All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Regardless of the use to which it is being put, how can I not recommend an American Greatness post about the Twilight Zone. I wonder if I have a reader on the staff there?
So how did these three episodes do in my grading system?
Interestingly, the author said Walking Distance is his favorite episode of all. As I’ve said, to each his own even in the Twilight Zone.
Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.
Winston Churchill
Alan and Doris Richards are Manhattanites living on Central Park in a luxury apartment building. By appearances they are very well off and shouldn’t have a care in the world. But the Richards have just returned from central Africa where Alan is an engineer working on a large hydroelectric dam project. When we first meet them, Alan is telling Doris the story of where he found his missing cuff link. It was in her jewelry box but in addition to jewelry, he found a severed human finger, a vulture’s claw and several other voodoo good luck charms from the tribal culture that they were neighbors to in Africa. When Alan threatens to throw the items in the fireplace Doris admits to keeping them and begs him to hold onto the items to protect him from the witch doctor’s wrath for interfering with the land used for the dam. Alan tosses the items in the fire and heads off to his business meeting at the engineering firm he works for.
At the meeting we find out that Alan actually has a stronger belief in the power of the witch doctor’s spells than he let on to Doris. When Alan tells the board what the witch doctor promised if the dam were built, they scoff. In return he asks them about their own superstitions, a rabbit’s foot on one man’s key chain, astrology, knocking wood, not walking under ladders, the very building they were sitting in not having a thirteenth floor. The board members are agitated but none plan to rescind the order to build the dam that will trigger the witch doctor’s curse.
In the next scene Alan is at a midtown bar drinking some scotch when he shows his friend a lion’s tooth that Doris has hidden in his jacket pocket to protect him from lions. After scoffing at the superstitious talisman, he drops it on the bar and leaves. But when he gets to his car it won’t start up. He heads back to the bar and finds it closed and empty but on the bar, he can see the tooth.
He goes to a pay phone to call home but there’s no answer. When he walks away the phone rings but when he picks it up all he hears on the line are jungle noises. Now he starts walking toward home on the other side of Central Park but hears jungle drums and animals screeching and then a large animal in the tree above him. At that moment a taxi appears and Alan jumps in the cab, gives his address and sits back in relief. When the cab stops at a red light the driver slumps over dead in his seat and Alan retreats from the cab and starts walking home again in a near panic as the jungle noises get louder and louder. A pan handler bums a ten dollar bill off him and Alan asks if the man will escort him home. But when he asks the man about the jungle noises it must unnerve him because he disappears.
Now Alan runs home in full flight from the jungle drums and lion roars that surround him. When he reaches his building, the sound reaches a crescendo and as he fumbles with the entrance door he falls to his knees in despair. But suddenly the noises cease. Relieved he enters the building and takes the elevator to his floor and enters his apartment where he pours himself a drink and exhales a sigh of relief.
But then he hears the sound of a lion grunting and quietly growling from his bedroom. Alan walks over to the door, gathers his courage and slowly opens the door. On the bed is a smashed but still lit lamp, the body of Doris and an enormous male lion. We see the dazed expression on Alan’s face just before we are shown the lion leap from the bed and hear Alan’s death scream.
This is one of those goofy episodes that, depending on my mood, could be a D or if I feel sympathetic a B-. In its favor Alan is played by John Dehner, one of my favorite Twilight Zone character actor. He always contributes an aura of gravitas whether he is rescuing a marooned prisoner from an asteroid or selling resurrection (or insurance against) to the not quite mourning relatives of the dearly departed. In the minus column is the spectacle of someone managing to be alone in midtown Manhattan. Ah, let’s take the high road B-.
I’m happy to say I haven’t thought of Kevin Williamson in many months but here is a cogent argument for why the globalist point of view doesn’t fit the human way of thinking about community and life in general.
If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.
Winston Churchill
Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 1)
Dramatis Personae: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – (AOC); Narrator who looks and sounds like Rod Serling – (NRS); Barack Obama – (BO); Michelle Obama – (MO); Bill Clinton – (BC); Hillary Clinton – (HC); President Trump – (PT);
Scene 1 – 8 pm, that same night in the Farmhouse; In the corner of the room, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke are sweating away, turning a giant crank on a generator. In the opposite corner A-oh-see, Cory Booker, Hillary Clinton and the Obamas are dancing rather spastically around a disco ball while a wavering light and an unevenly playing sound system produces some unconvincing techno sound. As the exhausted laborers slacken their effort, A-oh-see chastises them.
