Wave of the Future

Force Food


and one that didn't make it:

Still Life with Candy Cane

Sizzling Gettysburgers -- new in The Hellbender Press

The new Hellbender Press is out, available at these locations:

http://www.hellbenderpress.com/where

 

Sizzling Gettysburgers

What’s cooking on America’s battlefields?

by Scott McNutt

Development is eating up the United State’s historical battle sites. Developers seem to believe that the best way to honor our soldiers’ death-sites is to build atop them subdivisions with names like Longstreet’s End, Sherman’s Marsh, and Nathan Bedford’s Forest; then they’ll add upscale snack shops named Custer’s Last Custard Stand, Meade’s Meadery and Sherman’s Sherbet Shack. This is wrong.

If there’s one thing we as a nation should value, it’s places where lots of men died violently. In the short time we’ve existed as a nation, killing is something we’ve excelled at. It’s a tradition of which we are proud. Lincoln said we cannot dedicate, consecrate, or hallow these grounds. But that doesn’t mean we should just surrender them for four score and several million bucks.

These sites, where brave souls gave that last full measure of dedication to their country, should be reserved for the purposes of mourning, veneration, recreation and learning. Especially if the lesson learned is not to allow the history there to repeat itself.

Last year, a plan to build a 3,000-slot gaming facility next to the Gettysburg battlefield was beaten back in Pennsylvania. Some might appreciate the symbolism of a gambling den marking the spot where the forces of the daring Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s were fought to a standstill by the grinding Union leader, Ulysses S. Grant. But the prospect of Wayne Newton doing a floorshow atop the graves of 7,000 American soldiers ought to chill the fever of even the most addicted gambler. Do we really want our history reduced to a carnival barker hawking Gettysburgers at the Bobby E. Lee Betting Hall?

You would think more care would be given to the blood-soaked soil in a region nicknamed "The Volunteer State" because of the willingness of its young men to go die for the cause. But no. We Tennesseans are no better than the rest of the nation at preserving our sacrificial landscapes. The site of one of the worst defeats for the South in Tennessee, the battle of Franklin, for years was overrun with sprawl. Only recently have preservationists advanced the front of setting aside some portion of thebattlefield for posterity. "Volunteer State" seems to mean that we’ll gladly volunteer battlefields for development.

Knoxville honors Fort. Sanders, the site where 880 Civil war soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing, with cheap condos, parking lots and beer bottles. War is hell, they say, but they probably never envisioned its aftermath as a college-student ghetto "heaven."

Is it too late? Important battle sites in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia and even Washington, D.C., are either under threat from developers or already erased by our avaricious desire for commerce. So if battlefields will always eventually end up under development, why bother preserving any on continental soil at all? We seem determined to surrender our heritage for the sake of profit, so why not go all the way? Why not let the developers have it all and outsource our battlefields to foreign operators?

We could skim six inches of topsoil off battlefields like Gettysburg and replant them at Abu Ghraib and other foreign sites we occupy. Blackwater, that militia-for-hire that likes to use the civilian population of Iraq for target practice, could administrate Abu Gettysburg. To make the experience even more authentic, the Blackwater mercenaries could fire randomly into the crowd of visitors every 20th tour or so.

Just as gamblers are driven to the gaming tables, developers will inevitably want to cash in on these outsourced battlefields. Commercialism and our military heritage, it seems, must always be intertwined. So perhaps it would be better to preempt the development? Prisoners in the CIA’s secret prisons could be forced to construct hotels and casinos at their concentration camps. Abu Gettysburg would morph into Abu Vegas, as tourists flocked to drop big bucks and get a sneak peek at our future bloodstained battlegrounds.

Tourists would pass an entertaining evening, drinking and carousing and playfully positioned prisoners in naked human pyramids for photo ops. To the delight of the audience, inmates would do chain dances to tunes like "Chain, Chain, Chain," "Working on a Chain Gang," "Unchain My Heart," and "Back on the Chain Gang," and for an encore, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"

Floor shows and gambling could be combined, with prisoners being interrogated in front of a live audience. As the Beach Boys warbled their new hit, "Waterboarding, U.S.A.," the audience would place bets on which internee will break under what alternative interrogation method. It’d be fun for the whole family! Just remember, what happens in Abu Vegas, stays in Abu Vegas. Under penalty of death.

