HAVANA CAFE WITH CYNTHIA

cynthia and double selfie as retired cop

A couple weeks ago Cynthia and I spoke of making a run to West Jefferson to have lunch at the Havana Café and see Selma again. Selma had the coffee shop in Sparta before Becca. Selma's spirit fills the air of this small restaurant of extra good Cuban food the same as her spirit filled the air at the coffee shop in Sparta. The aroma in the air is so Cuban you can almost see it, floating vapors in the air of scent from a Cuban kitchen, it surrounds you before the door closes behind you. We wanted to go last Friday but the weather was too intensely cold. The oppressive cold would take some of the fun out of it. We were looking for a fun time, not survival. The weather looked good for this Friday, so away we went. It was an excellent sun shining day over familiar highway I'd not been on in several years, highway I drove once a week for about five years. The drive was a good review of the landscapes and houses all along the winding mountain road, Hwy 18 from Sparta to Laurel Springs, Hwy 88 to Jefferson, then to West Jefferson. Cynthia goes another way from the way I drive to West Jefferson. When we passed my turn off point I was lost from there on. Everything had changed along there so much since I last drove the highway I did not recognize anything but the McDonald's M. It was my only landmark telling me where we were. She was going in from that end. The drive from there to the part of town we were headed to was unrecognizable from the McDonald's onward. It has been more than twenty years since I've been on that road. It's been a lot of years since I've been to West Jefferson. It was like I had never seen any of it before. I recognized a few spots, just enough to mark location. It is a pretty town now. The Havana Café is on the back street that faces the old railroad track, the road to the library.

 

selma and cynthia

 

As soon as we stepped inside I heard an explosion of "MAMI!" Cynthia and Selma fell into each other's arms for a big nurturing hug. It was joyous for both of us to see Selma again. And to see Ralph, her husband, the chef. He is aware of the subtle flavors in Cuban cooking. I can tell because his cooking makes me aware of subtle flavors. Selma's decorating is a simple suggestion of Latin ambiance in a place with a familiar American feel, nothing pointing its finger at the Cuban but the aroma in the air and Selma's Latin style. Though nothing on the walls is "Cuban," the interior of the small restaurant  is packed full of tables and there is no feeling of being crowded anywhere in the place. Chairs of a beautiful contemporary design, black seat and back, chrome structure; light weight, easy to handle, sturdy and firm on the floor while moving easily. They give the place a feeling of style. It is Selma's decorator's eye. The chrome chair legs enhance the floor with a pattern of faux tile. It's the floor that gives the place a Latin ambiance to accompany aromas in the air. With the kitchen beside the area with the tables, it makes the place feel alive. The atmosphere in the place is lively talkative people feeling comfortable liking their context. I was feeling good being with Cynthia. Her light-hearted spirit balances my deadbeat spirit. Like I interpret myself having crow energy, I feel Cynthia is wren energy. You might see a wren through the window land on the deck railing. It will look this way and that, turning every which way looking around, looking deeply, not just glancing, attention shifting in a mind that goes too fast almost to live with. Cynthia's mind is instantaneous, so she's very quickly bored.

 

on the left the kitchen, on the right the dining area

 

Cynthia's world and my world intersect just a little bit, such that we see each other every once in awhile by apparent chance. I'd not seen Cynthia in so long and hadn't had a quality visit with her in so much longer that we spontaneously decided to make the run to the Havana Café to see Selma and have some good Cuban cooking. I may have bored Cynthia out of her mind, but I felt comfortable with Cynthia the whole time. She once apologized for her driving, but I told her I'd not had an anxious moment yet. She was keeping it in the road to my satisfaction. She felt to me like a driver with good experience who knew the roads, never went into a curve faster than it allowed, nor too slow. She's a good driver. The whole round trip I never felt anxious the first time. I enjoy conversation with Cynthia. I've missed Cynthia and today didn't seem like quite enough. We talked about driving to West Jefferson again before too long. Cynthia is petite and vulnerable like a wren, too. I feel protective with her, like Steven Seagal said to a woman he was with in a gunfight, "If you want to get out of this place alive, stay with me." So heroic a thing to say. The same quotation came to my mind the day I sprung Jr Maxwell from the Sparta nursing home. Cynthia is from Asheville, has traveled all over the country, worked here and there. She came to Sparta to be the director at the Teapot Museum that was in its time of quick wane when it became apparent no money was coming from anywhere. Mr Vanity from LA who had a fortune in the teapots wanted the working class citizens of the county to fundraise fourteen million dollars to build his museum for his teapots in a time of rural Depression in America.. Mountain people didn't drink tea anyway, except for iced tea Southern style with plenty of sugar, and not from no tea pot. It didn't work out.

