For my 54th birthday yesterday, we did something decadent: we watched a movie. Gran Torino is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it is a Christian film.
Mind you, it's filled with a plethora of untamed vulgar language (the trailer has been cleaned up considerably) and enough ethnic slurs to turn just about any woke millie college student into a hyperventilating quivering mess desperately seeking the dean of diversity and a pacifier. So refreshing and funny!
It is classic Eastwood: a tough guy - Walt Kowalski - scarred by his dark past who finds heroic redemption when faced with injustice in his neighborhood. The ironic and iconic imagery is unquestionably Christian (at least if you know what to look for - most people probably won't catch it) - but I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. It is one of the few movies since the 1940s in which the priest is a good guy. The movie has held up well in the ten years since its release.
This is a great underrated piece of moviemaking. All of the classic elements of profound narrative are found in this film. It is a story of good and evil, of love and redemption, of sin and forgiveness, of unapologetic masculine courage - so unlike most of the useless and limp soft-porn dullard-slop SJW agitprop that comes out of WeinsteinTown these days.
One of the funniest and most enigmatic quips in the film comes from Eastwood's character: "Everybody blames the Lutherans." I would love to know where that line came from!
This is one you can watch and enjoy again and again.
Dinosaur King is a 2007-8 animated TV series based on a Japanese card game of the same name. It has all the elements that would appeal to pre-teen boys. There doesn't seem to be anything sexual about the the series. Netflix describes it as follows:
2007 78 eps TV-Y7 FV Aided by tablets found near a downed meteorite, Max, Rex and Zoe race the evil Alpha Gang as they travel the globe in search of living dinosaurs.
The TV-Y7 FV designation means:
For those programs where fantasy violence may be more intense or more combative than other programs in this category, such programs will be designated TV-Y7-FV. Most parents would find this program suitable for all ages.
There doesn't seem to be any indication that this would include sexuality of any type, nor that such programs would be themes of a so-called adult nature.
One of the features of Netflix is that after watching a program, Netflix makes recommendations of other offerings that might be of interest based on watching and liking a certain program. Based on my 12-year old son's viewing of Dinosaur King, Netflix kindly recommended fifty other programs "Because you watched Dinosaur King."
All of the 50 recommendations say explicitly: "Because you watched Dinosaur King." I took screenshots of all of them. The icons for almost all of the films are pretty racy.
I broke down the themes, ratings, and years of the 50 recommendations:
King Cobra is a 2016 film (TV-MA) described as follows by Netflix on the screen that says: "because you watched Dinosaur King": "Veteran gay pornography producer Stephen battles two rival producers over rights to his underage creation, Brent Corrigan, with deadly results." The Wikipedia article of the film points out that this movie is "based on the book Cobra Killer: Gay Porn, Murder, and the Manhunt to Bring the Killers to Justice by Andrew E. Stoner and Peter A. Conway."
Kiss Me is a 2011 film (NR) that inches toward a theme of incest, described by Netflix: "When Mia attends her estranged father's engagement party and meets her soon-to-be stepsister, sparks fly and Mia unexpectedly falls in love."
Elena Undone is a 2010 film (NR) as described by Netflix: "When openly gay writer Peyton and love-starved pastor's wife Elena meet, they immediately form a bond which erupts into a sizzling affair."
I Am Happiness on Earth is a 2014 film (TV-MA) in which "a gay movie director finds himself on both sides of the camera, blurring the line between his real sex life and erotic filmmaking" (Netflix).
Tangerine is a 2015 film (R) summed up by Netflix: "Fresh out of a stint in jail, transgender prostitute Sin-Dee and her pal Alexandra hit the crazy streets of LA to get revenge on her fickle pimp."
Henry Gamble's Birthday Party is a 2015 film (NR) described by Netflix: "A teen struggles to reconcile his desires with the strict morals of his religious family, while the adults around him struggle with similar conflicts."
Blue is the Warmest Color is a 2013 film rated NC-17 (which is the modern equivalent of an X rating). Netflix: "Determined to fall in love, 15-year old Adele is focused on boys. But it's a blue-haired girl she meets on the street who really piques her interest." The Wikipedia article notes: "At Cannes, the film shocked some critics with its long and graphic sex scenes" and quotes a Variety writer: in saying that the film includes: "the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory."
