A Tale of Two Warehouses

Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--I was stranded by the schedule of a friend with a car in a place with virtually nothing to recommend it apart from the fact that it got plenty of sun and seemed to have the necessary amount of oxygen to sustain life. Having nothing better to do, I wandered in to the only building in the vicinity. I was motivated by the same kind of perverse fascination that leads one to kick over a rotten log--I'd never been inside a Walmart Supercenter before, and I'd heard such horror stories.



My reaction was not what I expected. I wasn't appalled or amused. Instead, after about 10 minutes, I realized, with dismay, that I was clearly sliding into another depressive episode--that hopeless, grim anxiety began to descend upon me with a decisive weight, and I knew I was in for a rough day, week, month--who knew how long? Unhappy (as one might expect), I walked out quickly, deciding that I would let the sun shine on my face and at least get some Vitamin D in my system.



And five minutes after leaving the place, I was no longer feeling depressed.



Curious, I went back in, armed with the expectation of the experimental. And sure enough, about 10 minutes later, the depressive feelings returned. Knowing now that they were probably environmental, I suppressed them and stayed and tried to puzzle out my reaction to this place.



It didn't take long to interpret. I had been inside a massive (no, make that massive--the italics really are necessary, given the subject) open space, filled semi-literally to the rafters with puchaseable items, all of them at rock-bottom prices. And I hadn't seen a single thing that I'd even consider buying. Not even the least little bit did I want any of it.



I saw junk food--too much of it--and soda--again, too much of it--and bathroom accessories and lawn furniture and decorative items that I couldn't imagine looking tasteful in any setting. I saw lotions and hair-dye and toys that were nothing but souvenirs from the latest movie. I saw music made by artists who had to be studio-sweetened beyond recognition, and DVD collections of terrible mid-70s sitcoms. I saw clothes designed to catch the attention, but not to please it. I saw dozens of TVs with nothing on them worth watching. I saw rugs in patterns that distracted the eye unpleasantly. I saw so many things made of that shiny plastic that they use to make beach balls, that leaves its smell and a kind of after-touch of slickness on one's skin. And none of it--but none of it, was something that could be described as "necessary." It was all just so profoundly, overwhelmingly available that unless you really looked closely, or stood far back, you wouldn't notice that none of it was remotely appealing.



And yes, I saw the people shopping. And yes, they were fat. All of them--even and especially their many children. And when they moved, I thought of the scene in Dawn of the Dead where the zombies return to the mall where they spent so much time in life, unable even in death to break the habits of shuffling from store to store.



I don't mean to be a snob--and I don't think that in this instance, I'm being one. What I was seeing was something that actually made me think that the goddamned hippies who fulminate against American consumerism might actually have a point, and if there's anything I hate, it's conceding the validity of the opinions of the fuzzy-minded left. What I saw in that store was the fall of Rome--the point at which we as a nation have moved beyond satiety to the point at which there is no new thing under the sun, and all we can do is purchase more of what we already have, or eat more after our stomachs tell us we're full. It was, in short, an exercise in the nihilism that comes when studying the long view of history.

But--

Then something else happened, and it enables me to take a step further back and maybe not end on quite so sour a note.

A few months later, I went to a Costco.

And far from being depressed, I was giddy. Yes, again there was too much of everything, at rock bottom prices. Yes, the TVs still had nothing on them. And yes, many--though not nearly as many--of the people there were very, very fat. But somehow there was a briskness to it all, a lack of pretence and a winning sense that we were here for things we actually needed--that the food here was generally not junk, but simply large portions of staples. (Well, and condiments. But for Americans, condiments are a staple. It's a cultural quirk I've made my peace with.) The latest books were available, but also good editions of an eclectic mix of classics. The children's section focused on educational DVDs and software. There was a sense, in the men and women who were handing out samples, that the idea of this place was an attempt at quality, and not just quantity. We were offered fish as well as frozen pizza, fruit juice as well as spinach dip. The key difference with WalMart was the sense that we were being offered variety not just of product but of quality; yes, we could buy cheap, but we could also buy relatively dear, and get good value all the same. Wine and fresh bread, cheeses from all corners of the globe--it was a marketplace in the oldest sense of the word.

