyone during this lockdown, I guess, we’ve become couch potatoes. At least in the evening. During the day the wife and I “telecommute” and the girls “teleschool.” In the afternoon, if it’s nice, they hang out on the deck. Patch does her soccer drills at the park. They alternate walking the dog. Sometimes I walk in the morning with my headphones on. Sometimes the wife does.

But what we’ve all been doing for the last forty days or so, is watch TV in the evening. I read someone somewhere who wrote, “If Netflix existed in 1776, there would never have been a Revolution.” I kinda agree. But that hasn’t stopped me from the cultural indoctrination.

Politics and philosophy aside, I wondered this morning as I was showering just how much I’ve watched. I then compiled a list. It’s surprising in its length. Or, rather, not.

In approximate chronological order:

Jack Ryan, Season One (8 episodes)

Jack Ryan, Season Two (8 episodes)

Jim Gaffigan comedy special

The Hunt for Red October

Patriot Games

A Hard Days Night

Thirteen Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Captive State

Community, Seasons One, Two, and Three (50+ episodes)

Tiger King (8 episodes)

Tiger King and I

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Karate Kid

1917

Extraction

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

And that’s just the stuff I can remember nearly six weeks in. Altogether that’s something like 75 or 80 hours in total, about two hours a night. Sounds about right. Additionally, Little One is working her way through all ten seasons of The Walking Dead (we forbade this when she was younger; now she’s going on 16). Patch still watches her cartoons and Disney-style flicks. And the wife and my oldest watch Outlander and SVU. There really isn’t any shows/series I watch by myself. In fact, with the house constantly occupied since March 21 the TV / living room hasn’t ever really been unoccupied.

Couch potatoes.

The Phantom from 1975

Journey with me back in time, nearly a half-century ago, to the summer of 1975. To a typical suburban house in a typical suburban neighborhood. My house, in fact, in my neighborhood. Specifically, to a sweltering night in July. Young Hopper, seven or eight years old, frozen in pure petrified fear.

I’ve had several moments of pure petrified fear in the morning of my life, but I think this one was noteworthy for its duration. For forty-five years I swore I was rooted in place for two solid hours, unable and unwilling to remove my little self to a place of safety and security.

Last night I discovered the truth of what happened all those years ago.

During this young time in my life I was in the habit of sneaking out of my bedroom after bedtime. Usually just to go to the bathroom across the hall, but occasionally the lure of the flickering television light from the living room would catch my eye, seize it and not let go. I watched a lot of movies (or portions of movies) from the shadows of the hallway. Movies my father would watch from the couch (hidden from the hallway) after my mother had gone to bed.

I must admit wide-eyed viewing with some puzzlement Barbarella and A Clockwork Orange. So, yeah, I suppose that’s when seven or eight year old me caught sight of his first boobies. Those I remember in detail, though snippets of more innocent films also mesmerized me out in that hallway when I was supposed to have been snug and sound asleep in bed.

One night – that infamous night in July we’re now revisiting – I snuck out for a trip to the bathroom but decided to see what Dad was watching first. My face leaned out of the shadows and immediately gazed upon the horror that froze me in terror. The horror staring back at me from the television set.

Every nerve in my body tingled and every synapse fired. The fight or flight reaction kicked in to overdrive but I was overwhelmed – I could do neither. I couldn’t cry out – I had no voice. I couldn’t move to relieve my bladder. I couldn’t stumble into the living room for fear of being punished nor could I tumble back into the dark recesses of my room – for the simple reason it was pitch black and the Horror might be awaiting me there.

Just what did I see?

The image burned itself in my mind, but I’ve never found out what it was in all the years of searching the web.

Then, in the wee early hours of this morning, fighting insomnia, I found it.

What was the Horror that froze me in pure terror for two solid hours?

This ..

Keep scrolling down …

Keep scrolling down a little more …

A little more …

Here it is:

Yep.

That’s the monster from 1955’s The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. My father was watching this movie, and the exact moment I crept up to see what was on the screen, this creature jump-scared itself, along with an orchestral trumpet blast, into my permanent, scarred memory.

Around 2 am this morning, some 543 months later, unable to sleep, I was playing FreeCell on the computer and watching a trio of old 50s sci fi on Youtube: This Island Earth, The Deadly Mantis, and – on a whim – The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. It is an eminently bad movie, perhaps one of the worst of the era and one of the worst movies I’ve ever watched.

But I am extremely pleased that a life mystery has been put to rest. I can now sleep at night and not fear encountering the Phantom on my early morning trips to the bathroom.

Oh, and the movie itself is only 80 minutes long. The creature with its dreadful trumpet blast makes its appearance early in the film, so, at most, I stood in that dark, sweltering hallway a little over an hour.

Facebook and Corona

I’m not a big Facebook person, nor have I ever been. I was kinda shamed into starting a Facebook page by a pal ten or twelve years ago. I discovered it’s great for reconnecting with long-lost friends and old work acquaintances. I usually check in on it two or three times a week. There are a couple of “friends” I have who regularly post interesting and funny stuff I like to keep tabs on.

But since the lockdown I’ve noticed that Facebook has gone full in to the “OBEY OR DIE!” mentality. The one-sidedness has simply amazed me. I’m sure it’s a combination of rigorous editorial muscling and sheep mentality. No dissent is to be tolerated. Smiley happy people holding hands, singing praises of those who order us about for our own good. If you are foolish enough to suggest that it’s time to re-open the economy you’re immediately pounced on with angry taunts to go to a hospital and hold a dying Covid patient’s hand. Nietzsche would be amazed. On second thought, he wouldn’t; he predicted this 140 years ago

Now, forgive me for calling out those who want to shift those goal posts. I’d like to keep ’em firmly in place where they were back in March. Wasn’t this lockdown put in place to “flatten the curve”? You know, to keep hospital emergency rooms from being overwhelmed with hundreds of dying Covid infectees? Now, nearly five weeks into our possibly unconstitutional lockdown, the curve appears to have been flattened. How do I know? Not by watching the news on TV. By using common sense. By seeing videos of empty emergency rooms and prancing doctors and nurses on #filmyourhospital. By weighing anecdotal evidence. By looking at the numbers. By realizing that none of my intimate friends, acquaintances, and coworkers have died from it.

Certainly you would not know the curve has been flattened by hanging out on Facebook. Nor would you learn that there is a significant percentage of the population that does not want to be told when we can leave our homes, go to a park, get back to work to our “non-essential” jobs.

Life is a risk. Life is a roll of the dice. I nearly died in the hospital because of an unpredictable side effect from a somewhat routine surgery. I don’t want the herd mentality of social media shifting the goal posts from “flatten the curve” to “no more Covid cases.” That ain’t gonna happen. The best thing to be done is to protect the vulnerable and get the healthy back outside developing those antibodies to protect us from the inevitable resurgence of the corona in the Fall. Because that’s the only way we’ll beat it.

Church and Corona

If Donald Trump had issued an executive order back on March 20 labeling Mass as “non-essential” and forbidding attendance at masses during the pandemic, would the Church be clamoring over itself right now screaming for the right to “open up our masses”?

I’m not sure I know how to answer that question.

F E A R

The past few weeks have opened my eyes to how fearful we are. Contrary to what the Catholic Church likes to proclaim this time of year, we are not an “Easter people.” We are a fearful people. So afraid of death. So afraid of losing our comfortable, cozy, well-financed lifestyle.

It ultimately reflects poorly, I think, on our post-Christian culture. For us Christians, most don’t really believe in the truth of the Gospel. Heck, most of the Catholic bishops and cardinals don’t. I’m not quite fully convinced the Pope does. But imagine if you truly believed in Christ. In His promises and His teaching. Would you fear anything, even death?

I am not trying to be a scold here. Just trying to clarify something vague that’s been brought to my attention. As for me, I am ashamed to admit I did succumb to a certain degree of fear. Not of the virus, but of the economic ruin the cure is bringing down upon us. The fear of empty store shelves. The fear of not being able to pay bills and buy food. Not a paralyzing fear, but a small, gnawing one. One that usually came out to feed at night in the dark when I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

It’s a weird time. That old witticism “in the land of insanity, only the sane will be considered crazy” seemed apt. I’ve seen the videos posted to #filmyourhospital of empty emergency rooms, parking lots, triage tents. I’ve seen the videos posted to Tiktok of hospital workers in their PPE doing choreographed dance routines when they’re supposed to be overwhelmed. Do I think it’s all a big hoax? No. There are people dying, the vast majority elderly and with pre-existing conditions, primarily with the pre-eminent American pre-existing condition, obesity. Do I think certain elements are “not letting a crisis go to waste”? Absolutely.

The virtue signaling is getting trite. The snitching on those who want to enjoy the outdoors is obnoxious. And that label “essential job” has to go away. Both my wife and I work “non-essential jobs.” The problem is, well, my mortgage is not non-essential, nor are the groceries me, my wife, and my two children need.

I do honestly believe it is time to re-open America. I read earlier today that the CDC is recommending May 1. I guess I can live with that. But no later. Let us return to the land of the free, if not exactly the land of the brave. I’ll trade the mandatory face masks for letting businesses across the board re-open.

Recall another old witticism – what is fear? False Evidence Appearing Real. While the F might not mean Fraudulent, it could mean Feigned. I don’t know, and I don’t think we’ll know for a good long while. Certainly not until after Trump has been out of office. I believe that five, ten years from now books will be written not on the corona virus itself, but the psychological reaction to it.

Fear.

Redemptor Meus Vivit

Scio enim quod redemptor meus vivit,

Et in novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum:

Et rursum circumdabor pelle mea,

Et in carne mea videbo Deum meum:

Quem visurus sum ego ipse,

Et oculi mei conspecturi sunt, et non alius:

Reposita est haec spes mea in sinu meo.

- Job 19:25-27

HAPPY EASTER!

Youtube in Lockdown

What has Hopper been doing to maintain his sanity in lockdown?

Well, subtract the hours spent working from home, reading, writing, Netflix watching, occasional soccer practice with Patch at the park or a run through a local drive-through, and I find myself still with a phenomenal amount of hours on my hands. Maybe it’s because I no longer commute to work, or maybe because I’m not chauffeuring the girls all over the county to their various activities. I dunno.

I am now somewhat addicted, I am somewhat ashamed to say, to Youtube videos.

What have I burned through in these last three weeks?

- a whole season of Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen

- a fascination of To Catch a Predator commentary videos (“Walls” to listen to the dude make fun of these dangerous losers, “Fast Eddie” to get a breakdown of a legal and psychological / body language goings-on as Chris Hanson questions the predators-turned-prey)

- which organically led to watching police interrogation videos (the best is the one where Colonel Russell Williams goes in cocky and ends up confessing to a pair of murders 30 minutes later)

- which organically led to watching cops on the witness stand in local televised trials

- which organically led to watching cops bust obnoxious politicians for driving under the influence

- to an unrelated video on the Demon Core, the volleyball-sized plutonium shell originally built as the third atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan if necessary, but instead horribly claimed the lives of two cocky young physicists in two separate incidents

- then a series of videos debunking film and TV fan theories, such as whether or not Childs is a thing at the end of John Carpenter’s The Thing or whether or not Toby from The Office is the true Scranton Strangler

- and a bunch of videos on how to shred on electric guitar, something I never quite could do in my prime.

Man, when it’s all typed out there on the page it just makes me want to exclaim, “Just what the heck is wrong with me and why am I wasting my life,” and then I remember:

We’re in lockdown.

