Christmas TV Specials

It’s the time of year when the TV Christmas specials are on again.  We’ve been watching them since we were kids, and some are better than others.  I’ll list the ones I recall the most, but of course there have been “Christmas” specials of practically every show and type imaginable – so long as we’ve had TV to show them on.

 Charlie Brown Christmas.  I mentioned this one earlier.  I really do NOT like “Peanuts”, and this is no exception.  CB manages to score a really lame tree, much to everyone’s contempt (“good grief”).  Schroeder wails on the little piano, and the kids dance (Dieter: “Now it is the time on ‘Sprockets’ vhen ve dance!”).  It’s all really low-key and jazzy.  The only thing missing are cigarettes dangling from their lips and cynical French people.  Bah!  SNL’s TV Funhouse parodied this – the kids discovered that they improved CB’s tree by simply waving their arms around it, so they used their magic on other things…

 Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas.  A Jim Henson/Muppets special (1977), kind of lame.  EO is an otter, who lives with his “Ma” down by the river.  He starts a skiffle band and competes with his “Ma” in a local talent show: the top act is a METAL band with a snake, rat, fish, and a frog (not Kermit), led by a bear (somewhat like Eric Bloom of BOC).  The metal band redeemed this whole show – especially since they won.  This should have been “Jam Band” Christmas with Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd type music.

 Frosty the Snowman.  Animated, not stop-action – kind of a lame one, done by Paul Coker.

 Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  An older, 1964 stop action one which is offbeat – the Land of Misfit Toys?  An elf who would rather be a dentist? A Yeti?  See, enough original stuff to make it more interesting, but still festive.

 A Christmas Carol.  Ok, by now Dickens’ story has been overdone to death.  Now we have Jim Carrey as Scrooge, and before that was the non-Christmas, Michael Moore spoof – which liberals hated and everyone else laughed at.  My favorite of the countless variations of these has to be the Rich Little version, with WC Fields as Scrooge (“you’re burning wood like it grows on trees”) and Paul Lynde as Bob Cratchit (“it’s disgusting!!!”).

 Christmas Story.  What’s with the goofy kid in the glasses?

 Star Wars Christmas Special.  I recall seeing this when it was on – and never again.  I vaguely recall something about visiting Chewbacca’s home world.  The whole premise of a “Star Wars” Christmas special is silly. Why would Christmas be celebrated a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away?  Do they celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and July 4^th too?

 The Year Without a Santa Claus.   Another stop-action one – Rankin/Bass, the “Return of the King” lame-os, from 1974 - and this was, and still is, my favorite.  Santa gets the flu and decides to skip Christmas this year.  A scheme is hatched to bring snow to a normally warm climate in exchange for a snow-less Christmas somewhere colder, in the hopes of convincing Santa to change his mind.  This requires the consent and agreement of not only Snow Miser (a cool dude) but also the Heat Miser (a real hothead).  Their dual musical numbers (and mini-me’s) are hilarious.  And Vixen, the little reindeer mistaken for an unlicensed dog – and sent to the pound (awww) – is also very cute. 

 It’s a Wonderful Life.  I lump this one in because it’s so frequently considered a “Christmas” movie and shown at that time of year, but I disagree.  As a MOVIE, it’s fine – even if it is somewhat depressing and cynical.  I don’t think the story is necessarily Christmas-oriented.  And the idea that George Bailey made a positive impact with this life, that his brother would have died, and the town devolved into a Biff Tanner hell had he not been around, are great ideas, but to me that’s really not Christmas. 

 Steven Colbert Christmas Special.  Mr. Daily Show #2 guy steps up to the plate and..lstrikes out.  He has Elvis Costello do various things; Willie Nelson as the 4^th Wise man (busted by little cops for weed, of course); Toby Keith tell us that Uncle Sam is really Santa Claus; Feist (who?) and Legend (who?, part II); and finally Jon Stewart (who I do like) on Hannukah.  Colbert is a little too much impressed with his own wit, and his “parody of serious news anchor” bit wore off its welcome eons ago. 

 And here’s a glaring oversight brought to my attention by Dave:

 How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966).  The classic Dr. Seuss story brought to life, ages ago.   The story is charming, and the Grinch is suitably mean-spirited.  Whenever I see the part when he sweet-talked Little Susie Who about the Christmas Tree, I think of Ralph Nader trying to weasel us into giving up complete control of the country so he can fix GM or the environment or whatever it is he claims is so screwed up with the country.

            Seriously, if some town had its toys ripped off by some green maniac living in a cave, no matter what country you’re in, you could bet the villagers would be forming a posse (“let’s roll!”) to kick the Grinch’s ass, NOT singing carols oblivious to the complete absence of all the presents they bought and paid for. 

            As it was, I liked the 98 Rock twisted version, in which the local cops pull over the Grinch on his sleigh (“you wouldn’t happen to know about all those toys which were reported stolen from Whoville, would you?”) and slam him in jail, where his lack of pants proves a major liability.  “And it wasn’t the Grinch’s heart that grew three sizes that night…”

 The 2000 version, done by Ron Howard and featuring Jim Carrey as the Grinch, was OK.  Clearly they understood the spirit of the thing and went along with it.  I can’t really express much of a preference because I was never a big fan of the original.   

Russian Civil War

Anyone who has endured the endless (zzz) epic, “Dr. Zhivago”, should have some idea of what this was.  Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), US Civil War (1861-65), or English Civil War (1641-51).  This occurred immediately after World War I (1917), which the Soviets refer to as “The Imperialist War”, as opposed to WWII which they call “The Great Patriotic War”. 

 November 1917.  The Bolsheviks (aka “Bolo” or “Reds”) had just taken power in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).  Antonov-Ovseenko simply walked into the HQ room at the Winter Palace and took over: total casualties, 6.  World War I was still going on, and Germans were still in Poland and the Ukraine.  In January 1918, Trotsky negotiated the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which took the Russians out of WWI.  Not everyone – in Russia or abroad - was thrilled with the Bolsheviks, so simply having taken Petrograd and Moscow did not settle the matter.  A civil war broke out that lasted the next two years – with more fighting at the periphery continuing well into the 30s.

