Year: 2014

A Tale of Two Hobbits

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Sitting in the eye doctor’s waiting room, I picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly. It had a picture of a movie Hobbit on the cover and a headline, “Farewell, Bilbo.” I’m a Tolkien fan, so I picked it up and opened it.

Actually, Hobbits aren’t going anywhere. The magazine is celebrating the release of the  supposedly final Peter Jackson movie, the third in his film trilogy of Tolkien’s not very long novel, The Hobbit. The article featured Stephen Colbert done up as various characters in the Hobbit movies.

As I perused the article, it became clear to me that neither Colbert nor the interviewer had ever actually read Tolkien’s books. They’d only seen the movies. But they talked about the movies as if the books did not exist–as if there really were a subplot dealing with a big crush between a Dwarf and an Invincible Female Elf-Warrior.

If you had put a gun to Tolkien’s head and threatened him, he still would never have written such a thing.

So now there are all these people who think they know J.R.R. Tolkien because they’ve seen movies based–sometimes, as in the case of the Elf-Dwarf romance, very, very loosely if at all–on Tolkien’s books.

I remember one of my wife’s co-workers, years ago, insisting that Napoleon was an epileptic because she’d seen it in a TV movie. He wasn’t; but the ignorant screenwriters showed him as an epileptic, so this viewer “knew” he was an epileptic.

This is a great age for knowing a lot of things that just ain’t so.

Some Last-Minute Gifts You Shouldn’t Buy

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I know there are times when you simply can’t help trying to do all your Christmas shopping just as the clock is running out. Nevertheless, it’s always well to look before you leap. Buy in haste, repent at leisure.

So here is a quick guide to some gifts you should avoid giving unless you want to make someone mad at you. Without further ado, stay away from these:

Self-Esteem Poker. For fragile personalities who can’t be dealt a bad hand without being traumatized, who can’t lose, who can’t bear to see someone else win, this outrageously overpriced little item ($45.20) is nothing but an ordinary deck of cards with a single rule sheet explaining that from now on, regardless of what is being played, all the cards are wild cards. So everyone gets a royal flush every hand, no one ever loses, no one ever wins. From Social Justice Games.

Hillary Clinton’s Greatest Speeches, on DVD, 12 discs, 18 hours, for $249.99. Need we say more?

The Affordable Care Act Kit, Part 2: Abdominal and Oral Surgery. $666.00. Finally, if you like your doctor, you really can keep him or her: because under the Ultimate Obamacare, your doctor, dentist, surgeon… is you. Yes, this is a do-it-yourself kit for removing a dicey appendix or an impacted wisdom tooth, etc. As the president himself says, “This does away with the need for malpractice insurance, cutting healthcare costs across the  boards.” Comes with instruction manual, scalpel, dental chisel, and a $5 coupon for a bottle of Old Crow Whiskey.

Poisonous Snakes as Household Pets, by the late Jimmy Bob Blobb, Heartache Press, $1.98. Ever wonder what it’d be like to have a black mamba under your bed, or a closet full of rattlesnakes? Keep wondering. J.B. Blobb’s insistence that poisonous snakes make swell pets led to an early and easily avoidable death.

Now, don’t get the idea that these gifts are inappropriate for Christmas, but OK to give as birthday, anniversary, or graduation presents. These are good gifts not to get for any occasion.

Please, Can I Wake Up Now?

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There’s stuff going on that I just don’t want to write about anymore; and I’ll bet you’re tired of reading about it, too.

So I don’t want to write about our US attorney general decreeing that cross-dressing is a human right protected by the Constitution, and when your local transvestite says jump, you’d better jump.

I don’t want to write about Republican leaders pretending that this year’s election didn’t count, or how we’d better get ready for either Hillary Alinsky or Cherokee Liz Warren to be our next president because it’s America’s fate to have a woman president and any woman will do, especially if she’s to the left of Castro.

Nor do I want to write about going to the eye doctor the other day and having him say to me, after the eye exam, “The government tells me I have to say this to you: you have to stop smoking.”

The thing is, I can’t do anything about any of it. The whole damned shooting match–“damned” as in condemned to Hell–is melting down and nobody in our ruling class wants to stop it. They all seem quite eager to capitalize on it.

Pray, pray, and pray some more. I don’t know what to do, but God does. And He will do it.

A Good Day to be Bad

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Yesterday was a great day for Team Evil.

Our community organizer-in-chief–who probably couldn’t organize his sock drawer–unilaterally announced we’re gonna have “normal” relations with communist Cuba from now on, thus helping the communist regime hang onto power longer. Well, of course he’s going to help communists.

And Sony announced it’s not going to release its new movie, The Interview, in response to terrorist threats made by North Korea, whose gremlins hacked Sony’s computer system and released a lot of embarrassing emails by Sony personnel. But the bad guys sealed the deal by implying they were going to blow up a bunch of American movie theaters if they dared to show the film.

