Banner In The Wind

     In the American tradition, you have "The Boogey Man", a mythical figure of uncertain appearance and equally uncertain characteristics. It was used as an implied threat to children to force compliance to a certain behavior or to get them to avoid doing things they shouldn't do.      Parents might say, "Don't go there or the Boogey Man will get you!" As far as I know, no one ever says what the Boogey Man will  do to you. Just the threat of the Boogey Man getting you is enough of an incentive not to do things.      In Mexican culture, we have two scary creatures. The first is "El Cucuy." This creature originated in Spain and Portugal and was known as "El Coco." Like the Boogey Man, El Cucuy is used to scare children into compliance.       There is also a female scary figure in Latin America - "La Llorona" or "Crying Woman."      Legends vary, but generally, she is the ghost of a women who committed a ...

A story my mother told me.      My mother's early years were spent in southern Bexar County, Texas. Today the area is growing. There is a sprawling neighborhood,  a car plant, and two colleges in what was once ranches and chaparal. I remember back in the 1960s, it was mostly ranch land. When my mother was a child, it was surely even less developed.       She said she was 5 or 6 when she wandered away from her home. So this would put it around 1946 or 47. It was likely a warm day as she wandered through the south Texas brush, cactus, and mesquite trees. When children start exploring, they become focused at the task at hand and pay little mind to where they're going or how they should get back.      This was probably the case with my mother. She was wandering through the chaparral and then noticed she couldn't see her house through the dry grassland.       She recalled panicking and crying because she realized that...

     In the late 60s, our family travelled to Mexico. I was very young and only remember that it was a long road trip.      We traversed the desert in our 1959 Chevy Impala. Along the way stopped in the middle of nowhere for gas.       I remember getting out of the car and looking at the desert. I recall the strange and quiet environment. That's when I noticed two boys wearing dresses. I remember staring at them and they stared back. Someone, maybe my mom, told me that it was an old tradition that boys were disguised as girls. Why?Because, back in the old days, the marauding Comanches would come and raid across the desert. They would kidnap the boys and raise them as their own. To safe guard the boys, they dressed them as girls.      Apparently, the tradition stuck until at least the mid 20th century. It seems to have died out as there is no data available on this custom. The memory of those two boys has stayed in my mind...

     American culture can easily be defined by television. We are children of the television age.  As TV programming evolved, so did we. Television filled a need of community and national mythology.      Early TV was filled with programming celebrating the myth of the "wild west". Viewers ate up the illusion that the West was won by clean cut, morally up right, and socially conscious white men. Women were always secondary to the story, little more than set decorations. If they ever dared speak their minds, it was usually in defense of their man's position.      African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were absent unless the story line required a subservient character or an exotic villain. You NEVER saw a homosexual. Any efiminate males were always comic characters (Joe Besser, Jerry Lewis, and Bob Denver's portrayal of "Gilligan").      TV was also filled with programming praising the lives of upper middl...

 We are truly in the "Golden Age" of super hero films.  Since 1978, when Christopher Reeve donned the blue tights of Superman, there has been a continuing renaissance of superhero films and tv shows. A film series is born, rebooted, then reimagined. By doing so, the franchise remains fresh and relevant.  The biggest films have been from the ongoing DC/Marvel rivalry, DC has churned out numerous "Batman", "Superman", and "Wonder Woman" films, while Marvel has had success with the "X Men", "Avengers", and "Spider-Man" franchises.  This supremacy has been challenged by other hero films and tv shows such as "Hancock" (Columbia Pictures, 2008), "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (20th Century Fox, 2003), "Mystery Men" (Universal Pictures, 1999),  and "The Incredibles" (Walt Disney Pictures, 2004). Super heroes go all the way back to the old "Popeye" short cartoons. Ye...