In 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Chicago's outright ban on handguns, which then opened the floodgates for the state of Illinois — begrudgingly — to legalize concealed carry, the last state in the union to do so.
Having purchased a handgun while I lived in Georgia, and having toted that handgun with me on my several moves since then, I was a little wiggy about trying to register it, concerned about the questions it might bring up, like when I purchased it or where. I was assured by one in the know that it was of no concern, so, also in 2013, I applied for and received my Illinois Firearm Owner's Identification (FOID) card.
Stuff I Should Have Blogged About
Then, some five years after Illinois adopted CCW, my brother, who was in possession of the small caliber revolver my father had owned (given to him by an old friend back in the early 1970s), asked me if I would be interested in going with him to a CCW certification class, which is mandatory in order to legally carry in Illinois. I had told him I was interested, but not at the moment.
With my eye on a handsome IRS refund in early 2018, I laid out my CCW plan. As the handgun I purchased in Georgia some 20 years earlier is just a bit too big for comfortable concealment, I opted to purchase a new, compact semi-automatic. I researched heavily and found the one I wanted, and the dealer from which I wanted to purchase it. That didn't go smoothly, however, as the person with whom I made the transaction (he presents himself online as a firearms shop, however he operates out of his home while he waits for the pieces to fall into place for an actual store) didn't follow through with the arrangement we had made for me to pick it up after the 72-hour waiting period, and he was neither answering his phone nor returning my calls. So I had to work through JPMorgan Chase to negate that purchase. I went instead with an established local shop.
Around the first of the year — Resolution time — I told my brother I was ready to go, and eager to take the class with him. He had just retired, however, and suddenly wasn't comfortable with the cost of the course.
So, in March, I signed up by my own self for the Illinois 16-hour CCW course. As a military veteran, I had the option of skipping the first eight-hour class covering handgun familiarization, but it had been more than 20 years since I had fired any kind of weapon, so I thought it best to take the full class. Despite a few ass-kicker test questions about weapons carry laws, the course was a piece of cake.
As a convenience, a local entrepreneur came in on the second day of class to offer his services in expediting the application procedure for the students. I paid the extra to allow him to do this; all he needed were copies of my driver's license and my FOID (it's pronounced as a word, "foyd.") card. I was told that, after submission of the application, I could expect the full three months' wait for the license to arrive in the mail.
On June 19, exactly three months after the class, I received a letter in the mail from the Illinois State Police Firearms Services Bureau stating that, due to a discrepancy in my application documents, processing of my CCW license is delayed, and if I didn't respond within 60 days, it would be disqualified. The discrepancy? Illinois State Police put the incorrect zip code on my FOID card back in 2013, when I applied for that (because I owned the handgun purchased in Georgia), and the dude expediting the applications used the address from my FOID card instead of my driver's license. I corrected the error on the ISPFSB website within — literally — seconds of reading the letter, and I wound up waiting another three whole months until the CCW license finally arrived in late September, followed two days later by an updated FOID card. Hmmm.
I should have made the whole ordeal a blog series. It would have helped maintain my sanity through the summer and, hey, someone might have read it.
Hypocrisy?
Now, one who stumbles upon this post (since my regular(?) readers have all but disappeared) may wonder, "Why do you, a librul own — not one but two — handguns?! Don't that make you a hypocrite?" (Sorry for the effected grammar ignorance. You just sound like that in my head.)
And no, that does not make me a hypocrite. I have never been anti-gun. I often refer to myself, when the topic comes up in discussion, as a Second Amendment liberal. What I am against is gun proliferation. I am one man. I have two hands. How many guns do I need, how many could I run at one time to defend myself? I am not a hunter, but, were I, I would likely possess a tool for the task. I don't know the number at which a limit should be placed, but I feel there should be a limit. I'm good with two.
Practice Makes Accurate ...er
After the purchase of the new handgun, I made it to a couple of the local ranges on an average of about once a month until I joined a defensive pistol league through the same organization through which I took the CCW course. I've learned through practice and the league that I'm a pretty good shot, but I'm lazy and impatient. Also, twenty years on, my vision ain't so great, any more. With my one good eye, corrective lens for nearsightedness and a reading magnification, the ends of my extended arms are the perfect length where I can't focus on the front sight of the weapon with my prescription glasses on. Fortunately, the target is supposed to be blurry beyond the front sight, as it's blurry regardless, without my glasses!
Feeling a little more secure in my abilities, these days I carry as often as I can outside of the myriad places Illinois law and individual business owners prohibit. It's a lifestyle that takes getting used to, and I'm working on getting used to it.
# # #
Wednesday, December 04, 2019
Monday, December 02, 2019
Sharp Curves
It's funny how we humans relate to — and with — music. Some of us barely notice its presence; some of us have a few favorites within a genre or two. Others among us are fully immersed in it and some of us play or even write it.
Me? As with so much else in my life, I'm right in the middle there, somewhere. I can immerse myself in listening; I wish I could truly play beyond noodling around on a keyboard when I get the chance or — these days — the desire. That noodling has in the past resulted in a few tunes pleasing to my ears, though I have seldom shared it. Very seldom.
I got into music later than most people. It seemed my peers as early as junior high were banging their heads to some popular tune or another on the radio, whereas I kind of noticed a few songs I liked. I was also a dork, so, when I did start turning on to music, I didn't like most of what the other kids were into. I liked Billy Joel. I liked Journey. Rush. Cheap Trick. There were only a few others.
But I hated Van Halen.
I hated the smug, "I'm so sexy," self-fellating screech that the lead singer employed in just about every ...no, scratch that ...in every stupid song they got played on radio stations — which, I was certain, they achieved by providing chicks or drugs or money or all three to radio station executives in order to get their brand of shit on the airwaves.
It didn't help that, of my friends, my peers, who were the band's devotees, a good number of them drew, etched, or otherwise festooned their notebooks, jeans, jackets and the school's desks with the Van Halen logo.
And then I entered the Air Force, where I learned many, many important things, among them the sanity-saving practice of immersion into music. Lackland Air Force Base was the only installation that conducted Air Force basic training and, therefore, had a sizeable program for providing escape and places for new airmen to decompress. One avenue was the base library listening room, decked out with cassette and reel-to-reel tape machines, and a wide selection of music to sit and listen to, and even to record and make one's own mix tape. Through 18 weeks and three consecutive military training courses, I spent many hours disappearing between the cups of a pair of headphones exploring new music.
And I still hated Van Halen.
One Saturday morning, on the recreation bus from Camp Bullis, about a 30-minute ride to Lackland, in San Antonio, Texas, some douchebag was cranking the volume up on his boom-box with the unmistakable vocal preening of the lead singer of none other than Van Halen. I didn't have my Walkman with me for some reason, so I had no defense against the narcissism onslaught that none of the other young men on the bus that morning seemed to mind. Sometime later in the ride, I heard the welcome relief of a sort of ragtime jazz tune. I thought to myself that the kid with the boom box had an eclectic taste in music. But then I heard that voice. It was still Van Halen! But ...wait a minute! Acoustic guitar? Is that a clarinet playing on this tune?! And then another tune, this time a cover of "Happy Trails," sung a capella in four-part harmony?! Though done just a bit tongue-in-cheek, it sounded good!
I called over to the other kid. "Hey! What the hell is that?"
"Van Halen," he said. Duh. "Diver Down."
Three months later, now stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, among my selections for my first month of Columbia House Record and Tape Club membership was Van Halen's Diver Down album, their fifth release, and my first step toward broadening a horizon. I had dismissed the band as a loud, brainless, head-banging, three-chord hard rock band. They are those things a bit, but not so much of the brainless, as I learned through listening and research that the lead guitarist, Edward Van Halen, is a classically trained guitarist who, I came to realize as I listened to more and more of their music, is an amazingly versatile, agile, and innovative virtuoso master of his instrument. That clarinet I heard on the jazzy "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" is played by Jan Van Halen, Edward's classically trained father, and the song, though a classic Milton Ager/Jack Yellen jazz tune originally written in 1924, was chosen and arranged by big-haired, big ego lead singer, David Lee Roth.
A new respect for the group opened my mind up to the rest of their music and, barely six months after that Texas bus ride, I was a fan of Van Halen.
Now, some 35 years after that fateful day, I find myself sitting once again next to a stereo turntable, spinning my vinyl LPs (Long Playing records) and pumping them into my computer to convert them to digital files. I had already once, years ago, recorded everything to cassette tape, but as that format faded from wide use and cassette players became scarce and proved themselves less reliable and versatile than digital, I have had to revisit the collection.
When I started, it occurred to me that it has been at least 20, maybe 25 years since I've heard most of this music. It has brought back to me the memories of many moments of escape, cruising the streets of downtown Great Falls, the green pastures of the Hunsrück in Germany, and the restless years after returning home from the Air Force and before embarking on my video production career.
And dropping into the band'sgrooves has brought back this memory of my 180 degree turn on Van Halen, and its lesson to me to always be willing to try the unfamiliar or the uncomfortable. You may come away from the experience with your mind unchanged, but you will nonetheless be changed, as you will have a new perspective, a deeper understanding, and some semblance of an inside knowledge of the thing about which you knew nothing before.
# # #
Me? As with so much else in my life, I'm right in the middle there, somewhere. I can immerse myself in listening; I wish I could truly play beyond noodling around on a keyboard when I get the chance or — these days — the desire. That noodling has in the past resulted in a few tunes pleasing to my ears, though I have seldom shared it. Very seldom.
I got into music later than most people. It seemed my peers as early as junior high were banging their heads to some popular tune or another on the radio, whereas I kind of noticed a few songs I liked. I was also a dork, so, when I did start turning on to music, I didn't like most of what the other kids were into. I liked Billy Joel. I liked Journey. Rush. Cheap Trick. There were only a few others.
But I hated Van Halen.
I hated the smug, "I'm so sexy," self-fellating screech that the lead singer employed in just about every ...no, scratch that ...in every stupid song they got played on radio stations — which, I was certain, they achieved by providing chicks or drugs or money or all three to radio station executives in order to get their brand of shit on the airwaves.
It didn't help that, of my friends, my peers, who were the band's devotees, a good number of them drew, etched, or otherwise festooned their notebooks, jeans, jackets and the school's desks with the Van Halen logo.
And then I entered the Air Force, where I learned many, many important things, among them the sanity-saving practice of immersion into music. Lackland Air Force Base was the only installation that conducted Air Force basic training and, therefore, had a sizeable program for providing escape and places for new airmen to decompress. One avenue was the base library listening room, decked out with cassette and reel-to-reel tape machines, and a wide selection of music to sit and listen to, and even to record and make one's own mix tape. Through 18 weeks and three consecutive military training courses, I spent many hours disappearing between the cups of a pair of headphones exploring new music.
And I still hated Van Halen.
One Saturday morning, on the recreation bus from Camp Bullis, about a 30-minute ride to Lackland, in San Antonio, Texas, some douchebag was cranking the volume up on his boom-box with the unmistakable vocal preening of the lead singer of none other than Van Halen. I didn't have my Walkman with me for some reason, so I had no defense against the narcissism onslaught that none of the other young men on the bus that morning seemed to mind. Sometime later in the ride, I heard the welcome relief of a sort of ragtime jazz tune. I thought to myself that the kid with the boom box had an eclectic taste in music. But then I heard that voice. It was still Van Halen! But ...wait a minute! Acoustic guitar? Is that a clarinet playing on this tune?! And then another tune, this time a cover of "Happy Trails," sung a capella in four-part harmony?! Though done just a bit tongue-in-cheek, it sounded good!
I called over to the other kid. "Hey! What the hell is that?"
"Van Halen," he said. Duh. "Diver Down."
Three months later, now stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, among my selections for my first month of Columbia House Record and Tape Club membership was Van Halen's Diver Down album, their fifth release, and my first step toward broadening a horizon. I had dismissed the band as a loud, brainless, head-banging, three-chord hard rock band. They are those things a bit, but not so much of the brainless, as I learned through listening and research that the lead guitarist, Edward Van Halen, is a classically trained guitarist who, I came to realize as I listened to more and more of their music, is an amazingly versatile, agile, and innovative virtuoso master of his instrument. That clarinet I heard on the jazzy "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" is played by Jan Van Halen, Edward's classically trained father, and the song, though a classic Milton Ager/Jack Yellen jazz tune originally written in 1924, was chosen and arranged by big-haired, big ego lead singer, David Lee Roth.
A new respect for the group opened my mind up to the rest of their music and, barely six months after that Texas bus ride, I was a fan of Van Halen.
Now, some 35 years after that fateful day, I find myself sitting once again next to a stereo turntable, spinning my vinyl LPs (Long Playing records) and pumping them into my computer to convert them to digital files. I had already once, years ago, recorded everything to cassette tape, but as that format faded from wide use and cassette players became scarce and proved themselves less reliable and versatile than digital, I have had to revisit the collection.
When I started, it occurred to me that it has been at least 20, maybe 25 years since I've heard most of this music. It has brought back to me the memories of many moments of escape, cruising the streets of downtown Great Falls, the green pastures of the Hunsrück in Germany, and the restless years after returning home from the Air Force and before embarking on my video production career.
And dropping into the band'sgrooves has brought back this memory of my 180 degree turn on Van Halen, and its lesson to me to always be willing to try the unfamiliar or the uncomfortable. You may come away from the experience with your mind unchanged, but you will nonetheless be changed, as you will have a new perspective, a deeper understanding, and some semblance of an inside knowledge of the thing about which you knew nothing before.
# # #
Monday, November 11, 2019
The Comeback From My Most Recent Comeback
So this is yet another "I'm getting back to my writing" post, but, as has been the case in the past, we'll see. I recently purchased a laptop computer, which, some time after my previous computer purchase I realized would have been the better choice than what I purchased in that previous purchase (a desktop computer and an iPad). This will give me the full mobile functionality of a computer than my iPad gave me which, as I regrettably realized in the afterglow of the purchase, was little more than a glorified iPhone without the phone capability.
Anyhoo, this latest push to return to writing reflects a few new things on my table. Obviously, the laptop. Also, in April I started a new job with the same employer I started with in November of 2016, and am now the Executive Secretary to a department manager. There really isn't much to add about that. It's a desk job moving papers from one pile to other piles.
Late in the summer I started a modest fitness regimen. Seeing as how my foray ten years ago (TEN YEARS AGO?!) into the results-driven world of P-90X resulted in double shoulder injuries which my non-insurance-having status prevented me from getting properly diagnosed or treated, a reader could safely assume I'm not going in that direction again ...unless said reader assumes I'm stupid ...which I am, but I'm not that stupid!
No, this time around I'm getting my cardio in the form of early-morning, hour-long walks at roughly a fifteen-minute-mile pace, three days a week, and a fairly easy routine of weights work two days a week. The specific aim is to strengthen my shoulders, hoping that the injuries I sustained were due more to weak joint muscles than actual tearing of tissue; the general aim is overall fitness and muscle tone, as I have officially reached senior citizen status and I don't want the last vestiges of youth to escape me without a fight. In other words, late-stage mid-life crisis.
There are a few other new things to expound upon, some of which I haven't shared with my regular crowd(?) of friends or family, which will be revealed to the world here.
At first (he says, not exactly fully confident that he will return to Blogger again before another year has passed), this regrettably will amount to little more than an online diary of "whut I been up to," as, admittedly, the years of Facebook and being away from regularly blogging have affected my skill of contemplation. It is my hope that, as I think about writing and write what I think, my thinking will return to thinking and not just thinking about what I will write about next. Contemplation. Reflection. Word craft.
