Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Buster Keaton Anjin-san Ghidorah "Bud" Johnson (1986-2007)

Last night proved itself to be the first night out of five consecutive evenings since last Thursday where I did not check to see that my cat Buster had food or water before bedtime. It is the Halloween season, and I suddenly find myself haunted by a memory. A memory of a sweet, old friend, whose death warrant I reluctantly signed in a cold vet's office on Thursday morning last. Suddenly, tales of ghosts and ghouls don't seem so much like fun to me, becoming things that I no longer mockingly believe in for the spirit of a holiday, but rather something I halfway anticipate. Most of the food I have downed since then has lost its taste, or I've lost mine, and I have thrown myself into piles of musty old books I have not read in years, and cataloging videotapes I no longer have much compulsion to watch. But I can't get rid of them all the same, using them weirdly as a lifeline of desperation, in quite the opposite way that I seemed to muster the courage (followed by a question mark) to don an executioner's mask and will that sweet, old friend out of existence.

But he was hurting, and when the diagnosis of chronic renal failure set in, causing 75 percent of his kidney functions to cease, the balance came in recognizing that a cat living to four months shy of 22 is a pretty damn good life. Still carrying the guilt of sending my beloved dog (and sister to the cat) Blip off four days before I hightailed it to California (I squarely do
not recommend this as a course of action when moving cross-country), I signed the cursed papers, and then spent a painful and tearful half-hour kneeling before a cold metal table, holding Buster tightly, with his head tucked hard between my chin and shoulder mewling low, while Jen reached over my shoulder to lovingly rub the boy's ears, finding herself in much the same emotional mess as myself.

The progression over two days of believing he merely needed a couple of teeth pulled and a good dental makeover to "Hey, we think we've caught him in the early stages of a kidney infection" to "Well, we found
abscesses beneath his tongue -- there's not a lot we can do for that" to the kidney failure was monumental in its absurdity and swiftness, and it knocked me squarely out of basic brain functions until Monday morning. Not good when one has to write an entire magazine's worth of editorial and feature material; even worse when that someone, well behind schedule for other varied reasons, has to do it in a handful of days.

But the cat, Buster Keaton Anjin-san Ghidorah -- so named for obvious reasons to the pop culturally advanced (all relating to my own self-interests in 1986 -- interests I still hold now, for the most part) -- the cat, he was a most special boy, and worthy of the adoration and grief through which we meandered. And if I thought I mourned other pets who slipped away in the past, I was not prepared for the close combination of losing both Blip and he in such a short period. They were my constant companions over the course of two decades plus, and here, without my supply of longtime friends within spitting distance, Buster served as a reminder of things back home. I made jokes about the Anaheim address serving as his retirement home, knowing all too well that such statements were far more true than false. In this short span though, he became a New World traveler, first by plane from Alaska to here, and then a long drive through Arizona and New Mexico and back, which I am sure confused the hell out of him, but he was probably far happier with us than alone.

Watching him start to get a tad scrawnier with the passing months, and knowing that the on-again, off -again skirmishes with our dogs were probably not giving him much in the way of relaxation, added a touch of inevitability to the end of our idyll, and I grew sad even while sitting down to watch even the most raucous of comedies on the tube, Buster curling up in my lap the way he also did, reacting with freakish joy at the merest touches of his ears, neck, stomach and temples. Permit me to resort to a fit of Paul Bunyan-like myth-making, but Buster's purr (which I swear to this day I taught him, as he did not purr
at all for the first two years of his life) was by this point loud enough to drown out the most boisterous of drunken caterwauling. I counted myself fortunate to have been able to fall asleep with my ear to his chest one night two weeks previous to the end, for such slumber had always been of the most deep and abiding comfort to me over the years.

