Whose Reality is it Anyway?

The Republicans and Democrats don’t have different political philosophies. They live in different parallel universes. Each reality is self-contained and self-consistent. Each has its own history, language, and physical laws. 

These worlds overlap. But there’s no discussion between the inhabitants of each world. 

In Universe A: a conspiracy of hateful leftists conspired to frame President Donald Trump for a crime he didn’t commit in order to overturn the will of the people. The presidential impeachment is a coup justified by a hoax. 

In Universe B: President Donald Trump gave the Ukrainian president an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Either announce that you’re investigating Joe and Hunter Biden for corruption. Or I’ll kill your military aid.” The facts are undeniable. The presidential impeachment is the right thing to do. 

The inhabitants of each world don’t debate these facts. How could they? Facts are facts! There’s no debate! If a man came up to you and screamed, “Fire is cold!” you wouldn’t argue the point. You’d run. He’s dangerously insane, clearly. If not willfully insane. 

We feared the nightmare future of George Orwell. It turns out the visions of Jorge Luis Borges were far more accurate.

Reality. What a concept.

"Huge numbers at the Three-Minute Hate. Huge."

You've been watching the impeachment hearings. And slapping yourself silly. You see it. But you just can't believe your eyes. What the hell happened to facts? They used to matter. When did that change? Have people gone nuts or what?

Glad you asked. Sorry the answer's complicated.

Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks. But let's take a stroll.

Schopenhauer put Kant, Nietzsche, and the concept of Maya in a blender. “The World as Will and Idea” is what he came up with. Basically, experiential reality is a Rorschach blot; the mind imposes order based on desire. Heidegger (a smarty who joined the Nazi party) took this notion and ran with it. Take it to the edge, and there’s no there there. Face facts? F**k facts. Life is what you make of it. Literally. But only if you’ve got enough willpower. If you can’t defeat Russia, your will just wasn’t strong enough.

Like poison in Kool-Aid, this rotten idea is in the water. It's been there for a long time. Orwell called it out in “1984.” Back in the 1970s, "Werner Erhard" popularized it with the pop phenomenology of est. “Life is about stories.” It’s fifth-grade, comic book Heidegger. Dumbed down. In the decades since, it's gotten even dumber.

Welcome to the post-fact era.

What is truth? There ain’t no truth.

OK. Let’s say there is no truth. “Life is what you make of it.” 

Literally. 

Good news, everyone! You create your own reality! You’re God in your own private universe, baby.

But this radical subjectivism has a catch.

You’re in a mind-field. You and all the other yous. Separate identity is an illusion. The objective world is make-believe. It’s a story we tell ourselves. And you’re not the only storyteller. Reality is consensual. If enough “little yous” buy into a story, that narrative becomes the world.

It’s all about agreement. If enough people agree to the germ theory of disease, that’s reality. If enough people believe in “chem-trails,” that’s reality. Control the dominant narrative and you control reality. 

That’s the catch.

As Orwell pointed out, the dream of “collective solipsism” is a function of force. (I.e., a boot to the face.) As Mao pointed out, “Truth comes out of the barrel of a gun.”

Who’s holding the biggest gun?

They get to tell the story.  

Their word becomes law in the universe.

This Big You imposes a Big Story by sheer force of will. If enough “little yous” buy into it, the tale becomes the truth. If Big You’s gang of thugs declare the earth is flat and beat up anyone who disagrees, QED, the earth is flat. The “little yous” don’t get to vote on it.

What matters isn’t evidence or argument. What matters is will.

The Big You with the biggest will wins.

I don’t buy this bullshit for a second. But millions do. 

That’s where we’re at.

For want of a better word, that’s “reality.” 

Review: Joker

What kind of clown are you? The crying-on-the-inside kind, I guess.

Joker is a great movie. Flawed but great. Its many great qualities include excellent direction (Todd Phillips) a sharp screenplay (Phillips and Silver) and the performance of a lifetime by a starved Jouaqin Phoenix in the title role. (He'll probably be robbed of a Best Actor Oscar because his character's such a loathsome creep.) Yes, it's brutal, ultraviolent movie. Yes, yes, it pushes some un-PC buttons and stirs the pot on contemporary fears. Yes, yes, yes—shut up! I don't have a problem with any of that. I love this f**king movie. Even so, I have to admit it's flawed. There's a hole in its heart. (I'll get back to which chamber is missing.)

The following will be as thick with spoilers as Caesar Romero's mustache was caked with greasepaint on the cheesy Batman TV show. Gentle reader, you have been warned. 

