Fathers' Day Note

Fathers and sons, maybe there's always a little tension in that relationship.  Almost all fathers are imperfect in the role; almost all children don't live up to the limitless hopes and dreams that parents have for them.  This stuff ain't easy. 

 The following is a letter that the great Michelangelo sent to his father back in long ago Florence.  I got it from a magazine called Lapham's Quarterly, which has a generous website and is always worth a look. 

Father vs. Son

Dearest Father—

I was amazed at your behavior the other day when I didn’t find you at home, and now, when I hear that you’re complaining about me and saying I turned you out, I am even more amazed; for I’m certain that never, from the day I was born till now, have I thought of doing anything, great or small, to harm you; and always all the toils I’ve endured, I’ve endured them for your sake. And since I came back to Florence from Rome, I’ve always looked after you, and you know I confirmed that all I have is yours; and indeed it’s only a few days ago, when you were ill, that I told you and promised that I would do my best never to fail you as long as I live, and this I confirm. Now I’m amazed that you’ve forgotten everything so soon. Yet you’ve tried me out these thirty years, you and your sons, and you know I’ve always thought about you and helped you whenever I could. How can you go around saying that I turned you out? Don’t you see what a reputation you’re giving me when they can say I turned you out? That’s all I needed, on top of my worries about other things, and all for your sake! A nice way you have of thanking me!

Back to Khun Fred here.  So, fathers, and sons too for that matter, are often guilty of unreasonable expectations or ingratitude.  It happens. 

Happy Fathers' Day to all of the dads out there in general, and to my own father and my sons in particular.  (One son a father already; another son aspirational at this point.)  If you did the best that you could, or if you're doing that now, your conscience is clear.  Being imperfect is not your fault.  

I hope that you had a great day!

Heard You Missed Me

How's that title for wishful thinking?

I've been busy, and that other thing that can make a blogger go quiet.  One month in America, denied access by my friends at Google.  Came back to teach the summer term.  Then proctoring tests.  Then moving to a new (rented) condo.  It's been a busy, slightly stressful time.

Just settling into the new place now.  Very interesting.  It's on the 12th floor and it has a nice view.  One great component of the view is that I'll be able to watch them build this thing.  The tallest building in South East Asia at a proposed 615 meters.  The Rama IX Super Tower, named for Thailand's king, I'm pretty sure, although it does front on Rama IX Road.  Okay, both named for the king, most likely.  125 floors!  Not a bad design, to my eye.

So don't worry, I'm fine.  More wishful thinking! 

The Joys Of Air Travel

(From notes made on April 23, 2015.) 

Which turned out to be a Thursday.  I had confused myself mightily about the day that I was taking off to return to Thailand.  My flight left at half-past midnight, but was I going to the airport on Wednesday evening or Thursday evening?  I had been in the U.S. for four weeks, and I was in quite a state by the last few days.

This was the hardest trip that I’ve ever taken.  But at least I was at the gate waiting for the plane to go home to my adopted country.  The easiest part would be sitting through the eighteen hours of air time, in two legs, before I got there.

I do not recommend traveling with guitars.  They look all light and airy watching a YouTube video or something, but once you put them in hard cases and carry them by the handles they get awfully heavy very bloody quickly.  On this trip I was traveling with one suitcase as big as Dallas; one canvas attaché case that felt like I was smuggling Glocks; and two guitars.  I was thinking, hoping, that both of the guitars would to in the checked baggage.  But no, when the dimensional computations had been completed, one went to “oversize,” delivered by me, and the other went to “gate use,” hand carried to the gate by me.  I was afraid that I’d have to carry it around the stopover airport too, but happily it went straight through to “oversize baggage” in Bangkok. 

None of this, not the bags, not the guitars, not the eighteen flight hours, will even approach the top of the “bloody awful” list for this trip.  But those are stories for another day, at least until after the nightmares stop.

Having spoken with my cousin, whom I call “Mr. Up-In-The-Air,” with untold millions of miles to his credit, I tried a new trick at check-in.  “Are there any upgrades available?”  Indeed, there were.  I was offered an upgrade to premium economy for a mere $750.  I declined.  Those seats are only slightly more spacious, and they are laid out in a 2-4-2 configuration.  I much prefer the 3-3-3 of regular economy, and I had the “G” seat, which I think is perfect.  That’s on the right isle, the starboard isle, of the middle three.  In a “G” seat, I’ve never had anyone climb over me to get out, not once.  Often the middle seat is empty, those are the last ones to go, and often the people in the “E” and the “F” seats are traveling together.  If the “F” wants to get out, he’ll climb over his friend.   So no, I’ll stick with my “G” seat. The middle seat was, indeed, empty.  

