I want to tell you some things about my cat Chooch...
As I write this I am sobbing. I have that saline taste in my nose. Tears are burning their way down my face and my stomach and shoulders are contracting. I've had some big losses in the last few years. My mother died on January 12, 2015. Chooch died this past Saturday April 28, 2018. Near as we can figure she started getting sick in late January or early February. She began vomiting. If you are a cat owner, you know that some of this is normal. Hairballs. Eating food too fast. At the beginning of March it became evident that something was wrong. We began to try to work through the problem. Asking around. Doing research. We began to switch foods and to limit portions to see if it would help. It didn't. One night she was on the couch and began to projectile vomit and I told my wife that we needed to take her to the vet. We went a total of three times. The first was about running blood tests. We were so grateful when the tests came back negative. The next involved an x-ray which showed that she had an enlarged stomach. We... I didn't know what that meant. I now know that you need at least two points of reference to correctly identify a problem. When we talked to people at the pet store, they would ask about her age and we would say that we thought she was 15 and they would cast their eyes downward. I didn't understand what that meant either. I do now.
The last vet visit was 3 days ago. It was the third and final. I was frustrated. I had been trying to give her pills to no avail. Gina would crush up her medicine and sit with her and gently plead with her to eat something. I would hear her vomit in the middle night and I would wake up and say, "Nooooo.... please.... " as if that would do anything. The last few days she would even vomit after getting water. It was foam. There was no food in her stomach. she had dropped a pound between the second and final pet visits. The vet was a young woman. She had laryngitis, so her voice was almost a whisper. They took Chooch back for an MRI and another x-ray. They came back to get us and I could see the looks on their faces. We were shown the x-ray and we were told that her liver was failing and that she had a mass in her stomach, most likely cancer. She then showed us how jaundiced Chooch was. Something we hadn't noticed. Her gums were yellow... and around her eyes. I looked at Gina and back to the doctor and I said, "I think we've reached the end." Gina began sobbing. I nodded to the doctor and we went back to the room to spend our last moments with her.
A candle was lit at the main desk to let others know that we were saying goodbye. I held her for a moment and then handed her to Gina. The vet came in to give her an initial sedative. She saw that Chooch was hugging Gina and said, "Oh my God. She's hugging her." Soon Chooch was sedated and we laid her out flat on the table. I want to believe that she was out of pain for the last bit. They gave her another injection and her heart stopped about 45 seconds later. There were no convulsions or strange sounds. Her little body had fought as hard as it could and there was nothing left at the end. They asked if we wanted ashes and I said no. I opted for a paw print in clay. I initialed the paperwork. I paid the bill. I didn't want Gina's hand to it. It was my job as her protector. I couldn't stop her from getting sick, but I wanted to believe that we saved her from the worst of it.
The next morning before I awoke I had a dream that I saw her again and she said she was sorry for getting sick and I started crying and said, "No, no, no my sweet baby girl. It wasn't your fault. You were the best kitty anyone could ever ask for." And then I asked her if she was sick now and she said she wasn't and I said, "That's my good girl." and I began petting her and telling her how much we loved her and that we would always love her.
This morning Gina left for work and had her earrings with the Kurt Vonnegut quote.
She was 1/3 of our family and her loss is devastating. It's not like an engine going out on a plane and the plane keeps flying. The whole fucking plane crashed. Gina and I survived but we are hurt badly and it will be a long recovery. Nothing will ever be the same. Is anything ever?
I keep looking around and seeing her everywhere. There is not a single memory in the last 15 years that she was not a part of.
I think that is what is meant about the death tarot card not being about death. You aren't actually grieving death. You're grieving the loss of an old life. Our family will survive and go on, but we won't be the same as we were before. I told Gina a couple of things as we sat in bed at night that I would like to share. First, we got her as a kitten and I didn't fully realize that our ages had diverged. She was there and I thought she would always be there, even though I knew that wasn't possible on an intellectual level.
