Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Afterlife Can Wait
There are moments, amidst the shit that makes up 90% of our life, when the sky opens up, when animals talk to us, when life is in Technicolor. Sunday was one of those days. My brother and I took my Dad to see the Raiders play the Denver Donkeys at Invesco (still Mile High to those of us who are old enough to think that that kind of name for a stadium is as beautiful a thing as a 20 year old virgin) Field. The beer was cold; we were wearing Raider gear and were prepared for a drubbing at the hands of what, I thought, should have been a better team--God intervened. I'm not big on the concept of God, though there was a period of my life when the idea helped me sleep, but it's hard to describe what happened last Sunday without thinking of the divine. Perhaps we just slipped into that alternate universe that my doppelganger enjoys, where everything goes my way and chicks dig me. That the Raiders destroyed the Donkeys is an understatement. It was 28 to O after the first quarter. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or strip my clothes off and run through the stadium shouting, "You fuckers have always sucked. You have never beaten us this bad. My brother, father and I deserve this moment." And, we do. We do deserve the occasional reprieve from the life that sucks the life out of us. As Blanche DuBois said, "sometimes, there's God, so suddenly". While it may be more than a little gay to quote Tennessee Williams to describe what happened at a football game, it just works. Somewhere, between the beers and the brats and the cigarettes and the chick fight we saw on the way out of the game, My brother, father and I felt that God had smiled, for one brief and everlasting moment, on our lives. Fuck the Broncos.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Livin' in the fatherland
When I was 15, my father cut his own thumb mostly off. He was putting incredibly tasteful wood paneling, in a diagonal pattern, on my bedroom wall. He slipped while cutting the paneling and nearly severed his thumb with an Exacto knife. I wasn't home, but my stepmother, brother and step siblings were. In total, there were four people, other than the man in question, who could have taken my dad to the hospital. He asked for a towel, wrapped his dangling thumb in it, and drove 10 miles to the local E.R. for treatment. This is my father. He's not one of those weird medical miracles who doesn't feel pain, he just doesn't want anyone's help when he does. And, while he was no monster of a parent, he naturally expected my brother and me to not bother him with trivialities like severe poison oak, burns, ingrown toenails so infected that I couldn't wear shoes, etc. That pissed me off as I child. I had friends whose parents would take them to the doctor for a cough and I sat at home for a whole day with a broken collar bone to see if it got better--it didn't.
My dad could pick my brother and me up at the same time, one in each arm, when we were in high school, all of his 5'8" bulging and reddening. He had a temper and was prone to threatening us that he would, "knock our heads through a goddamn wall". To his credit, he never did. He thumped us and smacked our heads on occasion and that was enough. He was less tame in dealing with others. As a kid, I never saw my dad take any amount of shit from anyone. Scratch that; I have yet to see it. About 10 years ago, after my first son was born, my 60 year old father chased one of his neighbors down the street for questioning the legality of our fireworks display. In short, he is not to be fucked with, but he will never go out of his way to fuck with you.
On the contrary, he is one of the most likable people anyone would ever meet. He has always been generous to a fault, incredibly funny and truly tolerant (if we leave off politics). I never left my house without money in my pocket when I lived with my dad, either because he gave it to me or because he never busted us for stealing his change out of the chicken bank on his dresser. My father was loving too. He was a traveling appliance salesman, so he was gone much of the time. Still, he would find a way to show up to baseball games, band concerts, etc. Once, when I was in Santa Barbara, an hour from where I grew up, attending summer camp and staying with my Grandmother, my dad showed up. He was coming back from Santa Maria on a trip and he found where I was. This was in the time before cell phones, so I know it was no small feat for him to find me, sitting with my friends at West Beach, eating lunch at camp. My dad came walking across the field in his suit and my heart leapt. I knew he didn't need to be there, he just wanted to see me. I was 10 years old at the time and I still see him, his 1978 white afro, his three piece brown suit with an open collar exposing a gold coin medallion necklace--he was cool and at the height of his "disco" Mike phase.
Now that he's getting older, my dad has slowed down. He lives in Denver and doesn't come out. A few years ago, he had a heart attack. Naturally, he refused to call an ambulance and drove himself to the hospital, or should I say two hospitals. The first one had no emergency room, so he drove to another one that did have an E.R., but no free parking. Needless to say, he drove a block away, parked the car and staggered into the lobby where a flabbergasted doctor said, "You're having a heart attack" to which my father replied, "I know." Some things never change.
