“So you’ve been in hell for 70 years Joe?” I asked.
“Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Did you die first? Or did you go down there for shits and giggles?”
“Unbeknownst to me, my family has been guarding this portal to hell for 200 years. Jezebel was a maid at our estate and I went outside my marriage to be with her. But Jezebel was secretly the devil and she cast me into the portal.”
“So is your body buried in that cemetery or what? If so, how the hell are you standing here with a flesh and blood body?”
“Don’t worry about it. The point is there’s been a rebellion in hell. Spirits are escaping to this earth and if we don’t stop Jezebel, there will be hell on earth!”
“Relax Joe, you’re just describing Toledo,” I said.
“You already made that joke.”
“How can three flesh and blood men stop an army of evil spirits?” Pete asked.
“While in Hell, I learned the ancient dark arts of Mesopotamia,” Joe replied. “I’ve been made a priest in these ancient religions. All I have to do is bless your weapon of choosing, and voila.”
“Can you bless the bullets of my .38?” I asked.
“Sure can.”
“Hell yeah!”
“What about my pocket knife?” Pete asked.
“That’s a pretty lame weapon, Pete.”
“Grab as many weapons as you can carry,” Joe replied.
“What about this machete?” Pete asked.
“What about this IWI Tavor TS12 shotgun?” I asked.
“Yes, yes. I will bless them all. We must hurry though.”
“Thanks Joe!” I said. “By the way, I’ve always wondered: what’s it like having sex with Satan?”
“Try me, asswipe!” she replied. Then I pumped a few bullets into her chest.
Nothin
“Alright, so I guess you’re Jezebel,” I said. “Where’s Pete?”
“His soul resides in HELL for all eternity!!!!”
“Good, he’s a Boston sports fan,” I said, “he needs to know how that feels.”
“You will join him soon enough!”
“Sorry sister, I already live in Ohio.”
I pulled the trigger again but I already emptied the revolver. I threw the gun at her and started running down the hallway while screaming for my life.
I hid in the closet under the staircase. Of course, it didn’t take long for her to find me. Using her demonic powers, Jezebel began to eat my soul. I started praying. “God, I regret everything,” I said.
Then God responded. Thunderbolts began raining down on Jezebel from some unseen force and she retreated into the shadows. I was still alive.
I crawled out from the closet. In front of me stood a wizard-like figure dressed in white robes and holding a staff.
“Thank you Jesus,” I said.
“I’m not Jesus,” the figure replied. “I’m Joe Morris.”
I stood up. “Joe Morris? Shouldn’t you be 120 years old?”
“119 to be precise.”
Then Pete ran down the hallway. “Ty! I’m still alive!” he said.
“I thought you went to hell,” I replied.
“I did. It ain’t such a bad place. I got to meet Dave Cowens.”
“He’s still alive dumbass.”
“Are you sure? By the way, did you piss your pants?”
“I did. It’s a side effect of my elavil prescription. Where did Jezebel go?”
“She went back to hell to lick her wounds,” Joe Morris said. “We must go to the cellar, return to hell, and make sure she never returns.”
“Fuck that,” I said. “This ain’t my problem. I’ll just collect the money from Dorthy and be on my merry way.”
Right then, a possessed Dorthy flew down from the ceiling and attacked me. While I fought her off, Joe Morris released more thunderbolts from his staff. Finally, she flew off of me and began writhing on the ground before whatever cursed spirit that possessed her left her body. Dorthy was dead.
“Mother!” Pete screamed.
“She hasn’t been your mother for a long time,” Joe said.
I took a moment to gather myself.
“Alright,” I said, “I need to change my pants before we go to the cellar,”
Most nights I can’t sleep. Most nights I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about a film. Usually, it’s not a great film that’s keeping me up. It’s a film that could have been great, but everyone fucked up.
One such movie is Enemy at the Gates (2001).
It’s a shame. This movie could have been dope. So what happened?
Now forgive me, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve watched it so I won’t go into plot details. But the screenwriters shouldn’t have committed to telling a love story AND a game of cat and mouse.
Individually these stories could have been interesting on their own. The Battle of Stalingrad was such a test of the human spirit that it provides an interesting backdrop to any story.
But Enemy at the Gates falls victim to a very serious problem…a problem that plagued so, so many movies of the era: it tries to have it both ways. It wants to be a gritty war film AND appeal to 90s sentimentality.
