Your Pre-Flight Orientation

A Brief History Of The Now

Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster), "The Swimmer" (1968)

It's A Strange, Undeniable Fact; Out Of The Blue And Into The Black

The news of the day rolls up to that place where the bricks meet the end of the stairs. It's really a sidewalk, something urban and poured, not pieces set by hand, and the stairs are front steps of the place where I've lived -- for twenty years this month, and for now.

While the majority of America has basted and boiled through these summer months so far, San Francisco slipped its hands in its pockets, tucked its chin down a little, keeping its cool. We have beautiful sunsets beyond the Golden Gate, light gold and red across the La Nina waters, the delight of sailors. We also have fog, of course.

I'm grateful, but immediately think: Don't say that; you're tempting the Wrath of the Whoosis From High Atop The Thing, go outside, turn around three times and spit, because I've always been like that. I am the embodiment of George Carlin's Hippy-Dippy Weatherman ("Behind every silver lining -- there's a dark cloud"). Look both ways before you cross the street -- and even if you do, stuff happens.

And so while places in America are baked beneath a Dome, here in yesterday, it rained -- or, almost -- and I made my way across the City to the house of the Best Friend to join others in a low-key dinner, a rite of passage: my retirement after 25 years from, almost assuredly, the last regular job I will ever have.

One of the Last Of The Old Unit arrived. So did The Girl who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo (now happily married, but not to Mongo); the Godson, an A.I. Robotics Wizard-In-Training who took the biography of Oppenheimer I gave him and read it seriously; the Goddaughter, just back from a Masters' program abroad with a gift from The Old Country. Mostly, we were Olds, which meant by ten-thirty it was time to say goodnight. 

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W. 40th Street At 6th Avenue, New York, New York, 1940;

"Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris"; Breakfast Special, 10 Cents

I can see up ahead the grey, granite plinth by the side of the Road, the 75 Mile stone; three-quarters of a century. Physically, things are good. A short, sharp physical ailment this past January was resolved quickly but reminded me this is how it happens. As abruptly as a switch being thrown. Someone was standing in front of you, and in an instant, ein Augenblick, they're not. You were this; now, you're that.

A work friend (actually, an old boss) counseled against giving management more than two weeks' notice. She reminded me a mutual acquaintance, an Executive Director with over thirty years' tenure, had retired after giving senior leadership months of advance notice, and was shelved for most of that time, little to do. "They cut him out," she said. "It drove him crazy. They'll do it to you, too."

"And, why retire? What will you do?" This, from someone in a senior director role, 37 years with the company, who gardens but lives to work. I explained, my health issue in January reminded that life has always been a crapshoot, but after 75 years, the odds had shifted. I have no way of knowing how much longer I'll live. It's really that simple. "Well, retirement scares me," she snorted, though I sensed she was afraid of the same thing I was; work is her distraction. We each have our methods.

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"We'd like to welcome you to Styx Airways. If the flight attendants in the cabin walkway could have your attention, we would like to take a moment and review the Safety Card -- which should be in the seat-back pocket directly in front of you. The Safety Card will show you positions and items and popular songs which may assist you should an unanticipated event occur with this Boeing aircraft. Also with the Safety Card is our in-flight drinks menu."

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Every January, corporate organizations begin firming up strategic goals, setting work assignments. If I waited until the last two weeks to drop my bailout notice, the team I was part of (already understaffed, no backfilling in sight) would have to scramble.

A week after the minor health issue, I met with the Person I Report To and advised within six months, I would be retiring. Already tasked to move 1,000 tons of sand with two spoons and too few hands, she wasn't happy, but said she recognized that was not my fault.

I appreciated her saying that. However, I didn't give a shit. I was committed to leaving; and while over the next 22 weeks I would wake up thinking what the fuck am I doing, last Friday was functionally my last day; tomorrow I begin burning through a banked 500 hours of Paid Time Off. In November that stops.

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I arrived home after the dinner, stood in my living room considering the evening, listening to the silence at the top of Nob Hill. I thought of Neddy Merrill, Cheever's The Swimmer -- he did most things right, tried his best, but still discovered Stuff Happens -- and I wondered: Now What.

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Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

Bark Bark Bark Bark 

The news of the day: I didn't expect Saturday, July 13th. I'd gotten up that morning, considering how utterly, deeply fucked America seemed. Biden was staying in. He had enough delegates to secure the nomination. However, our politics requires candidates for President be an avatar, able to articulate a compelling vision of the future. 

It's shitty, popularity- and gut-driven; yes -- a large number of voters don't pay attention to more than their instinct about a candidate: Uh yeah I guess I'll vote for Trump, 'cause he's strong, ya know? Seems like that, anyway. 

Biden couldn't bring it. Everything was going to end as badly as you can imagine. I looked as far into the future as I could, and it was violent, hungry -- The Shire, plundered and oppressed by Orcs. My old, self-critical persona cackled, You picked one hell of a time to retire, buddy.

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"The Captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belts sign, and we request you remain in your seats and not move about the cabin. Please bring your tray tables to their full upright and locked position, and consult the Safety Card in anticipation of a brief period of turbulence."

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Trump Rally Site, Butler, PA: After

Trump had been absent for a while, letting the Democrats self-destruct, but had just returned to the campaign -- roaring, screeching; mumbling about battery-powered Hannibal Lecters, sharks with tasers -- America mesmerized by his swagger and brutality. Polls showed Biden's numbers falling and beginning to affect down-ballot Democratic races; Trump was having him for lunch, unstoppable; Der Fuhrer.  In fact, he was having a rally in Butler, PA, that afternoon.

I was one of those trying not to think about it but failing, as ever -- and there was Trump, reigning as the dark center of it all. It could be different, If only ... and while I'm not the only person in America to make this observation, it's not one I would share. 

But thinking in that vein reminded me of a passage in Furst's Dark Star -- August, 1939; Hitler and the nazis rattling sabers at Poland. Everyone knows what will happen on September the first. Andre Szara is a Soviet journalist and intelligence operative in Paris, involved with de Montfried, a member of the French aristocracy, to move Jewish refugees to Palestine. The men meet at de Montfried's club:

When Szara entered the library de Montfried was reading a newspaper. He looked up, his face flushed with anger. "He's going into Poland. Do you know what that means?" ... "I was born in Poland," Szara said. "I know what it's like."  "But, why this man, this Adolf Hitler? Why is he permitted to live?" [de Montfried] folded the newspaper... "I don't know," [Szara said].  "Can nothing be done? ... An organization like yours, its capacities, its resources for such things... Forgive me," [de Montfried] said. "What I feel is like an illness. It will not leave me."  "I know," Szara said.