It's an odd thing. For nearly three years, I dated Donna, a perfectly lovely woman with whom things went sour and definitely not perfectly lovely, at which point we split. Upon parting, she requested that I not make our breakup public, or at least not make it fodder for Facebook posts. Out of respect for her, I honored her wish. However, I realized that, as a creature of Facebook, most of what I had posted during our time together revolved around our relationship. I had stopped, for the most part, parsing my day-to-day experiences to the world and had turned my focus to us. When there was no longer an us, I realized I had forgotten how to share. However, seeing as how, prior to my relationship with Donna, I posted SO MUCH on Facebook, I saw my distance from it as a good thing. The problem was that, as Facebook had taken me away from blogging, Donna and the aftermath of our relationship had taken me away from the practice of daily contemplation and reflection.
I have been desperately trying to feel that drive again.
I hope this new toy will rekindle it.
# # #
Anyhoo, this latest push to return to writing reflects a few new things on my table. Obviously, the laptop. Also, in April I started a new job with the same employer I started with in November of 2016, and am now the Executive Secretary to a department manager. There really isn't much to add about that. It's a desk job moving papers from one pile to other piles.
Late in the summer I started a modest fitness regimen. Seeing as how my foray ten years ago (TEN YEARS AGO?!) into the results-driven world of P-90X resulted in double shoulder injuries which my non-insurance-having status prevented me from getting properly diagnosed or treated, a reader could safely assume I'm not going in that direction again ...unless said reader assumes I'm stupid ...which I am, but I'm not that stupid!
No, this time around I'm getting my cardio in the form of early-morning, hour-long walks at roughly a fifteen-minute-mile pace, three days a week, and a fairly easy routine of weights work two days a week. The specific aim is to strengthen my shoulders, hoping that the injuries I sustained were due more to weak joint muscles than actual tearing of tissue; the general aim is overall fitness and muscle tone, as I have officially reached senior citizen status and I don't want the last vestiges of youth to escape me without a fight. In other words, late-stage mid-life crisis.
There are a few other new things to expound upon, some of which I haven't shared with my regular crowd(?) of friends or family, which will be revealed to the world here.
At first (he says, not exactly fully confident that he will return to Blogger again before another year has passed), this regrettably will amount to little more than an online diary of "whut I been up to," as, admittedly, the years of Facebook and being away from regularly blogging have affected my skill of contemplation. It is my hope that, as I think about writing and write what I think, my thinking will return to thinking and not just thinking about what I will write about next. Contemplation. Reflection. Word craft.
It's an odd thing. For nearly three years, I dated Donna, a perfectly lovely woman with whom things went sour and definitely not perfectly lovely, at which point we split. Upon parting, she requested that I not make our breakup public, or at least not make it fodder for Facebook posts. Out of respect for her, I honored her wish. However, I realized that, as a creature of Facebook, most of what I had posted during our time together revolved around our relationship. I had stopped, for the most part, parsing my day-to-day experiences to the world and had turned my focus to us. When there was no longer an us, I realized I had forgotten how to share. However, seeing as how, prior to my relationship with Donna, I posted SO MUCH on Facebook, I saw my distance from it as a good thing. The problem was that, as Facebook had taken me away from blogging, Donna and the aftermath of our relationship had taken me away from the practice of daily contemplation and reflection.
I have been desperately trying to feel that drive again.
I hope this new toy will rekindle it.
# # #
Friday, May 10, 2019
A General, Warm Melancholy
It's one thing to regard an elderly celebrity or acknowledge when one passes, but it takes a lifetime of fandom — or at least of frequent regard — to really appreciate the contribution to your life a certain person has had, and the effect you experience when that person is revealed to be, simply, human.
These thoughts crept up on me during a recent concert I attended by the Temptations and the Four Tops. I was a big fan of neither group growing up, but each group had several hits that crossed over into the world of music that reached me during my childhood and teen years. Each group now has only one surviving original member; Otis Williams of the Temptations is 77, and Abdul "Duke" Fakir of Four Tops is 83. With younger, more agile talent keeping each group moving, it was a delightful show.
Perhaps it is just a middle-age thing, but I found myself fascinated and somewhat saddened by these old dudes up on the stage. Immensely talented and immeasurably fortunate, they chased and captured fortune and fame through their lives, but they couldn't outrun time. I found myself regretting that I hadn't followed their careers more closely.
But that got me to thinking about careers I did follow. One in particular is that of Steve Perry, most famously the lead singer of the rock band, Journey. I suppose I didn't so much follow his career so much as I was acutely aware of it because I am such a fan.
I didn't know much about Journey before 1981, when their album of that year, Escape, caught my attention. All I knew about them was their hit songs that had been played on local radio for only the whole of my teen years to that point. What I didn't realize was that, despite being a band since the early 1970s, they weren't a phenomenon until Mr. Perry came along in 1978 and gave them lyrical and vocal prominence. Of course, also little to my knowledge, I became a true fan of Journey just about at the peak of their fame, and about the middle point of Steve Perry's musical arc.
I wasn't much into music as a teen. Perhaps the only record I owned outright, the only record I listened to in my childhood that hadn't been handed down from my older siblings, was "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen, which I had purchased on 45 rpm single in 1975, when it was still in regular rotation on the local radio stations. I was 11 years old. Then, in my junior and senior years in high school, popular music truly started speaking to me. I remember asking for — and receiving — three distinctive albums for Christmas, 1981: Dream Police, by Cheap Trick; Permanent Waves by Rush; and Journey's Escape. Mixed in during that time was access to my siblings' handed down albums for already classic rock standards, and my formal introduction to/discovery of the Beatles.
After that, the first group I followed was Journey. In 1983 I breathlessly awaited the release of their new album, Frontiers. When my favorite radio station, after having played their new single, "Separate Ways...Worlds Apart" from Frontiers, for weeks on the radio, switched without mention to the album version of the song, which has a longer vocal/instrumental interlude after the last verse, I had a fan-girl type meltdown!
While in the US Air Force and earning my own money, I back-collected their offerings from their beginnings as an off-shoot from Santana (singer/keyboardist Gregg Rolie; guitarist Neal Schon), and into the Steve Perry era, connecting the dots to Escape.
With the entire library in my possession, I noticed between Departure and Frontiers a gradual deterioration in the overall quality of Perry's voice, and a distinct reduction in, if not his vocal range, then his willingness to go there.
I was a reluctant fan of Steve Perry's 1984 solo album, Street Talk. Reluctant because, shouldn't Steve be working on the next Journey album? Fan, because, dammit, there were some good songs on that album!
Then, in 1986, Journey released Raised On Radio. Indicated by the title, alone, there was trouble. It broke from their long tradition of one-word, themed album titles, certainly since the beginning of the Perry era: Infinity (1978), Evolution (1979), Departure (1980), Escape, Frontiers. Perry's voice was yet more scratchy, and gone altogether were the stratospheric high notes for which he was famous. Then, in the album liner notes, there was the photo of the band: Perry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and Schon, the only original member of what had always been a 5-man group. The list of credits for each song revealed the other longtime members abandoning ship and being replaced by studio musicians during the creation of the album. And it sounded more like a Steve Perry album than Journey.
And then there was silence. Behind the scenes there was turmoil and personal strife between the members. Publicly, there were rumors: "Steve Perry has throat cancer" had the strongest legs and persisted for a long time.
And then, 1995 brought Trial By Fire, the first Journey album in nine years! Perry's voice sounded even worse. But, the more-than-one-word title aside, the new album heralded to me the long-awaited return of Journey to the radio, to the arena, to rock and roll prominence.
They officially broke up shortly after the album's release.
And that was the last anyone, for the most part, heard of Steve Perry.
Until 2017.
The internet went abuzz when Perry made a surprise appearance with a band called The Eels at a small Minneapolis, Minnesota, venue. Performing in the band's encore, Perry sang an Eels song, and then two Journey standards, "Lights," and "Don't Stop Believin'." It was his first stage appearance anywhere in 25 years.
In 2018, Journey was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Perry spoke on behalf of the band in their acceptance, but declined to perform with them out of respect for their current lead singer, of whom he spoke glowingly in recorded interviews after the ceremony. Then, later in the year, he surprised the music world by releasing a new solo album, Traces, written in the aftermath of the death of his girlfriend, who had succumbed to cancer.
In the collection of mostly mellow, reflective tunes, Perry, now age 70, retains the classic tone of his voice, but it is clearly tattered from the overuse and abuse in his heyday, and from lack of use after he stepped away from the business in the 1990s, not to mention his age.
Seventy years old. As I have mentioned in this blog before, celebrities who step away from — or who are otherwise shunned by — the spotlight don't age in my mind, so when one whose voice still rings pure in my memory and every time I spin one of his old tunes appears suddenly old, it is quite a shock, as it is often just hearing one's current age.
In moments such as these, I'm filled with a melancholy that's hard to shake. Is it their glory years I mourn, or my own? Will their music — or anyone's music, for that matter — ever make me feel like I did that day Frontiers was released?
I felt a brief spark when I learned of, and downloaded, and listened to Traces because I am still a fan, after all, but nothing was ignited.
Maybe it's maturity, or maybe it's just the result of getting old: there are a few sparks, even fewer fires, but, mainly, a general, warm melancholy.
# # #
These thoughts crept up on me during a recent concert I attended by the Temptations and the Four Tops. I was a big fan of neither group growing up, but each group had several hits that crossed over into the world of music that reached me during my childhood and teen years. Each group now has only one surviving original member; Otis Williams of the Temptations is 77, and Abdul "Duke" Fakir of Four Tops is 83. With younger, more agile talent keeping each group moving, it was a delightful show.
Perhaps it is just a middle-age thing, but I found myself fascinated and somewhat saddened by these old dudes up on the stage. Immensely talented and immeasurably fortunate, they chased and captured fortune and fame through their lives, but they couldn't outrun time. I found myself regretting that I hadn't followed their careers more closely.
But that got me to thinking about careers I did follow. One in particular is that of Steve Perry, most famously the lead singer of the rock band, Journey. I suppose I didn't so much follow his career so much as I was acutely aware of it because I am such a fan.
I didn't know much about Journey before 1981, when their album of that year, Escape, caught my attention. All I knew about them was their hit songs that had been played on local radio for only the whole of my teen years to that point. What I didn't realize was that, despite being a band since the early 1970s, they weren't a phenomenon until Mr. Perry came along in 1978 and gave them lyrical and vocal prominence. Of course, also little to my knowledge, I became a true fan of Journey just about at the peak of their fame, and about the middle point of Steve Perry's musical arc.
I wasn't much into music as a teen. Perhaps the only record I owned outright, the only record I listened to in my childhood that hadn't been handed down from my older siblings, was "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen, which I had purchased on 45 rpm single in 1975, when it was still in regular rotation on the local radio stations. I was 11 years old. Then, in my junior and senior years in high school, popular music truly started speaking to me. I remember asking for — and receiving — three distinctive albums for Christmas, 1981: Dream Police, by Cheap Trick; Permanent Waves by Rush; and Journey's Escape. Mixed in during that time was access to my siblings' handed down albums for already classic rock standards, and my formal introduction to/discovery of the Beatles.
After that, the first group I followed was Journey. In 1983 I breathlessly awaited the release of their new album, Frontiers. When my favorite radio station, after having played their new single, "Separate Ways...Worlds Apart" from Frontiers, for weeks on the radio, switched without mention to the album version of the song, which has a longer vocal/instrumental interlude after the last verse, I had a fan-girl type meltdown!
While in the US Air Force and earning my own money, I back-collected their offerings from their beginnings as an off-shoot from Santana (singer/keyboardist Gregg Rolie; guitarist Neal Schon), and into the Steve Perry era, connecting the dots to Escape.
With the entire library in my possession, I noticed between Departure and Frontiers a gradual deterioration in the overall quality of Perry's voice, and a distinct reduction in, if not his vocal range, then his willingness to go there.
I was a reluctant fan of Steve Perry's 1984 solo album, Street Talk. Reluctant because, shouldn't Steve be working on the next Journey album? Fan, because, dammit, there were some good songs on that album!
Then, in 1986, Journey released Raised On Radio. Indicated by the title, alone, there was trouble. It broke from their long tradition of one-word, themed album titles, certainly since the beginning of the Perry era: Infinity (1978), Evolution (1979), Departure (1980), Escape, Frontiers. Perry's voice was yet more scratchy, and gone altogether were the stratospheric high notes for which he was famous. Then, in the album liner notes, there was the photo of the band: Perry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and Schon, the only original member of what had always been a 5-man group. The list of credits for each song revealed the other longtime members abandoning ship and being replaced by studio musicians during the creation of the album. And it sounded more like a Steve Perry album than Journey.
And then there was silence. Behind the scenes there was turmoil and personal strife between the members. Publicly, there were rumors: "Steve Perry has throat cancer" had the strongest legs and persisted for a long time.
And then, 1995 brought Trial By Fire, the first Journey album in nine years! Perry's voice sounded even worse. But, the more-than-one-word title aside, the new album heralded to me the long-awaited return of Journey to the radio, to the arena, to rock and roll prominence.
They officially broke up shortly after the album's release.
And that was the last anyone, for the most part, heard of Steve Perry.
Until 2017.
The internet went abuzz when Perry made a surprise appearance with a band called The Eels at a small Minneapolis, Minnesota, venue. Performing in the band's encore, Perry sang an Eels song, and then two Journey standards, "Lights," and "Don't Stop Believin'." It was his first stage appearance anywhere in 25 years.
In 2018, Journey was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Perry spoke on behalf of the band in their acceptance, but declined to perform with them out of respect for their current lead singer, of whom he spoke glowingly in recorded interviews after the ceremony. Then, later in the year, he surprised the music world by releasing a new solo album, Traces, written in the aftermath of the death of his girlfriend, who had succumbed to cancer.
In the collection of mostly mellow, reflective tunes, Perry, now age 70, retains the classic tone of his voice, but it is clearly tattered from the overuse and abuse in his heyday, and from lack of use after he stepped away from the business in the 1990s, not to mention his age.
Seventy years old. As I have mentioned in this blog before, celebrities who step away from — or who are otherwise shunned by — the spotlight don't age in my mind, so when one whose voice still rings pure in my memory and every time I spin one of his old tunes appears suddenly old, it is quite a shock, as it is often just hearing one's current age.
In moments such as these, I'm filled with a melancholy that's hard to shake. Is it their glory years I mourn, or my own? Will their music — or anyone's music, for that matter — ever make me feel like I did that day Frontiers was released?
I felt a brief spark when I learned of, and downloaded, and listened to Traces because I am still a fan, after all, but nothing was ignited.
Maybe it's maturity, or maybe it's just the result of getting old: there are a few sparks, even fewer fires, but, mainly, a general, warm melancholy.
# # #
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Life, Simplified - Part 4: Smile, Redux
I don't think there is one among us humans who has not benefited from being told of, or who hasn't stumbled across a technique or process or a trick that makes life simpler. Sometimes it's an evolution of steps in an activity that we tend to pare down into a more streamlined way, only to be shocked some time later when reminded of how we used to do it. Other times it's a sudden realization that we could do a task in a totally different way that shaves time or effort from our day. Or sometimes it's much, much bigger than that.
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
A Life Experiment, Perhaps
It has been a couple years since I wrote The Power of the Smile, and a couple more years since I began applying that of which I wrote, and I want to present an update. Go ahead and read The Power of the Smile again (come on! I linked it twice!) and then come back here to finish. I'll be brief. I promise. Go. I'll wait.
Welcome Back
Life will always have its ups and downs. Setbacks. Triumphs. Love. Loss. Two years ago I waxed romantic about smiling and finding love and, well, that romance was brief. Though I couldn't keep the girl, I kept the smile and, I must say, my words then still ring true today. Plastering a smile on my face daily no matter in what mood I awake really is the key to smoothing out the day. I have changed jobs since I wrote about smiles, and my daily work stress is probably greater than it was as a valet manager, and I still grumble when things don't run smoothly or when the crap seems to pile on more quickly than I can shovel. But now I take several moments a day to step back from it, look at myself, and smile. It's absurd. It's not brain surgery. It's the stuff of sitcoms. And I laugh.
