"Just Call me Rip" Part Two of My Month Long Autobiographical Series - Countdown to 60

That's me on dad's lap. Mom next to us then grandparents and big brother far right front.

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will. -
Arthur Rimbaud

I was really really good at being a child. I knew playing. I knew imagination. I knew games. I did not know in my youth brooding or prolonged sulks or pouts I was an unabashed lover of fun and pursued it with precocious zeal bordering on mania. I loved to run and be chased and to throw and kick and laugh and giggle. I loved attention but not affection -- no never that. Love was to be unspoken and not displayed just sensed. I -- this wild bundle of cute -- received love unconditionally from family and friends.

My parents and big brother and a few other relatives called me Rip. There’s no one around anymore to ask about the origins of the nickname but I like to assume it had something to do with the manner in which I tore through my existence.

Trees. I loved to climb them and once at about five I fell from one and landed head first. A rather nasty cut opened up and blood poured. (I remember this from my own memory not from being told about it.) My dad took me the mirror and showed me my bleeding head and said that as a man I needn’t cry. So I stopped then and there and that may well have been the last time I cried until I was an adult. He took me to the doctor for stitches. The doctor expressed amazement at my bravery. I knew how to impress my old man.

You would think that I bought hook line and sinker into the whole macho lifestyle but that wasn’t  the case. I did use hook line and sinker a few times to fish but it never became a passion. My hunting days ended before they started. I had a bee bee gun with which I shot a bird from quite a distance. I remember watching the dead bird fall from it’s branch to the ground and feeling sickly sad even as dad came over to congratulate my marksmanship. I never wanted to kill an animal again.

My earliest memories are of the duplex we lived in until I was four but they are vague and doubtless influenced by what elders subsequently told me. I do remember our move to 1426 Grove Street where I was to spend the next 13 years. It was the classic middle American house to grow up in with a big backyard and trees and lots of dirt and even a shack where dad kept his tools. Later dad would build me a treehouse right there in our redwood tree.

Berkeley in the early 1960s seemed less the hotbed of radical protests and hippies it was to become than a bucolic small town straight out of Leave it to Beaver. Just like the Beaver I had a wiser taller older brother. Picket fences and corner market and burger joint with a jukebox where teens hung out helped round out our neighborhood scene. A few blocks away was an empty lot rich in blackberry bushes that I used to go to with big brother for fruit feasts that would stain our sweatshirts. That lot has since housed a bank an apartment building and a store.

In my childhood Berkeley still had traditional parades down main street that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Anytown USA. The mayor was a Republican. My parents were Democrats as were about 99% of all Finnish-Americans and my mother was a poll worker on the day of the contentious 1960 election. Political rancor was not so acerbic then what with the absence of cable TV and the internet. My early memories are of an idyllic life featuring the greatest dad in the world a cool big brother fun cousins and friends and loving grandparents. There was a dark cloud amidst all this however....

I started school almost a full year earlier than I should have and consequently I was invariably the youngest of any given group I was in for many years to come. This has helped make me feel like the kid in any group I'm in no matter that I'm years older than anyone else.

I want to Jefferson Elementary School which was just a block away from my grandparents' house so like my big brother before me I went to Grandma's house everyday for lunch through the sixth grade where I was joined by a golden retriever named Sisu (a Finnish word for courage that has special significance to my people). And I walked to and from school despite a distance of about seven blocks. Children were allowed to walk the streets unsupervised back then. There was infinitely less paranoia. The idea of play dates would have seemed ludicrous. We managed to find people to play with on our own. One of my first friends and my best for many years was Mark who himself had some Finnish ancestry. He would go on to take LSD an ungodly number of times and do severe damage to his brain as a consequence. But as a child he shared my zeal for play and the pursuit of it with what can only be called reckless abandon.

"I Become" Part One of My Month Long Autobiographical Series - Countdown to 60

That's a very young me with my dad.