 Red Army.  The Red Army of Peasants and Workers was formed by Trotsky from the Red Guards, mostly workers from Petrograd and Moscow.  For most, if not all, of the war, the Reds had the advantage in numbers.  Their top, elite unit was the Latvian Rifle Division – crucial in the first year of the war.  Moreover, none of the White attacks on Petrograd (Udenich) or Moscow were successful, so the Reds managed to hold on to these centers of population and industry, fighting in the Ukraine, north up near Estonia, east over by the Urals, and south near Tsaritsyn (better known as Stalingrad, now known as Volgograd), eventually defeating each enemy in turn. 

            The defining characteristic of the Red uniform was the budenovka, the pointy hat with earflaps, usually with a cloth red star on the front (see Stalin, above left).  The gymnasterka, peasant blouse, was worn by both sides.  The top Red leaders were Trotsky – who was a genius at military organization despite no military experience, Frunze (who they named their military academy after), Budenny (cavalry commander, source of the name “budenovka”), Voroshilov, Tukachevsky, and Chapeav.

  Before the hammer & sickle, there was the hammer & plough - considerably more complicated and equally less aesthetically pleasing.  The sickle replaced the plough around 1922.

 Cheka. In addition to the Red Army itself, the Reds used Cheka, the first form of its secret police, although at this point it was very much in the open.  Its agents wore leather jackets, a mark of distinction and authority which continued with its successor, the NKVD.  Cheka hired criminals, murderers, all sorts of violent scum - with colorful names and personalities: “Johnson”, Maslova, “The Remover" - and set up prisons and camps.  It engaged in torture, murder, scalping, impaling, all sorts of nasty atrocities that horrified even the Reds themselves.  The terror had already begun. 

 War Communism.  In a related vein, the Reds took over any and all businesses within their sphere of influence, killing any managers or owners who were late in escaping abroad.  Industrial productivity, as can be imagined, fell to a fraction of pre-war capacity.  They also requisitioned all surplus grain of the peasants AND forcibly conscripted them into the Red Army.  Needless to say, these policies were not popular.  Peasant revolts (e.g. the Antonov uprising) were a constant issue for the Reds well into the 20s.  Actual famines certainly didn’t help any. 

            Soon after the war, when the situation cooled down somewhat, Lenin instituted a crash course in capitalism, the New Economic Policy (NEP), recognizing that the proletarian revolution had occurred in a country – Russia – which had barely emerged from feudalism (serfs only emancipated in 1863) and had not developed full and true capitalism.  The prevailing wisdom among the socialists at the turn of the century was that the US and Western Europe were the countries ripe for socialist revolution, not backwards countries like Russia.  In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, it was the “communist” party line that Spain had to go through capitalism before arriving at socialism, so the idea was to back up and support a bourgeois capitalist regime and oppose not only the reactionary Fascists but also the anarchists who wanted “true communism” too soon.  In Russia, “war communism” became the name for the horrendously unpopular and draconian policies undertaken during the civil war, justified as being wartime expedients – even though many of these policies would be reinstated after the NEP was over, with no civil war to justify them at that time. 

 White Army.   These were mainly anti-Bolshevik, but they could not agree on what they wanted to replace the Reds with – especially since the Romanovs were murdered in July 1918 in Sverdlovsk.  They typically wore Russian WWI uniforms and carried icons into battle.  Some units were composed entirely of officers.  Kappel’s unit (part of Kolchak’s forces) had the impressive skull and crossbones and black uniforms.

            The top White leaders: Kornilov – his Shock Division was one of the best units in the White Army, and came closest to taking Moscow, he looked like Tim Allen with a mustache; Alexeyev: charismatic and popular general; Denikin: a very charismatic and popular General who won medals in the Russo-Japanese War and WWI; Kolchak:  An admiral, he set up a republic in the east, supported by the British and based at Omsk, but never succeeded at hooking up with any forces to the west – Graves had lots of nasty things to say about Semonov and Kalmikov, Kolchak’s ruthless local commanders in Siberia; Wrangel: he took over from Denikin, and was the last white commander – his forces tried to evacuate at the Black Sea in late 1920; Yudenich: he fought up north, an unsuccessful attempt to capture Petrograd; as well as Kutepov and Markov.

 Black Army.  Entire anarchist (!) armies raised by Nestor Makhno (above right).  They wore long hair and carried lots of guns.  The anarchists had a bad habit of attacking everyone.  After being used by the Reds to beat the Whites, they were wiped out in turn by the Reds.

 Ukrainians.  They wanted their independence from Russia, but the various factions fought the Reds, Whites, and each other and were defeated in turn.  The Ukraine was one of the most contested areas of the war: Kiev changed hands 19 times.

 Cossacks.  These are the famous cavalry of Russia.  There were various different “tribes”, some of whom joined the Whites, others joined the Reds.  As cavalry played a major role in the war, the Cossacks were in big demand by both sides.  There were even horse-drawn machine gun carts.

 Germans.  After Brest-Litovsk in January 1918, the Germans were able to pull out substantial forces from the East and transfer them to the West, in an attempt to defeat the Allies before US troops could arrive.  Germans didn’t play an active role in the war as a military force, although they did supply some factions with weapons, uniforms and helmets.  Some individual Germans of pro-Marxist persuasion did join the Red Army.  On November 11, 1918, the Germans called it quits, so their forces withdrew, ending whatever role or involvement they had.

 Austrians & Hungarians.  In the course of WWI, the Russians captured Austrians and Hungarians (whose armies rivalled the Russians’ for incompetence).  Many of these POWs had Marxist persuasion and joined the Red Army.  There were some Hungarian units, and an Austrian cavalry squadron.

 Czechs.  They had a whole legion stranded in Russia.  They wound up in Siberia (see my blog “Doughboys in Russia”).  They were mildly anti-Bolshevik but, like many other factions in the war, looking out for their own best interests.  Their uniforms were pretty much Russian Tsarist WWI with some minor Czech insignia.

 Polish.  Taking advantage of the chaos in Russia, the Poles invaded, arriving at Kiev.  The Reds threw them back into Poland, besieging Warsaw.  The Poles broke the siege, threw the Reds back into the Ukraine, and both sides called it even.  This  allowed the Poles to finally keep their country (at least until 1939…).