It was, in short, a vision of the success of America--a place where the openness of our society, the welcoming attitude to other places and people enable us to reap the benefits of their best, rather than just their cheapest. Where the product was more important than the brand. And while it was, in a sense, only a vision--after all, Costco sells a lot of the same stuff as WalMart--the difference between them isn't all that stark--it was nevertheless a sense of what was right about our desire and ability to lead pleasurable lives without crippling ourselves through work or debt to do so.

So maybe Rome will fall. But I'm not so sure that's it's time, just yet. Remember that the clash between Athens and Sparta should have been completely one-sided--Sparta's society was devoted entirely to the warrior ethos, while Athens was devoted to commerce and art. It should have been the jocks kicking the asses of the drama club. But against all logic, Athens not only held its own, but prevailed. (Temporarily. Then they engaged in an unprovoked war of imperial expansion and--OK, I'm getting depressed again.) Point is, we may be Athens as well as Rome. And our time may not yet be here. Just visit Costco, and you'll see.

Plus which, they have Cuisinarts on sale for, like, less than $75! I mean: dude!

Death of the Script

There have been, for about six or seven years now (I know, I'm ever-so-cutting-edge), rumblings in the Cultural Commentary Community about the end of scripted television. Ever since Survivor took to the airwaves and showed the world that Reality TV was ready for prime-time (ready to make the leap from the smaller audiences of Cops and The Real World, in short), folks've been bitching about how, given the low cost and high ratings of such shows, scripted television was a dinosaur, a dodo, a Yangtze river dolphin (too soon on that last one?) And while reports of the death of S.T. may be greatly exaggerated (gotta go for that Twain reference), there is no doubt an element of truth therein. True, there've been backlashes--oh, how we all remember the gorgeous conflagration that ensued as a result of Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire?--but even as one game show (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?--did anyone ever get that that was a Cole Porter reference?) gives way to another (Deal or No Deal) and one 'contest' show segues into the next (The Apprentice becoming Project Runway and/or Top Chef), we're seeing a continual feed of such stuff gobbling up more and more airtime, to the apparent delight of viewers--Dancing With The Stars has got 'em glued to their seats, folks, despite the fact that there are two things wrong with that title, and "With" and "The" don't count.

So why the decline of S.T.? Is it just cost, or the fact that, more recently, the writers' strike forced networks to devote even more time to R.T.? Perhaps.

But it could be that S.T. sucks, and that it has sucked more and more over the past decade.

Allow me to explain--a 'tip-of-the-iceberg' moment of epiphany occurred to me while watching Mad Men the other night. Now I adore Mad Men, but there's been something a bit 'off' about that show for me--as good as it is, I couldn't quite lose myself in it--there was something distant, something off-putting, and suddenly in the middle of the show, one of the characters makes a reference to The Twilight Zone. And I got it--Mad Men is a show that tries to be smart. That is produced by men and women who self-consciously are being "intelligent." And while it and they often--even usually--succeed, the effort shows. But think now about the brilliance of The Twilight Zone; the difference between the two shows is clear: Mad Men tries to be smart, and often is--The Twilight Zone is just smart. No effort, no self-consciousness, no "bringing to television what it and the audience need"--it's just written by smart people (Rod Serling might have to go on a relatively short list of the 20th-century's creative geniuses for what he accomplished in the infant medium of television) who instinctive assume that smart people will watch and get it.