So, one can only speculate why an anime series that would appeal to pre-teen boys, that has nothing to do with sex - LGBT or otherwise - nor prostitution, swinging, adultery, mockery of religion, underage gay porn, or other such themes would spawn a recommendation of fifty such movies.
It's also interesting that there has been an explosion of such films since 2014-2015.
This adds meaning to the Netflix slogan: "See what's next."
Note:Thank you to Lew Rockwell for publishing this at LRC, January 5, 2018 here.
Search ResultsThank you Lew Rockwell for publishing this piece on January 5, 2018 at LewRockwell.com here.
We enjoyed seeing the children's movie "Turbo" - an unlikely tale of a snail in the Indianapolis 500. It was a fun movie that did not try to compromise the innocence of childhood.
However, above is the trailer we saw as soon as the lights in the theater full of children dimmed. Within a few seconds of the first preview ("Boxtrolls"), there is a quick, though not-so-subtle swipe at Christian doctrine and traditional morality.
Although it is fun to make an occasional outing to see a film on the big screen, the overtly anti-biblical, anti-Christian sexual propaganda deliberately aimed at our children and increasingly being jammed down our throats - openly attempting to pry our children from our religious tenets - makes the trip to the theater less and less inviting to Christian people. In their preachy calls for tolerance, the Hollywood elite is increasingly becoming intolerant of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others who accept natural law and biological common sense with regard to the ancient human institutions. The irony is that the message of "Boxtrolls" is supposedly one of openness to all kinds of people, when in reality it is promoting a kind of hatred and marginalization of the world's billions of people who accept traditional marriage as a religious doctrine.
It's getting to the point where we need not only to home-school but also to home-movie.
At least with Netflix, we can opt out of the propaganda.
This is a series of six trailers from a really cool cinematic project to retell some of our Lord's parables in the current age. They have gone over so well that the company is fundraising to tell even more of our Lord's parables in modern cinematic form.
The following quote from actor and cycling enthusiast Ewan McGregor sums it up...
"When I leave work on a motorbike, pull on my helmet and move off, it doesn't matter if I've had a good day or not. With no phone, no stereo and no traffic to sit in for forty minutes, contemplating what's happened during the day, I am concentrating so hard on what I'm doing and where I'm going, and making sure that no one is pulling out to kill me, that by the time I get home my mind has been cleared of any troubles. Motorcycling gives me anonymity and I don't have much of that in my life. It's an escape from being stared at. When I'm flashing around on my bike with my helmet on I'm just another geezer on the road and that's nice. But, above all, there's something about riding a bike - the concentration and the single-mindedness of it, and the desire to get it right, taking a corner fast without losing control, doing it beautifully, getting into a groove and winning the battle between your head telling you to do one thing, the bike wanting to do another and your body in between - that I miss like hell if I don't get to ride it every day."
McGregor's adventure (with Charley Boorman) riding from England, across Europe, through Russia to the far east, taking a plane to Alaska, and then riding from there to New York is chronicled in the DVD series of the same name: Long Way Round.
There is no greater way to travel - whether across time zones or just going to work.
Here are a few pics from an adventure I enjoyed with my dad in 1981 visiting Spruce Knob, the tallest peak in West Virginia:
Above is a 2010 John Stossel segment on the controversial novel Atlas Shrugged by author-philosopher Ayn Rand, still a best-seller half a century after its publication.
Rand was a victim of the Bolshevik revolution who managed to emigrate to the states. Her philosophy is known as "Objectivism," and it stresses individualism over collectivism, capitalism over socialism, reason over faith, and personal liberty over government intervention. Atlas caused a firestorm when it was written, and still does today.
Rand's militant atheism, train-wreck of a personal life, abrasive personality, cult-like following, and disdain for altruism made her a controversial figure. And yet her principled defense of the individual against the coercion and violence of the mob - especially the mob of meddlesome government and mooching bureaucrats - most especially when they collude with businesses to limit or eliminate competition - is hard to attack. Graft, corruption, and parasitism are seldom good for economies or individuals.
