Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes? - Volume 1

We begin what will be (from time to time) an ongoing series of cultural commentary from Chuckonia. We seek to answer the question posed by George Jones, "Who's gonna fill their shoes?" We ask that question of several cultural staples of our youth, which we believe were far more culturally beneficial in their own way than some "advancements" of the 21st Century. For the purpose of this series, it is important to note that we were born in 1983, we remember the end of the Cold War, the Challenger explosion (vaguely), the first Gulf War (America kicked major tail back then), and the beginning of TGIF as it stood on ABC's Friday night line-up. That's the generation from which we speak. We also recognize, as was often so eloquently stated by Gladys Knight before singing "The Way We Were" that "As bad as we think they are, these will become the good old days for our children." Therefore, not only do we acknowledge that the past of which we speak was not and, probably, still is not seen as kindly as we see it, but that the present which we criticize will, one day, be viewed with higher regard by those younger than us. With all that in mind, we first discuss a favorite indoor pastime - video games. Here's the historical view from Chuckonia...
Around 1985, Japan made one of the great cultural contributions of the 20th Century - the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yes kids, we're only talking about the NES. Some of you never knew that such a thing existed without "Super" in front of the name or "64" behind it. And, no, we had yet to hear of anything called X-Box or Playstation. All we needed on a controller was A, B, Start, Select, Up, Down, Left, and Right to create hours (and I do mean many hours) of fun for friends and family of all ages. We spent many a sleepover as a young Chuckonian staying up literally all night with our royal friends to keep Link, Mario, Luigi, Mega Man, and others fighting for freedom in their worlds. Video games of the past had a uniting effect for us. We were able to feel like freedom fighters, conquerors, defenders, and victors in the comfort of our own home and in the company of our friends. We saw the characters we controlled and knew that their every move was on our shoulders. Those were the days of our lives.
Now, we find that video games have taken several turns for the worse. Instead of jumping on turtles and renegade mushrooms to save a princess, games are won by stealing the most cars and shooting the most prostitutes. That is deplorable. We also find among the crimes of modern video game makers that skill and adventure have been replaced by boring scenarios and pointlessness. We find the complex controllers of the Nintendo 64 and many of its modern sister systems unfathomable. And, is it only in Chuckonia that we prefer to see the character that we control on the screen? Having a God-complex is not so bad if it's contained inside the television set, as the player's ultimate power is. By seeing through the character's eyes, one loses the sense of care that players used to have and replaces it with a glazed-over lack of attention to detail.
Maybe these are just ramblings that are as pointless as the first-person-view games themselves, but we feel that America's children really were better off with the games of old. Not just because they didn't teach violence so realistically and bluntly, but because people actually thought and strategized while playing them. There aren't enough 2-player games anymore either. Video games used to bring people together. They were like the "front porch" of the world on days when it rained outside. Do yourself a favor sometime, if you're of our generation or younger, find a classic NES and play a few hours and remember the difference. And, if you're a parent, find a 2-player game and have some healthy competition with your child. Life is all about competition (whether with oneself, another, or an outside force), so why not practice competing a little and have some fun at the same time? That's the way we see it here, where classic Nintendo is still a way of life (since we own our fourth classic console) and flower power has nothing to do with Hippies but, rather, with fire flowers as it should everywhere - here, in nostalgic Chuckonia.

I Know Why the Caged Elephant Sings

Today we return to the political realm for commentary, because we have been reminded recently of why we choose the Republican party as our political home. So, now for thoughts from the leader of the Chuckonian Federation...
I am a Republican and not ashamed to admit it. I find joy in knowing that others share my political party and many of my views. I also honor and respect my brethren on the other side of the aisle who wear a different idealogical brand and disagree with me on many things. One cannot survive without its counterpart. Unfortunately, some individuals on both sides take a "right vs. wrong" or "only us vs. only them" approach to politics. This is a destructive attitude in the American system of governement, as it clouds our ability to see truly beneficial solutions to a wide variety of problems, most of which are developed by a mixing of multiple ideas. As no one person has all the answers, neither does one political party. But, enough about domestic detente. One must also elaborate on his own position.
I had the honor, earlier this week, of attending a dinner here in Memphis featuring the Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, as its keynote speaker. Before the dinner, I also met and spoke with the Governor for a few minutes. My conversation with him and his speech at the banquet reminded me of the kind of Republican that I am (often not the typical conservative). I felt sorry for most of the Shelby Countians there that night, as they are rather well off and have spent much of their lives in that condition and, therefore, did not understand the kind of Republicans with which Gov. Huckabee identified. As great as that is, that is not what put me in the so-called "party of the elite." Governor Huckabee hit the nail on the head when describing his reasons for being a Republican. I felt as if he was speaking for both of us. I'm not a country club Republican, I'm just a country Republican. There was no silver spoon in the way of my first feeding back in '83. If all the stereotypes about Republicans are true, then I must be in the GOP because of what I want rather than what I have. That actually isn't half bad. Did this country not build itself on the desires of its citizens and not their status at the time? Why define ourselves by economic condition, when it is human nature to want more than we have. I think that even Bill Gates deserves to want a little more than he had the day before. It's as human as lust, thirst, hunger, or love. Equally human is the failure to always acquire that which we want immediately. But, now I'm getting overly-philosophical. Let me get a bit more political as we approach the runway of this flight.
Do I want the rich to get richer? Of course. They have every right to. As long as the poor can get richer too. The point here is that anyone, regardless of how much they have at any given time, has the God-given right to work as hard as they can for as much as they want.
Do I want lower taxes? Who doesn't? But, we must adequately fund our government's operations - foremost among them being the education of our youth. Budget cuts are hard to bear, but efficient spending only costs a little more brain-work to manage precious resources and funds.
Do I want the Supreme Court to stop legislating? Definitely. But, I want the Congress to start legislating and stop stalemating so no one else thinks that lawmaking is their job.
I'll get off the high horse now and leave you to ponder these and your own thoughts. Until next time, this is how we see things in Chuckonia...