The events in Butler occurred four hours later. I wasn't expecting that on my bingo card -- but having idly considered, If only ... just that morning, was I picking something out of the ether? Is that how it all works? It did seem oddly coincidental.

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I watched the videos. Once Trump could hear his protective detail saying, "Shooter's down", the Slug instinctively understood what a gift he'd been handed. He delayed the agents, twice, as they were trying to push him off the stage, so he could pump his fist and mouth fight fight fight ! And the agents let him.

Later, at the Rethug convention, Trump basked in great waves of adulation, praise and -- dare we say it? -- love from the Mob. He sported a bandage over one ear. His mob roared, an ecstatic frenzy,  fight fight fight fight !  Ah, what Leni could have done with that.

Trump, at his Zenith. He was the Chosen One, head of House Harkonnen, eager to hurt that Mumbling Old Man Biden and seize control of his prize, his America -- there for the taking. Feared and bigger than his daddy at last.

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Somewhere in there, Federal Judgy Aileen Cannon dismissed in full the classified documents case against Trump in Florida. It seems that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was improperly appointed and funded. It's already been appealed to the Florida 11th Circuit, and who knows what happens next. 

Of course she did. Of course That Court, a judiciary packed with judges hand-picked by Leonard Leo, would back Trump, the flawed but necessary Leader who can help them realize Project 2025. My response is fuck all of you fucking motherfucking fucks. Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.

"PULL UP   --   PULL UP   --   PULL UP   --   PULL UP"

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Then, two announcements on Sunday, July 21st. 

I didn't expect Biden to leave. If he did, I assumed a bloody, dramatic bar fight, in public, would follow among the various factions and personalities of the Democratic party. The national convention would showcase just how churned and divided and you-can't-trust-us the Dems are. 

(And oh, the MSM, whose two main themes are Dems In Disarray and Biden Old, were expecting a long, ugly contest, too. They were hoping for it, because (to quote the Mango Mussolini) "you can be the worst person in the world -- but if you have the ratings, it doesn't matter." It's all about clicks and likes and audience and revenue. It's Capitalism and the Free Market, baby. News? Facts? Ha ha; no.)

But It didn't happen. Biden stepped away. He passed the torch to Harris, and (even putting aside knee-jerk hyperbole) -- the explosive response from Democrats measured in contributions to Harris' shiny new campaign in just the first 24 hours was record-breaking, staggering. It was like putting a tiny sponge in the shape of a dinosaur into a dish of water and watching as it became hideously large. And nationally, 48,000 new, first-time campaign volunteers were signed up -- in those first 24 hours.

I'm one of the most cynical people I know -- but all this tells me Left / liberal voters seemed desperate for almost any Democrat who could articulate a consistent message, stand up to the bully in public and kick his ass. The Democrats have pressed the message that Democracy Is On The Line in this election; and guess what? People believe it.

Something else stood out which hasn't been mentioned enough: The Dems weren't in disarray. If anything, the transition from Biden's campaign to Harris' was rapid and (from the outside, at least) seamless. Endorsements from major Democratic players and even potential rivals, from the Clintons, the Obamas, were quick to line up. 

Harris has all the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination -- it will be either by acclimation, or a first-ballot win. But it's all been disciplined, with few if any rough spots. For a party traditionally seen as too factionalized for its own good, the transformation, discipline and organization was impressive.

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I'm cynical, but I want to hope. I don't want everything to go back the way it was in the late 50's of my childhood. I don't even want a return to pre-Trump, pre-Covid America (Harris' campaign has already settled on a slogan that resonates: We're Not Going Back). What I'd hope for is a country with an actual future. There is no future in an authoritarian America -- and that will determine my vote. 

I live in the Bluest of cities in a Blue State, so my vote is not critical -- except to me. How and what I choose matters, to me. I suspect that's true for many people, even living in a 'battleground' state. I won't support our nation-state becoming a dictatorship of native nazis and so-called 'christians'. I'm too old to do what I did, age 19, in one war; but as an Old, there are other ways to resist. I hope that's not another choice I'll be faced with.

The Democrats have to deliver on a demand from The People -- that they prove their ideals, their policies are better than Trump's within the context of a culturally-saturated political contest.  Harris has a slightly easier road -- she's younger; can articulate the Democratic message. And, Trump is a bloated, raving monster.  But whether she can maintain momentum, really bring it to the bully and kick his ass -- whether she can win this absurd personality-contest of an election -- I hope, but no one knows. Not yet.

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"We have arrived at Big Airport in Your Town. Before you deplane, please take a moment to look around and make sure you have all of your personal belongings. Local time is 0800 Hours, or Eight A.M., and the temperature is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. On behalf of Captain Mongo and our flight crew, we'd like to thank you for flying Styx Airways, and wish you a pleasant trip."

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I Lift Up Mine Eyes To The Hills, Not Disposed To Mercy

 Yet One More Barking Rant To Begin An End-Times Laugh Riot Week

Mikey Johnson Reminds: Church Attendance Is Mandatory

This Might Replace Rodin's 'The Thinker'

This post seems incomplete, like two relatively unconnected essays thrown up on the wall which stuck, barking about the Middle East, and the omnipotent, they-are-always-with-us Rich. You may think this is low-hanging fruit, but it's not.

Not that it's important; if this blog's observations had any impact in the public discussion of serious issues, then this post would have more meaning. But, it's only unsourced opinion by one individual with no agency beyond their own existence. 

I am as singular as, and no more important than, any of the dead uncovered at Pompeii whose names we'll never know, all events and actions and experiences in their lives -- for what? -- unknown, lost.

Some of my observations offered will, in all probability, cause the few readers of this blog to say yeah, eyeroll, whatever the fuck, but this is what happens here in downtown Earth. Be well.

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   I Have Wanted To Say This

Listen to me:  Fuck all you motherfucking fucks; you murdering fuckers you.

The Middle East's history is woven in the interactions of generations -- families, clans, tribes; all part of religious sects, now become modern political movements and governments. This geography is steeped in misogyny, cruelty; art, science and spirituality; and blood feuds millennia old.

Comedian Don Rickles inadvertently summed it up on his first album, a live recording of his heckling standup routine in Las Vegas, which I heard in 1969: "What's your name, sir -- Habib? ... You got to laugh about people, Habib. I've met you before, haven't I? That's right, you hung my uncle." 