 Green Armies.  Not environmental, but rather bandit armies with no loyalties or allegiances, either mobs of demobilized soldiers, nationalists, or Social Revolutionaries – pretty much a catch-all to cover any forces which can’t be labeled Red, White, Black, Ukrainian, etc.    

Peasant Armies.  Lenin had no use for workers or peasants in his government.  Moreover, not all the peasants were poor, or particularly disposed to favor the Bolsheviks (see “war communism” above).  In 1920-21, an entire army – with units, ranks, hierarchy – was raised by Antonov, and opposed by the Reds’ best generals…and defeated.

Allied Intervention.  I already mentioned the US forces sent to Siberia and North Russia.  The French sent troops to Odessa, and the British came in at Baku – their main angle was protecting their oil interests in that sector.  The Brits sent lots of supplies to the Whites and equipped a fair amount of white armies.  They also sent numbers of Mark IV and V tanks.  They set up a training area in Novorossisk – tanks, planes, etc.  The major problem the British and French had was that they had just finished WWI and no one really wanted to pour substantial forces into a brand new war. 

Tanks, Armored Cars, and Trains.  Tanks didn’t have much of a role.  The British provided some Mark IV and V tanks, some of which fought up on the Petrograd front.  Armored cars (equipped with machine guns) and armored trains, with machine guns and artillery, played a much more substantial role in the war.

The major years were 1918, 1919, and 1920.  By November 1920, Wrangel was evacuating the Crimea, ending the last major White operations.   The Antonov (peasant) rebellion was crushed in 1921.  Further east, various isolated groups held out, each to be dealt with in turn.  By 1922 the Reds had conquered the East, and the whole situation stabilized sufficiently that the country could be formed: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). 

Colorado

This will be considerably shorter than my New Jersey blog, as compared to New Jersey (which I’ve been to several times, and several different parts of it) my experience in Colorado was one weekend in Boulder.  As limited as that is, I’ll add in some Colorado-themed issues which deserve note but not their own blogs.

 I visited my best friend from high school, Phil, who lives in Boulder with his female life-companion and two pre-adults.  I was surprised to learn that half of Colorado is mile-high plains, as flat as the eye can see, and only the other half is mountains.  Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs lie along the Front Range of the Rockies.

 Boulder itself is trendy, liberal, and New Age.  It’s about 30 minutes northwest of Denver.  It’s the home of the University of Colorado.  Mork & Mindy, the TV show from 1978-84, with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber, took place there.  There’s even a one-off Mexican place called Illegal Pete’s, that has steak soft tacos ALMOST as good as Chipotle (which they do have in Boulder and Denver). 

 We also visited the Rocky Mountain National Park, which features spectacular views of yet more mountains, and some trails you can walk around without being mauled by bears or elks.  Nearby is the Stanley Hotel, built by the Stanley Steamer man (ask Jay Leno, he has one) and the featured location of “The Shining” (Jack Nicholson film way back). 

 Later on we visited Golden, Colorado (just south of Denver), home of Coors, the brewery (largest single-site brewery in the US, if not the world).  They have a free tour, which is very informative – and even includes 4 free beers for those of us 21 and over.   Recall “Smokey and the Bandit”: $80,000 to transport 400 cases of Coors east of Texarkana to Georgia in 18 hours or less.  Adolph Coors was born in 1847, and started the brewery in 1873, so if anything the Austrian dictator was named after him, not the other way around.  The most famous Austrian since him would have to be the Governator of California…get in line, Bruno.

 South Park.  I like this show, but not enough to devote an entire blog to it.  The 4 kids are Stan (blue knit cap), Kyle (green Russian hat), Cartman (fat kid in knit cap), and Kenny (mumbling kid in orange parka).  Stan and Kyle are relatively normal (Kyle is Jewish) while Cartman is obnoxious and unpleasant; Kenny tends to be killed in each episode (“those bastards, they killed Kenny!”).  Other important characters are Chef (voice of Isaac Hayes), Mr. Garrison (gay school teacher with puppet friend Mr. Hat), the blue-haired female Mayor, Officer Barbrady, Ned & Jimbo (Vietnam veteran hunters), Jesus (yes, Himself), Mr. Hankey (a talking piece of poo who comes out at Christmas) and Mr. Mackey, the school counselor (“umm’kay?”).  The theme song is done by Primus (Les Claypool) – who often play it in concert.  Count on the show to tackle sensitive and controversial issues head-on in a very direct and “we don’t care who we offend” manner.  Oddly, I saw the South Park movie (“Bigger, Longer, Uncut”) ages ago with Phil, who predicted (incorrectly) that his unfamiliarity with the show would prevent him from enjoying it: far from it, he was practically falling out of his seat laughing.  I’m really not a fan of “offend people for the sake of offending people”, but don’t mind if there’s some decent message hidden inside for us to find and enjoy – and understand.  Others might not enjoy it, but to me South Park definitely qualifies. 

 Mork & Mindy.  This was Robin Williams’ big break.  He was so spectacular in adlibbing that they let him write much of his own material and adlib much of it.  “Mork” was an alien from Ork, who reported to his superior “Orson” every night.  His assignment on Earth was to investigate the planet and report back.  Mindy was the delicious and attractive Pam Dawber, with whom he lived first as a roommate, and eventually they got married.  I found the other characters (Jonathan Winter, Gina Hecht, etc.) to be nowhere close to as entertaining as Mork and Mindy themselves. 

 Denver Broncos.  I’ve never been a Broncos fan.  I recall watching the Redskins maul the Broncos in the 1988 Super Bowl (42-10), and recall the Cowboys beat them in 1978, the first Super Bowl I remember.  Finally in 1997 they changed their uniforms to the current style, and beat the Packers – John Elway finally got his Super Bowl Ring.  Asked, before the game, what he thought of the Packers’ boasts, Bronco Bill Romanowski simply replied, “we’ll see what happens on the field.”  Sure enough, they beat the Packers that year (w/Brett Favre) and the Falcons the year after…then Elway retired.

 In Phoenix, the city appeared to be a broad plain, amidst a desert, with mountains surrounding it on all sides, but always far, far away in the distance.  In Las Vegas, the city appeared to be in on a desert plain, with mountains lined up on along the West.  In Boulder, the urban areas appeared to be on desolate wintry plains (in December) with a line of huge mountains along the West.  