"These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo

The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation

That's dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder

And don't cry baby don't cry
Don't cry" - - From Boy in the Bubble by Paul Simon 

On the final day of this month I will turn the ripe old age of 60. That’s six decades. Three score. Three fifths of a century. It seems impossible that I should hit this milestone given that it was seemingly yesterday that I entered kindergarten. It was in fact in 1959 when Eisenhower was president and the Civil Rights battle was just heating up and The Beatles were years away from world wide fame and there were only 16 major league baseball teams. I do not feel old. Not a bit of it. Not only am I in tip top physical health, but I still reckon myself as a kid. There is at long last a certain maturity to me but not the slightest bit of fossilization. I have a few old fogie tendencies along the lines of “back when I was young we never...” but I have no illusions about the good old days being better. For one thing when I grew up people smoked everywhere. Sports venues, busses, movie theaters, offices and homes. No one smoked in our house but we had ashtrays about for smoking visitors and I never remember anyone forbidding smoking in their residence.  Also “back in the day” African Americans were colored or negro if not worse and the idea that one could be president was not seriously presented. All Asians were Orientals unless a man was known to be from China in which case he was a Chinaman. Gays were queers and simply not mentioned. The idea of gay marriage in the early 1960’s would have been greeted as a very silly joke indeed. Anyway this digression serves merely to point out that I’m perfectly happy to be living in 2014 despite the fact that being here carries with it the knowledge that my time on this planet is likely well over half done. If not much more. Intellectually I know death awaits but I feel like the proverbial spring chicken.

My ambitious goal here is to countdown during this month with reminiscences from my first 60 years. While I intend to do so chronologically that may not prove feasible. I had originally planned on a post a day but for the love of god I’ve got other things to do. After all I’m not getting paid for my these blog posts (would that I were) and I’ve got a few other responsibilities in my life -- chief of which is gainful employment in a job that keeps me very very busy (albeit quite happy). 

I hope this series -- such as it is or will be -- is in some way illuminating for anyone who might choose to read it. I flatter myself that it might and am confident that it will -- if nothing else -- help me put into perspective what I’ve done and failed to do since that day in late Winter 1954  when -- to paraphrase Shakespeare -- I shuffled onto this mortal coil.

(Please note that future editions of this chronicle will be absent a lengthy preamble and thus a much quicker read.)

I herewith begin at the beginning.

My parents were Aimo Hourula born in Nivala Finland in 1916 and Gertrude Kurki born of Finnish parents in San Francisco in 1920. They met in New York in 1945 were married in Baltimore that year and subsequently moved to Berkeley where my mother spent most of her childhood and her undergraduate university years. in 1947 they had a son Robert and my arrival was on February 28 1954. Dad was a carpenter and a damn good one. There was a building boom in the Bay Area that lasted my father’s entire career and that -- coupled with his sterling reputation -- kept him employed regularly. A family could live on one good salary back then and afford a house and two cars and plenty of food and vacations. We never wanted for anything that I can recall. Dad had
a colorful past to entertain us with. He fought in the Finno-Russian Winter War then joined the merchants marines just as World War II was getting underway. Two of his ships were strafed by German planes and a third was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Arabian Sea with dad at the helm. He’d pointed out the periscope to the first mate who scoffed saying that it wasn’t really a periscope. Later on a lifeboat dad refrained from administering an I told you so.

Mom had grown up bilingual in Finnish and English as I was to do. She excelled in school and went to Cal then to Colombia University in New York with a detour to join the WACs during the war. She was a bright chatty pretty woman who tragically was struck by mental illness in her thirties as will be detailed here later.

I was born into a happy home with lots of extended family including my mother’s parents and childless sister and one of my dad’s younger brothers his wife and brood and two of dad’s cousins and many others from the old country. There were Finns everywhere so I was to grow up quite happily in two cultures.

McCarthyism was on the wane but the fear of communism would persist well into the '60s. The space race was a few years away and it would be another decade before the cultural revolution symbolized by The Beatles and drugs and free love and long hair and protests would begin. The historic Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Broad of Education would be handed down a few months after I was born. The Montgomery Bus Boycott would soon follow and with it the remarkable period of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. Eight months after I was born the baseball Giants -- still playing in New York -- would win the World Series and not do so again until 2010. They would come to San Francisco when I was four. Cal football was in the dying days of their last serious heyday. We're still waiting for the next. Elizabeth II was queen of England and so something things never change. Jack Kerouac had but one published novel to his name and it wasn't On the Road. Allen Ginsberg's reading of Howl was a few years away. Films still suffered from censorship and were thus unable to use profanity or depict sex or violence or many real social issues. Unions were strong and workers respected and liberal wasn't a dirty word. Finns were moving in steady numbers to the US many to the Bay Area.