I did mention business class upgrades.  I had been prepared to pay up to $1000 for the privilege.  “Yes, sir,” said the lovely Chinese Tiffany, “$3000.”  I declined as politely as I could manage, which only included one brief choked scream. 

In case anyone needs a lesson, and provided strictly as a public service, here’s what you do on a commercial flight:

You sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

You sit down and you come to rest.

You leave the seat back upright and the tray table up.

You shut your phone off, preferably before they ask you to turn it off.

And please know that there is a particularly disagreeable circle of Hell prepared for people who grab and twist the seat back in front of them willy-nilly. 

And no flipping around like a sturgeon in the bottom of a boat either.  There’ll be plenty of time for calisthenics when you get where you’re going.

And no disturbing the peace of the seat back in front of you, keep your knees off of it as well as your hands.  (Unless you’re over 6’2”, in which case you can’t help it and you have my sympathy.  But even then, please keep it to a minimum. )

Issue of first impression!!!  I’ve been traveling by plane for over sixty years now, and this had never happened before.  We were at altitude with the cabin lights out and suddenly there’s an urgent announcement and the lights come on.  “Would all doctors or other medical personnel please step forward immediately.”  The entire cabin crew started running up and down the isles frantically asking us individually if we were doctors.  I was afraid that we’d have to make an emergency landing in the Aleutians or something, but the subject never came up.  We never heard what had happened.

I’ve never been so glad to be home.  When our wheels touched the ground in Bangkok I smiled ear to ear for five minutes.  I even brought the good weather!  April is the hottest month in Thailand, by far, and the typical three week hot streak broke the day that I arrived.  Then it started raining, and temperatures moderated even further.   Further proof that I am a lucky man, as if more proof were needed.    

So Yes, I'm Back

I'm back from my trip to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  Back in the country that actually calls itself "The Land of the Free," right in the country's name (Thailand).  I'm very happy to be here, to be home.

The less said about the trip the better, although I'm sure that it will come up.  After the nightmares stop, maybe.

Google, and Hotmail too for that matter, decided to protect me from myself for the entire trip.  On this trip, and for the first time, after ten years of traveling around and signing in from everywhere, they decided that I was a security risk to myself because I was not at my customary IPO.  There was nothing that I could do to convince them that it was me, either.  Believe me, I tried.  I was provided with codes that somehow never "matched the code in our files."  Even after I got back it took me a half hour to convince them that it was me now and it had been me in Los Angeles too.  I'm sure they'll apologize.

Nice to be back.  Sorry for the forced absence.

Not A Movie Review: Godzilla Raids Again

This is the rare one.  The first sequel, released in Japan in 1955.  It's been hard to see for all of this time.  I've seen all of the other Godzilla movies multiple times, but I had never seen this one until I got hold of a very nice DVD recently.  Full length, in Japanese, with English subtitles (or in a dubbed version, both are on the DVD).

I always say, "not a movie review," because my concerns are not academic at all.  For instance, I'm overly fascinated with the devices and the vehicles.

And the suits are a fascinating subject too.  The suit in "Raids Again" was a good one, certainly much better than the movies that followed in the 1960's.  Godzilla usually appears at night in this movie, with great use of fire as a prop.  The high contrast scenes enhance the effectiveness of the G suit.

There's always a lot of discussion in the Godzilla community about the quality of the monster fights.  The fights in this movie were spectacular, better than anything that followed until 2001's Godzilla, Mothra, King Gidorah:  Giant Monsters All Out Attack.  The opponent in this movie is called Anguilas.  The climactic fight ends in a spectacular, bloody kill with a neck-breaking bite followed by a blast of Atomic Breath.

That's the leading man on the left, Hiroshi Koizumi.  He had made twelve movies already, and went on to clock ninety-four all together, including Mothra and five other Godzilla movies.  The actors in these movies were real pros, they could be believable in any type of role.

The fellow on the right is the best friend, Minoru Chiaki.  You may remember him from Seven Samurai (1954?), where he played the likeable but very strong, heavy set samurai who was an old comrade of Takashi Shimura's.  (Takashi's in this movie too, same professor as in the original Godzilla).  He was in a lot of really high quality movies, starting out with Stray Dog in 1949.  Always the best friend.  He died in Seven Samurai, and he dies in this movie too.  The curse of the best man.

