In Praise of the Firefly Series

When I started this blog, I promised myself that “Thou Shalt Not Whine” was going to be part of my guiding philosophy. I sat down thinking about composing some of my thoughts on Philippine television, but that would have gutted the guiding philosophy.

Instead I grabbed the the first DVD that caught my eye and slapped it in the player. As the rabid "Browncoats" out there have already guessed, that DVD was Firefly.

There are just so many elements of Firefly that appeal to me. Most of these are found in other shows that I enjoyed growing up. Josh Whedon did a great job of bringing them together for me, and apparently a legion of fans, but unfortunately not for the Fox Network brass. But then again, those are the same folks who don't have the decency to cancel an atrocity like American Idol (Thou Shalt Not Whine).

I think I was overseas when Firefly originally aired. I “discovered” the show myself while surfing for free movies on Hulu. The first “episode” I saw was the Serenity movie. For those who don't know the Firefly story, the movie was produced after the series was canceled. It was the only time that a series was canceled after a single season and then made into a big budget motion picture.

Unfortunately for me, the movie was made for fans of the show, and I was brand new to the Firefly universe. Of course I wasted as little time as possible learning my way around!

In the Firefly universe, humankind has spread beyond Old Earth, and has terraformed and colonized several planets and moons in a single star system. There is an overbearing authority known as the Alliance apparently made up of what if left of the United States/Europe and China. The Alliance holds all the power on the densely populated central planets, but just like the American Frontier, the further you get from authority, the wilder and woollier things can get.

Firefly is a class of cargo carrying spaceship which bears a striking resemblance to the eponymous bug. In the show, this particular Firefly,the Serenity, belongs to Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a veteran of the losing side of the Unification War. Serenity is crewed by a small band of misfits whom Captain Mal has come to trust, perhaps even love. Like any of literature's great command figures, Mal is loyal unto death to his trusted crew.

One of the threads that runs through Firefly that I find interesting is the veterans of the losing side. I joined the Navy several years before the War On Terror, when Vietnam was still a relatively fresh memory. A number of my college buddies had served on the line in Cold War Europe and Korea. I don't want to imply that these were defeated warriors by any means, but they didn't carry the “flush with victory” bravado that Gulf War vets wore so easily. (Even us Navy pukes who did our best to stay near the air conditioner.)

Another element that is appealing to me is that Serenity belongs to Mal who uses it to escape escape the constraints of civilization. This isn't because he's an outlaw (he is, of course, but an outlaw of the most noble sort). Mal eschews civilization for the same reason the Cowboy Myth is so powerful, the need to breathe free air.

This brings to mind Capt Adam Troy from the old TV series, Adventures in Paradise. This show was even before my time, but it helped feed the dream of getting a boat, setting sail for the south seas, and escaping the troubles of the everyday world. Part of the dream the eventually brought me to the Philippines.

Finally there is the character River Tam, played by Summer Glau. River was a child prodigy who supposedly made her older broth (who graduated at the top of his medical school class) look like “an idiot child”. River and her brother are on the run from the Alliance after they conducted unnameable experiments to her brain. It is implied that the experiments were intended to create a perfect assassin.

The Alliance's treatment of River is the ultimate symbol of the evil at the heart of the Alliance, and perhaps even overgrown civilizations everywhere. This means that we get to see Summer Glau being graceful in gauzy dresses and combat boots. That alone should have been enough to get Firefly a second season. Summer Glau in various states of dress and undress was about the only thing that made The Sarah Connor Chronicles worth following.

Sea Stories

I went to college for a little bit before entering the service. It is hard to say how much, or if it helped to prepare me for Boot Camp. Perhaps it helped to hone my appreciation for the absurd. That is a valuable thing for anyone in military service.

One thing that I did get while in college was the chance to hang out with some veterans. Most of these guys were going to school on the GI Bill, and they were proud to talk to a younger guy who was getting ready to follow the same path that they had taken. Most of all, they were happy to have somebody new to tell their Sea Stories to.

What is the difference between a Fairly Tale and a Sea Story? One starts “Once Upon A Time” and the other goes “Now, this is No Sh*t...”

Sea Stories pack a lot of the same impact as mythology. Whether they are believed or not, whether they are in any way true or not, they have a basis in fact. Sometimes a very tenuous basis, but it is there nonetheless.

