Flying Tigers vs. Baa Baa Black Sheep

Browsing through Barnes & Nobles one day, I came across this book: Flying Tigers, by Daniel Ford.  It’s an in-depth analysis of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known by their famous nickname, the Flying Tigers. 

            They were recruited in the US by Claire Chennault, in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor.  These were mainly flight instructors and other pilots who were otherwise unoccupied though in the military, who jumped at the option of some real combat, for $600 a month ($12,000 a month in today’s dollars), plus a $500 bonus for each Japanese plane shot down ($10,000 in today’s money).  They had to resign from the military to serve in the unit, which was technically a civilian outfit (some of the AVG members later started the CIA’s Air America outfit) working for CAMCO, a private firm – making them essentially mercenary pilots.  Due to the time necessary to get all the planes and infrastructure set up at their bases, they didn’t really see much combat until after the US went into the war.  Originally they were expected to fight Japanese forces in China, but most of their combat took place in Burma, Thailand, and north Vietnam.  Their rearward base was at Kunming, in Yunnan Province.  They had three squadrons: Adam & Eves (First Pursuit), Panda Bears, and the Hell’s Angels.

            Most of the planes were Curtiss P40 Warhawks, with 1100 HP V12 liquid cooled engines.  The P40 had a reputation that it was uncatchable in a dive, which proved true in the Pacific theater.  However, as Boyington described below, a South African pilot in North Africa learned that the Messerschmidt Me109E could match it – which he discovered when the German pilot matching his dive opened his canopy and flashed the “V” sign at him with a smile.

            They were up against the Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) meaning that none of the Jap planes they faced were Zeros, which were Navy planes.  The book identifies the specific Japanese squadrons (Sentais) and pilots in each encounter, so you see both sides.  In many cases, “kills” on both sides were overstated: often two pilots claimed credit for shooting down the same plane, which somehow actually managed to make it back home anyway.  For their part, the Japs claimed to have shot down a force several times larger than the AVG at its peak.

            Originally volunteers, and definitely chafing at having any military authority imposed on them (despite the fact that most of the pilots were ex-military anyway) the group resisted the US Army’s efforts to absorb them into the military, but not for long.  Most of the combat operations took place after Pearl Harbor and the US entered the war, so this was not like the Lafayette Escadrille (US pilots flying for France in WWI prior to US entry) or the US pilots who flew for the RAF in the Battle of Britain.  The major accomplishment of the AVG was to strike back at Japan at a time when the Japanese were mostly successful, overrunning Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and almost reaching Australia.  Here was one theater where the Allies were fighting back – successfully – against Japanese aggression. 

 Madame Chiang Kia-Shek, aka Soong May-Ling.  As an aside, and without feeling compelled to devote an entire blog to this otherwise remarkable woman, I thought it useful to talk about her.  She was born in Shanghai in 1898, and died in New York City in 2003 at the age of 105.  Whether it be Claire Chennault or General Joe Stilwell, anyone who came into contact with Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife generally agreed that Madame Chiang, as she was often referred to, was very much the brains of the couple.  She spoke fluent English, even with a Georgia accent, having been educated at Wesleyan College. 

 The Flying Tigers.  This is the 1942 WWII vintage movie with John Wayne as Jim Gordon – unclear whether he’s supposed to be Chennault or Pappy Boyington.  They’ve pretty much made it yet another garden variety war movie set in China in WWII shortly before the US entered the war.  The Flying Tigers, of course, fly P-40s with the tigers painted on the planes, and are usually outnumbered in their battles against Japanese planes.  We have to have a story, and that involves yet ANOTHER arrogant, selfish asshole who only cares about money (bonus) and glory, UNTIL he wants to impress the cute white nurse and get into her panties, so THEN he decides to impress the Chinese children at the orphanage.  Of course he screws up, somehow, and of course he redeems himself, at the cost of his own life.

 Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Reading through Flying Tigers, I was intrigued to find that among the pilots of the AVG was Greg “Pappy” Boyington, who I knew was associated with the Black Sheep Squadron, and popularized in the 70s TV show “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, played by Robert Conrad.  I only bothered to watch Season 1, Disc 1, which includes the lengthy pilot.  The pilot gives us the backstory of Boyington (Conrad) washing out of the Flying Tigers, which portrays Chennault as an arrogant bastard stiffing all the AVG pilots.  Boyington manages to weasel his way to be Major, and steals the 214 squadron from Major Buell (Charles Napier), while being crucified for myriad rule book violations by his immediate superior, Colonel Lard, who hates his guts – and the feeling is mutual. The next one up, General Moore, though, is looking out for him.  The Corsairs look authentic and cool, as do the Japanese planes.  For their part, the Japanese aren’t so much “bad guys” (morally challenged or evil) so much as merely “opposing forces”. 

