A Funny Thing Happened On The Way

US-12 goes right past the Michigan International Speedway, a massive structure located in what otherwise would be the middle of nowhere, but which on summer weekends can attract enough visitors to become Michigan’s fourth largest city. It’s worth pointing out that not only does US-12 go right past this cultural anomaly, its two paved lanes constitute the only road that goes anywhere near the place. I used to live in Saline, some 25 miles East of the speedway, and on race weekends I’d see bumper-to-bumper traffic headed West on Fridays and East on Sundays, all campers with lawn chairs strapped to the back, colorfully adorned with the paraphernalia of auto racing enthusiasm. I’ve never gone in for that sort of thing myself; never seen the appeal of it, really, but I’ve lived within a couple of miles of US-12 pretty much my whole life, so I guess something like the misadventure I had on Sunday was always in my stars, or cards, or entrails, or whatever. In any case, I should’ve seen it coming. It was a Sunday morning, though. I thought if anything, the hordes would be departing, a weekend’s revelry behind them, but no. At first, I mistook the roadblock for some kind of construction –related traffic control, an assumption which, in most other parts of the state during this time of year, would be fairly safe. All I saw was that my way was blocked by a multitude of state troopers and orange barrels. They would simply let me go once a backhoe or some such machine had finished working in the road, I thought. I was a fool, still whistling the fool’s optimistic tune to himself, oblivious to the cacophonous scratch of Nero’s fiddle. Sure enough, after a ten minute pause, they let me go forward, though barrels had been used to route my path onto the shoulder (which I thought nothing of at the time), and with the same having been done on the opposite side of the highway, all four lanes were sent to the West. I was beginning to wonder what they would do to accommodate the people who may want to go East, when I passed a sign which said “All Lanes Race Parking.” Sure enough, my makeshift lane was being diverted off the highway, and into one of the massive grassy fields used as parking lots for the Speedway. Not one of the lanes was left going Westward, towards my intended destination. I pulled up next to a state trooper who was directing me into the parking lot.

“You can’t stop here,” he said. He was all business, and his business was not courtesy.

“But I don’t want to go to MIS,” I said, ignoring the hand gesture with which he was waving me on, “I want to go West.”

“Well, you can’t. Move along!”The line of cars behind me began to honk their horns in unison. It was clear I had no choice. Once in the parking lot, I pulled up to a yellow-shirted attendant, who was attempting to wave me into a parking space.

“Do you have a pass?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I would like to leave.” He looked puzzled.

“Oh. Well, just head that way,” he suggested, waving his hand vaguely, and without giving the impression that he was at all confident in his prescription, “they’ll help you.” I ventured off in the direction indicated, closer to the speedway, and, I imagine, the more expensive parking, wondering who “they” might be. Having gone nearly a half mile, I pulled up to another attendant.

“Do you have a pass?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I would like to leave.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. Evidently, no one had wanted to leave before. “Ok. Um, go up to those campsites, and take a left, and that’ll get you back out to 12.” Perfect. I didn’t see any campsites, but I guessed that must’ve been his quaint, parking attendant term for RV parking spaces. I found a driveway and took a left, and saw US-12 in all its glory, some hundred yards ahead. There was a booth at the end, probably only for checking people in, as it seemed that no one had ever tried to leave before. I drove right past it, waving at the attendant. I was through with his ilk, and would not be needing his assistance, thank you very much. I took a right at the end of the drive, and was on my way.

Damn.

More barrels, and a police car barricaded the road ahead. A cop waved me to the right, back into the speedway. I pulled up to the first attendant.

“Do you have a pass?”

“No, I would like to leave.”

“Oh. Well, you can’t go that way without a pass.”

“I don’t want to go that way. That cop sent me here.” I gestured behind me with my thumb.

“Well, you can’t go that way without a pass.” Apparently, whatever this guy’s job was, the training for it involved only one very brief session. He then suggested that I head East a half a mile through the parking lot, take a right, and the driveway would take me back to US-12.

“I already did that,” I said. “That’s what I was doing when the cop sent me this way. It’s a loop.”

Another cop approached the car. I thought about how they all had matching sunglasses.

