Day: June 23, 2013

I didn’t have the highest hopes for “Man Of Steel,” but I thought it might be fun, especially on a hot and sticky day. It wasn’t.  The newest “Superman” movie left me feeling angry and a bit hopeless. I get it. Movies as I know them are over, another sacrifice to the corporate profit ethic. I’m not into old-fartism, I can handle change as well as the next guy, but I’ve had enough of movies like this, they are almost a scandal.

I grew up on the Superman (and other) comics and this was really the simplest and most human of the comic myths that brought kids like me into story-telling and writing. The man of steel came from another planet, was adopted by a sweet farm family in Kansas, and when he grew up, thrilled the world by going out to save human from bad guys and natural catastrophes. The two nerdy young men who wrote it came out of the Depression and they hoped the man they called “Superman” would give the country a dose of hope.

The plot was clear and simple: Clark Kent fooled even Lois Lane with his simple timid reporter disguise as he rushed out to save lives and collar bad guys (even turn meteors around).  Lane had a crush on him, but nobody ever broke through his disguise. The story was written and illustrated by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel two poor immigrant kids from Cleveland, they were nerdy and powerless and so they created a fantasy of the ultimate American hero  – good, powerful, a battler against evil, always victorious. Superman, they wrote, “stood for truth, Justice and the American Way.” Millions of kids loved it, it seemed to be just what they needed.

This newest incarnation starting Henry Cavill and Amy Adams is like watching an expensive car crash and burn – and collide with a couple of hundred other cards that crash and burn and bang into one another for more than two hours.  There is no reason to make this “Superman” movie except to grab the name as an excuse to make another dumb explode-a-thon behind a false premise. Mid-way through, Maria turned to me and whispered, “I can’t believe how boring this is,” and I said, “you are being generous.”  There are some pretty scenes, but you wonder how any super-hero involving alien-invasions, the destruction of a good part of the earth, and scores of meaningful glances from  our leaden, slow-witted but sensitive superhero could possibly be boring. Trust me, it’s a snoozer.

There were more explosions in this movie than in the Normandy invasion, and Superman’s dead father, Jor-el (Russell Crowe) from the lost planet of Krypton pops up so many times saying mystical and sorrowful things  I was rooting for him to finally get blasted and put out of his (and our) misery. The aliens went through most of the skyscrapers in Manhattan which collapsed in endlessly slow and detailed motion.

Any real semblance of the original story was simply discarded and overwhelmed by what seems liked tens of thousands of overturned cars, trucks, and bridges,  collapsing buildings and evil aliens who seemed to have sprung from some mating ritual between the Transformers and Nascar Drivers.  All those animators and nobody can come up with an alien that doesn’t look badly dressed. I kept thinking that the cost and scale of this movie was mind-boggling given how bad it is. Don’t these people care about anything? Cost? Plot? Acting? Coherence?

The bar is getting pretty low and our sensibilities are getting numbed. In corporate Hollywood on big and vapid movies like this can get funded, and they are an insult to us and the kids who are supposed to love them. The money to make it could have paid off the college loans of at least 10,000 worthy college students and turned some small countries around. A country that can’t pay it’s librarians and bleeds it’s people for health care doesn’t seem to even blink when corporations in Hollywood blow hundreds of millions of dollars on a deafening and forgettable mess than nobody will remember a month from now. Make that next week.

I loved the comics and the movies they spawn, they were original, touching and well-written and plotted. I have seen almost all of them, but the corporate ethic now running Hollywood doesn’t care what I think or critics think, they just want to make 14-year-old boys happy, as they love explosions and go back to see them three or four times and make their millions back. Okay, Hollywood doesn’t need to make movies for me, 14-year-old boys have as much right as I have to go to the movies.  But I’m a rabid movie-goer and I am out of movies to go see, and I wonder if it really makes any sense to alienate so many loyal customers and emasculate our most popular stories and myths. It is hard to imagine how writers could take these popular myths and turn them into the most mindless and soulless exhibitions of runaway computer animation. This is not a re-imagining the Superman myth it is just a dumb movie hiding behind the cape.

I gather all of the good movies are heading for TV now, so this, I suspect, is where I will have to go. “Man Of Steel” was about as thrilling as watching Mr. Potato Head, and as scary as listening to the wires on a telephone pole hum. Any semblance of the humanity and simple evocations of heroism in the original story are gone, as has any semblance of a rational plot. This movie made absolutely no sense from beginning to end, and only way this loud and obnoxious mess can be absorbed is by giving up on the idea of a plot at all. And why do we need an alien invasion for the superhero? Don’t we have enough real issues for him, from terrorism to a dysfunctional Congress to climate change (think tsuanmi’s) and truly real and evil bankers?

This is the fifth or sixth time in a movie recently that I’ve seen an alien spaceship filled with evil aliens hover over New  York City while superheroes run around running into walls and one another below. Inevitably, the aliens start dropping laser bombs while thousands of wide-eyed extras scream and run for cover. What does Hollywood have against Grand Central Station in New York? It gets blown up every time a comic book movie is made while panicked commuters (I’m starting to recognize some of them, run into traffic or get incinerated.) I sure knew what was coming, why didn’t these poor people just stop gawking at the sky and take off, they had hours of pre-attack explosions and alarms to wake them up. Here’s a tip: at the first siren of the Apocalypse, get out of Grand Central Station, head for the bridges. The only way Hollywood producers seem to know how to get rid of alien ships is to open up black holes in the sky, drop bombs overhead (our jets get shot down in droves but big lumbering cargo planes with bombs seem to slide through),  and suck the bad guys away. And even that doesn’t work in this movie.

The last hour of the movie is spent in a sort of mutant martial-arts combat in which the evil alien General is killed, re-killed, re-born and re-killed, and then killed another half-dozen or so times. Sort of. When he is finally killed (you can’t give this plot away, there isn’t one), it’s in a manner so simple that our superhero could have done it two hours and 1,000 explosions earlier). And I’m not sure he even was killed. If this dreadful movie makes money, the nasty General will be back to kill all of us.  I have too much respect for 14-year-old boys to even pretend that this is anything but an incredibly witless monstrosity of a movie, a black hole all unto itself.

In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed corporations destroy every part of the culture I’ve loved – radio, media, television, movies, publishing. I’m sure they are hard at work on the Internet. This isn’t just a bad movie, it’s a corrupt violation of every single ethic and spirit of the creators of the story and the many people who enjoyed it. Yuk. Send your movie to help college kids pay off their loans.

In 1975, when trade magazines first reported that a Superman movie was in development, Jerry Siegel, then 61 destitute and in poor health, wrote a letter to more than a thousand news outlets. “I, Jerry Siegel, the co-originator of Superman, put a curse on the Superman movie!,” the letter said. “I hope it super-bombs. I hope loyal Superman fans stay away in droves. I hope the whole world, becoming aware of the stench that surrounds Superman, will avoid the movie like a plague.”

Siegel wrote that the people exploited and profited from Superman – he had lost all rights to his creation – were greedy and selfish. He didn’t know the half of it. His Superman story – precisely what the country needed at the time  it was written – has been destroyed almost beyond recognition, the whole notion of this elemental myth violated.  The Superman movies now attract all kinds of fans who have no idea what the original story was about, what Siegel and Shuster created or why. In corporatized Hollywood, that doesn’t matter.

But I thought of Siegel as I left the theater. I hoped that wherever he is, he can take some comfort at least that the curse worked. It would be  hard to make a worse movie about Superman.

The other evening I heard Maria crying and I went over to ask her how she was and she was working on a very beautiful blog entry about her experience caretaking for me when I got sick with Lyme Disease. Maria is honest and open about her emotions, they show on her face, she cries easily and honestly. I promised at our wedding to love her a little more every time she cries, and that has been a promise I can keep. Maria is a profoundly loving person, perhaps the first person in my love to love me so deeply and purely.

The caretaking experience was new to both of us, I had never really been sick before in our relationship, and I can’t remember being so disoriented and helpless, especially when the fever and chills struck. You lose your dignity and pride at a time like that, you accept your helplessness, you turn yourself over to another in the most complete and ultimate way.