            Eventually, though, it gets fairly cartoonish: Boyington’s only 3 ways of solving a problem are (A) getting wasted on whiskey, (B) getting in a fight (there’s a fight every 10 minutes in this damn show), or (C) bullshitting his way somehow.  The pilots have 70s hairstyles, like “M*A*S*H” and the production and theme song give it an “A-Team” appearance – even down to Boyington’s constant scrapes with Lard, similar to that Colonel Decker who has it out for the A-Team. John Larroquette has a minor role as one of the pilots (he rarely has any lines); Rene Auburjonois, the shapeshifting senior partner from “Boston Legal/Deep Space Nine” has a one-episode role as Hooper, an Aussie who wants to stay alive on an island infested with Japs. 

            Far better than the TV show were Boyington’s memoirs, Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Much of the early part thereof indeed describes his adventures in the AVG, which backs up and complements the Flying Tigers book.  He also has some very unflattering remarks concerning Madame Chiang. 

            His Black Sheep squadron was an ad hoc squadron of various pilots pulled together to operate in the Solomon Islands slot, a line of islands in the South Pacific running from Guadalcanal in the southeast up to Bougainville in the northwest.  His pilots wanted to call it “Boyington’s Bastards”, but he knew the press would never print that name, and didn’t want his name to be part of it anyway.  He simply recalled the children’s nursery rhyme, and used that for the squadron.

            They often attacked the Japanese airstrip at Kahili, doing strafing runs.  The Japanese air controller on the island spoke fluent English without even any accent, trying to trick them into revealing their altitude and strength, but Boyington could tell he was a Jap because the English was TOO good, without any of the jargon, slang and banter the American pilots used amongst themselves.  Finally Boyington taunted the Jap, “come on you yellow bastards, come up here and fight!” to which the Jap responded, “if you are so brave, Major Boyington, come down here and fight us!”

            The Black Sheep Squadron used F4U Corsairs, with their distinctive gull wings, equipped with 6 .50 cal machine guns and a 2000 HP Pratt & Whitney radial engine, up against the Japanese Navy pilots, who were often flying Mitsubishi Zeros.  Boyington referred to the Japanese markings as the “angry red meatball.”

            Boyington describes something which harks back to my Religion blog.  He says he got along well with the chaplains, and the Catholic chaplain explained something very extraordinary.  According to him, the Vatican realized the war was on its way, long before it actually happened.  So the Vatican managed to get the German priests off these Pacific Islands, in a way which avoided tipping them off: they were all promoted and brought back to Rome.

            He liked to drink, of course, but also play cards: but he made it a point not to play with pilots in his own squadron, “for I didn’t like the idea of people firing guns behind me when they owed me money.  I gambled with people I didn’t have to fly with.”

            Boyington was shot down and captured by the Japanese, and went through the whole “Bridge on the River Kwai”/”Papillion” prisoner-of-war deal.  A heavy drinker by his own admission, the ordeal acted as a de facto type of rehab; in some ways his health improved after he recovered from the wounds he received when he was shot down.  He started at Rabaul, went to Saipan, then to Iwo Jima, and finally to mainland Japan, in a special camp outside Yokohama, in Ofuna, which is the Japanese equivalent of Hollywood.  There he met some Japanese guards who were Christian, spoke excellent English, and refused to beat the Allied prisoners – and were beaten instead as a result.  Ironically, he was worried the Japanese would learn of his service in the Flying Tigers and shoot him out of hand.  During his time in captivity the Japanese classified him as a “special captive” and not a prisoner of war, so the Red Cross were never alerted to his captivity and to US forces he remained “missing in action” – and assumed dead - until finally liberated.

            He eventually learned to speak Japanese through this whole ordeal.  Hell, even I learned some Japanese!  “Domai” = “no dice, that’s bad”; “Nunda?” = “what’s going on here?”; “Ah so ka” = “I understand”; “ohio” = “good morning”; “obason” = “Auntie”; “Baykoko” = “United States”; “Yamai” = “stop”; “haitison” = “guards”; “toxon” = “a lot, much”; “baka” or “kanero” = fool.  Perhaps it was the Stockholm Syndrome, but eventually he learned to like the Japanese and get along with most of his captors.  He observed that many of the Japanese officers treated him well, and Japanese civilians, even those in bombed Yokohama, bore him no malice or discrimination.  Boyington even struck up an unlikely friendship with an old woman working in the kitchen at the camp, and she helped him steal food from the guards.  Of course, he also learned much about Japanese, and many of the Jap officers candidly admitted to him that the war had gone in the toilet.

            When Boyington returned to the US, he was treated as a hero, given the Congressional Medal of Honor by Truman himself, and sent on a confusing whirlwind bond raising tour (similar to “Flags of Our Fathers”).  He took up drinking again, and got a fair amount of bad publicity as a result.  Oddly, he found it difficult to find jobs, and finally ended up working selling beer for a brewery and as a referee for professional wrestling.

