WORLD TOUR Day 16 - Alabama
BEFORE: I found out today about a project called Tailgate 32, a couple of brothers who are touring the country in an RV, trying to attend 32 tailgate parties at all 32 NFL stadiums on gamedays, in the 17 weeks of the NFL season. Since there's now football games on Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays, it seems quite possible, given enough travel days in between. I remember a few years ago there was a couple of kids who tried to see a full baseball game in every major-league ballpark in just 29 days. These are people I feel a kinship with, even though they're traveling for real, and I'm just watching movies.
I've never been to an NFL game, or a real tailgate party for that matter, but I would have been happy to have contributed to the Tailgate 32 project, on one condition - I would want to see the decision tree that led to them drawing up the schedule they came up with. Maybe it was the best possible arrangement, given the oddities of the schedule, but maybe not. Why didn't they call me? My brain is already buzzing, wondering if there is a better order to visit the stadiums than the one they're using. New York to Cleveland, OK, I can see that, I've made that run many times, and I got to a point where I could leave overnight and get there in the morning. Then Baltimore, sure, but then Green Bay? Then all the way down to Jacksonville and Atlanta? There's got to be a better way. OK, Houston and Dallas in the same weekend, I can get behind that. Then St. Louis and Kansas City, I'm feelin' it. But from Tennessee all the way to Arizona in 3 days? Oakland to Minnesota to Denver? Seattle to Pittsburgh? These guys are nuts, but at least it's the good kind of nuts.
Guys, it's one eye on the schedule, one eye on the map. And if it doesn't work, try another order, trust me on this. I'm betting there were many different ways to work that schedule, and honestly, my mind won't rest until I prove it. Is there an app for this? Never mind, it'll be more fun and satisfying for my OCD if I work it out on paper.
On my own traveling project, I'm moving from Biloxi to somewhere in Alabama - no exact town is specified as a location for this one, so I'm going to have to just pick a town in the middle of the state. Linking actors from "Biloxi Blues", Park Overall was also in a film called "The Stars Fell on Henrietta" with Robert Duvall (last seen in "The Scarlet Letter"). Yeah, I'm not proud of that one, but it got the job done.
THE PLOT: Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
AFTER: I don't think I ever read the book this was based on, either, since the details of the court proceedings were completely new to me. I bet this film inspired many a case on "Law & Order", even though it took place before modern forensic techniques were common. These days we might not have as much question about whether a rape took place, as the physical evidence and DNA would ideally be better documented by medical professionals and criminologists.
As if that would matter to the townspeople of Wherever-this-is, Alabama. The defendant here is accused of rape, and also found guilty of being black in Alabama. It should be a slam-dunk for the defense attorney, but it turns out there might not be such a thing in this town. Atticus defends the man very well, but his fallback argument is to blame the victim, which I thought you weren't supposed to do either. Yeah, this probably isn't going to end well.
There's a specific piece of evidence in this case that, for me, called to mind the O.J. Simpson case - remember that one? Probably the biggest legal blunder of the century was allowing O.J. to try on those gloves. The prosecution needed to meet the burden of proof, and you don't do that by asking the defense to prove your case for you by trying on the evidence. There were probably half a dozen ways to make the gloves not fit (or make O.J.'s hands swell up), the simplest of which was having him pretend that he couldn't get them on his hands. He was an actor, after all - well, sort of.
The rest of the film surrounding the case was OK, though not all of the pieces sort of came together as a coherent whole for me. There were lots of little slice-of-life moments depicting life in the rural neighborhood, but it's hard for me to say what it all meant, if anything. Ask an English teacher, I guess, or read the book yourself.
Ah, it turns out the film is loosely based on incidents from author Harper Lee's childhood, so it's not just a fictional incident that's designed to be rife with metaphors and such. That's good to know, it helps me take it more at face value. It also helps pinpoint a location, since the town of Maycomb is fictional, I can instead measure the distance to Lee's hometown of Monroeville.
Starring Gregory Peck (last seen in "MacArthur"), Brock Peters (last heard in "The Wild Thornberrys Movie"), Frank Overton, Mary Badham, Philip Alford.
DISTANCE TRAVELED TODAY: 119 miles / 192 km (Biloxi, MS to Monroeville, AL)
DISTANCE TRAVELED SO FAR: 3,267 miles / 5,268 km
RATING: 7 out of 10 porch swings
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