“What’s the problem here?” He seemed like the kind of guy who takes being in charge very seriously, but in fairness to him, context might have colored my perception somewhat.

“I want to go West.”

“Ain’t gon’ happen,” said the parking attendant, in a tone that suggested he thought he was being helpful. His drawl seemed to deepen as he spoke. The cop nodded in assent.

“The road’s blocked. You can’t go West on 12.” I wondered if he used that tone of voice with his friends. I concluded that he must not, because no one who did so could have any friends to speak to.

“Well, what should I do then? I can’t go back East, either. Are you suggesting that I spend the day at MIS?”

“Not without a pass,” offered the attendant, smiling. I was enraged. I wanted to kick his teeth in.

“Not my problem,” said the cop, stepping away from the car, and waving me in the direction the attendant had indicated. He was ending the conversation on his own terms. He had no idea how to help me, so obviously the best thing was to tell me to piss off.

“Gee, thanks” I muttered, rolling up my window and heading for the driveway again. Once again at the start of the loop, this time I took a left, and headed towards the back side of the blockade at which my ordeal had begun.

Fortunately, before I got there, I noticed a small dirt road cutting off US-12 to the South, blocked by two cops, who were in the process of telling the driver at the front of a short line of cars that they couldn’t get to MIS that way, and had to take the long way around.

“Let’s pretend I’m an ambulance,” I said, rolling down my window. “How the hell do I get out of here?”

“Huh?”

“I want out.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Jonesville.”

“Well, you can’t take 12.”

“Uh huh. Figured that out on my own.” I regret the tone I took with him, because he actually seemed sympathetic to my plight (for a cop). Either that, or I should have been more hostile at the beginning of the ordeal, because hostility gets results. In any case, he was the first person I’d met who seemed to be able to wrap his mind around the fact that I might not be interested in staying at the racetrack.

“Well, you can head South, and when you get to a T-intersection, turn right, and that’ll take you back up to 12.”

“Will it still be blocked off up there?”

“Nope.”

“Well, thank you very much. Have a good day, officer.”

I rolled up my window and he stepped out of the road to let me through.

On the winding dirt road, going through what I believe to have been the Ozarks, and barely avoiding being run off the road by a near-constant stream of North-bound (and soon to be re-routed) race fans in (without exception) large pickup trucks, I called the state police office in Lansing.

“Hello,” I began, “I’ve just been stuck at Michigan International Speedway for an hour, while trying to drive West on US-12. I’m going to be traveling the opposite direction this evening, and I would like to know if the road is going to be blocked again.” The voice on the other end, who had identified himself as Lieutenant so-and-so (I’m terrible with names), sounded exactly like Ben Stein.

“Michigan International Speedway typically accommodates between fifty and a hundred thousand people on race weekends.”

“So, will the highway be closed?”

“Between fifty and a hundred thousand people will be leaving Michigan International Speedway this evening.”

“So, you’re saying I should take an alternate route?”

“Between fifty and a hundred thousa—“

“Thank you, Lieutenant” I interrupted. “You’ve been very helpful.” I hung up the phone.

I Am A Vigilante

Swinging the door open to my left, and trying not to think about the nature of the discoloration near the handle, I stepped into the restroom, and I saw him. I have you now, you bastard. He was there, as I imagined was his habit, using the middle urinal: the one that doesn’t flush properly. This hulking, lumbering oaf of man-like appearance was the one whose foul bile was left daily to pollute the lavatory with its loathsome odor. His back was to me, preventing me from seeing his eyes, but I could tell that they gleamed with hatred for all his fellow beings, whose every breath was poisoned with the reek of his abhorrence. Fair Justice had delivered him into my grasp; now was the time for action. I must strike now, and rid the community of man forever of this pest. But what was I to do? I am a man of thought, of feeling, of dreams and aspirations perhaps, but not of violence. Were I to attack the brute head on, unarmed and unaided, his fists would surely make short work of me. But what of Justice, bespoilt thus, and by such a creature? Had her cause left to it no champion? No defender? If I did nothing, did I not share in the guilt of my antagonist? Alas, while my heart wrestled thus with itself, the brute finished his vile work, and without seeming to notice my presence, brushed past me and out the door, without so much as casting a glance in the direction of the sink, soap and towels. (Disgusted as I was, I cannot claim to have been surprised to find that he was not among their votaries.) A short while later, having fulfilled my own purpose for venturing thither, and after disposing of his filth (for indeed, all that the middle urinal requires is that the handle be held down for a short while longer than usual), I pried open the door with a paper towel, dropping it in its proper place as I departed, and sulked back to my desk, cursing my cowardice. I had my foe within an arm’s length, and in my weakness had let him escape, to perpetrate perhaps still greater crimes against his fellow creatures.