The practice of smiling truly has changed my life for the better. I feel happier even though the circumstances of my life have not greatly improved. Moments of inevitable anger or frustration at the obstacles in my life don't last nearly as long as they used to. I have learned not to dwell on them. I have learned to smile. If smile dopamine is pumping through my body, anger mojo can't take hold.
It's the easiest self-help in the world: Just. Smile.
# # #
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
A Life Experiment, Perhaps
It has been a couple years since I wrote The Power of the Smile, and a couple more years since I began applying that of which I wrote, and I want to present an update. Go ahead and read The Power of the Smile again (come on! I linked it twice!) and then come back here to finish. I'll be brief. I promise. Go. I'll wait.
Welcome Back
Life will always have its ups and downs. Setbacks. Triumphs. Love. Loss. Two years ago I waxed romantic about smiling and finding love and, well, that romance was brief. Though I couldn't keep the girl, I kept the smile and, I must say, my words then still ring true today. Plastering a smile on my face daily no matter in what mood I awake really is the key to smoothing out the day. I have changed jobs since I wrote about smiles, and my daily work stress is probably greater than it was as a valet manager, and I still grumble when things don't run smoothly or when the crap seems to pile on more quickly than I can shovel. But now I take several moments a day to step back from it, look at myself, and smile. It's absurd. It's not brain surgery. It's the stuff of sitcoms. And I laugh.
The practice of smiling truly has changed my life for the better. I feel happier even though the circumstances of my life have not greatly improved. Moments of inevitable anger or frustration at the obstacles in my life don't last nearly as long as they used to. I have learned not to dwell on them. I have learned to smile. If smile dopamine is pumping through my body, anger mojo can't take hold.
It's the easiest self-help in the world: Just. Smile.
# # #
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Life, Simplified - Part 3: Within the Circle
I don't think there is one among us humans who has not benefited from being told of, or who hasn't stumbled across a technique or process or a trick that makes life simpler. Sometimes it's an evolution of steps in an activity that we tend to pare down into a more streamlined way, only to be shocked some time later when reminded of how we used to do it. Other times it's a sudden realization that we could do a task in a totally different way that shaves time or effort from our day. Or sometimes it's much, much bigger than that.
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
Have a seat. Ease your mind.
Women haven't had to figure this one out....
For about 46 of my 53 years roaming the planet, I had made life more difficult for myself than it had to be. Like most healthy, able men, I had followed the male social norm of peeing while standing up. It's easy, our underwear is designed for it: just open the flap, whip it out, and let it flow.
However, also like most men, I have terrible aim. And really, it's not so much about the aim, but more about the starting and the stopping. What with an eager surge at the beginning and a dribbling finish, we sometimes (usually) miss the bowl and manage to hit the rim. Or the floor. Or the wall.
I got tired of feeling the impulse to wipe the rim clean with toilet paper, often ignoring said impulse, and subsequently got tired of seeing the dried, yellow stains clinging there later in the day ...or week. Yes, I'm also lazy.
So, one day, in an amazing moment of brilliance, I wondered, "How could I make it so I don't have to clean my toilet so frequently?"
A strange voice, unfamiliar to me in the dark, echoing chasm that is my mind, the voice that is rational, pragmatic reasoning, replied, "Stop peeing on the rim, idiot." My rational, pragmatic reasoning voice doesn't think very highly of me.
"But how do I do that?"
"By placing the source of the stream below the rim, you moron!"
Of course! The pee can't get on the rim if it's never above the rim! That's pure genius! ...or common sense. I often confuse the two.
And so, about three years ago or so, I started sitting down on the toilet to pee. I haven't cleaned my toilet since!
I'M KIDDING!
But it has made my life remarkably better. I'm not having to clean my toilet as often, nor feeling guilty for letting so much time slip in between cleanings. And it's better for my friends because I sit down to pee in their bathrooms, as well. My aim is no better there than at home!
Guys, it doesn't make you any less a man to pee sitting down. Do it. Your girlfriend will appreciate it. Your wife will love you more for it. You'll love yourself for it. Your buddies will... well, they'll probably bust your balls for it publicly, but then they'll go home, look at their disgusting toilets, and realize you really are the genius in their circle!
Really. It will make your life better. It certainly did mine!
# # #
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
Have a seat. Ease your mind.
Women haven't had to figure this one out....
For about 46 of my 53 years roaming the planet, I had made life more difficult for myself than it had to be. Like most healthy, able men, I had followed the male social norm of peeing while standing up. It's easy, our underwear is designed for it: just open the flap, whip it out, and let it flow.
However, also like most men, I have terrible aim. And really, it's not so much about the aim, but more about the starting and the stopping. What with an eager surge at the beginning and a dribbling finish, we sometimes (usually) miss the bowl and manage to hit the rim. Or the floor. Or the wall.
I got tired of feeling the impulse to wipe the rim clean with toilet paper, often ignoring said impulse, and subsequently got tired of seeing the dried, yellow stains clinging there later in the day ...or week. Yes, I'm also lazy.
So, one day, in an amazing moment of brilliance, I wondered, "How could I make it so I don't have to clean my toilet so frequently?"
A strange voice, unfamiliar to me in the dark, echoing chasm that is my mind, the voice that is rational, pragmatic reasoning, replied, "Stop peeing on the rim, idiot." My rational, pragmatic reasoning voice doesn't think very highly of me.
"But how do I do that?"
"By placing the source of the stream below the rim, you moron!"
Of course! The pee can't get on the rim if it's never above the rim! That's pure genius! ...or common sense. I often confuse the two.
And so, about three years ago or so, I started sitting down on the toilet to pee. I haven't cleaned my toilet since!
I'M KIDDING!
But it has made my life remarkably better. I'm not having to clean my toilet as often, nor feeling guilty for letting so much time slip in between cleanings. And it's better for my friends because I sit down to pee in their bathrooms, as well. My aim is no better there than at home!
Guys, it doesn't make you any less a man to pee sitting down. Do it. Your girlfriend will appreciate it. Your wife will love you more for it. You'll love yourself for it. Your buddies will... well, they'll probably bust your balls for it publicly, but then they'll go home, look at their disgusting toilets, and realize you really are the genius in their circle!
Really. It will make your life better. It certainly did mine!
# # #
Monday, August 07, 2017
Life, Simplified - Part 2: Go Juice
I don't think there is one among us humans who has not benefited from being told of, or who hasn't stumbled across a technique or process or a trick that makes life simpler. Sometimes it's an evolution of steps in an activity that we tend to pare down into a more streamlined way, only to be shocked some time later when reminded of how we used to do it. Other times it's a sudden realization that we could do a task in a totally different way that shaves time or effort from our day. Or sometimes it's much, much bigger than that.
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
With a V8, You Can Really GO!
Back in the aught decade, when Oprah! was still on the air, the Chicago affiliate ran it twice a day: once in daytime, and then again at night after the local news. I was still married then, and we would lie in bed and watch Oprah! 'til we crashed, or until Nightline came on. On one particular Oprah! in 2005 or 2006 she featured one of her regular visitors, then up-and-coming daytime talk TV superstar, Dr. Oz. He came on and made the audience squirm by talking about things we are too embarrassed to talk about to our doctors, one of them being our poop.
I'll warn you right now, this post will briefly get a bit graphic, so you may wish to skip to the end and work your way back....
Dr. Oz talked about how some patients had asked him how their poop should be, what it should look like. He said that it shouldn't be hard nuggets, nor should it be really soft or semi-liquid. What it should look like, he said, is a semi-firm, long, unbroken, S-shaped poop. To my relief, he didn't show photos. And to yours, neither will I.
But I lay there thinking, "Mine aren't like that. They vary wildly from one far end of that spectrum to the other and back." He babbled on about the way to achieve the S-shaped poop, but it all sounded like much effort, and I fell asleep.
Flash forward to 2009, and my earnest effort to lose some weight and get into shape. I hired a personal trainer who tasked me with keeping a journal of my diet. Of course, he gave me guidance along the way, with a focus on balancing the food groups and cutting out the sugary and high-carb things. What I had not been eating with any kind of regularity prior to his influence was vegetables, but he changed that with a stern expression and some kindly advice. Soon I was eating vegetables in two meals daily.
And, before I realized it, I was making two poops daily that were perfect Dr. Oz S-shaped poops. So easy, and so regular! Dr. Oz was right — as were about a billion other doctors! A healthy diet is key!
But, after a while, I hit a wall vegetable-wise; there were (are) only so many vegetables I like or know how to cook, and it had become expensive since the portions on offer at the grocery stores always seemed to be more than I could eat in a week — especially if I was trying to vary the menu — and I was losing a lot of vegetables to mold and decay in the refrigerator. I had to find an alternative.
After reading lots of labels in grocery store aisles, I finally decided on the low sodium version of V8 Juice. Each bottle is a cocktail made of eight different vegetables (in case you didn't know why they call it V8), and the ingredients list — at least for a major brand — is pretty brief. There is some added citric acid, "natural flavoring," and potassium chloride, but they make up less than two percent of the whole. So I switched completely over from buying and storing and cooking and eating vegetables to having an eight ounce glass of V8 juice with every meal.
My body didn't miss a beat. I still squeezed out those S-shaped poops!
I included V8 in my daily food journals, and my personal trainer said nothing about it until I asked him. Though he said he would prefer if I cooked and ate vegetables, he had nothing bad to say about substituting low sodium V8 for vegetables on my plate.
So, eight years later, though I've fallen off the workout wagon, I still suck down a glass of V8 with dinner. It never gets old. I never get tired of it. ...or of easy poops! Sometimes I forget, and sometimes I'll go out for dinner that is light on the vegetables, to an almost immediate and uncomfortable result in the bathroom. However, it takes only about three days back on the V8 regimen to get me back in that groove.
I suppose, with all the money I've thrown in to V8 in all that time, I should buy stock in Campbell's or General Motors or whoever it is that makes the V8. It has certainly simplified my life and it makes my life better.
# # #
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
With a V8, You Can Really GO!
Back in the aught decade, when Oprah! was still on the air, the Chicago affiliate ran it twice a day: once in daytime, and then again at night after the local news. I was still married then, and we would lie in bed and watch Oprah! 'til we crashed, or until Nightline came on. On one particular Oprah! in 2005 or 2006 she featured one of her regular visitors, then up-and-coming daytime talk TV superstar, Dr. Oz. He came on and made the audience squirm by talking about things we are too embarrassed to talk about to our doctors, one of them being our poop.
I'll warn you right now, this post will briefly get a bit graphic, so you may wish to skip to the end and work your way back....
Dr. Oz talked about how some patients had asked him how their poop should be, what it should look like. He said that it shouldn't be hard nuggets, nor should it be really soft or semi-liquid. What it should look like, he said, is a semi-firm, long, unbroken, S-shaped poop. To my relief, he didn't show photos. And to yours, neither will I.
But I lay there thinking, "Mine aren't like that. They vary wildly from one far end of that spectrum to the other and back." He babbled on about the way to achieve the S-shaped poop, but it all sounded like much effort, and I fell asleep.
Flash forward to 2009, and my earnest effort to lose some weight and get into shape. I hired a personal trainer who tasked me with keeping a journal of my diet. Of course, he gave me guidance along the way, with a focus on balancing the food groups and cutting out the sugary and high-carb things. What I had not been eating with any kind of regularity prior to his influence was vegetables, but he changed that with a stern expression and some kindly advice. Soon I was eating vegetables in two meals daily.
And, before I realized it, I was making two poops daily that were perfect Dr. Oz S-shaped poops. So easy, and so regular! Dr. Oz was right — as were about a billion other doctors! A healthy diet is key!
But, after a while, I hit a wall vegetable-wise; there were (are) only so many vegetables I like or know how to cook, and it had become expensive since the portions on offer at the grocery stores always seemed to be more than I could eat in a week — especially if I was trying to vary the menu — and I was losing a lot of vegetables to mold and decay in the refrigerator. I had to find an alternative.
After reading lots of labels in grocery store aisles, I finally decided on the low sodium version of V8 Juice. Each bottle is a cocktail made of eight different vegetables (in case you didn't know why they call it V8), and the ingredients list — at least for a major brand — is pretty brief. There is some added citric acid, "natural flavoring," and potassium chloride, but they make up less than two percent of the whole. So I switched completely over from buying and storing and cooking and eating vegetables to having an eight ounce glass of V8 juice with every meal.
My body didn't miss a beat. I still squeezed out those S-shaped poops!
I included V8 in my daily food journals, and my personal trainer said nothing about it until I asked him. Though he said he would prefer if I cooked and ate vegetables, he had nothing bad to say about substituting low sodium V8 for vegetables on my plate.
So, eight years later, though I've fallen off the workout wagon, I still suck down a glass of V8 with dinner. It never gets old. I never get tired of it. ...or of easy poops! Sometimes I forget, and sometimes I'll go out for dinner that is light on the vegetables, to an almost immediate and uncomfortable result in the bathroom. However, it takes only about three days back on the V8 regimen to get me back in that groove.
I suppose, with all the money I've thrown in to V8 in all that time, I should buy stock in Campbell's or General Motors or whoever it is that makes the V8. It has certainly simplified my life and it makes my life better.
# # #
Sunday, August 06, 2017
Life, Simplified - Part 1: Let It Go
I don't think there is one among us humans who has not benefited from being told of, or who hasn't stumbled across a technique or process or a trick that makes life simpler. Sometimes it's an evolution of steps in an activity that we tend to pare down into a more streamlined way, only to be shocked some time later when reminded of how we used to do it. Other times it's a sudden realization that we could do a task in a totally different way that shaves time or effort from our day. Or sometimes it's much, much bigger than that.
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
When It's Gone, Let It Go
From the moment I separated from the Air Force, I pursued a career in broadcasting and video production: earned my degree in Radio/TV at Southern Illinois University; two years later accepted my first career job at a very small-market TV station in southern Illinois (a stepping stone to fame and fortune); two years later jumped half a country away to a job at a TV station in Georgia; then to a cable outlet in the same town; then back to Chicago. In all, I spent 16 years in the industry.
It was perhaps two years or so into that career when I discovered I wanted to write. I was writing in my job(s) — a lot. As a matter of fact, the writing I did at work — scripts, mainly, for local advertisers' commercials — sucked up all my creative energy, so when I got home, all desire to write what I wanted to write was gone.
Flash forward to 2003 or so, and I had landed what was, for me at the time, a dream job: video production with extensive travel. While I was interested in the travel aspect mostly for the opportunity to see bits of the world, it was in 2003 that I capitalized on the hours of idle time on airplanes and started writing down the stories for which I had only previously scribbled notes. I felt like I was actually getting somewhere with my ideas! On top of that, I was still dreaming of the big time in video production while pitying the poor nine-to-fivers who went to the same job in the same place every day forever.
It all came crashing to a halt in April, 2009, when, due probably as much to my own pride as to the flattened economy, I was shit-canned from my "dream job."
I spent the next three years or so knocking on that career door which had been so unceremoniously shut. There were a few freelance gigs with the former employer, a few gigs picked up through a small network of similarly skilled folks, but in a glutted market that had gone stagnant, I wasn't making enough to support myself. But I was working, having entered the occupation of taxi driver. It was a new experience, being self-employed and building a client base and covering my responsibilities, but after a while I realized that taxi ownership was eating me alive — financially as well as psychologically. The hours were insane: 14-hour days, six days a week, just to make ends meet ...and I wasn't exactly making those ends meet. My debt was growing. I found myself longing to get out, even being happy with the thought of the daily nine-to-five in the same job in the same place every day forever.