Her novels are often filled with unrealistic flowery prose (more philosophical manifestos than real-world dialogue), flat characters, and often extend to proportions of a marathon when a 10k would have been a more appropriate pace. And yet, her novels are refreshing over and against the mealy-mouthed postmodern literature so common today: filled with formulaic hand-wringing themes of gender, ethnicity, and predictable political correctness. By contrast, Rand's "good guys" are heroic and unapologetically brilliant, and her "bad guys" are smarmy and loathsome - if not creepy. There is no waffling from Rand as to where she stands, and she is not afraid to tell a story to project her philosophy. And as wooden as her dialogue often is, as one-dimensional as her characters often are, I resonate with this quote from Doug Casey:
I can't count the thousands of times I've seen people act in ways [Ayn] Rand depicted in her novel [Atlas Shrugged]. Heroic people struggling to innovate and create wealth; the intellectually dishonest refusing to question their superstitions; hypocrites who go through mental gymnastics to make excuses for themselves; and just plain dirtballs acting the way they always do.
The novel is in the process of being made into a trilogy of movies. Part one came out last year. Part two is due out this fall. The plan is for the conclusion to be released next year. The trailers for parts 1 and 2 are below.
No Christian is going to agree 100% with Ayn Rand. And yet, based on different premises, Christianity does defend the sanctity of the individual, as well as confessing in the Ten Commandments that it is wrong to take the property of others. Communism and Socialism were defended and championed by many prominent but misguided idealistic Christians in the 19th century. One example is Edward Bellamy, the Baptist Socialist novelist who wrote two remarkable Utopian novels about what the year 2000 would look like in a Socialist America. Rand's writings looked forward to a similar time-frame and concluded that, rather than a Utopia, Socialist America will be a tragic Dystopia.
We 21st century Americans can look back on the great thinkers and storytellers Rand and Bellamy with the 20-20 vision of the entire failed (and bloody) experiment of Soviet Communism, now on full display in mankind's past to be dissected and analyzed. We see where Bellamy's philosophy leads. Planned centralized economies always destroy incentive, punish the productive, line the pockets of "crony capitalists" and government bureaucrats alike, cost mankind in terms of inventions that never happened and lives ruined by Big Government, and inevitably lead to gulags and concentration camps - all under the guise of "equality" and "fairness" and "social justice." Rand exposes the Marxism of the Nanny State and demonstrates how even soft chains only serve to enslave the minds of men.
Though there is much about which to to disagree with Rand in her philosophy, there is also much that commends itself to us today in a world where the United States federal government has nothing to check its own power, and where the brightest and best are beginning to look for other places to call home rather than comply with crippling taxes and regulations here in the "land of the free."
We may not be too far from finding "Who is John Galt?" uttered in whispers and scribbled on walls.
Above is the video of this report from FOX-8 News (New Orleans).
On the heels of Will Ferrell's "Dog Fight," another crew was filming in Gretna yesterday for another movie ("The Hot Flashes") a block away in our local coffee shop and neighborhood eatery, Common Grounds. CG is getting to be as well known as a movie set as it is for its shrimp po-boy and Fazzi's barbecue chicken.
I guess the days are coming to an end when you can google "Hollywood" and "Gretna" and my blog would pop up at the top of the list!
The above is a recent speech before the European Parliament. And Mr. Bloom is right!
Central banking (including our Federal Reserve System) is nothing other than theft by stealth under the color of legitimacy. We are being looted by our own banking system. Finally, people are waking up to this. This should be seen as a moral issue (rather than being treated as arcane politics or as simple disagreements about economic policy). If the local grocer were constantly changing the value of his scales (defining a pound as a little bit less and less each day), or if the gas stations were to jimmy up their pumps so that each successive gallon is smaller than the last gallon, we would be calling for trials!
The dollar is likewise a standard symbol of measurement.
This is why when private citizens print valueless paper and pass it off as dollars, they are convicted of counterfeiting. It is a serious crime that undermines the entire economy. In fact, the reason your quarters and dimes have serrated edges is because in the days when these coins actually contained silver, and the edges guarded against crooks shaving some of the silver off of the coins. The joke is on us - there is today no reason for edging on any of our coins (with the exception of the nickel, which ironically is smooth-edged, as it is still made of real metal - at least for the time being). The reason is because every bit of precious, or even industrial metals, has been removed (again, with the exception of the nickel. for the time being). It's almost wrong to call them coins when they are really tokens.