AOC – Hey white boys, pick up the pace. This is the part where I go, whoot, whoot. Don’t make me warn you again.
The generator crew redouble their efforts and the “whoot, whoot” is a big success. The dancers clap enthusiastically and the crankers collapse to the floor panting.
AOC – The dance is over and that’s all the electricity there is.
MO – That was good electricity A-oh-see, real good.
BO – That was the best electricity I ever seen. Much better than that power plant electricity.
NP – Oh, I don’t know, I remember back in the Obama administration we had lights all the time and copy machines and air conditioning.
HC – It’s real good that you said that Nancy but how could you mean it? Why, A-oh-see’s electricity is much better than that old electricity. That old electricity made global warming and killed baby polar bears.
BO – That’s right Nancy, A-oh-see’s electricity is real good. Much better.
MO – And now it’s time for Bill Clinton’s birthday presents. Everybody gather around.
Hillary hands Bill a bag full of fentanyl patches and a plain brown envelope.
HC – Happy birthday Bill. Many happy returns.
BC – (looking in the envelope) The Pia Zadora Playboy issue! This is a priceless object. He you don’t suppose I could open it up here?
Everyone goes quiet and looks shocked.
BC – Not the pictures just the articles.
BO – I don’t think you should Bill. We don’t know exactly where the articles end and the porn begins.
HC – That’s right Bill. Wait until we get home, where it’s safe. Here, try out the fentanyl patch.
BC – Mmmmmmmmm.
BO – Okay everybody, birthday presents over. Now we’ll hear a speech by Caitlyn Jenner on the false social construct inherent in the ovary.
While everyone sits in rapt fear of not cheering at the right places Bill Clinton wanders around in a fentanyl stupor. Suddenly he starts talking out loud to no one in particular.
BC – You know this is the last fentanyl stash left. And once it’s gone and Al Gore’s oxycontin bottle is empty there won’t be any joy left in the world. No more giggling, no more Ruffies.
Looking around and glaring at Bill AOC shouts.
AOC – Stop talking during the science lesson.
Bill smiles goofily and gives AOC a salute and she turns back to the lecture. Bill opens up his Playboy magazine and with the centerfold flapped open approaches Caitlyn Jenner.
BC – You know Bruce, I mean Caitlyn, I don’t think yours can compare to Pia’s what do you think?
AOC jumps to her feet and shouts at Bill Clinton.
AOC – You’re a bad white man, a very bad white man and if you keep acting all patriarchal, I’m going to think bad things about you.
BC – That’s right A-oh-see you think bad things about me. You concentrate on me and maybe some real man in this room will sneak up behind you and slap a half dozen fentanyl patches between your shoulder blades and end this thing.
Nancy Pelosi picks up her speaker’s gavel off the table where it lies but then puts it back.
AOC – You’re a bad white man, a very bad white man and you keep looking down my blouse.
AOC walks over to Bill Clinton and slaps four fentanyl patches on Bill’s face. Bill starts pulling one off, then smiles goofily and puts it back on. Then he falls face forward like a chopped tree.
BO – A-oh-see put him in the mulch pile please. Please.
She nods her head slightly and a group of Bernie Bros picked up Clinton and hustled him out of the room.
AOC – He was a bad white mand and I used his non-socialized medicine to destroy him. And you better not say anything bad about me Hillary or I’ll get you too.
HC – Oh, A-oh-see, I don’t feel bad about Bill. He got what was coming to him. No sweat. We all love you A-oh-see, you’re everybody’s favorite, that’s what you are.
NRS – So that’s our story, no commentary just an introduction to one of the very special members of the Bizarro Zone.
Suddenly President Trump busts in from in front of the narrator and we realize that the whole scene is taking place in a sound stage.
PT – Alright that’s enough. Officers, arrest these idiots and we’ll straighten everything out at the jail.
AOC – You’re not real. I destroyed you along with the rest of the world a year ago.
PT – Look, you, fruitcake. When you losers were swept out of power in 2020, I didn’t balk when MTV sponsored a reality show to let your deluded followers imagine what it would be like without the normal people but when Bill Clinton ends up as an OD victim at Bethesda that’s where I pull the plug on this thing. We’ll transition most of you into a hospital for the criminally insane but for now we’ll set you up at Guantanamo Bay until you become less dangerous. Okay boys drag them out.
When you’re 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill