A Christmas Story Factoid

A person who's been mentioned in this blog often but never really explored, either their life or more importantly their writing style... is one Jean Shepherd... who every Christmas we are reminded that he has certainly carved his way into the posterity of the ever lasting march of ever-ongoing humanity and thus has survived the old test of the times.

Unlike most who know him as the narrator and writer of "A Christmas Story," I have read his books and even listened to quite a decent amount of his radio show. I think as far back as the early 2000s, before podcast and internet radio was big, I was listening to his radio show. So it's almost 20 years I've on-and-off been a "fellow victim" on the march of humanity with him as a fan his show.

I remember I used to play the game Civilization II over broadband old-school modem with my friend ... and he used to have so many units that his turns took minutes to execute. I had a lot of time to wait, but in those days you couldn't really get like multiple applications going while you were waiting for a friend to do his turns in Civ 2... so one way I figured out was to play radio on a browser tab in the background. I would put on his old show in the background while my friend dispatched his triremes and phalanxes and whatnot.

I listened to a lot of Jean Shepherd while playing Civ II almost 20 years ago... and still will play video games with it in the background here-and-there to this day. Now podcasts are huge... but to me the archived Jean Shepherd radio show on WOR was basically the first podcast I was ever into.

I have pieced together something from these shows that I haven't seen recorded in any Wiki page or anywhere else... and I think I will share it because it is sort of interesting. It is an interesting little factoid about the movie "A Christmas Story."

...and that factoid is that.... this movie was almost something completely and utterly different all together!

The book Jean Shepherd wrote that most of this film is based on was written back in 1966. The book of course is titled, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. He would go onto to write a second book in 1971 (some content of his second book appears in the film as well).

Five years is quite a long time between novels... but there was talk about turning the first book he wrote in 1966 into a film very shortly after it was written. Yet, we know "A Christmas Story" was not made until 1983....so what happened?

In 1969, the director attached to making In God We Trust into a film.... died right before they were about to start making it. From what I understand this director was one Michael Reeves (known mostly for horror films... one which had Vincent Price in it). I am 95% sure of that. He was very young and people thought he was gonna be the biggest director ever. At 25, the age of his death, he already was regarded as a talented director.

What would the Reeves version of In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash have been like? It's suffice to say that it would not be ANYTHING like the 1983 film "A Christmas Story."

The book is about the lead character, one Ralph Parker, now a big city man, who goes back to his hometown, the fictional midwest town of Hohman. He goes to a bar owned by his old friend Flick... and he and Flick begin talking about the old days when they were just scamps in Hohman. Each chapter alternates between Adult Ralph and young Ralphie... the adult Ralph chapters are set in Flick's tavern (and are quite short) while the kid chapters are longer and set around Hohman in various places.

Now, The Jean Shepherd of 1966 was not the Jean Shepherd of 1983. The "Shep" of 1966 was known as a rebellious sort, with a whacky radio show, and who prided himself on being the honoree of Playboy Magazine's Humor Award for many years and counting. The Shep of 1966 would have wanted the focus of the film to be on the Flick's tavern chapters and the lead character to be older.

Also, after the wars (Vietnam etc.) of the 60s era ended, he was open about the original INTENT of his book, In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash... and he stated that one particular line of the book, on the last page of the book, that is supposed to hold the meaning of the text, is one that when he wrote it in 1966 had to be self-censured in some degree. This line is the following...

"Too bad Schwartz couldn't have been here," I said.

Actually, this needs slightly more context so I will type out some more area of where this line appears.

"[Flick] fiddled with the thermostat on the wall back of the bar. I swung around on my stool to look at what little remained of the day. It was now almost dark. Darkness comes early in Midwinter in Midwest Indiana. Kids shouted and shoved their way by the tavern front, going to the store, coming home from school, God knows what. Traffic had quickened outside on the street as the two lines of cars, one going to the mill, the other returning, crossed converged.

I turned to Flick who was checking the cash register.

"Too bad Schwartz couldn't have been here," I said.

Flick grunted, busy with his change counting. We both knew that Schwartz had been shot down over Italy. They never found him.

