The Personality Factor

Somebody sent me this and I don't know who to credit. Sorry. I will surely credit the author if I find out. This is just too good.

JL
ENTP

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

"You are just another unemployed war hero." This might have been a line out of a modern day movie but it wasn't: it came from the classic 1950s, The Best Years of Our Lives, when America, fresh from the "big war" was trying to figure it out. A really great movie with all the issues of what it means to start over.

The same issues that soldiers face today are the same ones they faced then--the struggles of Reentry, getting back the check book, and fitting in. And then there were the hastily conceived marriages born of desperation, soldiers going off to war and not knowing what tomorrow brings.

The story is built around three reentering servicemen who meet on their way home. Unlike present day soldiering, these men have not been gone for months, rather years

The three bond and although not as likely as the movie presents then, they still hang together in the context of the story. Dana Andrews as the bombardier with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) called "shell shocked" back then. A sailor, having lost both hands, is the second emotionally scarred serviceman with the third of the trilogy being a banker who was a top sergeant in the war but now confronts the cruel banking system where promises to vets is more likely scrapped than made. One issue then is tight credit for veterans. Sound familiar.

In the end, it all gets resolved. Dana Andrews calms down and finally gets the right girl. There's some questions, never answered on how he became an Air Force Captain. But, it's the movies. Our sailor finally accepts who he is and the people who love him. And, our banker, although maybe drinking too much, does the right thing.

A wonderful movie that is as relevant today as it was then. Let's hope that the modern American society has learned the lessons of living up to the promises made to vets but I doubt it.

ANNIE

The President and family would do well to spend one evening watching Annie. Here could be his theme song, The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar, there'll be sun tomorrow. Just thinking about tomorrow, so you have to hang on till tomorrow. Come what may. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you are always a day away.

If I were him, I’d do the version of Daddy Warbucks with Albert Finney and Carol Burnett. It was precious with Daddy Warbucks as a Republican tycoon and FDR’s New Deal.

Annie the orphan believes immediately and Daddy Warbucks, the selfish business tycoon follows, won over by the naive and ultimately pure Annie. The scheming potential parents of Annie represent the Wall Street tycoons and selfish money grubbing bankers. It all ends well as our crisis will even though we are not the same as before but wiser and better.

WE'RE REALLY GOOD AT MAKING MOVIES

Making good movies could be the best thing we have going for us. An example is surely, The Reader. One fine movie. I had planned to see it but went also on behest of my degenerate buddies who couldn’t stop talking about the Kate Winslet sex scenes and constant moaning about where was a woman like that when we were teenagers. Silly us, the movie was only slightly and I do mean slightly about the Kate Winslet’s involvement with a young boy of 15–the sex is almost beside the point. .

The Reader is really quite a story. The movie holds you. The boy does lots of reading to Hanna, Kate’s character. It really doesn’t become clear until later down the road what the “reading” is all about, hence the movie title.

The intimacy ends. The movie moves on. In a kind of happenstance, the adult character played by Ralph Fiennes, now in law school, witnesses Hanna’s trial as a Nazi war criminal. Obviously, as a young boy, he had no idea and now faced with facts known only to him, he has a choice to make regardlng her. Basically his ethics are overwhelmed with collective German guilt over the holocaust and the fundamental question that still haunts the Germans: how much did they know? He fails to do the “right” thing. Down the road, he attempts to make up for it by again becoming her “reader” and that is basically all I can tell without possibly giving away the movie. SEE THE MOVIE.

Is it the best movie of the year? I don’t know but for me, it cements again one thing for sure that Americans are good at: making movies. A very complicated and unweildly story and yet these movie makers succeeded in tying together a very cohesive, pensive, and timely story. I would like to have seen a couple of things more fleshed out, i. e., did his emotional involvement with Hanna affect him in his relationships down the road. The implication is yes but not sure. A good movie.

Editorial Comments

Recently, I communicated with a free lance editor with these comments. My guidance is be an editor or what I would think one would be. Don't worry about money, rewrite where you think it should be (I can accept or not), do the grammar, spelling, whatever. The front material is not numbered. And, the beginning is really a teaser story to paint the picture of what readers can expect: a family where nobody is ever a stranger. Also, look for consistency and repetition.