 There are many other things to do in Colorado, not the least of which is catch a Broncos game, or ski, which will have to wait until my next visit.  I’m long overdue to visit my sister in Phoenix, Arizona, so stay tuned. For now, my verdict on Colorado is: MOUNTAINS and BEER.  

Lord of the Rings

There’s a classic (?) scene in the movie “Clerks II” in which Randall harshly criticizes his fellow co-worker and customer who are Lord of the Rings fans, whereas he is a Star Wars fan – “there’s only one ‘Return’, and that’s of The Jedi.”  I like them both, and don’t see why they are mutually exclusive; nor, for that matter, are Star Wars and Star Trek.  But I was into Star Wars long before I could bring myself to read the J. R.R. Tolkien classics.  Something about a story focused on Frodo Baggins, a hobbit, could scarcely grab me.  Especially since I had Elric of Melnibone, and his demonic sword Stormbringer, to compare it to.  But eventually I did read the books, long after high school but well before the movies came out.  And I did enjoy them, despite (or more likely, because of) the hobbits.

 Fellowship of the Ring.  Tolkien intended the story to be one book, but the publisher convinced him that it would be too big that way, split it up into 3 separate books, and even suggested the titles.   They were originally published between 1954-55.  The first book sold so well that the publisher advanced the releases of the two subsequent books.  Tolkien lived to see his books develop enormous popularity, unlike H.P. Lovecraft, who was virtually unknown when he died in 1937 and only achieved notoriety posthumously in the 1960s.

            In Fellowship, we get the story which Tolkien started with The Hobbit: the Shire, the quaint little land where the hobbits live, Bilbo declaring himself retired and passing on “his precious”, the Ring, to Frodo.  We also meet Frodo’s best friend Sam Gamgee, and their ne’er-do-well, mischievous friends Peregrin Took, aka “Pippin”, and Meriadoc Brandybuck, aka “Merry”.  Tolkien deliberately made the Shire and hobbits as gay (as in  lame) as possible, to contrast them with the other members of the Fellowship – a point which Randall missed.  Frodo in particular finds strength and endurance in himself he had no idea he had, as do Sam, Pippin and Merry.  We expect Aragorn and the others to perform heroic deeds – that the hobbits manage to be competitive is what makes these books so enthralling.

 The Ring.  Everything centers around this Ring.  It turns the owner invisible when he actually wears it (except for Tom Bombadil), and confers a twisted form of immortality, corrupting the bearer into a perverse shadow of himself.  Even heavy hitters such as Gandalf and Elrond are loathe to take it, fearing they would become tyrants and menaces to the rest of the world (plus, they can see what it did to Gollum).  Eventually they decide the only appropriate course of action is to destroy it, trusting it to Frodo, as the least likely bearer.  This means bringing the Ring to Mount Doom, a volcano in Mordor, which is the evil place where all the bad things live.

            There were lesser rings, given to the Elves, Dwarves, and nine for men.  For some reason the elven and dwarven versions have no discernable effect, but the human ones turned the nine men into hooded wraiths, the so-called ringwraiths or Nazgul, Sauron’s scouts and spies. 

 Hobbits.  ("Hey faggot, they're not gay, they're hobbits!") They live in the Shire.  They’re short, stubby people with hairy feet who enjoy food, beer, and pipeweed (unknown whether this is tobacco, marijuana, or something else).  With the notable exception of Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s uncle (or adopted father, I was never sure of their exact relationship), the hobbits never leave the Shire.  The Shire is often interpreted to mean Tolkien’s analogy to traditional, agrarian England, under attack from technology, modern capitalism, and industrialism, as most forcefully exemplified by Isengard.

 The Fellowship.            The good guys put together a crack team of volunteers: 

            Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry: the Four Hobbits of the Apocalypse.

            Gandalf.  An old, wise, and powerful wizard, acts as their advisor and de facto leader

            Legolas, an elf

            Gimli, a dwarf – friendly rival to Legolas

            Aragorn, a human – the heir to the throne of Gondor, but currently employed as a shady ranger

            Boromir, a human – son of Denethor, the Steward of Minas Tirith.  Denethor is supposed to be holding the missing king’s slot open for him until the rightful heir (Aragorn) returns, but he has other plans.  Boromir, though, is more or less a beefy Viking type.

             After hooking up in Rivendell at Elrond’s place, they go off through Moria, an underground dwarven empire now overrun by orcs, lose Gandalf to a Balrog (big-ass demon), and get broken up soon thereafter.

 Gollum.  By the way, there’s this creepy guy, Gollum, formerly known as Smeagol, who had the Ring for several centuries before Bilbo tricked it out of him.  He wants it back, and is determined to do what it takes to get it.  After first shadowing Frodo and Sam, eventually they use him as a guide to get them through Mordor, as he’s the only one who knows it well enough – although they don’t trust him, they have no choice but to go along with him.  He tries – unsuccessfully – to trade them to Shelob (a huge female spider) but eventually catches up with them on Mount Doom.  Surely he must know that Frodo and Sam intend to destroy the Ring (“his precious”) but is calculating to steal it from Frodo when the opportunity presents itself.  For his part, however, Frodo starts becoming corrupted by the Ring as well, and is wary that even Sam will take it.  Gollum tries to split the two friends up and play them off each other, with varying degrees of success.

            The good guys have several opportunities to kill Gollum, but for different reasons, hold off on doing so.  Gandalf notes that “even Gollum has a role to play.”  Sure enough, he comes in handy at the very end.

 Saruman.  Another wizard, not to be confused with Sauron.  Saruman believes Sauron will ultimately win, so he sells out to evil and turns his home tower (Isengard) into a base of operations to develop an orc army.  He briefly imprisons Gandalf in Isengard, but the good wizard manages to escape thanks to the Eagles.   

 Orcs.  The orcs are the primary non-human forces of evil, and come from various tribes (e.g. Uruk-Hai) and don’t even speak the same language – so they have to speak Common Tongue among each other.  They’re piglike, nasty, foul, cannibalistic, aggressive, militaristic, combining all the worst features you can imagine in an enemy race. 

 Humans.  Although Sauron has considerable human allies, e.g. the Black Numenorians and a band of pirates, most of his forces are orcs, and most of the humans are on the “good side”.  The primary humans are the Rohirrim of Rohan, a horse-riding tribe most closely analogous to Vikings, and the Dunedain of Gondor, which is the kingless country with its capital, Minas Tirith.