Rickles' joke was a rough equivalent of the history of Palestine and Israel, which was just 20 years old, then. It hadn't even been a year since the 'Six-Day' War, where Israeli troops occupied the West Bank, the Golan, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai.

The casino crowd on the Strip laughed at Don's joke -- but Habib might easily have pointed the same joke at Rickles ("Yeah; didn't you hang my uncle when you took his house and orchards?"), and few would have understood. It was all happening so far away, and Vietnam had everyone's attention. Including mine.

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Everyone knows what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. It was more than a massacre by Hamas; it was an obscenity. And everyone knows what happened next in Gaza, and what is still happening; more monstrous brutalities. War crimes were committed and are still being committed.

And all the participants -- Hamas, Hezbollah; Islamic State, Iran; the Houthis, the Saudis; the IDF, the Israeli government; the United States government; Netanyahu, Biden; members of Knesset and Congress -- are guilty.  No one is clean. 

I condemn every threat, every act of violence, of thuggery, viciousness; every calculated political decision allowing more violence and more suffering to continue: No one is clean. To argue that one side is more monstrous, more brutal than the other, is the comparative mathematics of lunacy.

It has to stop. The maiming and the killing, the abuse and enforced suffering. Stop bombing, stop launching rockets, stop seizing territory, stop starving refugees. You are all complicit. And questions of land, of statehood, of security, can't be addressed so long as anyone raises their voice or a hand in any way against any Other.

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During the 2006 Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, I wrote a post on a still-new Daily Kos, then republished it here six years later during another spate of regional violence. You may consider its conclusions simplistic and naive. I would argue the horror in Israel and Gaza passed beyond nuance, rhetoric and sophistication long ago.

There is a point where the amount of death and misery is so great that nothing matters, except that it ends. And damn anyone willing to sacrifice more children, use all the blood-feud deaths of generations, to justify more violence.

... look into that child's eyes. ... Look at the expression written there: Where are you taking us? Why are you doing this? What will happen to me?

Will you tell them, when you put your pistol to their head, burn them alive, drop your 500-pound bomb on their encampment, kill their siblings and friends in front of them, that it's for a greater good? For the glory of a faith? Because your wife or husband, brother or sister, your parent or cousins or friends, were killed and revenge demands that now this child's life has to end?

I do not care about the political or religious "dimension" in all this. I swear to you because I know: a dead child is an utterly final answer to all the puking, screeching human argument justifying our species' ability to commit murder. It all must stop -- followed by a final resolution to all questions of Palestinian statehood and Israeli security. Period. 

No one is clean; and It has to end. Stop killing the children, then make peace --  because the alternative is nihilism and obscenity, the blood-feud, forever. Agree and then act. It really has to be that simple, because every other convoluted attempt at peace has twisted around the axle of pride, history and hate. Enough.

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   Bring My Car, And Be Quick You Fucking Proles

I'll just say it: American / Western society is essentially owned by a vicious, arrogant layer of wealth -- call them the 0.001 % -- principally Old Wealth, maintained in the same families for generations. I've actually been around these folk, a bit, and they are just as venal and clueless, as well of course I should have this as I wish it arrogant, as if you'd lifted a cultural stereotype from a comedy-of-manners and dropped them into Real Life. They truly exist.

They own multiple homes, in neighborhoods which, if you don't live in them, you'd better have a verifiable reason to be there. They move in a cyclical progression from home to home, seasonal vacations at resorts and private hotels. Their children attend preparatory schools, a tight circle of European and American universities; eventually, sliding into sinecures at law and investment firms. They are members of clubs we wouldn't be allowed to join. They do not know how to build a fire, make coffee, set up a tent or cook a filet of sole: they hire others to do that sort of thing.

Most families know (or are at least aware of) each other. They intermarry. Their children grow up with each other. They are supported by accountants, financial and investment advisors, personal assistants, tax and estate attorneys, physicians and surgeons, tailors, chefs and valets. Their children walk in comfort and anonymity along the same private, manicured paths as their predecessors in generations before them.

Within their class, maintaining their family's fortunes is the critical priority ("You don't love it as I do," Lord Grantham explains to his cousin as they regard Downton Abbey. "But I am merely a steward of all this"). There's also a certain amount of social Darwinism between players, a jockeying for position: It's Edith Wharton and John Cheever with a touch of Voltaire (see "Discrete Charm Of The Bourgeoise", and The Ruling Class).

They tolerate the Zucks, the Musks, the Jobs' and Bezos' and Thiels and Andreesens; all the Tech Bro billionaires, as nouveau riche arrivistes; pool boys, waiters and office workers who somehow struck it rich. Not the right sort -- no history, no breeding- -- but, they can afford to live well, and, if the past is any guide, eventually they and their money will disappear. Or, they'll be around for a few generations and finally become acceptable. 

They have serious class solidarity: depend on it.  Even if Claus von Bülow appeared to have attempted to murder his wife, members of their class might disapprove, but would "support the side", "maintain common cause" against a greater mass of humanity: We are the Owners, and Fuck the Peasants (see 'The Draughtsman's Contract').

These persons are not accountable under any law in the same way, or to the same extent, that you or I are. They don't wait in line, don't submit to passport control or customs checks; aren't required to appear in court for all but the most serious charges (if they appear at all). They are anonymous to all but each other.

And collectively, they own you whether you believe it, accept it, or not.

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   You Are Pwned -- A Dream Coda

Years ago, I had a dream which stands out in memory -- because I don't often dream with details that I recall so completely. 

I was some kind of mountaineering guide, taking wealthy persons up -- not Everest, but some similar peak. I was "inside" myself in this dream (sometimes dreams allow you see yourself in 'camera view'), looking out on a snow-covered slope -- a right triangle of pure white, from upper left to lower right -- against a sky of deep Cobalt blue.

A man in his late twenties / early thirties stood a few feet in front of me, wearing an orange parka with the hood pulled back. He had a light stubble of beard, curly, reddish-blonde hair, and wore a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. He was completely at ease, smiling, and spoke with an accent (French, I remembered). He wasn't arrogant or emphatic with his delivery, but matter-of-fact, as if describing the weather.

"I will tell you how it is," he said. "My family is thirteen hundred years old. One of my ancestors was  knighted by Charlemagne. We've survived plagues, wars, financial collapse, revolutions, occupation. We've had our black sheep, our idiots -- but mostly, we have made fortunes and passed them down to the next generation. We've been good at it, and lucky. 

