Seven Miles High, Thinking About Vietnam

I was seven miles high last week (in a literal sense, not a Snoop Dogg sense), returning to the East Coast from a brief work trip. I had Maron's WTF podcast filling my ear-holes while I tried to subtly disperse methane amid my comrades in Economy Plus. I am lactose intolerant and have spent my whole life ignoring that fact, much to the chagrin of family, friends and others who have crossed my path. I need to give up dairy. But I digress.

I have been touting Maron for a while to you fockers. I have to admit that after 800+ episodes, he's running out of intriguing guests. No offense to Edie Falco or Jay Baruchel, but I have plenty of podcast options these days. So I skip many episodes. But I was excited to see Ken Burns and documentarian colleague Lynn Novick were going to be guests. I recently finished the podcast. It was the first time I heard Burns speak at length. He is an unbelievably articulate and elegant speaker who has the ability to weave curse words into the spoken word without having it detract from the power of what he says. Not sure if that makes sense the way I want it to, but let's just say he is no revanchist.

So why was he on WTF? As many of you have probably seen/heard by now, Burns did the interview as press for his ten-part documentary on The Vietnam War. It started last Sunday night on PBS. I strenuously urge you all to set your Tivos accordingly. I set my DVR on my cell phone from 2,500 miles away when I realized the series was starting. The whole process took about fifteen seconds. Technology is neat.



You all know Burns' work by now. I was immensely moved by his WWII documentary, which I can't believe came out a decade ago. I was equally moved by his Civil War doc, but merely whelmed by his baseball doc. Sorry for being honest. With that said, I am excited by this new documentary, even though I know it will keep me awake a few nights and bring up plenty of uncomfortable emotions. Burns documents war like no others.



Episodes 1-4 have aired already. There are ten in total. The wifey and I watched Episode 1 and part of Episode 2 so far. The doc provided a lot of new information to us. You can make a legitimate case that the whole issue can be blamed on the French, which you should naturally do, because, France. Sacre bleu!  I won't divulge much more, but the story has been fascinating so far. If you're going to give the benefit of the doubt to any creator of art these days, give it to Mr. Burns. Do yourself a favor and go get some history. It may make you cry, but it will make you wiser.