  

selma

 

Since the time I said no to the world of the false, I've turned my focus inward onto my world, the people in my world. Cynthia is someone in my world I don't see enough of. My new awareness makes me want to give more attention to the people of my world I want to be around rather than the frauds in the media. Cynthia is a refreshing spirit for me. Makes me wonder about past life connection. I feel like we know each other better than we do. I've known Cynthia from the time we first met. She's in her world and I'm in mine. We went to see Ralph Stanley not too many years ago. It was a good show. She was teaching a course in the community college on Southern culture. Made me glad she could have a Ralph Stanley experience with her appreciation of the culture. Again, as I remind myself every day, I want to focus my attention on appreciation of the world immediately around me, the scenes along the highway, the restaurant, the car, Cynthia, Selma, I was feeling full appreciation. It was appreciation day for me, like yesterday was and the day before. I have tremendous more fun when I'm appreciating the people I'm among. I wanted to be with Cynthia today because she's someone I appreciate, respect, like an awful lot and feel comfortable in her presence. We're like inter-racial. Her world is not my world and my world is not hers. The coffee shop is about the only place our worlds intersect. That's ok. She's a huffin-puffin go-getter who gets things done, good organizer. I'm a donkey laying under a shade tree wearing a sombrero with holes in it for my ears to stick out, listening to reggae, Burning Spear, waiting for Babylon to fall. On the drive over we discovered we both like rum. It was a good day, my celebration of having Cynthia in my world day.

   

winter foliage

 

 

*

AN END AND A BEGINNING

table

The child abuse situation took a turn on Monday morning. Justin does not need to jeopardize his own life with manslaughter charges or kick some ass. The state of North Carolina will be doing the ass kicking for him. I imagine by now the man that hits children to hurt them is looking at his future as a big black hole about to swallow him. I can only feel sorrow for him, because the punishment, in my way of seeing, is greater than the crime. But that's not my call. America is a venal society. He'd have got off better with one good ass-kicking and ball bat bruises on his head from Justin. That would have set him straight. But this is better. He was wrecking a little girl's life, and now it's his life that is wrecked. Thanks to him, little girl will now have a life.

tree dance

She's a tough little kid who has already been through a lot at 5. The hitting hurt like hell, but it was also what she was used to. The worst part is getting used to it. Now she can feel safe, cared for, protected. One thing she knows at the age of 5 is her daddy will protect her. The fear she's lived with will fade away. Her daddy will also teach her over time how to protect herself. She's already a good fighter, living with a half-brother 3 years older, who is seething with anger as a child does who lives in fear. The day I saw the boy, I noted to Justin the importance of getting the girl away from him before he goes into puberty. The growth hormones in fast food burgers are bringing kids into puberty sooner than ever now. The girl was in severe danger.

red umbrella

 

The last couple of days have been about the happiest of my life. My eyes have been wet all day both days, and many times dropping a tear from joy. I didn't realize how much I cared about her, loved her. I didn't realize how important we are to each other. I'd only see her a time or two a month, and then she was on short-term vacation, jumping out of her skin from her nervous condition living in fear. When she ran to me and clung to me the rest of the time I was at the house, I realized I must be something like a grandpa for her she shares her joy with. I pay attention to her is probably what did it. I forget that adults don't pay attention to kids except to correct them. When an adult pays attention to a kid, for the kid it is a big deal, noticed by a grownup as something besides in the way. I automatically connect with a kid with eye contact and listen to what they want to tell me, regarding the individual within the same as I regard the individual within an adult. The only difference I see between a child and an adult is size and experience.

kitty-kitty

The experience part is the key word. Human adults have such powerful and complex psychic energy, I have a hard time with too much of it. I recall the Zatoichi movies, Japanese, of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. He was a samurai monk. His walking stick was his sword. When the sword left its sheath it drew blood. He could feel psychic energy from adults. No adult could slip up on him from behind or any direction. Children could slip up on Zatoichi, because they're not radiating the energy we adults give off like the scent of a skunk that precedes it. Zatoichi loved the children and the children loved him. There are a couple of Zatoichi movies, both of them good films. Steven Seagal's character that ran through his different roles was based in Zatoichi. Like Zatoichi, he took care of children and drunks. Zatoichi comes to mind whenever I feel especially intense energy radiating from somebody. His eyes could not see, but he had this gift of seeing energy.