 Minas Tirith.  The closest thing to a “capital city” or human metropolis in Middle Earth.  It lies right across the river from Mordor, not particularly convenient for defensive purposes.  It has concentric circles of walls and a white tree at the top.  In Return of the King it comes under direct attack by the forces of evil at a huge battle.

 Elves.  Mysterious, long-lived, and arrogant.  Their rep in the Fellowship is Legolas, but the hobbits also meet Elrond (old enough to have participated in the battles in which the Ring was captured from Sauron), and Galadriel, a beautiful elf queen who gives the hobbits some powerful magic items (which prove extremely useful later) and gives Frodo a vague glimpse of the future.  Another major character is Elrond’s daughter Arwen, who falls in love with Aragorn, and he with her – she trades her immortality in order to marry him.

 Dwarves.  A band of them persuaded Bilbo to join them on an adventure in The Hobbit (see below) but in LOTR the only dwarf is Gimli himself. 

 The Two Towers.  Part Two of the story.  Much of this is transition; I have a difficult time distinguishing from the end of this story to the beginning of the next one.  Frodo and Sam end up with Gollum, finding their way into Mordor.  Initially captured by orcs, Pippin and Merry escape and wind up with the Ents, huge living trees.  Although tempted to simply bug out and return to the Shire, P&M realize that if they do so, the bad guys will win and eventually wipe out the Shire itself – so they have to do something.  They manage to persuade the Ents to crush Isengard and send Saruman packing, and are rewarded with Saruman’s huge pipeweed stash.  Gandalf reappears, and the Rohirrim are recruited to join the good side.  …And there was much rejoicing!

 Return of the King.  Part Three, in which everything is wrapped up.  The Battle of Pelennor Fields – the climactic battle outside the gates of Minas Tirith between the massed armies of good and evil.  Pippin is in Minas Tirith itself, as a member of the guards, whereas Merry manages to sneak his way to the battlefield among the Rohirrim.  Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam work their way through Mordor, guided by Gollum, and run into Faramir, Boromir’s brother – and eventually find their way to Mount Doom.  All the good stuff happens then, the hobbits return to the Shire, and the top big shots go to the Grey Havens to disappear forever.

 The Silmarillion.  If you liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, be sure to read this: this is Tolkien’s extensive prequel, giving a voluminous background to how Middle Earth was developed from the beginning of the world up until the time the trilogy takes place.  It really has no narrative and is more historical/mythological background.  The prog band Marillion take their name from this book.

 The Hobbit.  This was a narrative prequel, focusing on Bilbo Baggins.  It explains how he found the Ring and took it from Gollum.  It’s not, strictly speaking, necessary to read this to understand LOTR.

 Animated Films.  Ralph Bakshi, best known for his adaptation of Robert Crumb’s underground comic Fritz the Cat, took a stab at making an animated version of LOTR in 1978, but the project ran out of money about halfway through the story.  His version uses an animation technique which overlays animation over live action, a effect similar to “A Scanner Darkly”.  The remainder of the film was taken up by the Rankin-Bass people, best known for the various animated Christmas specials we used to watch as kids, and they turned it into a goofy quasi-musical version in 1980.  The coolness of the Bakshi version is cancelled out by the lameness of the Rankin-Bass conclusion.  Rankin-Bass also made a similar animated version of The Hobbit in 1977.

 Peter Jackson trilogy.  PJ was determined to do this right, and wouldn’t handle the project unless the studio committed itself to making all three movies – a huge gamble, but it paid off handsomely.  The films were all made at the same time and released year by year (2001, 2002, and 2003).  Big name actors: Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Viggo Mortenssen as Aragorn, Hugo Weaving (the bad guy from “The Matrix”) as Elrond, Sean Bean as Boromir, Liv Tyler as Arwen, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian Holm as Bilbo, and Kate Blanchett as Galadriel.  Orlando Bloom was fairly unknown before his portrayal of Legolas made him a star – combined with his role as Will Turner in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy.  The production was fantastic, the actors all did well, and the movie finally did the books the justice they deserved. The third film dominated the Oscars.  The extended DVD versions splice in the extra footage where they would have been in the films, and extend each of the three films by 30-45 minutes.  I borrowed the set from my brother and watched them back-to-back on a day when I was snowed in. 

 Bored of the Rings.  This was a 1969 parody by the National Lampoon people.  Frodo turns into Frito, and the whole thing is ridiculed in a fairly lame way – a weak, meager attempt far beneath the scale and heroism of the original.  I also noted that “Epic Movie”, one of the recent parody movies, made no references to LOTR and focused its attacks on The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – which was written by C.S. Lewis, a colleague, contemporary and friend of Tolkien’s.

 Middle Earth.  This is the fantasy world in which the Lord of the Rings takes place.  The map shows one large continent, but the Silmarillion shows much more – neither of which bears any resemblance to our own map, or to New Zealand, for that matter.  The question is whether this is our own Earth or a completely fictional world.  Tolkien himself contradicted himself, but the books themselves tend to point towards Earth, albeit a very long time ago – 6,000 years?  A million years?  Who knows, but it would have to have been a considerable time to allow for continental drift.  Part of the reason for the departure of the elves (+ Bilbo & Frodo) [Arwen, of course, is the exception – staying behind to marry Aragorn] at the Grey Havens was to put these ancient races out of the contemporary picture, although this wouldn’t explain the absence of dwarves or orcs.  Gandalf observes that younger hobbits such as Pippin and Merry are taller than the older generation, implying that hobbits and humans will converge in size and cease to be separate races, but the most obvious means of doing so – intermarriage – doesn’t appear to be going on.  Also, magic was prevalent then, and is no longer possible now.  Moorcock’s explanation (in his Elric books) was that the current world was formed by the Lords of Law (of reason and science); Heinlein would push his characters into alternate dimensions to engage in magic, similar to Zelazny’s approach in the Amber series.  A plausible explanation in the Middle Earth context is that anyone who knew magic – the wizards and elves – is long gone.  In any case, the simplest explanation is usually the best, as it is here: Middle Earth is a fantasy world corresponding to Earth in the extremely distant past in between the dinosaurs and our own time. 