-J. Shepherd, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, pg. 263

To 1966 Shepherd, this was the point of his book summarized in a conclusion chapter at the end. A book about the memories of youth alternating with chapters of he and his old friend drinking at a bar. The contrast of youth and adulthood. This section of the book almost summarizes the whole book like a period on a sentence. They see kids outside the window of the bar, running around without a care .... and when they think of their friend who was shot down in the war... they just sigh it off and grunt. What can you do? What can we do, we fellow victims on the march of humanity? What can we do? Not much. Just acknowledge it with a grunt and move on.

People have to put themselves in the time frame of the era. Take the not-so-subtle "Johnny Got his Gun" book by Dalton Trumbo that was written in 1939 ... D. Trumbo was arrested over that book. So, Shepherd had to be guarded when talking about the pain and suffering caused by wars in this era.

The paragraph works though for what he was aiming for. You read that and think... "Huh, so that kid died in a war? Okay. That's too bad." I mean the sudden loss of the innocence of the entire book for just one paragraph in the closing chapter. It is a pretty profound thing he got in there....yet, you react to it the same way Flick does. With just a passing acknowledgement of it. It's almost mentioned so in-passing that it is in a subversive way to some extent.

The '69 film, if all went to plan and got made.... would not have resembled ANYTHING like "A Christmas Story." It would have been built off the building block of that tone, this contrast of joyful youth and through-the-wringer adulthood, for the film. Which is not the tone of the 1983 film adaptation that did indeed get made.


People Change.....

I was listening to a podcast the other day in the background while doin' some other computer stuff, it was... man, I forget now. So many people have radio shows now. I think everyone has one, almost. I think it was A. Richter asking T. Heidecker, on this podcast, if he believes that, after he had children... if his comedy style changed.

That question got me thinking. I really think that is the "change" that turned In God we Trust: All Others Pay Cash into "A Christmas Story" when it finally got made into a film in 1983. Shepherd was no longer a rebellious guy anymore. He changed. He now had children by this point. His humor changed into trying to make young people laugh rather than trying to make hep-cats and cool-chicks dig his stuff.

I honestly read a lot of the building blocks along the way to piece together the pieces of many things I think are good art. In regards to "A Christmas Story".. as weird as this may sound... I do not consider "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" as the proto-version/building-block of "A Christmas Story." I really do not. The text is core-content to the narrative of "A Christmas Story" but is not the proto-version of it.

This movie really takes shape in 1974, not in 1966, when an older, now a parent, J. Shepherd appears on the smash hit TeeVee show "Wonderama!".. to read his stories to Kids instead of hep-cats.

You can hear this appearance online... and within the children's laughter and reactions to his stories... you can even FEEL "A Christmas Story" being born.

(In this listing they are numbered 19 to 23, and are titled as Parts 1 to 5....

Link to Wonderama excerpts from 1974: https://archive.org/details/JeanShepherd1974/)

Did you find them? Did you listen to the Wonderama Monologues? THAT'S where the 1983 film "A Christmas Story" was born... the children were laughing, they were happy, the parents were happy, Bob McAllister's happy.... and that is where his short stories became tailor-made for young people.

.....that's what we see in "A Christmas Story"... a deep humorful look at life.... that will make kids laugh. The sighs/grunts of the despondent drudgery of the adult world are best left in "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" where those kids can grow up and find it if they want to.... but they don't really need to.

Other humorist works share this trait, the video game "Earthbound" that I have long considered in the pantheon of Great Humorist Works of the 1900s... according to author of the game... was made for his daughter to laugh at. The handwriting font used in the "Saturn Valley" portion of the game is his daughter's silly youthful handwriting. Humor works tend to share this. Wizard of Oz too.... it is aimed to make kids laugh. Not for Hip Cats to dig it.....but for KIDS to dig it.


Conclusion

I think we're almost done understanding the "Humorist" and its treasured place in a fun century called the 1900s and can move on from this running theme soon.

I apologize if the next time you watch "A Christmas Story" and see Schwartz in it.... you curse the unjust nature of the march of humanity... instead of just thinking "oh, he has a friend named Schwartz."

...but just like Flick, you'll eventually just grunt and move on.... move on to something else while humming a familiar tune.... the tune which is the marching song of humanity... the one that never ends..... the one that keeps drudging on....

This is Jean Shepherd's theme song, it even was his entrance music for his appearance on Wonderama in 1974. Apparently, he used to put this tape into a machine to kick-off and lead-in a show at a radio station he worked at as a teenager. A Hungarian radio station in Illinois... where he didn't know how to speak to the Hungarians guys well... his job was just to mash this song into the air every morning for the host to start the day with...


