In Retrospect, I Kind of Blame the People of the Mountain

So many years ago, back in the halcyon age before the Internet (and computers for that matter...) I had a grade school teacher who was a bit of a hippie. 

Regularly at school assemblies he would bring his guitar and we would all sing songs along the line of 'If I Had a Hammer', and 'Leaving on a Jet Plane', with the lyrics written on huge sheets of white paper in the front of the school gymnasium. 

One of Mr. Case (for that was his name)'s standards was 'One Tin Soldier'. For those unfamiliar with the song in question, you can review it here*

*As presented in The Legend of Billy Jack**

**I'm not going to even attempt to explain The Legend of Billy Jack

Now, the song is a pretty straightforward 70s peace anthem swaddled in vaguely Tolkien-esque middle-ages village imagery*

*If you could fit the entire 70s into a giant stock pot and let it boil for a very long time, it would eventually reduce to something not unlike the song 'One Tin Soldier'

So the basic story is this - We have the Mountain people who supposedly have a 'treasure'. We also have the Valley people who live next door and would very much like to swing by and borrow a cup of treasure. The Valley people send a polite note requesting the treasure, the mountain people send a deliberately vague note back, and so the valley people slaughter the mountain people and discover that the treasure is, in actual point of fact, the words 'Peace on Earth', which are for some reason know only to the mountain people hidden under a rock.

Now, as a kid I readily accepted that this was a story about bad valley people who killed their neighbors, but looking back on it now I can't help but think that the Mountain people have to take at least some of the blame for the whole situation. I mean, I don't want to blame the victim here, but let's take a look at how easily the whole situation could have been cleared up by having the following simple conversation-

VALLEY PEOPLE

 Hey, we've heard you have a bunch of treasure. 

The 411 is that it's tons of gold. We'd like you to give it to us.

 FYI, we're totes willing to kill for it.

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

I'm sorry, what?  We couldn't hear you over our enormous beards

VALLEY PEOPLE

Your tons of golden treasure.  Please give it to us. 

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

Oh... I totally see where the miscommunication here is.  

We don't actually have literal treasure like gold or silver or anything like that.  

When we say treasure we're talking about a 

metaphoric representation of peaceful coexistence.  

VALLEY PEOPLE

You what now?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

 We wrote the words 'Peace on Earth' under a rock. See?  Look, you can totally see it.

VALLEY PEOPLE

Why would you even do that?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

It's ... like.. a metaphor.

VALLEY PEOPLE

Why did you put it under a rock?

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

Because shut up, that's why.

VILLAGE PEOPLE

Why are we even a part of this conversation?

VALLEY PEOPLE

Oh CHRIST, not them again.  Screw this, we're going home.

See?  Totally cleared the situation up and nobody had to get slaughtered even a little bit.

Honestly, it's like the Mountain People wanted to get wiped out.

That's Why There Were So Many STDs in the 70s

One of the many things that are awesome about the Movie* Guardians of the Galaxy - and there are many - is the way that its soundtrack has re-popularized some really awesome seventies music.  The soundtrack -appropriately titled 'Awesome Mix No. 1' is at the top of the sales charts at the moment, so I'm going to assume that many of you are aware of this fact already.

*or Film if you prefer to be all European about it

And while it's true that 'Come and Get Your Love', 'Fooled Around and Fell in Love, and 'Moonage Daydream'* are non-stop-awesome sauce with cuddling afterwards, the soundtrack then takes us to the guilty pleasure that is Rupert Holmes love letter to infidelity, 'Escape (The Pina Colada Song)'

*Moonage Freakin Daydream!!!!

The song, for those of you pretending to not be familiar with it, details the story of a man who is - and I'm quoting here - 'was tired of (his) lady, we'd been together too long, Like a worn-out recording, of a favorite song'

Oh, I'm sorry Rupert.  I didn't realize you were that one guy on the planet whose relationship didn't continue being non-stop excitement for its entire duration. Clearly you are totally justified in going to the personal ads and trying to find some other woman to run away with.

Which is indeed what he does.

He finds a personal ad from some woman who's looking for someone who likes pina coladas and taking walks in the rain.*

*Yes, clearly she is looking for a 19 year old female student at art college.

He responds, they agree to meet up at a bar to plan 'their escape'.

Of course, he gets to the bar in question (O'Malley's, if you were wondering) and it turns out to be his old lady who had placed the ad, herself looking to escape what must be a remarkably tedious relationship based on the actions of all involved.

They laugh about the whole thing and take joy in having rediscovered there love for each other.

OK, Im sorry, but I'm calling bullshit here.  Let me tell you, unequivicably, that is not how that conversation would go.

Best case - BEST case - scenario is a mutually civil break-up with him surrendering his house keys and arranging a time to pick up his things.  Far more likely scenarios involve shouting, throwing things at one another, and many shrieks of, 'PERSONAL ADS????  YOU'RE READING/PLACING PERSONAL ADS??????!!'

Long story short - when you begin actively referring to ending your relationship as 'Escape', you're better off just addressing the issue directly, because contrary to what Mr. Holmes tells us here, you're going to get arrested for a public disturbance.