            Looking back on this, it seems that his tenure with the Black Sheep Squadron is one of the least interesting parts of the whole story, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that the actual veterans of the group were NOT big fans of the 70s TV show.   He was a remarkable man, flawed as he was – but it seems that anyone who met him personally held him in high regard. 

Saturday Night Live

A few years ago, I asked my secretary at the time, Carolyn (Vietnamese name Phuong), if she’d seen SNL the weekend before.  Huh?  Blank stare.  Apparently she didn’t know what Saturday Night Live was.  Since I don’t recall many Asian – much less Vietnamese – cast members on SNL, I suppose this makes sense.  But she was one of those Viets who doesn’t watch ANY American TV. 

 Beginnings.  It began in October 1975, started by Lorne Michaels, who had much more hair back then.  He’s still prominent on screen.

 70s. This is considered the “classic” era, though to me the sketches are not that much funnier than 80s and 90s era SNL, to the point where these should be considered special.  The highlights, of course, are Ackroyd & Curtin’s “Coneheads” and their bickering back and forth on Weekend Update, plus the various “samurai” sketches with John Belushi as shouting “MAMA SAN!” and attacking something with a samurai sword.  Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman, Garrett Morris (token black!), Steve Martin (common guest) are the classic cast members.

 80s.  This era includes Jim Belushi, Rich Hall, Joe Piscopo, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Brad Hall, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Billy Crystal, and Martin Short.  This era gets forgotten, but it’s no worse than the 70s or 90s era which get more attention.  Most of the alumni of this era went on to bigger and better things, most notably Eddie Murphy (who was great as “Velvet Jones” and “Buckwheat”) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, better known as “Elaine” from “Seinfeld”.  Harry Shearer is a regular voice on “The Simpsons”, and teams up with Guest and McKean for Spinal Tap and various Guest movies.  I liked the “Run, Jump, and Throw Like A Girl Olympics”, Martin Short’s Ed Grimley sketches (brought over almost verbatim from SCTV), and Billy Crystal’s “Fernando’s Hideaway” (“you look MAH-velous!”).  Piscopo did a great Frank Sinatra impression.  

 90s.  This era’s better cast members were Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Dennis Miller, Phil Hartman, Kevin Nealon, Chris Rock, Tim Meadows.  Oddly, this is now considered quasi-classic, thanks to “Wayne’s World”, which was not only well done as sketches, but successfully translated into a full-length movie.  Dana Carvey’s “Church Chat” was quality, the obvious “Wayne’s World” sketches (Wayne: “No way!” Joe Perry: “Way!”), Dennis Miller’s Weekend Update, and Hartman’s great impressions of Reagan and Clinton – and Sinatra (to Jan Hooks, as Sinead O’Connor: “what’s with the bald chick?”).  I was disappointed that they cut the Reagan Iran-Contra sketch short on the Best of Phil Hartman compilation.

 00s.  Darrell Hammond (actually been on since 1995), Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Cheri Oteri, Jimmy Fallon, and Tracy Morgan are the best known cast members of this era.  Here I felt the quality began slipping considerably – particularly Ferrell’s inane recurring cheerleader sketches with Cheri Oteri.  Too many sketches had me wondering, “is THAT the punch line?” with only the opening sketch, ending in “live from New York, it’s SATURDAY NIGHT!” being any good.  One of the better ingredients of latter-day SNL is the TV Funhouse, with the “Ex-Presidents” and “Ambiguously Gay Duo”. 

 Musical Guests.  I really can’t stand 95% of these, as they’re usually some mainstream pop band who don’t offend anyone.  My favorite was Faith No More, who played in December 1990.

 Style.  It wasn’t slapstick; it wasn’t dry; it wasn’t nearly as oddball as Monty Python; it wasn’t risqué.  Really, SNL humor is middle of the road, marginally controversial, standard issue American humor.  It’s nowhere near as clever as “The Simpsons”; nowhere near as controversial as “South Park” or “The Family Guy”; and only sometimes, not consistently, laugh out loud funny.  Because it’s on network TV it has to go by the NBC censors, so even live the language wasn’t particularly obnoxious.  One element I found was consistently the funniest was the political humor, and the fake commercials.  

 Recurring characters.  As mentioned earlier, Belushi’s Samurai; Bill Murray’s lounge singer (who I hated); Billy Crystal’s Fernando; Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat – and foul-mouthed Gumby; the Coneheads (top quality); Wayne & Garth; the Church Lady; Chris Rock’s Nat X (zzz); Julia Sweeney’s androgynous Pat; Rob Schneider’s Richmeister “making COPIES”; Martin Short’s Ed Grimley (“…you know!”).  The list goes on…

 Unscheduled cameos.  This was probably the best: when the person being parodied would suddenly arrive on set.  Janet Reno showed up during Will Ferrell’s “Janet Reno’s Party Machine”; Steve Martin crashed David Spade’s Hollywood Minute (which dismissed him as a “has-been”); John McLaughlin crashed Dana Carvey’s Halloween version of The McLaughlin Group (“WRONG!”); Bob Dole challenged Norm McDonald that “Bob Dole does NOT speak in the third person!”  Also quality were Paul Simon (singer) and Paul Simon (senator) showing up at the same time.