So, counterfeiting is a crime, but when government (at the behest of bankers) manipulates the currency (by means of removing the metal from the coins and printing banknotes backed by nothing out of thin air - thus devaluing the dollar to their own advantage), we're all supposed to treat this as moral and legitimate. Why? Because the government says so.
Even the Scriptures condemn such playing around with standards of weights and measures.
Of course, a lot of people turn to Romans 13 to argue that government can do just about anything, because by definition, if they are doing it, it must be legal. Some will distort Luther's doctrine of vocation to attempt to bully people into submission and subjugation to the state, even when the state is committing immoral acts. Indeed, as the analogy goes, a surgeon takes off peoples' clothes and cuts them with a knife - and within his vocation, this is legal. If someone off the street, not a doctor, were to do the same thing, it would be a crime. Some use this analogy to make the case that if a private citizen were to print banknotes on his printer, it would be counterfeiting. But if this private citizen were part of a super-secret elite group of bankers in bed with government - than somehow the very same act of counterfeiting is ipso facto legal.
This is a gross abuse of Luther's doctrine of vocation.
Government does not have carte blanche. Theft is theft, and when government does it, it only compounds the sin by adding corruption to stealing. We should hold those in government - especially judges and politicians - to extremely high standards of morality, as they essentially can, by force, take from us that which is ours - our property and even our lives. Agents of the government have the power to put innocent people in prison or even to death. We no longer have the right to trial or the guarantees of the fourth amendment in some cases. A corrupt government is almost impossible to fight - especially a government that increasingly encroaches on the rights and the constitutional protection of its citizens.
And the sad part is that schools do not teach about money, banking, and the federal reserve. Nor do colleges and universities typically even broach the subject. Very few theologians would even see this deliberate theft as a sin. Many, in fact, will congratulate themselves on voting for candidates who give fiery speeches about Christian morality all the while approving (or even abetting) the manipulation of the currency to the detriment of honest people who work for a living.
Also sad is how partisan people are. No, Republicans, you can't blame Obama for this. No Democrats, you can't blame Bush. This is a bi-partisan syndicate that is 99 years old. Almost no-one in the federal government will say anything bad about it or even approach it as a matter of moral principal. But that is starting to change, both in Europe and in the U.S. China (which is the number two holder of U.S. debt, right behind the Federal Reserve) is buying massive quantities of gold. Gold-backed currency cannot be manipulated by bankers anywhere near the ability to do the same with a central bank with government-run printing presses. Could it be that the Chinese Central Bank knows something our own bankers and bureaucrats don't? Namely: ponzi schemes eventually run out.
Mr. Bloom's speech above shows that this is becoming a front-burner issue around the world, as every currency on the planet is today managed by central banks and manipulated by cartels of bankers, politicians, and bureaucrats. Some countries (like China) may well see the writing on the wall as they try to find an exit strategy out of holding U.S. dollars (the post-WW2 world reserve currency) in savings, and instead seeking something of real value (such as gold) to store value and issue notes against.
The current system - even when it isn't ending up in riots and civil strife as in Greece - creates bubbles and booms and busts, transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, bankrolls federal boondoggles and military quagmires (in which central bankers, politicians, and their children do not shed blood), discourage thrift and savings and encourage borrowing and debt.
It also makes us (Americans) dependent on other nations to bankroll the whole ponzi scheme - and if and when they decide to get out, we will be left holding the bag.
Should someone in Weimar Germany have gone to jail when an entire nation was impoverished through outright theft of the value of the Deutschmarks in people's pockets? This is money that people earned at a specific rate and then were forced to spend at another rate (think: some people were in a position to do just the opposite, namely bankers and those who can spend the cheap printed money before it devalues with the passage of time). This is money under which contracts were signed at one value, and which devalued exponentially in the middle of the contract.
The same thing (hyperinflation) happened recently in Argentina and Zimbabwe.
Should those who benefit from this go to prison (like Bernie Madoff, who did not have government "cover" for his crimes)?
