Battle Royale…with Cheese

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Kevin Ecker is trying to organize a Splatball (or Paintball) Battle Royale pitting the local lefty and righty MOBsters against each other on the field of valor and latex projectiles. So far the righties have shown more interest in getting all Pulp Fiction with it, while the other side appears to have its head tucked under its collective left wing.

If it’s an outdoor event I don’t know if I’ll be able to participate since running around on uneven terrain dodging sniper fire isn’t something on the approved activities list for my knee. I can’t, however, be called a “chickenhawk” because I actually have played splatball before. A few years ago an evening of splatball was the featured attraction of a bachelor party for a friend of mine. It was wintertime so we rented an indoor splatball arena, in this case a warehouse-sized building with an urban warfare motif inside featuring false building fronts, windows, doors, alleys and a no-man’s-land in the middle that also had some cover.

Former governor Jesse Ventura once said, “You haven’t hunted until you’ve hunted man,” and that was one of the few things he said that I could agree with. I’d never played splatball before that night and when the whistle blew to start the first game I got a rush of adrenaline unlike any I’d ever experienced playing football or basketball or even from getting into fights; the thought that someone I might not even be able to see might be drawing a bead on me at that very moment definitely got my heart pumping. I didn’t like the idea of standing still on defense so I decided to join a couple of guys who were going to try and get around the other team’s flank. To do so, however, I’d have to cross an open space about 10 feet wide. I took the first two steps of my dash…and took a paintball pellet on the forehead part of my visor. Actually it hit the air vent of the visor, and the paint dripped through the vent and into my eyes. Thirty seconds into the game and I was baptized, literally, by fire — and I hadn’t even fired a shot yet! The good, they die young.

Fortunately there were several more games to go and many more chances to get my licks in. One problem we were having, however, was that the temperature outside was about 20 below, and the warehouse was minimally heated. With all the energy we were expending the temperature wasn’t uncomfortable for us, but the plastic skin of the pellets we were shooting grew brittle and would rupture easily, squibbing your shot and jamming your gun when it happened. One time I had laboriously worked my way around and behind a guy on the other team; leaping out from cover I shouted, “Die, scum!” or something similar, triggering my gun as my opponent turned. Instead of hearing a satisfying, “pssshh-THWACK!” I heard a muffled blub and purple paint seeped out of my barrel while my would-be victim dove over a box and tried to return fire as I did my own disappearing act.

In another game, each side was allowed a “medic”; if you were hit you could get back in the game if your team’s medic could get over and touch you. Right off the bat this friend of mine took off on a banzai charge right at the middle of the other team’s defensive wall. He was shot down directly under the guns of the other team, and began calling for the medic. Our medic decided, however, that this was a terminal case and not worth picking up a few more welts in the attempt.

Another variation in the rules called for a player on each side, previously and secretly designated by the referee, to turncoat on his teammates. Unfortunately for me, the “spy” on our team was sharing a bunker with me as we tried to pick off any heads that popped up in the sector in front of us. In the middle of the battle I heard,

“Hey, John.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m the spy. Surrender?”

He held his gun on me, the barrel about a foot from my wide target, close enough to raise a welt the size of a popsicle. I considered.

“Ah, oui, mon ami,” I said.

All in all it was a very fun time and it took a couple of hours for my heart rate to return to normal afterwards, and another day or two for the various bumps and bruises on my body to fade. The memories haven’t faded yet, and I have warm thoughts of my night on the front lines. If I do it again, however, I’m going to be sure my ammo is warm, too.

What Cobra Starship can teach us about having fun

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Oh, I’m ready for it
Come on, bring it.
Oh, I’m ready for it
Come on, bring it.
Oh, I’m ready for it
Come on, bring it.
Oh, I’m ready for it
Come on, bring it.

So kiss me goodbye.
Honey, I’m gonna make it out alive.
So kiss me goodbye.
I can see the (tubesock) in your eyes.
Goodbye.

So my dad kinda has this strange idea that “Snakes on a Plane” somehow corrolates with Sock Wars.

What is this “Sock Wars”, you ask? I’ll tell ya.

It’s basically like capture the flag, but you chuck socks at each other instead of a ball; the two teams’ home bases are artfully piled mounds of cardboard; and the flag is a glowstick instead of a flag, because it is played in the dark.

The War starts on *August 18th.

Think that you can handle it?

If you’re interested, talk to my peeps using the contact info.

