Using Movies, Writing, and All My Interests, for Unfortunate Creatures--A Saturday Journal

There are moments in every life that move you in unexpected directions.  Here I am, contentedly sharing my story, and exercising my love of writing pieces of a mosaic that is my life. 

I am gradually constructing a picture on these pages that I hope will stand as a legacy, a self-portrait, to anyone who cares about me personally, or who shares even some small portion of my interests.  I hoped readers found on these pages a kindred spirit with whom to exchange opinions and enjoy a mutual appreciation of a mayriad of seemingly unrelated subjects.  I hope they will keep doing so.

And then I saw a video last week which haunted me; and I continue to be confronted by photos, like those below, of innocent creatures caught up in man's seeming unending carelessness.  The importance of everything else fell away for few moments. And for many moments since then,  I began to see that instead of me reinvinting my life, my life was seeking to reinvent me.

And I wondered...can I be true to myself,  pursue my personal interests, and still use the life I have left to live to contribute to something as harrowing and important as the rescue, care, and advocacy of animals in harm's way? 

It is overwhelming...  Because I want to be the one to change it all....And I often succumb to emotion, and wonder if I can just pretend it's too far away, that it doesn't affect me....

Reinvention indeed.......

Now, as I think about the work I now do for the Community College; my interest in writing, and film; my undeniable love for animals; my experience in animal care, both domestic and homeless; and my hankering to conquer my home city, Chicago, ....ideas are taking shape.

I have read through the website for Mercy for Animals, which opened my eyes to horror last week, and I will visit their Chicago headquarters before this month is out.  I don't know if I will be considered too old for an internship; or how I can arrange my time to offer assistance with the organization.  But I know that before the year is over there will be something good for me to contribute, whether in person or through the keyboard...

I am writing like crazy...and through the haze of ideas, I see forming a work that I hope can be the Gone With The Wind of animal stories in screenplay form, or a novel, or even a memoir....or a regular feature in this blog.....

The time I volunteer at the Buddy Foundation, feeding and walking the homeless dogs, will take on much more resonance....I feel like I can do so much more....and will.

I will continue to re-explore various points in my life; and reconnect with my heritage (even if only by learning Italian); to understand my life from a unique LGBT perspective; to continue my lifelong love of the motion picture and offer my personal viewpoint and act as a fellow curator of the art form;  to make a comfortable and hospitable home with my partner and best friend; to compulsively read everything I can  find that is of interest; to be a good friend to a few special people; to contribute to the success of students and community members at the college; to spend time with all the dogs in my world; and to stay connected to those things (like music, art, and a budding political awareness) that define me and give me energy and purpose.

And now, it seems that  all of this is conspiring, and coming together, to point me in a direction to do something true and important to save some creatures who need help.  

I hope you will stay with me.....

My Love of Movies and Gene Siskel--Thursday Journal

Last weekend I was reminded of an early influence on my appreciation of movies, the late film critic Gene Siskel.


There was a time during the 1970's and 1980's when you could not hear Roger Ebert's name mentioned without also hearing, in the same breath, the name of Gene Siskel.  In fact, it was "Siskel and Ebert", the name of their milestone television program, that became part of the national lexicon.  Theirs was the first show to feature two critics discussing, and gloriously debating, the latest movies in release.

Each review was capped with their signature judgment: "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down".  (Once in a while after a decidedly mixed review, they might give a humorous "Thumb Sideways".)  Nationwide, newspaper movie ads used "Two Thumbs Up" as a cinematic seal of approval.  While Ebert was the daily film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Siskel reviewed films for the rival Chicago Tribune.  Since our household had Tribune delivery, I began my love affair with movies by following Siskel's reviews.


My father would occasionally bring home a Sun-Times from the train station, giving me a chance to read Ebert.  But I remained loyal to Siskel, hung on his every word, memorized the star-ratings he awarded each movie (* to ****), and imitated his style (along with that of Pauline Kael) when I began writing reviews of my own in a junior-high-school journal.

Many of Siskel's favorites eventually became my own favorites too.  "Annie Hall", "Nashville" and "Z" all made the #1 spot on his annual Top-10 lists.  He reviewed "Cabaret" twice in two weeks, the second time to urge people to see it.  He enthused that "The Last Emperor" was one of the greatest films he had seen in all his years of reviewing to that time, in a career that started in 1969. 


Siskel instilled in me an appreciation of the artistry and creative possibility of movies, giving special praise to international cinema, particularly French and Italian imports.  And he made me feel like I was "in" on the conversation about the most exciting movies of the day, many of which I yearned to see in spite of being too young, according to the then-stricter enforcement of the MPAA rating system.


I entered his "Beat Siskel" Oscar contest faithfully during my entire teen and college years.  I never won, but had a blast handicapping and second-guessing him and the Academy. 


Gene Siskel died in 1999 of a brain tumor at age 53,  It felt as though I had been cast adrift, without an anchor. 


This past weekend I attended a film at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Downtown Chicago, part of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  It is a terrific little movie house with two comfortable screening rooms showing a great variety of classic, independent and experimantal films, as well as the occasional Hollywood revival, and interesting documentaries.