caterpillar

I feel happy all the way around. I'm struggling for a word all day I can't find. The impulse is to say I am proud of Justin for who he is. But proud is not the word. It's the easy word for what I'm feeling, not the word itself. To say proud is like I'm taking credit for something. It's not me, it's him. I've known him all his life and I know he has in him what he is showing right now. Like he said to me on the telephone earlier, "I'll die for my young'uns." It was not an idle cliché spoken for the sound of it. I know he means it. His young'uns will grow up knowing that. I know one little girl whose daddy is her super-hero. That's what I've been seeing that has my sea of emotion in big waves, a helpless and hopeless little child living in fear and anger, rescued, safe, loved, understood, appreciated, starting over with all new clothes, even a new school where she has cousins. No mementos of bad memories. It's more awe I feel for Justin than pride. It's awe to see Justin with such stature as a man. And it's not that he's doing the right thing so much as seeing it an expression of his heart, the emotional health of his heart. Through this experience I've seen that Justin's heart and his mind work together as one. That's what I'm in awe of.

swimming pool

*

STEVEN SEAGAL'S BORN TO RAISE HELL

Trust is not one of my more spectacular attributes.

                                                  ---Steven Seagal

Another good Steven Seagal movie. He is making consistently good movies now, which has not been his pattern. In the years I've been watching Seagal films I've found him an artist. The unevenness of his earlier films were evidence, for me, of an artist trying this, trying that. And sometimes what works for the artist doesn't work for the audience. I feel like his most recent films have a consistent quality about them since Kill Switch, one of the worst movies I've ever sat all the way through. It seems like that one must have purged something for him, because everything since has been among his best. This new one, Born To Raise Hell, 2010, is perhaps the most mistitled movie I can think of. It's like the decision for a title was made by a committee. It's eye-catching, but any attempt to tie it to the movie after seeing the story says it might apply to one of the minor characters or the character Seagal's character was looking to kill.  

Seagal is a SWAT team commander, an American cop stationed in Bucharest, Romania, where making a film costs about half the cost in California. I like that he uses Romanian actors, crew, the works. The actors speak in English. It is a full-length movie version of his present tv show, Lawman, where he patrols with hometown cops and teaches them martial arts principles, especially to pay attention to what they're doing. Until.... A few weeks ago I heard on the news about his tv show somewhere in Arizona, that he with tv crew and a tank, yes a tank, raided a place where a Mexican guy was raising fighting cocks and killed 50 of the birds. Turns out the fighting cocks were show chickens. He raised chickens to compete in chicken shows. The cops killed all the chickens, raided the man's house with a tank and a SWAT team, and a tv crew. Big law suit to follow.

It was funny after hearing that news to see this film where Seagal is a missionary of American police state methods in Eastern Europe. To raid a house they carried the battering ram used by American SWAT teams to break down the door. From the looks of the doors they broke down, a swift Seagal kick could have opened it easily, and no one ever checked to see if a door might be unlocked. I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable at times seeing Steven Seagal a missionary for police state. I prefer to think that he sees what he's doing is training cops to be more conscious about what they're doing. I've an idea his influence is to ruthlessness as well. Seagal wrote the screenplay and produced the film. I appreciated that in this one he wasn't saving his daughter or his wife or his girlfriend or a pretty girl or a little girl from evil doers.

He went back to Out For Justice this time for the story around a revenge killing at the end. Revenge is another of his oriental themes. Of course, there was the obligatory views of tits and ass, and the nightclub with techno music and babes gyrating in bikinis with flashing lights crawling over their squirming bodies. One  of the aspects of a Steven Seagal movie I particularly like is his story telling. It's not that the stories are original, beautifully done or outstanding. For an action movie, at least it has a story. He doesn't do all the twirling kicks like vanDamme, Norris or the other anglo martial artists in action films. Seagal uses a particular form of martial art that takes the least movement, the least effort. He hits a guy in the chin with a stiff arm and the heel of his hand, why hurt your knuckles, and the guy is out. He takes hold of a hand, twists it in a certain way and he absolutely controls his opponent. A hard kick in the belly, between the legs, the face and the opponent is out.

I hear complaint that Seagal doesn't really do martial arts anymore. My jaw drops open, because I watch his films to see his martial arts choreography. He choreographs his own martial arts ballets with moves that work and the least movement necessary. His opponents are people good at martial arts. The actors and stunt men hired for the roles have to be fast enough to keep up with his speed. Seagal in his own life is trainer for undefeated Anderson Silva, one of them that fight in a more or less cage where anything goes. Martial artists, like musicians, get better as they grow older. Seagal as artist and martial artist came across to me this time as apparent maturity has set in with Seagal. Not getting old, but maturity as an artist; writer, actor, martial artist. It feels to me like he's more relaxed in his art forms from all the years of practice. I call this one of his better films, and it is a new direction in his film making, even though it amounts to a pilot for his tv series Lawman filmed in Bucharest. Seagal is Charles Bronson, the next generation.  

