Thank you, Bruce

I don’t remember my first haircut.  Who does?  I’m sure, having many times witnessed the trauma of children enduring their first coif, that my parents took me to a local barber shop sat me on the booster seat and tried to comfort me against this most egregious violation of personal dignity ever.  And I’m sure there efforts were unsuccessful.

My earliest memories related to personal hair grooming are of my father shearing my tresses with a whirring clipper like a shepherd collecting wool from his flock.  In the early days of my school career I sported a butch.  This was not problematic as around 1960 the butch was considered a manly styling choice; not as cool as a crew cut but better than a Poindexter.  Now I’m sure, knowing the philosophy by which my father steered his life, that his choice was not based on some appeal to fashion chic.  No, he calculated the savings he would realize by buying a cheap trimmer and amortizing its cost over the number of haircuts I would need until I got a job and could pay for my own trips to the barber.  The choice of style was driven solely by the ease and speed by which the results could be achieved.  Sometimes, on a crisp autumn evening, I’ll flash back to the family garage, my father’s homemade workbench stool and the smell of gas fumes emanating from the Buick.

After completing my fifth-grade studies, we moved to a larger home which meant I would be attending a new school.  During my first haircut at the new location, I broached the subject of letting my hair grow out to a less juvenile length.  After all, I was going to be eleven years old when the new school term started and my class would be populated by girls who had not yet formed the impression that I was a hopeless geek.  I don’t know whether he had compassion for my plea or just figured such a change would allow him more time to hide behind the daily newspaper, but he acquiesced and so began my relationship with Al the local barber, who was quite the eloquent conversationalist compared to Al (my father).  I learned that it was not necessary for one to remain completely motionless, including movement of the lips, for one to receive a precision, quality trim.  And so I was introduced to the business man’s special; razor tapered on the back and sides, off of the ears, parted on the left, gooped in place with Brylcreem.  For the next seven years, Al was my date every other week.  He wisely dissuaded me from a Beatle cut.  He deftly redirected my desire to wear bangs like Mr. Spock.

Upon graduation from High School (Go Monarchs!) and the liberation afforded by personal ownership of one’s first car, I left Al in favor of the discount haircuts offered by the Exchange Barber Shop on board 32^nd St. Naval Station.  As my father had been a career sailor (twenty-years) all dependent services were extended to me until I reached the age of twenty-three.  With the price of gas seemingly static at about thirty cents per gallon, it was more economic to drive the fifteen miles to the base and save about a dollar (over fifty percent) on the price of the haircut.  I reasoned that know I was paying for my own haircuts, I could exercise some control over the style (not the only example of my proclivity to totally misread the tea leaves of reason).  I would go to great lengths describing to the base barbers (it seemed I never got the same one twice) exactly how I wanted my hair to look; a little longer, hair over the ears, blocked in back, parted in the middle.  They would go to work and low and behold, when finished, I would have the business man’s special; razor tapered on the back and sides, off of the ears, parted on the left, gooped in place with Brylcreem.  My hair looked suspiciously just like a regulation Navy cut.  I am so thankful my father had not joined the Marine Corps.  Or maybe it was a communication problem born of my lack of skill with the Tagalog dialect.

Sometime during my first year of college (the first time) I just stopped getting my hair cut.  Over the next several months my tresses grew to cover my ears, fall over my collar and eventually touch my shoulders, almost.  I was in style.  When I returned to campus for my second year, I looked like a college student.  I do not believe this added to the level of confidence felt by my faculty advisor when I was elected to the position of President of the Criminology Club.  The atmosphere in the Criminology Department was a bit more staid than that of the general student population.  Though he said nothing, I could tell he was relieved when I showed up for the second meeting of the semester in a cut more befitting the office.  By this time, I had abandoned the base barbers and returned to Al.  He was a nice guy and, generational differences notwithstanding, we had a rapport; business man’s special; razor tapered on the back and sides, off of the ears, parted on the left, gooped in place with Brylcreem.

Throughout the remainder of my Community College career and into my short career in law enforcement, I maintained my hair to uniform standards.  After my departure from the Sheriff’s Office, I generally let my hair grow a bit longer and was lucky enough to be involved with women who would scissors trim my hair for me.  That is until I encountered The Woman!  It is amazing what compromises to our principles we will make for love.  She introduced me to a barber of her choice (I believe “hair stylist” is the appropriate moniker) and was paying some outrageous price for the privilege of meeting my eventual ex-wife’s standards.  This was the late seventies, and while I never embraced the disco culture, styled locks was the mode-o-day.