It took Maria several hours to write those three very beautiful paragraphs and it was clear to me the real source of her emotion was not only that she loved taking care of me, but that it brought into focus a reality of our relationship that I have always seen more clearly than she has, at least up until now. I am 17 years older than she is, and the odds are she is not done caretaking for me. It is also likely that she will live beyond me, and I wish nothing more for her than more live and creativity in her life.

I have thought a lot about how I wish to live and die and insofar as it is within my power, I will work to die a natural death, one that is not prolonged by the hubris of modern medicine.  I will do all I can do to keep her from devoting too much time to my care. My wish for Maria is another chapter after I am gone, not years of caretaking. In our sometimes cruel and heartless country, we keep people alive beyond reason, tempt them with false and expensive notions of  immortality, stick them with the bill  and make their loved ones pay and pay. I do not intend for that to happen with me. That is not love to me.

This is a sad and yet beautiful thing, this reality, this acceptance of where Maria and I are in life. Many people write both of us and suggest we are so happy and connected because we haven’t been married for so long. Just wait, they say, just wait and see. We do see the silences of couples of all ages in restaurants, the irritations and fatigue in some long relationships. There is some truth to those comments, but also some mean-spiritedness.  We will get on one anothers nerves, how could we not? But we will not have a 30-year- marriage, not have as much time as some people for love to run out and grow weary. I know how relationships like that can sputter and die, and I hope to spare Maria that also. Our love sems so fresh, it grows and deepens every day.

Still, the lesson of the caretaking blog – it touched many people beyond me, Maria is a deliberate writer, not a gusher like me, but a very good one – was complex and important.  it was a powerful thing for both of us to acknowledge our creative connection, our great love and commitment to one another, and the truth of our love – it is not likely to last as long as both of us would wish. Maria learned a powerful lesson last week and shared it in her honest and loving way. We learned even more about us. Taking care of someone you love is not only a burden, it can be a gift and a joy, an affirmation of the purest connection.

I often regret that Maria and I didn’t encounter one another earlier in life, but I also see the foolishness in this. If we had met 30 years ago, I doubt she would have loved me at all. Life brings us to where we need to be, when we need to be there. To find love, you have to be open to it.

I believe good relationships are hard work, and require much thought, patience, and attention. I am committed to ours, and last week I saw how committed Maria is to the same thing, in the same way. If she needs me, I will be there, and I know now if I need her, she will care for me. We held each others hands and walked together into the wonderful and powerful future.  There is a wonderful beauty in this for me, our love is stronger than anything else we have faced or fill face. And we have faced a lot together.  In a curious but accepting way, I am grateful for this truth, that our love will not grow weary, but wiser and deeper still.

Today is roughly the end of the second week of my brush with Lyme Disease, a mysterious and confusing affliction believed to be carried by some forms of ticks, one of nature’s curious and seemingly useless creatures (I’m sure they have a function.) When I think of Lyme, I describe it this way, it is like being hit by a large truck with soft bumpers. It doesn’t kill you, but you are sore and aching all over. Fevers and chills descend and disappear, rise and fall.

Humans are curious creatures, when you get sick they rarely tell you that you will be fine in a week or so, they collect all of the horror stories they can remember or have heard and line up to offer as many warnings as they can collect. Warnings, like fear, is part of the new American currency, I cannot go on any social media page without being warned of new food dangers, poisons, medical discoveries, horror stories about illness and battered animal. Everybody has a horrific Lyme Disease story to share, usually accompanied by grim visages and cautions about the people who never quite recover from it. Plus, of course, much Internet advice, free and mostly useless.

Lyme Disease, like grieving or creativity, is very personal, one of the most individualistic illnesses I have come across. It affects every person differently. Some get rashes, some don’t, some have that bulls-eye, many don’t, some feel the bites, many never do. I know ticks well, have seen them and lived around them for years, many have taken a little nip out of me, walked around my clothes, my neck, my shoulders and legs. They are agile and clever rascals, they can scoot around your clothes or body for days, ride on mice and squirrels,  deer and rabbits. They love old leaves and the many good nesting places in the grass and woods.