The parts of Bucharest seen in his films make something like a travel video of what looks to be a beautiful city. I just now scrolled up to see the image of Bucharest in the picture, saw the title again and broke out laughing at what a ludicrous title it is. For one thing, the title suggests a rebel. Turns out he's a supercop. Born To Raise Hell just doesn't ring as a title for a story about a supercop. He'd have done better to name it Supercop 3, or maybe 4. I've heard something about a 3rd Supercop movie. I have to give it to Michelle Yeoh for Supercop 2. She beat Jackie Chan and Steven Seagal all to hell and back as Supercop. I don't mean to throw off on Seagal's film, because I liked it enough to see it a second time same day.

The title continues to make me laugh. It's called marketing. Product packaging. A title that sells. He might have had another title and somebody with an eye to getting a return on investment wanted something more cliche-like. Something predictable to catch the eye of a Steven Seagal fan. I'd have seen it whatever the title. In fact, I'd be more disposed not to see a movie with that title. For a Steven Seagal film, it seems silly. Born To Raise Hell is a tattoo on the arm of a 1950s Harley rider with Borned To Lose tattooed on the other arm. 

*  

STEVEN SEAGAL THE LEGEND

found art

Here comes the lightning, thunder and rain. Every day we get thunder and lightning and rain. Not complaining, though the lightning sometimes is something to complain about when it hits close to the house. Caterpillar has gone to one of her hiding places. We need the ground water. The rain is splashing on the stone walkway along the house. The sound of rain in the leaves and splashing on the rocks brings to mind flames we can watch in a fireplace all our lives and never see one split-second pattern repeated. No split second of the sound of rain is ever the same as any other. It's this infinitely non-repeating pattern by sound or sight that relaxes us. This is God's way of doing things. The way of the human mind is repeating patterns like techno in music, the metronome, the beat in about all music. The steady repeating sound or visual tends to charge up our nervous system and make us want to get in motion. Move around the floor in a loco-motion.



We like both. Where sound is concerned, the repeating sounds mixed with non-repeating sounds makes music. Visually, disco strobe lights make a repeating pattern with the repeating patterns in the music. It's pretty cool first time you see it. Movies too, repeating patterns and non-repeating patterns, both. There is always a disco/strobe moment in a Steven Seagal movie. Like there is always a moment of tits and a moment of ass. The mandatory T&A in an action movie is always in his films. A checklist item. Making an action movie? T&A any way you can get them in and multiple big explosions. The purpose is to avoid such summations, 'Nah, man, that movie wasn't any good. I didn't see one tittie. Did you, man? When I watch a movie, man, I gotta see some titty. Know what I mean?' I think the punctuation of American films by explosions is to wake the audience up periodically, attention aids. Hollywood knows very well that after half a century of television the average American attention span is about the same as a cat's. The rest of the world too. The whole world loves American movies. They don't make you think.



Speaking of Steven Seagal, I saw his movie THE KEEPER the third or fourth time last night. It's one of the dozen or so of his 30 or so movies I like the best. It's fairly recent, 2009. One of the repeating patterns from one movie to the next of his would be rescuing a daughter from danger, most often his, but this time the daughter of a friend. And/or a good looking woman is being rescued. That's an oriental theme that I'm sure he repeats for the oriental audience, perhaps his biggest. He is non-racist as a man, as is his character. Girlfriends will be of any race. Seagal is not one to hold the white race up as superior, rather it's just another possible skin color to be born with. One of his producers is Thai. In this film, he was being told about somebody, one of the characteristics being racist. Seagal shook his head and said, half to himself, 'That's stupid.' Another repeating pattern, consistent from movie to movie, is he doesn't kill anybody that isn't trying to kill him.

He also plays a repeating character from movie to movie, a different name each time. Only in 2 movies did he use the same name, Jonathan Cold. The first one happened in Poland where he was what was called in the movie, a Foreigner, meaning CIA they didn't claim if something happened. The ultimate rogue. A master martial artist too. The next time he was Jonathan Cold, he turned up by surprise in LosAngeles, a man who will walk into a gunfight rather than away from it. He goes into every situation with full confidence he will survive it. In another 09 release, DRIVEN TO KILL, he demonstrates to a girlfriend how he does a trick with a spike under 3 tall paper soft drink cups. She shuffled the upside down cups, one with the spike under it, while he closed his eyes. When she was ready, he opened eyes and slapped one of the cups flat to the table. It didn't have the spike. She was impressed and asked how he knew. He said, 'The trick is not to give a fuck.' It explains how his character enters any dangerous situation. It's not that he's fearless, not that he knows he will come back all right. It's that he doesn't give a fuck. The international macho man, "I don't give a fuck!"