The year seems to be 1981. The setting is New York C—sorry, Gotham City. The Joker starts off as Arthur Fleck, a wannabe standup comic paying the bills as a party clown temp. (He's a lousy comic and a bad clown.) Fleck lives with his bedridden, schizophrenic mother, who keeps writing Thomas Wayne (Bruce Wayne's billionaire dad) for help. Sometime before this movie, Fleck went insane in the membrane, and now periodically sees an indifferent social worker. Sad, yeah. But his bleak life has a few bright spots. He hits it off with a pretty neighbor, who seems to lack an inner creep detector. He idolizes a Johnny Carson-esque talk show host named Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Sweet. But, despite what the Bible tells you, darkness kicks light's ass.

One sad day, Fleck is attacked by black urban thugs who smack him with an EVERYTHING MUST GO sign he's spinning outside a failed store. Back at the temp agency, a fellow clown gives Fleck a 38-special for self-defense purposes. He's promptly attacked by three white yuppies on the subway. Fleck blows them away, natch. Instant clown karma! Right on!

Fleck's attack makes him an urban legend in Gotham City. He spawns a mass movement of disaffected white po' folks who put on clown makeup and hold up signs saying "KILL THE RICH." Talk about making a difference! But Fleck's brief moment of triumph is spoiled when the gun falls out of his baggy pocket while he's entertaining sick kids at a hospital. Fleck gets fired like the stupid clown he is. To make matters worse, he discovers sad truths and untruths about his mom and crosses the final line into madness. Mental illness takes many forms. In Fleck's case, he morphs into the Joker and starts killing everyone who looks at him crosseyed. He kills his mom, his real or imaginary girlfriend, the gun-running clown, Thomas Wayne, and the social worker. The end.

As Joker origins stories go, this beats the hell out of being dropped in a vat of toxic waste.

The only problem with Phillips' Joker origin story is the fact that it's a Joker origin story. His film creates a logical basis for the Joker: a cause-and-effect sequence. The Joker's irrationality has a rational explanation! Childhood abuse + bad mom + corrupt urban society = Joker. It's just that simple.

Phillips' Joker never decides to be the Joker. He never takes a conscious step into the dark side. There's no agency, no choice, no decision. A trauma here, a trauma there, voila! The Joker is born. Society’s what's made him the way he is, I tells you. It’s society’s fault. 

As great as this movie is, I have to call bullshit.

Not every abused kid who grew up to be a shitty standup comic turns into a killer clown. Not every kid who watched his parents get shot and was traumatized by bats grew up to be the Batman.

And that’s the heartless flaw.

Additional conflicted thoughts that don't fit a neat linear narrative.

Three-Card Monte

Attention Democrats.

Ah. This is probably a waste of time. But to hell with it. As I was saying ...

Attention Democrats.

Impeachment is a sucker’s play, a grift, a con, a friendly game of Three-Card Monte, Lucy urging you to kick a football, a letter from a Nigerian prince who needs your banking information, a wallet with a string attached to the sidewalk. Don’t fall for it.

Think about it. Douse your glee. Curb your enthusiasm. Slap yourself in the face, stick your head in a bucket of ice water, and consider the situation objectively.

Aside from Trump’s continual, egregious outrages, how’d we get here in the first place? As hack screenwriters like to say, what was the inciting incident?

Well, uh. Trump was talking to the Ukrainian president on a plane.

“Hey. Mr. Zelensky. Spill the dirt on Joe Biden’s son, or we’ll cut off military aid to Ukraine.”

An anonymous whistleblower overhears this, pushes the panic button. Democrats rejoice! We got the sumbitch! Finally! Let the wild impeachment rumpus begin!

The whole thing stinks. It’s too damn good to be true.

It’s bait, you idiots. President Trump wants to be impeached. Obviously. The “whistleblower” is probably working for him. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say this is all legit. Trump shot his mouth off. A patriotic citizen heard, and passed it on. It’s all true! You say so. It still won’t matter. Trump still wants to be impeached.

Because that's how he’ll win.

Let’s say impeachment hearings begin. Trump won’t be caught by surprise. And he'll know what to do. Strictly speaking, the 1% who installed this vacuous catspaw in the White House will know what to do.

Trump (and his supporters) will counter the real story with a fake story. A carefully prepared, bogus narrative designed to flip the situation.

Trump will spout this story on Twitter and Fox news. Trump's toadies will enter the hearing with that story on their lips.

Here's what they'll say ...

Bogus narrative

If you see past his bad hair, Trump is a good man. And he wants to do good things.

Trump simply wants to call shenanigans on China, build a wall to keep out the w— illegal immigrants, cut regulations and taxes, give ice cream to children everywhere, and make America great again. Shouldn’t that earn America’s love? Yes, it should. But it doesn’t always work.

Like Christ, Trump is endlessly persecuted. By whom? The evil Democrats who suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” that’s who. Or whom.

Now these evil leftists (who want to take your guns) have finally railroaded Trump into a kangaroo court. Like Jesus, Trump faces a trial with a foregone conclusion. It’s a witch hunt. The persecution has begun! But you can stop it. 

Blah, blah, blah. 

That’s the bogus narrative. And it's pure Teflon.