For the good of ourselves and others.

Bored, Stressed, Frustrated

Book Review: The Count of Monte Cristo

© sometime in the late 1840s, by Alexandre Dumas

O to be Edmund Dantès! Young, dashing, exuberant – the world his oyster, the world on a string, pick your metaphor, the world, for our hero, is one of endless possibility. Just returned home from his first naval command, a smashing success saving his employer a fortune, Edmund cannot wait to be in the arms of beautiful Mercedes, his bride to be in only a few short days, and see his devoted elderly father. He can expect a fruitful life in a wonderful marriage, and with his effortless ability a sure climb up to one day owning his own shipping fleet.

That is, until the nefarious machination of a cabal – one member who desires the hand of Mercedes for himself, another shipmate jealous of Edmund’s talents, a third a drunken lout of a neighbor, and, later on, a fourth, a local judge with his eye on national prominence – all conspire to falsely accuse and imprison our young protagonist into the deepest, darkest dungeon imaginable, to be forgotten by all in all of history.

Poor Edmund!

For interminable years Dantès struggles in the solitary prison. A first few days of defiance follow by years in agonized battle to maintain a tenuous grasp on sanity. Then, a chance encounter gives him hope and power, and a chance at escape – sixteen endless years after his initial chaining. Edmund does indeed escape – but no longer Edmund. He is now the Count of Monte Cristo, king of a barren rock jutting out of the middle of the Mediterranean. The Count of Monte Cristo – the Vengeance of God!

And God help those four men, now lords of wealth and power firmly ensconced in French aristocracy, as vengeance comes down upon them.

Over the course of another thousand pages, spanning ten or twelve years novel time, the Count exacts his revenge, one by one, on each of his accusers. A web of secondary characters emerge, all magnetically drawn to Monte Cristo, who utterly destroys some and, surprisingly (though not so upon further reflection) supplying a source of redemption for others. No character is whoever he or she seems at first, and there are at least a handful of jaw-dropping surprises.

Hopper could not put this book down.

Longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was hooked from page one. No doubt due to a modern re-translation (by Robin Buss, 1996), the novel was an endlessly entertaining, witty, sometimes comical and sometimes somber voyage through the world of 1840s Europe. I realized a hundred or so pages in that this was World Building, the foundational skill of any fantasy writer worth his salt. Only this Built World of fantasy actually existed two centuries ago.

As its length would convey, this is not a straightforward tale of revenge. And that’s its charm. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey, right? With a cast of 35 characters (yes, each plays a part, with the vast majority spanning the novel’s duration), each with his or her own motivations and secrets, with several sub-stories within the novel (that always come back to reconnect to the main plot, sometimes after two or three hundred pages), with even the main character having a half-dozen aliases and identities that sometimes are not revealed until much, much later in the tale – yes, with all of this this is indeed a journey. But my testimony here is to say that’s it’s one well-rewarded.

The best modern analogy I could think to convey the gist of The Count of Monte Cristo comes from one of my favorite movies of the past decade, Limitless. In that movie, the protagonist ingests an experimental drug that enables him to utilize and use his mental powers to a degree never before known in man. The Count himself seemed to have similar powers (which are explained in the novel and I won’t spoil). So much so that it was quite enjoyable to watch this man play 10-dimensional chess with haughty amoral leaders of business and state who spend their time boasting their abilities at checkers. The best part of Monte Cristo was trying to detect what scheme he had in mind for each of his four foes.

The book wasn’t even on my radar; perhaps I might have heard it mentioned twice in the past ten years. Thus I had no reason to read it. That is, until Patch, my youngest who’s in sixth grade, excitedly told me about it while running errands one Saturday in February. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that we borrowed the library’s two copies and decided to read it together. The result, I am pleased to say, is a happy memory that will last a lifetime.

Grade: A+