Actually, the founding fathers of the United States (who warned repeatedly against central banks and "paper" money) did not think such people should be incarcerated. They had another penalty in mind.
Will there come a day when currencies are again honest and constant in value? I'm afraid things will get a lot worse before they get better. But on the other hand, thanks to the lessening of government control of information thanks to the Internet, this issue is now on the table. And it is an issue that is being looked at from across the political spectrum: from conservative investment firms, mainstream conservative thinkers, and even youthful Occupy Wall Street folks on the left.
Ending the Fed is something people from all across the political spectrum ought to be able to agree on. There are few teachings more universal than the Seventh Commandment. The Fed has been allowing institutional theft from the people of this country for a century. It's nice to see this being recognized in the European Parliament as well.
Thank you once again, Mr. Bloom!
Consider an investment: not of money, but of time. The following 42 minute documentary (or read the transcript here) explains the whole thing - including why this is relevant. The film's style is dated (it was produced in 1996) - which is actually good. You can see how things have gone since that time. A lot has happened in the world's economy - especially since 2008.
"Father Hollywood" as a name for this blog began as a joke (I was working at Hollywood Video during my first call). But it seems like life imitates humor.
New Orleans is sometimes known as "Hollywood South" since Louisiana offers tax breaks for movie-making, and so a lot of films get made here. And here is a pretty current list of projects. For some reason, Gretna - and more specifically, my neighborhood - always seems to be involved in filming, whether for commercials or movies.
The Paperboy was filmed at a local house just off 5th Street. It has not yet been released. Deja Vu was filmed in 2006 and features a good bit of New Orleans, as the story takes place on our side of the river at the Algiers Ferry Station. Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) was filmed at a local Gretna house just off the levee bike trail. We're also still waiting for Killer Joe to be released, some of which was filmed at our local restaurant, Common Grounds - including some of our waitress friends playing waitresses in the movie. This still from the movie was taken inside the restaurant, and this one looks across the neutral ground to the po-boy shop ("The Iron Grate Grill" on Huey P. Long Ave. formerly "Johnny's") across the way.
Right now, filming is happening for a Will Ferrell movie called Dog Fight (aka Southern Rivals) - a comedy based on Southern politicians during an election cycle. The movie is apparently set in South Carolina, though downtown Gretna has been made over into the fictional town of Hammond, North Carolina.
In the casting call for extras, it seems that the movie will be rather politically incorrect. It looks like fun! Filming should be going on for another week or so. I have no doubt that more will be on the way.
"'We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region, which is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region, which holds such promise and should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy,' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Tajikistan after the president’s announcement."
Kinnoch: With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos. Gandhi: Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power. Brigadier: My dear sir! India *is* British. We're hardly an alien power! [silence]
The author of the book, Ayn Rand, was a refugee from Communism. Seeing first hand as a child the destruction of freedom through government collectivism and coercion during the Russian revolution, she became an advocate of human liberty. She found Communism to violate the rules of logic. She delved into a philosophy of objective reality - which she called simply "Objectivism" - which stood out like a sore thumb in the 20th century world of Subjectivism. As a novelist, essayist, and philosopher, she opposed Big Government at every turn in her adopted country, the United States.
Ayn Rand was a complicated, if not convoluted, figure, whose legacy is even more complex. In her lifetime, she was a rather unlikeable tyrannical grumpy self-centered and morally-challenged Atheist who is today often quoted by tea-partying Fundamentalist Christian political activists. She heroically opposed Communism, but also berated any act of love to another person as morally evil. One of her close disciples was Alan Greenspan, who though at one time was a champion of the Randian notion of a hands-off government (which included a separation of currency and state through the gold standard) was to become the chairman of the Federal Reserve - the very institution devoted to the destruction of hard currency and the very motor behind Big Government itself. The Fed is the American version of central economic planning and the state control of capital. The continued legacy of Ayn Rand is filled with such ironies.
Karen De Coster has a balanced and nuanced consideration of Ayn Rand and her lasting legacy here.
