Shin Godzilla

I had seen "Shin Godzilla" once before, maybe in 2017, after a blind buy of the disc. I had a rewatch of "Godzilla Minus One" (love it!) recently, so I thought I'd take another look at this one. I remembered liking it a lot back then but couldn't remember many particulars. A monster kid friend of mine had remarked to me some years ago how much he hated it (I think based on how G. looked). A rewatch was in order,

I still liked it! Now, this one is an outlier, for sure. It has an approach I'm not sure I've seen before in these movies. Most of it feels like a documentary, with constant dialog requiring subtitling for this Yank (not to mention almost constant subtitling toward the top of the screen denoting the shot location. I wonder how that was conveyed in the original Japanese release? Maybe those were subtitled at the bottom? Anyway, it's a lot to take in.) As many have said, this is one talky monster movie. And Godzilla does look positively goofy in its first appearance; Toddler G., I guess you would say. Once it's full grown, though, the majesty is back, and it does look damned impressive, if a little dead-eyed. There's probably not quite enough G. in the final act, which is a bit of a shame. The movie is clearly about the human characters and not the monster. Still, I applaud the unique approach and recommend it.

Inglourious Basterds

You know what's fun in the current political climate? Watching something like "Inglourious Basterds," from 2009.

I just finished the first re-watch of that since.....2013, maybe? I think I saw it around four times after its initial release (in those days, I would blind buy media discs....not going to the movie theater that often, and building an insane collection in the process). Back then, I thought the movie was fun, interesting, and certainly entertaining, but I never thought of it as a full-on five-star movie. Not sure why that was. The alternate historical events didn't bother me much; I can't put my finger on what didn't connect with me then. Boy, it's a different story now.

It is truly a film lover's film. When I watched the movie in its first few years, I didn't even know who Edwige Fenech was, so the casting of Mike Myers as Capt. Ed Fenech meant nothing to me. German director Georg Pabst is referenced at least ten times. What the movie has though are several scenes of perfect dramatic tension, beginning with that opening scene....which I think should be in a list of greatest movie openings ever. I feel quite a bit differently about it all now.

I might even follow this up with "Inglorious Bastards"!

Musical Musing for a Wednesday Morning

 Only six days later, and he's back! All right! Or is it seven? Who's counting? Me, apparently.

Right now, I'm listening to the deluxe soundtrack of "Almost Famous," recently released. What a joy for this ol' man. My favorite "rock n roll" movie ever, and this soundtrack has every (I think?) song from the movie in full (rather than just the movie snippets), with dialog pieces thrown in for fun. Fantastic! The kind of thing that almost makes me tear up these days.

I came of age during an odd time in music history. The early to mid 70s was a period where pop/rock music was just beginning to contain more production value, but it was still before the "punk rock" onslaught caused people to abandon many of the artists that are in my musical DNA. I never bought into most of the "punk rock mythos" (I'm one of those who believes it was a marketing tool more than anything). If I had discovered pop/rock music just a little later, maybe I'd feel differently. I know of a few people older than me who thought punk rock was fantastic and exciting, but I think they were also people who'd already had a steady diet of a lot of the (admittedly) pablum that was out there. As of 1973, pop/rock music was new and exciting to me. It mostly stayed that way. And yet, there is plenty of stuff from the punk rock world I enjoyed.

I've run into this issue my entire drumming career. I've ended up in bands with the best of intentions, but ultimately I'll feel musically communal with almost nobody in any of the bands. Usually, I'm playing with people who are significantly younger than I am, and that definitely makes a difference...with this time period involved. It's not that I'm not sympathetic to music stylings of other band members, but you do want to feel yourself reflected in what you're creating, too. I tend to lose interest quickly, if I don't feel that. (Jeez, what did I eat for breakfast?)

I guess what I'm saying is by now, I'll probably never find the perfect band. Or perfect to me, anyway. But I've had a lot of fun playing with the people I have played with. I guess it'll continue a little while longer. Hope all's great in your day.

Valiant Attempt To Continue Steady Writing

 Well, it's been a couple of years, maybe more, but it's definitely time to start writing again. So much has happened!

As of this writing, I am happily retired....and yet I keep thinking about adding some part-time employment. I'm playing in a bunch of bands (some things never change!), and yet I feel the need for just a bit more structure. I'm sleeping too late in the mornings. Retirement has turned me fairly nocturnal again, and that actually surprises me. I don't like playing late shows, mind you....but I'm not to bed by10:30 pm, either. And craving employment isn't even due to being insolvent in any way, although a little extra dough would be nice. I have definitely cut down my "fun" spending.

My health has remained pretty stable, after the blood pressure incident of August, 2022. I take a few medications but nothing you wouldn't expect a gentleman of my age to ingest. I've had various issues with the "bad leg" (largely due to my falling-off-a-stage accident from late 2002), but some physical therapy I had back in June/July (and subsequent exercising) seems to have finally mitigated a lot of that. I'm more mobile these days than I've been in a few years.

