I can hear directly from the horse’s mouth from someone who went through World War 2, fought in a trench and saw all the tanks, saw their friends die, had all these crazy experiences.
I watched Dunkirk and I didn’t like it because it was all a bunch of crap. Roald Dahl already told me how it was (not in France, in Greece, but sort of the same situation) and it just wasn’t like that. He watched German fighters buzzing around and picking off ships in the bay, from up on the hill, he went up in the air and flew around with bullets whizzing all around him, and then he showed them to me. Even if someone’s not an expert writer, if they were there, then they can tell you. Someone who just works in an office in Hollywood probably can’t tell you shit.
I can hear from someone who worked in a hospital ER, someone who survived a concentration camp, someone who lived in the boonies in Africa and got out and yelled at the giraffes and had scares with lions and poisonous snakes. Redmond O’Hanlon took me up the river in Borneo and we ate cooked worms together and the guides had a little celebration because they thought we’d never make it through the jungle because we’re old and fat and white. I saw Gene Kranz walk outside the building and cry, because in one of the simulations he fucked up and killed the whole crew, and he couldn’t handle thinking of it if it had been real. I was there the night that Elie Wiesel’s father died in the camps.
JRR Tolkien learned the secrets of life and death in the worst places in the world and he told them to me, the best he could put them together. Richard Adams too, and Harlan Ellison.
Is it the same as being there? Not even close. Is it better than just going to the store and talking with my coworkers? Fuck yeah it is.
It always is to live other lives vicariously.
Seriously.
I can hear directly from the horse’s mouth from someone who went through World War 2, fought in a trench and saw all the tanks, saw their friends die, had all these crazy experiences.
I watched Dunkirk and I didn’t like it because it was all a bunch of crap. Roald Dahl already told me how it was (not in France, in Greece, but sort of the same situation) and it just wasn’t like that. He watched German fighters buzzing around and picking off ships in the bay, from up on the hill, he went up in the air and flew around with bullets whizzing all around him, and then he showed them to me. Even if someone’s not an expert writer, if they were there, then they can tell you. Someone who just works in an office in Hollywood probably can’t tell you shit.
I can hear from someone who worked in a hospital ER, someone who survived a concentration camp, someone who lived in the boonies in Africa and got out and yelled at the giraffes and had scares with lions and poisonous snakes. Redmond O’Hanlon took me up the river in Borneo and we ate cooked worms together and the guides had a little celebration because they thought we’d never make it through the jungle because we’re old and fat and white. I saw Gene Kranz walk outside the building and cry, because in one of the simulations he fucked up and killed the whole crew, and he couldn’t handle thinking of it if it had been real. I was there the night that Elie Wiesel’s father died in the camps.
JRR Tolkien learned the secrets of life and death in the worst places in the world and he told them to me, the best he could put them together. Richard Adams too, and Harlan Ellison.
Is it the same as being there? Not even close. Is it better than just going to the store and talking with my coworkers? Fuck yeah it is.