This is a complete non sequitur, but one of the reasons that I enjoy watching television shows like “How the Earth was Made” or “Prehistoric: New York City” or whatever, is because sometimes the voice-over tries to make something like plate tectonics exciting for the kids and says things like, “… and the collision last for seventy million years!”
I swear to god, they actually just said that. I know that they are probably using the word “collision” in a way that is technically correct, but if they keep this up, we are going to have to start using a different word for when one car hits another car at 80 mph.
So a number of years ago the History Channel or something got a hold of a bunch of Hitler’s home movies. They were just regular boring home movies, Hitler and others hanging out at The Eagles Nest or whatever. Having a BBQ, that sort of thing. The movies didn’t have any sound, obviously. Well, The History Channel hired lip readers to figure out what people were saying. I remember watching the show about this and being fascinated. My girlfriend at the time did not like this program at all and we got into something of an argument about whether or not it was inadvertently humanizing Hitler. I was all for the humanization of Hitler because I feel that pretending he was some kind of demon hell-spawn allowed people to forget that the horrors of World War II were entirely man-made. I do still feel that way. I think that by acting as though this guy was made of some special kind of evil lets every run-of-the-mill prick and/or hateful bastard off the hook.
I was just thinking about that because the Military Channel – which I watch sometimes (when it is about history and not about machine guns or samurai swords) – seems to be having an all-Hitler-all-the-time day today (because they just can’t help themselves).
This whole Hitler-centric evening that I’m having prompted me to write a very-not-very-good one act play about Hitler. The intent here is to humanize Hitler enough so that we can mock the living hell out of him. Think of it as Will & Grace meets some-boring-thing-you-had-to-watch-in-a-high-school-history-class.
See Below.
Enjoy!
(BTW, I’m not using the proper and technical stage direction, because I’m too lazy to remember how to do it right right now. But at least I know I’m doing it wrong. It is like I’m EECUMMINGS or something.)
I love when a couple of words bang together and stick and there’s this slow sizzle inside your brain that lights up like when they light the fuse at the beginning of an episode of Mission: Impossible.
Anyway, I’m reading some stuff online and watching this show about General Patton on the History Channel (did you know he’s from Pasadena?) and they started talking about a German towed-artilery rocket launcher. It was named the Nebelwerfer, but the Americans who had to endure it called it the “Screaming Mimi” because of the awful, high-pitched shriek it made.
What a great name! How the fuck is that not a punk band?!
I am totally going to write something that uses this term, this slang, this name.
There was a pulp novel with this title, and there is a vintage clothing store with this name, and a couple of sex acts on Urban Dictionary (one of which makes sense, the other is simply juvenile and was probably submitted by giggling fourteen-year-olds) with this name.
But just wait! Someday soon there will be my story called “Screaming Mimi”. It will be written in the tradition of “Gravity’s Rainbow”, but faster and … and … and it will be … narrated in a third-person omniscient fashion by the SETTING! Ha. This is a great idea!
And one whole chapter will be about the lead singer of a punk band who wears vintage clothing and likes to perform juvenile sex acts!
Thanks History Channel.
Oh! And here is what a Screaming Mimi sounds like. It is actually quite creepy.