 Great Political Parody. Darrell Hammond nailed not only Bill Clinton, but also Al Gore.  Phil Hartman did a good Clinton, but his Reagan was stunning.  I never cared for Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford, as there was zero resemblance.  Dan Ackroyd was great as Jimmy Carter (“you’ve got the brown acid.  Do you have any Allman Brothers?”) and Bob Dole (“PIERRE DuPont!”).  Dana Carvey killed as Ross Perot and George Bush Sr.  Ferrell, of course, nailed George W. Bush.  More recently, Fred Armison (sic) does a passable Barack Obama, and Amy Poehler captures Hillary Clinton’s acid cynicism (though she’s better as Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas).  Debates are always well done, and even quasi-political characters are nailed down (Darrell Hammond as Tim Russert, asking McCain if he’ll run in 2004 if Bush “forgets to run”).

 SNL is best condensed into “Best of” the top actors, but unfortunately there is no “Best of Darrell Hammond”, which is a shame, as he’s competitive with Will Ferrell and others who do have their own.      

Religion

Time for more abstract and philosophical analysis, possibly blasphemous but certainly something to consider.

 Same summit, different approaches.  The image which came to me was of a top summit, like Mount Everest.  Viewed from the top, a mountain peak has 360 degrees of approach around it, which could either be described in terms of degrees, or more easy-to-grasp, clock positions from 12, 1, 2, 3, etc. all the way back to 12 – and compass points as well, 12 being North, 3 being East, 6 being South, and 9 being West.

     Figure all of us monotheists – as opposed to atheists or polytheists – are attempting, in some way, shape or form, at our own paces, to climb that summit and reach the top.  Catholics take the North approach, non-Catholic Christians take the East approach, Jews take the South approach, Muslims take the West approach, and so forth.  Then figure there are Sunnis vs. Shi’ites, Orthodox vs. Conservative vs. Reform Jews, all sorts of Protestant religions and the Eastern Orthodox churches.  Each is trying to reach the summit from a different direction and each claims that the others’ way is wrong.  But we all know and accept that the summit – the God – is the same, but we argue that the means by which we try to reach Him, is itself so important as to trump everything else.  As if, upon reaching God at the top, God turns to us and asks, “well, thank you very much for coming up here.  By the way, how did you get here?” “Uh, I came up from the South.” And God goes nuts and says, “INFIDEL!!!  You blasphemer!  Didn’t I send Mohammed down there to tell you to come up the West way?  What is wrong with you??  Begone!” 

     This is why I find religious intolerance among fellow monotheists to be so idiotic – especially when it reaches the point of KILLING others simply because their particular form of monotheism is different.  Again, back to my example: you get to the top and say HI to God, and tell him, “Oh, by the way, there were some Jews coming up by the South approach, we killed them.  Pretty good, huh?”  And God will say, “Way to go, Abdullah!  Here are your virgins!”  Granted, back in the Middle Ages (a long, long time ago) the Christian Crusaders decided that the Muslim way was so wrong that it merited termination.  And we have no shortage of anti-Semitism to observe, perpetrated both by Christians and Muslims, although this form of discrimination appears to be racially motivated rather than due to any religious differences.  To me it’s all stupid.  Who cares how we get up the mountain?  And are we so sure that God cares, that we’re going to kill anyone going up the mountain the wrong way?

 Jesus rises.  Awhile back I analyzed the New Testament between Easter Sunday and Asension, and realized that after Jesus rose from the dead, He made no public appearances.  All His appearances were in private, solely to the Apostles, who were predisposed to believe in Him.  Why didn’t He meet Pontius Pilate, or Caiaphas?  Raising from the dead would have been front page news: to everyone.  Surely a public appearance by this guy who everyone - Jews, Apostles, Romans, etc. - saw crucified would be a killer recruitment for Christianity, and since Jesus sent out the Apostles to spread the word, we knew He wanted this to be a mass movement, not some secret society only a few select people were invited to, like Amway.  What comes to mind is that He returned from the dead not in the literal sense of being flesh and blood, but in the spiritual sense of retaining consciousness and some identity after death – that we have a soul which survives death, as His did.  So He came back to show his Apostles that, for believers at least, there would be life after death, just not on this Earth, in this form as we knew it.  This also explains why He returned at Ascension, instead of staying here indefinitely.  But that leads me to wonder: where did Jesus live when He was alive?