Stubborn facts don't stick to it. Nothing does. Law. Evidence, Argument. They just slide right off. 

The tale is a lie. But Trump's supporters won't doubt it for a second. 

To prove the point, I’ll carve out a piece of my heart.

Confession time ...

During the Clinton impeachment, I never once took the charges against him seriously. This was a vast right-wing conspiracy in action. Obviously. The Republicans started off investigating an S+L scandal and somehow shifted it to a BJ. Did I want to let them get away with it? Hell no. 

That’s how I felt. That’s how the vast majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents will feel when Trump is impeached. They’ll see Nancy Pelosi et al making angry faces. They won’t think: “Trump’s crimes deserve their anger.” They’ll think, “God, such hate. It’s a witch hunt.” Your Republican friends and relatives will say this to your face with righteous anger in their eyes. And your only rhetorical card to play?

“You dumbass morons! How stupid can you be? Trump’s the bad guy! Obviously! You don’t see it? F***—there must be something wrong with you. And I know what it is! You shitkicking shitheads are a bunch of racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic deplorables.”

“Fuck all y’all,” in other words. It feels good when you say it. Outside of college campuses and the listeners of Democracy Now, that argument won’t fly. 

And that argument will suck the oxygen out of the upcoming Presidential campaign. The Democrats will be hissing and spitting like angry cats when the impeachment fails. The Republicans will point and say, "See? There's the hateful socialist mob that tried to destroy a good, good man." 

Speaking of which … 

There are 470 days until the 2020 Presidential election. If impeachment hearings proceed in the House, it bloody well changes the subject from Trump's election to Trump's impeachment. That's happening now.

Let’s say the Democratic-controlled House votes for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial. The Republican senators in charge will do a hard-sell on the persecution narrative. Armed with simplified talking points prepared by the opposition research of well-funded right-wing think tanks, they'll know just what to say. And they'll keep saying it. Over and over and over.

The impeachment will fail. 

The Republican-controlled Senate won’t find Trump guilty. Duh. We’re talking 2020, not 1974. Whatever they privately think, the Republican senators will publicly support Trump. And make a shitload of stirring speeches about the unprecedented assault on American democracy which the House impeachment hearings represented. In all my years in public office, I have never … blahblahblah. 

This will go on and on and on. 

The Democrats will be demoralized. Trump's base will be energized and fighting mad. The impeachment will fail. The Democrats will probably lose the House. And Trump will win the 2020 presidential election.

The impeachment will fail. And Trump will win.

Trump will win. Trump will win. Trump will win.

So much winning.

Dig it.

Twittering madly, Trump will sail into the White House, pack the Supreme Court, and push the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Before the clock strikes. I’ll have to move to France. And my French sucks.

Please don’t fall for it.

The Time Capsule

They finally did it. The team of scientists, perhaps the last of their kind, unearthed the artifact from 20 meters below the cracked desert surface. A steel cylinder, shiny once, sand-caked now. It resembled a giant, filthy suppository. But the sight filled the scientists with joy. Understandable, considering the energy they’d expended digging it out. No machine tools, metal detectors, sonar. Not in this century. Just hand tools and hands. And methodology. A grid laid down, a process of elimination, square by square. Their painstaking excavation yielded nothing but heat stroke for weeks. Working before dawn whenever possible, but often working into the day like fools. Without result. Reasonable hypothesis: We’re risking our lives digging giant holes in a dry lake bed. But a patch of metal finally gleamed in the sand. Yes. Yes! The artifact was here. The ancient paper map had been accurate, if unclear. Reasonable hypothesis: We have it now. Our years of search have ended! Now all the scientists had to do was get it out. Their work accelerated to a careful frenzy. Their dug until their fingers bled, but didn’t notice. They whisked, picked, dug, uncovered, and exposed the object to the sun after centuries. The artifact! The time capsule, yes, go ahead and say it, empirical validation be damned. What else could it be? The scientists cheered—until arrows silenced them. They didn’t even have time to dust the damn thing off.

A band of ugly, skin-damaged white guys circled the excavation site. They atop the ten-foot ridge above the old lakebed. Looked down at the grid of string, all the holes, the corpses. Laughing, joking, proud of bushwhacking a handful of starving old men.

“Time capsule” …? We ken that too. Thanks for updigging, weaklings!

After they’d had a good laugh, they walked down the ramp. Walked quickly. No time to waste, ken? Cruelsun spearpoint stabbing eastways.

“Hardmen of Pureblood” was what they called themselves. (Strictly speaking, “Purebloodhardmen.”) In our time, we’d call them “Neo-Nazis.” Before that, just “Nazis.” They dressed in a motley of field grey fabric and ancient military garb, all stitched up with swastikas, skulls and SS emblems. Their idea of Nazi uniforms, based on old vids.

