IN THE SHADOW OF MT. HOOD

Here I am, sitting in a hotel room in Oregon, taking advantage of the opportunity to write, and resisting the temptation to run outside and breathe in the atmosphere, the fresh air, the sense of being somewhere where life means something other than weekend box office results and the endless annoyances of the everyday. I miss my girls, the babies and the grown-up, something fierce, but the good folks at Verizon have made sure we don't pine for each other too long and too painfully. (Have you ever pulled the toes of a five-year-old over a digital phone connection? Nor had I, until last night.) I whiled part of yesterday away driving down three-lane highways surrounded by pines, making my way toward the company of beloved relatives with whom I haven't spent nearly enough time in the last 20 years or so. I enjoyed the best burger in the state (with a side of Walla Walla sweet onion rings) for dinner, and logged a couple of hours talking with Brian Francis, owner/operator of the 99W Drive-in in Newberg, walking the field, checking out the projection booth, soaking up the ambience before settling in with a double feature that got out at around 2:15 this morning. And today, while I'm writing, I've got the Angels/Mariners game on (Fox Sports Northwest doesn't feature the Dodgers/Mets) and I've been switching over occasionally to keep up with what's going on downtown between the Portland Beavers and Colorado Springs at PGE Park. So I can't watch the Dodgers, but thanks to the joys of the Internet, I can still read about 'em, and Jon Weisman's latest piece, posted less than an hour ago, speaks to me like wise words from an old friend, even though Jon and I have never met. I have tonight and all day tomorrow to write some more, and I am having a wonderful time taking advantage of it, letting the Oregon vibes keep my fingers humming, to say nothing of my spirit. Why, I might even head out and track down my best friend's old neighborhood tomorrow too, and take a drink from that fountain on Thurman Street. All is well in the shadow of Mt. Hood as the sun starts to make its exit toward the coast (ah, the coast), and I am all the better for it.

FOR CHARLIE: Baby Mine, Don't You Cry...

Baby mine, don't you cry
Baby mine, Dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part, baby of mine

Little one, when you play
Don't you mind what they say
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine

If they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for the
right to hold you

From your head down to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows
But you're so precious to me
Sweet as can be, baby of mine

All of those people who scold you
What they'd give just for the
Right to hold you

From your head down to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows
But you're so precious to me
Sweet as can be, baby of mine

Baby of mine


There is a picture of my son Charlie that I keep hidden away, in a box dedicated to his memory. I will never post it. I will never ask anyone to look at it. I may be the only person who ever again sees it. But I have it. I can see him now, just as he looks in the picture, just as he looked the one and only time I ever held him in my arms. And I can imagine how he might look if he were here today, on what might have been his eighth birthday.

I say "might" because his birthday was supposed to be one week later, on my birthday, as it happened. Of course, if he could have lived, we all would have gladly welcomed him seven days early. But when we arrived at the hospital on this day eight years ago our worst fears were realized, and our lives began a tailspin from which, I think it's safe to say, we have yet to fully recover. We ended up burying Charlie exactly one week later, on the day he should have been born.

For me, eight years later, there are no more sudden stabs of grief that seemed to descend upon me usually during private times, in the shower, for example, where no one else could see. And that blanket of pain that would suddenly cover me when I would happen upon some imagery or filmed situation at work that would trigger memories and the overwhelming desire to crumple into a heap-- that blanket hasn't been thrown over my head in quite a while. So I guess, to all appearances, I'm "moving on." Not surprisingly, however, my wife, though she's certainly better than she was eight years ago, has been so profoundly affected that her experience is often beyond my understanding, and certainly that of her closest friends and associates. Charlie was physically part of her; he was in her. She is the only one who knows that particular loss, but even she had no idea (and still doesn't) of its depth and endurance. Perhaps the most difficult thing I've had to do in the last eight years is not empathize with her pain-- it's too great even for me to know, and too easy for me to assume that my pain in any way resembles hers-- but instead to realize that she needs a strong hand and a strong heart to love her and help her heal at her own pace, a pace I can only respect and perhaps never understand.

I think of August 11, 1997 as probably the worst day of my life. And each day after, for months and years, was only better by the slimmest of degrees. I can remember sitting in a mall only a couple of weeks later, waiting for my wife to take care of some business, when a little girl, whom I'd never seen before, walked up to me, smiled and said, "Hi, Daddy," and then walked away. I've never been much of a believer in things supernatural, but that moment was so inexplicable, and so strangely relevant to what we were going through, that it has always given me pause, as well as chills, and a blindingly emotional rush of desire to see my boy alive.