But during this same period, I was writing — more so at the beginning. I had lost the momentum on the older ideas I had started, but was cultivating new ideas. I was creating! And I had made the realization that I could return to acting, my other passion, which had lain dormant for more than a decade. It became my primary creative outlet, and my writing tapered off to a trickle.
Still, in this period is when it hit me: I was doing things I wanted to do! It wasn't the career I had chosen that was fulfilling me, but it was in indulging my passions. My career leaving me opened my eyes to the reality that I had been living to work when it should have been the other way around. All those poor nine-to-five saps had been doing it right all along!
So I stopped letting my career drag me along, digging my heels into the earth, hoping for it to let me back in. I just let it go, stood on my own two feet, and watched it shrink to a dot on the horizon.
It took a couple of years. I had to get out of the taxi, so I took whatever I could get. It had been five years since the layoff; the economy had turned back around and was improving. Jobs were to be had once again. There was a false start with a photography company, then two years in a tenuous existence with a valet company who provided shitty pay and no benefits before I landed the perfect, mindless, benefits-rich, nine-to-five existence that leaves me time to my passions.
It has been a slow, grinding re-start to get my writing rolling, but it's coming along. I recently put about a week's worth into a screenplay idea I had a decade ago. I've joined a Facebook writers' group and have already submitted two-thousand words to participate in their challenges. I feel like the Tin Man in the land of Oz whose creaky joints need a little bit of oil, but then he's soon whooping it up with a scarecrow and a lion.
The new job doesn't pay a great deal more than the old, and doesn't make life much easier, but my new outlook makes living with myself much easier. And that makes life much better.
# # #
In a series of posts — because I think one post to cover all of them would just be too long ...like that ever stopped me before — I will highlight the things I have discovered on my own which have made life better.
When It's Gone, Let It Go
From the moment I separated from the Air Force, I pursued a career in broadcasting and video production: earned my degree in Radio/TV at Southern Illinois University; two years later accepted my first career job at a very small-market TV station in southern Illinois (a stepping stone to fame and fortune); two years later jumped half a country away to a job at a TV station in Georgia; then to a cable outlet in the same town; then back to Chicago. In all, I spent 16 years in the industry.
It was perhaps two years or so into that career when I discovered I wanted to write. I was writing in my job(s) — a lot. As a matter of fact, the writing I did at work — scripts, mainly, for local advertisers' commercials — sucked up all my creative energy, so when I got home, all desire to write what I wanted to write was gone.
Flash forward to 2003 or so, and I had landed what was, for me at the time, a dream job: video production with extensive travel. While I was interested in the travel aspect mostly for the opportunity to see bits of the world, it was in 2003 that I capitalized on the hours of idle time on airplanes and started writing down the stories for which I had only previously scribbled notes. I felt like I was actually getting somewhere with my ideas! On top of that, I was still dreaming of the big time in video production while pitying the poor nine-to-fivers who went to the same job in the same place every day forever.
It all came crashing to a halt in April, 2009, when, due probably as much to my own pride as to the flattened economy, I was shit-canned from my "dream job."
I spent the next three years or so knocking on that career door which had been so unceremoniously shut. There were a few freelance gigs with the former employer, a few gigs picked up through a small network of similarly skilled folks, but in a glutted market that had gone stagnant, I wasn't making enough to support myself. But I was working, having entered the occupation of taxi driver. It was a new experience, being self-employed and building a client base and covering my responsibilities, but after a while I realized that taxi ownership was eating me alive — financially as well as psychologically. The hours were insane: 14-hour days, six days a week, just to make ends meet ...and I wasn't exactly making those ends meet. My debt was growing. I found myself longing to get out, even being happy with the thought of the daily nine-to-five in the same job in the same place every day forever.
But during this same period, I was writing — more so at the beginning. I had lost the momentum on the older ideas I had started, but was cultivating new ideas. I was creating! And I had made the realization that I could return to acting, my other passion, which had lain dormant for more than a decade. It became my primary creative outlet, and my writing tapered off to a trickle.
Still, in this period is when it hit me: I was doing things I wanted to do! It wasn't the career I had chosen that was fulfilling me, but it was in indulging my passions. My career leaving me opened my eyes to the reality that I had been living to work when it should have been the other way around. All those poor nine-to-five saps had been doing it right all along!
So I stopped letting my career drag me along, digging my heels into the earth, hoping for it to let me back in. I just let it go, stood on my own two feet, and watched it shrink to a dot on the horizon.
It took a couple of years. I had to get out of the taxi, so I took whatever I could get. It had been five years since the layoff; the economy had turned back around and was improving. Jobs were to be had once again. There was a false start with a photography company, then two years in a tenuous existence with a valet company who provided shitty pay and no benefits before I landed the perfect, mindless, benefits-rich, nine-to-five existence that leaves me time to my passions.
It has been a slow, grinding re-start to get my writing rolling, but it's coming along. I recently put about a week's worth into a screenplay idea I had a decade ago. I've joined a Facebook writers' group and have already submitted two-thousand words to participate in their challenges. I feel like the Tin Man in the land of Oz whose creaky joints need a little bit of oil, but then he's soon whooping it up with a scarecrow and a lion.
The new job doesn't pay a great deal more than the old, and doesn't make life much easier, but my new outlook makes living with myself much easier. And that makes life much better.
# # #
Friday, May 12, 2017
Homeless At Home
I spent more than one-third of my life in the family home in the town where I grew up. For 19 years and change, I had the stability and familiarity of roots in the same patch of earth through the better part of my formative years. My siblings, all older than I, had been coming of age and leaving the nest slowly but surely, one at a time, throughout my childhood, scattering to nearby suburbs, still close to home, yet leaving me the lone bird. But, mere months after that 19th birthday, it was my turn to fly; I departed for adventures untold in valiant service to my country. And then, four years later, my Air Force career voluntarily cut short after the first contractual obligation, I moved back in with Mom and Dad. And my sister. And her kids. She had moved back home about a year before I left, pretty much the catalyst to my leaving in the first place. But there I was.
But I wasn't done adventuring; college, then a career in broadcasting that took me all over ...uh, two whole states. But always, I had that thin tether reminding me where home was.
And then love reeled me in and took me where? Home. Back to Chicago. Close to family once again.
But then things started changing, started falling apart. With Mom gone for some years, Dad finally sold the house, the home, my roots. What a strange feeling to see it there, nestled between the other homes I had grown up in-between, my home, but not my house, not any more. My boyhood home, the place where my biography starts. But now it's somebody else's home.
The boyhood home ...and the boy. And his sister, Marie,
far right, who passed away in 2014; and family friend,
Gloria, who moved to Florida a thousand years ago.
But that was okay. I still had Dad, and he was in the river house he had bought as a fixer-upper project that, once he had fixer-upped it, he and Mom had moved into. But then Mom was gone.
And then, though he had held up pretty well for a long while, Dad started falling apart, physically. He sold the river house, and another branch of my roots was severed.
And then he was gone, too.
Then my marriage withered and died. As a matter of convenience and economy, I moved to a town much closer to where I plied my trade, where I flexed my career muscles, where I buried my head in the sand of work, where pain and loss could be kept at bay.
And then the career left me. I found myself frantically treading water, working the only job I could find at the time, with a roof over my head, but no place that felt like home. None of my siblings lived in the town that had raised us any more. Sure, we were all scattered about the Chicago suburbs, but that one suburb that held all of my cherished memories was now devoid of all tangibles that were mine. I had nowhere to go to that I could call "back home."
I guess it happens to anyone who flies the coop and lives his life away. The wake one leaves eventually restores, and the stilled waters forget the rushing force that once cleaved them. Homes are sold, folks move on or pass on, and strangers occupy their void.
In the broader sense, Chicago is my "home," will always be my "home." Meet me in St. Louis and ask me what my hometown is. "Chicago," I'll say, because you've likely never heard of the puny suburb that actually calved me. But within that home town there's no place that holds me, no point in the earth to which I'm tethered. When I think about that, it makes me sad. The suburb where I live now is only where I live, now. I'm here only because I had to move out of the post-divorce apartment because I couldn't afford the rent any longer because my career quit me. My current apartment is my pad, but it's not my home.
I'm single. I'm unattached (again). Save for having just started a job where I once again have a track to retirement, I could live anywhere in this country I want to. But I can't think of any place I want to live. Chicagoland is the default because most of my surviving siblings are here, and I've lived in Chicagoland for all but 12 years of my life, and I'm here, now, so it's convenient. But where to live in Chicagoland — or outside of Chicagoland, for that matter? I couldn't decide if my life depended on it.
Ask me where I most want to live in the world. My answer?
Home.
But I wasn't done adventuring; college, then a career in broadcasting that took me all over ...uh, two whole states. But always, I had that thin tether reminding me where home was.
And then love reeled me in and took me where? Home. Back to Chicago. Close to family once again.
But then things started changing, started falling apart. With Mom gone for some years, Dad finally sold the house, the home, my roots. What a strange feeling to see it there, nestled between the other homes I had grown up in-between, my home, but not my house, not any more. My boyhood home, the place where my biography starts. But now it's somebody else's home.
The boyhood home ...and the boy. And his sister, Marie,
far right, who passed away in 2014; and family friend,
Gloria, who moved to Florida a thousand years ago.
But that was okay. I still had Dad, and he was in the river house he had bought as a fixer-upper project that, once he had fixer-upped it, he and Mom had moved into. But then Mom was gone.
And then, though he had held up pretty well for a long while, Dad started falling apart, physically. He sold the river house, and another branch of my roots was severed.
And then he was gone, too.
Then my marriage withered and died. As a matter of convenience and economy, I moved to a town much closer to where I plied my trade, where I flexed my career muscles, where I buried my head in the sand of work, where pain and loss could be kept at bay.
And then the career left me. I found myself frantically treading water, working the only job I could find at the time, with a roof over my head, but no place that felt like home. None of my siblings lived in the town that had raised us any more. Sure, we were all scattered about the Chicago suburbs, but that one suburb that held all of my cherished memories was now devoid of all tangibles that were mine. I had nowhere to go to that I could call "back home."
I guess it happens to anyone who flies the coop and lives his life away. The wake one leaves eventually restores, and the stilled waters forget the rushing force that once cleaved them. Homes are sold, folks move on or pass on, and strangers occupy their void.
In the broader sense, Chicago is my "home," will always be my "home." Meet me in St. Louis and ask me what my hometown is. "Chicago," I'll say, because you've likely never heard of the puny suburb that actually calved me. But within that home town there's no place that holds me, no point in the earth to which I'm tethered. When I think about that, it makes me sad. The suburb where I live now is only where I live, now. I'm here only because I had to move out of the post-divorce apartment because I couldn't afford the rent any longer because my career quit me. My current apartment is my pad, but it's not my home.
I'm single. I'm unattached (again). Save for having just started a job where I once again have a track to retirement, I could live anywhere in this country I want to. But I can't think of any place I want to live. Chicagoland is the default because most of my surviving siblings are here, and I've lived in Chicagoland for all but 12 years of my life, and I'm here, now, so it's convenient. But where to live in Chicagoland — or outside of Chicagoland, for that matter? I couldn't decide if my life depended on it.
Ask me where I most want to live in the world. My answer?
Home.
Monday, May 01, 2017
Fade to Grey
There's always a gloom following the close of a show. Actors expend a lot of time and energy preparing for a production, be it a run of one performance or of hundreds. There's the audition process, which can be very easy (cold reads from a script) or very stressful (prepared monologues and repeated callbacks); and then there's the rehearsal process.
In my personal experience, rehearsals last anywhere from four to six weeks, usually nightly five or six days a week. During that time, an actor spends two or three hours each night with the director and the rest of the cast, and a bond forms, a somewhat familial connectedness between and among members of the cast and the director. Inside jokes are created that can last in the minds of each involved forever, and are recalled to the strange looks from unwitting company at the raucous, seemingly unjustified laughter.
A small group, a handful of people, or a throng apply themselves to the common goal of opening night and the performance run, each sharing in the joy, the stress, the exhaustion, and the exhilaration of gestating this baby through to its birth.
And then it's over.
The cast, crew, and director (seated) of End Days, by Deborah Zoe Laufer. (photo: Josie Rivera)
Though friendships have formed, each goes his own separate way into the gloom. The next step for one may be another show, but with a different group of people, with a different director, perhaps at a different venue. All needs to be learned again: names, lines, movement, inside jokes. The next step for another may be quiet evenings again for a while. But, whether jumping back in or laying low, the let-down is real. The depression has weight. It's withdrawal. Coming down from the heights of energy flow, adrenaline rush, the flush of the audiences' adulation — or at least their polite applause. Stepping out of the warm glow of the lights, of the focus of attentive eyes seeking to be entertained and hoping to be enthralled.
Nelson has some questions for Arthur. Julio Knapp (left) and Tony Gasbarro. (photo: Josie Rivera)
My most recent turn on the stage, in a fun comedy-drama called End Days, just ended this past Saturday night, and I'm going through the typical stages of withdrawal, however there's a strange feeling of abruptness with this one. The past two productions I was involved in — two different summer runs, a year apart from each other, of a comedy called Lounging — were three- and four- weekend runs (15 and 20 performances), respectively. At the time, they seemed to go on forever, but — suddenly — they stopped. End Days was a two-weekend run of only seven performances; in comparison to the summer shows, it feels like we were chopped off at the knees.
Sylvia "encourages" the family to pray. Left to right: Emily Hosman, Julio Knapp, Tony Gasbarro,
BethAnn Smukowski (photo: Josie Rivera)
So, on top of the usual feelings of withdrawal, there is the feeling of having been cheated out of a "complete" run.
Regardless, it's done. Whether it's on to the next show, or laying low for a while, I'll keep you posted.
# # #
In my personal experience, rehearsals last anywhere from four to six weeks, usually nightly five or six days a week. During that time, an actor spends two or three hours each night with the director and the rest of the cast, and a bond forms, a somewhat familial connectedness between and among members of the cast and the director. Inside jokes are created that can last in the minds of each involved forever, and are recalled to the strange looks from unwitting company at the raucous, seemingly unjustified laughter.
A small group, a handful of people, or a throng apply themselves to the common goal of opening night and the performance run, each sharing in the joy, the stress, the exhaustion, and the exhilaration of gestating this baby through to its birth.
And then it's over.
The cast, crew, and director (seated) of End Days, by Deborah Zoe Laufer. (photo: Josie Rivera)
Though friendships have formed, each goes his own separate way into the gloom. The next step for one may be another show, but with a different group of people, with a different director, perhaps at a different venue. All needs to be learned again: names, lines, movement, inside jokes. The next step for another may be quiet evenings again for a while. But, whether jumping back in or laying low, the let-down is real. The depression has weight. It's withdrawal. Coming down from the heights of energy flow, adrenaline rush, the flush of the audiences' adulation — or at least their polite applause. Stepping out of the warm glow of the lights, of the focus of attentive eyes seeking to be entertained and hoping to be enthralled.
Nelson has some questions for Arthur. Julio Knapp (left) and Tony Gasbarro. (photo: Josie Rivera)
My most recent turn on the stage, in a fun comedy-drama called End Days, just ended this past Saturday night, and I'm going through the typical stages of withdrawal, however there's a strange feeling of abruptness with this one. The past two productions I was involved in — two different summer runs, a year apart from each other, of a comedy called Lounging — were three- and four- weekend runs (15 and 20 performances), respectively. At the time, they seemed to go on forever, but — suddenly — they stopped. End Days was a two-weekend run of only seven performances; in comparison to the summer shows, it feels like we were chopped off at the knees.