As college graduation approached (the second time) my concerns turned to landing a lucrative job.  I had the hair stylist shorten things up a bit to make me presentable for the accounting profession.  I don’t think it worked.  When I finally did land a job in my chosen field of endeavor, me and the (soon to be ex-) wife relocated to Los Angeles.  At first, I continued to patronize my San Diego stylist whenever I would return home to visit friends and family.  But after the inevitable (and I am willing to accept all responsibility) separation, I turned to Super Cuts.  And there I stayed for several years.

With the advance of society, so it went that hair styles throughout the 80s and 90s tended to shorten.  Then, with the advent of the 21^st Century, the bad boy trend of purposely mussed hair became all the rage (and seems to remain so… Comb your firggin’ hair!).  I couldn’t stand it.  My logical approach to all things would not allow me to accept the paradox of spending so much time and money on a haircut intended to give the impression that absolutely no time and money had been involved in its evolution.  By this time, my own hair was thinning noticeably.  I could no longer pull off the gentleman’s business cut, parted on the side.  The part now started half-way up my skull.

All considered I do fall on the lucky, if not blessed, side of the masculine hair-loss conundrum.  I have inherited my father’s hair.  Now this confused me somewhat because, I was raised to believe the myth that a man receives his hair gene from his mother.  And my mother’s brothers were all Bozo bald; all eight of them.  To a man they used the side-to-side comb over.  Holiday get-togethers resembled a Turtle Wax convention. My father, while his hair thinned considerably over his lifetime, did not develop male pattern baldness.  But he was still slave to his vanity and would let the hair on the top of his head grow long and comb it straight back to cover his scalp.  My fervent belief that misdirection is tantamount to self-delusion would not allow me to follow either path.

With retirement, I eschewed the world of hair salons and began to patronize barbers again.  I had one that would share his most intimate opinions on how to please a woman; our relationship did not last long.  Next was the pretty Mexican woman who was always enthusiastic to see me, even though I could only catch about half of her heavily accented discourse.  But alas, the owner of her shop retired to Minnesota (Minnesota, really?) and she had to relocate to a shop in Oceanside.  She was worth a thirty-minute drive, but not ninety.

So I stumbled into a shop in Valley Center and met my current barber, Tami.  And in the duration of our commercial relationship, she has taken me from a “two” to a “quarter” (you guys with short hair know what I mean).  That’s right; I’m back where I started in the old garage.  And I love it.  You can’t imagine the money I save of shampoo!  When I camp, I no longer feel there is a greasy beaver in residence on my head.  My hair is never mussed.  Rubbing the stubble with my palm makes me feel happy.  And I owe it all to the baby-boomer who made it cool to be bald.

  Thank you, Bruce Willis, for illuminating our path with the sheen from your chrome dome.

The Tao of Robert Duvall

The other day I was sitting outside Starbucks, drinking coffee and reading a book about Teddy Roosevelt.  Wait a minute, don’t give up yet.  This post is not about Teddy Roosevelt.  It is not about Starbucks.  It is about that singularly interesting subject, me.  Yeah, I thought that would pique your interest.  Now back to the story.

As I stated, I was reading a book and, as my finely tuned survival skills allow, catching dribs and drabs (mostly drabs… ha, ha, ha) of the conversations of my fellow Starbucks patrons.  My brain began to make sense of a pattern of information… Beatles… Rolling Stones… Eric Clapton; the music of my generation.  I paused my reading to take a look at the fellows with whom I might have something in common and was annoyed to discover a group of old men.  Gentlemen sporting bald heads, gray whiskers, pot bellies and Hawaiian shirts; they should be discussing the Big Band Era, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman.

I sat for a moment, observing these interloping critics and slowly realized… they were wrinkle-sporting members of the baby boom generation… MY G-G-G-eneration!   Somewhere, sometime, probably in the dark of night, my youth had been stolen.  Damn you, Peter Pan… why did you leave me behind?!?!

I checked my mental calendar.  Sure enough, in just about two week’s time, I would be celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of my birth.  What the hell had happened?  There I was, just a blink or two ago, cruising down Main Street (El Cajon, California… there really is a Main St.) in my 1966 Pontiac La Mans and now I was sitting outside a Starbucks in Escondido, California (life has not taken me far, geographically) teetering on the brink of senility in the company of old men with whom I have way too much in common.

Being uncommonly self aware, I should have recognized this epiphany looming on the horizon for some time.  I had sensed I was becoming invisible: Men walk by without assessing your size or condition; younger women no longer notice your glances, or if they do their acknowledgement wears a patina of pathos.  The front sight never comes into focus (shooting reference, tyros).  I’ve been invited to only one party in the past three years.  It is true, I have become an anachronism.