 You can’t make me.  I also noted that through the Bible, God can never make anyone do anything.  The most He can do is send an angel or a dream to persuade someone of the “right” course of action ("by the way, you might want to do this").  Here are some examples:

1.  Jonah and the whale.  God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people there to shape up.  Jonah thought to himself…. “nah….”.  And so he ended up in the whale.  And then he thought, “this sucks, maybe I should go to Nineveh after all.”  And he did.  The whale was just God’s way of being persuasive – and it worked.

2.  Joseph & Mary.  Joseph was due to be Mary’s husband, but found she was already pregnant.  Not good – he was inclined to call it off.  But the angel came and backed up Mary’s “conceived by God” story (of which I’m sure Joseph had probably been somewhat skeptical), so he decided to go along with it.  This was not an angel with a shotgun.

3.  Three Wise Men.  Herod wanted them to come back after seeing Jesus and fill him on the Manger location – so he could have Jesus killed.  The angels sent the Wise Men a dream and advised them to take an alternate route home.  Once again, very persuasive angels – the Three Wise Men took another route, Herod was not able to have baby Jesus terminated before Mary and Joseph escaped to Egypt.

 Why is this important?  People see all the hatred, the violence, the cruelty, the torture, the evil in the world and ask, “how can God allow this to happen?”  The answer is: God can’t stop it.  God couldn’t make the gas chambers fail, the machine guns jam, the swords and machetes too dull to cut anyone, or make rapists impotent.  And He can’t control our behavior.  We control our behavior, for better or worse – all too often, for worse.  You may as well scream at your best friend for not having stopped the rain. 

 Homily.  I go to mass, at the local cathedral (Catholic) almost every Sunday.  One thing about Catholic mass is that no matter where you go, around the world, you know the mass will have the same format: intro stuff, two readings (someone from the audience), a gospel (by the priest), a homily (the priest’s sermon), the collection,  and then stock material until the Our Father, the peace be with you “shake the hands stuff” (half the people only lamely shaking hands with anyone outside his or her own immediate family), communion, then the end where we get announcements and the blessing, and then we charge out.

     I tend to zone out during the homily.  There are really only so many different ways the priest can basically say, “Jesus died for you, be good, m’kay?”  Too many are off in the stratosphere of abstract discussion.  Occasionally the priest gets cute; one time the first two rows were Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, so the priest said that Jesus’ 40 days in the desert was like a “camping trip”.  It’s a rare priest who can reconcile the abstract with the concrete and keep my attention.  Then of course, one of the priests is Father Shakedown, who monotonously recites all the huge bills the church has (“that air conditioning in this huge place isn’t free, people!  Cough it up!”).  

 After Mass.  In Paris, we went to St. Joseph’s, an English-speaking Catholic church down Ave. Hoche from the Etoile.  After mass we’d go someplace special.  Originally we went to a McDonald’s, in a part of town I don’t recall.  This was a 70’s vintage McDonald’s, with horribly greasy food: even the French fries were green.  Blah.  But then we went to an arcade next door.  This was before even Space Invaders or Pac-Man, so God only knows what horrendously primitive games we could have played.  Later on, Burger King arrived on the Champs Elysees, far cleaner and nicer than the skanky Evil Clown in that other part of town.  And again we went to an arcade – this one had Rolling Thunder, which I really liked. 

 Churches.  Part of the charm of Catholic churches is their antiquity and elegance (I have no reason to visit Protestant churches and have no experience therein).  There seem to be two types of church.  The first is the fancy old style, in the shape of a cross, with stained glass windows, statues, old style pews, all the medieval stuff we’re familiar with.  St Peter's in Rome is obviously the biggest and most impressive, but there are many others: Notre Dame in Paris, various cathedrals around the world, even the Madeleine in Paris, which is set up like the Parthenon in Greece.  What they all share is a faithful adherence to some form of classical, or even Gothic, style.

     Then there are the IKEA churches:  someone studied the schematics of Merriweather Post Pavilion or the Nissan Pavilion, because the seating is ampitheater style, in a large fan radiating out from the altar.  The imagery, to the extent there is any, has a sparse, abstract feel to it, like Pablo Picasso designed it.  I suppose this was some movement in the 60s or 70s to modernize the Church and distance it from the archaic medieval feel it once had.  These are churches for the automobile, Internet, cell phone age, as if to say that religion isn't some irrelevant anachronism from medieval times, but still relevant and meaningful to us even today.  Both styles have their supporters and virtues. 

     I've even seen churches which were converted from movie theaters, either as temporary expedients or permanent arrangements, but in that case we're really stretching the envelope of what we can consider a "church".  Maybe it was officially blessed or consecrated by the appropriate bishop, but it certainly doesn't feel like a church.