*Part of the b-day festivities!

Challenging Word of the WeeK: salmagundi

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Salmagundi
(sal muh GUN dee) noun

This peculiar word describes, in its narrow sense, a dish, usually served as a salad, consisting of a mixture of chopped cooked meat, onions, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, pickled vegetables, radishes, olives, watercress and other ingredients, with salad dressing, sometimes arranged in rows to form a color pattern. The term, however, is sometimes applied to a much simpler concoction: a meat and vegetable stew. It can also be spelt with a final -y instead of an -i.

Salmagundi has a much wider figurative application, as a term denoting any heterogeneous mixture or miscellany, and in this sense it is a synonym for gallimaufry or olio or hodge-podge, a medley, a potpourri, a mishmash, a farrago. A painting, for instance, or any work of art, for that matter, revealing a mixture of many influences may be referred to as a salmagundi or pastiche. There is a jocular saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. That would make the poor beast a sort of salmagundi of an animal — a little of this and a little of that. Any creation in which too many cooks have had a hand may sadly turn out to be a salmagundi. The word is derived from the French noun salmigondis, said to be based, in turn, on the Italian for “pickled salami,” known as salami conditti. Though it has nothing to do with the old nursery rhyme, the sound of salmagundi brings to mind the sad tale of

Solomon Grundy
Born on a Monday
Christened on Tuesday
Married on Wednesday
Took ill on Thursday
Worse on Friday
Died on Sunday
This is the end
of Solomon Grundy

and the end of salmagundi.

My example: The Minnesota Organization of Blogs (MOB) is a salmagundi of sagacity, savoir-faire and a bit of silliness.

From the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House. I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it. Previous words in this series can be found under the appropriate Category heading in the right-hand sidebar.

Friday Fundamentals in Film: Secondhand Lions

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Secondhand Lions is both a great addition to this blog series and a well-received film by the young men in our bi-weekly viewing group. The viewing group has largely followed the order of the original class I taught a few years ago while the blog series has gone on to feature additional movies. This week I decided to overlap the two and feature the same movie in both. As such it was a change of pace for the class in that it’s not a war movie or a western, but a comedy. Even the movie makes many important points about honor, honesty and “what a boy needs to know to be a man.”

The story is about a young teenage boy, Walter (Haley Joe Osment), who has grown up without a father – and with a never-ending series of lies from his irresponsible and self-serving mother. In her latest scheme she dumps him for the summer with his eccentric great uncles, Hub (Robert Duval) and Garth (Michael Caine) McCann, about whom many local rumors and legends have circulated about their supposed wealth — and how they came by it. Walter’s mother has two objectives; get some time away without the responsibility of having Walter around, and the hope that Walter might find out where the brothers hide their money.

Garth and Hub don’t appear to be especially upright examples of virtuous men as they live in a poorly maintained house on a remote farm or ranch in the wilds of Texas and their main form of entertainment is taking potshots at the series of opportunistic traveling salesmen that come their way. As the days and nights go on, however, Walter starts to hear an amazing tale of adventure, courage, romance and justice spun out that almost sounds too good to be true, especially after his experiences with his mother. While Walter fears being abaondoned, his uncles (especially Hub) fear becoming useless. While Garth appears willing to settle down and act his age, Hub is still restless for his lost love and not ready to surrender to the expectations of old age. As Garth explains it to Walter, “A man’s body can grow old but the spirit inside of him doesn’t.”

Naturally their fears are mutually answered in each other, especially as Walter gets curious about the mysterious speech Garth says that Hub gives to young men on what they need to know to be good men. It could all get pretty syrupy but for a brisk plot and a series of great scenes that advance the story and message. In particular, the scene were Hub, Garth and Walter stop for barbeque at a roadhouse and have their meal interrupted by a young ruffian and his gang who decide to have a little sport with the “old men.” Viewing the youth as no more of a bother than a mosquito, Hub continues his discussion, telling Garth and Walter:

Here’s a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about. Since this boy was suckling on his momma’s tit, he’s been given everything but discipline. And now his idea of courage and manhood is to get together with a bunch of punk friends and ride around irritating folks too good natured to put a stop to it.

