A Few Good Lines

It’s nearly quarter to 1AM and the boys are arguing in the other room about what late night game to play: Call of Duty or the Zombie game within Call of Duty. A four-player limit finds me the fifth wheel, and I bow out to play some Starcraft.  Kevin is sleeping behind me, having passed out hours earlier.  Every half-hour he mumbles incoherent curses in his sleep, a sign my roommate’s sleeping peaceful (the boy is never happy unless he’s not), rousing himself as Ryan begins his recital in the other room.  I do not know what prompts it, perhaps the excitement for digital battle, the click of electronic triggers, the tinkling of bullets on 3-D landscapes.  His voice begins low, gradually crescendo-ing into a rebel shout, a call to arms for humans against the inhuman, a love-letter to the battle-borne and bullet-ridden:

“Good evening,” he begins. ” In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation.”

His voice gets all gravelly here like a busted skateboard on asphalt.  

“We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!”"

He really shouts this next bit . . .   I swear the neighbors can hear him.  From the comfort of his armchair, Jesse, our neighbor, hoots encouragingly. 

“We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”

The scene is recited precisely, without flaw or error.  The audience, already half-way through a case of Miller Light — college seniors will drink alcohol-flavored bilge in a pinch; Miller is a new low, but Sean forgot his wallet — they cheer loudly, while Ryan bows and blows the digital brains from some immolated undead civilian.  These shouts of course wake Kevin . . .

“RYAN! SHUT UP!  I can hear you from here!  JEEZ . . .   Go to bed or SHUT UP!”  And just like that my brother Kevin has degenerated into the landlord, the old man who sleeps in the flat below yours, reminding you with a broom-handle on the floorboards when the party’s outstayed its welcome.  Not that my brothers or Jesse cared.  If they heard, their clamor only increased a decibel or two.

Ryan (now no longer sober) began his second resuscitation, from Mel Gibson’s Patriot:

“Their names and ranks?” he blubbers, doing his best pseudo-Nixon.

“They refuse to give me their names, but the ranks are nine lieutenants, five captains, three majors, and one very fat colonel who called me a… “cheeky fellow.”"

A few minutes pass.  Kevin begins to snore again.  My zerglingss enter into Terran territory and suddenly the silence is . . .

“DAMN that man!  Damn him, I say!”

. . . which I am fairly certain is also from The Patriot.  Silence lingers again until . . .

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a DAMN what you think you are entitled to.”

I was at a party several years back.  Dasad had succumbed to the lure of the couch and TV as the supply of Cheeze-it’s depleted, when we stumbled upon the last few seconds of The Princess Bride.  In the span of a few minutes all conversation ceased, slowly fading as THAT scene neared.  You know the one.

Anyway, it was like church, a moment of silence followed by a communal prayer.  All at once we began to recite together, one by one:

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.”

Over and over, we repeated the line, gradually growing faster and faster until the climatic ‘I want my father back you son-of-a-bitch!’

I’m not sure how religious of a man, I’ve become in the past few years.  Most of my church-going has become something of a habit borne of repetition rather than a conscious act, like brushing your teeth or buckling your seatbelt.  But in that moment I felt a shared connection to . . . Inigo Montoya?  God?  Humanity?  The spirit of awesome kickass stories?  Who knows?

“Did you order the Code Red?” Ryan screams, breaking the silence again.

“You’re DAMN right I did!” the boys shout back in chorus.  Kevin feels nothing but irritation at this last interruption.  He storms from the bedroom, rage flashing in his eyes.  I twist a nob on my keyboard, drowning out the cacophony of murder and bloodshed with the slurping hiss of digital alien insects.

It’s a little bit of everything.

“. . . its not really instruction.  That’s what most people forget.  They imagine I hurl lectures and books at kids brains and somehow the words get stuck inside.  For some — the bright ones maybe — the facts’ll attach themselves somehow, but mostly the kids will end up bruised and angry.”