Remember, a few years ago, when a Canadian film company released a film about assassinating President George W. Bush? Sure, there were a lot of loud objections. But the Bush administration never threatened to kill people to keep the film from being shown. So The Interview, which is about a plot to bump off North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, will not be shown. And another run crosses the plate for the bad guys. You can get what you want by threatening to kill Americans.

One more thing to remember; and Psalm 11 says it best.

In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous; but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.

Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.

For the righteous Lord loveeth righteousness: His countenance doth behold the upright.

The Lord is sovereign, the Lord reigneth: and it will not be a good day for the bad forever.

 

Now Here’s a Cool Book…

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A free-lance writer delves into an unsolved murder from 50 years ago, while staying at the same house wherein the murder was committed. And as he burrows into the past, shadows gather around him: there may be someone who doesn’t want this murder solved; and the curious writer may be lining himself up to be the next victim.

Such is the plot of Only in New England, a 1959 book by Theodore Roscoe. You can’t call it a novel because it’s based on a true crime. But you can’t call it non-fiction because the author very much fictionalized characters and settings so as to protect a real community, and real people, from losing their privacy.

Roscoe was an official historian of the U.S. Navy and also wrote for various magazines. This novel, if it is a novel, is an amazing piece of work. It’s told first-person, Roscoe himself being the investigator, and so deftly managed that the reader sees the possible threat to the narrator long before the story-teller seems aware of it.

Well, we know he couldn’t have written the book if he got murdered before he could solve the ancient crime–we do know that, don’t we? But our knowledge doesn’t keep the suspense from mounting steadily, page by page.

I know I’ve said this before, but Only in New England would have made a great classic of a movie–black-and-white, of course, starring Joseph Cotten, and directed by either Otto Preminger or Alfred Hitchcock. This is surely one of the best movies that was never made.

Only in New England is available on line through abebooks and a few other used book services.You’ve probably never read it, so order a copy and give yourself a treat. Hey, where is it written that you can’t have an after-Christmas present?

The Hit Man’s Restaurant

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Are we getting our money’s worth out of the government’s witness protection program?

Case in point, as told this month by the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

Back in the summer of 2009, a four-time murderer, servant of a prominent “family” of organized crime, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for pistol-whipping one customer and beating up another at his pizzeria–a business bought and paid for by the American taxpayer, and handed to this goon when he entered witness protection.

The court held that the restaurant owner has no right to pistol-whip a customer for complaining about the quality of the calzones: or any other reason, for that matter.

Afterward, the goon sued the Daytona Beach News-Journal for libel for its reporting of the incident. The newspaper described the goon as a former hit man, which the goon insisted wasn’t true, that not everyone convicted of murder is necessarily a hit man. Was he hinting that he committed murder without being paid for it? “I committed murder and that’s not something I like to talk about,” he said during the trial.

The goon accused the newspaper of trying to ruin his life and his business. The fact that he physically attacked his customers, I guess, should not have been reported.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it one of the first things they teach you in business school–not to pistol-whip your customers? At least not in front of the other customers.

Anyhow, there’s the federal government handing over what could’ve been a perfectly fine business to an admitted murderer. Uh, what kind of business background did they suppose he had? Did they think he became a hit man just because he saw an ad for it on a matchbook cover? Was any federal officer daft enough to think this killer would just settle down and be a small businessman?

We ignore God’s law at our peril.

What did God command Noah, when he and his family came out of the ark? After telling them to be fruitful and multiply, and forbidding them to eat the blood of living things, God spoke this law: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” (Genesis 9:6) There’s nothing there about setting up murderers in nice little businesses at the public’s expense.

Yeah, I know the arguments in favor of the witness protection program.

But I also know an absurd situation when I see one.

‘No Gender December’ Looks Innocent, but Isn’t

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Male and female created He them. (Genesis 1:27)

Who, in our enlightened modern age, is in favor of forcing rigid stereotypes on children? Why, the evil capitalist toy companies, of course, according to an Australian-based group called No Gender December ( http://www.nogenderdecember.com ). Girls have to play with Barbie dolls and boys have to play with toy trucks–because if they don’t, the other kids at school will tease and bully them for not conforming to “gender stereotypes.”

(But didn’t you say public school is the one and only place for kids to go to, if they’re to be properly socialized? Or am I a bad guy and a racist for mentioning that?)

No Gender December wants you to “Take the Pledge,” to wit, “Stereotypes Don’t Belong Under My Tree.” They can’t quite bring themselves to say “Christmas tree.”

Well, all right: we want to give our kiddies toys that make them happy, toys they like. So if my little 6-year-old girl wants a toy truck, or a sack of army men, well, that’s what she’ll get. Really, who can take issue with that?

It isn’t until you get into the website’s Comments section that you see where these people are going with this supposedly good idea. In fact, the first comment you read starts out like this:

“As a nonbinary trans person the gender binary is one of the biggest sources of frustration in my life…”

Something told me they were going to wind up there. I just didn’t expect it so fast.

Let us ask: Why does the entire ruling whoopee crowd of the Western world have such a huge problem with girls being girls and boys being boys, men being men and women being women?