"If you can't trace your family back more than a few generations? I don't care. You've always worked for pay -- but maybe you get lucky, win some lottery, and your children inherit that money? I don't care. In one, maybe two generations, it will be gone, absorbed into banks, financial houses, and by taxes. Perhaps my family owns some of those financial houses.

"We own forests and mines. We own companies" -- he waved at me with one hand -- "Maybe you have even worked for us. But some day, you will be dead, and that will be the end for you. Your name will be forgotten, as if you and everyone in your family line before you had never existed. My family will still be here.

"And if that's unhappy for you, if it makes you angry, I don't care," he said, and smiled again. "And that is how things are."

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Welcome To Your Crude Societal Metaphor Weekend

Imagine This

Q Believers Featured On 'Nightline'; August 2018

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Let me tell you a story. It won't be short -- but it's a good story, and it has a point. You may even Get It before the end. 

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In 1994, director John Carpenter released In The Mouth Of Madness, his take on one of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories. Carpenter's career includes films like Carrie, Starman, "Big Trouble In Little China", They Live, "Assault On Precinct 13"; Escape from New York and "-- From L.A.".

Madness was the final film in Carpenter's 'Apocalypse Trilogy' -- The Thing (1982), "Prince Of Darkness" (1987 -- whose posters should state: "This film will not just frighten you; it will fuck you up for life"), and ended with In The Mouth of Madness. 

Its script was written by Michael DeLuca (Fright Night; Moneyball; Captain Phillips), and its cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe (Robocop 3; Village of the Damned; Escape From L.A.). 

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 58% rating. In the years since its release, Madness has achieved cult status.

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It's worth an aside to note that almost at the same time as Mouth of Madness' release, a new cable network began broadcasting in the United States. It used the twelve-year-old, Ted Turner / CNN news-as-entertainment model, and also offered coverage of sports, even a new 'cartoon for adults' program on Sunday evenings.

It was the brainchild of an Australian media boss who aggressively managed a fleet of tabloid newspapers on three continents. He claimed the network would be "fair and balanced" in its presentation of news (a swipe at the "liberal bias" of the other networks), and it would be known as Fox News.

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John Trent (Sam Neill) is being transferred into a huge mental asylum outside New York City. He's admitted by a Dr. Sapperstein (John Glover) and struggles with a pair of attendants, shouting "I'm not insane!!"  In the background, a radio report of "an epidemic of violent psychotic behavior spreading across the country and indeed the world".

Trent is placed in a padded cell, still wearing a straitjacket, still shouting that he is Sane. As other residents of the ward shout back ("Yeah! I'm not crazy either!"), music begins to play on the PA system: The Carpenters' We've Only Just Begun.

Later the same day, a Dr. Wrenn (David Warner) appears to interview Trent, and may work for the government (Sapperstein says nervously, "It must be getting serious out there, if they're sending you guys in").  Did Trent ask for anything? Wrenn says. Yes -- only a single, black crayon.

Wrenn finds Trent has decorated his cell with thousands of crosses -- drawn on the walls, floor, his institutional jumper, and himself, with the crayon. Telling Trent he "wants to help", Wrenn sits down to listen as Trent begins to tell his story.

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Trent is a Phillip Marlowe style, freelance insurance investigator in New York City -- cynical, watchful; always suspicious. After exposing the victim of a warehouse fire as an arsonist looking for a payout, he lunches with the insurance attorney -- who makes a pitch to assist with another client, a publishing company.

Trent accepts -- just as a bald man with an axe (Conrad Bergschmeider) smashes through a restaurant window and stands over him. "Do you read Sutter Cane?" he asks; looking up at the man's face, Trent can see he has two irises in each eye. The man raises the axe; police appear and shoot him down.

Trent meets the publisher, Jason Harglow (Charlton Heston). His company's multi-mega-hit horror writer, Sutter Cane, has disappeared, and blown a deadline to produce his seventh, final book in a series. No one knows where he is. Near-riots have occurred at bookstores across the country over the delay in publication.

Cane's editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) joins the meeting. His six previous books had sold nearly a billion copies, been translated into eighteen languages. Harglow wants Trent to find Cane and bring the manuscript back; Trent agrees.

Styles tells him there's something different about Cane's writing -- it's "been known to have an effect on less stable readers... disorientation, memory loss, a paranoid reaction... 

A year ago, Styles says, Cane's work became erratic -- "More bent, more bizarre than usual. He became convinced his work was real, not fiction."  Trent chuckles; This shit really sells? "Are you surprised?"

Trent responds, "Lady, nothing surprises me. We fucked up the air, the water; we fucked up each other -- why don't we finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?"

So where is Cane? The manuscript? "I don't know. His agent was the last person to see it."  Then let's talk to the agent, Trent says. "You already met him," Styles replies. "He attacked you with an axe."

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Styles convinces Trent to actually read Cane's novels. At a bookstore, Trent sees a man staring at him, whose face seems -- bruised; he's wearing plastic-framed glasses repaired with adhesive tape. "Do you read Sutter Cane?" the man asks Trent, then says, "He sees you."

At home, Trent reads the novels, while a TV commentator asks: "Horror writer Sutter Cane: A harmless pop phenomenon? Or a mad prophet of the printed page?

"... Police believe recent riots started because stores could not meet the demand for advance orders of Sutter Cane's latest novel, 'In The Mouth Of Madness'. When does fiction become religion?"

Trent dozes, dreaming he's walking home, posters advertising Sutter Cane horror novels on nearby walls. He sees a cop in an alley, viciously beating a kid who had been tagging a wall. The cop sees Trent and barks, "You want some too, buddy?"

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Trent realizes each Cane novel has a shape, outlined in red over the cover art. Clipped into puzzle-pieces, they form the shape of New Hampshire -- where Hobb's End, fictitious setting of Cane's novels, is located. 

Hobb's End isn't shown on any map of the Live Free Or Die state -- but Trent convinces Harglow and Styles that it may be real, "another vanished town in America". Harglow agrees to allow Trent, and Styles, to travel to New Hampshire, locate the town, the author, and the manuscript. 

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Trent again has the dream of the cop, beating the kid in an alleyway -- only now, a crowd of people appears behind Trent, with axes, blocking any escape. At its center is Cane's agent. 

"He sees you," the agent says; the crowd hacks him into pieces. The cop stops beating the kid long enough to look at Trent -- his face mottled, diseased, malignant; "You want some too?" he bellows.

... and, Trent wakes up at home, having fallen asleep on his sofa over one of Cane's novels, relieved to find it was just a dream... until he turns to see the diseased cop sitting next to him, and wakes up, again; a dream within a dream.

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Trent and Styles drive on two-lane roads through endless late-Summer cornfields; Trent singing "America The Beautiful". Night falls. Styles tells Trent she's attracted to Cane's fiction because it scares her. And she likes being scared. Trent is amused. "What's to be scared about? It's not like it's real." Styles says:

"It's not real from your point of view -- and right now, reality shares your point of view. Reality is just what we tell each other it is. What scares me about Kane's work is, what happens if reality shared his point of view? ...Sane and insane easily switch places if the insane were to become the majority. You'd find yourself locked in a padded cell, wondering 'What happened to the world?' "

"It wouldn't happen to me," Trent says. "Oh, it would, if you realized everything you knew was gone," said Styles. "That'd be pretty lonely, being the last one left."

After an unsettling encounter with a kid on a bicycle - who becomes an old man on a bike ("I can't get out," he moans. "He won't let me out") - Trent lets Styles drive while he sleeps. On the radio, a talk show host asks, "Doctor, what are you saying? That there's this disease spreading across the country?"

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As Styles drives, the yellow centerline in the road disappears. Below the car, she makes out thick  clouds illuminated by lightning -- then, suddenly, she's driving over the road planks of a New England covered bridge and out into late afternoon daylight.  A sign nearby announces: Welcome To Hobb's End / The Heart Of New Hampshire / Enjoy Your Stay. 

The town has a Pepperidge Farm-style quaintness, but seems completely deserted. Trent and Styles drive to a rustic hotel, which features in Cane's novels, run by a Mrs. Pinkham -- who figured in Cane's novels as an axe murderess. They check in.

Trent keeps looking for the con. If it were a Cane novel, they should see a huge, black church from the hotel ... and they can. They drive there. Trent reads from one of Cane's novels, 

" 'This place had been the seat of an evil older than mankind and wider than the known universe... pain and suffering beyond human understanding. ... [inhabited by] a murderous race of creatures whose vile existence contaminated time itself, affecting history..."

Suddenly, cars roar up; a group of men with shotguns climb out -- one demanding Cane release his son from the church. Its doors open to reveal a little boy, then close. When they open again, a man stands just inside -- Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow). 

The boy's father comes forward, but the doors bang close. A large pack of Dobermans appear, and attack. Styles and Trent are able to get to their car and flee back to the hotel.

Styles finally admits Trent was being played in a publicity game. "Only, you and I weren't supposed to find Hobb's End, but we didn't stage any of this. It's all in Cane's book. That's how I know it's real."

What's the new book -- 'In The Mouth Of Madness' -- about? Trent asks. "It's about the end, to everything," Styles says. "And it starts here, with an evil that returns and takes over, piece by piece... It's about people turning into creatures that aren't human anymore."

_______________________________

Styles runs off, taking the car and driving to the church, where she finds Cane typing the last page of manuscript. "It's funny; for years, I thought I was making all this up," he says. "But They were telling me what to write -- giving me the power to make it all real. And now it is. All the Things, trying to break into our world." 

Cane holds her head over the title page of the manuscript. "See the instrument of their homecoming -- the new bible -- that starts the change... helps you see..."  He slams her head forward; she absorbs the entire book in a few seconds. Her eyes bleed.

_______________________________

Styles returns to the hotel; Trent can see she's clearly altered -- "I'm losing me!" she shouts. Power in the hotel flickers. Trent is barely able to get to the car; he tries to leave town, but can't. Knocked unconscious, he wakes up in one side of a confessional at the Black Church. On the other side is Sutter Cane. "Want to know the problem with religion?" Cane asks.

"No one's believed enough to make [a new reality] real... My books have sold a billion copies; I've been translated into 18 languages. More people believe in my work than are reading the bible... When people begin to lose the ability to know the difference between fantasy and reality -- then The Old Ones can begin to make the journey back. The more people who believe, the faster the journey." 

Cane tells Trent he wants him to deliver the manuscript for "In The Mouth Of Madness" "You take it back to the world," Cane says. "This town wasn't here before I wrote it -- and neither were you. I made all this. I made you. I am god now !"  Trent tries to run, chased down a long tunnel by a pack of Old-One monsters...

-- and, Trent suddenly finds himself back in The World, on a gravel road in the middle of somewhere, New Hampshire. He drops the manuscript as if it were a box of plutonium, hitches a ride to a town, takes a motel room.

The next day, an unnamed someone has delivered a package for him. A large envelope. "But nobody knows I'm here," Trent says; the motel clerk smiles. "Well, somebody does." In the envelope is Cane's manuscript. Trent burns it in the bathroom sink of his motel room, a page at a time.

Back in New York, he meets with the publisher, Harglow, and describes everything that had happened to him and Styles over (what to him have been) the previous ten days.  Harglow says, "That's a hell of a story" --  But Trent already located Cane and the manuscript, and delivered it -- a month ago. And Linda Styles? "I've never heard of her". 

Trent, who knows Cane's novels are altering reality -- that Trent himself may be nothing more than a character in Cane's imagination -- is horrified that Madness has already been published; Harglow shrugs. "The movie comes out next month," he says.

Trent becomes increasingly paranoid. Finally, he appears at a bookstore, where huge lines of customers wait to buy Madness. He's dressed identically to Cane's agent, earlier, and carrying an axe. He asks a man in line, "Do you read Sutter Cane?", kills him with the axe, and is taken into custody.

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In the asylum, Trent has come to the end of his tale. Declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, he's been institutionalized -- "and, it's safer, these days, being in here," Trent tells Dr. Wrenn. "In ten years, maybe less, there will be no people. The human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. Nothing more."

Wrenn walks out of the cell. Dr. Sapperstein asks if he believes what Trent has been saying, and Wrenn slowly walks away without a word.

Conditions in the world outside the asylum begin to break down. Then, some Things begin rampaging through the wards; Trent can't see them clearly, hiding in his locked cell. The next day, his cell door magically opens, and Trent walks away from the asylum and into a world as deserted as Hobb's End had appeared.

A radio in an abandoned ambulance announces: the world appears to have been overrun with monstrous creatures, including mutating humans, and that outbreaks of suicide and mass murder are commonplace. Trent walks into a nearby urban area, sees a theatre showing the film version of Cane's novel -- the marquee mentions him, specifically, by name -- and goes inside.

