At its inception, MASH happened twenty years in the past; now, this roughly 45-year-old show is happening 65 years in the past. A gap this size speaks to nostalgia more than history. MASH was neither the first series nor the last to use this gimmick—as it happens, adults’ feelings for their youth are extremely powerful. “Happy Days” is the salient example of a beloved sitcom that reminded adult viewers of their teens, but the formula would be just as successful for semi-serious fare like “The Wonder Years” and “Freaks and Geeks.” Even kids who never lived it could get into the odd customs of their parents’ generation. Consider “That ‘70s Show,” which ran for eight seasons. By the way, where’s today’s sitcom set in 1998, about college kids who share a Dell computer and say talk to the hand? I’m ready. I want it.
The ‘50s artifacts in MASH are pleasing to look at, some shabby (battered ammunition boxes), some shiny (enamel cups, glass jars of blood for the IV). Burns loves listening to Glenn Miller; Klinger copies a dress from a Rita Hayworth movie; Hawkeye calls General Barker “dad.” Production design is fairly faithful to the era, and the army setting with its bare-bones equipment also provides leeway. Still, people have Seventies hair and makeup and faces and bodies. Especially as the series moves into its late seasons and Korea is no longer twenty years ago but thirty, we begin to lose the sense of time altogether. MASH is its own time and place, as if visited via a parallel-universe portal.
To add yet another dimension, here in our age the Seventies is now long enough ago that it’s attained “history” status. Highbrow TV projects like “The Deuce” and “Mindhunter” can treat the era with reverence, and we are at a point where MASH the series is less a good little comedy than a substantive cultural document. It survives! Moreover, as a subject of study today, it’s far more interesting than it was as a TV show in 1972: new layers of MASH’s relevance are presenting themselves at a fast rate. There’s a lesson here, and my mystic side is dying to believe it’s proof that time is immaterial.
But maybe it’s simpler than that, just something about everything coming back into style sooner or later.
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2 early suburban miles for Christmas morning with this girl. Short and sweet. Perfect way to celebrate our first year of many miles! Happy Christmas everyone!
Today marks my Soberversary; four years of not wanting alcohol. I honestly did not think that I was going to reach 50 and in a couple weeks I’ll turn 52. That, for me, is the sort of miracle that AA talked about, especially during those horrible first months when getting through a whole day without a drink felt like an impossible hurdle.
For anyone out there battling their own demons: the struggle for sobriety is worth it. I thought that, perhaps, I might be able to stop drinking for a while, just long enough so friends would stop bothering me, but I never thought that I’d lose my thirst. I was sure that I’d always have the craving. I am grateful to say that I was wrong about all of that. In this case it was good to be wrong.
We might all hit rock bottom on our own but none of us have to be alone in battling this disease. There is a redemption story for all of us, if we want it.
Please Don’t Go, Please Don’t Go… I thought you were everything, I thought you were the one… But once again I’m still blind, By the fake mask of life. Again I fell for its trap, Again I fell for its lies… And now you are leaving, And I’m begging you to stay… What we had was something special. What’s going on? It’s getting hard to breathe. I’m torn open, I’m on my knees, asking you to stay and not to leave. Please Don’t go, Please Don’t go…
Happy Days is a TV show that ran for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1984. When the show begins, the main characters are in high school but they start college in season 5.
Valley Girl is a comedy song by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon Zappa. The song was created using real conversations that Moon had with her friends. The song was meant as an attack of popular slang of the time, especially ones used by “valley girls.” Some of the lyrics are:
“He was, like, freaking me out He called me a beastie That’s cause, like He was totally blitzed He goes, like, bag your face! I’m sure!
Valley girl She’s a valley girl Valley girl She’s a valley girl Okay, fine Fer sure Fer sure”