Bands? Well, I'm still playing in both the Pocket FishRmen and the Hickoids. The Pocket FishRmen, after some years of what to me felt like "spinning our wheels" had a nice resurgence in the last year. We began rehearsing in the studio Cris is in now (which is much closer than he was before), and the result has been a burst of creativity. Everybody's now contributing to the whole. I had no issue with just dressing up Brant's demos, as we did before, but this feels nice. And more....well, involving.

The Hickoids had the most significant line-up change in some time, with long-time bassist Rice Moorehead moving to Baltimore, ending his lengthy membership. Rather than get another bassist, Tom was moved to bass, with Patrick picking up guitar to add to his key duties. The result has been, well....not the greatest. The relationship between the bassist and the drummer is a special one. You have to lock in with each other to provide a good foundation for the whole band. I find it impossible to lock in with Tom, largely due to Tom's unhappiness in the role. He just doesn't want to be playing bass, and it shows. (This is the only band I've ever played in where I specifically ask the sound person to not put bass in my monitor. If I hear too much of him, I'll lose my way quickly. And this ultimately just makes my job harder.) We probably sound rougher and sloppier, which might please some, but I can't stand it. Still, there's a lot I enjoy about the band, so I'm still hanging around. We'll see how this all plays out....it's been a couple of years now since the major change.

In later 2022, I began playing with a prog/metal band called Rëigncoät. That resulted from me feeling like I had one more new hard rock band hurrah in me, before I head to drumstick pasture. I say "resulted," because I mentioned this while out one night. Carolyn, our singer, heard me, and wanted to start something new, too. Next thing I knew, our line-up was formed. It didn't really turn out like I wanted, but I like everyone in the band a lot. So it's got that going for it. Maybe we'll get a  more collaborative writing effort underway later. That would help my view of it.

Also, I began playing bass with old friends Mike and Rennie, in their band Smooth Move. I ended up doing the bulk of the singing, too. I really was not expecting that at all. It's fun to see friends and jam some...and it was really worth it for me to pick up another instrument. I'm not setting the world on fire with my bass licks, but I admittedly don't practice all that much. This has also led to me talking with another old friend to develop another band where I play bass, using more ideas I've come up with. I'll be spending more time on that in the future, I feel certain.

Okay, that's it for health and music. Perhaps I should write about movies or music more. Or the state of the world. Geez. Well, we'll see.

Meanwhile...

 Let's see....I hadn't written in this since Feb. 2021. I didn't even mention the huge winter storm we had, right after my mom had passed. If you live in Texas, you know.

We were lucky, in that we were only without electricity for about 22 hours but didn't have water for about four days. We existed on homemade cinnamon rolls and other snacks during that time. No, we hadn't properly prepared for this, but overall it wasn't that bad. Considering the fate of many others in the Austin area, I consider us fortunate. We burned a lot of firewood during the time our electricity was out and used water from our hot tub and a neighbor's pool to keep the "plumbing" going. By the Friday following the storm, we were able to get out a bit. We had the most delicious Popeye's chicken finger family buffet ever.

I still am not completely done with all the doings post my mom's passing but am closer. Without going into too many details, most paperwork is done. But that was an odd time, and I still haven't felt like I've properly grieved. One day. Or one year.

In other news, I took on some extra job duties at the ol' IRS for awhile, leading to way too much stress. That, coupled with the passing of a kidney stone, landed me in the hospital in early August, 2022, with high blood pressure. First hospital stay since a tonsillectomy at age six. I'm on high blood pressure meds now, but it looks like that's subsiding. Which leads me to...

I retired from the IRS at the end of 2022. I better post this before I let it sit for days.....again. More to come.

Time to Dust This Off

 I have retired from my day job, as of December 31st. So it's time to write again. Once the shock of not having to get up in the mornings has worn off, I'll get on it. Really.

Mom

My mom passed away last night. She had taken a huge downturn right about Thanksgiving - going from her spunky, independently-living self (at 91!) to being very "confused" (which almost seems to be a current medical term) and not being very aware or able to communicate well.

She was residing in San Angelo, where she'd lived since 1985, and I saw her several times a year...until recently, of course. Covid had locked down her apartment building for quite awhile. And then, once things opened up a bit toward the fall, she adamantly did not want me risking coming over there. That's just how she was, but I still talked to her several times a week. She had been losing weight steadily for awhile, I knew that, but she still had her faculties and while slowing down some, I didn't think much about her condition.

Come the week of Thanksgiving, things changed. I talked to her on Monday, and something sounded a little strange but not enough to where I thought too much about it. She did mention during the conversation that she was having phone problems and that there had been another outage of the phone lines where she lived. (That had just happened a couple of months before, and someone at the high rise called me to tell me that fact.) Tuesday, I had been really busy at work and didn't get a chance to call (calling her after work hours was not the best time), so Wednesday I tried to call her several times with no luck. Again, I thought about what she'd said about the phone lines, but at the same time I was a little concerned. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I tried to call a few times again with no luck. Again, I'm thinking "aah, the phone lines are down. Damn." I tried to call the high rise office with no luck. Friday morning, I'm just about to start calling again when her friend Janie (who does not live at the high rise) called me to say I needed to come over there quickly, as something was wrong. She had gone to take something to my mother and had found her fairly unresponsive. Janie called the Home Health nurse, and she had gone over there and called me immediately after Janie did. They were calling an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She was again, really unresponsive.