I reported for basic training on the night of my mother's birthday, two weeks before Christmas. I was put on a train for Boise, and when I got there was put up in the Holiday Inn. My flight to San Diego wasn't until the next afternoon, so I spent the day hanging around the processing center with the other recruits getting ready to ship out, trying to appear brave.

There was a young lady who was supposed to be going to the Training Center in Orlando. She had been effectively marooned at the entrance station for a couple of days, waiting for the results of a pregnancy test. Surealism was already setting in. The actual flight to San Diego is lost to the fog of time and Western Ailines champange (guaranteed not to make you blind until you land).

With just two weeks before Christmas, there was not going to be a lot of training going on, but we still formed into training companies and tried to act like we were learning to be sailors. Mostly, we were available for any staff who needed practice yelling at people. When they got tired of yelling, there was always plenty of time for, that's right, Sea Stories.

One of the most popular flavors of Sea Stories had to do with a mythical place called Subic Bay in a far away kingdom called The Philippines. In the Philippines (also called The P.I., or Philippine Islands) there was anything that a young man could want. As long as all he wanted was cold beer and little dark skinned women who were willing to do just about anything to make him happy. And Anything was often described in the most depraved, degenerate, and appealing manner imaginable.

Before long, the recruits realized that the most important reason to complete Boot Camp was so that some day they would be assigned to a ship going to the P.I. There are worse things to live for. “The Needs Of The Navy” kept me from visiting the P.I. for another seven years, and by then the mythical experience was winding down.

After a very short visit over New Years weekend, the Task Force moved out and sailed on to the Gulf War. Our trip home was delayed over and over again, and just after we passed out of the Straits of Hormuz, Mt Pinatubo exploded, and the Philippines experience slipped into Sea Story legend.

I live in the Philippines now, however. Sea Stories, like myth, has its roots in the truth.

Searching For The Universal Metaphor

Many years ago, I was sitting on the edge of a conversation in sunny San Diego between an Artistic director and one of the board members of the community theater where I was spending some of my time off from the Navy. The board member was, frankly, a bit of a tool, but seemed enthused to see Community Theater flourish on the banks of Glorietta Bay. My pal the Director was happy to have the theater as an artistic outlet, and the low key demands to the little playhouse fit him nicely.

Relations between Corporate Tools and Artists are not always happy, but they are often amusing.

Anyhow, the Tool became curious about just what the Artist did for a living. Of course, he was interesting and educational to talk too, and he had some interesting visions for the productions at the Playhouse, but this was a strictly volunteer gig. What about his Day Job?

Finally, Hal let on that he was a writer. This wasn't enough for the Tool. Whaddaya mean a writer? Do you write novels? Do you publish short stories? Are you a journalist? In actuality, Hal did all of these things, not to mention working as a day laborer, a substitute teacher, and part time community theater director.

Rather than satisfy the Tool with a straight answer, Hal airily explained “My job is to search for the Universal Metaphor...”

O.K., this little seem was an exercise in intellectual and artistic snobbery, plain and simple, and I should probably apologize to the Universe for participating in it, let alone remembering and relating it. The point is, this conversation was the source of an Image that has haunted me for more than twenty years; a writer's job is to search for the Universal Metaphor.

To be honest, I have no idea if there are writers who think that their mission in life is to search for a Universal Metaphor, or if there is even such a thing as a Universal Metaphor. I do know that over the years I have been told that my writing has a good “voice”. What is amazing to me is that for the last few years I have actually made a living tapping out my thoughts from in front of a keyboard.

My “professional writing” has been for other people, so it has been what they wanted to say. I don't have a problem with that. What they have to say must be important because they are paying me to say it. But Searching For The Universal Metaphor is about what I want to say.

I will not promise that what I have to say will ever be important, let alone right. I won't even promise that it will be the Truth, what ever that is. It will probably be the truth, not for any moral or philosophical reason- the fact is I am just too lazy to make up and support lies.

The problem with the Truth is that it is not always pretty, or even entertaining. But you know what? Sometimes it really is! If you have spent any time at all knocking around God's marvelous creation, you will have seen some beautiful and wonderful things. I know that my life, such as it is, has had beautiful and wonderful moments.

If you, Gentle Reader, are willing to stick with me in this space for awhile, I will promise to share some of these things.