     Having been to Egypt, I’ve been to mosques.  After being used to churches filled with pews, mosques are kind of bizarre: no seats, just tons of carpets to kneel down and pray on.  Needless to say, I was a visitor and not praying to Allah myself.

     When I visited the USSR in 1983, part of the tour – Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad – was countless Russian Orthodox churches and monestaries.  ZZZZ.  They’re all the same: chock full of Cyrillic lettering and icons.  There’s a Romanian Orthodox Church across the street from me, which has a similar deal, though the lettering is Roman, and the language is Romanian.  But style-wise it’s almost identical.  And the service is in Romanian, which I don’t speak, except “va rog” and “multumesc”, and some naughty words like “pizda” and “pula” (unlikely to be heard in a mass, anyway).  But of all the Romance languages, Romanian is by far the closest to the source language, Latin.

 Latin Mass.  It’s difficult to find a High Mass (in Latin) these days.  The vernacular (local language) has been more popular since the 60s; I recall my dad bitching about how the Church went liberal in the 60s to sell out and attract people back into the pews, and ditching the Latin Mass was the biggest factor.  But even a Latin mass was not all in Latin: only the standard, boilerplate stock language which is the same every Sunday, is in Latin.  The readings, the homily, and most everything else is in the vernacular anyway. 

America the Beautiful?

A belated July 4^th blog entry, on a fairly esoteric topic. I’ve noticed some competing theories on what America and Americans are all about. 

 Slacker.  In the movie “Stripes”, the platoon has to pull an all-nighter to pass parade inspection, and the cramming isn’t going too well.  Winger (Bill Murray) finally whips the team into shape with an inspiring speech invoking “Old Yeller”, and claiming that Americans are basically slackers who represent the worst of every nation, rejected, ostracized and cast out by everyone else, and combined to form our own country of rebellious losers.  The rejuvenated and inspired platoon succeeds in impressing the general and gets assigned to the EM-50 project.  Woohoo!

            This “theory” finds itself repeated over and over again, countless times in countless movies, in American cinema, with the good guys starting out as hopeless losers who somehow manage to get their act together at the 11^th hour and pull off a dramatic victory – in such varied contexts as “Miracle on Ice” (the story of the 1980 US hockey team in Lake Placid), “The Dirty Dozen”, and “The Bad News Bears”.  “Stripes” was merely the film which finally distilled this theory, which was implicit in all those other stories, into an articulated theory and shoved it down our throats. 

 Elite.  The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein would beg to differ.  His view was that the immigrants who came to the US from Europe – with the obvious exception of the slaves – were the cream of the crop, the ambitious go-getters with the balls and courage to take the risks of settling in a new world which had no guarantees but plenty of opportunity.  The losers are the lazy idiots who stayed back in the mother country.  It’s certainly a more appealing view than the slacker view. 

 Southern.  (vs. Northern, aka Yankee).  I recently read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, another one of these “the South was right!” deals.  To hear this talk, every male from south of the Mason-Dixon line is a chivalrous gentleman, and every male north of that line is an arrogant, deceitful slimebag.  What an interesting theory: the South has a monopoly on virtue, the North on vice.  Complete and utter bullshit.  While New Jersey may have no shortage of northern assholes, your average tractor pull or Klan rally will attract an equal amount of white trash.  Neither side of the Mason-Dixon line has a monopoly on anything. 

  The other funny thing is how often Southerners appear to describe themselves as true Americans.  It's as if, having been denied the CSA, they then decided that, "well, if I'm stuck with these damn Yankees, I'll at least claim that I'm a better American than they are."  The truth is...well, in the next paragraph.

 Eclectic.  Probably the most appropriate.  We’ve got blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Midwesterners, rednecks (from all parts of the country, not just the South), guidos, effete wine-loving yuppies, “What Would Wellstone Do?” liberals, Flying Monkeys, slackers, hard chargers, bums, crack addicts, crooks, saints, Ned Flanders, etc.  And the CSA types too - who are no more, but no less, American than anyone else.  Anyone who looks at the entire picture has to come away from the whole thing realizing that the #1 element which defines “America” is diversity and heterogeneity.  We’re all different.  We are mutts (as Murray indicated) but that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily slackers.  Gordon Gekko is no more – or less – American than Zonker Harris, Andrew Dice Clay, George Washington, or Pauly Shore. 

Lawyers on Film

Actually, maybe a little too much.  As I noted in my “More Lawyers” blog, much of legal work is fairly dull, and that includes trials.  Clearly no one would want to watch a movie where lawyers simply waited…and waited…and waited…and finally make some Byzantine and esoteric arguments on demurrers or pleas in bar, with a judge sustaining a second demurrer and dismissing a case with prejudice.  Even lawyers would find that a dull film.  Clearly, movies have to be edited and presented with some drama and reality is going to suffer as a consequence.  Too bad.