Secondly, I think that I understood that time was running out in much the same way as you might hear a conversation while you are underwater in a pool. When the end came, I was so completely unprepared. How can you prepare for a thing like that? As we left, I looked at her lifeless body on the table one last time and I said to myself,"That's not her." Her physical form was how she interfaced with us, but what made her what she was and what we truly loved had departed and exists now only in our hearts.
That is the end of the story. The rest of it is so vast I couldn't tell it in 15 volumes. It was a love as big as the universe. It was a bond. It was... family.
Gina picked her out for me as a Valentine's Day present. She was so tiny. At night she slept on our bed. At first she slept between us, high up on the bed. Gina says that one night I rolled over on her and she mewed and I silently rolled back over. After that she slept in a corner of the bed. Our sleeping arrangements were as follows... Israel (Gina) The West Bank (Chooch) and the Gaza Strip (Me).
Chooch loved Christmas. Here she is tuckered out on her Christmas presents.
She was one of life's great sleepers and she had lots of warm soft places to rest.
She loved my old blanket so much that I ended up making a cat bed out of it.
One of my most favorite things in the whole wide world was to have her beside me on the couch and to rest my hand on her and feel her purr.
One of her favorite spots was my underwear and socks cubby. If there were too many socks for her to fit she would drag them out and make room.
I loved putting toys on her. She was such a good sport about it.
Look how beautiful she was. she had a black farfalla on her forehead. I used to tell her how much I loved her pink nose and her gorgeous green eyes.
Gina and I loved singing songs to her and about her. It was very easy to substitute a "you" in a song with "Chooch".
It's the bargain of life. The more you loved someone the more it hurts to lose them.
I told Gina that I can't stop thinking about when she got sick and that can't be all there is to life. To have a mostly great time and a sucky bit at the end. She told me I was trying to use my logic to process my grief and she was right.
Love is like the concentric circles made from throwing a stone into a pond. The ripples radiate out and touch all shores. Here she is at her most radiant.
I will never forget her or how much she meant as a part of our family. I am a far better person for having that unconditional love in my life.
3. Novel - The People’s Republic Of Retail (Chapter 5)
4. Novel - A Measure Of Things
1. Novella - Descent aka In A Place Beyond Heaven
1. BLOG - Williamsburg Bridge
a. Hopper
b. Films
c. Literature
d. Sonny Rollins (Commercial on YouTube)
e. Music
f. Seanna Sharpe
g. Comic books
h. Chris Doyle
2. BLOG - Sixth Generation Video Game Reviews
a. Viewtiful Joe GC
b. Darkwatch XBOX
c. Red Dead Revolver XBOX
d. Destroy All Humans XBOX
e. Psychonauts XBOX
f. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem GC
g. Voodoo Vince XBOX
h. Whiplash XBOX
i. Stubbs The Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse XBOX
j. Oddworld Stranger's Wrath XBOX
3. BLOG - Through The Earwormhole Part IV: Post Rock
4. BLOG - Through The Earwormhole Part V: Fusion
5. BLOG - Robert Fripp & The Death Of Gwen Stacy
6. BLOG - Retro Movie Reviews Part I: The White Buffalo (1977)
1. Children’s Book: Mr. Wigglebottom
Heinrich, or sometimes “Henry” or “Hank” Wigglebottom is a six foot tall rabbit who wears a monocle and a top hat and and only says one word ever, “Indubitably”.
I was talking to a friend at work about the fantastic soundtrack for the 1994 Oliver
Stone film “Natural Born Killers”. It occurred to me that I had not seen the film for quite
some time even though I own it. It hit theaters 2 years after I graduated high school. I was in a transition period and preparing to move to Jacksonville from Southern Illinois with my then fiance. I did not see it in the theater. I’m quite sure I either rented it from the local video store or bought it outright probably through Columbia House or some other such service.