Doctors seem confused about Lyme Disease, insurance companies are fighting off payments as long as they can, this is America, you haggle over your health costs like customers in some Asian marketplace. I joked the other night that I wasn’t ready for a Lyme Disease Support Group – there are many, and many have contacted me  – and got some disapproving glances, it is serious, I was told, many people suffer horribly, nothing to make light of. I know this is so. This is also America, the humorless land of dire possibilities.

My Lyme is still taking up some time, I still feel it. The sweats and chills still come around, usually in the middle of the night,  the sudden fatigue. I didn’t try holistic medications for it, I hear of many that work, I just wanted to feel better quick. When you get sick your medical philosophy is tested, it is so easy to panic, that is part of our currency too. Our health care system might be a muddled mess, but there is no dearth of pills to be given out, now and forever. Pharmaceutical companies seem a good investment.

I am told that every time a tick bites me I need to go get on prescription antibiotics for the rest of my life. I will have to think about that. I am much better, feel stronger and am recovering. I have two more weeks of antibiotics and I will finish them. I think if there is a next time, I might explore some of these holistic herbs. I can’t control the world, but I don’t want to make Lyme Disease a way of life, another chit in the world-is-a-dangerous place theme,there are plenty of people filing stories on that channel. I see that I have had it a long time. I know this because my legs and joints feel much better than they have in months, it just took its time to erupt.

I am sorry for those for whom Lyme Disease is a continuing and painful illness. It does not feel like I will be one of them, I believe I will feel it for a good long time, perhaps forever, I do not believe it will alter my life in any profound way. I’m ready to move on, but the Lyme Disease doesn’t quite agree, the green pills are chipping away it. It will be fine, I am grateful to wear it down, as it has done to me.

I love pastures, I think of them as the artery of the farm, the soul of the farm. Pastures need love and attention, they bear watching. Fawns are often hiding in them, they need brushhogging,, they need rest from animal mouths, animal hooves. They need water, but not too much water. All kinds of things besides grass grows in them.  If you take care of them, they will take care of the farm, of the animals on it. It is very peaceful to see an animal graze, keeping pastures open and green is an art, a challenge, a sacred ritual for me.

I was grumpy this morning, out of sorts, my body creaked, my head was fuzzy,

the Black Dog has settled in beside me, the other dogs were hiding behind sofas,

under chairs. Love was hiding in the garden, whispering to the fairies there,

what is that mumbling old man in the house?

My fingers were numb, my camera off in a corner, my Apple was asleep,

humming softy, I was wondering where my antibiotics were, and if I had

taken them all.

The room brightened, my head began to spin, all kinds of colors on the wall.

My muse appeared on the dance floor, sitting on the edge of a grand piano,

in a long, red, silk gown, she was just radiant,

smoking a long thin cigarette in a smooth black holder.

So, she said, will you dance with me tonight?,

or will you look out at the gloomy clouds and count the losses,

find your pills,

and ponder your aches and pains,

maybe complain about how things used to be,

we are not getting any younger, eh, the world is not getting simpler!

All those people, in your life, those who neglect you and can’t understand you,

and walk through mists of sadness and confusion?

The band, she said, her eyes twinkling, is playing the

Samba, Merengue and The Cha-Cha-Cha, one slow dance perhaps,

dances of love and inspiration, get the heart beating a bit

singing songs of love and longing,

pull you back from that window.

What do you say, you big hunk of a man?,

will you dance with me?

Not today, I thought, not this morning,

I have no dances in me, but my Muse leaned over and kissed my forehead,

and pressed her breasts against my wary heart,

and I said, sure, I will dance with you,

and she nibbled on my ear a bit,

and we swirled and swirled, laughed and sang,

the colors from the chandelier tracing rainbows on the ceiling,

the band playing louder, faster,

and the world opened up for me, and I laughed and

joked with the stars, and the Black Dog flew out of the window,

and I turned to kiss her in gratitude,

and she was gone, and she left a card on the table,

“You and inspiration are lovers,” she said. “Go make love.”