Sylvia "encourages" the family to pray. Left to right: Emily Hosman, Julio Knapp, Tony Gasbarro,
BethAnn Smukowski (photo: Josie Rivera)
So, on top of the usual feelings of withdrawal, there is the feeling of having been cheated out of a "complete" run.
Regardless, it's done. Whether it's on to the next show, or laying low for a while, I'll keep you posted.
# # #
Sunday, March 26, 2017
I Don't Know What I Should Title This Post
Here it is, March of 2017. I have allowed to happen that which I vowed I would not: I let a full year lapse between posts at Farrago. It's quite an embarrassing thing for one who calls himself a writer.
Perhaps my life is ultimately uninteresting even to myself. Time spent sharing the mundane turns of my personal pages seems more and more time wasted — mine and, especially, yours.
But I'm a "writer." I'm supposed to write, if for little more reason than to practice, and to publish, in the form of blog posts, for others to see, to critique and, hopefully, to share.
There is passion, and then there is discipline. Passion is the drive to do something because you enjoy it; discipline is what keeps you doing that thing when the passion wears thin. It's not that you don't enjoy doing it anymore, but rather that you've likely found other things to do that you enjoy more. Passion's fickle nature is what reveals to you how little discipline you actually have.
But, lately, I have found my thinker rather devoid of thoughts. In my blogging heyday I used to seize upon a thought and it would fester within me until I had the keyboard at my fingertips, and then it would fly out of me and into the internet! I used to seize upon so many ideas at once that I couldn't hold onto them all, and some would fall away into the dark morass of my brain cave, never to be thought again.
But now? Something broke. That light bulb that would pop on several times a day seems to have burned out. Even in this most remarkable social and political ass zit time of our lives, I don't have a single thought to lend to the discussion.
And so, just feeling lately like I must write, I come to realize my blog has lain dormant for more than a year, but a year with several highlights about which I should have written:
--in May I applied for two different jobs within the State of Illinois
--also in May, near the end of the month, my sister, Pam, age 64, passed away due to complications of congestive heart failure and a DNR; she is the second of my sisters to die, and less than two years after the first
--in August I faced the financial onslaught of the litany of repairs needed on my 2002 Nissan Xterra, and began the hunt for a new(er), more reliable car, a somewhat less daunting financial onslaught
--in mid-September I signed the loan for a 2014 Ford Focus at Carmax; so far I am very pleased — both with the car, and with the experience of buying from Carmax
--in late September, having given up after nearly three months since the applications, I received a call to interview with the State of Illinois for an office coordinator position at Elgin Mental Health Center
--in mid-October, after waiting three weeks to hear from the State of Illinois, I finally received a job offer to the position for which I had interviewed; I accepted, and they set a November 16 start date
And there you have it. Six stand-out pages from the story of my life since last I wrote here. I hope you will come back. I promise the next post won't be another mundane diary entry. I just make no promise when the next post will be. I've left too many of those unfulfilled over the past few years.
°
Perhaps my life is ultimately uninteresting even to myself. Time spent sharing the mundane turns of my personal pages seems more and more time wasted — mine and, especially, yours.
But I'm a "writer." I'm supposed to write, if for little more reason than to practice, and to publish, in the form of blog posts, for others to see, to critique and, hopefully, to share.
There is passion, and then there is discipline. Passion is the drive to do something because you enjoy it; discipline is what keeps you doing that thing when the passion wears thin. It's not that you don't enjoy doing it anymore, but rather that you've likely found other things to do that you enjoy more. Passion's fickle nature is what reveals to you how little discipline you actually have.
But, lately, I have found my thinker rather devoid of thoughts. In my blogging heyday I used to seize upon a thought and it would fester within me until I had the keyboard at my fingertips, and then it would fly out of me and into the internet! I used to seize upon so many ideas at once that I couldn't hold onto them all, and some would fall away into the dark morass of my brain cave, never to be thought again.
But now? Something broke. That light bulb that would pop on several times a day seems to have burned out. Even in this most remarkable social and political ass zit time of our lives, I don't have a single thought to lend to the discussion.
And so, just feeling lately like I must write, I come to realize my blog has lain dormant for more than a year, but a year with several highlights about which I should have written:
--in May I applied for two different jobs within the State of Illinois
--also in May, near the end of the month, my sister, Pam, age 64, passed away due to complications of congestive heart failure and a DNR; she is the second of my sisters to die, and less than two years after the first
--in August I faced the financial onslaught of the litany of repairs needed on my 2002 Nissan Xterra, and began the hunt for a new(er), more reliable car, a somewhat less daunting financial onslaught
--in mid-September I signed the loan for a 2014 Ford Focus at Carmax; so far I am very pleased — both with the car, and with the experience of buying from Carmax
--in late September, having given up after nearly three months since the applications, I received a call to interview with the State of Illinois for an office coordinator position at Elgin Mental Health Center
--in mid-October, after waiting three weeks to hear from the State of Illinois, I finally received a job offer to the position for which I had interviewed; I accepted, and they set a November 16 start date
And there you have it. Six stand-out pages from the story of my life since last I wrote here. I hope you will come back. I promise the next post won't be another mundane diary entry. I just make no promise when the next post will be. I've left too many of those unfulfilled over the past few years.
°
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
Seven Year Delay
This morning my iPod shuffle and the relative solitude of the drive to work provided me with the memory of a distinct moment of my youth. The song was "Time In a Bottle" by Jim Croce.
Jim Croce died in a plane crash in September, 1973. I was nine years old. I knew little at the time about popular music, and cared about it even less. I remember hearing of his death, and knew it was he who had recorded "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," a song played often on the radio, and which I had enjoyed. That was about it.
About seven years later I was discovering the vinyl record albums my brother, nearly six years older than I, had been collecting and storing in the upstairs bedroom we shared. His stuff was generally off-limits to me, so, while he wasn't home, I made sure to be extra careful when handling his record albums.
The distinct moment to which my iPod brought me this morning was when I laid the needle on the first track of one of the two Jim Croce albums in my brother's collection. I lay on the floor with his headphones on so I could play it as loudly as I wanted. Even then I knew only that Jim Croce had recorded a couple of hit songs, plus one or two other popular pieces, and had died tragically while his star was still rising. With his songs piping directly into my ears, I was struck by the poetry in his words, by the emotion in his voice, and the weight of his music. And there, on my back on the hard floor of my shared bedroom nearly a decade after Jim Croce died, the full depth of the loss the music world experienced on the day of his death hit me. And I wept.
°
Jim Croce died in a plane crash in September, 1973. I was nine years old. I knew little at the time about popular music, and cared about it even less. I remember hearing of his death, and knew it was he who had recorded "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," a song played often on the radio, and which I had enjoyed. That was about it.
About seven years later I was discovering the vinyl record albums my brother, nearly six years older than I, had been collecting and storing in the upstairs bedroom we shared. His stuff was generally off-limits to me, so, while he wasn't home, I made sure to be extra careful when handling his record albums.
The distinct moment to which my iPod brought me this morning was when I laid the needle on the first track of one of the two Jim Croce albums in my brother's collection. I lay on the floor with his headphones on so I could play it as loudly as I wanted. Even then I knew only that Jim Croce had recorded a couple of hit songs, plus one or two other popular pieces, and had died tragically while his star was still rising. With his songs piping directly into my ears, I was struck by the poetry in his words, by the emotion in his voice, and the weight of his music. And there, on my back on the hard floor of my shared bedroom nearly a decade after Jim Croce died, the full depth of the loss the music world experienced on the day of his death hit me. And I wept.
°
Monday, January 11, 2016
A Bit of a Ramble, Mostly About Death
I was never a huge fan of David Bowie. I've been more appreciative of his music in my middle age than I was in my youth and young adulthood, and I understand the impact his recent death has had on the music industry and on his fandom.
What turns out to be the most disarming aspect of his death is that Mr. Bowie turned it into his final artistic expression. One can't know — at least at this point, one day after his death — if he intentionally timed the release of his new album to be around the date of his death (it was released two days before he died), or if it just turned out to be an ironic coincidence (someone involved with the production of the album has said that Bowie intended it as a "parting gift" to his fans). But what can be known — or at least perceived — is that, during the writing and creation of his final music album, he was fully aware of, and prepared for, his impending death. Aware, and inspired.
One need only absorb the disturbing themes, recurring imagery, and haunting words of two songs from the recent release, Blackstar:
Lazarus
Blackstar
Nobody outside those in his closest circles knew he was dying until word came late Sunday night, January 10, 2016, that he had passed.
Constructive Contemplation
People rarely think of a terminal cancer diagnosis — or terminal anything diagnosis — as a positive thing, but one can imagine that it certainly gives one perspective. Clearly, in David Bowie's circumstance, it gave him the sound and vision for his final curtain (see what I did there...?)
But what about the rest of us? Is there anything we should be thinking about for the rest of our time manufacturing carbon dioxide? Of course, there are life insurance and succession plans and wills and trusts, but those are things that take effect after we die. We tend to put off a lot of living in an effort to secure a comfortable life in our future. But isn't life today worth as much as life tomorrow? Why suffer through the now when tomorrow isn't promised to us? Life ultimately sucks when you look at it from the end of the run: if you had a great life that's ending, that sucks because it's ending; if you had a crappy life, well, that sucks, and now it's ending. Total suckness.
I used to feel that my biggest fear was to die alone. I think that's the top of the list for a lot of people. But I don't fear that any more, because, after all, everyone dies alone. Sure, you may be surrounded by family. You may even go flying off a bridge in a bus with a hundred other people, all fated to cease in the same instant. But even then, you'd be alone. Death is a solitary thing. No one goes with you.
No, my biggest fear is to be the last of my family and friends — but family, especially — to go. Not that I wish it upon any of them, either, but, being the youngest of seven children, I've known all of my siblings for my entire life! With my parents and one sister gone already, I don't think I can take that five more times as I stagger through old age.
What is your biggest fear? Don't you think that you — we — should go about the rest of our days seeing to alleviate that fear? Or at least face it, embrace it to assuage the stress it causes us while we think death is far away?
Does it take death facing us and our stocking feet at the end of a long, polished hardwood-floor, tilted hallway to give us the inspiration to do something interesting with our lives?
David Bowie lived an interesting life. May we all endeavor to express our lives as profoundly and as openly as he expressed his dying.
And my uplifting parting shot for this downer post, a guest-starring appearance by David Bowie on the Ricky Gervais HBO comedy, Extras. I hope you'll have a laugh:
°
What turns out to be the most disarming aspect of his death is that Mr. Bowie turned it into his final artistic expression. One can't know — at least at this point, one day after his death — if he intentionally timed the release of his new album to be around the date of his death (it was released two days before he died), or if it just turned out to be an ironic coincidence (someone involved with the production of the album has said that Bowie intended it as a "parting gift" to his fans). But what can be known — or at least perceived — is that, during the writing and creation of his final music album, he was fully aware of, and prepared for, his impending death. Aware, and inspired.
One need only absorb the disturbing themes, recurring imagery, and haunting words of two songs from the recent release, Blackstar:
Lazarus
Blackstar
Nobody outside those in his closest circles knew he was dying until word came late Sunday night, January 10, 2016, that he had passed.
Constructive Contemplation
People rarely think of a terminal cancer diagnosis — or terminal anything diagnosis — as a positive thing, but one can imagine that it certainly gives one perspective. Clearly, in David Bowie's circumstance, it gave him the sound and vision for his final curtain (see what I did there...?)
But what about the rest of us? Is there anything we should be thinking about for the rest of our time manufacturing carbon dioxide? Of course, there are life insurance and succession plans and wills and trusts, but those are things that take effect after we die. We tend to put off a lot of living in an effort to secure a comfortable life in our future. But isn't life today worth as much as life tomorrow? Why suffer through the now when tomorrow isn't promised to us? Life ultimately sucks when you look at it from the end of the run: if you had a great life that's ending, that sucks because it's ending; if you had a crappy life, well, that sucks, and now it's ending. Total suckness.
I used to feel that my biggest fear was to die alone. I think that's the top of the list for a lot of people. But I don't fear that any more, because, after all, everyone dies alone. Sure, you may be surrounded by family. You may even go flying off a bridge in a bus with a hundred other people, all fated to cease in the same instant. But even then, you'd be alone. Death is a solitary thing. No one goes with you.
No, my biggest fear is to be the last of my family and friends — but family, especially — to go. Not that I wish it upon any of them, either, but, being the youngest of seven children, I've known all of my siblings for my entire life! With my parents and one sister gone already, I don't think I can take that five more times as I stagger through old age.
What is your biggest fear? Don't you think that you — we — should go about the rest of our days seeing to alleviate that fear? Or at least face it, embrace it to assuage the stress it causes us while we think death is far away?
Does it take death facing us and our stocking feet at the end of a long, polished hardwood-floor, tilted hallway to give us the inspiration to do something interesting with our lives?
David Bowie lived an interesting life. May we all endeavor to express our lives as profoundly and as openly as he expressed his dying.
And my uplifting parting shot for this downer post, a guest-starring appearance by David Bowie on the Ricky Gervais HBO comedy, Extras. I hope you'll have a laugh:
°
Monday, December 28, 2015
Star Wars: A Franchise Awakens
A child of the '70s, I was blown over like a corn stalk in an Iowa tornado by Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It was action-adventure like no one had ever seen, the perfect blend of action, drama, romance, comedy, and cliff-hanger, with a devil-may-care attitude toward the physics and science of space travel, that appealed to adults and children alike. I remember when the credits rolled, I wanted to scream, "More!" The film set the bar very high for even its own sequel to reach, and how clever was Star Wars creator George Lucas to make it "Episode IV?" Clearly there was more to come! The end of the film laid out all the loose ends for a second film to tie up ...if it was successful....
I heard somewhere along the way that George Lucas intended the Star Wars saga to be three film trilogies and, though I hoped and dreamed they would all be made, never in the wildest of those dreams did I imagine that I would be well into my fifties before the credits rolled on the final film.
Well, that final film is in development, its future set in motion by the release of the first film of the final trilogy a mere ten days before the writing of this review.
In development since the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise in 2012, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) has some big shoes to fill. Not only is it the next film in the series, not only does it pick up with the characters — not to mention the actors — we left behind after Return of the Jedi, but it is the film fans have been waiting thirty-two years to see.
Episode VII starts with the familiar, goose bump-inspiring fanfare and the scrolling text that disappears into the infinite distance over the orchestral theme you'll never forget, and one can't help but fear a return to the days of George Lucas-helmed Episodes I, II, and III and the atmosphere of stories so overloaded with information and so rushed one could be led to believe Lucas had a terminal diagnosis and simply had to get them made as quickly as possible! And let the cavalcade of fuzzy, clownish, computer-animated characters remain unmentioned.
Director J.J. Abrams and co-writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt continue to stroke us with the pleasantly familiar, as we see names like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa (a general, now!) float past into oblivion. But the script leans a little too heavily on the familiar, as we see so many themes reminiscent of the original trilogy that at times this film feels like a rehash. Embers of the defeated Empire, now reconstituted as the First Order, search the galaxy to capture Luke Skywalker ...again. A scene in a cantina, replete with all sorts of shady characters from throughout the universe, and a quirky band ...again. The First Order are still in the planet-destroying business with a bigger, better version of the Death Star ...again. A villain wearing a dark helmet with breathing apparatus and voice enhancement set to "sinister." A battle of minds between father and son.
Thematically, Episode VII is a repeat.
But Abrams and company fill the screen with lavish imaginings of worlds and planets and beings, with enough fresh twists on The Force, new and likable characters, family dysfunction, and a few references to the original trilogy with tongue planted firmly in cheek — to make it watchable and — even better — enjoyable.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens has been a hot topic of filmgoers' conversation since Disney announced it was moving forward with the final trilogy. And as the release date neared, the hype grew exponentially, prompting many to ponder if the film could live up to it. For Disney and for Abrams and company, the pressure of meeting that hype pales in comparison to meeting the standards that the Star Wars franchise long ago established for itself. After the damage to the franchise and to fans' enthusiasm for it caused by the reception of Episodes I through III, the climb back up to that standard is formidable.