Such realization is accompanied by soul searching.  Who have I become?  I will never again be able to ask myself, “What would James Bond do?” or “How would Sergeant Saunders handle this?”  No, I would have to find a new source of inspiration; someone hampered by the same downgraded abilities with which I am now burdened.  I need a persona I could emulate who is not going so quietly into that good night:  A man who refuses to let his advancing years force compromise on his beliefs and values.

When one is young, one will have plenty of opportunity to correct ones course.  If a role model is a bit rebellious and demonstrates coolness toward authority, it can be blamed on youth and dismissed as a feature of immaturity.  But a wizened man would never display cool behavior.  The serious senior citizen wishes to display confidence born of experience and reason, not teen-aged bravado resulting from insecurity and intellectual dearth.  The wizened man is such because of his life experience.  It is too late to experiment.  He needs to know which way the wind blows and whether to take it face on or turn a deflecting shoulder.

A major challenge in identifying an ersatz role model is the presence of flaws in all human beings.  Vanity, pride, fear of mortality all conspire to direct a man towards compromise.  If we wanted imperfection, we could rely on ourselves.  But it is the fictional character in which we find the unblinking, truly moral hero.  As I search my mental rolodex, (you young smart-phone aficionados should use the contraption to look up rolodex and see what it is) I find one character that I would most like to emulate in my later years, Hub McCann from Secondhand Lions (New Line Cinema-2003) as played by Robert Duvall.  Having lived an active life, I would now eschew the search for trouble, and sit on my front porch waiting for trouble to come looking for me, with my shotgun resting handily on my lap. And this would be the tao:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things 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! Remember that boy... remember that. Doesn't matter if it is true or not, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in... got that?" 

Blah, blah, blah...

Here we are in the doldrums of August and I am hard pressed to find thematic inspiration.  The world, it seems, is disintegrating at our very feet.  Of course, a case may be made that this process began the moment the first of our arboreal ancestors climbed down from his perch above the African savanna and made terra firma his domain.  So rather than deliver the usual eagerly anticipated lesson today’s post will be limited to random thoughts.

We lost a magnificent Hollywood icon this week; someone who was loved by all audiences.  Their contribution to American pop-culture will forever be remembered.  I speak of course of Lauren Bacall.  Oh yeah, some comic named Robin Williams died too.

“You do know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?

  Just put your lips together and blow.”

It seems the Arabs and the Israelis are still at it.  It seems the Arabs and the Kurds are still at it.  It seems the Arabs and the Americans are still at it.  It seems the Arabs and the Arabs are still at it.  What perplexes me is why we don’t just leave those poor wanderers alone.  After all, they are only asking for a world-wide religion and a little goat meat.  And they’ve been asking for the goat meat for three thousand years (long before Mohammed and Islam).  You have to give them credit for keeping their eye on the prize.

Are all of you youngins’ out there practicing your Russian?  It’s going to come in handy when you’re fighting to take back the Ukraine.

There are race riots nightly in the suburbs of St. Louis over the death of a teenager at the hands of a police officer.  I wasn’t there and have no insight into what happened or where to place blame.  But I kind of like a philosophy that proposes to quell unrest by the ad hoc distribution of athletic footwear.

This month’s juicy raspberry for political correctness run amok goes to ESPN.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about consider yourself lucky and go back to watching cartoons.  Oh, nice panamas by the way.

New Flash:  This week’s inter-squad practice between the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys erupted in violence!  Now who could have foreseen that?  On the subject of Cowboy surprises, owner Jerry Jones, 71 year-old billionaire, was photographed groping an attractive woman.  Now what’s the use of working hard enough to amass that kind of wealth if you can’t get a little cuddle now and then?  Maybe if Jerry would spend more time on women and less interfering with his coaching staff, the Cowboys could get into the playoffs.  Okay, maybe not.

I watched a new show on the American Heroes Channel titled Gunslingers that purports to deliver to the faithful the definitive narrative on the classic shootouts of the old west.  My opinion; Billy the Kid is still a sniveling, cowardly murderer and Sheriff Pat Garret did his duty!

If the populations of Honduras, El Salvador et al are migrating to the United States, does that mean we can reduce foreign aid to those countries to offset the cost of social services their refugees will enjoy here?

The clock on the wall in unison with the voices in my head are telling me it’s time for my next dose of the medication, so TTFN.

What Would Popeye Do?

It would be honest of me to say, a great deal of my intellectual development was forged in the furnace of cartoons.  I love animation of all genres.  My first television memories are of The Mickey Mouse Club; watched at my grandparents’ home in Sterling, Colorado when I was three years old. My mother and I were living there while my dad was serving our country in the Western Pacific.  Each afternoon, before American Bandstand (if you don’t know American Bandstand, now would be a good time for you to ask an authority figure to change your diaper), all us wee tykes would gather ‘round the tube to share in the frivolity that was The Mickey Mouse Club.  