Naturally this means the rumpus is soon on, and the leader of the group asks Hub who he thinks he is. Suddenly taking the young man by the throat, Hub stares down into his eyes and delivers the second-best monologue in the movie:

I’m Hub McCann. I fought in two world wars and countless smaller ones on three continents. I’ve led thousands of men into battle with everything from horses to swords to artillery and tanks. I’ve seen the headwaters of the Nile, and tribes of natives no white man had ever seen before. I’ve won and lost a dozen fortunes, killed many men and loved only one woman, with a passion a flea like you could never begin to understand. That’s who I am.

After administering a thrashing to the gang Hub brings them back to the farm to tend their wounds and they listen raptly (in sight of, but out of the hearing of, Walter and us) as he ultimately gives them “the speech” that Walter so longs to hear, but is still excluded from hearing. Later, after being confronted by Walter, Hub agrees to give the boy “just a piece” of the speech, promising to deliver the rest when he’s older. The part he shares is the number one monologue in the movie:

Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this, that love…true love…never dies. You remember that, boy. Doesn’t matter if they’re true or not because those are the things worth believing in.

Ultimately Walter’s mother returns, accompanied by an unsavory new boyfriend. When the boyfriend outrageously steps over the line, Walter has to draw upon the seeds of courage and self-respect that have been planted over the past few months to face her (and get her to face herself) as he makes his case that his best hope for the quality of the rest of his life is to stay with his uncles instead of following her to Las Vegas. Since the movie is told as a flashback, Walter obviously stays with his uncles and grows up. We can assume that he ultimately hears the rest of the speech from Hub on “what a boy needs to know to be a man” but this is never shared with the audience except for the excerpt above.

Typically in this series I include a series of questions and points to ponder for readers to consider or share with others. There were some questions I asked the boys last night about the underlying themes of the movie (including some of the plot elements I haven’t covered here), but I think I will leave you with the same “homework” I gave to them. I told them the next time we get together they need to come back to me with at least one thing they think went into the rest of the speech we didn’t hear. If you want to help us out, leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Things that go crash in the Night

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The recent story of the drunk driver taking out an entire house has reminded me of the time when our own house was unable to duck.

It was in the spring of 2003, about 10:15 at night. The Reverend Mother and Tiger Lilly had already gone to bed and the young Mall Diva was upstairs, probably flipping through fashion magazines. I was on a couch in my basement trying to catch the Twins score on ESPN (I hadn’t even heard of blogging at that time) when I heard a strange rushing noise that lasted just long enough for me to cock my head and try to classify the sound before it was replaced by a loud crash and a shudder through the house. I, and the cat that was on the back of the couch, immediately levitated and were on our toes. As a parent you learn that while the first sound you hear is important, it is the next sound that tells you how serious the situation might be so I froze for a moment waiting for my next clue: would it be screaming, crying or someone yelling at the other cat?

It turned out that the next sound was that of the Diva’s feet stampeding down the steps from the upstairs to the main level, then her voice saying, “Dad – someone’s crashed into our house!” About that time I had cleared the basement steps and could see a strange light outside our dining room window, reflecting a strange kind of fog. “Get me the phone,” I said to the Diva as I headed for the front door, which is right next to the dining room. As I opened the door and came out on our porch I could see a white car crumpled up under the window box a few feet away and resting on my shrubberies, with several heads inside the car bobbing around. Behind the car and parked in the half-circle driveway that divides our front yard was another car, the driver’s side door open and a man standing behind it, shouting in a very authoritative voice, “Turn the car off, you are not going anywhere.”

I’ve just about got the scene processed in my head when the Diva comes out with the cordless phone. I dial 911 and when the operator comes on and asks for a description of the problem I respond with my address and the statement, “Someone has just crashed their car into my house.”

“What was that again?” said the operator.

“I said, someone just crashed their car into my house.”

“Is anyone in need of medical assistance?” she asks.

“Not yet,” I reply.

“Just so you know, officers are on the way.”

By this time people were climbing out of the crashed car looking rather dazed and the mysterious driver of the second car was still shouting instructions. I could already start to hear the sirens, as everyone of my neighbors in the vicinity had already called 911 themselves before I even placed my call. I asked the men who had gotten out of the crashed car if they were all right, but they didn’t have much to say. As they were all standing, however, I figured they must not be hurt too bad. The second driver approached and I met him out in the yard where he introduced himself and gave me the story thus far. It turns out he was driving along the highway near our house when he had noticed the white car driving erratically and then saw it clip a minivan and force it off the road. As a concerned citizen and a computer analyst for the State Patrol he was offended and when the white car didn’t pull over after the accident he had followed it while calling 911 on his own cell phone. The driver in the white car noticed the attention he was getting and exited the highway in an attempt to lose his pursuit in the streets of my neighborhood.