And that following September we had tickets to see Alison Krauss and Union Station in concert, tickets we had purchased earlier in the summer, projecting that it would be our first opportunity to spend time together away from taking care of Charlie. Instead, the night became our first opportunity to try and function in public cloaked in the shadow of our desperate grief. The music was, of course, transcendent, but neither of us could have anticipated that one of the songs Alison Krauss would sing, in that haunted, piercing soprano with which she is so blessed, would be "Baby Mine," the song from the Disney film which is sung by Dumbo's mother to the son from whom she has been taken and locked away. Krauss' performance, sung only to the accompaniment of Dan Tyminski's guitar (played offstage), is a brilliant expression of the yearning and pain of isolation from the one(s) we love, and it blindsided my wife and I like simultaneous punches to the temple, the chest and the gut. The song, and her rendering of it, remains a cherished thing to me because it so readily connects me to all the feelings and hopes I had for my son and myself, but it is one that I can never again approach lightly. And Dumbo is a favorite film of my daughters, and rightly so-- it is about as wonderful a creation as has ever come forth from the Disney studios-- but that scene still hits me in my most tender spots. More than once one of my girls has asked me why I'm crying when we're watching it. I can only say, "Because it's sad, sweetheart," and I am not lying.

Charlie, I can see your face. I can remember what you felt like in my arms, wrapped in your swaddling blanket. I can remember trying to blink away the rush of tears so distorting my vision that I kept thinking you were waking up and that the horror of that afternoon eight years ago was some sort of sick flash-forward from which I, and all of us, would eventually wake. Instead, the summer was the dream, and the waking, like the fate of the Confederate soldier in Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, is bitter reality.

We love you, son.

APOCALYPSE NOW! T.J. Simers Likes Jeff Kent!

I’ve never been a fan of T.J. Simers’ tongue-in-cheek bulldogging journalism on page 2 of the Los Angeles Times sports section. Ultimately, it was Bill Plaschke’s writing that sent me into the arms of the Daily News, but I’ve always found Simers too much of too little of a good thing, about an eighth as funny as he thinks he is, and always less than insightful about his favorite whipping boys, the Dodgers. Today, however, Simers writes about his contentious relationship with Jeff Kent and—what’s this?—actually allows for some real human feeling to come through, from Kent and himself. The article is a real keeper, not only because Simers shows some restraint in the anti-Dodgers/DePodesta/McCourt department, but because he portrays unusual insight into a player most journalists, and most fans, would describe in almost any other way than hospitable or outgoing. Simers’ acid sensibility is still in evidence—there’s never any inkling that the piece will devolve into any sort of maudlin Plaschkean hand-wringing—but so is there a fresh angle on how players relate to an antagonistic media, and how that media can distinguish between a Jeff Kent and, say, a Kevin Brown. I never, ever thought I’d say this, but, thanks to T.J. Simers for keeping today’s page 2 of the Los Angeles Times from its usual fish-wrap fate and instead elevating it to scrapbook status.

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As for me, I admit I’ve been lax in my blogging duties over the last week or so. A couple of references to other people’s pieces does not a satisfied blogger (or a satisfied reader, I’d be willing to project) make. If it’s necessary, please forgive me. This is, annually, not a good week for me, but I do have a bit of a working vacation planned for the coming weekend, during which I intend to write copiously (and, hopefully, intelligibly) from within the borders of the City of Roses, Portland, Oregon. I’m counting on the clean air and the 40% chance of showers for some blogging inspiration and to lubricate the typing fingers. I hope to have a couple of other things up before I fly out on Friday night too, just so I can avoid the tag of “Hopeless Slacker” for a few more weeks at least. As always, thanks for stopping by and for hanging in there with me.

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P.S. I’ve noticed a few of my other blogger friends doing this lately, so I think I will too. If you’re someone who’s just dropping by for the first time, would you mind letting me know how you stumbled upon this address? And if you’re a regular lurker and have never left a comment, for whatever reason, I invite you to do so—just a note to say who you are, what you think of what I’m doing (or not doing) here, and anything else that strikes you would be so very much appreciated. Hope to hear from ALL of you soon!