My life was to be shaped by many of the events happening and in the offing. The Beatles, drugs, protests, Cal, the Giants, the Beats, the Hippies, the modern film era. I was a healthy baby and by all accounts a happy one. I was ready to face the world, always ready, forever ready ready ready ready.

A Morning Commute Starting in a Post Apocalyptic Hellscape

"Love is the infinite placed within the reach of poodles." - From Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.

Walking to subway in the early morning dark. In a drought and the wind is blowing and its so very dry and it feels like the apocalypse. There is a fire truck down one street with very bright multi colored lights swirling and noiselessly blaring. Just a few cars whoosh by. Turn a corner and now a car with a flat tire paddles by and pulls to a stop. There is a fellow pedestrian eerily behind me looking far too normal in his non descript jacket and heavy backpack and big glasses. Homeless man pushes a shopping cart in the middle of the street. Maybe he was once wealthy but got bombed out and this is the post nuclear holocaust and I just forgot because I’m in a drug induced haze because I’ve been heavily medicated since the blast and my breakdown or maybe I really am trudging to the subway at this hour.

I walk past my gym where I will be be later today and there it is crowded with early morning exercisers and this seems more like life than the seeming hell I’ve been walking through. Reach the subway steps walk down their agonized urine soaked bricks  to the brightly lit area where people rush about and one pathetic looking creature mumbling insanely asks for money and he reeks.

Down to the platform where it is five minutes before my train will arrive and the usual bench where I sit is littered with shards of broken glass from a liquor bottle that has been smashed nearby and there are sullen looking people about staring at their i phones or newspapers or the stained ugly walls or their sad functional shoes and soon it is four minutes until the train comes. Not enough time to bother getting my book from my backpack and opening it and start to read and so I am trapped in my brain with my thoughts and there are too many so I sift through and select some important ones and by then the train arrives and I get on finding a seat not too close to the man talking to himself near an old couple chattering much too gaily for this hour but what can be done about such people. My wife is always ready for happy conversation once she opens her eyes but I need time to get accustomed to being conscious again and all that entails like the reality that comes pouring in to my brain and all the processing I must do.

Anyway...

My nose is not buried in a book and never is. My nose always remains attached to my face as it should be serving vital functions like allowing me to smell and holding up my glasses. But I do read. The driver of the train makes long-winded announcements at every stop particularly the transfer stations. Reading is thus interrupted as he rambles on feeling helpful and dutiful. A few people get on and a few people get off and we zoom through the tunnel under the bay and in 20 minutes are in San Francisco. I take the escalator up past the bustling station to street level where my trolley is already waiting. I rush on sit and open book again. After a few minutes I am drowsy being at the tail end of a cold and so I close the book and close my eyes and fitfully sort of sleep until my stop which is conveniently at the end of the line. I buy two bananas and walk the few blocks to work and there I start my work day.

Full of energy and life and dedicated to the proposition of a day’s pay for a day’s work. Amen.

Just Two Days Ago

I'm going to be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy Thought true love could have been a contender Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender - From 'The Pretender' by Jackson Browne

(Author's note: This was all after work a couple of days back. A day where I showed up despite a nasty cold and used adrenalin to push through the achy sneezy discomfort to teach because that's what I do. I provided the planned lesson except for postponing meeting with students about their writing as that would have assuredly been pushing it in terms of exposure to my cold. After work I took a melancholy ride on a wistful trolley to the urine scented subway station looking forward to home and rest. Pretty much worked out. And oh by the way I'm feeling a lot better now and will be back at the gym tomorrow.)

There was a surge of people forcing their way on the subway car. Chubby Mexican women and fat African Americans and angry old white men and a spaced out kid with a mohawk and a confused middle aged white lady and me. I got one of the last seats as others twirled around in angry confusion. Quickly got book out of backpack to lose myself in its pages and avoid looking at my fellow passengers.

Next stop more people crowded on including one stoned black kid blasting his music so we could all hear it so I put on my headphones so that I was drowning out noise now as well as sights. Did glance up and see that same jerk and he was rolling a joint right there in front of everyone on the crowded car. He didn’t care and wouldn’t care about anything or anyone much until the day he woke up in jail and was all like what the fuck and angry/depressed/confused and suddenly quite bitter but not curious about how his life got that way it just did and sheeet. Maybe he’ll avoid all that and turn his life around and go to school and get a job and be productively happy and fruitful and contribute ideas to a better society and good positive energy. Likely not though. Not a lot of people successfully change their directions in life most going down one way streets and a lot headed the wrong way. Bam. All those head on collisions in life.