Then being too young to appreciate the attributes of (I have been led to understand I was not a breast-fed baby) Annette Funicello, I considered the live action portion of the program just a waste of time.  But if my memory serves, each episode presented two animated shorts which made all of the singing and dancing tolerable.  The cartoons of course were theatrical release short features that accompanied Disney films to movie houses.  While the presentation quality of television did not begin to match that experienced in the local Odeon, it was good enough for this little myopic tot and I didn’t have to sit through two feature length movies (if you are old enough to remember double features, now would be a good time to ask someone in authority to change your Depends) to get my Donald Duck fix.

My next memory of cartoons coincides with our return to San Diego.  Hanna-Barbara ruled the airwaves with mindless drivel like Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear.  What I remember most about these production line offerings is that they afforded no avenue for real cerebral growth.  Once you learned Huck was inevitably going to be trounced by an escaped gorilla and Yogi would never enjoy the epicurean delights that promised to be in the pilfered pic-a-nic basket, you had mastered the course.  Today, if I try to watch any of these “classics” on Boomerang (that’s the Cartoon Network’s retro channel), I usually fall asleep before the first screech of tires or the discordant sound of a guitar being broken over someone’s head; “El Kabong!”

Once I started school (coincidently, I don’t believe there was any kind of a communist plot involved), I discovered the genius of Jay Ward.  “Who?” you ask: The creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle; Dudley Do-right; George of the Jungle (“Heh, heh, heh; Chicken ala king!”); Super Chicken; et al. While silly enough to keep a kid entertained, these cartoons were equally appealing to the adult funny bone.  Their second tier of humor could be quite ribald to the tuned ear.  

I would identify the most valuable lessons as: how to be discreetly sarcastic; and the absurdity extant in imminent horrific possibilities; to wit, Boris and Natasha were Eastern Bloc spies plying their terrorist trade during the height of the Cold War!  The one problem with some of the Jay Ward cartoons we their episodic, cliff-hanger style.  When I am lucky enough to run across an airing I am challenged to understand the goings on; another similarity to real life.

I think everyone will agree that the crème-de-le-crème of short subject theatrical cartoons came from Warner Bros. studios.  Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Tweetie Bird, Sylvester: there is just not enough time or paper to complete the list.  Unfortunately, in my early youth, they were only available at the cinema.  But in 1960, ABC aired a weekly, prime-time series, The Bugs Bunny Show, each episode of which featured three selections from their Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes theatrical cartoons.  

Unfortunately for true aficionados, their library did not include offerings from prior to 1949, which had the highest level of artistic and production quality.  I guess when you are six of seven years old, you can’t appreciate the difference.  But if you have the opportunity to screen some of early product from the Leon Schlesinger (producer) era you will find they hold up artistically (story telling, character design) and technically (animation, background, music track) as well as anything produced digitally today.

There were other studios as well:  MGM produced the likes of Barney Bear, Tom and Jerry, Droopy et al: good artwork but repetitive stories.  I remember Woody the Woodpecker from Universal Pictures (Walter Lantz Studios) along with Chilly Willy, Andy Panda and a truckload of other nerve touching animals that taught us being louder than the other guy was the secret to success.  But among all of these studios, perhaps the most culturally significant was Fleischer Studios (renamed Famous Studios, then Paramount Studios) because they gave us Popeye the Sailor.

To be fair, Popeye was not a creation of the animation college, but rather claimed a higher pedigree from the more sophisticated world of print comics.  He was an added character to the long-popular strip, Thimble Theatre created by Elzie Segar (popularly known by just his last name and pronounced for effect as “see-gar”, like a cheap cigar).  In 1933, Fleischer Studios transformed the comic strip into a series of theatrical cartoon shorts released by Paramount Pictures.

What sets Popeye apart from other period cartoons was his deeply engrained sense of right and wrong.  He always conducted his own affairs in an honorable way and expected the same of those around him.  He paid respect when due and demanded the same in return.  His moral philosophy or “Tao” could be summed up in his theme song:

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

I'm strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach.

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

I'm one tough Gazookus, which hates all Palookas.

Wot ain't on the up and square.

I biffs 'em and buffs 'em and always out roughs 'em

but none of 'em gets nowhere.

If anyone dares to risk my "Fisk", It's "Boff" an' it's "Wham" un'erstan'?

So keep "Good Be-hav-or", That's your one life saver

With Popeye the Sailor Man.

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

I'm strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach.

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

It is an approach to personal relationships that I adopted at an early stage of my own life.  Fortunately for me, I was built more like Bluto and less like Popeye so I was rarely tested.  But times have changed considerably since the beginning of the Twentieth Century and such strong-armed behavior is no longer tolerated.  The age of enlightenment (somehow attributed to Aquarius) taught us peace is the ultimate goal.  Today society mandates we rely on officialdom to resolve our differences.  We can see by looking at the world around us how effective that approach has been.

While I am now too old and damaged to go around challenging people to do the right, courteous thing I sometimes long for a more self-regulated society and when tried by the ill behavior of others wonder to myself (because these kinds of thoughts are best not shared with the population at large) ,”What would Popeye do?”

And I believe the truth is, he’d do about twenty-five to life.  Unless the script was being written by Oliver Stone, in which case he would probably be doing Wimpy.

A Wilder Ride

Most of us know the films we love through their characters and the actors who portrayed them.  I would bet that the vast majority of film aficionados, when asked to name a favorite movie, visualize a scene featuring the star or their favorite character.  But the truth is, while actors are essential (or have been up to this point; keep your eye on the evolution of digitized entertainment… someday soon you won’t be able to tell if you are watching Matthew McConaughey or a CGI representation… hell, you might not be able tell if you are you or a CGI representation, but I digress) cinema belongs to the screenwriters and directors.  If there is no story to tell or no plan for translating the screenplay into a movie, well you’d have a bunch of restaurant employees standing around wondering what to do with their lives.

But fortunately for us, the third leg that keeps the movie industry stool from toppling over, the audience, the history of American cinema is rife with talented directors and screenwriters.  And in this week’s missive I am going to introduce you to one of the best; Billy Wilder.

I don’t want to bore you with a biography.  If you are interested in minutia you can look him up yourself.  Wilder is one of the most important filmmakers of the Golden Age of Hollywood and beyond.  He was the first person to win Oscars for producing (best motion picture), directing and screenwriting for the same film (The Apartment: United Artists-1960). Although some critics downplay his career because it was heavily weighted with screw ball comedy and film noir, perusing his filmography is like reading a list of my favorite movies.  Wilder’s American career, which ran began in 1933 and ran for more than fifty years, boasts twenty-one Academy Award nominations (8-directing, 12-screenwriting, 1-producing) resulting in six wins.

If you have any self respect as a movie fan, you will have seen these films:

Double Indemnity (1944-Paramount Pictures):  Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson, this gem is considered by many film commentators to be the first in which all the elements that came to be identified with film noir were present.  Double Indemnity’s pedigree is further enhanced by a co-writing partnership between Wilder and Raymond Chandler (creator of the Phillip Marlowe novels).  It is the story of an otherwise noble man being seduced into a murder conspiracy by the femme fatale, realizing too late that her plaints of abuse at the hands of her husband were false and motivated purely by greed.  While a familiar theme, this is a truly superior presentation.

Sunset Blvd (Paramount Pictures-1951): I remember seeing this movie on late-night TV when I was a kid; maybe ten-years old.  I didn’t get it.  Then I saw it again as an adult and not only did I get it, but understood why in my youth I didn’t (and was thankful). Children should be protected from the dark nature of this film.  And when I say children, I mean anyone under the age of thirty.  William Holden plays a down-on-his-luck Hollywood screenwriter (go figure) who, attempting to elude skip tracers trying to repossess his car ends up hiding in what he supposes is an abandoned mansion from the glory days of silent films.  He discovers to his surprise that he has stumbled into the cloister of famous star of yesteryear, Nora Desmond (played by silent-era star Gloria Swanson, coaxed out of retirement by Wilder) and her resident manservant, Max.  Let us just say that a relationship of convenience evolves; I leave you to enjoy the unfolding of this sordid tale on your own.  Wilder won an Oscar for screenwriting.

Some Like It Hot (United Artists-1959): This seems to be everybody’s favorite comedy.  In 2000, it ranked number one on AFI’s list: “100 years…100 laughs”.  For 1959 there were some rather progressive themes represented here.  The story is of two union musicians (Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon) trying to eke out a living in winter-time Chicago when they are hapless witnesses to the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.  They affect their escape by disguising themselves as women to travel by train to Florida as members of an all-girl band.  Marilyn Monroe delivers the best performance of her career as the boozy, ukulele playing Sugar Kane Kowalczyk.  The film was shot at the Hotel Del Coronado (California).  This is screw ball at its best.  And of course, Tony Curtis sheds his female persona to romance Sugar Kane adopting the mannerisms of Cary Grant.  In proper tribute to the importance of this movie, the final line, “Nobody’s Perfect” is inscribed as the epitaph on Billy Wilder’s headstone.