My brother and I are going to see him in a week or two and I'm excited. We're taking him to the Raider-v-Bronco game. My brother and dad haven't seen each other for a year or two, so it will be good. For my part, I'm going because of that day in Santa Barbara, because he showed up to my public defense of my dissertation, because he called me twice on Sunday to rub in the fact that he was killing me in our fantasy football league, because I love you, Dad.
My dad could pick my brother and me up at the same time, one in each arm, when we were in high school, all of his 5'8" bulging and reddening. He had a temper and was prone to threatening us that he would, "knock our heads through a goddamn wall". To his credit, he never did. He thumped us and smacked our heads on occasion and that was enough. He was less tame in dealing with others. As a kid, I never saw my dad take any amount of shit from anyone. Scratch that; I have yet to see it. About 10 years ago, after my first son was born, my 60 year old father chased one of his neighbors down the street for questioning the legality of our fireworks display. In short, he is not to be fucked with, but he will never go out of his way to fuck with you.
On the contrary, he is one of the most likable people anyone would ever meet. He has always been generous to a fault, incredibly funny and truly tolerant (if we leave off politics). I never left my house without money in my pocket when I lived with my dad, either because he gave it to me or because he never busted us for stealing his change out of the chicken bank on his dresser. My father was loving too. He was a traveling appliance salesman, so he was gone much of the time. Still, he would find a way to show up to baseball games, band concerts, etc. Once, when I was in Santa Barbara, an hour from where I grew up, attending summer camp and staying with my Grandmother, my dad showed up. He was coming back from Santa Maria on a trip and he found where I was. This was in the time before cell phones, so I know it was no small feat for him to find me, sitting with my friends at West Beach, eating lunch at camp. My dad came walking across the field in his suit and my heart leapt. I knew he didn't need to be there, he just wanted to see me. I was 10 years old at the time and I still see him, his 1978 white afro, his three piece brown suit with an open collar exposing a gold coin medallion necklace--he was cool and at the height of his "disco" Mike phase.
Now that he's getting older, my dad has slowed down. He lives in Denver and doesn't come out. A few years ago, he had a heart attack. Naturally, he refused to call an ambulance and drove himself to the hospital, or should I say two hospitals. The first one had no emergency room, so he drove to another one that did have an E.R., but no free parking. Needless to say, he drove a block away, parked the car and staggered into the lobby where a flabbergasted doctor said, "You're having a heart attack" to which my father replied, "I know." Some things never change.
My brother and I are going to see him in a week or two and I'm excited. We're taking him to the Raider-v-Bronco game. My brother and dad haven't seen each other for a year or two, so it will be good. For my part, I'm going because of that day in Santa Barbara, because he showed up to my public defense of my dissertation, because he called me twice on Sunday to rub in the fact that he was killing me in our fantasy football league, because I love you, Dad.
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Gang's All High
Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (1939) is as strange, wonderful and psychoactive as any film ever made. I showed it today in my Intro course and the kids reacted as they always do--technicolor. I sat there with my Cinerama smile watching them watching Berkeley at his whisky fueled, kaleidoscopic maddest. This film should not work. It has a razor thin plot, some of the worst acting in Hollywood history and Alice Faye sings the same song 5 times. None of this matters. The minute the first 6 foot banana comes out and Carmen Miranda starts to dance in her 8 inch heels, all is forgiven. The overhead shot of the aforementioned bananas being lowered onto a group of girls holding gigantic strawberries over their crotches is as filthy and delightful as any shot in any movie. And the film goes on, much like that, for nearly two hours.
It's a back stage musical, so I think my students are more likely to accept all the singing, as am I. I've never really liked the walking down the street, breaking into song MGM bullshit anyway. Not that there's anything realistic about Berkeley's film except the reason for the singing. The final scene in the movie is more surreal, and a lot more fun to watch, than Un Chien Andalou and nobody gets her eye cut in half. The "Polka Dot Polka", which opens with young children singing with dubbed soprano and deep bass, builds to an amazing Berkeley sound stage piece utilizing neon rings, insane costumes and, I kid you not, a kaleidoscopic shot of women dancing. It's celluloid LSD. The film ends with disembodied heads singing Alice Faye's favorite song one last time on a field of blue. And everyone in the audience claps, every time.