Does Episode VII meet the hype?
Unfortunately, it doesn't. A generation's worth of buzz and anticipation makes that impossible.
But does it meet the standard?
Yes. Yes it does. Each film in the Star Wars original trilogy triggered a response in its fans beyond and deeper than emotional; a gut feeling. In this film, that gut feeling is there, a muscle memory of the response to the original trilogy that is lacking for Episodes I through III. Despite a reliance on the familiar, "The Force Awakens" successfully resuscitates the Star Wars brand.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens — Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 7.5* — may not inspire you to see it 20-something times like the original film did for many, but you may feel like that kid again, walking out of the theater wondering what could possibly be next for that band of rebels, and wanting to scream, "More!"
("Star Wars The Force Awakens Theatrical Poster" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Star_Wars_The_Force_Awakens_Theatrical_Poster.jpg#/media/File:Star_Wars_The_Force_Awakens_Theatrical_Poster.jpg)
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
I heard somewhere along the way that George Lucas intended the Star Wars saga to be three film trilogies and, though I hoped and dreamed they would all be made, never in the wildest of those dreams did I imagine that I would be well into my fifties before the credits rolled on the final film.
Well, that final film is in development, its future set in motion by the release of the first film of the final trilogy a mere ten days before the writing of this review.
In development since the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise in 2012, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) has some big shoes to fill. Not only is it the next film in the series, not only does it pick up with the characters — not to mention the actors — we left behind after Return of the Jedi, but it is the film fans have been waiting thirty-two years to see.
Episode VII starts with the familiar, goose bump-inspiring fanfare and the scrolling text that disappears into the infinite distance over the orchestral theme you'll never forget, and one can't help but fear a return to the days of George Lucas-helmed Episodes I, II, and III and the atmosphere of stories so overloaded with information and so rushed one could be led to believe Lucas had a terminal diagnosis and simply had to get them made as quickly as possible! And let the cavalcade of fuzzy, clownish, computer-animated characters remain unmentioned.
Director J.J. Abrams and co-writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt continue to stroke us with the pleasantly familiar, as we see names like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa (a general, now!) float past into oblivion. But the script leans a little too heavily on the familiar, as we see so many themes reminiscent of the original trilogy that at times this film feels like a rehash. Embers of the defeated Empire, now reconstituted as the First Order, search the galaxy to capture Luke Skywalker ...again. A scene in a cantina, replete with all sorts of shady characters from throughout the universe, and a quirky band ...again. The First Order are still in the planet-destroying business with a bigger, better version of the Death Star ...again. A villain wearing a dark helmet with breathing apparatus and voice enhancement set to "sinister." A battle of minds between father and son.
Thematically, Episode VII is a repeat.
But Abrams and company fill the screen with lavish imaginings of worlds and planets and beings, with enough fresh twists on The Force, new and likable characters, family dysfunction, and a few references to the original trilogy with tongue planted firmly in cheek — to make it watchable and — even better — enjoyable.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens has been a hot topic of filmgoers' conversation since Disney announced it was moving forward with the final trilogy. And as the release date neared, the hype grew exponentially, prompting many to ponder if the film could live up to it. For Disney and for Abrams and company, the pressure of meeting that hype pales in comparison to meeting the standards that the Star Wars franchise long ago established for itself. After the damage to the franchise and to fans' enthusiasm for it caused by the reception of Episodes I through III, the climb back up to that standard is formidable.
Does Episode VII meet the hype?
Unfortunately, it doesn't. A generation's worth of buzz and anticipation makes that impossible.
But does it meet the standard?
Yes. Yes it does. Each film in the Star Wars original trilogy triggered a response in its fans beyond and deeper than emotional; a gut feeling. In this film, that gut feeling is there, a muscle memory of the response to the original trilogy that is lacking for Episodes I through III. Despite a reliance on the familiar, "The Force Awakens" successfully resuscitates the Star Wars brand.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens — Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 7.5* — may not inspire you to see it 20-something times like the original film did for many, but you may feel like that kid again, walking out of the theater wondering what could possibly be next for that band of rebels, and wanting to scream, "More!"
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Suicide Note
I didn't know you. I never will.
The closest I will come to knowing you will have been the distraught — distraught — woman who passed me several times a day all week through the entrance vestibule two floors below the Critical Care Unit to head outside for a smoke. Never was she far from tears — apparently having just shed them, barely hanging on the edge of them, or outright crying as she sped through. All. Week.
Or the parade of teenagers who came to the hospital today, wide-eyed, a little scared not knowing what to expect. And then, by ones and by twos, they stumbled out of the elevators, faces warped by sorrow, such young, fresh, pretty faces twisted in sad grimace.
A middle-aged woman stood in the the lobby, directing traffic, diverting and dividing the stream of adolescents, sending some to the elevators, some to the chairs to wait. I approached her. "Is it a teacher? A student?"
"Their friend," she said. "He was seventeen."
Was.
Until that moment I didn't know for whom your mother cried through the week. One assumes the loss of an elder, a parent or grandparent, withered by age or ravaged by some nefarious disease.
At that moment, I knew you were still alive. I had overheard it this morning; a man spoke about you in hushed tones into his mobile phone. "Yeah. It's over. They're gonna pull the plug today."
Still alive. Yet the middle-aged woman in the lobby said, "Was."
And so word had gone out that today is it: the technology amassed and arrayed around you in that room somewhere two floors above me, the hums and whirs and beeps that had prolonged your existence for much of the week, would be shut off. And the people who made up the stuff of your life, for whom you were the stuff of theirs, came to say good-bye.
A group of teens — your friends — later shuffled outside to the benches where they could talk, blow off some steam, and have a smoke. And cry.
I stepped outside and approached them. I broke a rule. "What happened to your friend?" I asked.
A young lady, perhaps more world-aware than most her age, said, "I really can't tell you that. I--"
"I can!" A young man spoke with a loud voice and a low threshold for a family's privacy. "He tried to hang himself."
"He did hang himself," said another young man, seated a couple of bodies away from the first. "That's why we're--" An aimless, formless gesture of one hand expressed everything he felt for you that his words couldn't.
I made what I hope looked like a sympathetic expression with my face, and I walked away.
Is this what you wanted? Are these the people upon whom you wished to inflict so much pain? Is their agony worth more than yours in trade? Is what any of them did to you — or didn't do for you — worth what you're putting them through, now?
Did you talk to any of them about it? Could you have talked to them? Were you not aware that so many people loved you? That many of them would have shared your burden? That one of them — just one — might have needed your help to get through?
Did you talk about it to an adult, someone who went through all of the same fear, sadness, anger, loneliness, despair, and pain as a teen, and who came out the other side understanding that you get through it! You get over it! It's not bigger than you! If it's not going to kill you on its own, it's not worth dying over.
But, clearly, you believed it was bigger than you. You made this day one that your friends will never forget. You've opened a hole in your mother that will never close.
I shed a brief tear as I bore silent witness to the heartache your final decision has wrought on everyone who loved you. My tear was for them — your friends, your teachers, your mother — because I know the pain of losing a loved one to suicide, and in that moment I knew your friends and your teachers and your mother.
But I didn't know you. I never will.
°
The closest I will come to knowing you will have been the distraught — distraught — woman who passed me several times a day all week through the entrance vestibule two floors below the Critical Care Unit to head outside for a smoke. Never was she far from tears — apparently having just shed them, barely hanging on the edge of them, or outright crying as she sped through. All. Week.
Or the parade of teenagers who came to the hospital today, wide-eyed, a little scared not knowing what to expect. And then, by ones and by twos, they stumbled out of the elevators, faces warped by sorrow, such young, fresh, pretty faces twisted in sad grimace.
A middle-aged woman stood in the the lobby, directing traffic, diverting and dividing the stream of adolescents, sending some to the elevators, some to the chairs to wait. I approached her. "Is it a teacher? A student?"
"Their friend," she said. "He was seventeen."
Was.
Until that moment I didn't know for whom your mother cried through the week. One assumes the loss of an elder, a parent or grandparent, withered by age or ravaged by some nefarious disease.
At that moment, I knew you were still alive. I had overheard it this morning; a man spoke about you in hushed tones into his mobile phone. "Yeah. It's over. They're gonna pull the plug today."
Still alive. Yet the middle-aged woman in the lobby said, "Was."
And so word had gone out that today is it: the technology amassed and arrayed around you in that room somewhere two floors above me, the hums and whirs and beeps that had prolonged your existence for much of the week, would be shut off. And the people who made up the stuff of your life, for whom you were the stuff of theirs, came to say good-bye.
A group of teens — your friends — later shuffled outside to the benches where they could talk, blow off some steam, and have a smoke. And cry.
I stepped outside and approached them. I broke a rule. "What happened to your friend?" I asked.
A young lady, perhaps more world-aware than most her age, said, "I really can't tell you that. I--"
"I can!" A young man spoke with a loud voice and a low threshold for a family's privacy. "He tried to hang himself."
"He did hang himself," said another young man, seated a couple of bodies away from the first. "That's why we're--" An aimless, formless gesture of one hand expressed everything he felt for you that his words couldn't.
I made what I hope looked like a sympathetic expression with my face, and I walked away.
Is this what you wanted? Are these the people upon whom you wished to inflict so much pain? Is their agony worth more than yours in trade? Is what any of them did to you — or didn't do for you — worth what you're putting them through, now?
Did you talk to any of them about it? Could you have talked to them? Were you not aware that so many people loved you? That many of them would have shared your burden? That one of them — just one — might have needed your help to get through?
Did you talk about it to an adult, someone who went through all of the same fear, sadness, anger, loneliness, despair, and pain as a teen, and who came out the other side understanding that you get through it! You get over it! It's not bigger than you! If it's not going to kill you on its own, it's not worth dying over.
But, clearly, you believed it was bigger than you. You made this day one that your friends will never forget. You've opened a hole in your mother that will never close.
I shed a brief tear as I bore silent witness to the heartache your final decision has wrought on everyone who loved you. My tear was for them — your friends, your teachers, your mother — because I know the pain of losing a loved one to suicide, and in that moment I knew your friends and your teachers and your mother.
But I didn't know you. I never will.
°
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Nostalgia: It Ain't What It Used to Be
The good old days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.
--Billy Joel, "Keeping the Faith," An Innocent Man, 1983
We often look back and reflect on "the good old days," a time — or times — in our lives when life was better, smells were sweeter, food was tastier ...whatever. It was better. Unless a life has been nothing but total shit, we all do it; we pine for those days again.
Or do we?
Personally, I don't want to go back. I happen to like my iPhone and my computer and my Blu-Ray player and my TiVO (even though it's been on the fritz for about a year; I need to get that fixed (HAH! Good days to come!)) and cars with reverse assist cameras and selfie-sticks. What I find myself pining for is the feeling of yesterday, because that's what nostalgia really is.
Whenever I think about "the good old days," I remember that, back then, I didn't realize that then was a time I would look back on fondly and miss. Such realization makes me wonder if today is a day, or if autumn, 2015, is a period of my life I'll look back on in 15 years, sighing and smiling.
The passage of time has a way of softening the edges of our memories, shining a golden light on those we cherish, and often sugar-coating the ones we're not so fond to recall. As I think more about the days of yore, I realize that those days weren't any better than any that have passed since. Thirty five years ago our existence was still overshadowed by the Cold War and the lingering threat of nuclear annihilation, but I still got to see all of my friends every day. In the mid-1980s I enlisted in the Air Force and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, but people bought the Yugo. I pursued a career that lasted 16 years, but its bookends were the deaths of my parents. I got married, but it ended in divorce. I'm in love with a wonderful woman, but Donald Trump.
Times are not good or bad. People fell in love and bore children while war raged. Mothers wept over their lost sons while the nation celebrated victory. Nostalgia isn't rooted in a time of our lives or in an historical era. Nostalgia is rooted in whom we surrounded ourselves with at the time and how they made us feel. And, usually, those times are associated with a period in our lives when we had fewer responsibilities and demands on our attention than we have now. It's easier to enjoy the company of friends when you don't have the insistence of a career or a young family pulling at you. The memories are sweeter when you could cuddle under a blanket with all of the kids and watch a silly movie together than when each teenager's attention is wrapped around a hand-held personal entertainment device plugged into their ears in some remote corner of the house while you sit at the kitchen table and crunch the numbers figuring out how to continue to feed them.
I believe we shouldn't pine for times that were great or special or "better." They weren't. You've lost touch with the people that made your existence then more enjoyable.
Reach out. Find those people. If lines were crossed or bridges were burned, maybe it's time for reconciliation. If it's simply that too much time has gotten between you and those people, maybe they're thinking about those "good old days," too, and a word from you out of the blue would make their day. Or their month.
But don't forget the people around you now. Take stock of them. Appreciate the good feelings you can associate with them, for they are the stuff of tomorrow's memories.
°
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.
--Billy Joel, "Keeping the Faith," An Innocent Man, 1983
We often look back and reflect on "the good old days," a time — or times — in our lives when life was better, smells were sweeter, food was tastier ...whatever. It was better. Unless a life has been nothing but total shit, we all do it; we pine for those days again.
Or do we?
Personally, I don't want to go back. I happen to like my iPhone and my computer and my Blu-Ray player and my TiVO (even though it's been on the fritz for about a year; I need to get that fixed (HAH! Good days to come!)) and cars with reverse assist cameras and selfie-sticks. What I find myself pining for is the feeling of yesterday, because that's what nostalgia really is.
Whenever I think about "the good old days," I remember that, back then, I didn't realize that then was a time I would look back on fondly and miss. Such realization makes me wonder if today is a day, or if autumn, 2015, is a period of my life I'll look back on in 15 years, sighing and smiling.
The passage of time has a way of softening the edges of our memories, shining a golden light on those we cherish, and often sugar-coating the ones we're not so fond to recall. As I think more about the days of yore, I realize that those days weren't any better than any that have passed since. Thirty five years ago our existence was still overshadowed by the Cold War and the lingering threat of nuclear annihilation, but I still got to see all of my friends every day. In the mid-1980s I enlisted in the Air Force and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, but people bought the Yugo. I pursued a career that lasted 16 years, but its bookends were the deaths of my parents. I got married, but it ended in divorce. I'm in love with a wonderful woman, but Donald Trump.
Times are not good or bad. People fell in love and bore children while war raged. Mothers wept over their lost sons while the nation celebrated victory. Nostalgia isn't rooted in a time of our lives or in an historical era. Nostalgia is rooted in whom we surrounded ourselves with at the time and how they made us feel. And, usually, those times are associated with a period in our lives when we had fewer responsibilities and demands on our attention than we have now. It's easier to enjoy the company of friends when you don't have the insistence of a career or a young family pulling at you. The memories are sweeter when you could cuddle under a blanket with all of the kids and watch a silly movie together than when each teenager's attention is wrapped around a hand-held personal entertainment device plugged into their ears in some remote corner of the house while you sit at the kitchen table and crunch the numbers figuring out how to continue to feed them.
I believe we shouldn't pine for times that were great or special or "better." They weren't. You've lost touch with the people that made your existence then more enjoyable.
Reach out. Find those people. If lines were crossed or bridges were burned, maybe it's time for reconciliation. If it's simply that too much time has gotten between you and those people, maybe they're thinking about those "good old days," too, and a word from you out of the blue would make their day. Or their month.
But don't forget the people around you now. Take stock of them. Appreciate the good feelings you can associate with them, for they are the stuff of tomorrow's memories.