There is so much more I could relate -- how he was rescued with his siblings from a basement by Schmerin's sister; how he was taken into my care on the stage at UAA right before a play rehearsal; how, along with the myriad mice, voles, songbirds and spiders he carried through my window in showboating victory, he also somehow managed, without the aid of his forearm claws, to bring down a raven, still bigger than himself, and bring the flailing, writhing creature to me for approval; how, fed up with the attention I gave to Blip on trips outside, he started following us to "use the facilities" at the same time as she, and then endeavored to follow us on long walks over several blocks, almost lording it over the dog that
he required no leash, "So, what's wrong with you, dog?", and always remaining close at my heel; how he found himself trapped in the neighboring two-story apartment for four days, without food or water, and screaming and scratching for all he was worth until we finally figured out he hadn't crawled and gotten caught in the structure of our porch walls, but had slipped into the apartment when it was being aired out for presentation to possible renters; and how he lived for eighteen years on the corner of one of the busiest intersections in Anchorage, and had figured out that wandering across roads was a stupid thing to do, while so many other cats sadly didn't. And then, his greatest feat: convincing a non-cat person -- Jen -- that she was, at the very least, a Buster person.

I, too, was a Buster person. Still am, always will be.

I miss you, little guy. Goodbye, Buddy boy...

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Spout Mavens Disc #5: Коктебель [Roads to Koktebel] (2003)

Writing about this disc would have proven to be a far simpler journey, had all of the Roads to Koktebel, trod upon by a homeless father and son on a sojourn through the lonely expanses of Russia, not crossed against my own personal Jetstream to Orlando and Roads to Anaheim Via Similarly Barren and Somewhat Dull Routes Through Idaho, Oregon, Nevada and California. You see, this disc arrived just as I was returning from my first vacation at Walt Disney World and its various and sundry neighboring parks, from which I slunk back to my abode with a rather sullen attitude at the prospect of returning to a life where I actually had to work to earn my keep, as opposed to lounging about a cabin in the woods, through which I strode happily every morning, and then spending each day riding rollercoasters and each night eating at 4-star restaurants.

This despondency was displaced swiftly, as I drifted unluckily into a week-long bout of the flu, which left me able to watch movies, but unable to really recall anything that I watched, because I would drift in and out of things at ten-minute intervals, give or take five minutes here and there. An early attempt to watch Roads to Koktebel found me watching the father and the son (hereafter referred to as The Father and The Son, as they are called in the credits on IMDB; it might say the same thing in the credits of the film, too, but the credits are in Russian, and I cannot read Russian, so there you have it) hop aboard a cargo car on a freight train -- and then waking up to find the father throwing sheets of bent roofing tin off a two-story hovel in the woods. Suffice to say, I quickly surmised, even through my clogged sinus haze, that I had some backtracking to do.

A week later, and two entire weeks after receiving the film, I took the opportunity to watch the first half of Roads to Koktebel, recovered and fully cognizant of my surroundings. First half only, though -- the next morning, I had to fly up to my father's new home in Idaho, only to hit the road the very next morning and begin a road trip back to Anaheim, carrying with us in a (as it turns out) heavily overloaded 16-foot Penske rental van, the bulk of my belongings from my old environs in Anchorage, Alaska. Zipping though the first half before I left made me realize that I was not really concentrating on the film, but thinking rather of the journey ahead of me. I had to admit that the rather stubborn attempt at story mystification, keeping the past of The Father and The Son gloomily obscured, making us guess deeply along the way regarding the motivations of the two main characters, did not suit my mood at that moment, and while I was enjoying the measured pace and cinematography, I could not accurately give the film the attention it probably deserved. Plus, since my own journey would involve a two-year reunion and road trip with my own father, I felt that combining a fresh viewing on my return with whatever emotions overrode me on the drive down would prove to have the most optimal of rewards.