Why Berkeley was not a more prolific director is understandable; he was an insane drunk. Still, he left us with an amazing body of work and reminds me, every time I watch this movie, that film is sometimes best when watched with your mouth open. That 18 year old kids like it too restores my faith in humanity.
It's a back stage musical, so I think my students are more likely to accept all the singing, as am I. I've never really liked the walking down the street, breaking into song MGM bullshit anyway. Not that there's anything realistic about Berkeley's film except the reason for the singing. The final scene in the movie is more surreal, and a lot more fun to watch, than Un Chien Andalou and nobody gets her eye cut in half. The "Polka Dot Polka", which opens with young children singing with dubbed soprano and deep bass, builds to an amazing Berkeley sound stage piece utilizing neon rings, insane costumes and, I kid you not, a kaleidoscopic shot of women dancing. It's celluloid LSD. The film ends with disembodied heads singing Alice Faye's favorite song one last time on a field of blue. And everyone in the audience claps, every time.
Why Berkeley was not a more prolific director is understandable; he was an insane drunk. Still, he left us with an amazing body of work and reminds me, every time I watch this movie, that film is sometimes best when watched with your mouth open. That 18 year old kids like it too restores my faith in humanity.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Bar Mitzvah
That Dylan Thomas was not young when he wrote "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night" is a mystery. As I sit at the ripe age of 43, I am already pretty sure I won't be raging "against the dying of the light". I went to my son's friend Erich's Bar Mitzvah last night, with my wife and son. It was a beautiful service, and it made me long for the sense of belonging that all Jewish celebrations evoke. After the service, there was a lovely cocktail hour (I made friends with a bottle of Woodford Reserve) for the adults, while the kids partied in the "kid room". At some point, I wandered over that way to see what the "kids" were up to. I stood at the door and watched my 14 year old boy work a group of girls, including some of the staff, like a seasoned pro, and I realized that I wasn't there for Erich's Bar Mitzvah--I was there for Riley's.
My son grew up last night in my mind, and I doubt there is any going back. I am the sentimental type (I cry during commercials), so the night was a bit tough. Riley is my oldest and his coming into manhood is a bit of a wake-up call. I've seen it coming for some time as the child is blessed with hair in all the right places (for now, boy) a four-thousand dollar, orthodontic smile and a quick wit. He was charming enough to ask the 18 year old bimbo, who had been hired to make the party fun, if she was a striper--and she smiled. As the night wore one, I saw him buzz from one flower to the next, and I began to wonder how long it will be before I get a call from some unhappy father regarding Riley's nocturnal activities. It's not a question of "if", but "when". Then I thought of my perfect "o-k-ness" with the whole thing. Riley's day in the sun is coming and mine is going. Vonnegut would say, "so it goes" and he'd be right.
I spoke to my dad this morning, to check in, to let him know I care. I don't sense any "rage" at the dying of his light. He's 71 and has had a good life. I have yet to meet someone of that age who had any real objection to the inevitable night descending on them, and I doubt I ever will. Riley grows up, I grow down and there's a quiet beauty in that. I will, with any luck, get to see many more milestones in both my kids' lives and I look forward to them all. The feeling that the world will go on, that some part of you will go with it is a comfort and I haven't had any real rage for a long time anyway. Mazel Tov.
My son grew up last night in my mind, and I doubt there is any going back. I am the sentimental type (I cry during commercials), so the night was a bit tough. Riley is my oldest and his coming into manhood is a bit of a wake-up call. I've seen it coming for some time as the child is blessed with hair in all the right places (for now, boy) a four-thousand dollar, orthodontic smile and a quick wit. He was charming enough to ask the 18 year old bimbo, who had been hired to make the party fun, if she was a striper--and she smiled. As the night wore one, I saw him buzz from one flower to the next, and I began to wonder how long it will be before I get a call from some unhappy father regarding Riley's nocturnal activities. It's not a question of "if", but "when". Then I thought of my perfect "o-k-ness" with the whole thing. Riley's day in the sun is coming and mine is going. Vonnegut would say, "so it goes" and he'd be right.