It is a showplace reminiscent of a time when college students stayed up all night to discuss and debate the latest new wave or foreign film, or to gather after class for coffee and a matinee, maybe sitting for a double feature.  I am sure that if I lived any closer to the city, I would spend as much time at the Gene Siskel Center as I did in the University screening rooms of my youth.

Mark and I saw Vittorio DeSica's 1948 neo-realist masterpiece "The Bicycle Thieves".  The print was in mint condition and I understood some of the Italian dialog without the subtitles.  This film was simple and profound: a man in post-WW2 Italy needs a bicycle for his new job.  When his is stolen on his first day, he and his son spend the day to try to find it.  Along the way they make some hard discoveries about justice and ethics and the struggle of life.  It is not romanticized at all, but its stratightforward tone and open-endedness made it extremely emotional and moving.  I think Gene would have been ecstatic to have this film showcased in the theater that bears his name. 

 

Don't Ask Don't Tell has NOT Been Repealed Yet--Tuesday Journal

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Okay.  It may be a move in the right direction.  But I think some folks are too enthusiastic about the House vote to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, which forces gay military personnel to lie about themselves in return for not being discharged from their military careers.


And I worry that many people will be too satisfied, too placated, by this gesture to ask what it really means.  Some might even scorn those (like myself) who suspect this could just be lip service, and would continue to speak out for repeal.


The Amendment the House passed (printed above) is simply a rhetorical, political statement to outline a way the military can, in its judgment, rescind its policy of discrimination against openly gay military personnel, conditionally.   But although many pundits are declaring this an historic victory, I maintain that this amendment might not guarantee a repeal.

The document as written provides for a "review" that lists a number of conditions to be met first.  But really, this could all be much simpler.  State that openly gay military personnel will no longer be discharged from the military, and immediately end the practice.   To do anything less strikes me as merely mollifying the homophobes in the ranks. 

Instead, we have a proposed list of procedures that don't immediately address discrimination, and that continues to assume that gays are a problem that need to be solved.   Not only that, the review carries NO TIME TABLE for completion.  At the top of p. 4, it all but states that if these conditions are not met, Don't Ask Don't Tell will remain in force.


Look--gay people are already serving. What will change by conducting a drawn-out review?  All this amendment does is allow politicians to claim that they addressed the issue; and those who secretly wish that it be forever caught up in bureaucracy can easily "support" it,  knowing it may never actually come to pass.


Soon after the House vote last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a direct appeal to military personnel and their families:

"Every man and woman in uniform is a vitally important part of this review. We need to hear from you and your families so that we can make these judgments in the most informed and effective manner.....So please let us know how to do this right."

This seems to me to be a stall tactic, an attempt to manufacture controversy.  Does anyone really think Gates' statement is directed toward gay personnel and their families? 

One would think that the military was preparing to place its personnel in harms way, even asking them to risk death! 

One might even think that military brass can no longer give an order and expect it to be followed. This repeal could have been ordered BEFORE a review was commenced.

I think we should be very cautious in our praise of this proposed amendment to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.  I will support any real effort to end this shameful discrimination, by all means; but I can't sit back and wait patiently--or silently-- for a "review" that may well conclude that a repeal is not feasible.

For-Real "Slumdogs" in Brazil: Monday Journal #1 (of 2)

The Brazilian town of Caxias do Sul has found a novel way to deal with its rampant stray-dog problem. Because shelter space is so scarce, the organization called So Ama (Just Love) has built and housed over 1000 dogs and about 200 cats in a shanty-town, or favela, comprised of small dog houses and tin shacks.  Favelas are also used to house the city's poor; most would call these units slums.

In other words, "homeless" dogs in Brazil now have their own slums in which to live.

When I first saw the story, on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, my emotions were mixed.

Perhaps my initial reaction of distaste was based on the negative connotation of "slum" as a desperate, despairing place of crime and poverty.   Maybe a better word for what So Ama has built would be "shelter', which has a much more humane connotation, as I would be the first to agree. 
 
 

Still, before I read more about So Ama's naive wish to change the world for these unfortunate animals, and to provide them with shelter space before the demand far exceeded the supply of shelter housing, I had to pause.  It looked like a mockery of human poverty, and a sad reminder that much of the world regards animals as unfeeling creatures, helpless in the face of human ignorance and neglect.  I thought how terrible it must be to be chained to a doghouse indefinitely, to deal with the natural elements like rain, mud, insects, and extreme heat.  I wondered if the animals got exercise beyond the reach of the leashes that chained them to their houses, whether the houses received regular repairs, if the area was secured against abuse and threat of injury or violent death, and if there was any emotional care and love beyond basic feeding and (I hoped) cleaning.

Given the poverty of the area, and the meager government resources, the organization has done the best that it could, providing 12 tons of food per month, paying over $14000 in monthly veterinary bills, and caring for all of these creatures with a staff of only 15 volunteers! 

Knowing how daunting it can be to feed and clean and walk 2 dozen dogs in a 2-hour shift on a Tuesday evening, I could not comprehend the amount of time needed to provide daily care for what would amount to nearly 100 dogs, and about a dozen cats, per volunteer.