I got off the train at my stop which is what I usually do because getting off before or after my stop is fucking ridiculous and I may say and write some ridiculous shit but rarely do I do anything so ridiculous as get off at a stop that isn’t mine. I’m kinda normal that way. I was in the throes of a nasty cold so had arranged for oldest daughter to pick me up and she wasn’t there yet coming as she was from work herself and so I waited cause what else was I gonna do? She arrived and I got in the car and we talked and listened and then were on our block and parked and then were in the house where my wife was glad to see me and sorry I didn’t feel better and made me tea and rubbed my back and I wanted to cry because she was so sweet to me but instead I sat down and numbly watched some TV but not too much because I’ve gotten to where I can only stand a little bit of it unless its showing me a movie without commercial interruption or a really good soccer match. Otherwise TV makes me want to pour my brain out and fry it and then let it cool on the window sill before feeding it to a hungry dog which is what you might as well do if you watch too much TV.

I went to bed early and slept.

Stuff About My Day So Far But More Stuff About Elliot Gould as the Great Private Detective Marlowe in The Long Goodbye

"Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.
I was lying in a burned out basement
With the full moon in my eyes.
I was hoping for replacement
When the sun burst thru the sky.
There was a band playing in my head
And I felt like getting high". - - From After the Goldrush by Neil Young

I was looking for something on the internet but I forgot what and got lost looking at nothing and “everything” all at once and I got confused and depressed and giddy all at once but ultimately the purposelessness of it overwhelmed me and I picked up a book.

I read for awhile. There were a lot of words strung together in such a fashion as to form sentences and paragraphs and even chapters. I read some of the chapters and I thought about what I read and related it to my own experiences and opinions and ways of looking at the world and it was all okay.

So then I went and spoiled it all by going back on the internet which had too much which equated to too little and sucked up my time with its maddening trivia and again the world purposelessness.

So I took a nap.

I felt well rested and refreshed and happy. Then in my email was a message from a cousin telling me about one two three deaths.  All of older people not at all tragic and none unexpected and none of people I’d seen in decades although to be honest and truthful I wasn’t sure who one of the people was. One died on Christmas and another on New Years and the other I don’t know when and she’s the one who I’m not sure who she is. People die all the time. Others are born. I was born. Just the once. I imagine I’ll die too and it’ll be just the one time.

Life is finite. In case you didn’t know.

My wife made me poached eggs on toast and it was really good and then she made coffee and it was really good too. And I watched a movie called The Long Goodbye (1973) directed by Robert Altman starring Elliot Gould and it was oh so 1970s a decade I lived in and very much liked and please it was so much more than disco. Man please.

Gould played Phillip Marlowe a fictional detective created by the great Raymond Chandler from his hard boiled -- not poached -- detective novels.

First of all Gould made an excellent (Jewish!) Marlowe. Quite unlike the Bogie Marlowe of The Big Sleep (1946) or the Dick Powell Marlowe of Murder My Sweet (1944) or the Robert Montgomery Marlowe of Lady in the Lake (1947). Different. Vive la. So many Marlowes is he such a compelling character or is he in such good stories? Yeah there's a bit of both there. We sure like out private detectives provided they're in interesting circumstances. They are loners facing dangers often representing good and combatting evil. But they don't have the stain of being of the establishment like cops. There is usually some action gunplay but the private eye is usually a contemplative soul so there are more musings then special effects. In fact a good cinematic private eye is often a complicated sort although he can be pretty straight forward about doing the right thing and following a strict code. Oh yeah and they don't take shit from nobody be that somebody a cop or a hood or a dame who's lying.

I liked the film which I’d seen before decades ago when those people who died recently were still alive and the babies and toddlers and small children and teens of today were as yet unborn. (Isn’t being born the best? I don’t mean the physical process just the fact of it -- being ahh-live! Baby!).