EL GRITO DEL MUTILADO Roberta Findlay Refuses To Explain It All For You

For the less continental, that'd be Shriek of the Mutilated...

If you think the infamous film actor/producer/writer/editor/cinematographer/director Roberta Findlay would be impressed that you knew anything at all about her work, let alone that you knew she was the cinematographer on the nearly forgotten semi-shocker Shriek of the Mutilated (1974), or the credited co-director (with her late husband Michael) of the infamous exploitation movie Snuff, or that she’s made films using over 15 different aliases in her career, including Anna Rivas, Linda Michaels, and, yes, Bob Davis, be assured she would be unimpressed. In fact, she’d probably think you were a demented stalker, or perhaps just plain ol’ demented.
And you might think, look who’s talking. This detachment from artistic rationalization about her work, and her outright refusal to romanticize anything, is one of the things that New York Press writer J.R. Taylor discovered when he tracked her down for a little bitter nostalgia over the grimy old days of Times Square and the scratch-and-claw realities of grindhouse filmmaking in the ‘70s. To appropriate the famous country-and-western tune, Roberta Findlay was exploitation when exploitation wasn’t cool, and she harbors damn few illusions about the lasting value of what she continues to do. Take a look at Taylor's fascinating article for a visit with a filmmaker whose oeuvre may be, to some eyes, worthless, but who, if nothing else, would cock her head back and laugh a dismissive, throaty, nicotine-ravaged laugh if she ever heard anyone referring to her oeuvre, or if she was ever offered the kind of cushy Hollywood deal that seems to be the goal of most Sundance-oriented independent filmmakers in the post-Tarantino age.

And here, for those who don't mind reveling in some schlock movie memories, is the ad I remember seeing for this mind-numbing shocker in the Portland Oregonian around 30 years ago...


Blaaagh, don't you have a story about this unheralded classic? If so, would you mind sharing it?

(My apologies for being a bit late in pointing the way toward this article, which ran in the Press almost two weeks ago. Now, with this duty done, if I could just get to those Netflix rentals that mock me every time I walk into the living room, or the 12 or 13 books I’m a chapter or two into, or that back porch shelving project I can’t seem to get started, or…)

COMING SOON: V FOR VENDETTA

A couple of months ago SLIFR friend and contributor Benaiah got me interested in a project I had, to that point, never heard of before. The upcoming movie V for Vendetta stars Hugo Weaving as a harlequin-masked terrorist engaging in explosive resistance to a newly fascistic government holding near-future London in its grip, and Natalie Portman as a woman kidnapped by the terrorist, who is quickly swayed to his belief system and, most ominously, his methods. Dodgy subject matter for the post 9/11 universe, to be sure, but even more so in the light of the recent bombings in London. The movie, based on a well-regarded graphic novel by Alan Moore (From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), looks to be treading a very thin line indeed. But that line might thicken up a bit, provided the audience to whom Warner Brothers will be pitching V for Vendetta displays the kind of political awareness and sensitivity that appreciating the movie will require (assuming the movie is any kind of artistic success, of course), and provided that audience cares to engage it outside the inclusive universe of comic book appreciation, amongst the lingering, acrid smoke of the aftermath of real-life events. I got a look at the trailer over the weekend, which you can see here, and though I have been burned by raised expectations based on trailers before, what I could see of the look of this movie—even that highly stylized masked protagonist— seems very promising. Take a look and see if you agree. V for Vendetta, thanks to Benaiah and this trailer, has certainly gone from unknown quantity to queasy prospect to hopeful prospect in a very short time. Here’s hoping these hopes for an artistically solid and challenging movie won’t be dashed on the cinder heap of MTV flash and lowest-common-denominator demographic patronization.

ALL HAIL THE MARQUIS OF GRISSOM!

In this age where the dominoes set in motion by revelations of steroid use in baseball have probably only just begun to topple, it would be nice if someone somewhere could find some column inches to devote to a player who wasn’t a showboating me-first blowhard or a chemically enhanced cheater (or both). It turns out Ray Ratto has done just that. Ratto is a pretty good sportswriter who, despite the fact that he can run two sentences together in one paragraph to great effect, is to the San Francisco Chronicle what Bill Plaschke is to The Los Angeles Times, and he's routinely been a voice of reason during the BALCO scandal and other Giant problems among the Chronicle sports pages. The only problem: Ratto's most recent piece is devoted to a player who is, after 16 seasons in Major League Baseball, taking his leave. Marquis Grissom was designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants yesterday, leaving his future as a ballplayer in doubt.

