Trial

 It could have been the setting. 

Leaning back in the padded chair, pillow behind my head, and a needle stuck into each arm so as to immobilize me for just over two hours, this seemed like the optimal position in which to subject myself to Nuremberg. The 2025 retelling of the events of 1945 in post-war Germany was something that I had initially avoided going to my local cinema to endure. Hadn't we just decided that Nazis were bad and deserved to be punished? 

At that time, there were more than a few winks to be shared about how "history repeats itself" all while watching history repeat itself. But this couldn't really be. It's one thing to allude to fascism. It's another to make one to one correspondence to the Second Trumpreich to the Third Reich. 

Yet, as I lay there, strapped to that comfy chair with my blood making its slow progress from one arm through the platelet stripping machine back into my other arm, I bore witness to the trial of Hermann Goring, portrayed by Russell Crowe. I watched U.S. Army psychiatrist Rami Malek, portrayed by Freddie Mercury, work to understand and then reveal the hidden weaknesses of Hitler's second in command. 

Spoiler alert: It turns out that the best way to get inside this slab of a Reichsmarshall was to appeal to his vanity. It seems that he, along with a great many of your big Nazis, were narcissists. Far more concerned with their places in history and on the pecking order to the head pecker than actually solving the problems of their country. At one point, the prosecution that has put Hermann and his goons on trial lists the countries and territories invaded by Nazis in their insistence that they had been their all along. Like Putin with Ukraine. Like the convicted felon and his Sharpie. 

As I watched history play out in front of me, with my bleeding under the strict observation of a medical professional, I began to wonder why I hadn't selected a binge of Gabby's Dollhouse instead of this two and a half hour reminder of just how awful human beings have been and apparently still can be. 

When it was all over, and Goring avoided the hangman's noose by ingesting cyanide, the psychiatrist, now discharged returns to America, where he writes a book and becomes an alcoholic and spends the rest of his life warning about the potential resurgence of a Nazi regime before he commits suicide. By cyanide poisoning. 

The medical professional pulled out the needles and put band-aids on my arms. I surrendered my headphones and went back out into the world, less a few billion platelets. And happy to have my reality grounded once again in what could be. 

Is There Really Any Such Thing As Permanent Ink?

 I have, in the past, written in this space about one Amerigo Vespucci. If that name doesn't immediately tickle your memory center, I remind you that we are living in the United States of Amerigo because some saucy wanderer named Christopher Columbus chose to scribble his buddy Amerigo's name on a map when he figured he had found India. It would have taken an even bigger leap of ego to declare the continent into which he ran his ships Christophia, or some such idiocy. 

At least that sort of idiocy was connected with an arduous voyage across the Atlantic at a time when most of the planet believed that they lived on a flat plane upon which the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria might have fallen off into the abyss. Nope. Not this time. The convicted felon who seems to have a spokesperson role with Sharpie pens made an Executive Order in which he declared the name of Lake Ontario would be "forever" changed to "Lake America." 

Even though this body of water has been recognized for four hundred years by the Wendat name Ontario. No other country or cartographers outside the "united" states is compelled by this order to make any changes. This is just the adjudicated rapist's method of projecting his idiotic spasm of frustration with our neighbors to the north regarding trade negotiations. You know: Canada. The land mass he proposes should become our fifty-first state. 

This echoes his tantrum of a year and a half ago when on a whim he chose to order executively that The Gulf of Mexico be hereby named "The Gulf of Mexico." This ignored five hundred years of precedence and was accomplished not by any diplomatic or military means. It was done primarily for show, and like Lake Ontario, no one outside of "official US databases" is required to go along with this charade. It's another in a series of extremely white trash attempts by the Second Trumpreich to deny the rest of the world in which we all live. 

History is written by the victors, according to folks like Winston Churchill who happened to be the winner of a war. The former game show host and pedophile in the ruins of the White House has on little if anything except two contested elections, and most certainly not the war he declared in order to take people's minds off the fact that he was best friends with the most notorious pedophile in history. He hates to lose. Witness the tarp that still hangs in front of one of his most ridiculous renaming efforts on the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts. 

Make no mistake. This is not a winner. This is not any sort of adventurer. This is a man grasping, not at straws, but a Sharpie. 

Not Just A Sweet Transvestite

 Confession time: I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater once. 