Here is an Issues, Etc. podcast about Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, an interview with Dr. Clay Jones of Biola University. I think Dr. Jones does a very good job of showing the good, the bad, and ugly - and even more ugly (the latter "ugly" I disagree with him) - about Ayn Rand and her philosophy (of which the novel Atlas Shrugged is a manifesto). I do take exception with a couple of his statements, however, first his assertion that U.S. senator Dr. Rand Paul (the son of U.S. representative Dr. Ron Paul) was named after Ayn Rand. This is not true. He also criticizes Alan Greenspan for not proposing enough regulation. I think that is a fantasy. Alan Greenspan held the levers of Big Government in ways utterly contrary to the principles of small government and sound money.
One excellent point that Jones makes - which is another Randian irony - is the fact that one of the reasons Communism fell is that it did not consider original sin. Like most Utopian schemes, it falls flat because it is based on a flawed view of humanity. Communism fails (as Rand points out) because it does not account for human selfishness. The great irony is that Rand also denied original sin - thus sowing the seeds of her own Utopia's demise.
In spite of all of this, I think the book is a good read. It is tedious, plodding in plot, and often plastic in its characters. The dialogue is wooden and at times reads like a philosophy tome. But the premise is brilliant, and the overall story is clever. Besdies, it's an important work for many reasons. It will make you think about the role of government intervention in the free economy, innovation, capitalism and capital, labor and markets, and what the limits of freedom are. It is a thought-provoking work that has - for good and bad - made a huge impact on our modern life and political discourse in the western world.
I'll probably check out the film when it gets to Netflix.
Here is a link to a poignant scene from a great (at least in my opinion) film. The "embedding" feature is disabled, so you'll have to do the hard work of clicking on the link to see the YouTube video of the clip.
The movie is, of course, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino (spoiler alert).
The movie has some beautifully done Christological symbolism; deals with confession, absolution, and redemption (note the scene in front of the baptismal font as well as the ending which I won't spoil for you); and is a classic Clint Eastwood good vs. evil story. And, atypical of modern movie-making, the persistent pastor is a good guy.
The language is gritty, so viewer discretion is advised.
It calls to mind my own baptism at age 18 with 7 Hmong people gathered around the font at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. For a while, we even had the Gospel read in both English and Hmong.
I thought of the line "Everybody blames the Lutherans" in our Book of Concord class last night, as we covered Apology 7 and 8, article 25:
"Now, if we would define the Church in this way, we would perhaps have fairer judges. For there exist many excessive and wicked writings about the pope of Rome's power, for which no one has ever been charged. We alone are blamed, because we proclaim Christ's graciousness, that by faith in Christ we obtain forgiveness of sins..." (Ap 7/8:25, McCain edition).
"Everybody blames the Lutherans" (Walt Kowalsky, Clint Eastwood interpretation).
But let us not forget that this isn't just a well-made movie, but St. Thomas is a real churchman, a brother in Christ, and a faithful servant in the Holy Ministry only separated from us by the thin veil that temporarily segregates the Church Militant from the Church Triumphant. St. Thomas placed his loyalty to the Triune God and the Holy Church even above his friend and king - and for that he was martyred. May we all be blessed with such steadfastness and courage.
"O Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Thomas triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."
If you're looking for something out of the ordinary to watch on the telly (especially if you have Netflix), you might enjoy the 3 DVD set The Long Way Down. It is a remarkable video series chronicling the adventures of Scottish actor Ewan MacGregor and English travel writer Charley Boorman as they made an epic motorcycle journey in 2007 from the northern tip of the UK (John O'Groats, Scotland) to the Southern tip of Africa and over to Cape Town (South Africa). The 15,000-mile journey took 85 days and spanned 18 countries.
Needless to say, the videography and sights are beautiful. The guys meet interesting people, and see things up close that the rest of us only see on television. They deal with language barriers, mechanical problems, temper flare-ups, bureaucratic wrangling, and every sort of local character from a diversity of tribes and cultures. In some places, they are required to have armed escorts. They have to watch out for snakes and scorpions. They encounter camels and wild monkeys. They visit Roman ruins and ancient churches. They ride through bustling traffic in Rome and London, and hunker down in sandstorms in Northern Africa. Poor people living in huts share their food with them. They meet young people mutilated by land mines. They are greeted by people following their progress on the Internet. It is a candid and at times rather raw look at their trip, their difficulties, their triumphs, and the simple joy of riding. The also spotlight the plight of African children living in villages decimated by AIDS, in many cases taking care of one another with no adults present. It is a remarkable odyssey.