I paused to take a sip of coffee, allowing the caffeine to infect my words, driving my passion forward like Ben Hur in a chariot.

“Good teachers are more akin to magicians or used car salesmen, only I’m sellin’ history and science, Napoleon and Einstein.  The trick is in the sleight of hand.  The kids know its work; how could they forget it?  But they have to want to be fooled: read Poe’s ‘Raven’ like Christopher Walken on LSD and they’ll remember the effects even if they forget who wrote it.”

“Isn’t that important?” Katherine smiled.

“Sure.  But that’s the thing.  They won’t.  You make a good enough show, stamp your voice on their gray matter, and they’ll remember everything.  Even if they forget, they’ll want to know!  That’s the great thing.  Little Molly will walk through the bookstore or library one day, high on Starbucks and late for their Ceramics class, and they’ll see the poetry section.  Instead of wrinkling their noses like every other bruised, besieged and well-educated child in America, she’ll skim through the pages.  Curious, not disgusted.  And that’s it.  That’s the goal.”

“Really?  But if she doesn’t know or remember meter, imagery, figurative language . . .”

“Worthless,” I stammer, nearly spitting now.  “Drivel.  Death and details.  We forget most of it anyway post-test and exam.  Even more dies in college and in the hunt for money, car and family.  No, the appreciation is the key.  The crux of all education.  That you can’t get relearn or review.  It’s like watchin’ Scooby-Doo when you’re thirty.  It’s only good if you remember the love you felt when you were five, sitting in your PJs Saturday morning, dripping and laughing corn flakes on the family sofa.  You lose appreciation, the respect for science, literature or math when they’re kids and . . . well, that’s it.  Gone.  Done.”

“What happens then?” Katherine asks, leaning against the conference table.  “Surely not all of them grow up as jaded and disillusioned as you suggest.”

“I was talking to my sister the other day about her homework.  Her midterms were approaching and the pressure showed on her face; the bouncing blood vessels on her forehead gave her the appearance of a dormant volcano.  I imagined her brain popping from her scalp and drowning itself in the bathtub.  Finally, she exploded and threw her book, notebook, pen, and a candlestick — just so it wasn’t left out, I suppose — onto the ground.  She shouted a few pout-laden platitudes on school and how stupid it all was.

“My mom did her best calm her. In the end, she told my sister that life’s full of stupid pointless stuff, that it doesn’t make sense and you have to simply suck it up and plow through the work.”

“Okay, true enough . . .”

“Except, she was speaking about literature.  She added that most of the writers were on drugs anyway and so didn’t mean anything.  Bree laughed and moved on.  I thought about arguing but reasoned that I had no case against the author in question.”

“Kerouac?”

“Hemingway.  I did some arguing later in private, but Mom was adamant.  Literature held no value to her.  Nothing I said, none of my arguments — competently argued no less — could sway her opinion.  Outside of learning literacy, literature itself was drivel to her, as useful as the warning labels on pillows.  That’s the danger, you see.  Indifference is a knife through the heart of what we do here.”

Small Steps

To infinity and beyond!

The final frontier.  As a kid, I’ve never acquired the obsession with space travel that so fascinated the prototypical ‘geeks’ of my generation.  Before high school, my friends and I began to specialize: the road to anime, the way of the superhero, the path of fantasy, the . . .  starport to sci-fi.  Most of us would explore other genres as well, adopting one another’s obsessions in time.  I introduced Dasad to Tolkien; he led me to comic shops, where I began collecting Batman; our friend, Lloyd, reveled in mecha anime, magical girls, Dragonball and Pokemon.  We all loved video games so finding common ground proved easy.

Still amid all the late movie marathons and gaming sessions, their interest in space and future tech never really stuck.  The nature of space and its prerequisite vacuum always seemed overwhelming and claustrophobic at the same time, like the paradox of a man trapped within infinity — or Marty always running out of time in Back to the Future.