But then, being a true lover of cinema, you know these movies well.  My purpose today is to introduce you to a few of my favorite Billy Wilder works that are not as famous but every bit as entertaining.

Ninotchka (MGM-1939) screenwriting credit:  This was the breakthrough effort for Wilder (Oscar nomination for writing-screenplay) who had been actively writing in America since 1933. Ernest Lubitsch directed.  It is a screw ball romantic comedy starring Greta Garbo in the title role as a Russian attaché sent to Paris to investigate the delay by three comrades charged with securing jewels smuggled out of Russia by a fleeing Grand Duchess.  While pursuing her duties, she is seduced by the proletariat lifestyle and the Duchess’ retainer, Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas).  If you wish to understand Hollywood’s pre-WWII image of Russians and Communism, this movie will let you laugh as you learn.

Stalag 17 (Paramount Pictures-1953):  If you can imagine such a salad, this movie is a gritty-noir-satire-war-mystery telling of day-to-day life experienced by American Airmen in a German prison camp during WWII.  Although it is more of an ensemble cast, William Holden (at his grittiest) becomes the focal point as Sgt. J.J. Sefton (for which he was awarded a best actor-leading role Oscar).  As there is a bit of a who-dun-it element to the film, I will not go into plot details.  Watch for the Oscar nominated performance (best actor-supporting role) by Robert Strauss (Animal) and the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Commandant Oberst Von Scherbach by famed director Otto Preminger.  

Sabrina (Paramount Pictures-1954):  This is a lighthearted romantic comedy pairing Audrey Hepburn with Humphrey Bogart.  “What?”  Yeah, that’s right, Rick from Casablanca and Holly Golightly from Tiffany’s.  Sabrina (Hepburn) returns home from a failed attempt at cooking school in Paris to rejoin her father, chauffer to the wealthy industrialist Larrabee family.  Once home, Sabrina finds she has lost none of the little-girl crush on her father’s retainers’ young playboy sibling David Larrabee (William Holden).  Meanwhile, older brother and business maven Linus (Bogart) is busy arranging a strategic marriage for younger brother David.  But Sabrina has caught David’s eye which threatens the union.  To head off economic catastrophe, Linus launches a plan to romance Sabrina away from David.  Holden is Adonis like.  Hepburn is at her most vulnerable.  But Bogart handles this departure from type with surprising deftness.  By the way; pairing Hepburn with and older leading man was very common:  Roman Holiday (Gregory Peck-1953); Love in the Afternoon (Gary Cooper-1957); Charade (Cary Grant-1963).  Warning: Do not make the mistake of picking up the 1995 remake of the same name starring Harrison Ford… you’ll never get the taste out of your mouth.

The Apartment (United Artists-1960):  You will not like any of the characters of this movie.  But you won’t be able to avoid routing for C.C. Baxter and Fran Kubelik to get together in the end.  This is a dark satire on modern sexual mores.  Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a bachelor, ambitious corporate accountant who, eager to advance his career, allows his office superiors to use his city apartment for clandestine rendezvous with their mistresses.  News of this opportunity comes to the attention of the company’s Personnel Director, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) who offers Baxter a junior executive position to secure the use his love nest.  Unbeknownst to Baxter, Sheldrake’s mistress is elevator operator Fran (Shirley MacClaine) who has just caught Baxter’s romantic eye.  There are not many laughs in this movie, but Fred MacMurray (look up “My Three Sons”, 1960s CBS sitcom… yeah, that Fred MacMurray) will leave you haunted by his portrayal of the seedy philandering executive.  This movie was the hat trick for Wilder as he was awarded Oscars for writing, directing and producing (best picture); the first time this occurred in the history of the Academy Awards.

The Fortune Cookie (United Artists-1966): If for no other reason, this movie deserves notice as the first pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.  If that doesn’t mean anything to you, well you are just too young!  This is another great example of Wilder’s uncanny ability to blend noir and screw ball.  Harry Hinkle (Lemmon) is injured in the pursuit of his job as a TV sports cameraman while working a football game, rendering him unconscious.  When he awakens he is in the hospital, attended by his sleazy, ambulance chasing, attorney brother-in-law Willie Gingrich (Matthau).  Willie pursues a campaign to get Harry to feign serious disability which the latter’s honest nature resists… until Willie mentions that Harry’s ex-wife had called check on his condition.  Harry is hopelessly in love with his ex and sees this as an opportunity to rekindle their romance.  You guessed it; her interest in Harry runs no deeper than the chance for quick riches.  Wilder deftly blends punch lines and pathos in a movie that will make you laugh while recoiling from the darker realities of human nature.  As you would expect, Wilder was nominated for the Oscar for his screenplay.