Following that fresh viewing, I realized how wrong I was. In fact, I came out realizing how little I identified with any single character in this film. Despite having a contentious relationship with my father while I was a teenager (how many kids don't, really?), and despite always feeling that I knew better than the adults in my life in all regards (a feeling which I was actually right about... oh, only 17 percent of the time), something which The Son is certainly portrayed as exhibiting in the film, at no time during its course could I identify with the little scheming, whiny shit. I understood that there is a certain place where the knowledge which he gained through his complete trust in his all-knowing father gets derailed by the realities that they stumble upon, including leaping past the hazards of his father falling back off the wagon in one situation and onto a kindly though sweaty doctor in another. Besides, my father, who is extremely knowledgeable (and correct) on a great many subjects, has never been an alcoholic (hell, he doesn't even drink at all), and is a stand-up guy in nearly every regard. Back to the actors portraying these characters, I cannot knock them, for the acting of the lead pair is exemplary, especially given that the characters are barely fleshed out, even through the course of the movie.

Perhaps the film's lack of clear motivation in most cases reflects the lack of apparent motivation in real life, and while this is normally something I embrace in a film, coming off a lot of back-breaking loading and unloading, a couple of long days on the road, and then a dive back into a job with which I am no longer enamored, I found myself not caring in the least about anything in the film. I watched it, told myself, "Well, I sure have a lot of stuff to sort through," and hopped back into giving my household some semblance of normalcy amongst all the clutter. I filed the movie in my head under the section "Russian Would-Be Malick," not a bad place to be, but clearly derivative and hard to pull off properly, even for Malick. And then I spent five days deliberating on exactly what to write about it. I thought about railing against the seagull-strangling scene near the film's conclusion, but then I felt myself wishing to delve into its creation deeper before going off the rails about it.

So, my apologies to any readers who have gotten this far, only to find that while I touched feather-like on certain points of the film, my mindset right now is on organization within my own life, and that mindset bears little regard for reviewing a film with which I have struggled to pay any attention to whatsoever. The film is beautifully shot, even in settings that are intermittently ugly in conception, and perhaps at another junction I will slip it into the player to take another crack at peeling away layers of depth that may or may not be there. My apologies, too, to Christi, the kindly head Spout Maven who has apparently suffered through a goodly amount of stumble-footedness on the part of some of her charges, and I am sorry if I was one of those who contributed in some small way to the changing of the review time from a week to a month.

I also am not sure if perhaps this is my last post for a good while on Spout, for I have certainly lost the concentration level I had before I hit September. Sitting about watching DVDs, while one of my favorite things to do, is actually far down on my list of concerns right now, personally, physically, financially and emotionally. I have many roads to travel right now, and not a damn one takes me anywhere near Koktebel.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat...

For my next illusion, I shall disappear almost completely from virtual notice for over three weeks! Poof! Four people in the audience shall notice and be mildly concerned, while the rest shall check their watches in a "we've seen this sort of thing before" move, and finished their yawn with an over-exaggerated "Woof!" followed by a extra gasp for needed air. I shall then reappear in much the same manner as I disappeared, with those four people applauding vociferously, and a handful of others adding to the mix with the sort of polite response they have been trained since birth to give as a manner of courtesy.

Disappear? Not really. It's all about perspective. I've been about my normal places off and on -- I've been highly visible if you have actually been around me -- but as it seems to happen each year, September is once again my month of choice for winding down for a bit, having a birthday, having Jen's birthday, worrying about money, and then worrying about money more because we take a financially ill-advised vacation at the same time. This year: Walt Disney World and all of its attendant silliness. For me, in a matter of moments, a quick leap to Idaho to road trip back with my father and drag behind us in our wake all manner of Rik-oriented Alaskan effluvia, none of which I have seen, family and stuff combined, for exactly -- to the day -- 2.5 years.

I am happy to be seeing them again, nervous to see all of my crap that I have to cram in my apartment, and saddened that I have not broken down (except for the Marceau obit) and written more over the past month. I am certain next week to see a renaissance, but only time will tell. I will hope to reappear once again magically on Monday. See you then.

The 50 Something or Other Songs of 2017: Part 2

In our last exciting episode, I reviewed tracks 50 through 31 on Rolling Stone's list of the Best 50 Songs of 2017 . How did those ...