Now think about all the "good" television you've watched in your life. The Sopranos. House. We could go way back and talk about Hill Street Blues and Cheers. And what do they all have in common? Effort. Obvious, patent, can't-miss-it-once-you-realize-it's-there effort. Self-consciousness is the death of creativity. It's the death of engagement, of emotional investment, of catharsis. It's the death of inspiration, in short, and the more and more we go on into the new millennium, the more it becomes apparent that trying to be smart gives a show a very short shelf-life. Dramas care more about being "important" and "groundbreaking" than about being competently, cleanly written. Comedies care more about being "clever" than actually, you know, funny. Television hasn't gotten dumber, folks--it's gotten desperate. Smart people have become too aware of what they're doing, and now, like people who think about breathing, and walking, they can't do it naturally. Watch S.T., folks--pick a show, any show, and I bet you my lunch money* you'll see pretty soon how labored it is. How the effort shows.

We're seeing them sweat. And that's the point at which disenchantment sets in.

And I'm sorry to say that if history is anything to go by, this loss is irreversible.

Again, I open the floor to those who wish to offer shows that do not show such strain. But I'm dubious...

*As I do not eat lunch, this is an extremely safe bet for me.

A Very Short List Indeed

I've been puzzling over it, and I've come to the conclusion that women are much better suited to movie-going than men. While it's true that certain movies are indeed "guy" movies, and that no woman will ever know or understand the true joy of watching Die Hard (sorry, ladies, but you really need a Y-chromosome to really get that movie; also true of The Godfather, Animal House, and anything starring Clint Eastwood--with the exception of Paint Your Wagon--that you can have--), I think that movies are generally emotional experiences, designed to produce not thought or reflection, but catharsis. Which means, more often than not, crying. And men don't get to cry. We just don't. It's a stereotype because it's true, folks. A woman in tears is an object of sympathy and offered solace. A man in tears is an object of avoidance and derision. (The only men who apparently feel free to weep are, unsurprisingly, very 'out' homosexuals, and I wonder if it's that kind of behavior, rather than their bedroom shenanigans, that freaks out straight men so much.) Why this taboo exists is self-evident enough to those who pay attention to Darwin, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others of that ilk. (See also: Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, and Raymond Chandler. Philip Marlowe does not cry.) So women get to cry at movies, and men don't. Simple enough, and I seem to be reinventing the wheel here.



Except--



There are movies where men not only get to cry--they're supposed to. Where tears are utterly and completely required. Where one steps through the looking glass into a world where a man who doesn't cry is mocked and shunned. Let's take a look, shall we?



Brian's Song. Pretty much the Rosetta Stone of "You Are A Man And You Will Cry" movies. It retains all of its power to turn die-hard, tough-as-nails, spitting, swearing, beer-drinking, bar-fighting he-men into blubbering piles of sentiment so hapless that their pet dogs lose all respect for them. Watch this: "It's fourth and eight, and they won't let me punt." Every man who's seen this movie is now tearing up, and trying poorly to hide the fact. Poke him in the back and make fun of him, and watch him get angry and defensive. Something about the A.E. Houseman-esque athelete dying young manages to reach into our guts and twist 'em sharply.



And for many years, really, Brian's Song was it. You could cry at that, but not at anything else. Why? Well, first, because men can't cry at anything happy in a movie. Women can cry at the end of, say, Pride & Prejudice when Darcy finally breaks down and tells Elizabeth he still loves her. And men will turn to their snivelling dates and ask, "Why are you crying? It's good that this just happened!" So even moments when you'd think it'd be OK to cry--like when Rick decides he'd rather stay and fight the good fight rather than wheedling Ilsa into staying, you don't cry, because he's being a man about it. Which is a good thing. No crying. Ratso Rizzo dying on the bus? No crying. No, he didn't make it to Florida, but he died in hope. No crying. Maybe--maybe you could cry at Old Yeller getting whacked. A little. But because the kid himself volunteered to do it, you knew he was just nutting up and taking the final step into manhood. So not really able to cry openly, even there.