 I find that lawyers portrayals on film are more often positive and favorable than negative – the eager, idealistic lawyers far outnumber the sleazy, dishonest ones.  Just my impression.

 I can’t pretend to give an exhaustive list, so much as cover the bases with what I consider the cream of the crop, fully recognizing there are more out there I’ve missed.  With that disclaimer in mind, enjoy….

 A Civil Action (1998).  This was the drama featuring John Travolta as the arrogant personal injury attorney, Jan Schlittman, who bankrupts (literally) his firm fighting a company which polluted a small town’s water supply.  Robert Duvall plays the defense counsel who fights against him – chivalrously – and William H. Macy and Tony Shaloub are his partners.  The defense succeeds at making the case too expensive for the firm to try effectively, bludgeoning them into accepting an $8 million settlement, far lower than the $20 million Duvall had earlier offered.  This was one of the films highlighted in a CLE course, which persuaded me to watch it.  Despite all the terrible things that happen to Schlittman, the good guys ultimately win, though they don’t make any money out of it.

 Erin Brockovitch (2000). The famous Julia Roberts film about a crusading woman dressed like a porn star who champions the rights of a small town which – guess what – suffered from pollution.  Fairly entertaining, but this “David vs. Goliath” on pollution/big business issues is a bit overdone. 

 The Rainmaker (1997).  Based on the John Grisham book of the same name, with Matt Damon (no sign of Ben Affleck!) in the main role, an attorney right out of law school taking on an evil insurance company on a bad faith claim case: the insurance company denied a perfectly good claim, expressly because it calculated that it would save more money by denying claims than it would incur in bad faith claim lawsuits such as these.  The famous line in here is the insurance company’s 8^th denial letter to the hapless clients, “8 times you have requested coverage, and 8 times we have denied it.  You must be STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!”  Danny DeVito plays his “law clerk”, Mickey Rourke his boss (on the run due to various “issues” with the FBI), and Jon Voight as Drummond, the arrogant insurance company lawyer.  This is yet another David vs. Goliath, underdog lawyer who learns the hard way – as he goes along.  In this case, however, I did relate to Matt Damon’s character, and Grisham’s observance that most lawyers will not get rich simply on hourly fee cases, so a huge windfall judgment like this is their most plausible shot at anything close to richness (though I don’t recall that bit making it into the movie itself).

 Philadelphia (1993).  Tom Hanks punches his “gay man” role ticket ahead of the curve, playing a Philadelphia lawyer who sues his former law firm for discrimination when they terminate him for AIDS.  Antonio Banderas played his lover, and Denzel Washington played his “I don’t care for your lifestyle, but I respect the principles” lawyer.  I found this to be less of a “lawyer movie” than a “homosexual gets justice!” film. 

 My Cousin Vinny (1992).  This is one of my favorites, particularly for the “voi dire” of Mona Lisa De Vito (Marisa Tomei), who tells us why she can’t tell us the base timing on a 1955 Chevy Bel Air with the four barrel 327 V8 (“the 327 didn’t come out until 1962, and wasn’t available in the Bel Air with a four barrel until 1964, at which time the base timing was 6 degrees before top dead center”).  Pesci, of course, is great as Vincent Gambino, who has to get his nephew (Ralph Macchio) and his friend acquitted of the murder of a Sack & Suds clerk, a crime they clearly did not commit.  There’s lots of great courtroom drama: he knocks out each “eyewitness’” testimony (“were they magic grits?”) and learns Alabama criminal procedure as he goes along – helped by his fiancé, of course.  When I saw the film in the theater, I was screaming at them (silently) to get the public defender – and we found out why the public defender wasn’t ex-ex-ex-ACT-ly a stellar trial lawyer.  It’s also a great “fish out of water” story as well, the contrast of Pesci & Tomei’s accents vs. the locals, especially his “ok, I’ll take the $200 instead of getting my ass kicked” deal with the idiot at the bar, and the judge, played by Fred “Herman Munster” Gwynne. 

 Liar Liar (1997).  Jim Carrey’s hilarious film, about a lawyer who finds his job truly crippled by a 24 hour inability to lie – and faced with a divorce trial he cannot continue, because, as he explains to the judge, “I cannot lie!”  Renee Zellweger plays his slutty, nasty client who should lose out on her case due to a prenup which waives her rights if she commits adultery – which she clearly committed.  I really didn’t care much for the family drama – his wife, played by Maura Tierney, his kid Max, and his romantic rival, played by Carey Elwes, who can’t quite get “the Claw” down well enough.  The funniest part was the firm board meeting, where he tells everyone what he REALLY thinks of them.