I spoke to my dad this morning, to check in, to let him know I care. I don't sense any "rage" at the dying of his light. He's 71 and has had a good life. I have yet to meet someone of that age who had any real objection to the inevitable night descending on them, and I doubt I ever will. Riley grows up, I grow down and there's a quiet beauty in that. I will, with any luck, get to see many more milestones in both my kids' lives and I look forward to them all. The feeling that the world will go on, that some part of you will go with it is a comfort and I haven't had any real rage for a long time anyway. Mazel Tov.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Male and Female
I screened the 1919, Cecil B. DeMille directed Male and Female today in my Intro to Film course. Two days a week I get to teach an extension class for our local community college. Two days a week I get to use my graduate school education and, you guessed it, two days a week I love me as a teacher. I get excited about films. Some people look at a cathedral, a painting, a mountain and it fills them with a sense of the divine, a belief that we are not alone, that the dead speak. For me, it's film. I showed a movie made 91 years ago to a room full of people under the age of 25 and the laughed, cried and, fuckin' a Billy, they clapped at the end. They liked it and I felt like there was hope.
I get hopeful and excited at the start of every school year. My high school kids are just as fun and excited as my film students. We covered the first chapter of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter today, and no question I could think of went unanswered. It was clear that at least two kids in every class had actually read the book--that's not bad. The rest were at least decent enough to pretend they had read it, which I think is a positive. I've decided that my job keeps me from getting depressed. When a city block explodes in San Bruno, when truly retarded people when primary elections, when my wife hates me or I can't take a shit, I have a room full of kids who are willing to at least try to figure out Hawthorne's syntax, even though they are taking 5 other hard classes. There is hope in this work. There is beauty in 90 year old images of a naked Gloria Swanson getting into a bathtub. I feel lucky today.
I get hopeful and excited at the start of every school year. My high school kids are just as fun and excited as my film students. We covered the first chapter of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter today, and no question I could think of went unanswered. It was clear that at least two kids in every class had actually read the book--that's not bad. The rest were at least decent enough to pretend they had read it, which I think is a positive. I've decided that my job keeps me from getting depressed. When a city block explodes in San Bruno, when truly retarded people when primary elections, when my wife hates me or I can't take a shit, I have a room full of kids who are willing to at least try to figure out Hawthorne's syntax, even though they are taking 5 other hard classes. There is hope in this work. There is beauty in 90 year old images of a naked Gloria Swanson getting into a bathtub. I feel lucky today.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Slayer and Megadeth
Went to a Slayer, Megadeth and Testament concert on Monday--freakshow. That's right, it's Megadeth, not "Megadeath". They are so badass that they don't even have to spell well. The show was at the luxurious Long Beach Arena, a dying relic of 1960's toilet bowl Arena architecture. The building was in better shape than most of the crowd in any case.
Three metal bands was a bit more than I had hoped for as I really can't stand the shit, but I wasn't there for me. My friends Kris and John are true believers and my 14 year old son wanted to go as well, so here I was. I went to a Dave Matthews show two weeks ago, so this concert marked the second time in as many weeks that I went to a show out of kindness for someone I know. In any case, all three bands delivered what they promised. The crowd, 90% fat, tired looking white guys, was pumped and the pit churned. I knew enough to stay out of the pit, though I confess I was tempted. Chuck Billy, the lead singer for Testament, looked like he has had a few too many roadhouse hamburgers, but he can still play a mean air guitar, which he did throughout the show. Somebody buy him a fucking real guitar so he doesn't look like a fat guy playing guitar hero for an hour. Megadeth was better, because I actually know one of their songs. Everything you need to know about Megadeth can be assertained by looking at the home page of their website.
http://www.megadeth.com/home.php
Dave Mustain and his boys try to look like they kill people and eat the intestines, but they never quite pull it off. Mustain's claim to fame is that he once fell asleep (read passed out) on his arm and damaged his nerves so severely that doctors told him he would never play again. But he said, "fuck you man, I gotta rock" and through sheer will power regained his ability to bore the shit out of anyone with a shred of musical taste--which I now grant myself. In one song, "Symphony of Destruction" Mustain compares himself to the Pied Piper. By extension the people who buy his shit, or "follow" him are, metaphorically, rats--'nuff said.
Slayer sucked more than Megadeth, though the guy who pucked all over the floor in front of us between sets didn't seem to mind. Maybe I was just done, but Slayer didn't have a single redeeming musical quality. They could play loud and fast. How's that?