He uses a different director in almost every movie. And they're all good directors from all over the world. Different photographer and always ones with a good eye for urban and interior compositions per film and frequently the same script writers, Joe Halprin, Steven Seagal, and others. This one, The Keeper, had interesting visuals all the way through. It opened with the credits on Los Angeles at night with all lights on from a helicopter flying among the skyscrapers, each one a work of magnificent 20th Century architecture, a huge city,  carbon footprint. Most of the camera work was interiors and enclosed outdoor areas. Seagal has a friend in this movie, somebody from his past he'd known long enough that the man told the sheriff regarding Seagal, "I trust him." That was spoken from a world of men where the law is trust no one. It's not just rule of thumb. It's absolute. He and the sheriff knew each other, and the sheriff knew what he was saying. That was all he needed to hear.



I hear complaints about Seagal films from all quarters. They're not this, not that. He can't act. He doesn't really do martial arts---because he doesn't do cheap frilly martial arts of slinging feet around like ballet dancers. I don't agree with any of them. These are people who have seen one or none, maybe a preview, putting all the action movie heroes together in one bundle, which can't be done. I've seen them all but a few. They're called adolescent, etc, but please remember boys didn't pay attention in school. Intellectual films don't reach them when they're grown up. They're a valid audience. I like a Seagal film for the same reasons I like a movie of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. In the same way, it's not realism so much as legend. Seagal's character is a legend who reappears in each film in a new way, new name, new place, new maiden to save and protect. He defined himself to a priest in Pistol Whipped, a bad man trying to do some good. Then he said to the priest, 'You know, that's what I like about you. A good man like you got time for a bad man like me.' It's the legend in the stories that keep me going back to them, and Seagal the martial artist who choreographs the moves in a martial arts bout. He doesn't do flashy martial arts, but quick moves and dirty fighting. He does whatever it takes. And he knows how.



*




 

KINDERGARTEN KARMA

by robert mangold


It feels so good to have doors and windows open during the day! Soon can have windows open at night too. Flies come in, flies go out. They hang around too long and a spider gets them.  Leaving windows open without screens all summer long, I have very few nuisances from flies. It feels good not to put on a coat to go to the mailbox. With the cost of heating oil and kerosene going up, up, up, what can I say but come on global warming. This present inflation is about profits, certainly not the working man's wages, which will stay the same. Keeping the working man's wages down keeps profits up. But what is that compared to a springtime mountain landscape? It's another kind of landscape, the invisible landscape of money changing bank accounts by computer, by mind, in a steady flow like ocean currents all around the world. Without the flow, as in blood stream, suddenly you have a corpse.



We of the working class have had our loose spending tightened up. Necessities continue to increase in expense and our income doesn't go up anywhere near proportionally. At the same time that we're turnips being squeezed for blood, the whole economy thing is fluid as air and essentially amounts to commonly agreed upon beliefs about money holding the system together. Everybody believes it, so it's so. Is that so with gravity? No. Though that's how it has a name. I don't think anybody disputes gravity calling it just a theory. It's the same as the law of karma. What goes up must come down. What goes out must come back. I'm rubber, you're glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks on you. It must have been in kindergarten I learned that. Not from a teacher, from another kid. It might have been the first thing I learned in school. The very first thing I learned, the law of karma.



The only thing that mattered about saying I'm rubber, you're glue, is it infuriated the other. Somebody, another kid, says something unflattering to you and you say that. There wasn't a good comeback for it, so it usually was the final word. A few years later, maybe 2nd grade or 3rd, it was no longer funny. It was too childish, too kindergarten. I'm not going to schizz off into everything I know I learned in kindergarten. Maybe so, maybe not. I tend to doubt it. Seems to me, I learn things every day. But there it is, perhaps the most important learning in one's educational experience, the first thing I learned in school and didn't even get it until an embarrassing number of years later. The most important natural law there is to be aware of. Gravity takes care of itself. Karma goes with decision making.



Becoming aware of karma as it works out, not as a mystical foreign word, is right in there with the root of self-awareness and can be the beginning of conscious living. Once I caught on that I create what comes to me by what I put out in my interactions with others, worries and concerns began to fall away. Like do unto others as you would have them do unto you, in church it came across as an order, a rule you better go by or Jesus is going to be unhappy with you and he just might let the devil have you. Or in preacher terms, it's a commandment. You better...or else. When I finally got it, it turned out to be just good sense, because they will do unto me as I have done unto them. And I will do unto someone in turn what that person did unto me. Revenge, the theme of countless Asian action films. I'm thinking when something like that becomes a commandment you better obey, my response is never to think about it, even to wonder what it means. When I see it as something practical that works as surely as gravity and is just as invisible, it becomes a tool I can use consciously to make my life better.