Once. 

I had friends and acquaintances in high school who made a weekly pilgrimage to the midnight showings at the UA Regency theater just off the Pearl Street Mall. They dressed up. They recited the lines. They carried in newspapers and toilet paper and squirt guns. Not unlike the way I absorbed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by listening to my brothers prattle on endlessly about them, I gained a rather thorough connection to all that went on during those late-night viewings from my friends. 

It was one of those friends who eventually became my roommate for several years who had not only participated in the Rocky shenanigans, but had taken note of one Tim Curry, who played Doctor Frank-N-Furter, having originated the role on stage back in jolly old England. And not just any brief connection, but went out and purchased the solo albums of Mister Curry. When I lived with him, I was able to become familiar with the "hits" he produced during his recording career. 

I Do The Rock. 

Working On My Tan.

Simplicity. 

And many more. 

But a world that already had a Freddie Mercury really needed a Tim Curry to be an actor. For me, most notably, he was the original Pennywise the Clown. And the butler in Clue. Mister Curry more than held his own on a pirate ship crewed by Muppets. 

And that voice. He made the noises of many an animated character, primarily villains. Like Hexxus, the toxic pollution spirit in Ferngully. Not quite so evil, but more confused was the pater familias of the Thornberry clan, Nigel. 

Now all those sounds have been silenced, but we can linger on their echoes, thanks to recordings and memories of fifty years ago, when there was a light - over at the Frankenstein place. Tim Curry stomped and pranced and made his way devilishly across the Terra. 

He will be missed.

Aloha, Tim. 

Stasis

 In Stand By Me, one of the young searchers makes note of a TV program that was popular back when the movie was set: "Wagon Train's a really cool show, but did you notice they never get anywhere? They just keep wagon training." This musing, posed by Will Wheaton in the role of Gordie, tends to be obscured by the very vehement discussion that is taking place around the same time between Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell pondering whether Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman. 

But it was Gordie's observation that came to me as I watched an episode of HBO's Stuart Fails To Save The Universe. For those of you who may not have fallen under the spell of episodic television as it now occurs in limited chunks on streaming services, this is a spin-off of the now settled Big Bang Theory. In this "new" series, a phalanx of secondary characters from the old show are put into a situation for comedy that involves a machine that allows them to hop from one reality to another. This very literal plot device has them moving from one set of circumstances to another, each one conveniently tailored to fit the half-hour format. Once I got to the fourth episode with my wife, I began to wonder exactly what the point was. They just kept wagon training. 

Sadly enough for me, this troublesome bit of ennui surrounding television does not exist solely in my relationship to Stuart and his dimension-tripping pals. I feel it more and more as I watch any show that pretends to prolong the contractual obligations to the network upon which it appears. Sitcoms by their very nature are stuck with a group of players whose predicaments tend to torment them for twenty-four minutes only to be resolved just before that last commercial break. This format is periodically skewed by a "special two-part episode," not to be confused with "a very special episode," which tends to be less about extending a story but instead providing a thoughtful examination of a serious social problem with special guest Henry Winkler. 

Shortly after that, the denizens of that TV neighborhood will get right back to wagon training. 

I have considered what might have happened if the castaways on Gilligan's Island had ever really been rescued. What sort of post-traumatic syndrome would await those seven victims of a shipwreck once they were returned to the relative comfort and safety of "the mainland?" My guess is that they would eventually have found a way to retreat back to the isolation and anonymity of that deserted island. After fifteen years of living off of coconuts and pineapple, I suspect that their intestines might explode upon ingesting their first cheeseburger after a decade and a half. 

I'm guessing they would have been better off if they had just kept wagon training. 

Over The Top

 Dolly Parton didn't pass away. 

She ascended. 

Singer. Songwriter. Movie Star. Queen of Country. Philanthropist. Spokesperson for anyone who needed a voice. 

And what a voice it was. 

When I was in high school, I didn't get it. She showed up in my world as too much. 

But that was the thing. She was too much. That was her thing. When the world needed help, she pitched in. She didn't care if speaking out on the plight of HIV/AIDS patients back in the eighties and nineties might rock the traditionally conservative boat of country music. When the COVID epidemic struck, she donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University to fund vaccine research. Her Imagination Library has gifted more than three hundred million books to kids who might not have one otherwise. 