°
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Magic, Fleeting
I am a morning person. It's not by choice, but by fate; it seems I always have to roll out of bed at oh-dark-thirty to silence a wake-me-up-unwillingly device. Don't get me wrong, though. I do like mornings. The problem is that I also like late nights. The two, it seems, don't get along together too well.
Browsing through some old photos recently, I came across one I took of a group of young men with whom I was in training to be a Security Specialist in the U.S. Air Force. The photo dates to late winter or early spring of 1984 at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and was taken in the morning, probably a half-hour or so after sunrise. There were many such mornings during the first 18 weeks of my brief Air Force career, but I recall a much different feeling about them then than I have now.
The photo that inspired this post.
Lackland Air Force Base • San Antonio, Texas
winter/spring, 1984 (photo: Tony Gasbarro)
Prior to my time in the Air Force, if I was awake before sunup it was because I had either stayed up all night, or I had been dragged out of my bed by my father for some unwelcome assist for which he insisted upon dragging me out of my bed, after which I most likely leaned my head against the window of his truck on the way to wherever and slept until all the normal people were awake.
When the Air Force insisted that I get out of bed while the surrounding world was still dark, I felt a more urgent need to comply. As the old Army commercials used to say, I found myself doing more before 9:00am than most people did all day. No, seriously, when was the last time you drew an M-16 rifle from an armory and climbed into the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck and rode to a firing range, hmmm? But there I would be, in the classic, military "hurry up and wait," standing around with other young men drawn from their bunks by their sense of duty — or their fear of military courts-martial — and looking at the eastern sky.
Back then there was something magical about a sunrise; thick, black darkness, the horizon purpling and then brightening, blending to orange, clouds illuminated from below, puffy reds and pinks against rich blue. It was a sight I had rarely seen before as a diurnal sleepyhead. There was a magic in the stillness of the morning, then, that could even drown out the horseplay of those other young men around me. The air never held a sweeter aroma at any other time of the day than it held in the early hours, nor a sweeter sound than the morning birds as they busied themselves with their tasks. I remember often wishing that, somehow, the day could stay like that all the time and never grow bright and hot and difficult.
But as military training carried into regular duty, and surreal twilight carried into responsibility and routine and real life, that sense of magic wore off somewhere. I trudged along in life, returning more or less to the diurnal sleepyhead that I had been before. Circumstances later in life have brought me back to the oh-dark-thirty game, but now — somehow — it seems easier to do without threat of military courts-martial or the wrath of Dad. Do I require less sleep? Is there some subconscious reasoning, informed from many years of routine, that says, Just get up and get going! Lying here won't make it any easier? Has breakfast become that important to me?
Probably due to that same subconscious reasoning, my return to early mornings has not brought along with it the magical morning feeling. Been there - done that, I guess.
I still look to the east, still regard the dazzle of the sunrise firing up the clouds, still hear the birds singing, still notice the stillness... but no magic.
Maybe it's the fade of youth, the slow ebb of testosterone. Maybe, as morning is to the day as spring is to the year, I realize I'm in the autumn of my life.
Maybe.
Maybe I'm just tired of getting up so damned early.
°
Browsing through some old photos recently, I came across one I took of a group of young men with whom I was in training to be a Security Specialist in the U.S. Air Force. The photo dates to late winter or early spring of 1984 at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and was taken in the morning, probably a half-hour or so after sunrise. There were many such mornings during the first 18 weeks of my brief Air Force career, but I recall a much different feeling about them then than I have now.
The photo that inspired this post.
Lackland Air Force Base • San Antonio, Texas
winter/spring, 1984 (photo: Tony Gasbarro)
Prior to my time in the Air Force, if I was awake before sunup it was because I had either stayed up all night, or I had been dragged out of my bed by my father for some unwelcome assist for which he insisted upon dragging me out of my bed, after which I most likely leaned my head against the window of his truck on the way to wherever and slept until all the normal people were awake.
When the Air Force insisted that I get out of bed while the surrounding world was still dark, I felt a more urgent need to comply. As the old Army commercials used to say, I found myself doing more before 9:00am than most people did all day. No, seriously, when was the last time you drew an M-16 rifle from an armory and climbed into the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck and rode to a firing range, hmmm? But there I would be, in the classic, military "hurry up and wait," standing around with other young men drawn from their bunks by their sense of duty — or their fear of military courts-martial — and looking at the eastern sky.
Back then there was something magical about a sunrise; thick, black darkness, the horizon purpling and then brightening, blending to orange, clouds illuminated from below, puffy reds and pinks against rich blue. It was a sight I had rarely seen before as a diurnal sleepyhead. There was a magic in the stillness of the morning, then, that could even drown out the horseplay of those other young men around me. The air never held a sweeter aroma at any other time of the day than it held in the early hours, nor a sweeter sound than the morning birds as they busied themselves with their tasks. I remember often wishing that, somehow, the day could stay like that all the time and never grow bright and hot and difficult.
But as military training carried into regular duty, and surreal twilight carried into responsibility and routine and real life, that sense of magic wore off somewhere. I trudged along in life, returning more or less to the diurnal sleepyhead that I had been before. Circumstances later in life have brought me back to the oh-dark-thirty game, but now — somehow — it seems easier to do without threat of military courts-martial or the wrath of Dad. Do I require less sleep? Is there some subconscious reasoning, informed from many years of routine, that says, Just get up and get going! Lying here won't make it any easier? Has breakfast become that important to me?
Probably due to that same subconscious reasoning, my return to early mornings has not brought along with it the magical morning feeling. Been there - done that, I guess.
I still look to the east, still regard the dazzle of the sunrise firing up the clouds, still hear the birds singing, still notice the stillness... but no magic.
Maybe it's the fade of youth, the slow ebb of testosterone. Maybe, as morning is to the day as spring is to the year, I realize I'm in the autumn of my life.
Maybe.
Maybe I'm just tired of getting up so damned early.
°
Monday, November 23, 2015
The Power of the Smile
This is purely anecdotal; if you seek documentation on any of this, I will not — CAN not — provide it, however my word is gold and you had better believe it or poo on you.
I've spent most of my adult life rather self-conscious of my appearance; weak jawline, head — in my opinion — too small for my body, two eyebrows that would prefer to be one, and now, for the last nearly 20 years or so, male pattern baldness. I will admit that these drawbacks are, perhaps, perceptions that prevail from my days of low self-esteem as a teenager and young adult. There is one attribute, however, that bothers me more than the others here listed.
Dammit, I AM smiling.
It would appear that I tested the old wives' tale that recalls your mother yelling at your pouting former child self: "Wipe that frown off your face or it'll freeze like that!"
Now, I didn't have a particularly sad or troubled childhood. I didn't have a particularly happy or exciting childhood, either. Admittedly, I was a fairly mopey, moody, pouty child for no good reason. And I think those youthful days of rapid cell-division and lack of excitement and having to take no for an answer and resenting it really did freeze my face into somewhat of a sad pout. It bothered me often whenever a friend or acquaintance would see me engrossed in a task or absorbed in contemplation, and would say, "Hey, cheer up!" or "You should smile more."
It wasn't until about three or four years ago that the old wives' tale stated ringing in my ears. I felt beaten down by four rotten years of pain and loss (separation and divorce, father's death, job layoff, taxi "career," Jon & Kate Plus Eight canceled), and I could almost feel my face collapsing in on itself. The shit show tapered off to a lame revue in 2011, and through 2012 and '13 — despite growing debt while trying to defibrillate the taxi endeavor — things felt like they were turning around. But in photos I still looked sad. Was it true? Could my pain and sorrow of the prior years make me look pained and sorrowful? Always? Did my face indeed "freeze that way?"
I decided that it had. And I decided that if constant moping about the rotten things in my life, if frequent — perhaps perpetual — pouting could "freeze" my face in a permanent frown, then could I not reverse it by smiling? After all, I figured, is it not just muscle conditioning? Could smiling not retrain the muscles? Could the simple manipulation of the muscles of my lower face and jaw train them, strengthen them, to stay that way ...or at least train them not to draw my face downward into the visage of a bitter hermit? I decided that it could. I decided I would try it.
So, alone most of the time in the taxi, I started exercising the smile muscles. As often as I could remember to do it, I did it. At times I smiled constantly for as long as I could, until the muscles in my cheeks began to spasm and hurt. Then I would relax for a while, and then I would do it again. Day in and day out I practiced, alone and with customers in the car; they couldn't see my face, usually, or, if they could, I just looked like a happy guy. Or crazed, maybe. But mostly happy.
Mostly.
After several months I assessed in the mirror the progress of my little physical therapy project and determined that there either was no merit at all to my exercise theory, or it would take much longer for me to turn my frown upside down on my relaxed face. It had, after all, taken 45 years to bring it to that point.
But then I noticed something peculiar.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
--Joseph Addison
In my previous life — my video career — I spent quite a lot of time on audio/video crews for large business meetings and conventions. Many of the keynote speakers there weren't talking about number crunching or sales goals or building client lists, but rather they talked about the how paying attention to the basic elements of life affected numbers, goals and lists. Quite a few of them talked in varying detail about attitude, and how it affects not only you, but how it affects those around you. A positive attitude, you see, is essential for moving forward, they said. And they said that the first step toward having a positive attitude was to smile.
Wait. What? "Smile?" What a bunch of horse shit, I thought. How can you smile if you're feeling crappy? How can you smile if life just took a dump on your head? But quite a few well-paid keynote speakers delivered that same basic message. Their claim: the physical act of simply smiling releases dopamine in the brain; if you just smile, you instantly feel better; and if you feel better, you perform better; and if you perform better, you serve better; and if you serve better ...blahda yada yada....
Horse shit.
Some years later I found myself assessing my mug in that mirror, bending my face into what had become a most familiar position — a smile — in an attempt to not look so down in the dumps all the time, and, though not particularly happy about anything, I realized that at the moment, and throughout the exercise, I had experienced a peculiar sense of well-being. Even though smiling had begun as purely a physical exercise, the smiles triggered a sort of muscle-memory of happiness, and I experienced happiness that was anchored only in the smile. Doing this daily had truly improved my general mood. Though it seemed I still had a relaxed bitch face, smiles came more easily, more quickly, and they fit my face better than they ever had. My interactions with my taxi customers had become more relaxed; I more easily took the negatives in stride; and my bad moods cleared more quickly after setbacks.
Had smiling really enriched my life? Well, I can't say with any certainty that smiling had a direct impact, but shortly after I retired the taxi, I met Donna, and I've been smiling a lot more ever since.
The words of all those keynote speakers have since faded, but their message has stayed with me:
Smile. It may not make the world a better place, but it will make YOUR world a better place. And what better place to start?
I've spent most of my adult life rather self-conscious of my appearance; weak jawline, head — in my opinion — too small for my body, two eyebrows that would prefer to be one, and now, for the last nearly 20 years or so, male pattern baldness. I will admit that these drawbacks are, perhaps, perceptions that prevail from my days of low self-esteem as a teenager and young adult. There is one attribute, however, that bothers me more than the others here listed.
Dammit, I AM smiling.
It would appear that I tested the old wives' tale that recalls your mother yelling at your pouting former child self: "Wipe that frown off your face or it'll freeze like that!"
Now, I didn't have a particularly sad or troubled childhood. I didn't have a particularly happy or exciting childhood, either. Admittedly, I was a fairly mopey, moody, pouty child for no good reason. And I think those youthful days of rapid cell-division and lack of excitement and having to take no for an answer and resenting it really did freeze my face into somewhat of a sad pout. It bothered me often whenever a friend or acquaintance would see me engrossed in a task or absorbed in contemplation, and would say, "Hey, cheer up!" or "You should smile more."
It wasn't until about three or four years ago that the old wives' tale stated ringing in my ears. I felt beaten down by four rotten years of pain and loss (separation and divorce, father's death, job layoff, taxi "career," Jon & Kate Plus Eight canceled), and I could almost feel my face collapsing in on itself. The shit show tapered off to a lame revue in 2011, and through 2012 and '13 — despite growing debt while trying to defibrillate the taxi endeavor — things felt like they were turning around. But in photos I still looked sad. Was it true? Could my pain and sorrow of the prior years make me look pained and sorrowful? Always? Did my face indeed "freeze that way?"
I decided that it had. And I decided that if constant moping about the rotten things in my life, if frequent — perhaps perpetual — pouting could "freeze" my face in a permanent frown, then could I not reverse it by smiling? After all, I figured, is it not just muscle conditioning? Could smiling not retrain the muscles? Could the simple manipulation of the muscles of my lower face and jaw train them, strengthen them, to stay that way ...or at least train them not to draw my face downward into the visage of a bitter hermit? I decided that it could. I decided I would try it.
So, alone most of the time in the taxi, I started exercising the smile muscles. As often as I could remember to do it, I did it. At times I smiled constantly for as long as I could, until the muscles in my cheeks began to spasm and hurt. Then I would relax for a while, and then I would do it again. Day in and day out I practiced, alone and with customers in the car; they couldn't see my face, usually, or, if they could, I just looked like a happy guy. Or crazed, maybe. But mostly happy.
Mostly.
After several months I assessed in the mirror the progress of my little physical therapy project and determined that there either was no merit at all to my exercise theory, or it would take much longer for me to turn my frown upside down on my relaxed face. It had, after all, taken 45 years to bring it to that point.
But then I noticed something peculiar.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
--Joseph Addison
In my previous life — my video career — I spent quite a lot of time on audio/video crews for large business meetings and conventions. Many of the keynote speakers there weren't talking about number crunching or sales goals or building client lists, but rather they talked about the how paying attention to the basic elements of life affected numbers, goals and lists. Quite a few of them talked in varying detail about attitude, and how it affects not only you, but how it affects those around you. A positive attitude, you see, is essential for moving forward, they said. And they said that the first step toward having a positive attitude was to smile.
Wait. What? "Smile?" What a bunch of horse shit, I thought. How can you smile if you're feeling crappy? How can you smile if life just took a dump on your head? But quite a few well-paid keynote speakers delivered that same basic message. Their claim: the physical act of simply smiling releases dopamine in the brain; if you just smile, you instantly feel better; and if you feel better, you perform better; and if you perform better, you serve better; and if you serve better ...blahda yada yada....
Horse shit.
Some years later I found myself assessing my mug in that mirror, bending my face into what had become a most familiar position — a smile — in an attempt to not look so down in the dumps all the time, and, though not particularly happy about anything, I realized that at the moment, and throughout the exercise, I had experienced a peculiar sense of well-being. Even though smiling had begun as purely a physical exercise, the smiles triggered a sort of muscle-memory of happiness, and I experienced happiness that was anchored only in the smile. Doing this daily had truly improved my general mood. Though it seemed I still had a relaxed bitch face, smiles came more easily, more quickly, and they fit my face better than they ever had. My interactions with my taxi customers had become more relaxed; I more easily took the negatives in stride; and my bad moods cleared more quickly after setbacks.
Had smiling really enriched my life? Well, I can't say with any certainty that smiling had a direct impact, but shortly after I retired the taxi, I met Donna, and I've been smiling a lot more ever since.
The words of all those keynote speakers have since faded, but their message has stayed with me:
Smile. It may not make the world a better place, but it will make YOUR world a better place. And what better place to start?
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Alimental Journey
I don't know... maybe I should just start a film review blog....
It seems that, ever since Big Night (1996), I've had a soft spot for cuisine films. I never saw public advertisement for The Hundred-Foot Journey; I only saw trailers prior to other films, but even then the film looked delectable. Set in southwest France, the film starts off in India, and tells the story of a family who run a restaurant until political change and unrest make them refugees. Through the eyes of Hassan we see the initial upheaval, the attack by political or religious opponents which kills his mother, and the family's arrival in Europe to begin life anew.