“But it’s based on a real historical account,” you might say.
And lo and behold, this is largely true. Of course, it takes a few creative liberties. I doubt Joseph Fiennes’ character was real. Same with Ron Perlman’s…a character that I hated so much because it seems to have been included for expositional purposes only. Because the film takes such liberties…it is a movie after all, and not a documentary…then pick a lane.
If I were making this movie, I would have focused exclusively on the chase between Ed Harris and Jude Law. But there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk.
Enemy at the Gates appears to have been one of the last of the so-called “90s, mediocre, sentimental historical dramas.” I don’t hate all of these movies. In fact, I go to bat for perhaps the greatest example of this genre: Dances With Wolves.
“Can you believe that Kevin Costner beat Martin Scorsese at the Oscars?” everyone says to me.
No. That’s not surprising at all. Have you seen the movie? I will pound the table every chance I get: Kevin Costner DESERVED his Oscar.
Quote me on that.
Honestly, as much as it pains me to say this, if there’s a flaw with the movie, it’s the screenplay. That’s a big one. This might not have been obvious to audiences then, but it’s clear 32 years later. BUT, it appears to me that Costner was involved in the project from the moment of its inception, so the script was suited to his strengths.
Could anyone else have made Dances With Wolves?
No.
And here’s where Costner excels: every character…EVERY last character…has their moment, however brief, to shine. When Stone Calf is killed, you feel it. Even when LT. Elgin is killed, one of the “villains”, there’s a shred of sympathy for him. This helps you become immersed in this lovely, bloody world.
Costner approaches the subject matter, much like his character, in a child-like, gentle manner. Not a detail is missed. It felt genuine, and not at all like it was trying “to have it both ways”.
It worked. It worked so well that nobody was able to emulate that style. They tried. But where every mediocre 90s historical drama failed, only Kevin Costner succeeded.
“Sorry babe,” I said to Sheila. “I got the whiskey dick.”
“It’s alright, I’m used to it,” she replied. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink before sex.”
“I wouldn’t know. Never tried it.”
Sheila climbed out of bed and got dressed. As she put her shirt on, she noticed the crap on the floor. “What’s this stuff?” she asked.
“Don’t touch it,” I said, “that’s a spirit box and a Ouija board. You might awaken a demon from hell. Trust me, that’s one can of worms you can’t close.”
“What are you doing with that?”
“It’s some case that I’m scamming *ahem* I mean helping some old lady solve.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Oh yeah, totally.” I looked over to the clock and noticed it was 7:30pm. “Speaking of, gotta get to work.” I got out of bed and threw my pants on. “You can stay here for the night,” I told Sheila, “but remember: DO NOT touch that damn Ouija board.”
I was running late. I had to meet Pete at the Morris estate where he was going to shed some light on Jezebel’s identity.
I arrived 45 minutes later. It was nearly pitch black. I grabbed my flask and flashlight and got to work. “This better be worth my time,” I told Pete.
“I told you that you’re not gonna need that .38,” he said.
“You let me be the judge of that.”
We began venturing into the woods. There was allegedly a cellar back behind the mansion that contained the remains of Jezebel. “I’ve been told all my life that this is an old Indian burial ground,” Pete said.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before I pissed on that hedge?” I asked.
“There it is,” he said. I shinned my flashlight in that direction. The cellar was only a few yards ahead.
“How far down is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I never been down there.”
I lit up a cigarette. “You go first,” I said.
Pete gathered up his courage and proceeded towards the cellar. He took a deep breath before going down the stairs. The cellar was deep. Too deep for my liking.
I put one hand on the .38.
Finally we reached the bottom. We were standing in a wide, musty corridor with multiple chambers. “What the hell was this place used for?” I asked Pete.
“Supposedly this was a torture chamber for runaway soldiers during the Civil War. Many slaves lost their lives down here.”
“Pete, I’m beginning to think that your family deserves to be cursed.”
“What’s this?” Pete asked. I shined the flashlight over to an old fire pit littered with ash and bones.
Then the cellar door slammed close.
I pulled out the 38. “Stay calm,” I said.
“I told you there’s something strange going on here!”
“Shut up Pete.”
“I can’t die down here! The Celtics are in the playoffs!”
“Pete, so help me god, if you don’t shut up I’ll shoot you myself!”
Suddenly my flashlight went out. Then something grabbed Pete. “Damn you Brad Stevens!!!!!!!” he screamed before disappearing into the dark.