Once they reached the dead lakebed, the Hardmen stomped through the grid and stopped at the hole containing the capsule. Kicked a few dead scientists out of the way. Then studied the capsule. Big metal thing, sandydustydirty. Not much to look at, but Highman said it was important, so they roared approval. Then had their cringing, castrated Slaves load it on the cart the scientists had helpfully provided, and roll it up the ramp. Ordinarily, they’d desecrate the scientists’ bodies, but time was really a factor.

Starting a little after dawn, it took the Slaves most of the day to drag the damn thing fifteen miles or so to the Purebloodhardmenwarcamp, a cliffrock city of Redsubmen once, but not anymore. A few Slaves drop, get a boot to the head, always hilarious. They finally made it home. Rolling the capsule in, triumphal procession. Hardmen all excited, cheering. The big show’s tonight, right? Right.

Highman’s in his holdfast. But he’s coming out! He’s going to make a speech tonight! Yay!

Night fell and Highman spoke. (He was actually kind of short, but he was wearing a genuine Nazi helmet, so you knew he was in charge.) He stood on a rock above a crackling fire. His Hardmen were crouched in front of the fire looking up at him. LowSlobs got the cheap seats; Women in the sexhole; Slaves in the place of torment, etc. Such was the natural order of things.

Highman had memorized his speech, of course. Reading was for slaves. But he was great at public speaking.

He started out by saying nothing. Stretched out the silence, making ‘em sweat.

Crowd on the edge of their rocks.

Highman finally cleared his throat and hollered. His Hardmen shouted back at him. A call-and-response ensued in that charming, pseudo-Germanic gibberish the Hard Men of Pure Blood were famous for.

“Speak I now of pastpain purging. All here know of firefeeding. Suchlike us made world of will! Hail to Fathers, Hardmen all!”

“Hail to Fathers, Hardmen all!”

“Fathers freed the fire of fury! World of weakness, burned with glory. Hail to Fathers, Hardmen all!”

“Hail to Fathers, Hardmen all!”

Highman did a Nazi salute. Never gets old, huh? Then he made his big point.

“World of weakness, Fathers hated. Menlikewomen, softweak all. Kenning strong these weaklings wielded. Burning weak would burn such kenning. Fathers knew, yet fire freed they. Kenning hid in suchlike wielding. Hid for us in Fathers’ foresight. Fathers’ gift ye now behold!”

Translation. Our ancestors were weak sisters, but they knew some deep shit. The old-time Nazis started a global atomic war to wipe out the weaklings, but made sure to hide the scientific data for the Nazis of the future. That’s us! Hey, take a look at the time capsule.

Highman points to the thing, just sitting on the cart, a safe distance from the fire, and now all shined up to a fare-thee-well by those helpful slaves. Work makes freedom, huh?

“Time Capsule” called, where secrets hid. Hardmen hands do hold it now!”

And the crowd goes wild.

“Hail!”

“Hail!”

“Hail to Fathers! Hail to Hard Men!”

“Hail to Fathers! Hail to Hard Men!”

Highman looked up at the stars, flames dancing on his rabid face. Clutched arms to chest, Hitler-style. He’d studied the few old vidclips back at the holdfast. Then he sawed his arms back and forth and brought it home.

“Fathers freed the fire cleansing. Fire purged the Weakmen screaming. Fire fed on Hardmen willing. For we, their Children, Fathers died!”

“For we their Children, Fathers died!”

“Kneel we now to Fathers’ fury! Gift to Children shall be opened. Open now the gift of kenning. Hail our Fathers! Hail say all!”

“Hail say all!”

Now that the speech was out of the way, it was time for the boffo finish. Highman climbed down off the rock and walked up to that shiny time capsule. Because now he was going to open it. Oh yeah. (Such honor was not for slaves!) Yet a Slave had showed him a diagram. Something called a “wrench.” Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Thus the Slave had spoken before his agonizing death. Highman trembled with excitement. Wrench in hand he held now! Now it was time! And, without further ado, Highman got to work on the Fathers’ shiny, unopened gift.

Buried for countless centuries. Hidden from the sun. Untouched by UV light. The markings were still clear and bloody, bloody red.

A cryptic rune like a circular throwing blade.

And bright red letters …

DANGER! RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL!

Once you got the dust off, the warning was clear. If you could read.

Bolt by bolt, Highman cranked. And cranked.

This was going to take a long time.

Acknowledgement to the Germanic patois of Poul Anderson’s "Uncleftish Beholding." I am indebted to his brain wave.

(c) Marty Fugate, 2019. All rights reserved.

"It: Chapter 2" review

He's baaaack. Pennywise, that is. Stephen King's evil clown who single-handedly ruined the profession of clowning and destroyed the joy of childhood. Like a stubborn boil, he's (or It's) reappearing in It: Chapter Two. Avoid sewers, red balloons, and, just to be safe, the entire state of Maine.

