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?