Trent finds a seat in the empty theatre, carrying a super-sized tub of popcorn. The movie is precisely the film that we've all been watching, so far, and Trent begins laughing hysterically. He has ended up exactly as Styles had said ("That'd be pretty lonely, being the last one left"). 

Trent starts laughing as he watches himself self on screen, insisting he isn't a puppet, and that reality is concrete, knowable; the Truth. But Cane's version was believed by enough people to make Styles' description come true -- "Reality is just what we tell each other it is." There is no concrete truth; everything can be altered, with enough collective belief. 

Cane allowed The Old Ones to break through into this dimension and destroy it, just for the pure gibbering delight of destruction. Was Trent ever an actual person, or just a character in Cane's novel?  What is real? As the end of humankind sinks in, all Trent can do is laugh.

The central plot of In The Mouth Of Madness is the social construction of reality -- what we collectively agree is real -- and Magical Thinking: if enough people surrender to a belief in artifice and fantasy, can unbelievable things be made concrete and real, just from a sheer act of will?

What the film does not do is show what happens when that kind of magical thinking is translated -- from the personal to the societal and political. 

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Reprint Heaven: The Big Guy Is Your Buddy, Part I

 Gozirra, Then and Now

(From 2014.  Part 2 follows below.)

Disgruntled:  Not Allowed On The 'Blue And Gold Fleet'

Arooo, Arooo / Godzilla Sure Likes You
He's Got Big Feet/ And He Smells Real Neat
Arooo, Arooo Arooo; Arooo, Arooo...
>>  Rhyme Started By Friends' Children;  To The Tune Of, "Hi Ho, Hi Ho; It's Off To Work..."

The Big Guy will be making his appearance this week, on a gigantic multiplex screen near you, in another installment of the timeless saga of ambition, terror, sea water, and a 350-foot Lizard who just wants to be the best 350-foot bipedal Lizard ever, and find love in a busy uncaring world -- the 28th (or, depending on who you ask, the 29th) film version of Godzilla.

In Sixty Years, He Has Entered Our Collective Unconscious

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Spoiler Alert, Sort Of

Be Advised: If viewed in reverse, this film shows the Giant Happy Fun Lizard putting out fires and rebuilding a large, urban area for its inhabitants, playfully wrestling with other large alien figures (but none so large as He), then backing away respectfully into the ocean as a grateful nation sends naval vessels and its airforce to join in celebration.  Roll credits; everyone goes home feeling good.
  
According to people who have actually seen the film (the most creative take I found is by illustrator and reviewer, Natalie Nourigat, and can be found at her site, Spoilers !), most classic moments you expect to see in Giant Monster movies are present: The scientist who tries to warn the population and is ignored; the brave warrior; scenes of people chatting about things personal; the happy children, playing at the seaside... and all the while, the audience knows: Gorzirra Out There. Gorzirra Come Soon. U Are All So Scrood.

So Much For 'Suspension Of Disbelief': No Way It's That Overcast On The Bay In August

In fact, it may be that Godzilla 2014 is so much like previous Giant Monster films that it runs the risk of ironic self-parody -- and when The Big Guy appears, he's just in the nick of time to keep us from nodding off.

And still, we don't know: What the hell does he want? Why does he do the stuff he does? Is he just pissed off, twenty-four-seven? About what? Is he sad? Is there a Ms. Godzilla? And the answer always comes back --  It's In The Script! He's Godzilla! It's a monster movie, for crying out loud; it's not 'Prime Suspect'. There is no nuanced, emotional or rational context in the film to provide those kinds of answers.

We've seen "Earthquake!" and all the Airport movies, and "2012": the earth shakes a lot; planes almost crash; and there's that Mayan, end-of-the-world thing. They're genre films, which build on every previous film of their kind that's gone before.

The best you can expect is that a director is superb at delivering a genre story (M. Night Shyamalan, say, before Lady In The Water). Rarely, a classic appears and redefines a genre (like Chinatown, or Alien) -- but in general, most of these films follow a formula as faithfully as the tides.

Outtake For The Gag Reel: Having Blown His Line, The Big Guy Does Karaoke

And special effects -- showing us what the impossible looks like -- draw us in.  I'm also curious to see what Bryan Cranston does with his role (his first after Breaking Bad), and Ken Watanabe (of 'Letters From Iwo Jima' and Inception), but the CGI treats will be a focus.  And I'm interested to see whether my neighborhood survives; from the stills on the Intertubes, it appears North Beach, the Waterfront and Financial district are Toast, so who knows.

And I'll go to see The Chairman Of The Board, of course. He's been a treat for sixty years.

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1954: Big Guy's Beginnings

(Note: This narrative undoubtedly has holes, inaccuracies, and is incomplete. It won't satisfy a Godzilla, or a film, purist. This an arc about the evolution of a character from destroyer, to near-slapstick character, and back again. Enjoy.)

Gojira (The Original) Attacks The Tokyo Diet Building, 1954

The Godzilla franchise isn't as old a film character as Dracula or Frankenstein, Batman or Superman -- but the mythos behind all of them has periodically been re-imagined and re-translated on the screen for new generations. There's no doubt about it, though: As a concept, Godzilla is a classic. And in Japan, Gorjira is regarded as one of the two most classic films in its national cinema -- right alongside Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

No joke: when it premiered in 1954, Japanese audiences (who have very different cultural reference points than we here in the West) didn't consider it a cheesy monster flick so much as a serious morality tale about the limits of science, told through the destructive hijinks of a mythic lizard. In fact, there's a bronze statue honoring The Big Guy in downtown Tokyo.

Ray Harryhausen's Stop-Motion Creature, 1953

Godzilla's cinematic roots were Made In The USA: In 1953, Warner Brothers premiered the classic Beast From 20,000 Fathoms -- a giant, prehistoric dinosaur, released from frozen sleep in the Arctic by a nuclear test explosion, swims to New York City and then comes ashore to raise all kinds of ruckus. Sound familiar? The monster was played by a large rubber model with an internal, articulated armature, operated by the master of stop-motion animation, Ray Harryhausen, (the armature designed and built by Ray's father), and the film was distributed around the world.

But Godzilla's real genesis began over a labor dispute: In the spring of 1954, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka of Japan's Toho Film Studios was in a real fix.  Having negotiated making a film for Toho in Indonesia, with everything ready, the Indonesian government refused to grant visas to Japanese actors (one way of saying, "Thanks for the brutal occupation of our country a few years back").  Tanaka, who was just trying to make a movie, was moderately screwed.