...he referred to it as the most mediocre marching song he ever heard... yet for some reason it seemed appropriate to score the march of humankind with....

Ra da ya ta da, ya ta da, ra ta ya ta da, da ta da ta da.......doo, doo, doo... doo, doo, doo.... and a ra ta da ta da ta da da ta da da da.... DA!







(after thought: I was looking into when his kids were born in regards to that paragraph where I suggest that the transformation into trying to make kids laugh instead of hip cats and college chicks dig his stuff... was brought about probably when he had children....

...but it seems an article written by his son in 2005 shines light on the fact that he didn't know his son very well after the age of 13.

See: http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=358

Maybe his transformation had more to do with regret over his past mistakes?? R. Shepherd's 2005 article about Jean is well written, in his own style, and I should make that article present in this article for full historical accuracy).

Rocky and Bullwinkle (and) Two Interesting Still Frames I have Been Pondering

Sticking to the two-topic per post format from last month, we're gonna kick out two-in-one this month too.

First off, in Section One, I am going to tell the world how highly I regard the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

Secondly, I will use two frames from this show to try and explain my newly-crafted world-view that the common misconception that in trying too hard to find an opposite to something... we create more problems than we solve.

If you are one of the handful of people who follow me on Twitter, I was kicking the second topic around on there last week, and the second section of this essay shall be a longer more-thought-out version of that.

As for the first section...it's self-evident what that shall be.... for I cannot keep this inside any longer.... for I think I Love Rocky and Bullwinkle. I think it is a great show.


Rocky and Bullwinkle

A common theme of late on this blog has been the term "Humorist"... which has been thrown around in regards to George Ade, L. Frank Baum, Jean Shepherd, the video game "Earthbound" and a few others. I think "Humor" and the "Humorist" are terms that are taken for granted now but were terms that carried more weight in the 1900s.

I will go on record and say this, just like I brazenly (and with no regret) placed Earthbound (a video game) in the pantheon of Great Humorist Works of the 1900s.... I shall now make another brazen, and with even less regret opinion, that... Rocky and Bullwinkle belong in that category as well.

Now, I bet, a lot of people read that and wondered aloud how I can make such brazen pronouncements as this. How some rube with zero diction for the arts can start anointing video games and cartoons as some of the most masterful Humorist works of the last century. I might be a rube, and yes, I might have zero diction, and I might be of rudimentary intelligence and of only lowly wit....but.....

...when it comes to Rocky and Bullwinkle..... I know my stuff. This is not a gag, or the merest of boast, no sir, this is more like a hot butter on a breakfast toast!

Over 7 years ago, I wrote passingly on Rocky and Bullwinkle with little fanfare. They are mentioned in the Writings on Subjects piece, "Stayin' Up All Night? Oh That's Alright...."

"......so then I thought, "hey now, I hafta be up for school in like 5 hours, what the hell is the point of going to sleep for 5 hours?" Naturally, the sanest thing to do was just to stay up all night long. After Conan, I'd switch to the cable channel 18 who had the GREATEST all night programming I'd ever seen to this day...

1:30 am to 2:00 am: Rocky and Bullwinkle (this show had class)
2:00 am to 2:30 am: The Young Ones (starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
2:30 am to 3:00 am: Bottom (also starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
3:00 am to 3:30 am: Speed Racer (oh man, this song was so catchy!!!)
3:30 am to 4:30 am: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (with Captain Lou Albano!)
4:30 am to 5:00 am: Muppet Babies (shit's tight yo...)

Then I'd go to school and sleep with my eyes open in class. I heard of that technique in a late night movie once where Toshiro Mifune and Charles Bronson were walking through a desert. Mifune said he can sleep while he walks...so I figured if he can do it while he walks, it shouldn't be too hard for me to sleep while faking to pay attention in class."

-Writings on Subjects (1.0)

Rocky and Bullwinkle was the lead-off show in my Stayin' Up All Night long routine in my high school years. This show has deep personal significance to me, as such. In the sense that I would at least sometimes make an effort to fall asleep while it was on... which worked 0% of the time from what I remember. After it ended they hit you with high octane stuff! The Young Ones was a rebellious punk rocky show with a catchy theme, Bottom was an out-of-control violent thrill ride, Speed Racer was beyond high octane...that theme song was impossible to not shake me back awake... then Super Mario Super Show? Forget it, there was no way I was sleeping through that. Then conclude with Muppet Babies on a half-awake note.... and then it was time to start "waking up."