With this arrangement, we should never run out of battlefields to honor and eventually redevelop. Squads of Blackwater operatives could periodically venture out into the general Iraqi population and dedicate, consecrate and hallow new battlegrounds with the blood of innocent civilians. And if ever – God forbid, perish the thought –outsourced battle-sites in Iraq fall into short supply, we can always export them somewhere else.

Like Iran.

But if outsourcing our national heritage doesn’t appeal to you, it’s not too late to turn the tide of this battle. We can defeat the developers over here so we don’t have to fight them over there. You can learn more about what development is doing to historical battlefields and what you can do to combat it by checking with the Civil War Preservation Trust (www.civilwar.org).

Or you can turn your back on your country’s history and invest in a condo with a nice view of the spot where gallant American soldiers died for your right to live there. Your choice. After all, it’s a free country, isn’t it?

Or is it for sale?

Only the fields of battle know.

 

P-Card Theater -- new for Knoxville Voice

Knoxville Voice's Web site seems to be getting spasmodic updates recently, so perhaps the edited version of this will end up at http://www.knoxvoice.com/ (Edit, 3/11/08: the column's now at http://www.knoxvoice.com/arts-amp-entertainment/funny-ha-ha/p-card-theater-31.html) 

In the meantime, though, here's

P-Card Theater

Political performance art

by Scott McNutt

From APB wire reports. Knoxville, TENN. -- A theater critic for The New Yorker magazine is poised to reveal that the ongoing political strife in Knox County is a colossal hoax. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an intern for the theater critic explained how the sham was discovered.

"After the New York Times piece on Knox County government came out last month [www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/us/04land.html]," said the intern, "everybody in the Big Apple media started watching Large Orange [sic] politics, sort of as a joke. I mean, look what was happening: appointees, removees, removed appointees running for office, being defeated, humiliated commission chairman resigning, replacement appointees, new appointees holding the longest-running commission meeting ever -- it was like deranged reality television. We were all going, ‘Look at those dumb hicks -- they aren’t safe for democracy, ha, ha, ha.’

"But the latest hullabaloo made my boss suspicious. I mean, come on. On Monday, the county mayor announces this draft P-card audit won’t be publicly released until his office has vetted it. Three days later, his own law director says to the media, ‘Hey, nope, the mayor’s wrong; here, take a gander,’ before the mayor even sees the audit? No way. As government process, it’s idiotic. But, as theater, it’s brilliant.

"So once we started looking into Knox County government, it became obvious it was bogus. $29,000 in sorority sleepovers at county expense? Commissioners calling each other ‘peckerhead’ and ‘university twit’ and citing the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials to protest ethics policies? A commission chairman speaksEnglish like it’s a second language, spouting things like ‘This just buffoons me’? A mayoral staffer uses a county credit card at flashingblinkylights.com? And doesn’t get a receipt? Come on, no government is that dysfunctional. It’s beyond Theater of the Absurd, it’s Kafka channeling the Marx Brothers. It’s Theater of the Ridiculous. My boss said, ‘That’s not government. That’s entertainment!’"

That’s when the critic realized that "Knox County government is the longest-running piece of unannounced performance art ever executed." All the outrageous proceedings, the tantrums, the confrontations – all have been clues to the fakery of the performance.

The artist behind this fantastic humbug has yet to be identified. Initially, comedian Jeff Foxworthy was suspected of perpetrating a gargantuan "You might be a redneck…" routine on Knox County. This idea was dismissed as "too obvious." Suspects currently include Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono and Beauvais Lyons, the University of Tennessee artist famous for fabricating artifacts from hoax civilizations and lecturing on "The Politics of Parody."

Knoxville Voice has learned that the charade extends beyond county government. When contacted by email for his reaction to the hoax, blogger Randy Neal of KnoxViews.com replied, "I'm surprised it took this long for everyone to figure it out. KnoxViews has been in on it from the beginning. Lumpy's line about the ‘McCartney hearings’? That was some of our best work. Too bad it's getting exposed right in the middle of act two, though. My P-card got cut off, and Scoobie's not returning my calls. (P.S. You're not going to tell anyone that ‘exposing’ it is act three, right?)"