These are some of my favorite movies.  In all, Wilder generated seventy-eight writing credits, twenty-seven directing credits and fourteen producing credits.  His prodigious creative output whose consistent high quality, validated by his award nominations and wins, place him among the greatest of American movie makers.  If you want to see how it should be done, watch a Billy Wilder movie.

A Question of Caliber

To date, I have published three posts devoted to the selection of a personal defense handgun and how to gain proficiency therewith:

 What’s In Your Holster?                              March 20, 2014

 How Many Guns Do You Have?                    May 15, 2014

 Ask Somebody!                                         June 12, 2014

In this post, we are going to touch on ammunition choice, sort of.  You will understand my equivocation as you read.  The title of this week’s missive is a bit of a misnomer as ammunition preference is more closely tied to cartridge choice than caliber.  To understand why, I will need to get very basic for the non-shooter or novice.  You old hats can go get a beer now as nothing new will be offered here.  Come back next week when I promise, we’ll address that most interesting of subjects, my personal life.

What is caliber?  This is a very basic question easily answered.  Caliber is quite simply the diameter of the bullet and/or bore of the firearm.  It is measured either in millimeters (e.g. 9mm) or inches (e.g. .45 – note the decimal point).  Forty-five caliber handgun bore (that’s the hole running the length of the barrel) measures .45 inches, or a tad bit less than one-half inch.  Correspondingly, a nine millimeter bore and bullet measure just that; 9mm.  Get it? Caliber is no more or less than the diameter of the bullet.  But here is the twist, not all guns of the same caliber are compatible with all species of ammunition of the same caliber.

This is where the cartridge comes into play. So what is a cartridge?  A cartridge is the assembly of components that represent one round of ammunition.  They are: the projectile (bullet); the propellant (gun powder); the primer (impact ignition device, imbedded in the casing); and the casing (“brass” in the vernacular) which holds the entire assembly together and provides the explosion chamber when the gun is fired.  Pretty simple, huh?  A cartridge is generally identified by its caliber and the type of gun it was developed for, e.g. .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol).

Any gun is earmarked (as well as physically labeled) to operate a specific cartridge.  The cartridge is very gun specific.  Let me give you an example. There are several cartridges available that contain a bullet measuring nine millimeters in diameter, among them; 9mm Luger, .380 ACP, .357 Magnum, .38 Special.  All of these use a bullet measuring 9mm in diameter (or .357 inches).  But they will not operate in the same firearms because each is fitted into a cartridge that is distinctly different in design.  That difference is reflected in the performance parameters (e.g. bullet velocity, muzzle energy) of each cartridge.

What are the differences in cartridges?  Well, the first is related to gun design.  The aforementioned .357 Magnum and .38 Special cartridges are designed for use in revolvers.  The 9mm Luger and .380 ACP are intended for semi-automatics (if you don’t know the difference, ask somebody).

The second difference is related to ammunition power.  The .357 Magnum is designed to be significantly more powerful than the .38 Special, therefore the cartridge of the Magnum is specifically designed to not fit in the chamber (firing hole, if you will) of the Special.  The same is true of the 9mm and .380 ACP.  This is a matter of safety.

The third difference is gun size.  The more powerful the cartridge in question, the heavier and larger the corresponding firearm must be.  Closely related to this is capacity of the firearm:  The bigger the cartridge, the fewer the number of rounds that can be practically carried.

If you are as smart as I think you are, you realize that up to this point I have made no recommendations about what caliber, or type of cartridge is best.  That debate has been going on since God was in diapers (by the way, who changed God’s diapers? … yeah, I know, I’m going to hell… but not for the reasons you think) and will continue long after I have shuffled off this mortal coil.  And if you have read my previous posts about firearms you have probably guessed that the answer is, “The best cartridge depends on the needs the individual shooter.”  You are so right!

A discussion about which cartridge in best will most assuredly generate passion among the participants.  But from what I have seen, read and learned on my own, everybody will bow to the maxim, shot placement outweighs power.  As there is no such thing as a (practical) one-shot-stop round, it is imperative that the shooter place the bullet, regardless of size or power, properly on target.  Accuracy equals efficiency.  Efficiency improves survivability.

And how do we ensure accuracy?  Practice!  So, the answer to the question, “Which cartridge should I use?” is; the cartridge you are most comfortable with as a shooter.  Because the only thing that will make you a confident shooter is your ability with the gun.  If you select a gun that is so powerful you won’t practice, that extra power is just wasted energy.