All kidding aside, it's time for the damnation of faint praise. As usual, I'll start by saying nice things.

Director Andy Muscietti’s two-part movie does a credible job of distilling King’s massive tome. The writing is clever; the special effects rock; the actors act from their hearts; the CGI kicks ass. (And I really loved the nod to John Carpenter's The Thing.) But ...?

But Chapter One packed more of a punch. It had a simpler story structure. (Aggh, there’s a crazy killer clown in the sewers. Losers, unite! Kill the clown!) That's pretty much It.

Chapter Two gets complicated. Gary Dauberman's screenplay adds a vision quest thing. Once the present-day Losers assemble in Derry, they must each find a beloved token of their traumatic childhoods and sacrifice it in the Ritual of Chud to kill the clown. This necessitates constant flashbacks to the adolescent Losers. It's compelling material, but it drags the story's rhythm. It also makes the horror predictable. (Loser revisits past. It gives him/her a jump-scare. Loser narrowly escapes.)

To create his adaptation, Dauberman makes different choices than the TV miniseries. (I prefer most of his choices.) He trims or kills expendable passages and bits of business. He shoehorns in more of King's longwinded novel by means of clever synecdoches. You see It’s arrival on earth in Mike's flashback. The smokehole ceremony is another trippy flashback. Also Mike's. It's sharp, economical writing. But ...

The screenwriter makes King's long story short in Chapter One. In Chapter Two, he makes a short story long with those incessant Stand-by-Me-esque flashbacks to the Losers' unhappy childhoods. 

It's great writing, don't get me wrong. Character-based. Moving. Imaginative. There's a lot of good stuff. But there's too much stuff. All that extra material would make for a great, new miniseries. But it drags the movie down in Chapter Two. And that's not so great.

Like an evil clown emerging from the sewer, a great horror movie should scare the living bejeezus out of you.

It should never feel slow.

"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" review

[SPOILERS ENSUE]

Welcome to 1969. That was the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, 40,000 hippies enjoyed peace, love and mud at Woodstock, and Charlie Manson's followers butchered seven people in the Hollywood hills. 

The party's over. The party of the 1960s, that is. Manson's massacre killed it. America would quickly lock its doors, stop picking up hitchhikers, and thank God they put Nixon in the White House. Kiss all that free love, fearlessness, creative experimentation, and risk-taking goodbye, folks. Get ready for the sell-out 70s. Ah. But what if the kill-crazy spree never happened? Let's make believe ...

And Tarantino does, natch. His "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" imagines that fairy tale alternate reality. In his version, the story has a bloody happy ending.

Before arriving at Quentin's counterfactual Cloudland, we dig into the lives of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio as the washed-up action star of a Western TV show cancelled in 1961) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt as a washed-up stuntman suspected of killing his wife). 

Dalton's agent, (Al Pacino) gives him a shot of ugly truth at Musso and Frank's. He's officially a has-been. And can now look forward to a thousand deaths as a guest-star bad guy. Either that, or Spaghetti Westerns.

Dalton swallows this bitter pill and feels sorry for himself. His stuntman sidekick (reduced to gofer status) can't even claim to be a has-been. What next? Who the hell knows? For now, their careers are dead in the water.

Their lack of action unfolds on the Sunset Strip in 1969. As  seen from inside Dalton's Cadillac. Which keeps driving back and forth on the Strip. These cats drive a lot. And talk a lot, too. This is a Tarantino movie, after all.

Lotsa flashbacks ensue during the drive. Booth and Dalton bullshitting through a TV interview on the set of Bounty Law. Booth holding a speargun on a boat while his soon-to-dead wife busts his balls. Booth busting Bruce Lee's balls and sparring on the set of The Green Hornet. 

Lotsa nostalgia porn outside the window. A lovingly, painstakingly recreated Sunset Strip. Every freeze-frame artfully calculated. Movie marquees, touting Krakatoa East of Java. Pandora's Box is there, though it was actually torn down in 1966. But this is the Tarantinoverse, so don't adjust your set. 

All that, and glimpses of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) in the early flower of Tate's career. Not many lines. But an amazing presence. Manson is the death angel. She's the life force.

Also glimpses of flower children. All female, all young. Digging through dumpsters. Singing creepy, culty songs. hitching rides. 

Booth picks one up, resists her jailbait charms, drops her off at Spahn Movie Ranch, then bullies his way into a shack to check on the owner, his old pal George Spahn. The Manson cultists gather, call him names. It starts to feel like a horror movie. A Children of the Corn vibe. A hippy knucklehead sticks a knife in Booth's tire. Booth busts his chops and makes him change the tire. One cultist rides off to alert Charles "Tex" Watson, who's guiding tourists on a horse trail. He gallops back. But Booth drives off in the nick of time. 

