3.2.01

Since today's Friday and I am feeling really drained, movies is the perfect topic for the day.

Fight Club. You all know that I'm doing this site basically because of Fight Club. That's not to say that I don't have other influences on me, but Fight Club has been a major one. Well, since I could talk about this one all day, I'll skip it and let you know about another movie that I find interesting and in the same vein - Mosquito Coast.

Mosquit Coast stars Harrison Ford, back when he used to take chances with his acting career. Ahhh, the good ol' days. Anyway, Ford stars as a somewhat mad inventor, Allie Fox, who has figured out a way to make ice out of water and some type of gas. They actually do say what the gas is, but my mind is sort of slipping today. Anyway, he, almost spontaneously, picks up his family and takes them to The Mosquito Coast, down in Nicaragua and Honduras.

He leaves because he believes that America is not the country it once was. He sees it as a country that only believes in the almighty dollar, rather than the basis of its founding - freedom. So he takes his family to the jungle and tries to start a new, better civilization. Part of this new civilization is a huge ice machine. He begins to make ice for all the surrounding communities and everyone loves him. However, it is in his arrogance to expand his "gift" to "uncivilized" tribes that leads to his civilization's downfall and the breakdown of his family unit.

The film is really a metaphor open to numerous interpretations. One, is Man v. God and the arrogance shown by mortals in this battle. Another, the more obvious interpretation, is Civilization v. Savagery. It's this top layer where I feel this movie most relates to my strivings as a Space Monkey.

Allie does what I would like to do, but not in such drastic terms. I would love to find somewhere secluded where I could just go and live my life how I want to. America, sadly, is running out of places to do that. We've spread so far across this great nation that there are very few places that someone can live outside of " civilization". There are some places in the deserts of the South West and a few places in the mountains of the North West; other than that, though, we have virtually covered the country. So other than leaving America, which I'm not prepared to do, these are my only options if I want to live outside of mainstream America.

However, what this tale shows me is that there is a downside to living in seclusion. Sure, you don't have to worry about cars, so much pollution, whether or not The Backstreet Boys will be #1 on TRL today, but you also have no police force or ambulance service readily available. I guess what I'm saying is, I want to live away from other people, but I'm not willing to die for it.

Of course I had thought of this problem before, but it was nice to see the effects on someone who hadn't quite thought things through. When all else has failed, Allie is so scared to admit that he was wrong, to himself and his family that he practically gets them all killed more than once. And I wouldn't want to make that mistake.

This is a serious move to just pick up and move somewhere away from other people. That takes a lot of balls to say the least, and you have to be able to accept the consequences of your actions. I might not like being constantly bombarded by television ads telling me to buy Beggin's Dog Strips, or the way people treat each other in this country, but am I willing to take the chance that I'll seriously injure myself with no hope of help arriving just so I don't have to see that little Pepsi girl's face again? Ok, bad example, because I think we'd all be wiling to do that, ummm…take the chance that I'll seriously injure myself just so I don't have to hear "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy one more time? Ok, again, bad example, but I think you get the point.

Frankly, no. I'm sick of the world we live in, too, but for right now I'm considering it the lesser of two evils. That might all change if the government ever approves restitution payments to modern- day African-Americans because their ancestors might have been slaves 150 years ago, but for now, I'll stay in the good ol' US of A. Maybe I should just move to Canada. Hmmmm…..

Space Monkey