It is common in the defensive shooting universe to espouse a cartridge that achieves a minimum number of inches of penetration into a human body (saving your own life against a determined aggressor is a gruesome thing… get over your polite sensitivities).  There is some merit to this but still, the debate about which cartridge will do this most efficiently is fraught with variables and very much alive.  So what should you do?

I would recommend that a new shooter select the largest, most powerful cartridge they can confidently and comfortably manage (not tolerate… manage).  Your choice may be driven by recoil, gun weight, muzzle flash… there are dozens of things to consider, but the most important is that you own a gun you will shoot.  And shoot some more.   And even a little bit more.

Full CIrcle

I saw a news story recently that inspired this post.  I will get to the content of that news story shortly.  But first, I must lay a bit of historical background.

Do you know that the mascot of the United States Military Academy (West Point) is a mule?  If not, you do now.  It’s a funny thing about knowledge; once you learn it, you cannot unlearn it, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle.  Oh, you can deny knowledge.  But inside you still know it, and you know you know it.  But I digress.

Not to be outdone, the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis) has chosen a goat for its mascot.  Now there’s a non-sequitor.  I dare you to draw me a logical line from maintaining the security of the country through control of the world’s oceans to a goat.  The Air Force Academy; Falcons: which makes some sense, their prevue being the wild blue yonder and such.  The Coast Guard Academy; Bears: which only makes sense when you learn that their mascot name is taken from the U.S.S Bear, a Coast Guard vessel involved in a dramatic rescue operation the year the academy opened (1897).  The Merchant Marine Academy; Mariner: apt I suppose, however hardly suited to caricature.  But I digress, again.

Of the service academies’ mascots, the Army Mule seems the most representative of the history and tradition of the service.  The Army actually employed mules in defense of the United States across much of its history (I would hardly like to think to what purpose the Navy might have used goats).  Mostly used as pack and harness animals, they were first pressed into service in with the birth of the American Military.  In fact, George Washington was the most prolific breeder of mules in the days of the revolution.

Mules, if you didn’t know, are a human developed, not naturally occurring species.  They are the hybrid product of crossing a male donkey (jack ass) and a female horse (mare).  Historical artifacts indicate that mules have been bred and used by man since ancient times.  They are mentioned in the records of the Egyptians (believed to be a more useful caravan animal than the camel), Greeks and Romans.  We have all heard the expression, “Stubborn as a mule!” which derives from the animal’s superior self-preservation instincts; somewhat ironic for an animal with no biological imperative (mules, as a rule, are born sterile).

The USMA selected the Army Mule as their mascot in 1899 in deference to its long history of service.  Of course, with the advent of mechanized vehicles in the twentieth century, the role of pack and draft animals has all but vanished.  Let’s face it; trucks are much more efficient at hauling supplies and ammo… as long as there is a road.  During the Cold War, all combat scenarios were developed around Europe and its modern transportation infrastructure.  You didn’t think the autobahn was built just for the pleasure of prosperous Germans burning up the pavement in their Porsches, did you?

As cool as they look, HumVees cannot traverse goat trails.  So, mules and horses were deployed as recently as the Afghan war.  Yet another ironic twist: Today, the responsibility for training man and beast for pack animal service is delegated to the United States Marine Corps. at their Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California.

“But what has this to do with the aforementioned news item, Dale?”  Well, per a report on FOX News, it seems that the Marine Corps. has once again turned to modern technology aimed at solving a traditional problem; how to transport needed war fighting materials in a primitive environment.  Thus was conceived the Legged Squad Support System (kinda sounds like a garter belt doesn’t it?) or “LS3”.  The vehicle (?) is designed to carry 400 (although in practice, loads are targeted at 250) pounds twenty miles without refueling.  It is essentially a robot mule.  A 2010 article announcing the development contract stipulated $32 million in costs and thirty months to build the prototype.

Now I don’t know what your idea of a bargain is, but consider this.  I checked a “Mules for Sale” website and found the asking price (not settled price) to be anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000 per critter.  Let’s see; at the high end, you could buy 8,000 mules for $32 million (which yields only a prototype; I could find no information on projected manufacturing and maintenance costs).  In my research, I found the U.S. Army’s recommendation for utilization of a live pack mule was 250 pounds and travel distance of twenty miles per day.  They involve no exotic materials, electronics or hydraulics… and they run on hay!

I have an idea.  Rather than reinventing the wheel (or hoof as it were), why don’t we just use mules for the job they were originally created to do?  I know the mule’s sire is supposed to be the jack ass in this story, but don’t you feel like maybe we taxpayers a getting the “hee-haw” on this one?    

Would you like to swing on a star,

Carry moonbeams home in a jar,

And be better off than you are?

Or would you rather be a mule?