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Just because you're paranoid >>Doesn't mean you should write a book
by JULIET WATERS
I have an inkling of Belzer's trauma. According to my mother, I was being breast-fed when she heard about the assassination. I too had breasts cruelly, if momentarily, turned away from me. But my trauma seems to have had the opposite effect. Belzer would grow up to become obsessed with the truth surrounding Kennedy's assassination. I would grow up surrounded by an impenetrable wall of indifference. My eyes glaze over the minute anyone brings up the possibility of a second shooter. And more and more, my boredom has extended itself now to all conspiracy theories. I have never made it through an episode of The X-Files without dozing off. Also, I am inexplicably and weirdly content to wait until the day that there is indisputable proof that aliens have visited Earth. If anyone could crack my shell of disinterest, I hoped it might be Belzer, and I imagine other non-paranoid people might make this mistake too. He's eccentric, dweebishly cool and his role on Homicide gives him a certain dignity and the illusion of credibility. "Are there any coincidences, really?" asks Belzer. He thinks not. If he can see a connection somewhere, he'll make it, and believe it. For instance, his birthday is August 4, 1944, the day Anne Frank was turned over to the Germans. This has led Belzer on a "journey of personal and historical epiphany. In fact, our lives seem so inextricably connected that I can't help feeling that Anne Frank's capture and my intellectual freedom are somehow karmically related." Belzer's karmic moment came when he discovered research that linked his two obsessions, JFK and Nazis. He believes, along with some theorists, that former Nazis who had become part of the military-industrial complex that wanted to end the Cold War, conspired to have Kennedy killed. "There is something incredibly seductive about knowing something that is not known to the general public," he writes. "But even that sublime feeling is nothing compared to the satisfaction that comes with knowing you have asked the questions that matter to you most--and have come up with an answer that addresses the historical significance as well as the deepest personal aspects of your lifelong driving obsession." (i.e. You have managed to place yourself at the centre of your conspiracy theory.) What Belzer is describing here, whether he's aware of it or not, is the feeling of "crank," as I once read it described. It seems to have a hold on an increasing number of North Americans, who are addicted to crank theories that can't be proven or disproven, but seem more interesting than the truth. Talented, interesting people fall prey to this year after year, as these theories suck the intelligence, wit and life out of them. With little humour and many annoying sidebars, Belzer provides a dull primer on JFK assassination scenarios. He links his death with aliens, contemplates that the moon may be a spaceship and brings up Nazis many times without ever actually making a substantial link to the assassination (Elvis never appears anywhere other than the title of this book). Believing these theories may not make you crazy, but they will make normally intelligent, funny people irritating and boring. And this book is unlikely to impress anyone's breasts, let alone their brains.
UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe by Richard Belzer, Ballantine, 229pp, hc, $32.50 |
November 22, 1963. Comedian Richard Belzer, probably best known for his role as Detective Munch on Homicide, is taking aim behind a grassy knoll. According to his book UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe, Belzer is in archery class trying to impress Valerie Palucci's breasts. (The rest of Valerie Palucci didn't exist for him at that age. Nothing else existed for him, he claims). Someone runs out to tell everyone the President has been shot. Devastated, he misses the target. All is lost. JFK, like Valerie Palucci's breasts, symbolized hope for the future.