Their License to Thrill Is Revoked

Today, we tackle a cultural calamity of the 21st Century. It occurs to us in the Federation that many of our fellow lifeforms have taken to viewing things on television that do not, by our standards, qualify as worthy additions to the basic (and not-so-basic) cable lineup. What we speak of is, of course, the so-called "reality TV" craze. We use the term loosely, and only because that is the recognized jargon for the new fad in mindless broadcasting of the day. So, to the issue of "reality TV," here's the view from Chuckonia...
First and foremost, there's too much of this reality TV being pumped out by the networks and filling slots that could be happily occupied for years at a time by intelligently-written, expertly-produced, and generally entertaining programs. God forbid that someone should actually sit down for a while and come up with a situation for a situation comedy or a trackable plot for a drama. We don't want old stories and situations regurgitated, but how many times can we sit on the couch wondering which two reality stars may or may not hook up before they get off some island (which we think is a sand bar in someone's backyard lake)? What reality TV producers have done is taken the creative process and cut it off at the knees. They generate a "situation," here being the rules and conditions of the given show, and refuse to generate stories to push that situation. They go out and find five times as much cast as they would for a solid show, praying that at least one of these complete unknowns may emerge as a memorable "character," and leave the carrying of the story to them. Unfortunately for the real actors in the world, these "characters" are nothing more than people who play up their own personality for the sake of 15 minutes (sometimes literally) of fame.
Who decided that TV needed more reality (such as they call it) anyway? When we were growing up (though, in a way, we all still are), the most reality we wanted on TV was the 5:00 news before another rerun of "Diff'rent Strokes" aired. And what was ever wrong with the situations and plots of those days? Maybe this is just becoming an attack on modern television, but the problem at hand is that modern TV isn't presented as 100% fiction or 100% fact. It's a weird blur that is further distorting society's, already, pathetic grasp on (real) reality. The fact that TV was mostly fiction didn't make it unbelievable. We just knew the happenings on TV weren't happening right then. We still knew that four old ladies with little in common could get along in a house in Miami; or that an African-American butler could go to run a governor's mansion and within eight years be running for governor of that state himself; or that a lady could meet a fellow, know that it's much more than a hunch, and that their groups could somehow form a family, and make them all a very Brady bunch; or that a mortal man could marry a witch against the prejudices of her parents (ok, maybe not that one). Basically, TV was more real when it was obviously NOT real.
If someone from the pre-reality TV era were to get a TV Guide from the future (our present, for those of you who don't follow time travel lingo), this might be his assumptions of some of the current reality TV show titles:

• "Survivor" - A "Rescue 911" kind of show chronicling stories of people who have overcome tremendous obstacles in their lives.
• "Hell's Kitchen" - A drama about kids growing up in the ghettos of New York, facing gang violence and street thugs.
• "The Real Gilligan's Island" - An E! True Hollywood Story mini-series telling about the making of the popular 60s TV series, complete with cast and crew interviews.
• "The Simple Life" - A Martha Stewart-style home improvement and craft show, loaded with great cooking tips and expert advice to make your life "a good thing."
• "The Surreal Life" - A sitcom about a simple country bumpkin who discovers royal roots and gets whisked away to rule some hardly-known but majorly loaded European nation.
• "The Amazing Race" - A cheap made-for-TV movie knock-off of "Cannonball Run."
• "Big Brother" - A MASH-like sitcom about CIA agents in the days after the Cold War.