In fairness, this probably reads like a review of a steakhouse in a PETA publication, but there is nothing really redeeming about this kind of music. To each his own, but I really don't need to listen to songs about serial killers, the devil, or suicide--I think about these subjects too much as it is. Somewhere, among the tattoos of demonic goats, vomit drenched shoes, and NAZI symbolism, a lot of angry white people were trying to let out some pent up aggression. Perhaps metal is cathartic, but I'm not that pissed to begin with.
Three metal bands was a bit more than I had hoped for as I really can't stand the shit, but I wasn't there for me. My friends Kris and John are true believers and my 14 year old son wanted to go as well, so here I was. I went to a Dave Matthews show two weeks ago, so this concert marked the second time in as many weeks that I went to a show out of kindness for someone I know. In any case, all three bands delivered what they promised. The crowd, 90% fat, tired looking white guys, was pumped and the pit churned. I knew enough to stay out of the pit, though I confess I was tempted. Chuck Billy, the lead singer for Testament, looked like he has had a few too many roadhouse hamburgers, but he can still play a mean air guitar, which he did throughout the show. Somebody buy him a fucking real guitar so he doesn't look like a fat guy playing guitar hero for an hour. Megadeth was better, because I actually know one of their songs. Everything you need to know about Megadeth can be assertained by looking at the home page of their website.
http://www.megadeth.com/home.php
Dave Mustain and his boys try to look like they kill people and eat the intestines, but they never quite pull it off. Mustain's claim to fame is that he once fell asleep (read passed out) on his arm and damaged his nerves so severely that doctors told him he would never play again. But he said, "fuck you man, I gotta rock" and through sheer will power regained his ability to bore the shit out of anyone with a shred of musical taste--which I now grant myself. In one song, "Symphony of Destruction" Mustain compares himself to the Pied Piper. By extension the people who buy his shit, or "follow" him are, metaphorically, rats--'nuff said.
Slayer sucked more than Megadeth, though the guy who pucked all over the floor in front of us between sets didn't seem to mind. Maybe I was just done, but Slayer didn't have a single redeeming musical quality. They could play loud and fast. How's that?
In fairness, this probably reads like a review of a steakhouse in a PETA publication, but there is nothing really redeeming about this kind of music. To each his own, but I really don't need to listen to songs about serial killers, the devil, or suicide--I think about these subjects too much as it is. Somewhere, among the tattoos of demonic goats, vomit drenched shoes, and NAZI symbolism, a lot of angry white people were trying to let out some pent up aggression. Perhaps metal is cathartic, but I'm not that pissed to begin with.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Vonnegut
When he died a few years ago, I felt pretty bad. Vonnegut had been one of my first loves. Slaughterhouse 5 was one of the few books I read in High School. Mr. Ellis, he named himself "El"Ellis, assigned in in A.P. English my senior year--and I actually read it. I read that, Light in August and Pride and Prejudice. Can you imagine. In any case, Vonnegut stole my heart. It was Vonnegut and the poetry of John Donne. I fell so deeply in love with Slaughterhouse 5 that I said "so it goes" to anyone who would listen for a year. This year, when I was thinking about what to assign for summer reading, I went rebel and assigned Welcome to the Monkey House. The other teachers were assigning Confederacy of Dunces, as bad a book as any fat fuck from LA ever wrote--I am glad he killed himself. Anyway, Vonnegut. I read the book over the summer, finished it today as we're going back to school next week--it was off the charts amazing. I've read "Harrison Bergeron" a dozen times, but the rest of the book is incredible. "Adam" is one of the most beautiful, touching stories I've ever read. I cried for 30 minutes after I read it. How could anyone, let alone a goyum, write a story about Jews and the Holocaust that beautiful? Vonnegut's sense of the human soul is unmatched. He must have been a wonderful man. As I child, I liked Bradbury. As I grew up, and read everything he wrote, I discovered he hated women. He does, you know. Every other story involves some fat, ugly whore who destroys a man's life. Even Bukowski liked women more that Bradbury. But not Vonnegut baby. I can't find who he hated, who he did wrong. Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. Thanks for giving me something to talk to my students about for the coming year. Thanks for caring so much about people. Thanks for not letting war turn you against mankind. I wish you had lived forever, instead of Bradbury. So it goes.
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