Uh… could it have something to do with depraved, reprobate minds that belong to people who want to replace God’s creation with their own?

Father, deliver us out of this evil and insane age.

John Wayne as a Psycho?

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I know people who never watch old movies, which means they’re missing out on the good stuff.

Yesterday I watched a classic that I’d never seen before, Red River, starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. This gem of a Western is from 1948, and it will take you to places you never expected to go.

John Wayne has to drive 10,000 head of cattle a thousand miles over difficult terrain, or wind up in the poorhouse. Seems simple enough.

But how did he acquire 10,000 longhorns in the first place? Well, we see from the start of the movie that this man does things his way, nobody else’s. At first it looks like we’re going to see a work in praise of rugged individualism. But if you’re paying attention, you may quickly begin to conclude that maybe Wayne’s individualism is a bit too rugged. He becomes a great cattleman by cutting corners, doing whatever he thinks is best at the moment, and shooting people.

So, he has to move this immense herd from deep in the heart of Texas to the market in Missouri, and nothing’s going to stop him. He has to drive his herdsmen, too. Because the way is so hard, the work so demanding, Wayne grows more and more ruthless until, in co-star Walter Brennan’s words, “He’s plumb outta his head.”

A couple of men decide they’ve had enough, and quit. Wayne sends a gunslinger to catch them and bring them back. Then he proposes to hang them for the crime of quitting their jobs. I’m sure we have all worked for bosses who would have liked to do this; but you really can’t, you know. Therefore Wayne’s adopted son, Montgomery Clift, with a little help from others, prevents the hanging and takes over the herd because his adopted father has become a danger to everybody else. For this, Wayne swears vengeance. And you know what? Everybody believes he means to get it.

Fear of their former employer, turned homicidal maniac, lends wings to their feet and they finally get the herd to market. And that’s where John Wayne catches up to them–that’s where he means to keep the oath he swore to kill his son.

Whew. This is a dark and brooding movie, masterly in its depiction of character. If this isn’t the best acting John Wayne did in all his long career, I don’t know what is. The great thing about the screenplay is that, when you look back on it, you can see that it all falls into place: this was what was bound to happen.

The only flaw is that they changed the ending to make it a happy ending that is totally at odds with the story. So just ignore the last five minutes.

And ignore all those movies based on comic books and video games, etc., and sink your teeth into some of the good old stuff.

A Gratifying Experience

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This is even better than getting to say, “I told you so.”

The other night I discovered a Christian website, “The Lens of Optimism,” which featured a nice, thoughtful essay on spiritual virtues modeled by–you could knock me over with a feather–a character in my books: “Obst the Missionary–Bell Mountain Series” ( http://travisrodg.com/obst-bell-mountain/ ).

Obst starts out as a hermit in Bell Mountain, then becomes a trail guide, a missionary, and a teacher–among other things.

Now, I don’t hang out my shingle as a religious adviser or spiritual counselor. I really am old enough to know my limitations. So imagine what a wonderful surprise it was to me, to see someone extracting wisdom from something that I wrote! It means I’m on the right track, I’ve been following the signs God’s given me, and writing the stories as He gives them to me. For which I give God the glory.

If you’re well-read, you may have noticed that many writers have written stories that are a lot smarter than they are. In fact, it happens all the time. It’s called art, and it’s a gift of God. That some artists are too dense to understand what they’ve been given is their problem, not ours: God will make use of them whether they like it or not.

 

Fantasy to Save Your Sanity

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I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just can’t stand it anymore. I mean, even the Pajama-Gram ads for Christmas are sleazy. The country’s falling apart, they’re wildly celebrating the surgical mutilation of boys into pseudo-girls and girls into pseudo-boys–did you know we “need” more of these freaks in our armed forces, according to the US Air Force?–and our nation’s leaders, perpetually at war against the American people, do everything in their power to nullify the last election.

But you know what’s great about fantasy? None of this garbage has to make it into your story.

For those of you who might want to try your hand at writing fantasy, remember this: the allure of a fantasy world is that the “real” world–the Al Sharpton-atheist-transgender-renegade church-Washington D.C.-public education world–can’t get in! Well, not unless you let it in–and why would you want to do that?

You might ask, “Well, if you leave all that stuff out of the fantasy world, what’s left to put in?” But you wouldn’t ask that if you understood that all that rubbish mentioned above is only pasted onto reality. None of it is an integral part of reality. Can’t you imagine a real world that gets by just fine without militant homosexuals, Occupy Wall Street, or the state of Massachusetts?

A reader once asked me how I deal with feminism in my stories. The beauty of it is… I don’t! When I enter my fantasy, I close the door on feminism; it can’t come in after me. In fact, I close it on a lot of contemporary “isms.”

Divorce your fantasy world from aspects of the real world that weren’t there yesterday and aren’t going to be there tomorrow.

Because those things aren’t real. They make us sick, they undermine our country, and they stink to High Heaven; but they aren’t real.