When the Law of the Land Is the Second Amendmant

I've long heard of this film, but I never knew what it was about (I think I always mistook it for 1966's run-for-your-life nail-biter, The Naked Prey). The description of The Naked Jungle on the Comcast grid:

 

"Charlton Heston plays a plantation owner threatened by soldier ants."

 

Here's the problem with Chuck: he's so obsessed with guns that, whatever the threatening situation, he deals with it using firearms, regardless of how ill-suited they may be. I wonder how that shotgun worked out for him against thousands of marauding ants? I assume the film ends with Chuck blowing his legs off as he tries to shoot the numerous ants crawling up him...eventually lying in his own gore, angrily lamenting his foolish faith in guns between wails of insufferable agony...

 

What the hell did those NRA nuts see in this dope anyway?

 

Furthermore, The Naked Jungle was released in 1954—how did they know Heston was gonna win the Oscar for Ben-Hur five years later? Hell, how did they know Ben-Hur was even gonna be made???

 

(For more on Charlton Heston and his gun fixation, see the Mount Drinkmore post, "Heston Peace,  Charlton," of April 11, 2008, located in the archive at left, or use keywords Charlton Heston, entertainment, film, or In Memoriam.)

 

(Image of The Naked Jungle movie poster copyright Paramount Pictures.)  

Wedge Would Give This Eatery the Edge

Last night, I was treated to dinner at Butcher and Singer, the swanky Steven Starr steakhouse at 15th and Walnut. As you can see under the salad selections, this establishment offers “The Wedge”—a large slice of iceberg lettuce drenched in a bacon-and-Bleu-cheese Russian dressing.

Now, maybe my proclivity for free-associative thinking was abetted by dining in a Steven Starr restaurant, but, upon first sight of it, I immediately conjured the idea of Wedge, the Rebel Alliance pilot who flew alongside Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and played a key role in all three films of the first trilogy, emerging from the kitchen in full pilot uniform and serving me The Wedge while regaling me with priceless anecdotes from the set and personal war stories from the Star Wars universe.

After all, the actor who portrayed Wedge, Denis Lawson, also played the ubiquitous Gordon Urquhart, the hotelier, chartered accountant, and community negotiator who also waited tables in his MacAskill Arms dining room, in one of my very favorite films, Local Hero. Expert in both roles, it would be no stretch to have the aproned innkeeper who served meals to his guests do so for me while dressed instead as the orange-jumpsuited fighter ace who helped send both Death Stars to their doom.       

And as Wedge placed The Wedge in front of me, I think it would go a little something…like this:

“Look at the size of that thing!” I marvel at the large, ludicrously priced wedge of lettuce. Appreciating my homage to his most famous line of dialogue, Wedge then pours me a 42-year-old scotch like the one Urquhart serves up in Local Hero.

“Slàinte,” he toasts me.

“Good shooting, Wedge,” I commend his expert pouring ability before taking a swig.

“I can’t stay with you,” Wedge confesses, needing to return to the kitchen.

“Get back there, Wedge. You can’t do anymore good out here,” I urge gratefully.

“Sorry,” Wedge laments in his Corellia-by-way-of-Furness accent, peeling off toward the kitchen. And as I dig into my ridiculously, just insanely overpriced chunk of iceberg lettuce with a little dressing drizzled on it, I am wholly satisfied with the wait service from the best damn pilot the Alliance ever had. 

(Image of Butcher and Singer menu copyright Steven Starr Restaurants; image from Star Wars copyright Lucasfilm; image from Local Hero copyright Warner Brothers.)

Sometimes You'd Better Not Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Cheers was the sitcom of the 1980s. Combining relatable and lovable characters with witty punch lines, the Boston bar–based show reached the top ten in ratings for eight of its eleven seasons and remains one of the most beloved comedies in the annals of television.

Perhaps just as remembered as the characters themselves is Cheers’ opening credits, with its ultra-catchy “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” theme song and colorized archival photos of barflies who strongly resembled their onscreen counterparts.

Many viewers wondered about what the newspaper headline WE WIN! bragged. (The elderly bartender proudly holding up the paper is not intended to represent George Wendt’s character, Norm, whose counterpart is shown seconds before this; Wendt’s name merely remains onscreen as this implicit nod to the deceased Ernie “Coach” Pantusso concludes the opening credits.)