 The Scouring of the Shire.  If there is one complaint I have with the Peter Jackson movies, it’s the omission of this epilogue in Return of the King.  I can’t fault PJ for leaving out Tom Bombadil, as that early segment was strategically meaningless to the story.  While this chapter is also inconsequential to the plot, it was very entertaining.

            Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry return to the Shire after these adventures, laden with armor, weapons, treasure, and an intangible wealth of combat experience.  They find the Shire locked down in terror to a mysterious character referred to as “Sharkey”, who turns out to be Saruman, accompanied by Grima Wormtongue.  After having faced down Gollum, Shelob, orc armies and the worst Mordor had to offer (Frodo and Sam), and participated in the Battle of Pelennor Fields (Pippin and Merry), these four “combat hobbits” are ill-inclined to be intimidated by Saruman.  They quickly raise a local army of hobbits and bring him down.  NOW the story can end.   

Clerks 2: Lord of the Rings vs. Star Wars

Randall explains why he prefers Star Wars to Lord of the Rings.

Marshall Amps

I mentioned earlier about Les Paul “inventing” the solid-body guitar, recognizing that since electric guitars depend on the pickups and amplifier (“amp”) for sound, a hollow body was no longer necessary.  Clearly, then, the amplifier is a crucial part of the guitar’s sound – you won’t have a sound without it.

 Since the mid-60s, the top choice of amplifiers among professional musicians is clearly Marshall.  Although Fender and Gibson make their own amps (Fender’s being more popular by far), as do many other companies – Laney, Mesa-Boogie, Orange, etc. - far and away the most popular are Marshall.  

Back in January 1990, I joined the ranks and bought my own, a humble little combo, the 25^th Anniversary (1962-1987) Jubilee edition, 50 watts, with one 12” Celestion speaker and an overdrive switch.  This series was a favorite of Slash, of Guns N’Roses, so much so that his own signature series amp was modeled after this one.  

In April 2010, I finally managed to get a half-stack, a JCM900 100 watt Dual Reverb head with a 4x12" 1960AV slanted (top) cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30s.  It's VERY LOUD.

 The Stack.  In the mid 60s, Pete Townshend of The Who was looking for more power and bigger amps.  After his roadies bitched at him that the 8x12” cabinets Marshall made for him were too big and heavy, Marshall compromised by cutting the 8x12” cabinets in half, creating the stack: a separate “head” for the amplifier itself, and two cabinets, each with 4 12” speakers (4x12”).  Add more stacks for more power, and collect a wall of them.  Blue Cheer blew their advance from Phillips on their stacks; and KISS, when starting out, used empty cabinets to give the illusion of a full wall of amps. 

            By contrast, the Beatles had been using much smaller amps (Vox combos), without even a P.A., in huge stadiums – no wonder they couldn’t hear themselves play.  Maybe if they had invested in some quality ampage and power, and some decent monitors, they’d have enjoyed the live experience much more, and not have given up in 1966 to focus only on records.  Paul McCartney isn’t scraping by in concert these days with a single AC30 behind him – but since he switches from bass to guitar by song, he needs both types of amp.  Even so, he doesn’t have a full wall of amps the way most rock bands do, more like a few half-stacks (head with one 4x12” angled cabinet).

 Tubes vs. Solid-state. My first amp was a solid-state Peavey Studio Pro 50, a 1x12” combo, which came on immediately after being turned on, and had terrible distortion.  I had to use an MXR Distortion pedal to approximate a decent distortion sound.  When I got the all-tube Marshall, I was able to sell the pedal back to my guitar teacher, Joel, who had sold it to me at cost, and simply use a footswitch and the amp’s effects loop.  The tube distortion sound was warm, thick, with lots of body and midrange.  Joel explained that the “tube vs. solid-state” debate was “sound vs. reliability”, tube amps having the sound advantage and solid states having the edge on reliability, no pesky tubes to replace or burn out.  But in all the years I’ve had this Marshall, I’ve replaced the tubes and had them biased once.  Moreover, if reliability was such a huge factor, why do professional musicians – whose livelihoods depend on reliable amps and have to cart them from venue to venue, handled by clumsy roadies and suffering trucks and planes across continents - use tube Marshalls?  There’s the proof.  

 Having said that, Marshall does make solid-state and hybrid amps, and they cost much less than the full tube versions and sound almost the same.  And many other tube amps sound like a Marshall, more or less.  When I was looking for amps in January 1990, various salesmen steered me to other brands: Laney, Mesa-Boogie, etc., always promising that they were either “as good” or “almost as good” as a Marshall.  Well, if I could afford a Marshall, why not buy a Marshall?  And so I did. 

 By the way, despite being the most popular amp (or perhaps because it is) Marshall does not give away its amps to professionals for endorsements.  Jim Marshall’s reasoning: “if you’re professional enough to endorse the product, you can afford it.  Amateur musicians shouldn’t be subsidizing you.” 

 Distortion.  In the late 60s, guitarists were learning the limitations of the stock amps – as noted above with the Beatles.  What they also learned was that many amps when cranked up high enough, started distorting.  To most amp manufacturers, this was a BAD thing.  I recall asking Joel, way back when, why we couldn’t plug the guitar into a stereo.  He explained that stereos are designed to play back with high fidelity (“hi-fi”) and minimum distortion, whereas (knowing the kind of music I liked and was asking him to teach me) that what we want from amps is maximum distortion.  Tony Iommi recalls an amp company reacting with horror when he asked if they could make an amp with MORE distortion.  They didn’t get it.  And their ads – promising NO DISTORTION – showed how clueless they were, even Marshall (someone commented about such a Marshall ad, “thank God for false advertising!”).  Eventually Marshall, and later other companies, wised up, listened to the guitarists, and began designing amps with the appropriate “dirty” channels and putting in speakers which sounded good when distorted.     

 Models. Since 1962, Marshall has put out a bewildering array of models with confusing numbers, special editions, signature editions, etc. sometimes in blue, purple, red, or even silver.  The most common and important models, however, are: the original JTM45 100 watt heads, to go with the 4x12” cabinets in the stack; then the 1959 SLP (Super Lead Plexiglas, often just called the “Plexi”); followed by the JCM800 (2204 50 watt and 2203 100 watt) models.  More recently came the JCM900 (Master Volume and Dual Reverb), DSL (Dual Super Lead) and TSL (Triple Super Lead) models, and the Mode 4 350 watt head.

