It's a wonderful life.
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CC0 Public Domain |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
"It's a grand life, if you don't weaken." -Thomas Carter (and my mum)
Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,
Yes, Virginia, there is a Pottersville (are Pottersvilles?), several in fact. Also, there's a movie... but it's probably not the one you're thinking of, particularly if you're of a certain age.
{Huh... Well, this is interesting, a pair of dated cultural references and a much newer, but obscure one squeezed into the same opening sentence.}
Oh... Perhaps I'd better explain. Yes, Virginia, there is (a Santa Claus) is from a famous newspaper editorial written in 1897, Dana.
{Man, you are old!}
There's a Pottersville in the highly-regarded classic movie It's a Wonderful Life, a movie in which, as hard as it is to believe, no one gets naked "because it's necessary to the story" or gets their head blown off. More on that Pottersville anon.
Now the 2017 movie Pottersville, which has nothing to do with It's a Wonderful Life, is about what happens when "Maynard, a beloved local businessman, is mistaken for the legendary Bigfoot during an inebriated romp through town in a makeshift gorilla costume."
It demonstrates that occasionally the preview accurately portrays just how awful the movie actually is and what happens when world-class actors need (or just want) a payday.
One can easily make a case that America seems to be devolving into a country that embodies the zeitgeist of the Pottersville portrayed in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
{Pottersville syndrome is ravaging the Republic?}
My research assistant, Dabney, assures me that It's a Wonderful Life is still a very popular movie and...
{How many times are you going to repeat the title? You're a click-slut, aren't you?}
Please! This is, more or less, a family-friendly column. Anyone familiar with... the movie, knows that the town of Frostbite Falls would've become Pottersville — a place that made both Sodom and Gomorrah seem tame and dull by comparison, at least by 1946 standards — if Jimmy Stewart had never been born.
{That's not... You're... Never mind.}
However, if the angel Clarance had revealed to Jimmy Stewart what America would be like by the turn of the millennium, Jimmy might've decided the hell with it and tortured Mr. Potter till he gave up the bank deposit that he stole from Uncle Billy and subsequently framed Jimmy for.
Next, he'd clean out any remaining money in the safe at the "wonderful old building and loan," blow Mr. Potters's head off, tell Clanance to kiss his arse, and then run off with Violet Bick. They would then become a late 40s version of Bonnie and Clyde and have lots of sex... till they eventually got their heads blown off.
Geezers and geezerettes, well, many of them, tend to bang on about the good ol' days, it's almost a rule, droning on about how life in America, when they were young, was so much better than life in the current version of America.
But any discussion, by almost anybody, about the current quality of life in America (pretty much everywhere I suspect), includes elements of what one (not necessarily accurately) has been told, taught, or remembers that it was in the past.
Sexy senior citizens, grups, callowyutes, and kids are all in the same large boat but living on different decks. Many geezers and geezerettes fondly remember a past that they actually weren't particularly pleased to be living in when they were living in it.
Many of the grups currently charged with getting out of bed every morning to make sure the lights stay turned and the kids get fed wonder how it was once possible for one adult with a full-time job to support a family and still have a day or two off every week.
Some deluded Wokies, wackadoos, and callowyutes claim America is rotten to the core and run around tipping over statues, "canceling" heretics, and claiming racism is fine as long as you hate the right race.
Many people, I suspect most (the muted majority?), wonder why everything has been politicized and who it was that decided that everything that was once considered deviant, antisocial behavior — not just behavior the culture at large should, and has, learned to accept — is not only acceptable but should be taught to the kids A.S.A.P.
Merry Christmas, and welcome to Pottersville.
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day
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