I was/am/always will be a lover of film. I’m probably not a good critic because I love films so much that I rarely see the flaws and focus on things that connect with me in one way or another. When I was a kid in Arizona, I spent some time with my cousins and there was a summer movie program at the theater where kids could see movies relatively cheaply. Arizona is hot. Theaters are dark and cool. That’s one thing. What kid doesn’t love popcorn and soda and candy? Certainly I did. I remember seeing films with my Great Grandmother Naomi and she would sneak in tons of goodies in her giant bottomless blue bag. She, like my dad, usually fell asleep after the first 5 minutes or so. I can honestly say I have never fallen asleep while watching a movie… in a theater.
When my mother moved us to Golconda, Illinois the summer before I began high school, I felt like I had dropped off the face of the earth. It was a town that lacked both a cinema and a bookstore, two requirements for me. There was a theater in Paducah, Kentucky, but that might as well have been the moon. I didn’t have a license… or a vehicle, not to mention, we were dirt poor. I immediately began picking up odd jobs, mostly mowing lawns, in an effort to save up for a used VHS player from the local pawn shop. Mercifully, someone opened up a video store and pizza joint called Pudgy’s and I signed my card and paid my dues. This process took over a year and it felt like an eternity. When my wife and I traveled to Golconda from our home in Sarasota a few years back, Pudgy’s still had VHS tapes. Many I recognized from multiple rentals.
My hunger during this forced fast has never been satiated. I watch tons of films,
many multiple times. I have an extensive movie collection and my list of favorites is
constantly evolving. I have lost friendships arguing about films. Mostly, I can’t stand
the cynicism that people bring to films. Their lack of suspension of disbelief is
something I find galling. I am still bewildered why some people hate the film
Prometheus… or The Last Jedi… or many others (too numerous to mention) with
such vitriol.
It especially bugs me when amateur critics can’t elucidate their points. Like Free Jazz, there are some films that you have to bring something of yourself to the table. You have to meet the artist halfway. Some “difficult” directors may require you to evolve to a certain point so that you can understand their work. David Lynch was one of those for me. His work didn’t gel with me at first. I was too stuck on linear narrative to get everything I could from his films. I have evolved and I appreciate his output tremendously. This is a case where a film doesn’t suck because you don’t get it. It simply didn’t connect with you. Some people find this process tedious and pretentious and that is why you have endless sequels to sure thing franchises. Safe bets put asses in seats, money in pockets and popcorn in gullets.
There is nothing wrong with that last part by the way. There are so many films that
serve so many differing purposes for wide and varied swaths of people. I loved
Kong: Skull Island. It was the epitome of a fun summer film.
I didn’t approach it like it was Citizen Kane. I went in with the right mindset and left
with a big goofy grin on my face. Some films are fun. Some are dumb fun. Some are
smart fun. Some are educational. Some are artistic. Some are flawed masterpieces
and some are just plain masterpieces. Some films fail because they are marketed
poorly and aimed at the wrong audience. Some find success later as cult favorites.
Natural Born Killers was controversial when it came out. I remember that. I feel
confident that at least some of the controversy was manufactured by Oliver Stone himself.
I remember a Greyhound Bus trip from Southern Illinois to Arizona to see my father one
Christmas when I was a junior in high school. I read Mario Puzo’s “The Fourth K” on the
journey. Read… more like devoured. I loved that book. I was aware of Puzo as the novelist who wrote and co-adapted “The Godfather” novel and film. The New York Times called “The Fourth K” a , “a garrish comic book” which was fine by me. I loved comic books. Still do. I bring this up because Puzo’s novel and the Oliver Stone film “JFK” both came out around the same time. I saw the film in a Phoenix theater shortly after it was released on December 20, 1991. That was enough to set off a virulent case of JFK fever. If you have ever suffered from this malady you know that you have an insatiable desire to find out everything you can about the most dramatic and tragic event in American political history.
