The ’70s… Roller skating, creepy-crawlers, bean bag chairs, disco balls, and of course, Earth Day… “Food of the gods” is pure 1970’s grade fun which wonderfully makes no sense whatsoever.
Loosely inspired by part of an H.G. Wells story, “food of the gods” begins with a cautionary monologue by the protagonist, Morgan (Marjoe Gortner), about the wrongs done by man against nature: “just let man continue to pollute the way he is, and nature will rebel”, his pop used to say…
I really want to like movies featuring animal protagonist(s), and I’ll often check out movie listings for older, newer as well as foreign films hoping to find a good one.
But my problem is the same as with Science-Fiction, especially space operas: they both tend to be formulaic and “anthropomorphize” their subject.
Which brings us to “Red Dog“, an Australian film based on actual events. The poster tag lines read: “sometimes you pick the dog. Sometimes the dog picks you”, and “he’s been everywhere, mate.”
Another late Caturday edition, this time dedicated to a topic we’ve touched on before, emergency preparedness…
SFFD Mobile Command 1
Late, because we just returned from the annual San Francisco city-wide N.E.R.T. drill which took place this morning. A couple years ago, Rudha-an and I decided to try and create a family tradition by both getting certified as disaster workers and first responders. We did so by registering with the San Francisco Fire Department’s N.E.R.T. program, which they created in the ’90s following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
Scarred helmet
The program’s acronym stands for Neighborhood Emergency Response Team, and is comprised of citizen volunteers who will act as auxiliaries to the Fire Department in case of a major emergency.
That’s about it for that tidbit of history. More recent events which took place in Boston (MA), West (TX) , and Leshan (China) prompted us to pay tribute to victims, both civilians and first responders.
A tribute and reminder
The San Francisco N.E.R.T. program includes training for animal rescue following disaster, appropriately called D.A.R.T. (Disaster Animal Rescue Team), which we both will likely undertake soon. Now, several of our blog’s friends have lived through or continue to deal with traumatic life experiences, and we would also like to dedicate this entry to them as well.
Long is the way, and hard…
The media talks about how to help children deal with the scary news of the past few days, and we think frankly that having them take disaster preparedness classes can be of great help. A young girl at today’s drill graduated from N.E.R.T. training when she was 7 years old and she is now in her teens.
For adults, busy though we all may be, it’s also a good thing to consider doing, especially jointly with a partner or spouse. The trainers, professional first responders, are survivors and generally speaking, great folks. Their spirit, humor and skills rub off and the whole experience is both fun and enriching.
Tools of the trade
Whatever tools help us claw our way through life are worth considering. So that others may sleep soundly. 18 hours a day…
From left to right: Tito, Titan, and Miss JennyFrom left to right: Midge (a very teeny dog), Dozer the tortoise, and Ginger the Golden Lab.
These are the two furballs and the tortoise from my inlaw’s home.
With Rudha-an suffering a sore (parched?) throat down in the desert where the wind sandpapers eyes and nose alike, and Miss Jenny getting (slowly) over her case of the unburied runs, Titanus Grumpicus continues to eat like a hog and rests his weary bones in the kitchen window soaking up the sun.
Note the chiseled features of the proto-fascist
Manx kittoons being subject to arthritis, we suspect it partly explains his grumpiness…
What with their nubby tail, long legs and sometimes short spine, the poor bastards don’t always know whether to run or hop around. Although Titanescu doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain, he looks uncomfortable when the petting hand wanders down his back, legs or neck. Then it’s “I CRUSH YOU” time.
I know the feeling: it takes me about ten minutes to “unkink” myself after I sit for about an hour…
Captain Kleenex wants to play
None of that fazes Tito who thinks he’s got a handle on old coot. When he’s not sure whether he’s gone a bit too far with the auld cat, Tito looks over at us to gauge our reaction if any. Smart cat.
We’re not yet sure what to make of Jenny’s odd behavior of late.
Litter box’ over there…
On two occasions, she has acted very scared, her pupils dilated, running at a crouch, “slinking” really, into the kitchen to hide in a cabinet. Combined with squirting melted Hershey bars which gross her out too much to bury, she bears watching. Well , not every Caturday can be about fun after all, but neither is it all drama…. Until next week!
We have been busy preparing for an upcoming trip and neglected the blog for a few days, but I wanted to post something else about our city.
The one thing I really dislike about San Francisco is the traffic. It’s dense, aggressive and plenty rude. But then, since I chose to work nights, I get to enjoy it a lot more. I took these pictures at work with my phone, which explains the poor quality of some shots. But if you can get past that you might enjoy some of what I see every night.
A cruise ship docked at the next pier looks like a space shipThe Embarcadero in the fog
Now, the photo below shows Forbes Island with its mock-lighthouse (center left) and the silhouette of the WWII ship Jeremiah O’Brien in the distance on the right. Forbes Island is a restaurant, built by Forbes Kiddoo in Sausalito, which can only be accessed by boat.
Forbes and O’Brien
Looking towards the Bay bridge from the marina
Fisherman’s Wharf after dark
This next and last shot is disappointingly blurry but it has elements to it that I really liked, so there it is:
Eventually I manage to kind of “bat” Jenny away just long enough to check the time, 9:39 a.m., crap I’ve only slept three hours. She walks back and forth across the pillow and darts when I pet her, almost coquettish “oh no, monsieur, really you mustn’t! Hee! Hee! Hee!”
Back and forth, back and forth.
With this tail I offended myself…
It dawns on me she’s digging around my night stand for something specific. She picks up an eyeglass cleaner in its wrapper and spits it on the floor, bats a small bottle of aspirin aside and gnaws at a pen, her eyes big as saucers and purring up a storm, with the determination of a French cop from XIX century literature, coquetry out the window now.
