When my mother called Sunday evening, she was distraught. The conversation was confusing and short. The only thing I could understand was “come home.” I didn’t know what was happening, but it was urgent and terrible. I thought something was happening right that moment, in my mom and step-dad’s house. Many horrible possibilities went through my head, including my step-dad having a heart-attack. I told my mom to dial 9-1-1, and that I was coming.

I was in my car and on the road within minutes, but it would take two hours to get to my hometown. I was on my cell phone trying to get more information regularly for the first half hour of the drive.

I learned that my step-dad had died of a heart-attack. Even though that very potentiality had gone through my head a few minutes before, the reality of the concept just didn’t set in my mind. He had died a few hours previous, but my mom had just found out.

I had left my house with just the clothes on my back; I hadn’t taken time to pack anything. I had left the kids in the capable hands of my wife and mother-in-law. When I understood that my absolute immediate presence was not necessary (I could take five minutes to pick up some necessities), I pulled into a grocery store.

I went in and quickly grabbed some toothpaste, a toothbrush, and some other such items. I took my basket to the checkout with the shortest line—just one customer. I’d forgotten that it was a Sunday night; the store was busy, and most of the checkout lines long.

The guy ahead of me was purchasing just a six-pack of beer. The cashier had to check his ID, and then the guy asked for a carton of cigerettes. The cashier went over to the cigerette case and pulled out his brand. I was in a hurry, so this was seeming to take just such a long time. They cashier rang the two items up and the guy wanted to pay with a check.

The cashier had to call over a manager to approve the check, and there was some problem. I noticed the other checkout lines were moving customers right along—the next register over had already rung out two customers in the length of time I had been standing behind this loser with the beer, cigerettes, and bad check.

All the other open checkouts had several customers in line, but I saw a self-checkout with a vacancy. I gave up on the hang up line and went to ring myself up. Ironically and frustratingly, there was a glitch in this self-checkout computer. It hung up on some recurssive routine, telling me to place the item on the conveyer belt and scan the next item, place the item on the conveyer belt and scan the next item, place the item on the conveyer belt and scan the next item. Dammit! For the love of. . .! I’m literally dealing with a death in the family, and I’m getting this sitcom scenario holding me up.

I was about to just cuss and forget about the purchase when a clerk came up and helped me out. In just another minute, I was heading out the door, back to my car.

I eventually made it to my hometown and met up with my family. I learned that my step-dad had been out at his dog pen, where he keeps his deer hunting dogs, must have gotten tired and hot, sat down on the tailgate of his pickup truck, and just passed peacefully. That’s probably the way he would have wanted to go. Doing something he loved to do (dealing with his dogs), peacefully, and quickly.

He was 70 years old. He leaves a wife, 6 children, 8 grandchildren, 1 new great-grandchild, many other family members, and friends too numerous to count. He was a good man. Heaven has improved with his arrival.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

My step-father died of a heart-attack Sunday. I am currently in my old hometown with family and friends. Until today, I’ve had no way to post to my blog, so you can see there’s 3 days of missing posts. Now that I have things set up with a laptop, I’ll be posting my daily thoughts again, even from Smalltown, Southern State.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: Theater

I’m not a fan of the Harry Potter series. I read the first book, and found it decently entertaining, but not engrossing. It wasn’t good enough to make me want to read the following books. I’ve been to see each of the movies because my wife wants to see them, but I’m not drawn to them for my own entertainment. This movie is about like the previous ones. It’s not a bad movie. In fact, the acting, effects, and general entertainment are good. But there are things about the whole Harry Potter world that I find . . . off putting.

The magical world is very dangerous towards children. Now, I’ll agree that the real world is plenty dangerous, but we don’t willingly and regularly put children (even those in their late teens) in dangerous situations for sport. Fortunately, this movie didn’t pit Harry or other children against monsters and villains for sport, but the specter of the previous movies pops to mind whenever an adult tells Harry they’re doing something (or not doing something) to protect him—they put him in a fight with a fire-breathing dragon last movie! They had the children handling flat-out deadly plants the time before that, and the whole freaking school is surrounded by evil Dementors to protect the children from worse dangers on the school grounds! If the adults wanted to protect Harry, they should just leave him to the muggle world of guns and bombs.

This movie has some great and exciting heroic fight scenes, which I love. Wizards and witches blasting each other, wisping from one place to another, etc. But these scenes have a weakness: we, the audience, don’t know what all this blasting and wisping actually can do. They’re all witches and wizards, and we’ve seen them do all kinds of magical things, but in a fight, they blast each other. Why aren’t they turning each other into frogs, or turning each other to stone, or some other classically magical things? Their magical powers in previous movies has seemed almost limitless, yet in a fight, they just zap each other like shooting guns.