Cell Phones

The other day I was in the elevator, switching background pics on my cell phone, when an older man – who can obviously remember rotary phones – remarked how we take them for granted these days.  In fact, we can’t live without them, yet they are fairly recent.

 My brother and my secretary both have iPhones, while I still have the Sharp TM150 I bought in 2005 shortly after returning from Rio, where my POS Nokia didn’t work – it was a two-band phone, not a three band phone, and of course in Rio they use the one band this phone couldn’t use.  Anyhow.  At the time it was fancy and snazzy, the most advanced phone T-Mobile sold.  Now?  I have to admit the iPhone is much nicer, but I’d have to actually own one to get used to its unique touch-screen format.  Recall Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) shrugging off somone’s iPhone when trying to reach the alarmingly absent-for-his-own-wedding Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in the “Sex & The City” movie (thanks to Miranda’s ever-so-helpful advice to him at the rehearsal dinner the night before).  For the time being I mess around with my secretary’s phone – much to her annoyance. 

 I can remember rotary phones and black and white TVs.  I first got a cell phone in 1998, some rather large Motorola thing scarcely smaller than the typical cordless phone.  At the time I still had a landline – which I’ve now gotten rid of.  I really think cell phones have made home phones obsolete, assuming you have reliable coverage with your cell; land lines are 99% reliable, so it takes an impressive cell network to beat them.

 History.  0G, 1G, 2G, 3G.  0G starts from the 1940s, with car phones using vacuum tube technology developing in the 1950s.  The 1G era began in Japan in 1981, with Motorola selling the first handheld cell phones in the US in 1983 (above second from left).  These phones were large and bulky – and certainly a novelty at that time.  2G technology dates from 1991, about which time cell phones seemed to appear with any meaningful frequency.  The 90s is when I started seeing them around in any numbers, but far from the frequency you see today.  3G dates from 1999.  

 Nowadays it seems everyone has one.  My mom has one, but she rarely brings it with her or uses it, and still relies on her landline.  My friends Dave and Ken have yet to get them.  In Ken’s case it seems to be anti-Yuppie deal, like his aversion to BMWs - in this respect he’s back in the Reagan ‘80s.

 T-Mobile.  This is my carrier.  I can’t remember why I chose them, most likely because, at the time, they had the nicest phone.  Their coverage in Europe was stunning: I had better reception in Bucharest than at Dulles Airport.  Likewise, equipped with a tri-band phone in Rio, I had no trouble.  Here the coverage stinks around Dulles Airport, in Centreville (where my brother lives), and all but the 5^th floor of the Fairfax County Courthouse.  In a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil, the only good cell phone reception is at the cemetery, of all places (!!!).  Not quite that bad, but similar issues.

 Sharp TM150.  See above, next to the Motorola dinosaur. T-Mobile no longer supports this phone.  They have their own version of the iPhone, but my impression is that it lacks many of the features of the iPhone.  Mine has a small disc drive that fits a 32 MB minidisk, a camera which takes mediocre pictures and 8 second video clips, and a very high resolution screen (something in the mexapixel range).  The ringtones are fantastic: at a time at which most cell phones had a polyphone tone, this one had real tones: actual words and lyrics (e.g. “Office Space” Bill Lumbergh: “That would be great, m’kay?”).  It’s a flip-open design very similar to the Star Trek communicators – hell, I even downloaded the appropriate ringtone for that, so I can reply, “Kirk here.  Beam me up.”

 Text Messaging.  My Romanian woman-from-hell taught me this.  I’d text her when the cab arrived in her neighborhood, and she’d get in.  So date my TM days from April 2006.  Text messaging is best for small, short, simple messages, especially when you’re in a noisy environment (e.g. a rock concert) where a normal phone call would be impractical.  It’s difficult to text while driving – not recommended! – and not well suited for elaborate discussions or phone sex.  The key is to recognize its strengths and avoid its weaknesses.

 Etiquette.  We’ve all seen idiots, assholes, and bitches yakking on their cell phones:  driving their SUVs into someone’s poor car, interrupting movies, taking calls at inappropriate moments (e.g. in the middle of a date), arguing in public, etc.  At the courthouse, assuming your phone isn’t taken from you at security, you will be warned to turn it off before court, as the judges hate them going off in court and the bailiffs are happy to oblige. The other deal is the earpiece phone, when your viewpoint is the ear WITHOUT the earpiece, so it looks as though the person is an unusually articulate schizophrenic having a conversation with an imaginary friend. 

            Aside from cell phones going off in court, the most egregious breach was when we had the Buddhist monks from Tibet (dark red robes, shaved heads, etc.) blessing our humble office.  This involved ringing bells and chanting in Tibetan for about 30 minutes.  An unidentified Vietnamese male, probably a former client, was sitting in on this, obviously hoping the blessing would include him.  And in the middle, his cell phone kept going off.  Not once.  Not twice.  But at least three times.  Instead of putting it on mute or turning it off, he simply acknowledged that it was from his (apparently difficult and jealous) wife, and let it ring.  And let it ring again when he didn’t pick up the first and second times.  I’m neither Buddhist nor Tibetan, but I at least turned my own cell phone off and respected the ceremony.   When I go to mass at the Cathedral, I leave my cell phone in the car, and to the credit of the Catholics at my church, I have NEVER heard a cell phone go off in mass.  They might sit tight and not get Communion (God knows why…literally) but they won’t take a cell phone call in church.  I have to wonder what a ceremony at a Buddhist temple must be like.  

Don Martin

Enough about poison gas.  It’s time for …the Arts.  Sometime recently my brother got me a unique present, a heavy hardbound collection of Don Martin cartoons from Mad Magazine.  His work featured there from 1956 to 1988; he drew for Cracked from 1988 to 1993; and he died in 2000.  In school I was very much into art and doodles, and shamelessly expropriated his technique for my own – up until high school, when I started developing my own style, such as it is, nowhere near Martin’s.

 His style was… unique to say the least.  Strange eyes, huge chins, protruding pinkies big toes, and comic sound effects.  No one else is like him, yet anyone claiming to be influenced by him, rather than copying his own style, managed to develop their own unique style, e.g. Peter Bagge, who draws for Reason Magazine. 