Jenny Javert, Javert-Jenny, whatever, I’m doomed by strawberry-cream jellybeans…
I get it, finally, and palm the toy laser before she picks it up to spit in my lap. She hasn’t seen me do it but she ‘senses’ I got something, so she walks over still purring loudly, extends her neck to smell my face, maybe give me a morning kitty kiss. She half closes her blue peepers, then vurps a small cloud of fishy breath up my nose.
But there’s worse now around here… Speaking of literature, of a Russian flavor this time. Titanus Grumpicus being treated for halitosis, his ‘affections’ can be fetid, especially after he’s nommed his canned food: I mentioned before he slobbers a bit. Well, that, combined with dragon breath and the tiny bits of Friskies mixed in spit he dribbles shape my dreaming into an episode of “Alien” where the freaking monster corners me in a dark service corridor and prepares to spear my forehead.
I crush you.
And do be careful trying to shoo him away, no matter how gently: he’ll swipe at your hand with surprising speed with a slavic-accented yowl you can interpret as “I crush you!” Old bastard.
Ah but Tito, the gentleman, rolls back and forth on the kitchen floor cooing, trying to prod the old coot into a game of tag, drawing him away from my eyes still puffy from sleep, cat vurps, farts and spittle, bless him. Of course, eventually, he’ll chase Jenny around and they’ll race across the bed, launching off of us like gut-punches or a brass-knuckled haymakers to the face. To the face…
Oooooh…. Pretty!
So fine. I’m up. And we know Jenny and Tito have their theme music, but now we have to think of something for comrade Titanescu, something purple maybe? Like our bruises..?!?
As the saying goes, ‘first I was like OMG, then I LOL’d’… On this side of the ring, the good guys: Daimon and his motorcycle , the titular Zaborgar thingamajig. The Zaborgar thing transforms into a robot which fights bad guys and bad robots alike with karate. It’s also made from Daimon’s dead brother’s DNA, extracted and mechanized by Daimon’s Nobel Prize winning scientist dad.
If this wasn’t enough baggage, while training in karate years ago, Daimon witnessed the death of his father, who had been captured by the evil Sigma organization, trolling about in the sky aboard what looks like – well, a gigantic ass.
Thankfully, Daimon was spared the spectacle of his father’s humiliation (his word) at the hands of Dr. Akunomiya’s cyborg henchmen, who inflicted titty-twisters on the venerable scientist, before he leaped off the giant ass in the sky and got nuked in mid-air by a laser blast, exploding above Daimon’s karate class… Did I mention the professor used to breast-feed his sons..?
I know. At this point you might think an aspirin is in order but perhaps a stiff drink is more apropos. We still have to discuss the bad guys, the Samurai robot and the Diarrhea robot. That’s right: the Diarrhea robot, an ant spewing acid from both ends. As for Samurai robot, he has giant lips designed to kiss politicians on the mouth, stealing their DNA. Their karate skills are no match for Zaborgar, but Miss Cyborg and her missile-launching bra is another matter. Why, she even manages to steal Daimon’s heart (not literally)…
With Daimon’s loyalty tested by corrupt politicians he’s sworn to protect and his heart divided between Zaborgar and Miss Cyborg, which path will he take? To find out, let’s kill a few people and flash forward twenty-five years…
This is more than a revival of ’70s Japanese television, “Karate Robo Zaborgar” is a comedy well off the beaten path, in the same vein as “Gentlemen Broncos“. “Karate Robo Zaborgar” pits high-school misfits (both the good and bad guys) against the true villains: lecherous, corrupt politicians, with slow-mo explosions, Bruce Lee moves and moos, ludicrous subtitles and very weird innuendos…
Waiting for the Pointy Eared people to work out their treaties and other political deadlocks, I look through older photos and forward to the tribe coming together.
So today is part retrospective, part look back to the future…
This is what I want:
L to R: Maz, Jenny and yes, Tito
Tito does the camouflage very well on this dark shiny blanket, but I think Titan will blend in even better…
… This is what I get:
“La Voltigeuse” on a cat tower that’s seen better days
And a really good thing it is that we “moored” the tower to the bookcase, or it would have been toppled countless times…
This is what I want:
I wuvs you Bubby…
The Boober did have the patience of a saint…
This is what I got:
Young Tito pole dancing
Meanwhile, next door:
Titan a.k.a. Captain Stubby
Just under Titan’s stubby tail is a teddy bear. It’s not what it looks like: these are the bears’ eyes and nose.
Maybe in the future we’ll have a cat named Jupiter or Jove, and Titan will moon him, rather easy with that nub of his…
Dedicated to our spectacular dramatis personae Maz Whang and Boober…
Some old aspects of the cat remain while new attitudes slowly appear. Looking at Titan’s russet accents, I am reminded of the Boober’s sable-brown fur. And way back East, where I imagine Titan might hail from, as far back as Romania where the Strigoi and Communist generals are the scourge of the people, bastards would kill for such a luxurious coat.
There’s a bit of Bukowski in him too, as he ambles over to the futon to cuddle and rub his chin on our face, smearing cat food all over and leaving streaks of fish flavored saliva with his slobbering kisses, hissing when the petting gets too close to his nubby tail, snapping unconvincingly.
Catso Fascista
Jenny and Tito came in tonight for a supervised visit, while the old coot watched from the bed, moaning and hissing softly in annoyance. They roamed around at a safe distance but still confident that Titanescu’s armored divisions were long sold to African or Middle-Eastern clients at a discount, and that his blunted incisors couldn’t quite sink into their necks. They knew and he knew.