Some locals, however, were surprised. "So that's why Paul Pinkston wasn't at the South Knox waterfront meetings -- it wasn't in the script," said Knoxvillian Rachel Craig, a veteran observer of local politics. "And they said you couldn't make up stuff like this!"

One local media personality, who refused to be identified for fear of disciplinary action by her employer, said, "We always knew Knox County government was a joke. We just didn’t know it was intentional."

Local arts and entertainment insiders are pondering the identities of these government performers. Local actor and writer Stephen Dupree observed, "I thought ‘Lumpy’ looked familiar. I think he portrayed an aristocratic doctor in an English soap opera that was popular during the time I spent in London. This role of a complete idiot with serious diction and vocabulary limitations must be an incredible stretch for him. I imagine he will be getting serious recognition from his peers for this role. (Assuming any of them actually make the connection.) Bravo, I say! Bravo!"

One local theater critic disputed Dupree’s surmise. He suggested that the part of "Commissioner Greg ‘Lumpy’ Lambert" was taken by former Saturday Night Live comedian Chris Farley, contending that Farley faked his own death to take the role. This critic also noted that some members of county government may have studied at the Harvey Korman School of Scene Mugging. According to this expert, the unchanging smirks on the faces of County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and former Knox County Commission Chairman Scott "Scoobie" Moore are trademarks of the Korman style of improv. Another authority opined that Ragsdale actually is Korman, since no one seems to know what’s happened to him.

Several other of the outré personalities in Knox County government have been identified as established character actors. The actor playing "Commissioner Mark Harmon," for instance, has often played university-twit types, including roles on such TV shows as St. Elsewhere and NCIS. "Commissioner Paul Pinkston" once played an alien on The X-files. The actress starring as "Former Knox County Director of Community Services Cynthia Finch" had a stint on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. "Former Special Assistant to the County Mayor Tyler Harber" was apparently discovered at the same time as Brad Renfro and has a string of art film roles to his credit, usually playing charming juvenile delinquents. Although it could not be confirmed at press time, purportedly, in real life "Commissioner R. Larry Smith" is a French mime. This may explain why he never seems to know what's going to come out of his mouth when it opens.

Observers also believe that the infamous exchange between Ragsdale and supposed citizen Lewis Cosby is another clue to the unreality of the proceedings. What appeared to be Ragsdale referring to Cosby as a "showboat" was actually one actor using a code word to inform another actor that the scene was running too long. Reportedly, such code words are commonly used in theater. Investigations are proceeding into whether "twit" and "peckerhead" are also codes.

In fact, the flamboyant incidents throughout the Ragsdale era -- the anti-wheel-tax petition derailment, Tyler Harber’s email theft, computer concealment and subsequent dismissal, the term-limits lawsuit, the Black Wednesday antics, Lumpy’s dramatic tossing of photographs at Cynthia Finch, right up to the wonky release of the P-card audit -- all appear to have been staged. Only the lobster lunches seem to have been real.

Some local observers gave the performance ecstatic reviews. “‘Etonnez-moi!’ Diaghilev famously told Cocteau was the prescription for great art,” said local performer, writer and critic Jack Rentfro. “It hardly begins to cover my astonished admiration for the splendid tableaux vivantes presented by the Knox County Commission Players in their climactic run over the past year. Imagine! Crime as government! It’s like Teapot Dome or the Grant or Bush administrations on a Podunk level. It’s breathtakingly bold! More screwball than Moon over Parador, more noir than The Last Hurrah, more kuntry-kuzzin’ kissin’ than a DVD of Hee-Haw highlights! And we wonder why we send utter raging doofuses like Stacy Campfield to the General Assembly in Nashville.”

Former News Sentinel reporter and Metro Pulse editor Jesse Fox Mayshark found the hoax unsurprising in his assessment of the performance. "I always saw Knox County Commission in the lineage of the Theater of the Absurd, not so much a postmodern critique of the relationship between the individual and the state as a metaphorical door-slamming farce in which the joke is always on the audience," said Mayshark. "I think it ranks with other conceptual achievements of recent years -- the Kansas Board of Education, say, or the 2003 California gubernatorial race -- as a realization of democracy-as-art. (What Baudoin called ‘the ecstasy of misappropriation.’)"

When asked about the truth of the allegations, the county government’s media relations officer would say only, "Mr. Andy Kaufman's gone wrestling."