And then something remarkable happened to my generation. Field of Dreams. And I'll never forget the moment when, on the weekend after it opened, a few of my manlier friends and I were gathered for a smoke-and-joke and somebody mentioned that he'd seen the movie, and we all acknowledged that we'd seen it too--and then the bravest one of us (not I) said: "I don't know--something about that ending--something about a guy getting to play catch with his dad--I don't know what happened, but..." And he started to tear up. And normally that would've been the point at which we tar-and-feathered him. Only no. Because we all met each other's eyes, and just said variations on "Yeah...yeah, it was really...Yeah." Inarticulate, but dude, we'd wept--all of us, and it was OK that we had.

So I'm pondering about these two movies--the only two I can think of that men can cry at--both are about death, both are about the loss of a loved one, both are about the loss of a male loved one. And both are framed by the "manly" ethos of sports. Is it the athletics that make them permissably weepable? Perhaps. But I think it's more to do with the one kind of love that men are allowed to be sappy about--the love that we admit to when we're drunk and it's last call, and we swing our arms over the neck of the guy sitting next to us--"You and me, man--you and me." It's that dumb, instinctive passion that dull-witted writers call "bonding," but which is something far less structured, far more atavistic. It's not friendship--it's not brotherhood. It's love--the kind of love that Plato insisted could only exist between members of the same sex, who could genuinely understand each other on that primal, "I occupy the same biological structure as you." It's a love that we never talk about, or much think about. And it's something that matters more to us than--sorry, ladies--virtually the women in our lives. And so we instinctively know that when we weep at these movies, we're admitting to a secret that only we share--that love, and how much it means to us.

Something like that. It's late and I'm still tired from the move, and I still don't have furniture so my legs are cramping.

But something like that. Brian Piccolo dies, and too soon. A father returns from the grave in a form that his son can openly love. The connection is there.

I'm sincerely wracking my brains for other movies it's OK to cry at. Any help out there? I want to develop this theory further, as it seems to be a key to an important aspect of the male psyche...

New Beginnings

This morning finds me waking up in a new city, anticipating a new job, and thinking much about this blog I've been neglecting so terribly. It strikes me that I perhaps ought to either reinvest myself in it a bit, or else quit altogether. Since quitting seems both easy and comfortable, it's clearly the wrong choice--one should pursue challenges, always, especially those that require exercise and discipline.

But I'm inclined to change the tenor of the blog a bit. For one thing: no more politics, or at least, no more direct commentary on policy--political opinion should be based on research and reflection, and while I've plenty of the latter, I've little enough of the former. Plus, if I'm going to fulminate, it ought to be about something that you can't find in spades elsewhere. (By the way, if you do want first-rate political commentary, check out ginandtacos.com - great stuff, smart guy, he's going places.)

Looking back over my work, it strikes me that the stuff of mine that was most interesting and most fun to write was cultural stuff--pop cultural, mostly, but you work with what's handed to you. So I'm thinking of turning this blog over into a primarily cultural-commentary-based venue. Mind you, this too will be limited; I freely admit that I'm aware only dimly of most contemporary music--I'm aware of, say, 50 Cent in the way that I'm aware of the planet Neptune--I know he exists, but I've never seen him. Rap eludes me for the same reason punk eluded me; for me, music is escapism, not expressionism--I want to forget my anger and frustration, not embrace/celebrate it. Sorry, Violent Femmes, I just can't; just leave me alone with my complete Beatles anthology, and be on your way.

So this, I think, will be the 'tone' and framework of the blog from hereon--commentary on film, television, 'trends', and the various instances of the signpost that indicate where our society is headed. And lest this seem trivial, remember: Thomas Carlyle--probably the greatest English philosopher of the 19th century (unless you're into utilitarianism--then it's John Stuart Mill)--wrote a compellingly fascinating faux-analysis of the philosophy of clothes, arguing both sincerely and ironically that fashion was as indicative of civilization as art, architecture, or military achievement. If it's good enough for Carlyle, it's good enough for me.

Let's see what happens.