In my own experience, I've found as I carry for my guiding light to treat others right, I get treated right. It's not 100% because some people don't ever treat anybody right. It just goes with living in a world that is the collective human mind. When somebody treats me right, I tend to make a mental note of it regarding that individual for first chance I get, I'll treat him/her right. Get them back. Same as we make a mental note when somebody does us wrong. Like when Steven Seagal says, "I'm gonna find who killed Bobby Lupo." "What you gonna do when you find him?" "I'm gonna kill him." Whatever weapon somebody comes at Steven Seagal with, he takes it and does to them with it what they set out to do to him. Mr Instant Karma Man. When he starts, it's like karma itself has taken human form and set out to bring things in the world back to balance. Evidently, that's what karma is about, keeping balance.



*

TOO MANY ROOSTERS IN THE CHICKEN HOUSE

The foreign film of the week is Blood and Bones. Japanese, the story of a Korean peasant family that left Korea for Japan when north/south tensions were boiling, fascism vs communism, the story beginning with the crowd on the deck of the transport ship Koreans were taking to Osaka where they believed they'd find their fortunes. We follow the story of one man's family, Kim something or other. It turns out he was the kind of person summed up by his son at the end of the story, he was here for nobody's pleasure but his own. He was severely cruel to the people closest to him, at home, like his wives, one at a time, his kids, making all their lives miserable. Some people killed themselves and attempted it because of his behavior. Everybody whose lives intersected his suffered. He started a small factory, made a bundle of money working his employees too hard, paying too little, violent temperament, carried a club with him all the time. He became a loan shark and was ruthless. His wives tended to die. He only raped them, beat them, berated them. He ended up dying of old age in his own bed, mutual abandonment by the various members of the family. One of the boys went back to Korea never to be heard of again.

I saw it because the man was played by Takeshi Kitano, the director who made a string of excellent films. A feeling that the director of this film, Blood and Bones, must be on a par with Kitano for him to be a leading role in this director's film, Yoichi Sai. One I saw yesterday that Kitano directed, Scenes At The Beach was the same as a silent film. It was the story of a young guy whose job was trash collection, he's deaf and finds a broken styrofoam surfboard. He takes it home, fixes it and sets out to figure out how to surf. At the end of the movie he wins a trophy at a tournament. He has a little girlfriend who goes with him everywhere he goes. He can't talk. He can't hear and it is nearly a silent movie but for the sounds of the ocean. No soundtrack, just silence. Sometimes you hear people talking, but little of it is necessary but as sounds going on at the moment. Beautiful, quiet film. Surf about like the South Carolina coast. The most interesting part about the film was having no soundtrack or dialogue by its characters. A very great deal of communicating went on in that silence.

In the midst of my own private film festival of Kitano films, I like everything I see by him. Each one is off the wall in its own way. They tend to be way off the wall, like out in the middle of the room. He plays lead role in several of them, usually a man who is something of a loser, sometimes a yakuza mobster who goes too far, a loose cannon who tears up everything and in the end himself included. His one film that stands out from the others is Zatoich the Blind Swordsman. A Japanese samurai legend figure like Hopalong Cassidy is in television culture in America, though nothing similar as characters. Zatoichi is a blind man who has advanced senses as a result of his blindness. He was a humble man, always saves women, children and old people.

He has extrasensory knowing is the only way I can define what it is he has.

Zatoichi is the origin of Stephen Seagal's character who continues from film to film, usually with different names. Seagal, like Zatoichi, never loses. When I saw the connection, I understood. Seagal grew up in Japan with American parents, school there, his life there, then they moved to LA when he was 18. He studied martial arts since childhood. Zatoichi was a weekly television show when he was a kid, like the Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers here. Seagal understands Asian ways. He brought the legend of Zatoichi to America with him and has given it now to all the world. He doesn't kill anybody not trying to kill him. Leave him alone and he goes in peace. Pull your sword on him and you're dead, that quick.

Kitano made a good Zatoichi. The other actor in Japan who made a Zatoichi film is just as good as Kitano's version, in its own way. Both of them beautiful films that happen to be samurai films. I don't remember the name of the other man who played Zatoichi, but he also played him in the weekly television series Seagal grew up seeing. The making of them was at as high a level as the making of the film. They might have inspired Seagal in those years to take an interest in film making. They stood out in their time, certainly for television. Beautifully made, and a man of action who has the uncanny ability to disappear. Some of his adversaries call him the Ghost. Seagal's character is also like Zatoichi's in that he is portrayed as a devout believer who visits temples. The monks and other believers are his people. They're home base. Out on his travels by foot is where adventures flare up. Seagal's character works out there on the fringe when he's with The Company where something happens to him they never heard of him. Men with guns. Men with swords. Roosters with spurs.