Trying to fall asleep to Rocky and Bullwinkle, but failing to each time, has placed it in this odd Zone of Memories inside of my head. Episodes of this show, or even just still frames from it exist as this sort of window to a world of half-awake dream-like reality for me. It was a show I would watch daily (or nightly I should say) in a state of trying-to yet-failing-to fall asleep.

Between the main segments of the show, the commercials (that's a prime time to shut your eyes a bit), the mini-segments, the Identifier segments where they ID their own show a lot and it's different each time (Rocky and Friends, Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Bullwinkle Show, etc.), the "Fractured Fairy Tales", more commercials, the Peabody and Sherman part, etc.....I watched a disjointedly presented show in a highly-lucid state of being half-awake.... every, single, night.

People don't believe it when it's stated that people can have "Lucid" highly controlled dreams. Lucid dreams are defined as having dreams where the sleeper KNOWS they are DREAMING and once they know they are dreaming they can CONTROL the dream as if playing a video game inside of their mind. I can attest that I can do this, easily. Watching a whacky cartoon which had disjointed sequencing whilst being half-awake as a young teenager (14-17) every single night.... had a pretty decent sized influence on that formulating hunk of cauliflower inside of my skull.

I know I have seen probably every episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle ...yet... if you were to ask me to describe in great detail one of the main plots of one of Rocky and Bullwinkle's adventures... I could not. I really couldn't. If you asked me to recite to you one of the shaggy-punch-lines from Aesop's Fables... I could not. If you asked me to describe any of Peabody and Sherman's plots in detail... I could not.

This show, honestly, exists in its totality in my brain... yet on a fractured subconscious level. I know it's there but in a Zone of Memory soooo strange that it's more conducive to a Non-Reality than to a Real-Reality. A Non-Reality with pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange Backgrounds.

I shouldn't feel bad for not being able to describe a plot of this show in detail.... for even if you asked the LEAD CHARACTER of the show to explain the plot of one of their adventures to the other LEAD CHARACTER.... they could barely even do it!

If you skip to the 20:21 point of the video below you can see what I'm trying to say...

(or click here for a time-sensitive link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnU0UIVwVtw&t=20m21s)

Did you watch Rocky try and explain the plot of the segment that probably happened a commercial ago and a weird fairy tale or fable ago to his friend? If you've never seen or heard of "Our Boys" (as portrayed by Rocky and Bullwinkle) that scene above at the 20 minute mark is the crashest course on it you'd need.

This show.... was the Greatest. I love this show. It is beyond absurdity, it is beyond organized chaos, it is beyond REALITY even, it is a lucid dream about a flying squirrel and a moose... and it should be regarded as one of the greatest works of Humor of the 1900s....It truly should.

...and I will go as far as to say it may, without even me knowing it, it may be one of the most important subconscious influences on my view of the world. As weird as that sounds.

Half-awakingly watching Rocky and Bullwinkle in a state of lucid dream-like reality definitely had an impact on how I understand the world and how I interact with it. I'm not even joking. That's true.

I want the entire world to know it. I want the entire world to know that I....

...Love Rocky and Bullwinkle!



Society's Need and/or Obsession with trying to find Polarized Opposites in All Concepts 

Now here's something that I hope you really like.

I really do, at times, observe some old Rocky and Bullwinkle still frames and let my brain zone out to back when it was a 13 year old kid's brain, when times were simple. Take my brain back to that pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange, World of Not-Being-Awake but Not-Being-Asleep.

I call it the Rocky and Bullwinkle Zone.

I was looking at two frames the other day, and I came to a stunning conclusion about Society, gang. In the Zone, my brain festered upon the notion of why we need an opposite for everything. I think it is a very unlooked-at problem in today's world, I do.

So many people NEED to find polarized opposites for they feel being the polar opposite of something they don't like will remedy a problem they believe exists. However, the notion of opposites to begin with is misleading and confounding though.

If you asked a person, what is the opposite of the following terms; Day, Down, and Monday.