Sue Knopf, who always puts Airborne Press stuff together, does some editing but as I've said often, most writers who may be the only ones who think they're writers, have a style and so to maintain that is also important. Most anybody can put words on paper but to communicate is another thing. I still get feedback on GTC, a memoir, Gun Totin Chaplain). And, that which is meaningful is when someone says, "Reading the book was like sitting down and talking with you. "

As we know, the book business is so convoluted that no wonder it is always under attack from non readers, meaning that reading may be a dying sport for the majority of Americans. The other day I met a book packager. He told me that he has about three contracts to write books which are assured of selling well because Barnes and Nobel has their own publishing arm and they will simply make the book do well: all their stores, prominently displayed, all the stuff they have to do. I actually have one of his books, a picture book, well done and sold according to him. 200,000 copies. It sold as he said, because of his pipeline. This is not sour grapes, merely what is. Without justifying, as an ADD type, I am very clear on what I'm doing and what I want, at least in this area. Thus ends the commentary.

GRAN TORINO

Gran Torino is terrific and different than what we would think. Eastwood is somewhat Eastwood but is an old codger, cranky and grumpy to the max--so thankful that I am not that way and please Lord, help me not to get that way. The basic story is that the Hmong mainly take over Eastwood's old neighborhood. The Hmong are not a country but a people, much like the Montagnards, both were terrific allies in Vietnam. The sad thing as the movie points out: so many of the Hmong (and other immigrant groups) have been affected by good old American culture, meaning you can do what you want; in this case, most of the young men chose gangs. The girls go to college and the boys to jail (this was actually said in the movie).

Clint's wife is dead and he has next to no relationship with his two sons. A young priest is constantly hounding him as per the instructions of his dead wife. Eastwood's language, especially the non PC stuff is hilarious. And, the neighbors, a Hmong family, take to him and inadvertently he helps them and is then subject to their customs. Reluctantly, he comes to grips with what it means to live next to a culturally different group of people. He bonds with the young girl and her brother and begins a kind of journey to keep the gentle young Hmong boy out of gangs.

The title, Gran Torino, was very symbolic and represented the fact that Eastwood was an auto worker for all his adult life, minus his military stint.

Although I really enjoyed the movie as a different take, what often happens to me is that I wish they had explored other areas, i. e., why was he such a bad father. And, as was slightly referenced, as a combat vet of Korea, suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) even if he didn't name it; still, true and how much did that effect his crouchedy nature.

This movie evoked in me what I always feel when I read or see anything that relates to our sorry involvement in Vietnam. What if we had never interfered in that country? How would it have been. This is not to disparage any of us who served there. We were soldiers and did what we were told. But, think about it. These kids in this movie had to deal with their fellow countrymen who have become gang members. An American phenomena, there's an entire culture wrapped around the gang life. If these youngsters had stayed in Vietnam, not subject to American culture, would they be better off? In the movie's case, the gang members were going to end up in jail after they had wrecked havoc upon their own people.

Because I have a friend who has been very involved with the Hmong in LaCross Wisconsin, I decided to indulge my own curiosity and wrote her this email: I told her about the movie and then said, The Hmong are such an interesting people and I immediately got out the book you did for The Pump House, this non profit in LaCrosse Wisconsin. It is such a good book, Hmong Lives, From Laos To La Crosse, a wonderful history and tenacity of a people transplanted to our Shores.

My question to my friend, how are the Hmong doing in LaCrosse? Here is her answer. My impressions is that the Hmong people in La Crosse are doing pretty well. I see a lot of kids on the "high school student of the week" page in the paper, and the Hmong Community recently redid a large building (formerly a big supper club) as sort of a community center and also a place to hold gatherings like funerals and have classes. They have huge, long funerals--several days long with people coming from far away. Some of the children of the people who originally came here are grown up and starting their own families, typically much smaller than the families they were raised in. A couple of years ago, when the Thai refugee camps closed, another wave of new Hmong people came to La Crosse, but this time I think many were sponsored by relatives who already lived here--when the first group came, people from local churches sponsored them and helped them get places to live. I see Hmong names among Realtors, pastors, teachers.
Sue Knopf, book designer, Graffolio, LaCrosse, WI.


Sue's response makes me feel better and I guess that the question I always asked is simply unanswerable. See this movie.

MECHANICS TOOLS

Recently, I received a promotion from a writer. I always want to encourage but could only think, "talk about someone in for a few disappointments." But, he is an example of how us lessor lights who love to write and want to make some impact have to do: self promote, self promote, self promote. I admire persons like this in a sense, as they are willing to do it. I don't have it in me so to satisfy my need to write, I stick to blogs, etc.

I do get lots of emails from wonderful folks, especially my age (retired from a real job) or close, who love to write, who, email the Airbornepress website wanting to see if we will publish their writings. They have wonderful stories and want to be an author. My suggestion is that they have to do it for themselves; but, if they expect to get a reading from some big publisher, it is going to be lots of rejection. It is simply the nature of the beast. But, if writing is just a hobby as it is for me, maybe they might be better off getting some mechanics tools. I am always kind.

With this writer, even though naive, I don't think he needs much encouragement and has a "pair" of them. AMEN!!!!!