Oh, and she was funny. She's the one who said, "Yes, I support gay marriage. They have every right to be as miserable as straight people." And she was always willing to point that Tennessee twang on herself: "You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!"

It took a while for me to understand that this was not just a cartoon but a diamond disguised as a rhinestone. The Mayor of New York City posted this tribute: "This is truly heartbreaking. Dolly Parton was an extraordinary person and an irreplaceable champion of the working class. We are a better country because of her."

Did I mention she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

A very good friend of mine and constant reader texted me to say the words that would necessarily come at the end of this post: She stomped on the Terra. In high heels and a denim jumpsuit with a wig that weighed as much as a German Shepard. With a song in her heart and a smile on her face. Dolly made us all better by being in this world, and it will be just a little darker each day without her in it.

Too much? How about not enough?

Dissonance

 So, among the enemies of our Great Nation that the Second Trumpreich is interested in bringing to their collective knees is the Islamic Republic of Iran and (checks notes) Canada. 

Yes. By now you are probably fully aware of our interest in bringing our neighbors to the north to heel. While we are busy figuring out how to blow up more of Iran without reloading, the not-so-United States is picking a fight with The Great White North. Since we have spent our munitions stockpile on "obliterating" Iran's navy, air force and girls schools, the Orange Worst is now attempting to induce surrender by announcing an "economic D-Day" in hopes of bringing these villains to the bargaining table in hopes that they might accept our terms of surrender once and for all. Our surrender. 

Meanwhile, when negotiations broke down after the minions of the convicted felon introduced last-minute demands concerning the auto sector, third-party trade deals, and cultural protections, leading the U.S. to impose fifty percent tariffs on roughly twenty billion dollars of Canadian goods. 

Just to break in here: One of the participants in the real D-Day invasion of Normandy back on June 6, 1944 was (checks notes) Canada. According to historical records, the third Canadian Infantry Division fought through heavy German defenses, securing their objectives and pushing deeper inland than any other Allied force that day. 

This might come as a shock to the star of Road Rules Challenge and current Secretary of Transportation Sean "The Duff" Duffy. The Duff let fly with this assessment of Canada:  "It's a country that doesn't have a military." Then he went in an even more interesting direction, "they have record-high euthanasia rates." Summing up, the Duff proclaimed, "And so to think that they're gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the U.S., I think it's foolish on their part."

Folks from above the border were quick to point out, "That non existent military that patrolled your skies on 9/11 and were one of the 1st nations to join you in Afghanistan." 

This kind of playing fast and loose with reality is nothing new. For several months now the "obliterated" armed forces of Iran have made it difficult to support claims by the Second Trumpreich that the Strait of Hormuz is now "controlled" by (checks notes) the United States. 

Meanwhile the U.S. deficit continues to balloon and our international standing shrinks. While the rapist in chief watches Indy cars race in circles around our nation's capital. In the writing business, we call this "an apt metaphor." 

Perchance To Dream

 I have a very visceral memory of carrying my newborn son around the house in the middle of the night when he could not, would not, go to sleep. I showed him the darkness in every corner. We looked out the windows and I told him that all those people out there were asleep because it was time to be asleep. We sometimes went out in the back yard where I showed him that even the birds had closed their eyes to get some rest before a new day began. 

All of this was mostly performative since what I was truly after was a few extra hours of shuteye for myself. The sun would be coming up soon and I had no vested interest in greeting it. In the big picture, it wasn't long before he was sleeping through the night, and not long after that he became a special project to wake up when it was time to face the world of middle school. 

It was during this time of transition that my own sleep schedule started slipping back as my morning responsibilities at school began to require earlier rising. As days grew shorter, I began to need a light on my bike to find my way depending on how much daylight was being saved. This has necessitated me climbing into bed shortly after the sun has gone down in order to find that elusive and somewhat arbitrary eight hours. 

The thought of "getting enough sleep" seems like something that I can aspire to once I have actually become a retired person. Now that my son is all grown up and discovering his own circadian rhythms I try not to let on that since I am more than twice his age and I have yet to unlock the secret to "a good night's sleep," I am just pleased as punch to face the day feeling somewhat refreshed. 

It pains me just a little when I consider that the guy who once sang a song called "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," is no longer among the living. 

I can always take a little walk into the back yard to listen to those snoring birds.