 Intolerable Cruelty (2003).  This is probably one of the more cynical “divorce lawyer” movies.  George Clooney plays Miles Massey, the top divorce lawyer, author of his firm’s so-called unbreakable prenuptial agreement.  He meets his match in Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a stunning woman who drives him crazy, turning his life inside out – to the point where he ends up at the matrimonial lawyers convention, as the keynote speaker, bedraggled and lovesick, his reputation as the most cynical bastard in the business blown to shreds.  And that’s just the beginning. 

   One thing I like about this movie is that for once, it’s not about criminal lawyers, murder trials, etc.  The other thing is that frequently I hear non-divorce lawyers groan about domestic relations practice as “ugh, slimy, dirty, icky!” like it was working in sewers or crime scene cleanup work.  Most of my divorce practice is uncontested work, the other spouse either MIA or completely cooperative, but I do some contested work.  To the extent there is some sliminess or unsavory elements (unfortunately, I’ve never been called upon to review videotape evidence of adultery) that is a minority of the time and really adds to the zest and flavor, rather than grossing out.  On the other hand, I’m not keen on seeing a mother cry when she’s deprived of her children.  It all kind of cancels itself out.

 Surrender (1987).  Not really a lawyer film, but it does have a substantial role by Peter Boyle, as Caine’s divorce lawyer, who insists that his client protect himself with a prenuptial agreement, after his two prior relationships ended in the typical California “50/50” split on divorce.  Thanks to Marvin v. Marvin (the 1967 case involving actor Lee Marvin), he couldn’t even avoid this by NOT marrying his girlfriend.  He’s a wealthy, famous writer with a substantial income to protect.  So when he pursues a relationship with Sally Field, a struggling artist, he’s determined to make sure lightning doesn’t strike three times.  Without divulging too much of the plot, it’s an excellent treatise on the issue of love, romance and prenups – with very little courtroom scenes, all at the very beginning (!) of the film.

 And Justice For All (1979).  The classic Al Pacino “you’re out of order” overacting courtroom climax film.  It takes place mostly in the Circuit Court for the City of Baltimore (check out “Die Hard 4” and you’ll recognize downtown Baltimore).  Kirkland (Pacino)  and his colleague Jay Porter (Jeffrey Tambor) are criminal lawyers, who are stressed out that all too often innocents wind up behind bars thanks to hanging judges like Fleming (John “Dynasty” Forsythe).  Fleming, in fact, blackmails his nemesis, Kirkland, into representing him on a rape charge.  Arrogantly indifferent to his own obvious hypocrisy, Fleming cynically infers that not only is he guilty of the charge, he still expects Kirkland to get him acquitted anyway.  For his part, Porter suffers a nervous breakdown when a former client of his, a murderer who was acquitted on a technicality for a crime he did in fact commit, takes another victim – a crime which would not have happened but for Porter’s skill at exploiting the loophole.  If I had to narrow the films down to a “must see” list, this one would make it.    

 From The Hip (1987).  This had Judd Nelson as a loose cannon lawyer with oddball, unrealistically bizarre trial tactics (perhaps the inspiration for “Boston Legal”).  I thought it was over the top and stupid, and I hadn’t even been in law school when I saw it, much less a practicing attorney.  Maybe I need to see it again.

 Anatomy of a Murder (1959).  This is the old B&W film with Jimmy Stewart, defending Lt Manion (Ben Gazarra), accused of murdering a bar owner who raped his wife (Lee Remick).  Stewart invokes the defense of “irresistible impulse”, a variant of temporary insanity where the defendant has a moment where unique and unusual circumstances push him to behave uncharacteristically violently, in this case to murder a man who was not threatening him personally with any immediate bodily harm.  It’s a very subtle distinction, but well illustrated by the film. George C. Scott played the prosecutor. 

 Flash of Genius (2008).  Greg Kinnear stars as Robert Kearns, the independent scientist who took on Ford – and won.  He had developed the intermittent windshield wiper and demonstrated a working model to Ford engineers; soon thereafter, Ford claimed it was no longer interested in his invention and suddenly introduced the feature on its cars.  He smelled a rat, and sued.  His “ACLU” lawyer (played by Alan Alda) bailed on him when he refused to take a generous offer which nonetheless absolved Ford of any intellectual property theft.  On his own, he took the case to trial, pro se, acting as his own expert witness – and won.  Kearns had lived in my neighborhood (though not at the time this film takes place), and my brother and I used to play with one of his younger sons (not the one portrayed in the film).  My dad had told us about the story when we were kids.  Not only does it have substantial courtroom depiction, but it also gives some idea of the task Kearns had to deal with: it was a complex case, which would have been a challenge for a lawyer, much less a pro se party. 

 The Fountainhead (1949).  I mention it here because I don’t think this qualifies as a lawyer movie – especially since Roark represented himself.  The trial at the end is less a trial in its own right than an opportunity for Roark (Rand) to preach to an audience he would not normally have access to – and present his moral case.  This was regurgitated recently in “The Simpsons” by Maggie Simpson herself.