Some two days hence, I once again found myself in that same place, for though it was with a heavy heart I returned, necessity compelled me thither with what, if you will excuse my use of the term, I shall call regularity. Little could I believe the vicissitudes of fortune, for there again was my foe, and unrepentantly committing his habitual crime! I have you now, you bastard! But wait: surely I was deceived, I thought, for this was not the same brute as before. Does there exist some confederation of beings so indifferent to the plight of their neighbor? Surely not, for what could such creatures desire in associating with one another? Could there be a more absurd notion than a community of the antisocial? Nay, what I beheld must surely go by another name, that of Anarchy. I was defeated. Perhaps, overcoming my cowardice and taking advantage of my superior agility I may have bested one man, but this was far worse. This wasn’t merely a crime, it was systematic misanthropy. It was chaos. Their habitual unruliness required not the narrow blade of Justice, but the broad, inescapable net of the Law.

What was I to do? Certainly, one man cannot of himself be Law, for that would amount to nothing less than tyranny, but mayhap, like Moses of old, insignificant man that I am, I could give Law. Yes! Give them the Law, and yea, let it be writ upon their very hearts! Perhaps their malformed consciences merely had need of some dictum to follow, to lead them down the path of clean living. Morally, I was presented with little less than a Divine imperative, both to protect the community in which I found myself from further misdeeds, and also to guide these wayward souls, that they may no more offend the dignity of their brethren.

My plan having been hatched some short while after the aforementioned second encounter, I arose from my desk, and stepping across the hall, removed my latter-day Stone Tablet from the laser printer. Grasping the Notice in one hand, and clutching in the other a scotch tape dispenser, I swiftly, and purposefully, made my way back to the restroom. Destiny, it seems (and there is no shortage of evidence to this fact), has a taste for the dramatic, for no poet could have composed a more fitting end to my sordid story but that I should find once again, and for the final time, the stink of human micturation wafting through the air! Emboldened in my purpose, I strode to the spot of the offense, determined that none might catch me, and learn from what ignorable authority came my Notice. Swiftly, yet with great care, I removed four pieces of the tape, and affixed the Notice on the wall above the urinal, a rallying cry of Justice in a world of wanton cruelty. In plain letters, it read:

OUT OF ORDER
DO NOT USE

Having thus giv’n the Law to the Idolaters, with a flourish of my hand I pressed and held down the handle of the troublesome urinal, banishing forever the cruel injustice which I and those of like conscience had before suffered in silence. Out, foul urine! Trouble no more the works of man!
Justice, be thou ever so well-served!

Ah, The Proverbial Low-Hanging Fruit!

For some reason, I can't let this one go. David Zax has a little column out there on the inter-nets which asks:

"What if [the Kevin Costner movie Waterworld] were an eco-parable whose message was ahead of its time?"

With all due respect to Mr. Zax and his correct use of the subjunctive, that's a pretty big "what if." He goes on:

[H]as Waterworld's moment finally arrived? The movie opens with an image of the globe as we know it slowly being swallowed by blue while a narrator explains that in the future, "the polar ice caps have melted, covering the world with water." Something similar, if less dramatic, is happening right now on Earth. Global warming is causing seas to rise (though the polar ice caps have little to do with it). In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected a sea-level rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100. While that might not seem like much, it could be enough to make a low-lying island untenable: Recently, the Maldives' new president announced his intention to buy land to relocate his entire nation if necessary.

