The Compleat Heretic's Gratifications

This page was last modified on 8 February 2014.

I've put off doing anything with this page for far too long. As a stopgap, I'll put up this partial list of those things which give me pleasure and make life good. When fully implemented, I intend to add amplifications and clarifications to the entries.

• Games
• Movies
• Music
• People
• Television
• Things

• Axis and Allies
• Chess
• Civilization/Civilization II     Easily the greatest computer simulation game ever coded. The game spans 6,000 years from the founding of a small village by a group of settlers to the founding of a colony on one of Alpha Centauri's planets. In between, you must increase your population, found new cities, pursue scientific discoveries, explore your planet, and interact (diplomacy, trade, war, etc.) with two to six other civilizations while avoiding being surpassed or conquered and destroyed by them. And there are barbarians to harass your explorers and caravans and to sack your cities. Though the game is somewhat psychologically addictive (can you say "god complex"), it is an insidiously educational practical exercise in how civilizations grow and develop, flourish or fail. If I'm wrong and Hell exists, there is a very special place waiting for Sid Meier. Ditto for Dr. Larry Taube for introducing me to the original Civilization for the base purpose of my learning how to play it so I could teach him; serves me right for being such an eager and enthusiastic student of business productivity software.
• Monopoly
• Risk
• Scrabble

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• Braveheart     I'm "a Wallace," and this movie is about "The Wallace," or at least its supposed to be. Though William Wallace's history is sketchy outside of his war against and execution by the English, this movie is a historian's nightmare. The Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297) is depicted without so much as a stepping stone, much less the River Forth, though the bridge and the river were central to Scottish strategy and key factors in their victory. Robert the Bruce probably wasn't present at Falkirk (1298), thus did not betray Wallace as depicted; tellingly, The Bruce didn't make peace until after Edward Longshanks laid waste to his lands following the battle. Wallace's affair with the younger Edward's wife never could have happened as she was a French princess of 5 or 6 during Wallace's glorious year of 1297-98 and didn't marry Edward II until 1308, after Edward I's death in 1307 and Wallace's execution in 1305. One could go on and on. Despite gross abuses of history, the movie captures the spirit of the Scottish love of freedom which surpasses even the love of life. If this seems perverse to you, Scottish blood obviously does not flow hot through your veins. "FREEDOM!"
• Casablanca     My all-time favorite movie; I watch it everytime I notice it's on.
• Citizen Kane    
• A Clockwork Orange   "I was cured alright!"
• Dead Poets Society
• Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb  
• Eraserhead     A very weird movie that no one seems to be able to follow much less understand. I've only seen it twice, and that was in the early '80s. I can't tell you what it means, assuming that it actually does mean something, but I know that it touches something deep and dark within me.
• The Flim-Flam Man
• Full Metal Jacket
• Hamburger Hill     The best and most realistic Vietnam War movie ever made.
• High Noon   A character study in what it means to be a man, all the more important for a time which has forgotten the manly virtues at best and makes a crime of them at worst.
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail   If you don't laugh your hindquarters off at this send-up of the Arthurian legends, you are a humorless dolt. "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life  
• Red Dawn   Airborne commies invade small Colorado town in World War III. High school kids take revenge as guerrillas. OK, it's a silly premise, and the "combat" is farcical. It's a movie only a patriot can like, and I'm a patriot. I always tear up at the final scene which proves that I'm a patriot.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show   A truly horrid waste of celluloid save its use as an audience participation movie. I readily confess to seeing it, or rather participating in it almost 40 times during the last three quarters of 1982. I plead being an overworked, underpaid sales clerk. "Madness takes its toll!"
• The Shootist
• To Kill a Mockingbird   This nearly perfect coming-of-age movie is told from the perspective of a young girl and expounded without that cute sentimentality which selectively excludes the ugliness that coexists with the wonder of a child's world. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch is both the best widower dad ever and the most decent lawyer ever, especially in his perfectly rational and impassioned defense of the falsely accused Tom Robinson; his exit from the courtroom after losing the case to a racially-tainted verdict is more than worth the price of admission.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey  