I realized that the Brazilian climate was likely more conducive to outdoor living, and that our harsh winters and hot humid summers would be a death sentence to our shelter dogs if housed in the same way. 

The "slum dogs" are all available for adoption, but Brazilians seem more reluctant to adopt shelter dogs, opting instead for pure breeds.  Many of these animals will never leave the favela.

I wondered if the government would consider subsidizing human families who resided in "slum" housing, provided they could take in and demonstrate care given to one of the So Ama dogs.  But that is my naive view of a perfect world.  There is no easy way around the dilemma.  I applaud the organization for providing care for these creatures on such a massive scale.  But I long to see a world in which So Ama, The Buddy Foundation, and all of the animal advocacy and anti-cruelty groups would cease needing to exist.

Here's a link to an aricle in Reuters, which provided much of my information. On the link is a 2-minute video of the favela and interviews with So Ama representatives.  I would like to know what others think about this solution to caring for homeless animals.

Dennis Hopper, "Easy Rider", and the Death of Idealism--Monday Journal #2 (of 2)

Peter Fonda uttered one of cinema's most prophetic lines in the 1969 counterculture classic film "Easy Rider", directed by and co-starring the late Dennis Hopper:

 "We blew it."

With the death of Hopper this week, a little bit more of the 1960's counterculture dream died with him.  

In the years before his death, Hopper himself no longer believed in the druggy anti-establishment he helped to define with the production of "Easy Rider". In fact, like a number of counterculture icons in Hollywood's late-'60's, his life settled into a conservatism at odds with the youthful protest encouraged by and reflected in his landmark film.

(Of course, Hopper had to clean up his act, and relinquish a self-destructive lifestyle.) 

Contemporary moviegoers may remember Hopper primarily for his dual turns in 1986: the first one as an exquisitely frightening criminal in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet"; the other, his sole Oscar-nominated performance, as the pathetic, alcoholic father of a high school basketball player in "Hoosiers".

But for many, Hopper (and Fonda) will always be Billy and Wyatt, the dropped-out, drugged-up counterculture "outlaws", riding motorized "horses" across a troubling western landscape after making a big score.  With Jack Nicholson's freewheeling lawyer in tow, the trio looked for American freedom, abandoning the establishment and its ideas of time and responsibility, never realizing that their "freedom" depended on the very "system" they sought to escape.  Instead of achieving freedom, they became victims of the prejudice and hate buried within that system  that they unwittingly supported.

Hence...."We blew it".

But before that sobering discovery, Billy and Wyatt moved through a landscape of idealism that motivated their journey of discovery, before "being bought and sold in the marketplace": the rancher making a life of his own with a loving family; the hitchhiker from "the city" returning to his friends on the communal farm; and the farm itself, misguided, yes, but born of a true desire to make a successful life among a large blended "family", cut off from the requirements of a button-down corporate lifestyle.

It was the same impulse that drew people to the Woodstock festival the year "Easy Rider" was released.  It was the same innocent and often misguided idealism so beautifully captured in the revived 1968 musical "Hair".

Even Woodstock had been revealed to have been as much a corporate venture as an attempt to create a "nation" of peace and free love.  But the impulse was true, the idealism very real, and unfortunately impossible to sustain.

Even though the "hippie" movement, the counterculture, was not as innocent as the dreamy, glamorized images portrayed in movies and music of the day, there was something sort of wonderful about that time, at least the romanticized version of it, that may become as nearly forgotten as "Easy Rider".

That was the sense of a shared experience, a coming together of people young and old but driven mostly by the young, who recognized the mindless conformity that was killing them spiritually in the marketplace and literally in the jungles of Vietnam. 

Music was concerned with Coming Together, of I'd Like to Get to Know You, of Giving Peace a Chance.  

Artists like Joan Baez sought to organize, kids tried to set up communes, students spoke out for themselves and each other, protested unjust war and injustice all over, and advocated against oppression.   Communications was the popular college major of the day.  There was a belief that that ethereal, peaceful idealism could change the world.

Now, there's a subtle feeling that the lesson of the 1960's is that individuals must look out for themselves.  Shared goals are accomplished individually on-line, and not in groups both jubilant and urgent. There is no longer a meaningful shared musical or media heritage, which once successfully transmitted culture between groups and generations, so that (in spite of the information available on the web) many people have little knowledge or understanding of the relevance of popular culture from before their time.  People remain "connected" yet isolated, their worlds confined to their headphones, their laptops, their texts.  Community service is a requirement of graduation, a way to beef up a resume, and not a genuine outpouring of idealism.

Even though the look and music of "Easy Rider" is today is "dated", fixed in a fleeting period of time, it seems that we have taken to heart that surprising and sad line, "We Blew It."  It seems no longer possible to reclaim the idealism of that time.  The '60's were like the rebellious adolescence of America. 

And now that the world is literally bleeding to death in the Gulf, another one of the icons of that idealism, whether Hopper deserved that label or not, is gone.

The movie lives on...but it can never mean the same thing it once did, ever again.  And in some odd way, it is as relevant as ever.

Because, unfortunately, we continue to blow it.