Lunch Conversations #463: The T-Shirt Sales Alone ...

(NOTE: No, I don't know quite what to make of this one either. It went somewhere I was not expecting, primarily because Tyrone is ceaselessly unexpected. But until I crawl free of my 14 hour writing days, this is what I got for you ...)


John: Civil War re-enactments.
Tyrone: Good Lord, what?
John: At what point do you think we'll finally be able to have Word War Two re-enactments? Groups of American and German enthusiasts getting together for barbecues and mock charges in the Ardennes. American tourists storming the beach at Dunkirk, then falling down on cue when the flashpots go off. Japanese and American week-enders with period flamethrowers on Iwo Jima.
Tyrone: About ten more years. Got to wait until all the real veterans of the war are dead. Then the pretend veterans can get to work. (pause) You know, you go buy yourself some land now, you can get in on the ground floor of the WW II re-enactment boom. And schools will bring tours of kids - I think you have a real money machine here.
John: What about Vietnam?
Tyrone: No, we lost that one.
John: But the South lost the Civil War!
Tyrone: But America won, so it's okay. Or at least I think that's the rationale.
John: So there's nothing to stop the Vietnamese, however, from starting their own re-enactment fetish.
Tyrone: I smell franchise.
John: Where will they get the American participants?
Tyrone: There are plenty of actors that'll take any job.
John: But that doesn't count. That's just my point, actually -- what makes the re-enactment fetish creepy is the amateur/hobbyists status of the participants. I think, maybe, we're already doing professional WW II re-enactments by proxy, in videogames and in movies, but there's something so magnificently creepy about the dress-up/fall-down/beer and burger mix to the weekends.
Tyrone: Money. Machine.
John: Pretending to be gutshot for fun on Omaha Beach, or pretending to be gutshot for fun at Gettysburg -- I know that one is morally unspeakable, and for some reason I agree that the other is socially acceptable, but for the life of me I cannot see the difference.
Tyrone: The difference is ten more years.
John: I don't think I want to live in the future.
Tyrone: Move to Alabama. It won't be a problem.