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• Allman Brothers Band
• America    
• The Beatles    
• Ludwig van Beethoven  
• Chuck Berry
• Boston
• Jackson Browne  
• Eric Clapton
• Elvis Costello and the Attractions    
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Jim Croce
• The Doors     The most intellectually and philosophically sophisticated rock band ever. Can you say "Jim Morrison"?
• Bob Dylan    
• The Eagles
• Elton John
• Fleetwood Mac
• Foreigner
• Heart     Hey, chicks can rock too!!!
• Jimi Hendrix
• Buddy Holly
• Jethro Tull
• Janis Joplin
• Kansas
• Led Zeppelin
• John Lennon     The brains and brawn behind the Beatles. I cried on and off for at least two days after his assassination on 8 December 1980. He was the only living human being I truly admired and looked up to as a superior though I've long since recognized this for the youthful error that it was. Not that I'll ever be as famous or beloved as John Lennon or that I'll ever match his great accomplishments. No, the point is that I'm not John Lennon, and I'll never be who and what he was -- and is. I'm Matt Wallace and whatever success I make of my life will result from making the most of the unique human being that I am and not from trying to be someone else or anything else that I'm not. I can hear John saying, "Yeah, brother, that's it!" The shame is that he had to die for me to realize this truth.
• Gordon Lightfoot
• Little Richard
• Lynyrd Skynyrd    
• The Moody Blues
• Roy Orbison
• Patti Smith Group     Sort of poetry and art meets punk-edged rock'n'roll; just the sort of thing that would get a bright, intellectual teenage boy's attention; one of the few things that made the '70s even moderately worthwhile. PSG made refreshingly different music in the era of stagnant, plastic album oriented rock (AOR) and that sewer slime ironically called music, disco. As best as I can recall, I was introduced to Patti and the boys when they were musical guests on Saturday Night Live during its first season ('75-'76). The moment I heard Patti snarl "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine!" at the beginning of "Gloria (in excelsis deo)," I knew that this was something very different and I was hooked! Probably had something to do with being a teenage atheist in the Bible Belt. It's not great poetry, and it's not great music, and it may even be pretentious drivel, but it works oh so well, even after all these years!
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• The Platters
• The Police
• Pink Floyd    
• Queen    
• R.E.M.    
• The Rolling Stones
• RUSH    
• Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band    
• Bruce Springsteen     The Boss! Living proof that "songwriter" and "poet" aren't mutually exclusive. After more than 30 years, I still crank "Born to Run" and pause for "Thunder Road." When I was stationed in Germany ('86-'88), we GIs made the "rads" (comrades; i.e., Germans) sick of "Born in the U.S.A." which I still crank whenever the bitterness of my military service percolates up from its dark pit. And if there was any doubt of Bruce's place in modern American popular music, only the Boss could have produced a tour de force the likes of The Rising which captures the mood of post-"Nine-Eleven" America for generations to come. Unfortunately, his political views on the Global War on Terror are incredibly naive, but then what else can be expected from someone who finds "enormous sustenance from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd." "Devils & Dust," which I've disparaged as "Dust Devils" since I first heard it, is an insult to America's veterans, past and present, which includes me of course. Well, I reckon I can ignore his blatantly political stuff...
• Steely Dan
• The Who    
• Hank Williams
• Yes

