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.
Forty-three days until the beginning of Spring, we are ready to say goodbye to bad colds and high gas bills, aching bones and gray mornings. As Winter plays its last notes like water on metal…
Winter’s notes
… The Sun is barely warmer than the Moon.
Wintry morning
Naked branches without color…
Naked tree
Damp earth holds on to bird tracks for warmth…
Leroy was here
Yet, already the ice has begun to crack.
Cloud of ice breaks
Give us a few months of color before we welcome Winter back, only to curse again.
There are things they hide from us, or at least do when we’re not looking. They have secrets, which some people hate, but when you finally get to shed light on a cat mystery, the satisfaction is second to none.
Item one: the tufts of white hair we found lying about were Tito’s. I know this because one morning in the last few days, I opened my eyes to see Jenny pin Tito down Greco-Roman wrestling style with a lock and a throw. Tito tried getting up, but his attempt ended up with him hitting the ground again. In between throws, Jenny turned nervously towards the bed to see whether I witnessed anything, her head surrounded by fluttering tufts off Tito’s back.
Is she gone? Is it safe?
The second mystery, while not quite amounting to one, was how could half pound potatoes find their way across our kitchen floor?!?
Run the spud, an event rendering any argument invalid
We still haven’t caught her doing it, But Jenny has precedents with smaller taters, and can be seen here practicing the wide-open jaw-lock necessary to “lug a spud”…
We’re gonna need a bigger boat…
What it is with her and potatoes we have no clue. But she sure does like bringing them to bed…
Most San Francisco visitors I encounter seem eager to run through certain areas of the City, just so they can snap a few pictures here and there, before returning to their hotel satisfied they’ve pretty much seen it all… Fools.
It is like this:
The photos below were taken at tremendous risk, hence the shaky quality of some shots, but one does not simply tangle with raccooneers and expect to hightail it fully intact.
They saw us. Sh*t’s about to get real
For those few who understand there’s more to the park than meets the cursory glance, I say go to the Conservatory of Flowers, Bison paddock or Stow Lake, all those storied places worth hours if not days of exploration, “but I do warn ye, if ye value yer life: ye stay well clear o’ North Lake. Place be full o’ monsters with ’em little teeth”.
The party readying to come ashore
We ain’t – I mean we’re not talking about cute Strawberry Hill over in Stow Lake with them owls and their neighbors, the blue herons. No.
Land Ho!
I’m talking about that gloomy islet, New Barbary Coast, where Charlotte Raccoon (née Badger) and the others, like the Harpes, scourge of squirrels and raiders of birds’ nests, ply their trade from dusk ’til dawn…
Who’s that devil with a blue peeper? Major Tom?!?A stare to chill the hardiest soul
One last word of warning: don’t feed the raccooneers, they’re turning into fat b****s… This ain’t no Disney movie.
Yeah, bring your camera too, ‘cuz we’re gonna eat all of that
How this film came to be is very easy to imagine, as described by the writer/director: a typical awkward teenager browsing video stores in the ’80s, staring at video jackets of R-rated films his parents won’t allow him to watch, conjuring visions of what the movies are like.
‘Struth… But what makes it a little more unusual is that the kid’s father was George P. Cosmatos (1941-2005), who directed some popular movies in America and abroad, such as “the Cassandra crossing“, “Rambo II” and “Tombstone“. There isn’t much to find online about either father or son, and the elder Cosmatos’ decision to move his family to Victoria, British Columbia, reflects a strong desire for privacy and normalcy well away from Hollywood.
Michael Rogers as Dr. Barry Niles
[…]1983. Dr. Barry Niles (Michael Rogers) runs the Arboria institute, created by his mentor Mercurio Arboria (Scott Nylands).
Scott Hylands as Dr. Mercurio Arboria
Dedicated to the development of human potential through technology and experimental medication, the facility houses a young girl named Elena (Eva Allan) with telepathic powers reined in by drugs and electronic voodoo in the form of a pulsating pyramid…
Eva Allan as ElenaElectronic voodoo
This is about as much of the story behind “beyond the black rainbow” which I’m willing to tell, because going further would only be laying out my own interpretation of a very personal film. “Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.” – Sherlock Holmes in “The Boscomb Valley mystery”.
The Sentionaut
Although “beyond the black rainbow” is very interesting visually, some would argue it isn’t anything particularly new. When I first saw the film’s trailer, I wondered: is that an early De Palma I missed? The stark decors with deep shadows and bright blue or red light, the mirrored surfaces and characters’ look…
But “beyond the black rainbow” is not imitation it is reflection, Pan Cosmatos’ imagined version of what 1980’s films were like, and an attempt at coming to terms with the loss of his parents. I suspect that a viewer’s take on the film will be very personal: much of what happens on screen, as well as the back story, is ‘hinted’ at.
Young Barry Niles chasing the rainbow
Watching “beyond the black rainbow” is an experience of sorts, the combination of sharp visuals, slow pace and tonalities made me feel as though I was in some altered state. The unfortunate result being that I fell asleep twice trying to finish the film.
This in itself makes it somewhat difficult to recommend the film: it certainly doesn’t fit the usual “midnight movie madness” mold of entertaining weirdness. It does however has an appeal shared by “the Lathe of Heaven” (the 1980 version), and “altered states“, exploring themes which are not readily translatable to the screen.
Niles’ breakthrough
I want also to single out the performance by Michael Rogers as Dr. Barry Niles, whose strange, androgynous appearance becomes clear in the last few minutes of the film. His interpretation of a brilliant mind pulled between different realities, with muted lassitude, disgust and rage was subtle and fearsome at once.
