Sorry. First thing I could think to say, Sorry.Though I take great succor from old films; watching them on my rather vintage non-flat screen television, talking movie trivia with friends and family, I have to remind myself that they aren’t real. Well, they’re real in a sense, but the stories aren’t my stories, the cute girlfriends aren’t mine, the dangerous motorcycle rider isn’t me.
Like a chain of ironies that wrap around each and everyone’s life which we habitually call experience, my list of favorite movies has come to define me. Or so I’ve been known to expound--even when there’s a listener, which isn’t that often. Does my relationship with movies retard my waking hours into those which tick all around a dark-curtained troglodyte's den, leaving me bleary eyed and secluded? Sounds about right. A cocktail of Ernst Lubitsch movies, computer exposed pornography of the most rank caliber, quesadillas con queso made with something called non-fat imitation Mozzarella cheese from the .99 cent store, and liberal portions of hand-made lemonade extracted from the rogue citrus trees on my block: this constitutes, at least in part, my syllabus for healthy living. And To those balmy ingredients I must also add large measures of curb side-purchased methamphetamine introduced in what might be loosely called suppository form,--that is they swing in the out door to wait in the dark and dank fen of contrition until a Spartan Army of shield bashing blood cells begin their redemptive counter-siege and facilitate a brain scrubbing coup d’etat—during which days may pass, stacks of vhs and dvd movies disappear, and my kitchen gleam from the rigorous use of scratch-free Comet con blanqueador.
Last night after concluding a rousing re-watch of This Happy Breed, which had me living in Britain between the Wars, and fondling Celia Johnson on every occasion possible, even to the point where my bathroom mirror reflected the rugged face of Robert Newton instead of my own rather Peter Ustinov-ish pan, I felt invigorated enough from Celia’s kisses, which I haven’t tasted since last month’s viewing of Brief Encounter, to scrub out the refrigerator, place a plate of fresh coffee grounds on the middle rack and wait for every atomized malodor of food stink to be whisked into non-olfactory regions, fresh as corners of Martha Stewart’s jail cell. Due to my blood systems go-go attitude toward achievement, I next took the 4:00 a.m. opportunity to watch an anime bootleg I’d purchased from an internet entrepreneur who’s mission has become to fill requests from those of us insomniacs desperate enough to watch the varied and the plain. It was titled JIGOKU SHOUJO (Girl from Hell), a daily installment duped by my friend, and currently showing in Malaysia on Animax (Astro channel 75) every Monday to Friday.
What absinthe was to a fin de siecle cabaret, anime is to our global institutions of millennial nerd-dom. Something about those Naiad-tressed, wide-eyed, short-skirted, little sex kittens and their buffed, Ken-doll boyfriends has captured the serial world and won’t let go. But sometimes, watching the installments is not enough, so I dutifully commanded a chore of myself to translate the introductory song of JIGOKU SHOUJO into late-night English. My abilities being somewhat impaired by suppository intakes and my ignorance of Japanese, I stout-heartedly scoffed away the difficulties and proceeded to wade then dog-paddle through literature’s salty straits.
The song was named Sakasama No Chou written by the Japanese artiste SNoW [sic], which I speedily scribbled long-hand on my surprisingly still manufactured Gregg Ruled, 6”x9” stenographers pad, currently found in the cheap mercados on Hoover and Virgil Avenues. Passions for long forgotten movies and for telescoping into arcane planets of dubious knowledge are only inflamed by the accoutrements of erstwhile professionalism. A pen and a pad: I could have been Rabelais feeding my Gargantua, so heady I became with the artfulness of it all:
Someday the inversed butterfly will face the light
I cut my hair with you in the mirror
The hallways while class is in session; the echoing sound of footsteps
The sound of the ceaseless rain follows
While I feel it, the figure is blinding
It’ll become a sweet flower; it’ll become a poisonous fruit, too
Today it’s raining again; I want to be connected to that person
Through his sky and my sky now
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
I wonder if we can leave behind each and everyone’s thoughts somewhere
In this Craziness, You gave me life
I wonder to how far can we protect a single thought
You remember, inversed butterfly
The exchange of mail has no end
Even if I’m set adrift, I should swim
The ceaseless voices of people are like waves
While I believe it, the spreading melody
A gentle rhythm that seems to start weeping
It’s always raining; the present continues into the future
Or so I want to think
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
I wonder if we can leave behind each and everyone’s figures somewhere
In this Craziness, You gave me life
I wonder to how far can we protect their respective figures
Hey, feelings that can’t be told in words exist
No matter to how far people stretch out their hands
A place that they can’t reach exists inside of people
Because I like each and everyone’s soundless thoughts
Even if I don’t become something, I remain unchanged on any day
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
I wonder if we can leave behind each and everyone’s thoughts somewhere
In this Craziness, You gave me life
I wonder to how far can we protect a single thought
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
I wonder if we can leave behind each and everyone’s figures somewhere
In this Craziness, You gave me life
I wonder to how far can we protect their respective figures
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
Each and everyone’s aspirations
In this Craziness, You gave me life
A single brilliance
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
Each and everyone’s palpitations
In this Craziness, You gave me life
A single impression
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
Each and everyone’s gazes
In this Craziness, You gave me life
A single coincidence
In this Craziness, Uncertainty
Each and everyone’s warmth
In this Craziness, You gave me life
A single promise.