Ok, for starters: the president of the Maldives can rest easy; Sting took care of that one. If you'd like to send him a "thank you" card, he can be reached at the following address:

Sting
England (probably)
Earth, Solar System (again, probably)

I'm pretty sure that will reach him. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Zax. Waterworld. Those of you who have been fortunate enough never to have seen this film only need to know that it's set in a future in which the earth (yes, our earth) has been covered by several thousand feet of water, presumably due to Global Warming. It's really unclear where Global Warming came up with all the water necessary to do this, but it's a wily foe. The film stars Kevin Costner, who in the film has evolved gills and (more remarkably) the ability to keep a straight face while portraying a man who has evolved gills. What have you got to say about it, Zax?

The first thing we see our hero do in the film is recycle: The Mariner (as Costner's character is known) has a device that transforms his urine into potable water, which he shares with a small potted lime tree. Even when in a bind, the Mariner insists on piloting his three-hulled catamaran solely with a renewable resource, wind.

The Mariner's enemies are the aptly named Smokers, pirates who chain-smoke ancient cigarettes and favor gas-guzzling biplanes and jet skis. Their leader, the militaristic Deacon (a manic Dennis Hopper), is staunchly anti-science, declaring that God made "both man and fish, and no combination thereof. He does not abide the notion of evolution!" The car that he wheels around his supertanker sports a "NUKE THE WHALES" bumper sticker, and he worships "Saint Joe" Hazelwood, pilot of the Exxon Valdez. An enemy of sustainable living—he heads something called the Church of Eternal Growth—he is obsessed with finding the mythical Dryland, which he plans to rape as soon as he gets his hands on it: "If there's a river we'll dam it, and if there's a tree we'll ram it," he sermonizes to his flock.

This is a pretty apt description of what's going on, so I have to conclude that Zax and I are talking about the same movie. The funny part is that he's using the above paragraph to make his case that it is a good movie, while I'm making the exact opposite contention. It's an awful movie. If you could go to prison for making a bad movie, Kostner never would have been free to make Swing Vote, unless it were filmed in the cell in which he'd be serving 136 consecutive life sentences, one for each minute of Waterworld. It is that bad.

Mr. Zax appears to be claiming that this is a good film because the above-described villains are a pretty clever characterization of Republicans. Don't you get it? They worship a dead guy, love chain-smoking, violence, and (most of all) pollution, and they don't believe in evolution! Ho ho ho! Zing. Nail, head, etc.

His central thesis here is that this was all somehow missed when the movie came out, since it was back in the hedonistic nineties, before everyone got hip to what was goin' down on Environment Street. I'm forced to conclude that David Zax is younger than I am.

You see, back in the 'nineties we had Republicans just like the ones we have today, and we also had environmentalists (though at the time all they would talk about was a supposed hole in the Ozone Layer), and we also had preachy science fiction films, most of which were better than Waterworld. The film wasn't ahead of its time, Dave. If anything, it missed the 'Mad Max' bus by a good decade.

Attempts have been made to give global warming a face—the polar bear, New Orleans—and eco-thrillers like The Day After Tomorrow have imagined what sudden climate change might look like. But the task of making people care about the future is tougher. And few things can make the future more vivid than a good science fiction movie. Is Waterworld such a film?

No. It is not.

[D]espite being a better movie than most people remember, Waterworld has its limitations as an eco-parable. It doesn't begin, as does The Day After Tomorrow, with a standoff between a climate scientist and a Cheney-esque symbol of corporate greed, nor does it issue an implicit ultimatum, as did last year's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (in which Keanu Reeves played an alien sent to Earth to assess whether humans could change their planet-abusing ways or whether they should simply be exterminated).

Wow. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Zax for doing his part to keep the "Dick Cheney as a buzzword for anything evil" meme going. Thanks, Zax. Thax. Also, is that really what the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still was about? Because in the original film, the aliens showed up to warn humans not to bring our waring ways into space with us, because if we did, we'd have this guy to contend with:
Yes, if you are wondering, it is an awesome film (by the way, I stole that picture from here). Like Waterworld, it was preachy science fiction, but it was anti-war, which is actually, like, a real problem, man.