Director Honda (Left), Producer Tanaka (Right), Toho Films

Toho Studios had grown out of a theater company which (among other things) managed all Kabuki theatres in the city of Tokyo. It began to make films in the late 1920's, and operated movie houses for a new, domestic Japanese market. After 1945, it was struggling to make and distribute motion pictures in a Japan still trying to define itself after the end of the Second World War. 

Tanaka had funding to complete a film, but suddenly, no project; he had to find one, or else. As he flew back to Japan from Indonesia, that American film he'd seen, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms -- about a monster lizard terrorizing New York -- drifted through his head, and he began getting ideas.

Back in Tokyo, Tanaka made a forceful pitch to the studio heads to make their own version of  20,000 Fathoms. He was given approval to re-direct the budget of his Indonesian picture towards this new film -- but with one catch: he had only six months to get a film in the can, edit it, and produce a Final Cut.

This called for what the Japanese referred to during WWII (some enthusiastically; some with sarcastic derision) as a "Hero Project" -- shortened deadlines, intense work, little sleep, and All Hands On Deck. In short order, Ishirō Honda (who had already completed two domestic films for Toho) was hired to direct what Tanaka called "Project G" (for 'giant'). Shigeru Kayama, a science-fiction author, was engaged to develop a screenplay and the concept of  The Monster -- originally a wild predator which came ashore, ate people, and went back in the water.

A second draft of the screenplay by Honda and Takeo Murata expanded on themes Tanaka wanted to see in the finished film -- fears of radiation and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, real-life monsters unleashed by the United States in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and through continuing nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.

The Monster in their script -- which had no name, yet -- grew in size, particularly after the studio consulted their special-effects director, Eiji Tsuburaya, who had worked with director Honda on his previous films.
 

Before Godzilla's Visit: Tsubraya's Miniature Tokyo Bay (1954)

Tsuburaya was known at Toho Studios for the realism of miniature model effects he created for a 1942 Toho film dramatizing Japan's attack on at Pearl Harbor. He had been intrigued by stop-motion animation ever since seeing King Kong in the 1930's, and while he was impressed with Harryhausen's work for 20,000 Fathoms,  Tsuburaya advised Honda and Tanaka that a stop-motion Creature would not work for the new project.  That technique was time-intensive, and 'Project G' had no time to spare.

Tsuburaya suggested an actor wearing a large suit would be their Monster, and attack a tiny Tokyo. Some wanted a monster designed with a mushroom-shaped head, reminiscent of a mushroom cloud, but the traditionalists won -- the Creature was dinosaur-like, but still needed a name. Producer Tanaka reportedly overheard colleagues talking about a Toho Studio press agent, nicknamed "Gojira," -- a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla (Gorira) and whale (Kujira). Tanaka decided to use it as both the name for the Creature and the title of the film -- and to Western ears, 'Gorjira' sounds very much like... Godzilla.

(MEHR, Mit Arooo: In response to a question, yes: the sound, "Arooo!" assigned to The Big Guy did originate from its use by 'Nixon's Head' in the animated series, Futurama. 

Here at Before Nine, we've reported Arooo being used by The Zombified Ronald Rayguns, among other things. Oddly, it's a term also applied to conical, clear plastic packaging, and [our favorite] Dog Products.)

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(Part 2 Follows)

Reprint Heaven: The Big Guy Is Your Buddy, Part II

 Gorzirra, Then and Now

(Part One Is above; or, Go Here. From spring, 2014.)

[NOTE: As the Googlemachine has reminded all of us, this is the 114th birthday of  Eiji Tsuburaya, special-effects designer and the originator of so many hero beings from Japanese science fiction cinema. He also created the concept which we know today as The Big Guy, the Chairman Of The Board; and San Francisco's hometown monster, as we are a Sister City with Tokyo.] 

Releasing Gojira: 1954

(The Story Thus Far:  An American film, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, is released by Warner Brothers in 1953, and gives producer Tomoyuki Tanaka of Toho Film Studios the inspiration he needs to save his job. Allowed to make a Japanese version, he is given roughly six months to complete it.

(Tanaka envisions a Giant Lizard, the mutated product of radioactive fallout or contamination, to serve as a warning about the limits of science and unintended consequences of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

(It's decided the Creature will be named "Gorjira" [a combination of the Japanese words for 'Gorilla' and 'Whale'], and the project's special effects consultant, Eiji Tsuburaya, convinces Tanaka and his team that an actor in a large rubber suit can play the Monster, and will have the fun of ravaging a miniature downtown Tokyo.)

Haruo Nakajima (Left) Served Tea On The Set Of Godzilla (1954) 

One of Toho Studios' principal stunt actors, Haruo Nakajima, volunteered to play Gorjira -- but even with several redesigns, the suit was heavy and difficult to use (its final version required a drain for collected sweat) and only frequent rehydration breaks kept Nakajima from passing out due to heat exhaustion. 

Tsuburaya (Left) Confers With Nakajima, 1956

The film was completed on schedule, released in Japan on November 3, 1954, and was a blockbuster hit.  Overnight, Toho was the film studio in Japan, and Gojira's director, producer and special effects creator hailed as geniuses of the cinema arts.

The film was sold to the American market; producer Joseph E. Levine had it dubbed, cut by twenty minutes, and inserted scenes of Raymond Burr (star of the popular television series, "Perry Mason") as an Edward-R-Murrow-style journalist, broadcasting eyewitness accounts of The Big Guy's trip to Tokyo.

Raymond Burr Contemplates His Fee For This Acting Job

Levine named the film "Godzilla, King of the Monsters", and released it in 1956. It was a smash in the U.S., pulling in $2 million dollars (that's about $40M in 2014 dollars, kids -- not bad for a guy in a rubber suit).

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Toho, and Daikaiju, Go Viral: 1955 - 1961

Tanaka initially considered Godzilla a one-shot morality tale, not the beginning of a 'franchise', and of an entire cinema industry.  However, the movie was so popular (not only in Japan, but worldwide) and making sequels seemed so potentially profitable, that in less than a year Toho shot and released "Godzilla's Counterattack" (later famous for the derisive line, "And you call yourself a scientist").

This was the first film where Godzilla would fight another monster, Anguirus (which became Godzilla's friend in later movies) -- and this established what eventually became the hallmark of the Godzilla 'franchise': Other monsters appear (from inside the earth, from outer space, or the mind of Minolta), wreak havoc, and Earth is defenseless... until Godzilla appears to save the day.

