On July 4, 2013, my roommate Jack and I thought we’d celebrate with an old friend. We bought a streaming version of 1776, the musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence starring Boy Meets World’s Mr. Feeny. I’d seen it back in high school, on a LaserDisc my APUSH teacher dusted off to fill the lame-duck weeks after the exam, and I remembered it being a bit weird, a mix of stodgy debate scenes and wonky songs. That’s all still true — the whole movie feels like you’re trapped in a hot room. We loved it.
We decided to make 1776 a tradition. We watched it again in 2014, looking forward to cracking open PBRs at 9 a.m. and sweating through the whole three hours. In 2015, we watched it at the home I shared with my girlfriend, the day before our breakup meant I’d have to move out. In 2016, we watched it with my (new) girlfriend, who pointed out the misogyny in this film we seemed to love. (Also, it was long, and kind of boring.) She was right on all counts — the show’s a sexist slog, where the only women characters are there to talk about how much they miss their brilliant husbands. But this was our tradition, and either way we felt we could view this film independently from its issues.
After all, in order to truly celebrate the United States of America, you have to look at our history independent of its context. You have to put blinders on. That’s the only way you could possibly feel good about this country.
The current film version of 1776 restores a song called “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men,” in which the conservative delegates dance a minuet to defend their demands to remove any mention of slavery from the Declaration. Richard Nixon reportedly objected to the song’s place in the film, considering it an insult to modern conservatives, who of course would never hinder American democracy by favoring rapacious institutions. The song was cut in the original film, but it’s in there now. It’s better for it. The movie is a lot better when it acknowledges that some of the Founding Fathers were enemies of progress.
This week, I saw this show on PBS about 10 Monuments That Changed America. One of them was Mt. Rushmore, no doubt an icon of the American landscape. But I was taken aback by how casually the show mentioned that the Black Hills, on which the reliefs are carved, is considered sacred land to the Dakota tribes. A native woman got a brief moment on screen to lament the white man’s conquest of her ancestors’ land, and then it was right back to the biography of the guy who blew the shit outta that mountain.
Later in the show, the last monument was the memorial to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Standing on the Field of Empty Chairs — a neatly manicured lawn, lined with abstract statues, in the place where the Federal Building once stood — a museum official told the host, “This is sacred land now.”
As far as I could tell, the host made no attempt to examine the spiritual rift here. The history of our nation begins with the “ideals” of our Founding Fathers. They believed in free government, in the inalienable rights of men. It was our right to blast sacred hills with dynamite, just as it’s our right to build monuments to victims of terrorism while erasing the natives whose homes we burned to oblivion.
Even as 1776 fails to explore the inner lives of the figures of the Revolution, especially women, I still think it’s a great work of theatre. More importantly, I think it understands the context of the moment it depicts. Its tone isn’t jingoistic, or even too celebratory; at the end, when the delegates get up to sign, the Liberty Bell tolls with a flat, somber succession of groans. It’s a moment of trepidation more than triumph. The men who signed the Declaration knew that they were consigning us to an uncertain future — we might fail to properly govern ourselves, or we might even lose the war. They only had the courage to tell the king to shove off; they didn’t have it in them to abolish slavery, or to atone for their colonial conquest. They sucked. But they left it to up to us to fix their mistakes, and if we’re ever going to live up to independence as our founding virtue, we need to look at our history as a whole. We can’t celebrate our independence independent from context.
I don’t remember if Jack and I have watched 1776 since then. Any subsequent viewings, if there were any, lack the strong context of those first few. This year, in the midst of this pandemic, should we each watch it independently, or should we watch it together, masks on, with a whole new context to remember it by?
McSweeney’s
On a lighter but related note, I got a piece in McSweeney’s today! “It’s Time to Sign the Declaration of Independence, and I, Elbridge Gerry, Will Have the Biggest Signature of All.” Please give it a read and share if you like it.
It’s been 10 years since I was last published in McSweeney’s — for a “novelization” of the Jack Black Gulliver’s Travels as written by Jonathan Swift, which I wrote during a bout of depression between graduation and moving to Chicago. In the decade that followed, I’d been scared to submit more pieces, or do anything, really, that required the same level of risk. That piece probably could have given me some momentum, and maybe my career would look different if I’d kept putting my writing out there. But I didn't.
Starting this newsletter was, in part, a way to get some writing out there without worrying about the response. In turn, it freed up some of my anxiety and allowed me to just have fun writing a silly piece for an outlet I admire. If you’re reading this, you’re helping me turn my anxiety into achievement, so thank you.
Chez Zack: Homemade Taco Bell
Last week, my friend Sarah demanded that I include some Chez Zack content in this newsletter. I warned her on Facebook that I’d first oblige with my recipe for Homemade Taco Bell. I mean, just look at this — almost looks as gross as the real thing:
Sure tastes just as good though. I put this together when my girlfriend was craving Taco Bell in the middle of quarantine. It does hit the spot, and I’ve since made it an embarrassing staple in our weekday rotation.
A note: I copied the filling seasoning from this online recipe, but there are a few of my own twists here.
Taco Bell Hot Sauce
3 cups water
6 oz tomato paste
2 tsp corn starch
3 Tbsp white vinegar
4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 cup jalapeno slices
1 tsp cayenne pepper (you can add more if you want it spicier, or season with Frank's)
Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Mix the rest of the dry ingredients and add them to the starchy water, then add the tomato paste and vinegar. Bring it to a boil, then simmer until it's the right consistency — 5 or 10 minutes. You'll know when. Taste and add more cayenne or Frank's if you want it more like Fire.
Taco Bell Meat Filling
1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp dried onion flakes
1 tsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp beef bouillon granules
1 tsp garlic salt (I just mix 1/2 tsp granulated garlic with 1/2 tsp of salt and add parsley flakes — same diff)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp white sugar
Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the beef and mix until incorporated. On a skillet over medium heat, add the water then the beef mixture — no oil. Cook until the beef is browned and the mixture thickens to the right consistency, 10 minutes or so.
Serve with hard or soft shells, shredded lettuce, and cheddar cheese. Or eat it out of a bowl, who cares.
More on the Fourth of July
Jack Mirkinson over at the (excellent) Discourse Blog proposes we should just Cancel the Fourth of July. I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s important for us to celebrate the founding of the nation; we shouldn’t write this experiment off — we should just acknowledge that we haven’t fulfilled its promise. But we’re certainly going to remember this year, when we all have to celebrate it, to varying degrees, independently.
Squad Goals
On Sunday morning, I got up early to join my friend JPC’s charity stream on Twitch. Along with our buddy Alex, we won our first game. And then our second. And then we sucked. But it was a lot of fun, and it made me think about all the ways I’ve been interacting with friends during quarantine. Without seeing each other in person, we’ve had to shuffle our relationships into different mediums: group texts, Slack channels, Discord servers, Zoom calls, socially-distanced backyard meetups, PS4 Parties, Twitter threads, replies to Instagram stories. It seems I’ve had a million conversations in a million different ways, and I still feel lonely at times. Carl Reiner (R.I.P.) and Mel Brooks spent decades attached at the hip; only a pandemic could rip them apart. Whenever we’re out of this, I hope to make my friends laugh just to see their smiles again.
Congratulations on Gerry. It is fine fun. (It's too early in the comment for a digression, but did you see Gus Van Sant's "Gerry" (2002)?) But in place of "1776," I wonder if there is a performance of Michael Friedman's "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" (2007) for you to stream? In all of the "Hamilton" press this week—and I join in any chance to speak its praises—I have not seen a mention of Friedman's musical, even when musical / dramatic influences are the topic.