In the end, what stymies the environmentalist who would tease a message out of Waterworld is this: It isn't grim enough. When the protagonists aren't in the middle of a swashbuckling set piece, they're patiently coping and demonstrating hope. "We'll just start over again," says that old inventor good-naturedly after his city is sacked. The film ends happily with the discovery of Dryland (Mount Everest, it turns out), an abundant paradise with cascading fresh water and galloping wild horses.

Dude, I'm trying to tell you: the message is there. On the surface. You don't have to tease the message out of the film, because anyone who is foolish enough to watch the movie will get it's corny message right in the first few corny seconds of the awful thing.

Sigh. Where am I going with this? I don't even know. If you've stuck with me through this whole thing, waiting for some kind of punchline, I haven't got one. Let me try to sum all this up, just to have it make some kind of sense:

-Don't watch Waterworld. No, not even ironically.
-Don't watch the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still.
-Watch the original The Day The Earth Stood Still. It's awesome. Also, I'm pretty sure that Gort, the nine-foot, faceless robot could act the pants off of Keanu Reaves.
-On a related note, I would totally watch Bill & Gort's Excellent Adventure.
-David Zax has a funny last name, and I've been writing this whole time picturing someone who looks like this dude.

That is all. I'm sorry. I promise that my next post will be shorter.

When Do I Get To The Good Part?

Unemployment has re-introduced to my daily routine, for the first time since early adolescence, the ritual of breakfast. Lindsey still has no time for it, and I hope that I can soon discard my discovery in favor of gainful employment, but for the past several mornings I've enjoyed having a short time set aside to drink coffee, eat toast, and collect my thoughts over a work of fiction. That said, for the life of me I've been unable to ascertain the cause of the enduring popularity of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I've been subjected to various films of the thing over the years, and been bored out of my mind. I've been derided even by male friends for not wanting anything to do with what, supposedly, is one of the greatest works of fiction in the English language. And so I pose the question to you, my (possibly only) reader: what is supposed to be so good about this book? I'm about halfway through this thing, and am determined to finish it, but it's really hard, because nothing happens. It's always been sold to me (or so I thought) as this terrific love story, but the characters are (forgive me) really pretty shallowly drawn, and the thing seems to have been constructed originally as some sort of social commentary with a love story as the main plot vehicle. I'm probably reading this thing totally wrong, but what I'm getting out of it primarily is that Jane Austen hated a) the rigid middle-to-upper-class social structure of her time, and b) women. The book is, so far, more than a little unkind to the fairer sex. Maybe that's the point? That the social structure of the time turned women into a conniving mass of mercenary vixens, intent on getting their hooks into some unfortunate (though rich) fop of a man, so that the rest of their days can be lived out in an endless string of dinner parties, card games, and social dances. That's one of my hypotheses. There also seems to be a lot of discussion of preconceived notions ("prejudices," as one might say), and their influence on decisions. I guess that would gel more with the title. Whatever the point of the thing (I'll get back to you when I finish it), Austen spends entirely too much time on characters about whom it is absolutely painful to read. The absolute stupidity of these characters defies disbelief. My third (and favorite) hypothesis is that this is actually a work of Science Fiction, about robots that have been programed to destroy the human soul. I'm sorry about the rant, here. I know that many, many people love this book, and can name all of the characters and houses featured therein, and recite their favorite passages from memory. I'm trying to keep an open mind here, really. Otherwise, I wouldn't be reading the book in the first place. I already know the story. I'm not expecting it to suddenly be full of interesting things, like sex, violence, revenge, fear, guilt, redemption, or even passion, but wow. What am I supposed to be looking for here? Am I just supposed to like this because it's British, and I get to read about places (that aren't subdivisions in Southeast Michigan) called Derbyshire and Pemberly, and to hear London simply called "town?" I don't even know. As always I welcome any comments, as I suspect that I've offended someone's sensibilities, and must now submit to a snarky, yet nonetheless righteous defense of such a hallowed tome. I want to like this thing; I really do.

Either way, I'll try to put up some final thoughts when I finish the book, which (as I said) I'm determined to do.