War Of The Rubber Suits: Big Guy And Anguirus Duke It Out

"Counterattack" (released as Gigantis in the U.S.) wasn't as successful in Japan as the original Godzilla, and the movie didn't adapt well to foreign distribution. As a result,  Toho began releasing other daikaiju movies (a term meaning "gigantic, strange monster"), a new genre of films Toho had created and which other Japanese studios began to imitate) -- most notably Rodan; "Varan the Unbelievable"; and Mothra by 1961.

All three of these characters would appear in later Godzilla films. All were solid box-office hits in Japan; Toho Films decided to keep milking the daikaiju cow so long as it kept paying off.

Good, Bad, and Even Worse: 1961 - 1973

"Look, No One Told Me Kyoto Was A World Heritage Site"

... and pay off it did. In 1961, Toho collaborated with American producer John Beck to create "King Kong versus Godzilla", the most box-office popular Godzilla movie of all time in the U.S. and Japan.  On the strength of that success, Toho produced 12 more Godzilla films -- by the end of which Godzilla was transformed from a mutant, destructive Monster created by atomic radiation, to the protector of humankind.

Actually, no one can be certain whether The Big Guy likes humankind enough to fight for it, or is just amazingly pissed off at the violation of his turf by some giant Bug / Dragon / Flying Turtle / et al.

(I'm not adding a list of all Godzilla productions; you can look at the Godzilla Wiki for that. We're just looking at the evolution of an archetype here.)

Unfortunately, over time, several things happened:  Godzilla's character and portrayal began to resemble the formulaic aspects of other daikaiju films and characters, and other Giant Monster films had a certain level of low comedy and moments of near-slapstick action.  Toho adapted its most popular character to fit the genre, not the other way around, and by the early 1970's things were ... goofy.

No longer the chunky-but-trim Terror From Under The Sea who laid waste to large urban areas, Godzilla lost most of his back spines and looked like... your neighbor, in a big rubber suit.

Godzilla (L), Megalon (R), And Other 400-Foot-Tall Beings

In 1971, I thought the bottom of the barrel was Toho Studio's "Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster", which showed human victims chopped up in sections (take that, kiddies), pratfalls, and Godzilla boxing like a human. It's tough to maintain suspension of disbelief under those circumstances.

Unfortunately, it was topped by their 1973 Godzilla vs. Megalon -- I swear to God; the stunt workers in that 89 painful minutes of cinema had to have been higher than Mt. Fuji. And the "film" was shot in only two weeks: Toho was low on funding. The daikaiju cow had gone dry.

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Death And Transfiguration: 1975 - 1995

In 1974 and 1975, Toho tried slightly rebranding their character for its 20th anniversary in MechaGodzilla and The Terror Of MechaGodzilla, but the original magic of the character had been badly diluted; the public wouldn't pay to watch him, and Toho's executives didn't want to risk their money in future Godzilla film projects.  The Big Guy only made a few appearances on Japanese daikaiju science-fiction television into the early 1980's, all moderately ridiculous compared with the menace and destructive power of the original Monster.

In 1984, the 30th anniversary of the character's birth, Toho made a simple and radical decision to save the franchise which had financed the studio's successful expansion for decades:  They started producing a new set of Godzilla films, called the "Heisei Series."

Most were for the Japanese market only -- but through them, Toho Studios simply 'reset' their character -- they ignored every Godzilla film made after the original 1954 release (good pick, that) and started with a new film appropriately titled Godzilla, which starred a Big Lizard who looked almost identical to the one who stepped on Tokyo in 1954.

In it, The Big Guy returns to his amazingly pissed-off former self, indestructible, created by nuclear radiation, a 350-foot-tall Lizard out for your personal ass.  It was released in America as Godzilla 1985, with some added scenes featuring an American played by (wait for it) Raymond Burr.

Ten years later, in 1995, Toho decided to end their franchise by killing it, in Godzilla vs. Destroyer. Toho made Godzilla's death public by adding "Godzilla Dies!" to posters and advertising of the film, and (while leaving a door open for a successor to reappear), The Big Guy dies.

Broderick Gets Up Close And Personal With Roland Emerich's So-Called Lizard (1998)

In 1998, everyone wished his successor had died before the filming started when TriStar Films licensed with Toho to develop their own Godzilla -- a computer-generated Big Lizard which had little relation to the classic Big Lizard. Directed by Roland Emerich and starring Matthew Broderick, it was a financial and artistic flop; the less said about it, the better -- but it was Bad. It was just Bad.

There was, of course, the movie 'Atonement', but Godzilla's appearance in that film was barely mentioned. Probably because we'd all rather look at Keira Knightley.

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So, there are two Godzillas -- the Japanese Monster who came from the sea to destroy things, stayed to become a comedic actor, then returned to his old ways.  That current Godzilla encompasses both the original Destructor, the product of bad science and big bombs, and his daikaiju side, battling other Big Monsters to protect the Earth, his turf, or just for the hell of it.

Godzilla films have continued to be popular in Japan, and a second series was released following The Big Guy's supposed 'death' in 1995 -- again, Toho simply "reset" the story line without reference to the character's end... but this is one side of his existence that American or European audiences don't see. In Asia, Godzilla is timeless and lives on, as pissed-off and irrascible as ever, sometimes defending mankind and occasionally kicking Tokyo's ass.

The second Godzilla is a creature of Hollywood -- less accessible, a  Godzilla "leased" from Toho Studios and who is (aber natürlich) much different for a Western audience. He's more of an animal, nastier, cunning and cold-blooded -- kind of like The Koch Brothers on a good day.  He's all Destructor. No slapstick from this Big Guy.

However, after Emerich's poor showing nearly twenty years ago, no American studio (or whoever owns the conglomerates which make films these days -- Disney; Little Rupert's Fox; Comcast) wanted to risk putting money behind another Godzilla remake -- until now. This new film is supposed to be a "totally new concept" in Godzilladom. We'll see.

It's nice, though, that The Big Guy is getting work. He thinks so, too, I'm sure.

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MEHR: With apologies to Fafnir, Giblets, the ghost of Freddy el Desfibradddor; Mistah Charlie, Phd.; and the Medium Lobster Himself (who is, well... pretty sizable):

Godzilla! There is no Giant Happy Fun Lizard but He - the Living, The Self-subsisting, the Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His are all things In the heavens and on earth and under the oceans. Who is there that can intercede In His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth What (appeareth to All as) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass Aught of His knowledge Except as He willeth. His throne doth extend Over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth No fatigue in guarding and preserving them, For He is the Most High, The Supreme (in glory). He is Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, the One and Only.

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