Then the film fast-forwards to August 8. Dalton is back from his latest Spaghetti Western with his new Italian wife. Having a free evening ahead, Booth tries an acid-laced cig. Then the four Mansonites take a drive down Cielo Drive. They get deflected when Dalton runs out screaming at their noisy muffler. Linda Kasabian drives off. The remaining three killers shift targets to the Hollywood types who taught them to kill in the first place.

After that, well. Bloody horror ensues. But a different bloody horror. This time, instead of helpless victims, Manson's hit squad runs into a crotch-chomping pit bull and two kickass badasses, including one with a handy flamethrower.

After that, presumably, the cops would pick up Charlie Manson. He'd get his 15 minutes of fame, but instead of haunting America's nightmares, he'd be a laughing stock. Without that nightmare, America would take more risks, have a little more guts. The 1960s burst of creativity would flare a little longer.

Isn't it pretty to think so?

"Network" • redux, rerun, rehash, review

"And another thing!"

Network came out in 1976. Classic movie with a dream team behind it. Sidney Lumet directed it; Paddy Chayefsky wrote the screenplay. Amazing performances by Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, et al. On top of that, great cinematography, editing, the whole nine yards. Bravo.

This amazing film blew me away in the multiplex. Saw it again on TV. It still blew me away. But ...

Not quite so much.

Why?

I'm still wrapping my head around that question.

Network is one of the greatest movies of all time. At least for the first hour or so. Then it crashes like a lead balloon. It eventually recovers, and makes it to a bang-up ending. But why'd the movie fall in the first place?

Let's start with what it is. The code that runs it. Not the acting, directing, cinematography, or editing. The screenplay. (Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay.) What is it? 

Network is a satire. Mostly. A caricature of TV network bullshit, specifically. Accurate? Who cares?

Satire doesn't have to be realistic, kind, or fair. But there's good caricature, and bad caricature. A bad caricaturist draws a blob and adds big ears. Voila! President Obama. A good caricaturist groks the essence of the face.

Chayefsky's caricature is pretty damn good. It should be. He knew what he was talking about. He was one of the greatest TV writers of all time, after all. The golden boy who wrote Marty in the Golden Age of television. Kudos. But he paid a price.

I imagine he sat through thousands of hours of TV executive meetings, grinding his teeth, seething with unspoken rage, and ultimately distilling that bile in his acid portrait of the corporate bastards. Money, money, money! That's all they think about!

Chayefsky kept his mouth shut and his ears open. The corporate dialog rings true ...

Diana: The Beale show Q score is down to thirty-three. Much of the loss occurred in the child and teen and eighteen-thirty-four categories which were our core market.

The man had a good ear, obviously. And probably kept a journal. But ...

The satire is a tasty coating. Bite into it, there's a hard candy shell at the center. Hardcore rants. Polemics. Lecture. Chayefsky had a thing or too to tell you. 

The movie functions as a delivery system for Howard Beale’s “I'm mad as hell speech”—and all the others. Beale is a stand-in for Chayefsky. The Voice of the Author. Giving you a piece of his mind. The rants are powerfully written. Passionate. From the heart. 

Unlike the portraits of the network executives, Chayesky's portrait of Howard Beale isn't realistic. Hell, neither is Swift's Modest Proposal. Or Heller's Catch-22. Rants or not, it's still great satiric. writing.

That's not the problem. 

The problem is the B story. The romance between Diana Christensen and Max Schumacher. It doesn't add up. Based on the actors' ages, he's 58 years old; she's 35. Max is an old-school TV journalist with solid convictions; Diana is an opportunistic sell-out. He's about substance; she's about empty style. He's on his last legs, she's young and on her way up. What the hell does she see in him? What the hell does he see in her?

Diana should be manipulative and seductive. She should fake Howard out with a false front, adore, admire, flatter and f***k. Instead, she natters on about biz statistics when they're in the sack. It's about as sexy as banging an adding machine. 

A missing scene could make you buy it. Max could say he loves her superficiality. He's pissed his youth away on truth. In a perverse middle-aged act of defiance, he throws it away and has an affair with a sexy fraud. 

But there's no explanation, no motivation. Faye Dunaway is alluring, so you're supposed to buy it. 

To dig the grave deeper ...

Chayefsky deliberately wrote their dialog in soap opera style. A parody of dull hackneyed writing runs the risk of actually being dull. This is. 

The Max and Diana subplot is a deadweight drag. Cut it, and the movie would soar. Chayefsky didn't cut it. He didn't want to kill his darlings. That's the problem.

But it's still a great movie.

Witch Hunt Inc.

Los Angeles Convention Center. Located in the heart of heartless LA. It shimmers in the endless heatwave like a Jorge Luis Borges nightmare of an infinite shopping mall. Business has been good lately. One con after another, pun intended. Last week, defense contractors pushing face-rec drones the size of bees. This week, WITCHCON 2037. Hunter-gatherers of a different kind. And very big business.