When the children are learning how to fight, to be Dumbledore’s Army, they blast each other with their wands. I was thinking during this whole episode that this was like having students beat each other with baseball bats (or cricket bats, as befits the setting). The whole Dumbledore’s Army thing was like a Fight Club with wands.

And although this activity was banned from school in this movie, because the Ministry of Magic was afraid the school was building and army to take over, this activity of actively fighting each other in sparring matches was condoned and sanctioned in previous movies.

Now, I understand many schools have fighting sports: wresting, fencing, etc. But throughout the movies, it has been stressed how dangerous magic can be, yet the teachers at the school have pitted students against each other in wand fights. This would be like the muggle world telling students that “guns are dangerous, and you need to learn how to use them safely, so you two come up here and duel as an example for the class.”

At least this movie didn’t have a Quidditch match. Children too young to drive a car or motorcycle, put on brooms flying fast and high, ramming one another, and actively trying to knock opponents off their brooms? What sadistic adults.

Also, another thing that bugged me about these movies, and this was played up in this movie particularly: the magic world is stuck in the 12th century with castles and candles and carriages. They seem to eschew muggle technology for their homes and schools and personal conveyances, but they have a train? In this movie, Dad Weasley is impressed and awed by muggle technology, the London tube system particularly, but the wizards use many things that are essentially normal tech devices (telephone booths, elevators) powered by magic.

Anyway, the above complaints are things that just jolt me out of the setting. It’s like watching a Western-genre movie and spotting a radio antenna on the horizon or an airplane in the sky. Or hearing in an old spaghetti Western that Chicago is just a few days ride from Phoenix. It’s all like the author is just writing story and plot elements without really giving any thought to how it all would fit together logically.

Like Harry’s trial at the beginning: they knew, somehow, that Harry had used magic in front of a muggle, but they didn’t know about the two Dementors attacking him? And the magical, talking letter that expelled him from school, (for using magic in front of a muggle), did its magical show right in front of that same muggle and his parents. The school broke the very rule they were expelling Harry for breaking.

So much of the magical world of Harry Potter is self contradictory. Some of this stuff may be explained in the books (although nothing was explained in the book I read), but I can only judge the movie, and the movie series, based on what is shown in the movies. I know the books are written for children, and most children won’t question or have an issue with illogical elements, so maybe I’m just being too adult.

All in all, I don’t have any feelings for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The setting problems just prevent me from really getting into the story and enjoying any of it. (And this is coming from a man who thoroughly enjoyed a movie about giant alien robots who transform into vehicles. I’m not hard to entertain.) But hey, I’m not the target audience anyway. If the kids love it, more power to the moviemakers and the kids who made J.K. Rowling the richest woman in the world. God bless ‘em. Just ignore my negative comments.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Higglytown Heroes is an animated, morning kid’s show on the Disney Channel. Each episode has the kids need and meet some professional person to solve a problem. They’ve needed and met an engineer, a bus driver, a police officer, a mechanic, a librarian, etc. They’re each called “heroes” for their jobs, and it’s a good way to introduce kids to different professions, and the variety of things people do.

The other morning, the kids had a minor mystery to solve: a story was circulating about town that aliens had landed in the local diner—who had started this story, and why? The kids got the help of a reporter. The reporter investigated the story and learned that the tale was the result of a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications. All was made well and good.

But the interesting thing I noticed was that the reporter wore a three-piece suit, a tie, and a hat. He had a “PRESS” pass stuck in the band of his hat. I’ve seen this stereotypical look before, in many other shows over the years. But seeing it in a kid’s TV show made a concept really stand out: when is the last time a reporter actually dressed like that, and kept his press pass in the band of his hat? Didn’t that look for reporters go out in the 1960s? Heck, didn’t that look go out for everyone about the time we got color TVs? A full-brimmed hat with a band?

In the last twenty years or so, the only reporters I’ve seen wearing so much as a tie are those working the federal government beat or sitting at the anchor desk. Three-piece suit? Hat? Haven’t seen them even on Capital Hill. And press passes are now badges either clipped to their shirt or hanging from a cord around their neck.

It just really struck me how odd that look is now a days. No one under 20 years old would recognize that look as specifically a reporter. And definitely no kid watching Higglytown Heroes would recognize that look as anything.

Poor reporters; they’re stuck in a stereotypical look that went out of style forty years ago.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com