They would more-than-likely respond with: Night, Up, and Friday.

I believe that to be a very rudimentary understanding of opposites. Let's look at a Rocky and Bullwinkle frame:

Here we see "Our Boys" (as portrayed by Rocky and Bullwinkle) in a boat, against a grey-purply-blue background, whilst Rocky points to his head whilst Bullwinkle looks confused.

Now this is a concept as much as any other concept is a concept.... indeed? Yes, indeedement. Now if our opposite-finding obsessed society was asked to conjure up a total polarized opposite to this concept.... they would say...

It's Boris, the polar opposite of the hero Rocky, pointing to HIS head whilst Natasha looks confused. Right? That's right, right? I don't think so.

We have to assume so many intangibles about Concept A (Rocky in Boat pointing to Head w/ Bullwinkle appearing Confused) for Concept B (Boris in Boat pointing to Head w/ Natasha appearing Confused) for this polarization of concepts to pass the litmus test of truth.

First of all, this is a TOTAL visual opposite. Who is to say a polarized opposite of something has to be visual? Who is to say the opposite of Rocky in Boat w/ Confused Bullwinkle would not just be something as simple as Rocky NOT IN A BOAT and Bullwinkle NOT IN THE SCENE AT ALL? That is perfectly as acceptable a polarized view of Concept A as the previous proposed opposite was.

Each concept is inherently born with a self-canceling out Non-Version of Itself... thus in the simplest form and terms... the opposite of any concept is its own self-cancelling concept of its own self. 

Thus.... the opposite of "Day" is not "Night". The opposite of Day is the self-canceling concept of Not-Day or Un-Day. The opposite of Down is not Up. For when you are not Down you are simply Not Down or UnDown. The opposite of Monday is not Friday. It is Un-Monday, Non-Monday, or Anti-Monday.

How can Friday be the opposite of Monday anyway? Saturnalia (AKA Saturday), the precursor proto-version of Christmas, is far more the visual opposite of Monday than Friday is, no? Indeedement. Saturday under this polarized-oriented logic is more conducive to the opposite of Monday than Friday is.

I don't see Saturday or Friday as the opposite of Monday though... I see Not-Monday as the opposite of Monday.

The world can become so polarized under the weirdest of ground rules at times. In the Real-Reality of Everyday Life we have some of the most non-sensicle and un-logical polarized non-nuanced views of the world from millions of bizarre angles and think nothing of it. In this Black and White, Up and Down, Right and Wrong, Left and Right, Good and Bad World of ours.... we get hung up on what "side" of "things" we are all "on". 

There's a common saying that Grey is the Balance between Black and White... that Justice is the Balance between Right and Wrong.... Forward is the Balance between Left and Right.... etc....

...but that's a bunch of hokey phony bologna too, Bullwinkle. There's so much more than just the Grey Area between Black and White, gang. There's endless color combinations that exist in between those polarized concepts. There's pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange... like the background colors in the World of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Colors that are disjointingly out-of-placingly almost uniquely odd in their own inherent nature.

In the silly polarization of Rocky/Bullwinkle in a boat and Boris/Natasha on a boat... what would society deem as the "Balance" between the two polarized concepts? Why this of course....

...Bullwinkle confused, on a boat, but not with Rocky... but with Boris (dressed here as actor Spencer Tracebeck). Now, how is this Balance? I mean it is the merged concept of both concepts .... but in the end doesn't it just leave us more confused?

What was I writing about again? I wish I had a Rocky to explain these articles to me as I write them... but I don't. 

It seems we try our best to understand concepts, and sometimes we don't like those concepts we conceptualize... so we create polarized opposites of these concepts to try and cancel the original concept we conceptualized out....and then we feel the polarized opposite may have gone too far... so we trace it back a bit and attempt to find "balance" between these concepts we have conceptualized...

....yet in the end... it still MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!

Now watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat, you guys. Have any of you ever thought that Life doesn't make sense but in a shocking shaggy-dog twist of fate... that not only does Life not make sense but that.....Life Is Not Supposed to Make Sense?

Is it fair to say that, under that logic, that the Notion that Life Doesn't Make any Sense... totally makes Life Make Sense?

Okay, I have to exit the Rocky and Bullwinkle Zone now. This is getting a bit out of hand here. Mayhap one day we shall return here.... but this is enough for now.