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space. — Douglas Adams

Universal-ly Accepted

None of this architecture is ‘necessary,’ per se, serving no other purpose than to tantalize the eye and imagination, and just so, I love every detail. Who wouldn’t want a windmill spinning atop their house, or a clam-powered faucet?

Details are important.  Any fan of H.G. Wells’ science-fiction will inform you that ignoring the little things in life can prove fatal . . . you know, because all the aliens died in Wells’ novel War of the Worlds . . . because they never considered Earth’s micro-organisms . . . and because of this ‘tiny’ oversight of these microbes the space invaders ended up a ‘little’ dead . . . which is to say ‘very.’

Which brings me to my second point: subtlety.  Subtlety is also a very important quality, especially in writing.  However, in theme parks, the subtle touch is best left outside the gates, along with moderation and unapproved coolers.  In a well-designed theme park, the act of walking or waiting should prove as entertaining as the rides themselves, engaging the imagination as well as the senses.  At the risk of sounding like a dork, I enjoy the lure of another world, of the fantasy.  To quote John Hammond: “I’m not talking about rides.  Everyone has rides.”

Wage and War

Like a femme fatale, the curves here proved deadly.

The 3rd Annual Ice Cream Invitational.  Every summer in Disney, Rodney and Ryan compete with Shannon and ‘yours truly’ in a sacred triathlon that tests the very limits of our body, our heart, and — dare I say — our sanity, a contest fit for gladiators (American or otherwise).  The contest consisted of three rounds.  The first grueling challenge sets brother against brother on the miniature golf course, and then the fiery hell of the tennis court . . .

Wait, why are you rolling your eyes?  Seriously, whatever you THINK you know about miniature golf, forget it.  Disney’s Fantasia Fairways is a theme park asylum covered in undulating green felt, reminding you why men have loved and cursed the bloody game for centuries.  No cartoon castles litter the course.  The pathway to the hole rises and falls like waves on a storm-tossed sea so there’s no ‘trick’ or ‘perfect putt’ to secure your hole in one . . . just luck and the pity of God.  This was to be our battlefield — our Ragnarok, some may say days from now — and waiting for us at the end, a rich waffle cone, filled with soft-serve and seasoned with the blood and tears of our enemies.

Trip around the World

So, the boys and I sat down to watch Blade Runner last night: not the original theatrical release, the remastered director’s final cut with the unicorn and without the voice over — if you’ve ever seen the film you’ll know why it’s important to be specific. Sadly, Kevin and Shannon barely lasted through the first fifteen minutes, citing exhaustion and heavy eyelids as the reason. I can’t really blame them; the slow deliberate pacing of the film is not for everyone, particularly movie-goers in this post-Avengers world. Still the world that Scott drafted in the film delights me with its horrid beauty like a living breathing movie monster. If the boys could get past the pace, I think they’d find a wonderful enlightening experience.

What’s all this got to do with Disney and vacation?

Well, on Tuesday, we had stepped out into the rain to eat lunch at Epcot, which lies within walking distance of the Boardwalk Resort. Epcot unlike the other Disney parks is often ignored I think by the younger generations. It doesn’t possess the flumes, animals, and roller coasters of the more ‘fun’ parks, but offers a worthwhile experience if you’re willing to explore . . . and perhaps old enough to drink.  Just like Blade Runner.

This Little Job of Mine

The first day of our Disney vacation (as appose to our ‘road trip vacation,’ ‘St. Augustine vacation’ or ‘cabernet-induced vacation’) found Tropical Storm Debbie hovering over our resort like a large fly buzzing a particularly spacious picnic.  Other families may feel flummoxed by the gloomy weather, bolting themselves inside until the sun should emerge to chase away the gloom to some other, less entertaining state . . . like Ohio, but the Murphey clan does not shrink from natural calamities.  We simply bought a quiver of over-priced Disney umbrellas and trod to the local cinema . . . like men!