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Sunday, December 15, 2019

Perspectives


The three of us surfed The Net for movies last evening. No, I don’t mean my three heads, but our family unit. Mrs. Big Dope (MBD) was in a good mood. Big Dope (BD) was in his usual state of confusion. I was shaped as Reggie the Young Conservative for balance. I didn’t include Daisey the Demon Dog in our unit, for we don’t watch animal films. They always include so much torture before ending in the death of the animal hero. MBD claims that the film Old Yeller created more PTSD than all the wars since.

So, our commanding officer said she was tired of old black and white films. If we couldn’t watch a film with cute animals, could we watch something with a cute human. BD wanted something hip but ambiguous. I wanted something where none of the characters were all that admirable.

The 1968 offering Alice’s Restaurant seemed to fit the bill.

MBD thought Arlo Guthrie was cute.

BD himself thought all the characters were self-indulgent little rich kids. The exceptions were Ray and Alice, who were self-indulgent rich adults. BD further thought the scenes in the Induction Center were the most realistic. Of course, he went for his induction physical at the San Francisco Bay Area center in Oakland in 1966, so his view may be a little jaundiced.

Reggie, (I) thought the whole bunch were sissy “libtards.”

BD kept saying that his perspective had changed over the years. Said he always thought the 1960s were happy times for everybody. This seemed odd for a man who escaped the draft (and, ostensibly, combat duty in a foreign war) by enlisting in the U.S. Navy, only be sent to Vietnam as a member of a security (combat) unit. When I commented on this, he said, “If experiences don’t change our perspectives, then what good are experiences?”

I tried to process that bizarre thought through my Galactic Universal Translator. As usual, my GUT told me that BD is a bit on the weird side.

MBD kept saying how cute Arlo was.

I said they were all sissy libtards.

BD said the ending was ambiguous.

Demon Dog barked her belief that the Pal the Wonder Dog, who played Petey the Our Gang mascot dog was cuter than Arlo Guthrie.

We all agreed the music was good.

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