Hall after hall, booth after booth, auditorium after auditorium, the place is packed. Monster crowd, broad assortment. Industry reps, industry pioneers (in person!) industry wannabes, customers, the odd reporter, brats playing Witchfinder, and significant and insignificant others. Crowd’s in a good mood. Happy babble echoes off the walls. They’re all laughing, joking, swiping coin for t-shirts, hats, hoodies, mugs, cozies, and other swag. You’d think Steve Jobs just came back from the dead. Or Brad Ragnarok was still alive.

Brad is the star attraction today. You want to talk industry pioneers? Start with Brad. He pretty much invented the whole damn industry, right after the Second Great Awakening.
Today, some of you chumps might get to meet him.

A kid in VR specs crashes into Brad like a bull. Right in the gut. Brad doesn’t flinch, what with his amazing abs and all.
Brad smiles. Kid takes off his blindman specs.

“Sorry,” kid says. “Oh, I’m real sorry.”

“No worries, kid. What’s your name?”

“Tommy,” says the kid.

“Tommy What?”

“Tommy Smith.”

Brad takes the specs, looks through them.

“Well, Tommy Smith. Fun’s fun, but you’d best play safe. Dial back the filter, huh? Don’t want to keep running into folks, huh?”

“No, sir.”

Hands specs back. Tommy does a frantic voice command; the specs shade back to a reasonable tint.  Kid returns specs to Brad for his approval. Brad looks through, nods, hands them back.

“Well, that’s a whole lot better. You play safe, Tommy Smith.”

“I will, sir. Thanks.”

Tommy runs off. Crowd’s looking at him in awe. Got their iPhones out, so it's lights, vid, action. They even start applauding. Brad waves off the fanboy idolatry.

“Kid’s got to learn sometime.”

They nod like the chumps they are.

“Gotta run, folks. It’s showtime!”

They applaud again. Chumps.

Brad smiles, turns his back, walks off. Whispers, “Tommy Smith. Search and cross reference family attendance WitchCon.”

Little bastard has to be a witch. But that can wait.

Brad goes through the front doors of the auditorium, does his prizefighter run up the center aisle, bounds up on stage, takes the lectern.

“How you doing, folks?”

Big applause.

“That’s what I thought. You’re all witch-hunters, and I’m the man who started the hunt. You all know that. And you’re all doing OK. But you know you could do better, and that's why you're here. I’m about to tell you how. Now here’s another question.”

Pause for dramatic effect.

“What does a witch look like?”

An image pops up on the massive high-def screen behind the stage.

A color photo of Margaret Hamilton, in full costume and green-skin makeup as The Wicked Witch of the West. 

This gets a big laugh.

“Yeah, this one's easy to spot. But that’s only in the movies. It’s not that easy in real life. The truth is, a witch looks like you. Or me. Or him. Or her. Or me.”

They gasp with shock. Then sigh. Oh, that’s what he meant.

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Witches hid out for centuries. They hid out during the old time witch hunts. They kept it up for a century or two when the witch hunts went away. America nearly went to hell as a result! The great scientific minds of the Godless Age figured the climate was going to hell because of carbon in the atmosphere! They assumed abortion was a woman’s right to choose, not a human sacrifice. Wells were poisoned, crops failed, wombs became barren. Why, there had to be a scientific explanation, huh? Well there was! What was it?”

“Witchcraft!” they all shouted.

“You’re damn right. By the time our leaders figured it out, most of the real science had been lost! And then they came to me. You all know the story.”

Yeah. Brad’s big success story. Security Solutions Inc. (aka SS) was his baby. It specialized in private prisons and detention centers. Big data nearly put him out of business. Quantum computing and all that shit. It was predictive, if not prophetic. Why lock people up when you know the crime before the time? Why detain illegals, when they can’t get in anymore?

The answer is, you don’t. You find another business model. Damned if Brad knew what it was. Had two lean years.

Then a wave of religious fervor swept America and saved his ass. The new holy roller President and his cronies came to Brad. Supplicants, on their knees practically. They were convinced all our nation's problems boiled down to witchcraft. They had no idea how to find the bastards. Could he help? 

Sure. Brad was happy to help. His competitors refused. These American ayatollahs were convinced the country was rotten with witchcraft. Wouldn't big data work on that? Brad's competitors said, well, gee, what with black magic and all they can fool the computers. Utter bullshit, of course. The truth was they just couldn't stomach it. But Brad could. And he got the job. 

And Brad said the job was good. 

Once upon a time, the United States government paid Brad to lock people up. Now, they paid him to find witches. Sweet deal. Something like quadruple billing with no oversight. Flat monthly charge. Per diem. Then fee for service plus expenses, and SS gets to seize the assets of the witches once apprehended. Paid a whole lot better than throwing teenage punks in a cinderblock hellhole.