Altman set out to capture the California of the Seventies and succeeded. You wanna know what it looked like felt like back then there’s your movie.  It was fun how Gould as Marlowe stumbled and shambled and tottered through the film. This was intentional he was supposed to be a sort of Rip Van Marlowe awake again after decades asleep. Smoking smoking and smoking like a chimney and driving a car from the Forties and sorting through a murder suicide second murder case although who is really dead and who is not and who did it is not a certainty and Marlowe is being lied to by some and that sure is the lot of detectives in movies and maybe in “real” life too.

Sterling Hayden plays a Hemingway like writer. Director Mark Rydell plays a Jewish hood and one of his thugs went on to be governor of California (guess). Former baseball player Jim Bouton plays Terry Lennox Marlowe’s old friend who is suspect and a person of interest to our mobster friend.

The movie moves nicely as does Altman's cameras which takes no static shots. Everything is sort of off kilter and confusing like the way Gould mumbles yet it all makes sense and easy to follow. The off centered ness of it all could make one queasy but doesn't. We're engaged in the story and character and the way it remains true to its own purpose and vision and visual sense.

This. Is. A. Good. Movie. Largely because its so damned unique in its style and look and Gould is such an interesting choice and effective one to play Marlowe. And now maybe I’ve got to buy a Chandler novel and read it even although I’ve got stacks of unread books to get to which I never will if I spend much more time being on the stupid goddamned internet and its time wasting. Ness. Proclivities.

Thank you poached eggs and good coffee and good movies and good books and good health and birth for making life so bearably wonderful and possible.

"A dreamer of pictures
I run in the night
You see us together,
chasing the moonlight,
My cinnamon girl" -- From Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young

The Next Drink Was on Me and in Me and of Me -- Golden Memories

"I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste
was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test"
-- From Changes by David Bowie

Ever been hammered? I mean totally out of it? Looped? Bombed? Incoherent and gone man gone? Been shit faced? Feeling no pain? Three sheets to the wind? Yeah you know what I’m talking about. And you acting all innocent when it is precisely your experiences I’m writing about. The way you used to power down the brewskis and steadily sip the scotch then snort the line then mellow it all out by getting all toked up on some serious Panama Red. And trying to hit on some chick but you can’t really because the words come out all out of order and jumbled and you’re giggling and there’s too much perspiration in your armpits and you can’t remember how you got to the bar and who with except that one dude looks kinda familiar and oh yeah hey he’s like your roommate and where did that chick go you were just talking to and might as well get a beer and there’s a bunch of crumpled dollar bills in your pocket and shit there’s already a beer in your hand and goddamned the lights are bright in this bar except they’re not they’re like really dim. Or in between shit it don’t matter and maybe you can talk to some other chick and is that a chick or a dude over there and well hello I do know that girl over there she’s Kayla’s sister and is hot but doesn’t she have a boyfriend and better chug that beer and then get another one and did the room just spin or was that the inside of my hand and what the hell is Kayla’s sister’s name and oh man she’s walking over to me smiling and yes I better get my shit together but quick and she said hello and do you remember me I’m Kayla’s sister Courtney and that is so awesome cause now I know her name and so I better tell her mine and I actually forgot it for a second and giggle/snorted but come up with “yeah I’m Richard” And she’s all like I know and she laughs like I’m trying to be funny and I go with it and I’m not really a stoner and should never smoke weed and I like start thinking about the high I’m on instead of talking to this totally bodacious chick named...Courtney! Good for me I remember and now I’m confident and it helps that the band has stopped playing and there’s a David Bowie song I know on -- or shit I’m just remembering that song from yesterday -- no for sure its playing and and and I did hear it yesterday or today. How weird is that? And thank god Courtney is talking but I say some some shit too and check out her legs which are really totally perfect legs and thank you for wearing such a short fucking skirt and shit what if she likes me? Right idiot why else did she come over and talk to me and there’s Dennis who I came here with and he’s talking to some buddies and things are getting clearer and I’m super high but together and I can talk to this Courtney chick and fuck the hangover I’m going to have tomorrow I mean why would I even think about that? So Courtney and I are talking and and she’s smiling and we have a lot in common without me even faking it.
We get more drinks. Then more. I’m totally fucking blasted now but keeping it together because -- what’s this chick’s name? -- digs me and where the hell are my legs? What was in that coke and that weed? Man did someone spike my drink? And where’s that chick I was talking too and where am I? And what time is it and why am I seeing the sun and oh my god my head it’s like my brain was poured out and replaced by molten lava and I’ve got my jeans on and am laying -- sort of -- on the sofa. Least I’m at home but wait what happened with Courtney? And I cannot get that high again that’s ridiculous. Shit it’s only 9:00 or is already 9:00 I don’t know. Only. Already. It just is I guess and it’s Saturday so I don’t think I need to be anywhere. What the fuck is in my pocket? One dollar just one and a paper with...Courtney’s phone number! Score! I will be fucking calling her later. It’s in HER handwriting but I sure as shit wish I remembered what the hell happened last night and this may be one of those deals where I never know least I made it home and if I got her number then it can’t be bad. But no way can I get that loaded again. Got to take her easy.
Six hours later I was sitting in the backyard drinking beer and getting ready to light up a joint with my roomies. Onwards and upwards my man.
Yeah that was totally you so don’t be all in denial and pretending that you don’t know. You know. You. You were there.