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• Humphrey Bogart     Easily my favorite actor.
• Newt Gingrich     Though now politically ostracized, Newt will always be remembered for returning the Republican party to majority status by opposing the "go along to get along," read "permanent minority," read "losing," strategy of the moderates and showing conservatives how to fight for what they know is right.
• Thomas Jefferson
• Mike Krzyzewski     There is One Coach and his name is Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils are his instrument. Woe to the unbelievers . . . especially Tar Heel fans...
• Robert E. Lee     General Lee was my first boyhood hero, and adulthood has only increased my admiration for him. He sacrificed his position and wealth and risked his life all for the sake of his personal honor. My first son will be named "Robert Edward" unless I'm feeling particularly pretentious and name him "Robert Edward Lee." Of course, using the full name partially ameliorates the discomfort of giving a Wallace the name of one of The Wallace's enemies, Edward Longshanks.
• Rush Limbaugh     The man, the legend, the way of life!
• Abraham Lincoln
• Friedrich Nietzsche    
• Henry David Thoreau

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• BattleBots     The Rock'em Sock'em Robots of my childhood is a firecracker; BattleBots is a thermonuclear device!
• Beavis and Butt-head     They're back! There's nothing more condescending than two complete morons calling something "stupid." And given MTV's transformation from Music TV to Moron TV during their absence, the boys' preferred television viewing is a far greater target-rich environment for their trenchant insights.
• The Big Bang Theory     Who knew nerdy, geeky, horny professional scientists could be so funny...
• Daria     I want to be Daria Morgendorffer's loveslave! She's a highly intelligent, delightfully intellectual, devastatingly sarcastic, and contrary to her cynical exterior, sweet young woman. Additionally, she's a fair-skinned redhead who wisely eschews cosmetics. What's not to love! I've been looking for my real "Daria" since I was in high school. Until I find her, I have the DVD collection . . . I LOVE DARIA MORGENDORFFER!!!
• Felicity   Hey, Keri Russell's a babe, and I'm an old bachelor. It's called "testosterone poisoning"! After the second season premiere (Ben or Noel? I had to know.), I fear that it's becoming unbearably soap-operish which is a moot point as it's new time slot conflicts with The Simpsons and Futurama. One must have one's priorities!
• King of the Hill
• Malcolm in the Middle
• Millennium     For three years, this show was my weekly dose of dark, oppressive creepiness. I missed it greatly until I bought all three seasons on DVD.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus     Oh my lack of god, this is still funny after 40 years! Thank my lack of god for the 16 TON MEGASET! Please refer to "The Cycling Tour" for the source of my expression "lack of god."
• The Simpsons    
• South Park   Oh my lack of god, this show kills me! You bastards!
• Star Trek     Maybe I'm weird, or just a fan, but I like every iteration of the franchise...
• The Walking Dead     I want zombies, dead, dead zombies! (They're "walkers" in this version of the genre.) I was hooked with the series-opening first zombie deanimation: .357 Magnum to the forehead of a bunny slipper-wearing, teddy bear-carrying little girl. The reanimated corpses are the least of the survivors' worries...
• The X-Files     Easily my most favorite show during its long run and definitely a contender for my all-time favorite. I always had to have an overwhelming reason to miss an episode or rerun. Sunday nights just aren't the same without it. It's all I can do to resist OD'ing on the show on Fox's FX cable network and other syndication outlets. And the DVD collection...

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Things

• Atlantic Coast Conference basketball     I was born, raised, and live in North Carolina where ACC basketball is a secular religion. Need I say more!? Blessèd be the Orange Orb.
  • Duke University Blue Devils     LET'S GO DEVILS!!!
• Computers     Duh!
• Firearms
  • Glock handguns     Glock 21...13+1 .45 ACP...aaahhh, "Shooting Perfection"!
  • M16A2/AR15A2 rifles     The most recent incarnation of the "Black Rifle" is the finest individual weapon yet put in the hands of a foot soldier. The only way to make it "better" is to mount an M203 40mm grenade launcher ("Reach out and touch someone!") under the barrel. Of course, this prevents fixing a bayonet-knife (M7 or M9), but then this is only a minor problem. Between the 5.56mm Ball ammo and the 40mm HE grenades, there won't be much left "TO KILL, TO KILL, TO KILL WITHOUT MERCY!" "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine." Blessèd be the Black Rifle.

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