We could go on and on, but the bottom line is that a well-thought, well-written script with good actors is far superior to the current trend of mindless, scriptless crap that accommodates an increasingly mindless audience. Now, all our "Survivor"-loving friends are ready to bomb Chuckonia and renounce their honorary citizenship of the Federation. Let us clarify that the audience is increasingly mindless because these reality shows are rotting your brains. We believe the brains of the reality-watching public existed but are fading fast. The world has enjoyed television programming since the late 1940s, but now, it seems that someone has revoked the TV's license to thrill and left us with far less valuable entertainment. That's the way we see it in Chuckonia.

Chuckonian View of an Iron Frist

We hear that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has publicly changed his stance on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. In Chuckonia, we have complex and complicated views on stem cell research itself. However, we fully understand the political implications and assumed implications (by the media) of a move such as that which Doctor Senator Frist has taken. That is what we're here to talk about this morning - the implications, not the stem cells. We say morning as it is morning when we write, and we hope your morning is as bright as ours. And now, for commentary from the leader of the Chuckonian Federation...
As a Tennessean, a Republican, and a lay citizen, I like Bill Frist. He's had a great career as a doctor and philanthropist, and I truly admire the fact that he still practices medicine in some form even now as a Senator (working legislators had practically died out when the federal Congress took on a more year-round role many years ago). When making his support of federally funded stem cell research public, Senator Frist said that he was thinking like a doctor and a scientist. One cannot blame him for this, as he has been such for a far longer time than he has been a Republican or a Senator (the fact that he did not register to vote until he was several years advanced from voting age does, naturally, disturb us). Some would say that he's got nothing to lose in the Senate by disagreeing with President Bush, since he's promised Tennessee that he would not seek re-election in 2006 (a heated race of challengers has already begun here). Others say that he is only trying to appease the slightly more liberal Republicans in his possible quest for a 2008 presidential run. I doubt a Republican in any realm would see this issue as one so advantageous, since (quite honestly) most Americans do not understand the issue well enough to make it a "make or break" question when going to the polls. Therefore, I simply say that I am proud of my Senator, not for coming out against the President on this issue and not for playing what could be a brilliantly sly political move (if it were one), but for swallowing his pride and his politics in a world of media vultures and ignorant elitists and speaking his mind (as long as that doesn't include declaring "I am the Senate" in true Palpatine fashion). That is something we pride in the Chuckonian Federation.
As for stem cell research itself, we will not discuss it today. Perhaps in a later entry, when more thought and analysis can be given to the issue, we will. As for now, that's the view from Chuckonia.

Who we are in Chuckonia...

I am Chuck, founder and leader of the Chuckonian Federation. While I am as full-of-myself as a small-town-bred Southern boy has right to be, I'm really a down-to-Earth and fun guy. I believe everyone deserves to have their own realm and their own avenue for venting, professing, agreeing, disagreeing, and sometimes just pissing people off. In this age of cyber-powered opinionating, I now have an easy and (scary as it is) global avenue to share my thoughts with others (for whatever they're worth).
To clarify, the Chuckonian Federation is more than just my God-complex made manifest, it has a past. I shall briefly explain. I have twice, at present, had the honor of serving as a counselor for Tennessee's Governor's School for International Studies, a program that I also participated in when in high school. As a counselor, I viewed without participating - most of the time. During the Model United Nations simulation in 2004 (my first year as a counselor), I sat in the back of an auditorium wishing to be in action again. I took a random sheet of paper and a blue marker and created a placard for an imaginary nation, called "the Chuckonian Federation." Over the following nights, I gave Chuckonia (for short) a whole fictional national identity. I won't go into all of that, but basically that is the namesake of my cyber-speaking realm. As I am the ruler of Chuckonia, I also may speak in the collective first person in this blog like the monarchs of old. May as well, since that makes an opinion seem more like it has a mass following.
Ok, more about me and the "conditions" of this blog. First of all, there are no real conditions, except that You, the Reader, do not take me too seriously and that You forgive my craziness, occasional fanaticism, quirks, and randomness of topics. This is a blog to contain serious opinions about not-always-serious things.
To offer some disclaimer before I actually start blogging (and this is in no particular order)... I am 21; a working college student; a Christian, a Republican; a Southerner; a rural small-town boy who grew up "in town" (not on a farm); a natural-born American; a Political-Science major and a political enthusiast (specifically, I am President of the University of Memphis College Republicans); a devoted fan of Star Wars, James Bond, and Ernest P. Worrell (God rest his soul); and, yes, as the name "Chuck" hopefully implies, I am a man.
I would also like to offer a word of thanks and a plug for another blog. My inspiration in this endeavor is another (and far wiser) blogger. My dear childhood friend, Donald Bryson inspired me to blog when I became a fan of his blog, "The Absolute." Be sure to check it out at http://appalachianvoice.blogspot.com/
With all that said, let's blog. Help me out, though, I need feedback.