I’m Streaming I’m Beaming Notice I Ain’t Screaming (It’s My Day Today)

"Tell me, why? Tell me, why?
Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself
When you're old enough to repay
But young enough to sell?" -- From Tell Me Why by Neil Young

On the subway to work a man was sniffling like so continuously I wanted to cry. Put on headphones instead and listened to Neil Young live from 1970. Read Kerouac. Biffed and bopped and scooted and occasionally had a thought about work and the day ahead and not about bed where I just was an hour and half before snoozing and grooving and going my way in dreamland where the dreams were nice with pretty girls and fame and fortune and no guy sniffing like crazy with a silly cold and a cherry on top -- be bop. People got on and off the train and I looked up at the stops to see them. This one Asian woman got on and just stood, man she stood the whole way into SF, not wanting to sit down. Whatever works. Most people getting on and off were magically non descript, not cosmic, not like me with my magic blonde hair and pug Finnish nose and the nice tie and all all dressed up for like work. Like work l like my work and I like working cause it pays me cash money in automatic deposit form and get all that psychic income to go with my psychotic self up on the shelf. I’m so cool when I go teach the English lingo to peeps from all over the world who want to dig on speaking better and reading better and writing better and understanding more. No chore.

Got off the mfing subway and escalatored up to the street. Market -- park it. Waited for the trolley. Too long as a matter of fact with it being chilly and all. There it came and I hopped it and sat on down and opened the book back up and read some more and didn’t look up much until I could scope out (dope doubt) that we were near the end of the line which is where I get off and in fact some day when my time comes it’ll be the end of the line for me. Whooppee! Least I got to spend some time on subways and shit and doin’ my thing and digging the ladies and the music and the words and the books and the cinema and the sports and the shorts. Soze got off and ambled over to work and worked. Boy howdy did I. Lot to do and people to say hi to and thinking and photocopying and talking and listening and nodding and being glad and drinking coffee and checking it all out baby. Had lunch too then more yakkin’ and frackin’ and correcting and talking bout things like prepositions and articles and verb tenses. Menses.

Ooooh off I went at the end of the work day ambling back to the trolley -- hey baby no wait -- and scootin on over to the subway and very short wait and packin on a super crowded train. Insane. Way it goes -- mose. To my dest-i-na-tion. Escalatoring on up to the street neat and then strolling home hello wife and here was my day how about yours and whats new and dinner is good and a little TV never hurt and then peckin’ away on this here macbook pro -- copyright infringement -- yowzah!
Nice day all told. Bold.

No Explosions No Sex No Supernatural Just Great Cinema Aki Kaurismaki's Proletariat Triology

When I taught middle school I would occasionally meet my father for lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Once he brought my older brother along. All meals there started with soup. It was hot. Both my father and brother loudly slurped their soup. They weren't doing it in unison. Father slurp, brother slurp, father slurp, brother slurp. Somehow it was more piquant than annoying. Both my father and brother are dead now and I no longer teach at the middle school. 

Who knows why we do anything. Sometimes the more we think about things before taking action the worse our decision is. This is especially true when things happen to us. The unexpected. We are often reflexive. Not always wrong. Or right. Just are. We also don't necessarily need to engage in long discussions. There's ultimately very little that needs to be picked over. It's done or being done or will be done and that should be that. Talk is cheap.