Sweet deal, man. Sweet, sweet deal. Now, just between us chickens, Brad no more believed in witches (then or now) than he believed in the man in the moon or a flying purple people eater hiding under the bed. Come on! But, hell, if you pay Brad to find the witches and sons of witches, he's sure as hell going to find them. And Brad did. 

Now, Brad doesn't say any of this in public. The official history of Brad's new business model is bullshit. PR, hype, a cover story, dig? The truth is ugly, so Brad let the chumps believe the happy lie.

He'd sold today's show as a tips and tricks kinda deal. As per usual, Brad plans to say exactly nothing. You think Brad's giving away trade secrets? You got another think coming, pal. This is a commercial in disguise, folks. But Brad's good at this shit.

Time to give 'em what they want.

Flashes the crowd a big smile.

"So, how do you find a witch who doesn't aim to be found? A cunning witch who's got the Devil and black magic on their side? Who's got a network of other witches backing 'em up?"

Brad smiled wider. Knowingly. 

"Start with the network. Witches thought it was their strength! Turns out it was their weak point ... and their downfall. Find one witch, make 'em name all the other witches in their branch of the coven. Then work your way up. Get the names of the whole coven. Then the coven above that. And then the next one. And ... you just keep going. One name after another."

Names bubble into Brad's head. One after another. Sean McCormick. Goth-type artist, little shithead. Lasted for hours. Bastard had balls, Brad had to give him that. At least at first. Then he spilled. Name, after name. Jeff Harkness, Alissa Thompson, Joe Whatsisname. His mother was a suspect, too, but she'd vanished into thin air.

"Of course, you've still got your lone wolves. This righteous nation blocked the digital evil of the world system outside the USA, and destroyed all the magic-related paraphernalia in the bonfires of 2023. But countless bad apples squirreled stuff away. Ain't in no coven, doing their witchcraft in secret. Practiced spells and so forth when nobody was looking. So how do you see what they're doing in the dark? By bringing everything to light. As you know, we relied on spirit-filled men of God to reveal the iniquity among us. The suspects always deny the accusation. God sees all—but God's ministers sometimes err. Yes, mistakes can be made. How can you be sure?"

He smiled. They knew that one.

"Fire and water, of course. We set up state-of-the-art hydraulic containment units to drown suspected witches until they confessed. If some poor innocent says nothing and drowns, their soul's with God."

Brad's dear departed wife, for example. Teresa, bless her heart, kept her mouth shut. Glaring at him through the glass the whole time, even after the water covered her mouth until she couldn't help but open it, gasping for breath, getting water instead. Hate in her eyes, until her eyes went dead. Sorry, honey. But it sure beats a messy divorce.

"As to fire, well, why reinvent the wheel? Or in this case, the stake."

Teresa's feminazi support group explored that option. Quite a spectacle. Sparks flying up like a campfire in the night. Brad stood there, smiling. While Brad was dealing with Teresa, those whores just screamed and screamed at him. (All that 20th century jive about civil rights and freedom and shit.) Now they just screamed. Bye ladies. See you in hell. 

Brad keeps it up.

Colorful anecdotes that say exactly nothing. Now Brad's reached his favorite point in the talk. The pitch. Sign these chumps up for seminars, intensive sessions and all that horseshit. 

But one lady in the audience is breaking his flow. She's waving her hand in the air.

"Sorry, ma'am. No questions in the presentation," says Brad. "We've got a FAQ on our site ... Do I know you?"

"I don't think so. Can I come up?

The obvious answer is no. Brad avoids audience participation like the plague it is. But today, hell. She's pretty. Got something about her. Why not?"

He waved her up. She ran up the aisle, just like Brad did at the start of the show. Zips up the stairs, then walks up to him at the lectern.

Good looking woman. Red hair, green eyes. 35 or so. Something about her. Something stirring in Brad's pants.

"Well, hello little lady. What's your name?'

"Alice McCormick."

McCormick?

"OK, Alice. What's your question?"

"It's not exactly a question."

She laughs.

"I just think it's kind of funny ..."

"What's so funny?"

"All this. This witch-hunting thing you all got going for yourself. Sweet deal you've got." 

Sweet deal. Exact same words running through Brad's head a few minutes ago. Shout for security? Nah. She's harmless. 

The lady giggles again.

"So what's so funny, ma'am?"


"Well ... you." Laughs. "All of you! All you high-tech witch-hunters, chasing after witches. I think you're hilarious, I really do. Like dogs chasing after cars. Did it ever occur to you ... Did you ever even ask yourselves ..."

Talking with her hands, giggling. A ball of St. Elmo's fire slowly grows in her hands. Crackling energy. Reflected in her eyes. No. Inside her eyes.

She laughs uncontrollably. The fireball grows.

"What the fuck did you plan to do if you ever caught one?"

She laughs insanely, then opens her hands. The sizzling energy leaps out and fries Brad like a mosquito in a bug zapper. The crowd screams and tries to run.

It gets bad after that.