 Those who met him were also surprised: expecting someone looking like Curly from the Three Stooges, in fact they found probably the most handsome of the Mad magazine staffers. 

 Mad Magazine.  I don’t really want to devote an entire blog to this, so it’s best to include it here.  We used to read this religiously as kids (though never subscribed).  Don Martin, of course, was my favorite cartoonist.  The humor was OK, but as I grew older I chucked it aside, probably a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else.  Reading it again much later, I’m struck by how adult the humor really is.  Dave Berg cartoon: Woman tells man, “You only give me love because you want sex.”  Man replies, “You only give me sex because you want love.” Both together, rushing into each other’s arms: “USE ME!!”  Al Jaffee’s stuff was incredibly cynical, especially his “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” and fold-in back covers.  I was never much impressed by Alfred E. Neuman.

 Mad TV.  I didn’t expect to be impressed by this, but it turned out to be good: and MUCH better than Saturday Night Live, its closest competitor.  The recurring characters, though, aren’t that great: the snotty, tactless, politically incorrect woman played by Nicole Sullivan; the embarrassingly physically mature but emotionally retarded Michael McDonald (though he’s good at most other roles); or the annoyingly vague and inarticulate Asian woman played by Alex Borstein.  Phil Lamarr’s UPS guy was the only one that had any charm. 

 A picture is worth a thousand words – so enjoy above, a small but representative sample of his work.

Poison Gas

I mentioned this briefly in my WWI blog, but now I’ll address it in more detail.  Far more so than machine guns, artillery, rifles, grenades, mortars, or even airplanes, poison gas had a psychological effect far beyond its military usefulness.  Both sides used it, even US forces, and both sides suffered as a result.  It was used on the Italian Front, on the Eastern Front, in Gaza, and even against the Bolsheviks in 1919.  Even civilians and rear echelon troops were affected.  The gas masks necessary to protect against it gave the soldiers a disturbing, inhuman appearance.  By the end of the war, just under 90,000 fatalities were caused by poison gas (56,000 incurred by the Russians alone), and over a million non-fatal casualties.  

 Three basic types of gas were used in WWI.

Chlorine.  This gas kills by irritating the lungs so much that they drown in their own fluids  - the gas reacts to form hydrochloric acid in the lungs.  It has a smell like pepper or pineapple, and forms a yellowish/greenish cloud which tended to settle in the deeper parts of the trench.  Water-soaked pads were initially used to combat it, as well as pads soaked in bicarbonate, or even urine.  On one hand, its visibility made it easier to detect, so that masks could be put on, but on the other hand, that same visibility made it that much more terrifying.

 Phosgene.  Ten times more toxic than chlorine.  Unlike chlorine, phosgene is colorless, but has a smell like moldy hay.  It was more difficult to detect, but its effects took longer to kill – but by the time symptoms arose, it was too late to do anything about it.  Estimates that 85% of the fatalities caused by poison gas were from phosgene.

 Mustard Gas. First used by the Germans in 1917.  This gas tended to deny areas to the enemy, but still produced painful effects: blisters on the skin, pain in the lungs, and it caused eyes to puff up, thus temporary blindness.  Since it reacted to skin, rather than merely being breathed in, it bypassed gas masks.  Adolf Hitler was blinded by gas, which experience traumatized him and convinced him not to allow German forces to use poison gas against the Allies in WWII – even on the Eastern Front.

 Hydrogen cyanide was used occasionally by the French, but neither the Germans nor the British considered it to be effective.  The Germans later used this gas, better known by its IG Farben trade name Zyklon B, during the Holocaust.

 Part of the horror of gas is that the effects permanently ruined the lungs of many soldiers, long after the war – without killing them. 

 Projection.  Three basic ways of projecting the gas were used.

Cylinders/gas cloud.  Vast numbers of cylinders brought to the front trenches with manifolds, hoses, pipes, and other accessories, to disperse a vast cloud of gas to the enemy trenches – provided the wind cooperated, a factor which tended to favor the Allies over the Germans, as the prevailing winds in France generally blew eastwards.  Considerable casualties resulted when the wind blew gas back at the attackers.  This was the most terrifying method, but it was also the least reliable.

 Shells.  This allowed the attackers to deliver the gas to the enemy trenches, but a sizable amount of shells were required to achieve a meaningful concentration.

 Projectors.  Here they found a better trade-off, as these mortar-like tubes managed to project a larger volume of gas than the shelling could handle, while still projecting the gas well into enemy territory and away from friendly trenches.

 Protection.  Initially the solution was gauze pads wrapped around the mouth, soaked in water, bicarbonate, or even urine, combined with goggles to protect the eyes.  The British and French developed “gas helmets” which gave the user a particularly bizarre appearance, e.g. the French M2, the British PH helmet, and the Russian variant; these were hoods impregnated with the reaction chemical and integral goggles.  The Germans quickly developed what we normally think of as “gas masks”; these required soldiers to shave their beards and wear special glasses.  Eventually the French and British (plus Americans) developed their own versions, the ARS (French) and small box respirator (US/UK).  None of these were entirely effective against mustard gas.

 Since both sides used animals extensively, they had to develop protection for them as well – special masks for dogs, horses and mules, though the larger animals were less subceptible to gas than humans and required less effective filtration, whereas dogs were worse off.  The Germans used filters on carrier pigeon boxes.  There were also special masks for wounded soldiers lying on stretchers: since gases tended to settle closer to the ground, anyone closer to the ground was even more at risk than soldiers standing, and soldiers up on the parapet of the trenches were actually the least at risk.

 The major problems with gas warfare were (A) your own side needed masks too, which lessened the practicality, (B) it really wasn’t suited for mobile warfare – as soon as the front started moving consistently, you couldn’t project gas, as you’d be moving through it yourself if you broke through the enemy lines, (C) it didn’t kill enough enemy soldiers compared to the effort involved, since the enemy can and did take countermeasures, and (D) the enemy was liable to – and did – respond in kind, making both sides worse off.  Although gas has been used since WWI – mainly in the Iran-Iraq War – its use has been the exception rather than the rule, and more often against unprotected civilians.  Its primary effect seemed to be to dramatically amplify the horror of an already horrifying war without achieving any strategic results.