WEARISOME DAY

first sign of approaching autumn

Middle August is the time the first bits of color start popping out. Earlier today I was looking out the window and saw this across the road. The weather is cooling down a little bit. In the 60s at night again. Wont' be long until I'll have to close the windows. The next step will be occasionally having heat, then always having heat until next summer. Winter gets a bit tiresome about February, but when I think of all that winter does for us, I'm happy for it. Malaria first. We don't have malaria because we have winters. The winter keeps fleas, ticks and other pests down. It's malaria I'm most grateful about. Once it takes hold in you it never lets go. The Mongol hordes in the time of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan liked to stay up north along the route of the silk road, their road for carrying loot back to Mongolia from the region where all the countries end in -stan. They learned when they went south, they came down with diseases, their bows didn't shoot as well and their horses lost their vitality. Somewhere I read long ago conjecture that Job of the Bible lived in what is now called Uzbekistan, Uz then. In the time of the Mongol hordes all the -stans were under Kazakhstan, which was then enormous. The Mongols obliterated their civilization. There was no defense against them.

These are my thoughts with the approach of winter. I'm not so crazy about the cold, but I love not having malaria a concern and a long list of other diseases. We still have plenty of diseases. Global warming will spread malaria northward. That's not today's concern. It's the concern of today's grandchildren. Who cares about them? Not any capitalist American. Not any American Christian, the ones that go about announcing themselves as such wherever they go in the guise of hate, perverting the name. They want to see the whole earth go up in flames, believing they won't be here to be part of it, because Jesus is gonna come get them. Whatever. It's like Jehovah's Witnesses having the rich man's house picked out they want to live in when they're one of the 40 thousand, or whatever the number, left on a destroyed earth. I say let them have all they want. They don't come to my door anymore. I don't think they want to live here. Last time some were here, I said you've come to my house to tell me what you believe; since you're in my house I'll tell you what I believe. They ran for their lives. Never returned. Thank you. Thank you. That was easy.

I dread paying the winter's heating bill. I didn't realize how much I was saving burning wood. It was an enormous amount of saving. It's got so expensive now to live, it can't keep going on this way, though it will. Next will be a city of poverty around our city dumps like Mexico City where a major population of people find everything they use and eat. Thirty more years of Reagan Junta and we'll be well on our way to becoming the next India. Has anyone but me noticed that over the last 30 years the CEOs and other execs, the suits, take all the wealth for themselves and the work force hasn't had a cost of living increase in 30 years while prices have kept on increasing with inflation? Working people get poorer by the year. The ones that get by taking for themselves get richer by the year. I think of the old hymn, Farther Along. Farther along, we'll know all about it; farther along, we'll understand why. It's the way of the world. All I know to do is vote against Republicans. That's why I vote. Like I've said before, I believe in the boycott of one. So I've just pist off 3 groups of people. None of them read me, so they'll never notice until somebody tells them about it, which will be the case in all 3. I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. It's not a mistake.

It's been a peculiar day. I've felt like sleeping all day. So I did. Sleep 2-4 hours, up for awhile, then feel like going back to sleep for a few hours. During one of the awake spells I watched Stephen Seagal's other recent move I'd not yet seen, Driven To Kill. Pure Seagal. The best of Seagal. Not necessarily the best one, but among the best. He didn't want to do it, but he had to. Somebody tried to kill his daughter, almost got the job done, and killed his ex wife. Early in the story bad Russian mob boys set out to get him. When somebody says they're out to get Seagal, he becomes a dead man walking. He will not survive the film. It's a story of Seagal investigating to find out who did it. His character is quite a sleuth. I enjoy Seagal films on a whole new level after finding Zatoichi the blind swordsman in his character. It's too complex to try to explain why I like Seagal's stories so much. I like an action movie from time to time. They have a quick pace. There's the political correctness stance on violence that I don't buy. Anybody can be as PC as they want, just leave me out of it. I had a brief conversation with an eccentric old feller in the post office once about a bumper sticker on his Mercedes that said he is not PC. We had a fun moment laughing at the concept and how pervasive it is for a conformity device. One thing that really helped Obama was political correctness said to vote for him. I found it an interesting phenomenon.

I can say I know why I like Seagal's films but can't explain it. Too many reasons and they all weave in and out of each other. It turns into a jumble when I try to pick it apart, one reason at a time. In a way, they're as much cartoons as Spiderman or Godzilla. I like cartoons. Not exclusively, but I do appreciate cartoons. His character is somewhat 3-dimensional in that he contradicts himself like all the rest of us do. He's a man with a spiritual life that is not stifling; rather it's his guide. He comes from the world of espionage fiction like Tom Clancy with his own twist. It's like a peephole into the doings of the CIA and bigtime mobs. I can see it at a safe distance when it's entertainment.

