By JONAH BAKER February 23, 2017
MANDAN, N.D. Others have eloquently spoken the epic story of the water protectors who have valiantly striven (and continue to strive) to prevent the contamination of drinking water for millions of people throughout the Missouri River basin, to protect the environment and our future. One chapter came to an end Wednesday, as the peaceful camp, led by native grandmothers, was disbanded by force and threat of felony charges.
In the wake of these events, our eyes turn back to childhood memories of some first exposure to the macabre. Seeing the specter in the fire begs the question, what ghastly political will is firmly under the dark power of billionaires and big oil? Some have described this phenomenon as “Dr. Bannonstein’s monster,” and others have fled to Canada where the leader is more likely escaped out of a a Hugh Grant romcom.
We tracked down this black and white gem from the making of the original 1933, “Dr. Bannonstein”, in the innocent days of the doctor’s screenwriting career, long before “the monster” was on television firing actors. We all smiled at the limited vocabulary and simplistic thinking of the predatory giant with a brain from the bargain bin and the hands of a proctologist.
Perhaps in the collective dream of popular culture lies a clue how to stop this mad scientist before he gives his long speech revealing the whole plot, how the money from the Russian hackers is being used to supply meth to voters who will soon be deported to Chinese toy-making camps as their new “health care” where they will be turned into the very plastic toys they hate. As they say when you are being admitted to an institution for the criminally insane, laughter is the third step, just before they plug you into the juice box.
When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, certainly she tried to warn us of the hubris of man’s addiction to power and playing God. The source of electrical power, which could be alternative/clean technologies, is still being determined by people who get off on large explosions and would inspire pitchforks and torches if they were looming near playgrounds. During the filming of this scene, above, the monster’s head-cap had to be sown on repeatedly to get the hair to his liking, which led to massive scarring and an obsession with the word “loser.”
In the film, Dr. Bannonstein’s ancestral castle in Transylvania just happened to be near where the reality star crashed, (like Susan Sarandon in Rocky Horror?) resulting in a collaboration which saved the performer’s career, at the cost of Peter Lorre’s tiny hands being sown onto his oafish body. While we must look to Invasion of the Body Snatchers to understand Republican obstructionism, election-rigging, and spineless abdication to the will of a potentially tyrannical power, this does shed let in one cobwebbed corner of the “alt White House”. Let’s change the narrative, bring in Tim Curry, Sarandon, and company to do a makeover, put a disco ball in the West Wing, and initiate “crossdressing briefs” as Michelle Pence has suggested.
If it was Trump’s head sewn on a corpse, whose body was it? Clearly fire is not this creature’s weakness, as it was in the movies, as he and his klan are bringing the false fire of global warming upon us all. Some have suggested that former President Andrew Jackson’s body was exhumed and with a bit of fresh powder – boom! You have a populist megalomaniac holding bathtub gin parties on the White House lawn and breaking treaties with the Lakota Sioux. Perhaps the clue lies in which brain (“Abby Normal?”) ended up in the canister of the head, over which the royal clown’s hair covers the scars. Apparently Dr. Bannonstein was going for Marty Feldman, a great comic subservient role with only a few words at its disposal, whose brain may have been preserved by the Mel Brooks Foundation for cerebral transplants and Yiddish irony. Perhaps we have a Jew president after all, only he doesn’t remember?
In this village, we must protect ourselves, and hopefully find the political Achilles heal that is like the fire that destroyed the monster of old. Let’s keep our own humanity while we face this together. The tragedy yesterday at Standing Rock is beyond FFN’s domain to address. All we can do is share a wish that we all maintain our ability to cry, to speak our voices, to share humanizing laughter, and to know what is monstrous in ourselves and others. After all, we don’t want to let Dr. Bannonstein turn us all into his creatures, fighting on social media, when we could be sharing a toast together over a delicious meal, or join groups to practice transplanting brains into members of congress, just in case.