I started firing indiscriminately into the shadows.
“Pete!” I screamed out.
There was only silence.
The flashlight kicked back on and I shined it all around the corridor. Pete was nowhere to be found. “Fuck this,” I said as I sprinted back up the stairs and to the car.
I floored the Geo Metro back to the apartment. I rushed in through the door and began frantically looking for the Ouija board. “Damn it Sheila!” I yelled. “What did you do with the Ouija board?”
Sheila stumbled out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. “The planchette began moving around,” she said as she slurred her words. “It started spelling out ‘You’re next’, ‘Hail Satan’, and ‘I heart ass’ I didn’t know what that meant so I threw it into the fireplace.”
“Sheila,” I said, “I might’ve opened a portal to hell.”
I had a hunch that it was the repo man coming to take the Geo Metro. I pulled out my .38 and shouted into the dark. “I have your filthy money!” I yelled. “Show yourself!”
Out of the shadows, I heard a thick Boston accent: “Are you Mista Cahson?” it asked.
“What’s it to ya PAL?!”
The figure stepped forth slowly from the shadows. He was tossing a baseball into the air.
“I’m Mista Pete Morris,” the figure said. “I’m son of Dorthy Morris, your client. I understand that you’ve been taking my mutha’s money.”
“She’s been giving it to me in larger amounts than I’ve been asking. That’s hardly stealing,” I replied.
“Hey ohhh, buddy! I ain’t said nuthin about stealing.”
“Then you better make your point. I have a .38 aiming between your eyeballs.”
Pete straightened up his jacket and began stammering nervously. “All I’m asking is that you let me in on the cut,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I work better alone. Besides, fuck the Red Sox.”
“I’m tellin ya,” Pete said, “there’s somethin goin on with Dorthy.”
“Yeah, it’s called dementia.”
“No. There’s something else goin on up there at that estate. Something that can’t be explained, not of this world. Some things just can’t be stopped by bullets, ya know?”
Pete then tossed the baseball again and I shot it out of the air.
“I haven’t found one yet,” I said.
“Look, I have all the answers you’re looking for,” Pete continued. “The death of Joe Morris is deeper than you think.”
I put the gun back into my holster. “Buddy,” I said, “if you’re trying to grift your rich elderly mother out of her money, you’re gonna have to find another angle.”
As I turned around to finish my walk home, Pete spoke up again. “I know about Jezebel,” he said.
“So do I pal,” I said as I continued walking, “she was Dorthy’s sister who died of pneumonia a year before Joe’s death. She was 20 years old.”
“That’s not the whole story,” Pete replied, “in fact, she wasn’t Dorthy’s sister.”
I stopped, turned around, and pulled out a cigarette. “Alright bucko,” I said, “now you’ve got my attention.”
It looks like we’re actually getting somewhere. But without a plot, conflict, hero, or villain, the story simply becomes another character study, therefore making the main thrust of the story “man against himself” or some pretentious bullshit like that.
That being said, let’s close this thing out…
***
After returning home from my weekly STD checkup, there was a package on my doorstep. It was addressed to my neighbor, but I took inside and opened it anyway.
In the box was a stuffed teddy bear and a letter from someone named “grandma”. I thought that was a stupid name but continued reading anyway. The letter said:
Dear Mikey,
Grandma and grandpa love you very much. We hope that you feel better soon.
Love,
Grandma and Grandpa
I put the contents back into the box and poured a drink. I was supposed to start taking medication for something called “syphilis” but I threw that shit into the trash.
“Maybe I should return the box,” I thought. But I wasn’t so sure. I lit up a cigarette, shot up heroin, took a bump of coke, played a round of Russian Roulette, then taped up the box.
As I was laying the box on their doorstep, my neighbor opened the door. “Get the fuck off my porch,” he said.
“This is YOUR package asshole!” I replied. “UPS wrongly dropped it off at my house.”
“Why should I believe you?” he asked after he pulled out his .38. “You’ve played your drums, lit off fireworks, and engaged in target practice with your shotgun at ungodly hours of the night. You’ve also ding dong ditched my ass, used my WiFi, and played peeping Tom on my wife. Well guess what PAL! You’re now on MY property and am well within MY right to blast YOUR ass!”
I raised my hands. “Now calm down John,” I said. “We’re both sensible adults. We can talk this out.”
“No,” he replied. “I’M the sensible adult. You’re an asshole.”