But as Ratto’s fine piece points out, tears shed for Grissom would be tears wasted. Grissom is perhaps one of the most down-to-earth, levelheaded, decent, hard-working fellows to have ever picked up a piece of big-league lumber. I regretted his departure from the Dodger clubhouse two seasons ago far more than I ever did that of Dodger “heart and soul” Paul Lo Duca (who was a favorite player of mine on that team, no doubt) or Shawn “Never Met a Double Play I Couldn’t Hit Into” Green (a favorite of my wife’s, but not, grumble-grumble, especially for his efficiency with a bat and glove). The absence of Grissom’s solid ability and genuine good humor—he could actually make it sound like he enjoyed being interviewed on the radio by serial digressor Stu Nahan—was made even more painful by his traveling 300 miles to the north and settling in amongst the Hated Ones. And sure enough, whenever the Giants would play the Dodgers—and those games were always intense enough to begin with—Grissom would inevitably, through that solid ability as a clutch hitter and center fielder par excellence, make life tough on Dodger players and Dodger fans, especially those of us who appreciated what the Dodgers would be missing in his absence.

Ratto’s column, sent to me courtesy of best friend and frequent SLIFR contributor Blaaagh, is concise, eloquent testimony to the fact that not every Giants fan (especially not my very reasonable, good-natured friend) is a blind rubber chicken dangler or otherwise ignorant of the qualities, beyond the ability to knock balls into the bay with robotic regularity, that make a truly good player on the field and a truly good man off of it. Marquis Grissom may never play on a Major League Baseball field again; at 38, he is facing up to the realities of aging in a sport that doesn’t exactly lend itself to player longevity with characteristic quiet and unfathomable dignity. And if he doesn’t, we’ll still have the memory of seeing him play, as a Dodger, and a Giant, and a Brewer, Brave, Indian and, of course, an Expo. Check out Ray Ratto’s good-bye to Grissom and doff your cap to an excellent player and one of the really good guys of baseball. If he only could have gone out as a Dodger…

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MISSION TIKI

Way back in the fall of 2001, Blaaagh and I set out on a modest three-day road trip on which we hoped to take in two or three drive-in movies. We set off up the 101 and stopped in Santa Maria, thinking that we might check out the Hi-Way Drive-in. But since the double feature was one of K-PAX and Driving in Cars with Boys, we decided it would be better to keep moving on up the road, get a motel in San Luis Obispo and take in whatever the offering was at the beautiful Sunset Drive-in, where we’d once seen an extra special double feature of the Sylvester Stallone disaster movie Daylight and the Pierce Brosnan volcano epic Dante’s Peak. Well, imagine our horror when we drove into town and took a gander at the marquee for the Sunset: K-PAX plus second big co-hit Driving in Cars with Boys! Providence was with us though, as it started to rain like hell, and there wasn’t a motel to be had in town, owing to it being Homecoming Night at Cal State SLO. So instead of soaking through that wretched twosome, we spent most of the evening driving up the 101 looking for a place to rest our weary heads. The next night we made it up to San Jose to the Capitol Drive-in and actually got to see a double feature—the only one we would on this aborted drive-in tour-- Shallow Hal and the execrable remake of 13 Ghosts. Ever since that fun but largely foiled attempt to make a drive-in run up the coast, we’ve talked about mounting another such trip.

And since this has turned out to be the summer of the resurgence of the drive-in into my consciousness and movie-going experience, maybe we’ll finally get there. Last Saturday night’s trip to the Mission Tiki for the first meeting of the Southern California Drive-In Movie Society was a big success. Founder Chris Utley has boundless enthusiasm for what he hopes to do with the group, in terms of organizing visits to the existing theaters in the greater Los Angeles area, San Diego, Barstow and even Las Vegas, but also in terms of the awareness he hopes to raise about the quality of the drive-ins we do have and just how much fun the drive-in movie experience can be. We met fellow club member Kathy Byers, a drive-in enthusiast with a camera and a photo album chock full of wonderful shots of drive-ins (dead and alive) from across the country—she also handed out DVDs of terrific video pieces she shot and edited on the now-closed Azusa Foothill Drive-in in Azusa and the Skyline Drive-in in Barstow (this one seems to have a spectacular setting, up on a plateau with the bright lights of Barstow twinkling behind the screen in the distance—Thanks a bunch, Kathy!)