To see it any closer, I'd have to be there, and I don't want to do that. Tell me a good fictional story of somebody who rights wrongs from a world I know nothing about. Total fantasy. Also, he makes films in different countries. I like to see landscapes and cityscapes in parts of the world I'll never visit. I've always had immense curiosity about other cultures, other parts of the world, other times. It's been with me as long as I remember. Because somebody is not born in my country or not of my race does not invalidate that person before my eyes one little pixel. Seagal feels the same.

Everybody want to be a tough guy.

But nobody want to pay the price.

---Steven Seagal

NEW STEVEN SEAGAL MOVIE

Saw the new Steven Seagal movie, A Dangerous Man, yesterday, twice. It's a good Seagal movie again. After a couple that were really bad, I was hesitant to pick up the next Seagal dvd that came along. A friend who watches movies about Nazi zombies told me the new one is really good. I didn't know how to take that. Thought it wouldn't hurt to check it out and see. I like a Seagal movie good or bad, unless it's really bad. Kill Switch, 2008, was so bad I could only give it one star at netflix and that for simply existing. It was a cliche of what people who don't like his kind of movies expect. I can't help but think it was a conscious decision made by Seagal possibly in relation to a lawsuit with Las Vegas mafia outfit over breaking a contract. My feeling, and it's only feeling based in little information, is that he was sentenced to complete the contract and did, making them the worst movies he could make. That's entirely conjecture. Something wasn't right. It was made the same year as Pistol Whipped, one of his better ones, and Urban Justice, another of his better ones. There were 2 in between them that have low ratings. I won't see the other one unless I'm in a nursing home paralyzed and it's on the television. The 2nd was called Against The Dark. He's a vampire hunter in it. Ho hum.



Over and over I hear people say and read it somewhere that Steven Seagal can't act. That's a standard belief about him. He's no John Malkovich or Anthony Hopkins; he doesn't emote much, but when he does, he does. He's a smooth dude. His characters have a fairly even temperament, meaning his emotions aren't running the gamut in every scene. In A Dangerous Man, a man has a gun on him in one scene telling Seagal he's a dead man. Seagal's answer was that it's said after we die we're in emptiness. He's been in that emptiness for a very long time. Then he took the guy's hand, turned the gun and the guy shot himself. Whoops. It's a truth, whatever somebody goes after Seagal with, a bat, a sword, a gun, a knife, a corkscrew, Seagal takes it and kills them with it. His character from movie to movie is the same, but with different names. In 2 of them he has the same name, Jonathan Cold. From movie to movie, he never kills anyone who isn't trying to kill him. Everyone is safe except anybody trying to kill him.



Seagal grew up in Japan, his parents living there, where a television serial, a Japanese kind of Lone Ranger, Zatoichi(pron: za-toe-each-ee---accent on each) the blind swordsman, a legend in Japan. I've seen 2 films of Zatoichi, one directed and starred in by Takeshi Kitano that is an extraordinary film all the way around. The other by Shintaro Katsu, who also directed and starred in it , made an equally fine film. Shintaro Katsu played Zatoichi the blind swordsman in the original tv series that went on and on like Cisco Kid, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers. Evidently the tv series was very well made and popular, because netflix has a long list of them. Zatoichi is the kind of man Seagal's character is in his films. Zatoichi means no harm to anyone, helps people who need help, his only possessions his robe and his sword. He has a sense for feeling energies, presences of anyone around him and their intent. In a sword fight, the other guy always loses, and Zatoichi never kills anyone who isn't trying to kill him. Children love him and he loves children. No one can sneak up on him but a child with a clear mind. He saves helpless women and children and old people from danger. He gives what little money he has to people who need some. He's a practicing Buddhist, but doesn't wear it on his sleeve.



It's the one with Shintaro Katsu that Seagal models his character after. Seagal's character is not blind but has the feeling for energies like Zatoichi. He's a mysterious individual like Zatoichi, too. No one can defeat either one of them, no matter how many, no matter how good with a sword, gun or martial arts. Seagal's character described himself to someone in Urban Justice, I'm just a bad man trying to do some good. Zatoichi would say the same thing. I had not suspected Seagal's connection with Zatoichi when I saw the movies. I saw Takeshi Kitano's first and loved it. I didn't make the Seagal connection until the second one, which I saw to see how 2 directors handle the same story. The one by Shintaro Katsu has Seagal all over it. I suspect Seagal's films are so successful because he deals with archetypal stories from our roots.



Two more new Seagal films are The Keeper and one made in Russian, Driven To Kill, both 2009. I'm ready for some more Steven Seagal. Thought I'd run out. 3 new ones I'd not seen. Great. When I first discovered Seagal, I had myself a film festival at home seeing every available movie of his movies. It's a big number. I may watch one of my own tonight.