I got what is called the Aki Kaurismaki Proletariat Triology  DVD set for Christmas. I just finishing watching the three films. Two today. The set consists of Shadows in Paradise (1986) Ariel (1988) and Match Factory Girl (1990).

In these films people do a lot more smoking than talking. What's to talk about anyway?

I am Finnish so these films resonate with me in a particular way. I haven't been to the old country in many years but it is in my blood. The stoicism. Blank faces. Hidden emotions. Understatement. Silence. Irony. Even perhaps ironic silence -- that I can't say for sure.

I grew up in an extended Finnish family. We didn't hug but we loved the hell out of each other. We didn't talk about everything. Like no one discussed my mother's insanity. But we did things. We were honest.

The films that make up the proletariat set are all short. Clocking in at just under 80 minutes each. Tell the story and get out. No reason to hang around. They all involve people who make changes. Fairly sudden ones and pretty big ones. Murder spree, marriage, new career. This is a kind of just do it, but not Nike style charge into the breach, more with a shrug of the shoulders. Its the next thing in front of the character, the logical move, what you have to do. Or so it seems. It'll probably work out. We'll see. No need to worry about it.

These are working class people. A miner. A garbage collector. A factory worker. They don't feel trapped in their lives they are of them. If there is something better they'll take it. If adversity strikes then deal and move on. Adversity does strike. Hard. A father's suicide and then life's savings stolen and then a prison sentence. Or how about a friend and partner's death or an unwanted pregnancy? Shit happens is the existential observation  about the nature of how you never know and you often have to deal. No one in Kaurismaki's films folds up. One character sheds a few tears but there's neither weeping nor wailing and no one throws fits. Anger is not expressed, it is used to fuel forward momentum. One clearly bitter character just calmly exacts revenge.

Most scenes takes place in Finland's capital Helsinki. These are not attractive depictions of what is in fact a beautiful city. Kaurismaki was not working for the tourist industry. The environs were selected and shot in such a way as to add to the mood.

If all sounds too bleak. I'ts not. Characters get what they want, whether they want it or not. Whether freedom, love or revenge, it is served. It is all done with passion. Nothing you can see but there it is. Passion is not always a fiery speech or even any speech at all. It isn't just broad strokes or loud chords. It's just as likely keeping a head up and pushing on.

I don't recall a single character in any of the films bursting into laughter or for that matter laughing at  all. There may have been a titter but I doubt it. There's cuss words mixed into dialogue but there is no profane tirades. Sex is strongly implied but not seen. We get a kiss or two but not for very long. There are no flourishes, no exclamation points, no goddamned explosions.

Characters. We get characters. They drive the story. They are why all of Kaurismaki's films are so compelling. There is nothing more interesting in this world than watching what our fellow travelers in this life do. This is what Kaurismaki understands. Shine a light -- but not a super bright one -- on a person. A person without extraordinary powers -- just the ability to be.

To be.

I love the hell out of these movies.

There is a Finnish parable. A man is being chased by a bear. He finally gets to a river where he can swim to safety. Half way across the river he sees a bear standing on the other side. The man laughs. What are you gonna do? Am I right?

Reflections on My Recent Cinema Binge

I saw as many films in theaters in the past two months of 2013 as I did in the first ten months of the year. This is directly attributable to Hollywood timing the release of their best films to qualify for awards season and so that the films are fresh in the minds’ of award voters. What it means is that American cinema can generate barely two month’s worth of decent films a year.

Here are some reflections following my recent binge.

One of my favorite memories comes from my most recent trip to the cinema. I was in the ticket buyer line of Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas. This line is in the lobby and roped off. Two women were outside the ropes checking the movie times. There was a very old man behind me (I think he worked in the Coolidge administration). With him was his equally old -- I wanna say -- wife although it could have been his partner or lover or paramour or even his sister. Anyhoo the old man suddenly barks at the two women: “get in line! get in line!” They were either oblivious to him or rightly ignored the old codger. His -- I’m going to go with -- wife scolded him saying “you can’t tell people what to do.” He insisted that he could in fact tell people what to do and she contradicted him again. This went on for a bit until they finally both ran out of steam. Was I looking into my own future?