The leading lady, Setsuko Wakayama.  This was her only Godzilla movie.  She does a good job of it.

I include this picture for my Thai friends.  This is a party to celebrate (prematurely) the end of this Godzilla crisis, and the party is being held in the Yayoi Restaurant!  Just like the Yayoi in every mall in Bangkok!

There's a long interlude of peaceful human interaction after Godzilla kills Anguilas, but off course the G-Man returns.  They "kill" him by causing avalanches that buries him in snow and ice.

Very good music in this movie, too.  It echos the themes of the original, but is simultaneously more martial and less strident.

It's a good movie.  I have no idea why it's been kept so under wraps all of these years.  It's certainly better on all counts than some of the '60's movies.  Better human characters, better story, better acting, better monster fights.  I'm glad that it's out there to see at this point.

Air Travel, The New Thrill Ride

My first airplane flight was in 1952.  Washington D.C. to La Guardia on an American Airlines Lockheed Constellation.  I was four.  Since then I've taken hundreds of trips by plane, flying in everything from the relatively safe Boeings to the dreaded Lockheed Electra.  For most of my life I just enjoyed the excitement of it, without worrying about the possibilities of trouble.  More recently, I must admit, the thrill has become a little darker.

No surprise.  These days I even get a little bit scared on the upper floors of high buildings. 

I'll be leaving for the airport in a couple of hours.  This trip is one of those twenty-four-hour marathons from South East Asia to California.  As a cheerful sendoff, a GermanWings Airbus A-320 crashed into the French mountains this morning. 

Honestly, I still understand that there are a huge number of successful take-offs and landings around the world every day, virtually all of which are trouble free.  But the last year or so has not been without signs of trouble in the air travel business.  Pilot errors, total mysteries, and the growing suspicion that modern planes are so automated that pilots are forgetting how to fly, quite a litany of crashes. 

Still, the odds are with me.  I won't be getting any travel insurance.  I'll be fine.  I'm sure!  Probably.

The Accommodation Of Impending Death

I just read about an established poet who was finding some kind of new success in his exploitation of his impending death.  From what, I didn't bother reading.  Dude might be crying about it, or he might just be trying to help the rest of us understand the process, I don't care.  We all die of something, and I'm not detail oriented.

I snorted a derisive laugh and said, to no one in particular, impending death?  shit, that's where we all live.  Maybe we should all cash in on that ticket.  We're all going there, why not all cash in?  Some of us will be gone in a heartbeat; some in an eye blink; some will last what seems like forever.  We're all going though, and it all works out to "soon" in the scheme of things.  

Am I dying?  Sure.  That's the only condition available to the living.  What, you think it happens all at once?  One day you will go to sleep comfortably alive and then, somehow, without warning, you will be dead the next day?  As Howard Stern's father used to say:  don't be stupid, you moron.

Upon reflection, it does happen.  It happens to people who die in unfortunate accidents in the prime of life, or even before.  I'll always remember Nancy Rennart, my little sister's friend, who died of misadventure on a bicycle at the age of about seven.  I remember my own friends Hilary and Flip, who died shortly after high school of car accident and fire, respectively.  For some, the end comes almost immediately.  There's a grave right across the isle from my grandparents that is a particular cautionary tale for me.  Little Joey Tanaka, Joseph, born the same August as me in 1948 and dead before his first September. 

For the rest of us, it goes a little like this:  at twenty-five, you're hardly dead at all; at thirty-five, you might start to see it on the horizon; at forty-five, you've begun to notice little hints that the party will end some day; at fifty-five, you're probably starting to panic; at sixty-five, you accept that it will happen, and you understand that it is happening slowly right fucking now; if you're lucky enough to be alive at seventy-five, you probably feel three-fourths dead already.  After that, every day is a miracle.

I don't think that it is cool when some among us discover that they are dying and thereupon become so interested in the process that they must devote themselves to writing about it, or, more likely, discover that they have just had a wonderful new meal-ticket handed to them, and if they should only share their suffering with sufficient elan it will ease their last days, financially, or at least find them a wider readership, finally.

Oh, I'm just being a bitch.  Such people are just trying to be helpful, in the manner of writers, trying to clarify our common experiences.  Aren't they?  Sure!  Believe it!