So I packed quickly and headed to San Angelo. I got there in the afternoon and got to the hospital by the early evening. When I saw her, I was shocked at how she looked. The nurse told me she had a Urinary Tract Infection, and that this often had a devastating effect on the elderly, causing all kinds of confusion and whatnot. And several people told me that. The woman who manages the high rise, the doctor, another nurse, etc. I couldn't believe my mother was so out of it. She barely knew who I was, although I'm sure wearing a Covid mask didn't help. My visit seemed to agitate her, though, and she kept trying to get out of the hospital bed. So I stayed as long as I thought I could and left.

I stayed the night, then tried to contact her financial advisor the next morning and let her know what was up. I went for another couple of visits at the hospital. The first one, and I'll never forget this, she looked at me after I'd said hello and made small talk of some sort and said "you look just like my son." For someone who was the child of a woman who was always in control and in charge of her destiny, etc., this was pretty devastating. Again, my visits seemed to agitate and make her think we were leaving, so I kept them sort of short. I went by her apartment (and the power was out in the whole building when I got there), got the mail and then headed home. Everybody kept telling me "she might pop right out of this," but I didn't really believe it. Even though, if there was someone who would pop out of it, it would be her. So I didn't do anything about her apartment this trip. Sometime in early 2020 or so, I had gotten myself signed onto her Wells Fargo banking (of which I'm a co-owner), and so I would be able to pay her bills, etc. Very happy to have been astute enough to get that set up in my last visit there while she was lucid.

And of course, she never really "popped back" at all. After a couple of weeks in the hospital, she was moved to skilled nursing, a rehab area in the Baptist Retirement complex. Two weeks after my last trip, I headed back down there, this time armed with several empty plastic tubs, with a thought toward beginning packing her apartment up. Saturday morning, I met with a rep for Sagecrest, which is where the Alzheimer's patients live (they also run the skilled nursing). I took my first (and still only at the time of writing this) Covid test. I had to have that to visit Mom in the skilled nursing building. I paid a couple of visits there, and she seemed somewhat aware of who I was. The second visit (Sunday morning) was filled with "I love you"s and some hand holding. That was nice. But I still, for whatever reason, could not pack her stuff. So I headed back home again.

As December began to fade, I realized some real steps had to be taken, and while I was trying to decide how to handle this, my bandmate Brant, from the Pocket FishRmen called me and said "let's get in my truck, drive down there, and get that stuff moved." I readily accepted, and so the Sunday before New Year's, he and I headed down there to see what we could get done. Brant's a go-getter, and we had all of the furniture out of there and over to Janie's in a few hours. We successfully moved her electric chair over there, which was the thing I was worried about the most if I would have had to do this myself. The rest would have to wait, though. I didn't even begin to get into her closet area or really anything else. 

On the following Tuesday, I headed back to San Angelo, deciding to stay Tuesday night and take my time packing the rest. So late Tuesday afternoon, I pulled up to the high rise and was about to take the plastic tubs into the building when Janie called. Turned out she and Edward had been over there on Monday and cleaned the place out! I don't know if I've ever been more grateful for favors. I had packed up several tubs when I was there with Brant but had not taken any with us (other than one with important papers). I had most stuff that I considered important, but I suspect I might want to take a look at those tubs in the future when I go back.

Wednesday morning I met with the Sagecrest caseworker to turn in a Medicaid application, if we needed that help when the time came. I had not had a Covid test this time (and I could only get one from them), so a visit to Mom couldn't happen this time. And once again, I headed home.

That was my last time in San Angelo (as of now). I had planned on going back to visit Mom, but Covid restrictions were tougher than ever, especially at the nursing facility. I did talk to her on the phone once, at a nurse's suggestion. I was kind of shocked she suggested it; I didn't know Mom was even capable of holding a phone. That was Monday, January 18th. It was a pleasant enough call, and Mom seemed to know who I was. She wasn't very lucid, so it was a very one-sided conversation. But I said what needed to be said. That was the last time we spoke. I had planned to go back for a visit but did not make it in time.

I would call whatever nursing facility she was in from time to time to see about her. The nurses never said anything different. It was always "she's here. Not eating much. Sleeps a lot." And her weight was dropping. I knew it couldn't be long.

Last night, at about 7:55, a nurse called me and said Mom was having some breathing difficulty and wanted permission to administer a breathing treatment and possibly morphine if it came to that. I said "yes." She said it's time to come see her if you can. I said I'm near Austin, and we're in the throes of a rare winter storm. She told me that in her experience, it could be minutes, hours, or even longer if her breathing got under control. I thanked her. She called me ten minutes later; Mom had just passed.