It was also nice to meet member Sal, who shared memories of drive-ins of his youth like the El Monte in East L.A., and Linea, a member of the Los Angeles Conservancy, who was there to check out the drive-in, and the club, in the hopes of raising awareness of the plight, and the renaissance, of the drive-in within that historical preservation organization. And the whole group was treated to a tour of the projection booth courtesy of Mission Tiki manager Jeff Thurman, who couldn’t have be nicer, more patient or knowledgeable (he’s been in the drive-in business since the ‘60s) or accommodating to a bunch of drive-in movie nuts, who just happen to find the establishment he runs out there in Montclair to be a little bit of movie paradise. Jeff also told us that since the DeAnza Company (which owns the Mission Tiki, the Van Buren and the Rubidoux, as well as a multi-screener in San Diego and others) invested in the Technalight projection system and other upgrades to the lot and snack bar, business has doubled-to-tripled since last summer. Great news, indeed! There were also a couple of new members signed up at the tables we set up in the Mission Tiki snack bar, so hopefully those folks will be able to join us for the next meeting, this one at the Van Buren Drive-in in Riverside, California, on August 29. You can contact Chris Utley for more information at: socalozoners@comcast.net.

We even saw a good movie that night-- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory far exceeded my expectations, and the girls and I were having a great time sitting in the back of our van, pillows and blankets spread as far as the eye could see (or at least as far as the butt could sit), enjoying the show. Little Nonie, age 3, was particularly enthralled, and kept shouting, every time Johnny Depp flashed that dentured, disdainful grin, “Willy Wonka’s happy! Willy Wonka’s happy!” Wonka probably would have hated her, but she loved him! It was only when we got to the chocolaty fate of Augustus Gloop that things started going south. Emma, 5, found the sight of a pudgy Aryan youth drowning in melted chocky just a bit unsettling. By the time we hit Violet Beauregard’s blueberry bloat and Veruca Salt being attacked by squirrels and shoveled down a candy-colored garbage disposal, the jig was up. Nonie looked a little confused as we packed up during one of the dazzling Oompa-Loompa production numbers—she knew damn well the movie wasn’t over, but she accepted that, for some reason, we had to leave, and she was very good-natured about the whole thing (a lot more so than I was, selfish dad that I am.) Emma fell asleep less than a mile away from the screen that was reflecting those sugary nightmares, and as we drove home to Glendale I promised Nonie I’d take her to see it again in an indoor movie theater, news which she greeted with one of her inimitable mile-wide smiles. (We’re off to an 11:00 a.m. show Friday morning!)

One last drive-in note: In the afterglow of Saturday night’s meeting, I signed onto a Yahoo! drive-in movie discussion group populated by lots of enthusiastic “ozoners” from around the country, including Chris and Kathy, and one poster who goes by the on-line moniker MannyMoNHak. This MannyMoNHak turns out to be a feature writer for Entertainment Weekly who has been attempting to mount a story about the small-scale renaissance of the drive-in across America, and apparently he/she has had some success. He/she reports on Yahoo! today that the story will appear as a sidebar inside a larger article in the upcoming issue of the magazine (available this coming Friday) relating to the Great Movie Attendance Slump of 2005, or Why People Aren’t Going to Movie Theaters Anymore, or something like that. And according to information posted this morning by MannyMoNHak, one of the drive-ins that garnered specific mention is, indeed, the Mission Tiki. Congratulations to Jeff, owner Ralph Nardoni and the regular patrons of the Mission Tiki, who already know what hopefully a whole lot more people will soon find out, thanks to the Entertainment Weekly exposure—that the drive-in can be a great experience for family and friends alike; that the drive-in, far from being dead, is actually seeing a kind of resurgence, almost to the point that the novelty of the experience is comparable, for this generation, to what it was when drive-ins were introduced and became so popular in the ‘50s and ‘60s; and that the Mission Tiki is one of the great ones, in its own way, and in no small part, responsible for what will hopefully become a growing movement to bring back the drive-in in an even bigger fashion than before.