Looking closer at the contents of this newspaper, we can see that below the primary headline, on the right, it reads “As Cards Lose to Bu...”

This indicates that this famous local photo dates from the Boston Braves clinching the 1948 National League pennant. As the second-place St. Louis Cardinals lost, 2-1, to the Pittsburgh Pirates (the “Bu...cs”) on September 29, Boston simultaneously defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3, concluding a torrid 18-6 September for the Braves and putting Boston up by 6 games. With only 5 games remaining for the Cardinals, the Braves had claimed their first pennant since 1914.

What doesn’t ring true in the context of the sitcom is that, by the time Cheers premiered in 1982, the Boston Braves were but a dim memory in Bostonian minds, having abandoned Beantown for Milwaukee after the 1952 season. Thus, the Braves hadn’t been part of Boston culture for three decades. Add to that the fact that Boston was, even during the Braves’ few glory years, undeniably a Red Sox town—with ex–Red Sox reliever Sam Malone giving the bar added Sox cachet—and the use of this photo seems deceptive.

Sure, Bostonians were rightfully proud of their Braves heading to the World Series—but those folks were dead or infirmed by the time Cheers was “open for business.”

Let’s be frank about that proud and pugilistically inclined city: Had a patron come into Cheers and openly rooted for the Atlanta Braves because he or she had remained a diehard Braves supporter from their days in Boston, those Cheers regulars would have beaten that fan with a ferocity that would have made The Depahted look like The Sound of Music.

Not to single out Bostonians, though—had an Oakland A’s supporter showed his true colors in Paddy’s Pub, you can be sure that Sweet Dee and the rest of the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia gang would have gone Smokin’ Joe Frazier on his traitorous ass.

(Images of Cheers credits copyright NBC.)

Papillon's Story Is Finally Complete and Finished

Whenever the South American nation of Guiana is mentioned, most, if not all of us, think of the Steve McQueen–Dustin Hoffman film, Papillon. After all, this classic prison tale—set in the penal colony of French Guiana and its offshore solitary-confinement counterpart, Devil’s Island—put Guiana on the populace’s proverbial map.

So it should be no surprise that when I received an e-mail today mentioning a Guyanese man in a mildly amusing anecdote, I reflexively thought of this great film. Now, the e-mail is almost certainly a fabrication—I could find no verification of it on the Internet. Still, I couldn’t help but think that this anecdote should have constituted the narration at the end of Papillon, rather than the brief explanation of the infamous French prisoner’s ultimate fate and the destiny of the penal colony.*

* Although I believe that this colorful anecdote should have been spoken—like the film’s actual postscript—rather than shown, I have included it below as text because I can't afford to pay the original narrator to call each one of you and speak it.

Frankly, I’m surprised some innocuous yarn wasn’t used as the film’s postscript, considering how ardently Hollywood demands a happy ending. After all, what could provide a happier ending than a slightly charming, somewhat-clichéd slice of life about the trials of domesticity to which many of us not incarcerated in a pestilential jungle hellhole can relate?†

† Sure, Papillon “made it to freedom,” but he made it several months after the end of World War II—too late to do his duty for France by surrendering to the Germans…certainly a sadder ending to the film than the brief, wry smile provided by this anecdote.

I fully expect the contents of this e-mail to replace the film’s original postscript when Papillon is inevitably re-released in 2023 for its golden anniversary.

(Images fromPapillon copyright Allied Artists.)

Creepy Rabbit...Your Tricks Better Not Be for Kids!

In preparing my immediately previous post (“Good at Blocks…But Still a Blockhead?” of September 30), I Google-Imaged “Tetris gif” in hopes of finding a suitable animated GIF of a Tetris game in progress to demonstrate the game’s object. Unfortunately, no such GIF was available through Google Images.