John then fired his .38 into my gut and I laid there bleeding out in his front yard. He picked up the package and opened it.
“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said, “you finally did something right in your life.”
I lifted my head up while holding my guts in. “Please call an ambulance John,” I said.
“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” John then looked up into the sky and smiled. “It’s nice finally getting some peace and quiet around here,” he said.
I’m beginning to think we need a villain, a hero, and a plot to make a good story.
But we’ll see where this goes…
***
So my Audi was doing 95 through a school zone when I went around a flashing red bus. An officer pulled me over.
“License and registration please.”
“Sorry Officer, I’m driving on a suspended license due to numerous DUI arrests,” I said. “Also, this vehicle is registered to my ex-wife. I stole it from her because she accused me of domestic abuse.”
“Well slow down,” he replied. And I was on my merry way.
When I pulled into the driveway, my neighbor was waiting on me. “Don’t ever pull a gun on my husband again!” she yelled.
“Bitch! This is America!” I replied. Then I fired an entire clip into the air.
Later that night, my girlfriend gave me oral. When she asked me to return the favor, I said, “Heh, no thanks. I gotta kiss my mother with this mouth.”
I’m old and my mind is going. Too much drugs, too much useless information clouds my brain. Which is why a lot of common knowledge straight up misses me.
As you are aware, I’m a nerd for New Testament/Early Christian history. Am I a Christian or a religious person? Not really, but I don’t understand the question enough to give a definitive answer (remember, my mind is going). I simply obsess over 1st Century Christianity because, as Bart Ehrman asserts, it might just be the most important era in Western History (I disagree. I think it’s the second most).
Unfortunately, there’s just not enough concrete information to definitely say what happened during Jesus’s real life ministry. Of course, speculating is part of the fun, but it’s also a curse. Because there’s so many gaps in the timeline, this invites a multitude of con artists and conspiracy mongers to perpetuate fabricated stories.
Which brings me to the “Secret Gospel of Mark”.
The actual Gospel of Mark, the one we have in the New Testament, is quietly the most important text in Western thought. I say this because the Gospels are certainly more widely read than something like Plato’s Republic, and Mark is the Gospel that Matthew and Luke based much of their texts on (the other source they both used, the hypothetical Q source, I would argue the author of Mark was familiar with as there are too many similarities…which would make Q the most important text. But Q remains hypothetical). Mark is therefore the oldest surviving account of Jesus’s life (the oldest surviving Christian writings, however, are the seven verified Epistles of Paul, with 1st Thessalonians being the oldest).
Now, there are A LOT of questions for Mark. Too many to recount here. It is the barest of the four canonical Gospels with plenty of peculiarities.
But what if someone credentialed allegedly came across evidence to fill in these gaps?
Enter Morton Smith, a Ph.D from Hebrew University and Th.D from Harvard Divinity, and professor of ancient history at Columbia University. Pretty impressive right?
I was made aware of this story when reading Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. I’ve never heard it before and I was shocked at my ignorance. Now Ehrman is probably the leading academic in the field of Early Christianity, and even he doesn’t quite know what to make of this story.
Briefly, Smith claimed to have found a lost letter from Clement of Alexandria, an early Christian theologian, which describes a variant of the Gospel of Mark and even provides a couple of passages. And boy oh boy! What passages they were!
The problem is that, allegedly, this lost letter was transcribed in the 18th Century, and Smith couldn’t provide the copy because it was property of a monastery in Jerusalem. He DID, however, provide photographs of the letter and scholars have determined that these writings were indeed in the style of Clement and Mark (and the handwriting was also of 18th Century style).
Additionally, Ehrman recalls a story of hearing another academic claiming to have seen the letter himself, despite the library still refusing to permit research into it. So, it’s safe to say that this letter genuinely existed.
Whether or not it was written in the 18th Century is a different story.
You see, because if there was one person on this planet that could have forged that document…well enough to fool many academics…Morton Smith was that man. And, apparently, he had a motive to do so (see Ehrman’s Lost Christianities).
For the record, I think the letter is a total, unambiguous forgery. Too good to be true+motive+means=bullshit. But I gotta tip my hat to Smith.
Every bullshit artist knows that eventually they’ll get caught in the lie. But the trick is to leave a shred of doubt. And Morton Smith either made the discovery of the millennium, or the greatest forgery of all time.
The Internet Ruined Everything 