I was fully on board. I was jacked in. Sadly, Mario Puzo died in 1999, but Oliver Stone
kept making films. His technique was to throw in a bit of everything in the soup pot of his
directorial choices. A lot of things worked. Some didn’t. He was always willing to go
further down the rabbit hole than I was willing to follow. He lost me with some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories. He seemed to be more open minded than I could be about controversial things. Recently, while watching the special features on NBK, I was reminded of some of these bridges too far.
Many film enthusiasts (myself included) consider “Fitzcarraldo” a true masterpiece.
If you pressed them, some would admit that the obstacles encountered during filming
add to the allure. This leaves a giant question in my mind. Why are we able to look past
the sins of director’s like Coppola, Stone, Herzog and yet we single Quentin Tarantino
out for recklessness during the filming of “Kill Bill”? Changing morals? Different times?
It’s worth noting that Quentin Tarantino wrote the script for Natural Born Killers.
This is the director Randall Miller (CBGB). During the filming of the Gregg Allman biopic “Midnight Rider” a camera operator named Sarah Jones was killed when she was struck by a train. This was not the first death on a film set, but Miller received the dubious distinction of being the first filmmaker to serve time in prison for the death of a member of his crew.
Two camera operators were injured filming this scene. Both reportedly blamed
Oliver Stone.
Oliver Stone came dangerously close to providing Charles Manson an alibi during
the special features of NBK. As someone who read “Helter Skelter” in high school, this
was a dividing point. This was not the first time Oliver Stone expressed controversial
positions and certainly won’t be the last. I am left of center politically and in some ways
how I feel about Oliver Stone is similar to how I feel about Bill Maher. For every single
point I find myself in agreement with Maher (or Stone) there are at least 3 others
where I differ… sometimes quite strongly.
As a young man I felt that art shouldn’t have limits and shouldn’t be afraid of controversy.
This is “Immersion” (more commonly known as “Piss Christ”) a 1987 photograph by
the artist and photographer Andres Serrano. This is one of the images (along with
works by Robert Mapplethorpe) cited by the arch conservative Jesse Helms, who was
head of the National Endowment for the Arts, in an effort to defund the NEA.
I defended this work quite vociferously to anyone who would listen. I felt that there
were many meanings that could be derived from it (aside from the sacrilegious) and
that each was important. Nowadays, I feel like controversial art is important for one
main reason - it sparks discussion.
The French satirical weekly magazine “Charlie Hebdo” published cartoons of the
Islamic prophet Muhammad. On January 7, 2015 two terrorists killed twelve members
of the staff. If I could sit down with Young Mike and have an intellectual discussion, I
would love to ask where he stands on artistic freedom in the wake of this horrible
atrocity? Certainly Old Mike doesn’t have an easy canned answer to this one.
The best statement I can make is: I do not believe in censorship of art. However,
hate speech and those who put it forth in the world are quite sophisticated in masking
ideology as art.
My old high school civics teacher Mr. Bramlett (R.I.P.) would say something like -
You are free to say and do anything, so long as you are prepared to accept the
consequences.
During the special features of NBK, the superb actor Tommy Lee Jones refers
to Molière when discussing the film. Molière’s satires attracted criticisms from the
Catholic Church and moralists alike. It’s clear that he viewed NBK as a satire and
the critiques of the film to primarily originate from modern day regressives.
My question when it comes to violence in films boils down to whether or not it
is necessary. For instance, if a film is made about King Leopold II, you should
expect to see some violence. If you are watching a film called “Fuzzy Wuzzy
Bear” it’s likely to expect minimal beheadings. These are, of course, two extreme
examples and the devil is always where the lines aren’t so easily drawn. A
filmmaker might defend the right to play with the expectations of the audience.
I would throw my lot in as well. I would add the caveat that the commercial revenues
for the film will probably reflect to which degree this is executed.
Statistically, we know that violence is down all around the world.