However, I did stumble upon this bizarre and disturbing GIF about three-quarters of the way down the page…

Now, I don’t know the source of this psychotic video clip, nor can I ascertain its meaning. And I sure don’t know what the hell it has to do with Tetris. Some things just defy deconstruction…

Yet I must admit, for all of its creepiness, this GIF borders on dangerously hypnotic. Why is the rabbit in a human bathroom? Why is the rabbit inviting you into the stall? Is it sexual? We don’t even know the rabbit’s gender. Rabbits are well-known for their timidity, so why the change of heart? Is there any sociopolitical or religious meaning behind its invitation? Is there enough paper for both of you? Is this the inevitable backfire of the hated pay-toilet’s demise? (‘Cause, let’s face it, those huge, inflexible paws ain’t manipulating a dime into the slot…)

Too many unanswered—and perhaps unanswerable—questions. Probably best left that way. All I really know is that Tetris is now ruined for me. Whenever I get into a habit of playing Tetris for extended periods, I experience what is called the “Tetris effect,” in that, for many minutes after closing my eyes while awaiting sleep, images of the game unstoppably and maddeningly continue vividly in my mind as if I were still in front of the computer screen.

And now I fear that this awful and completely insane image will exert the same effect on my brain. I urge you, Dear Reader, to move on to another Mount Drinkmore post right now, so that you do not find yourself plagued by the “Creepy Rabbit effect”—which will surely drive you to madness and cause you to pathologically frequent public restrooms for reasons you don’t quite understand…

(For more on the destructive power of rabbits, see the Mount Drinkmore post, “Knowing: The Rabbits Are Coming, Doomsday, Doomsday!” of August 20, 2012, located in the archive at left, or use keywords film or nature.) 

Good at Blocks...But Still a Blockhead?

I’m good—I mean really good—at Tetris, that falling-puzzle-piece game that challenges quick-thinking spatial reasoning and hand-eye coordination. I routinely can make high-level games last for twenty minutes or longer, racking up 200 to 300 lines before “topping out.”

In fact, on September 26, I established a personal record of 541 lines, utilizing lightning-fast mental processing and dexterity that I somehow maintained for more than half an hour through numerous ultra-close calls. Yesterday, I nearly bettered it with a game of 538 lines.

But, as just happened a few minutes ago, I always encounter inexplicable difficulty in properly placing shoes in a shoe box—I keep turning the second shoe around and over and backward until it fits into the shoe box in proper opposition to the first shoe. Despite my proficiency at Tetris, this most basic of spatial challenges often takes me up to half a minute to solve. And after finally placing the shoes properly into the box, I’m forced to realize that even though I’m very talented at a video game, I’m a borderline failure at putting this ability to practical use.

Like Tetris, I used to be an ace at that old, submarine-periscope arcade game, Sea Wolf. But perhaps the hard truth is that, under combat conditions, I don’t possess the right stuff to sink an enemy warship. All those quarters wasted thinking I’d be a cinch to win the Navy Cross if I enlisted when I came of age. No wonder Somali pirates roam the Indian Ocean at will—I would’ve washed out of Navy Officer Candidate School and probably spent my hitch in the brig. No wonder my dress shoes forever lay around on closet floors—I’m too intimidated by my mental incapacity to put them back in their box.

Maybe I’m just a complete moron who happens to be an idiot savant at Tetris.

Yeah, yeah, two seconds to green z-shape, yeah…

In 1939, Poland Had the Worst Seat in the House; in 2013...

On this, the 74th anniversary of the start of World War II, it seems fitting to post this photo, which has been making the rounds on the Internet this year.

Especially on this day, the poor guy squeezed between these two behemoths is all too reminiscent of Poland trapped between Germany, on his left, and the Soviet Union, on his right. Like Poland, he is powerless to defend himself and will be crushed long before the game is over.

Soon after Germany's blitzkrieg, which commenced on September 1, 1939, the Soviet Union, having previously signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, invaded from the east...effectively obliterating Poland as a sovereign nation.

Both England and France, having pledged to defend Poland at all costs, then declared war on Germany. Yet, like the two spectators sitting disinterestedly in the front row, they did virtually nothing to aid their besieged and very uncomfortable ally.

(The people in the row to the rear ably represent Holland [as evidenced by the man's orange shirt] and the other Low Countries, all of which were soon to feel the murderous weight of Germany when the woman on the left leaned back in her seat.)

And speaking of France and her role in the Second World War, no photo could be more appropriate than this one...