No other form of travel can compare to motorcycling - the exposure to the elements, the openness, the wind and sun and rain, the acceleration and the leaning in and out of curves. There is a oneness between rider and bike that just is not there in a car or van.
Though obviously nowhere near as extreme as The Long Way Down, I loved the motorcycle trips that I have taken - usually with my dad. We rode up and down the beautiful beclouded and craggy mountains of our ancestral home of West Virginia - usually camping, sometimes staying in motels, meeting distant relatives, doing genealogical research, visiting old haunts, seeing the sights, and spending irreplaceable father-and-son time together. We rode up the narrow and treacherous gravelly path to the top of Spruce Knob together (the highest mountain in the state) and took pictures of the odd plant life atop the foggy peak - decked out like 1960s cosmonauts in our snowmobile suits and space-age looking Nava helmets. It was a great adventure - especially for me as a young man of about 20.
Our longest trip was a trek from Ohio through the wild hairpin mountain passes in the Ozarks in Arkansas. While there, we slowed down and spent a relaxing day at a campsite near Hot Springs, actually spending some leisurely time together on a paddleboat on a lake in the mountains - a uniquely unhurried activity for us ever-on-the-go mountain-men who seldom go near water. From there we went to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit family, and returned home to Ohio in two days of hard riding - the last leg through driving rain. It is the greatest fun I have ever had being completely miserable. We communicated by 2-meter band ham radio stations mounted to our Suzukis (my dad's GS850GL and my GS250T - I would later get a Suzuki 850 of my own - wonderful bike!). I had the unfortunate situation of throwing a chain in Tennessee - necessitating a not-so-exact fit of a replacement chopped together at a Harley dealership. But it got me back home to where we could order the right chain. Good times!
I had a few later adventures on my own, such as several trips to Canada and a few solo camping trips to the Poconos from my home base (at that time) in New York. These days, my biking is limited to visiting parishioners or coasting on the levee on my human-powered Schwinn.
Maybe when Leo is old enough to ride, we'll take one adventure that I actually planned, but never pulled off - a motorcycle trip to St. Pierre et Miquelon - an overseas department of France consisting of two islands off the coast of Newfoundland. It would be an even greater adventure setting out from Lousiana. When Leo is 16 years old, I'll be 56 - so God willing, and if there is time and money and if we are both around and healthy - maybe we can have a father-son adventure. Better yet, maybe we can ride three bikes and Mrs. H. could come along as well. Who knows? Maybe we'll be riding electric or solar powered motorcycles by 2021.
Well, enough of that. If you are interested in travel, motorcycling, and/or the sights of Europe and Africa - you might want to get your hands on The Long Way Down.
Just to be clear, I did not show Easy Rider to Lion Boy, just the YouTube clip - which you have to admit is an especially funny tableau for a five year old.
A powerful scene from Casablanca, which is even more poignant when one considers the words of the anthem...
especially the part about spilling the "impure blood" of the tyrannical occupiers and using it to water the "furrows of our fields." I think that whole "impure blood" thing didn't set well with the Nazis...
The national anthem of the United States is a martial anthem to be sure, but I think La Marseillaise takes the cake for goriness, unless, of course, The Onion's report about the Star Spangled Banner's missing verses is true:
I've heard the Ironman 2 movie isn't so good, but I love the clip from Tony Stark's testimony before Congress. The above video has a blue tint as part of an ad. You have to click the little icon in the lower right corner to clear it.
But anyway, this is how free and freedom-loving people ought to address grabby elected officials.
When asked to turn over his weapon to the federal government, Stark replies bluntly: "Well, you can forget it.... You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor: I've successfully privatized world peace."
While serving in a previous ministerial call, I had to moonlight at the local Hollywood Video to pay for health insurance for the family. It took one of my coworkers a couple weeks before she stopped addressing me as "Father" and started using my first name.
It was a fun job. My co-workers were the best. I got free rentals too. You can click here to see a picture. Now you know the rest of the story...