Hassan, the oldest son, is a gifted cook, carrying with him his beloved mother's culinary teachings, philosophies, and instincts, as well as her carry-case full of Indian spices. Nomads in Europe at first, the Kadam family are led around the countryside by their father, who claims to speak to and hear his deceased wife, and he follows her word faithfully. Fate in the form of failed brakes in their junker caravan and a generous stranger lead them to a small French village and an abandoned restaurant up for sale. Much to the disdain of Madame Mallory, the owner of the restaurant directly across the street (played by Helen Mirren), the available restaurant is sold to the family, and they begin to set up shop and make the restaurant and the town their home.
The Hundred-Foot Journey pits the Kadam family against Mme. Mallory's kitchen "family" on three tiers; the aspect of direct business competition first gives way to the arrogance of class, as the French matron d', her chef, and her sous chefs scoff at the Indian cuisine, which they pass off as merely curry. But, with the surprise popularity of Kadam's Maison Mumbai — thanks in part both to Papa Kadam's aggressive marketing technique and Hassan's culinary skill — Mme. Mallory finds herself in a petty "war" with Maison Mumbai. Her chef, however, allows his deeper racial hatred reveal itself in an act of violence. When Mme. Mallory learns that the chef's actions have resulted in damage to Maison Mumbai and injury to Hassan, and that he may have been motivated by her own words, her heart softens, and she offers an olive branch to Maison Mumbai, an olive branch that is a key in a door to new worlds.
This film can easily be described as a love story, but it is about many loves — people, food, culture, country — and how our differences can interfere with our growth or let it blossom. The love story between people is an easy given; we know who we want to be with whom, and the film, quite frankly, telegraphs that. The same can be said of the cuisines at odds; if you love to cook and/or experience cuisines, you can enjoy the journey on which this film has invited you with your mouth watering. The other issues are a bit unexpected and may make you feel a little squirmy, but what is a great film if it doesn't do that just a little?
The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, and Charlotte Le Bon. Numb Butt-Cheeks* rating of 8.0 out of 10. Delicious!
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
It seems that, ever since Big Night (1996), I've had a soft spot for cuisine films. I never saw public advertisement for The Hundred-Foot Journey; I only saw trailers prior to other films, but even then the film looked delectable. Set in southwest France, the film starts off in India, and tells the story of a family who run a restaurant until political change and unrest make them refugees. Through the eyes of Hassan we see the initial upheaval, the attack by political or religious opponents which kills his mother, and the family's arrival in Europe to begin life anew.
Hassan, the oldest son, is a gifted cook, carrying with him his beloved mother's culinary teachings, philosophies, and instincts, as well as her carry-case full of Indian spices. Nomads in Europe at first, the Kadam family are led around the countryside by their father, who claims to speak to and hear his deceased wife, and he follows her word faithfully. Fate in the form of failed brakes in their junker caravan and a generous stranger lead them to a small French village and an abandoned restaurant up for sale. Much to the disdain of Madame Mallory, the owner of the restaurant directly across the street (played by Helen Mirren), the available restaurant is sold to the family, and they begin to set up shop and make the restaurant and the town their home.
The Hundred-Foot Journey pits the Kadam family against Mme. Mallory's kitchen "family" on three tiers; the aspect of direct business competition first gives way to the arrogance of class, as the French matron d', her chef, and her sous chefs scoff at the Indian cuisine, which they pass off as merely curry. But, with the surprise popularity of Kadam's Maison Mumbai — thanks in part both to Papa Kadam's aggressive marketing technique and Hassan's culinary skill — Mme. Mallory finds herself in a petty "war" with Maison Mumbai. Her chef, however, allows his deeper racial hatred reveal itself in an act of violence. When Mme. Mallory learns that the chef's actions have resulted in damage to Maison Mumbai and injury to Hassan, and that he may have been motivated by her own words, her heart softens, and she offers an olive branch to Maison Mumbai, an olive branch that is a key in a door to new worlds.
This film can easily be described as a love story, but it is about many loves — people, food, culture, country — and how our differences can interfere with our growth or let it blossom. The love story between people is an easy given; we know who we want to be with whom, and the film, quite frankly, telegraphs that. The same can be said of the cuisines at odds; if you love to cook and/or experience cuisines, you can enjoy the journey on which this film has invited you with your mouth watering. The other issues are a bit unexpected and may make you feel a little squirmy, but what is a great film if it doesn't do that just a little?
The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, and Charlotte Le Bon. Numb Butt-Cheeks* rating of 8.0 out of 10. Delicious!
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
Saturday, September 05, 2015
A Redemption Most Wanted
A month or so back I watched The Muppets (2011), the first Muppets film produced after Disney company's acquisition of the Muppets franchise. I did not write a formal review of the film, but I was generally disappointed with the writing and with the humor, which in the past, under the helm of Jim Henson Productions, had always been wry and sometimes subtle, a trait which carried on even after Muppets creator Jim Henson's death, so I suggested that it was perhaps actually attributable to Frank Oz, who had been with the Muppets from the beginning, and had continued with Jim Henson Productions beyond Henson. Well, Frank Oz no longer appears to be involved with the Muppets film franchise, and to that I attributed the film's dull thud.
Had I not already long ago entered into my Netflix queue the next film in the franchise, Muppets Most Wanted (2014), I never would have put it there, thanks to my disappointment in the prior film. But there it was in my mailbox, so I figured I would let it kill two hours of my life.
Almost from the first frame it launches into a musical number, set up, actually, by the closing scene of the prior film. Amid the post-wrap let-down, the Muppets turn and notice the camera still on them, and the music rolls up for "We're Doin' a Sequel," which unexpectedly — considering my experience last time — delights with an immediately likable melody and wry, self-effacing lyrics:
We're doin' a sequel
That's what we do in Hollywood
And everybody knows that
The sequel's never quite as good...
And the catchy, clever chorus:
Until the credits roll
We've got another go to show
That we can do it all again!
The plot of the film takes flight from this number as, clueless about what to do next, the Muppets throw around ideas, to include Gonzo's brainstorm for a self-gratifying film starring him and lots of chickens (his personal fetish), a Muppets remake of a timeless classic, only renamed to Gonzo With the Wind!
When a film smacks me in the face and starts talking to me in my own language — pun — I take notice.
Led around the world by their new booking agent, Dominic Badguy — "it's pronounced 'bad-jee;' it's French" — portrayed by Ricky Gervais, their tour is paralleled by a string of art museum heists that Interpol and the CIA link to the Muppets. Meanwhile, "the world's most dangerous frog," the number one most wanted international criminal, Constantine — a perfect double for Kermit, save for a huge facial mole — has escaped from a Russian gulag and made his way to Berlin, where Kermit is duped into going for a lonely walk in the fog at the harbor. In Berlin. Landlocked Berlin. Constantine surprises Kermit, glues a fake mole onto his cheek, and then disappears. Kermit is mistaken for Constantine and captured, and sent "back" to the Russian gulag.
There is more subtle, wry humor here, as the Muppets see a marquee outside the theatre venue touting their upcoming performance. "Die Muppets" gives them uneasy pause until Dominic Badguy points out to them that it's German for "The Muppets." One doesn't have to understand German for that to be funny. When Kermit is captured, he is tossed — literally — into a Polizei van atop which, as if a bus, a destination marquee flips from destination PLOTPOINTBURG to RUSSIAN GULAG.
It was at this point in the film that I realized I had already seen and heard a great deal of subtle things, to include nods to old gags from earlier Muppets days and even "Sesame Street." At the point of Kermit's capture Constantine, looking on through the fog, says, "It's not easy being mean." Later, after he has fooled the rest of the Muppets — with the help of Dominic Badguy, who, it is revealed, is the number 2 most wanted criminal in the world, known as The Lemur — into believing that he is really Kermit, and that his Russian accent is only the result of a cold, Constantine says to Walter in his thick Russian accent, "Let us get on with the show and enjoy our family style adventure during which we shall bond and learn heart-warming lesson, perhaps about sharing, or waiting your turn, or the number three."
The second musical number is Constantine reminding the resentful Dominic Badguy that the latter is number 2. If anyone is surprised by Ricky Gervais singing in a musical, then that anyone does not realize that Mr. Gervais was once one half of a very obscure 1980s New Wave duo Seona Dancing that ...well, was very obscure. But the boy can sing.
It was after the "Sesame Street" dig, and a second cleverly sculpted song that I realized I was watching something special. The Muppets are back. More importantly the essence of the Muppets is back!
The film is chock full of cameo and guest starring appearances, with the likes of Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, Ray Liotta, Tina Fey, Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, Celine Dion, Danny Trejo, and Stanley Tucci, to name just a few, some with hilarious turns!
One of my favorite lines: after Walter and Fozzie Bear have escaped Constantine's clutches, having learned his nefarious plan, Constantine — again, still ignorant of who the Muppets even are, and in his thick Russian accent — tells the rest of the Muppets that "Walter and Fonzie have left the 'Mappets.'" Perhaps it was the Scotch leeching into my bloodstream by that point, but I was literally rolling on the couch from that one (no, literally rolling)!
Plotwise, it's typical Muppets family fare. Lots of funny sight gags and one-liners, and truly enjoyable, cleverly written songs. It's not a spoiler to say that it ends happily.
It wasn't until the credits rolled that I was able to identify one of the Russian gulag prisoners' face, a character that was featured in one non-original song ("Working In a Coal Mine"), played by Jemaine Clement. (More on that in a moment.)
I also learned in the credits that the original songs were written by Bret McKenzie, and I thought, "MAN! That guy is a good songwriter."
Then, in the Blu-Ray Extra Features section was a music video of one of the original songs, "I'll Give You Anything You Want," starring the songwriter himself, Bret McKenzie, and that's when it dawned on me: Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie together are the music and comedy duo The Flight of the Conchords! NO WONDER why the songs were so fun, funny and clever!!
Disney redeemed themselves and the reputation of the Muppets franchise with the production team they hired for Muppets Most Wanted. After 2011's The Muppets, which garnered a level of critical acclaim inexplicable to me, they retained director James Bobin and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller, both on hand for the prior film. The difference here is the absence of Jason Segel, who co-wrote and starred in The Muppets. In addition to directing, Bobin co-wrote this time around, which, in my humble opinion, makes Muppets Most Wanted the far superior film.
Muppets Most Wanted (2014). Numb Butt-Cheeks* rating of 7.8 out of 10 ...with a ±2-point Scotch Intoxication Factor.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
Had I not already long ago entered into my Netflix queue the next film in the franchise, Muppets Most Wanted (2014), I never would have put it there, thanks to my disappointment in the prior film. But there it was in my mailbox, so I figured I would let it kill two hours of my life.
Almost from the first frame it launches into a musical number, set up, actually, by the closing scene of the prior film. Amid the post-wrap let-down, the Muppets turn and notice the camera still on them, and the music rolls up for "We're Doin' a Sequel," which unexpectedly — considering my experience last time — delights with an immediately likable melody and wry, self-effacing lyrics:
We're doin' a sequel
That's what we do in Hollywood
And everybody knows that
The sequel's never quite as good...
And the catchy, clever chorus:
Until the credits roll
We've got another go to show
That we can do it all again!
The plot of the film takes flight from this number as, clueless about what to do next, the Muppets throw around ideas, to include Gonzo's brainstorm for a self-gratifying film starring him and lots of chickens (his personal fetish), a Muppets remake of a timeless classic, only renamed to Gonzo With the Wind!
When a film smacks me in the face and starts talking to me in my own language — pun — I take notice.
Led around the world by their new booking agent, Dominic Badguy — "it's pronounced 'bad-jee;' it's French" — portrayed by Ricky Gervais, their tour is paralleled by a string of art museum heists that Interpol and the CIA link to the Muppets. Meanwhile, "the world's most dangerous frog," the number one most wanted international criminal, Constantine — a perfect double for Kermit, save for a huge facial mole — has escaped from a Russian gulag and made his way to Berlin, where Kermit is duped into going for a lonely walk in the fog at the harbor. In Berlin. Landlocked Berlin. Constantine surprises Kermit, glues a fake mole onto his cheek, and then disappears. Kermit is mistaken for Constantine and captured, and sent "back" to the Russian gulag.
There is more subtle, wry humor here, as the Muppets see a marquee outside the theatre venue touting their upcoming performance. "Die Muppets" gives them uneasy pause until Dominic Badguy points out to them that it's German for "The Muppets." One doesn't have to understand German for that to be funny. When Kermit is captured, he is tossed — literally — into a Polizei van atop which, as if a bus, a destination marquee flips from destination PLOTPOINTBURG to RUSSIAN GULAG.
It was at this point in the film that I realized I had already seen and heard a great deal of subtle things, to include nods to old gags from earlier Muppets days and even "Sesame Street." At the point of Kermit's capture Constantine, looking on through the fog, says, "It's not easy being mean." Later, after he has fooled the rest of the Muppets — with the help of Dominic Badguy, who, it is revealed, is the number 2 most wanted criminal in the world, known as The Lemur — into believing that he is really Kermit, and that his Russian accent is only the result of a cold, Constantine says to Walter in his thick Russian accent, "Let us get on with the show and enjoy our family style adventure during which we shall bond and learn heart-warming lesson, perhaps about sharing, or waiting your turn, or the number three."
The second musical number is Constantine reminding the resentful Dominic Badguy that the latter is number 2. If anyone is surprised by Ricky Gervais singing in a musical, then that anyone does not realize that Mr. Gervais was once one half of a very obscure 1980s New Wave duo Seona Dancing that ...well, was very obscure. But the boy can sing.
It was after the "Sesame Street" dig, and a second cleverly sculpted song that I realized I was watching something special. The Muppets are back. More importantly the essence of the Muppets is back!
The film is chock full of cameo and guest starring appearances, with the likes of Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, Ray Liotta, Tina Fey, Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, Celine Dion, Danny Trejo, and Stanley Tucci, to name just a few, some with hilarious turns!
One of my favorite lines: after Walter and Fozzie Bear have escaped Constantine's clutches, having learned his nefarious plan, Constantine — again, still ignorant of who the Muppets even are, and in his thick Russian accent — tells the rest of the Muppets that "Walter and Fonzie have left the 'Mappets.'" Perhaps it was the Scotch leeching into my bloodstream by that point, but I was literally rolling on the couch from that one (no, literally rolling)!
Plotwise, it's typical Muppets family fare. Lots of funny sight gags and one-liners, and truly enjoyable, cleverly written songs. It's not a spoiler to say that it ends happily.
It wasn't until the credits rolled that I was able to identify one of the Russian gulag prisoners' face, a character that was featured in one non-original song ("Working In a Coal Mine"), played by Jemaine Clement. (More on that in a moment.)
I also learned in the credits that the original songs were written by Bret McKenzie, and I thought, "MAN! That guy is a good songwriter."
Then, in the Blu-Ray Extra Features section was a music video of one of the original songs, "I'll Give You Anything You Want," starring the songwriter himself, Bret McKenzie, and that's when it dawned on me: Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie together are the music and comedy duo The Flight of the Conchords! NO WONDER why the songs were so fun, funny and clever!!
Disney redeemed themselves and the reputation of the Muppets franchise with the production team they hired for Muppets Most Wanted. After 2011's The Muppets, which garnered a level of critical acclaim inexplicable to me, they retained director James Bobin and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller, both on hand for the prior film. The difference here is the absence of Jason Segel, who co-wrote and starred in The Muppets. In addition to directing, Bobin co-wrote this time around, which, in my humble opinion, makes Muppets Most Wanted the far superior film.
Muppets Most Wanted (2014). Numb Butt-Cheeks* rating of 7.8 out of 10 ...with a ±2-point Scotch Intoxication Factor.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
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