My house is near the highway and sits in a commanding position where three streets come together in front of it. I also happen to have a large front yard. The driver had barreled down the street toward my house and tried to make a left turn onto another street, but given his speed and physical impairment (drunk) couldn’t quite make it. He hit the curb, launched his car into the air, landed halfway across my front yard, careened the rest of the way across the grass (dropping parts everywhere), crossed my driveway, took out a lamppost, broke through one hedge, crossed another sidewalk and kissed my stucco. Later we would pace off 27 steps from the cracked curb to the gouge in the yard where the car first nosed in.

Of course we soon had all kinds of company. Two local squad cars, a couple of Highway Patrol units, an ambulance, a firetruck and eventually a flatbed tow-truck showed up, along with a goodly number of my neighbors. Oh, and my wife and other daughter poked their heads out of the front door to see what was going on as well. After my initial health check on the four men from the white car I hadn’t had any more words to, or from, them and let the officers on the scene sort things out. Once it was determined that everyone was alright and that the front of the house wasn’t going to fall over it was all rather anticlimatic. The relief I felt was matched the next day when we found out that the driver actually had insurance (though I suspected that wouldn’t be the case much longer).

He was insured by Farmer’s, which called and apologized on behalf of their client and arranged for an appraiser and an engineer to come out and examine the house. While the yard and shrubs were looking pretty rough, the damage to the house was negligible. There was a very thin vertical crack in the stucco underneath the dining room window. The engineer also expressed his admiration for the construction techniques of our home, which was built in 1948. He showed my wife where the rim joist the house rests on was actually constructed of two joists sistered together, and that according to his instruments the rim joist had moved all of 1/16 of an inch before snapping back into place. No doubt the hard landing in my front yard and the resulting slide through my greenery had diminished the impact which was fortunate for us and for the driver and his passengers. The driver was also fortunate that he had hit where he did; if he had gone just a little further to the left he would have been into the front porch and probably would have brought the portico down on top of himself.

All in all, God was looking out for us and for the drunk joker. We also got a little money out of deal and the house has stayed solid ever since. Perhaps best of all, the soon-to-be-driving Diva received an up-close example of the combination of alcohol, speed, mass and friction.

Riding the tiger: the Reign of Terror

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An interesting and illuminating history lesson, courtesy of today’s The Writer’s Almanac. Check out the Wikipedia link in the article below for more details.

It was on this day in 1793 that Maximilien de Robespierre, became the head the Committee of Public Safety, which led to the Reign of Terror in France.

Robespierre had started out as an idealistic lawyer and judge. He was well known for representing poor people in court, and he often spoke out against the absolute authority of the king. Even after he became a public figure in Paris and Versailles, he lived an extremely frugal life. He lived as a lodger in the house of a carpenter. He worked on the first French constitution and fought for universal suffrage. He opposed all forms of religious and racial discrimination, taking the unpopular view that that even Jews and black slaves should be granted full citizenship.

After the French Revolution broke out, Robespierre was elected to the new National Convention, where he called for the execution of the king. He then worked to unify the various splinter groups within the revolution. At the time, France was being threatened by war with Austria. There was also a great fear of civil war breaking out between the various revolutionary factions. In his diary, Robespierre wrote, “What is needed is one single will.”

And so, a man who had fought for constitutional democracy and universal citizenship found himself helping to organize a military dictatorship. On this day in 1793, he took his place on the Committee of Public Safety, which would rule France for the next year. And in order to keep French citizens in line, Robespierre advocated the use of the guillotine, a new machine that was supposed to make all executions efficient and humane. The guillotine was set up in the Place de la Révolution, which later became the Place de la Concorde, and over the next year more than 2,000 people were beheaded for having opposed the Revolution.

At first Robespierre executed people who had supported the monarchy. But then he began to execute revolutionaries who were too moderate. And finally, he began to execute people who had merely opposed him on one issue or another. Eventually, members of the National Convention began to realize that no one was safe, and even they could be the next victims. So they turned on Robespierre. Exactly one year, to the day, after he had taken control of the Committee of Public Safety, he was arrested, and the day after his arrest he went to the guillotine himself.