Previews. Oh boy previews! Coming attractions! Trailers! Some theaters give you a taste of what’s coming others drown you with endless clips from endless movies and do so for -- I timed it once -- 27 minutes. Enough already. I saw the trailer -- the same exact one -- for something called August: Osage Country with an all star cast featuring Meryl Streep six times -- that I counted. I’ve got parts of the movie memorized. I didn’t want to see the damn thing after the first time I saw a preview now I hope this is the last time I ever have to think about it. Twice I saw a preview for a film called Lone Survivor. I can guarantee you this is bad cinema. Anytime you have the director talking about it and the man whose experiences the film is based on talking about it you know its not only not an art film but that its propaganda. One reviewer tweeted that it is a jingoistic snuff film.  The director most recently did Battleship which also tells you plenty. I twice watched (read: sat through) a trailer for a Jack Ryan film (he’s a spy character who’s to James Bond what Arby’s is to fine dining). Chris Pine (oh boy Chris Pine) plays a slick handsome spy. There’s a beautiful woman an evil villain a wise mentor explosions high rises and hand-to-hand combat. I bethcya it makes a bunch of assholes a lot of money.

What makes sitting through an abundance of trailers even worse is that they are often preceded by advertisements. I already paid to get into the damn theater I thought that bought me the privilege of avoiding commercials. Yeah I get it movie theaters couldn’t survive without them. Maybe if people starring in and producing films didn’t have to own five houses two yachts and a goddamned island we could be spared ads. Movies and sports are classic examples of how regular working folk are being gouged by the already rich. No wonder there’s a huge income gap in the US. Don’t get me started here....

I have the privilege of living walking distance from the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley where I can see reasonably priced films with no ads or trailers and no one eating popcorn or candy or sandwiches or three course meals at their seats. Do you see what people spend half their paycheck on at movie theaters? Huge tubs of artery clogging buttered pop corn and barrels of diet coke a substance which is just this side of battery acid. Small wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this country. No food or drinks allowed in the PFA which means patrons are spared the sound of loud pop corn chewers or people rummaging through a grocery bag to find a sandwich the wrapper of which they have to rip off. Sometimes other people are the worst.

I saw The Wolf of Wall Street the day after Christmas in the middle of the afternoon in a multiplex and the theater was packed. Within my line of vision four different people got our their cell phones at one point or another during the film. It’s not as bad as talking but it still detracts from the movie going experience. But then being aware and considerate of others is so passé.

Fortunately amidst all this nonsense I saw some really good films. I am so particular about what I see that I rarely end up sitting through a film that I don’t end up liking. (The same can not be said of what I rent where the stakes aren't as high.) If I’m going to I shell out $8 or more for a movie I want to be damn sure I’ll like it. As noted in my annual top ten I especially enjoyed Nebraska Inside Llewyn David and Frances Ha (which I saw via Netflix instant). This was a very good year for very good films but not a great year for great films. Few are. Frankly there are already enough great films out there for me to discover or re-watch that I don’t desperately need more. That said I’m more than happy to see something to add to the pantheon of greats. Also it is often upon the second viewing of a very good film that I elevate to a loftier status. One can’t always know which film will really resonate after a second viewing. We spend so much of a first viewing dealing with what happens that we don’t always notice how its told or the subtler messages of the film. There are several from this year that I look forward to re-visiting.

The movie-going experience has changed significantly since I was a lad. You used to get a double feature in a theater with one huge screen. Ushers might help you find seats especially if the film was playing and it often was when you entered. People would come in during the middle of one feature -- you got two movies -- and watch the rest of it the other offerings (there were a few trailers cartoons and a short often in the form of a travelogue) the next film and when they reached the point in the film that was playing when they walked in they'd utter those oft repeated words:  "this is where we came in" or the variant in question form: "is this where we came in?" Looking back coming in the middle was not an ideal way to watch a film so I'm glad that died out. Everything has gone up so movies cost more but the increase is not out of line with inflation (the same can't be said for sports tickets which are ridiculously expensive).

Of course a lot of movie watching is done from the comfort of one's own home. When I was growing up and even into college if you wanted to watch The Maltese Falcon (1941) you had to wait until it showed up on TV and then watch it interrupted by commercials. Today you might own your own copy or rent it from Netflix or record it from TCM or watch it on your computer. But then you miss the experience of some centenarian barking commands. The guy was a hoot I tell ya....