For more than a year Robespierre had been executing people in the public square to cheering crowds. When Robespierre went to his own death at the guillotine, onlookers said the crowd cheered just as loudly as ever.

“I’m Only Working Here ’til I get Discovered” Part ll

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I know that all of you have been eagerly awaiting the premiere of the show that I described in this post a while back.

“Instant Beauty Pageant” (Mall of America episode) will apparently be airing this weekend on the Style Network, which is on Comcast and Dish Network in the Twin Cities, but not DirectTV. It broadcasts this Friday at 10 p.m., and again at 1 a.m., 8 a.m. and noon on Saturday. Yet again on Sunday at 11 a.m., 9 p.m., and Monday at 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. (all CST).

Gosh, I wonder if anyone will see it?

I was an innocent bystander working at one of the shops the crew visited, and they snuck up on me with the camera and lights. I don’t know if I’m in the show or not, but keep a look out for the dark-haired girl with eyes bigger than a deer’s in headlights.

PS: Just twenty-four more days!

To the Max

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When I first met my wife I didn’t have much appreciation for art. About the only thing you’d have found on my walls back then was white paint (and food). My favorite artist was the guy who put all the tiny numbers inside the little outlines on the kits I bought as a kid. That may have been because I had a better odds drawing to an inside straight than trying to draw a recognizable picture.

All that aside, today is the birthday (1870) of one of my wife’s all-time favorite artists, Maxfield Parrish. Thanks to her, I’ve also come to appreciate Parrish’s work and I love to look at prints of his dreamlike landscapes and portraits. The unique colors and “glow” in his work are so rich and interesting and it is fun to picture yourself standing (or reclining) in each scene. I even have an outline in my head for a story that I hope to write one day, set in a world that looks like his paintings (I’ve named the woman in the image below “Calla”).

I obviously can’t claim to be too fine in my artistic sensibilities, or unique in my appreciation of Parrish. He’s probably more of a “popular” artist than what the more sophisticated might consider a “master” (at one time in the 20th century it was estimated that one in every four American homes contained a Maxfield Parrish print), but I enjoy the fantastical elements and sense of fun in his paintings and I’ve always had the sense that they were fun for him to paint as well. There are other “popular” artists such as Thomas Kinkade and Terry Redlin who have made luminescence part of their trademark, but it seems to me to be an almost forced quaintness on their part (or at least profitable repetition), rather than something emanating from the artist’s imagination.

Parrish was pretty prolific, but I still wish there was more of his work.

Oz comes to Never-Never land

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Amanda Lee Donoho at The Wide Awake Cafe reacts to John Kerry’s statement that the Israeli-Lebanon (actually Israeli-Hezbollah/Syria/Iran) conflict would never have occurred if ““I were president.”. Her post, If Kerry Were King of the Forest features a photo of Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion and speculates on what else surely wouldn’t have happened if Kerry were president. Check it out.

Unlike the Cowardly Lion, however, you’d have to say Kerry has some nerve.

Life is sad, believe me Missy,
When you’re born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve.

But I could change my habits,
Nevermore be scared of rabbits
If I only had the nerve.

I’m afraid there’s no denyin’
I’m just a dandylion
A fate I don’t deserve.

But I could show my prowess,
Be a lion not a mowess
If I only had the nerve.

Oh, I’d be in my stride, a king down to the core
Oh, I’d roar the way I never roared before
And then I’d rrrwoof
And roar some more.

I would show the dinosaurus
Who’s king around the fores’
A king they’d better serve.

Why with my regal beezer,
I could be another Caesar
If I only had the nerve.

Still, what it reminds me of is another famous song from “The Wizard of Oz”, sung to the same tune:

“If I Only Had a Brain.”

Challenging Word of the Week: revanchism

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Revanchism

(rih VAN shiz um) noun



Revanche, French for “revenge” has given rise to the noun revanchism, the policy of a nation seeking to regain territory lost to another nation, such as France’s attitude and policy towards Alsace and Lorraine, lost to Prussia after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The adjective describing the policy is revanchist (rih VAN shist). The revanchist attitude of the Arab states as to territory lost to Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 has played a prominent part in causing the turmoil of the Middle East.



My example: 20th century revanchism described nations seeking to regain territory in Europe and the Middle East. In the 21st century a cultural revanchism can be seen in the reconquista movement promoted by La Raza and others (perhaps nations?).



From the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House. I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it. Previous words in this series can be found under the appropriate Category heading in the right-hand sidebar.