II.
Upon finding this transcription after an earned 18 hour sleep--no not the REM stuff, but the darker, elementary stuff being discounted because it's well beyond the posted date of suggested use, the kind that convinces you that you're dead until proven different--I re-read the song translation and realized that I'd stolen it verbatim from a Kuala Lampur movie bloggist whose skills I must have admired mightily during my fever dream of Romanji lyrics. I think the translator is named Philipp C.K. Gan, who is listed as a senior staff writer for the KLWeekly, (I wish that the LAWeekly had such intrepid scribes). If it appears as though I was trying to steal this guy's translation and foist it off as my own, I must admit I was tempted. There's a certain bad quality about it which when added to a low level of English language skills and then mixed with the truly poetic seem to create a rather cool and unsullied affidavit to global culture. When I compare myself to one who partakes in foreign enrichments to the extent of trying to translate Japanese anime song lyrics into Malay, let alone English, I'm made to feel like a provincial American slug who never leaves his apartment. Bravo Mr. Gan, as I've said elsewhere but bears repeating, I'm sorry.
III.
If this life isn’t crackling enough for you, I suggest following the examples of such as myself—those who write letters of adoration to Janet Margolin for enduring the rigors of mental illness in David and Lisa circa 1962, yet all the while knowing that this feminine bulwark against cynicism and despair succumbed to ovarian cancer 15 years ago. On my screen I can depress the Pause button and through frozen tears kiss her face back to health, touch that famous mole on her cheek, lick the still youthful and salty lines of her Zeus-engendered lips. Then as if releasing a dove into black and white ether, press Play and watch her lurch back from death into the warm lights of the Wynnewood, Pennsylvania sanitarium where Frank Perry and Leonard Hirschfield are behind the camera looking on her performance and Kier Dullea is nearby giving her sightlines and feeding dialogue penned by Eleanor Perry who sits a few yards further away in her low-slung chair with white-stenciled letters across the back that spell “Diver Dan,” munching a Twinkie. It’s all still there: Bergman’s house of wonders; Orson Welles before eating 18 loaded hot dogs at Pink’s; Rock Hudson still hard from auditioning for a small role at Universal. Beats anything one may find outside my front door where hyper-realistic terror turns somersaults in anticipation of bustin’ my balls for a buck. Go ahead try it, rent a copy of Chilly Scenes of Winter, Room at the Top, The Deep End (1968), The Lusty Men, Drugstore Cowboy or anything made before Hollywood began to eat it’s own intestines and call it Fresh Popcorn.
Detroit once made automobiles coveted the world over, but they eventually began to ignore what the drivers wanted. Instead, they proceeded on a course which dictated through marketing just what the country would buy. They were correct for a time, but soon competition ate them alive by delivering a better, more sensible and efficient product from overseas. Currently, Hollywood behaves in a similar way, forcing dreck down the gullet of a high school-aged demographic through advertising and glitz. But it won't last. One day the only reason film makers will come to Hollywood will be to visit the cemeteries where their heroes and heroines are buried. It will be similar to when writers walk Paris' Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise to pay homage to Moliere or Balzac. Hollywood will only be known for its graveyards. I'm afraid even the transvestites on Santa Monica Boulevard will relocate to somewhere more exotic: Rome, Tokyo, Shanghai, Istanbul, Paris or Rio. Hollywood without transvestites would be like an amusement park without fun, they don't have something to do with the point, they are the point.
IV
The photograph at top is not of Celia Johnson as one might expect from the text. I'm afraid Celia, for all her acting accomplishments, had a face like a mud fence--as my father used to say. Also her physical gifts probably ran to the cerebral appreciators of whom I'm not a member. Instead I placed a picture of Diana Dors, a curvy sexpot of the first rank if only for a few years in a few forgettable films. One might say the only thing she and Miss Johnson had in common was an accent. However it opens an interesting addendum to the contract one tacitly agrees to when beginning a movie: loyalty. Must I as a viewer of Brief Encounter populate my current or later fantasies of the movie solely with the actress who was hired, photographed and listed in the credits on the old poster which may have graced a Piccadilly movie house's lobby? Or may I re-cast the film to my liking, so that my subsequent mental re-run has a preferable actor or actress. May I trade a Celia Johnson for Diana Dors? Or perhaps a hot-blooded Welsh lass might want Trevor Howard fired on the spot and replaced with Michael Wilding, Richard Burton, or even Morrissey--hell, it's her fantasy. The question is rife with explosive possibilities, but being rather randy for a Yank, I chose Diana Dors with whom to consummate my Brief, but becoming less Brief, Encounter. I can see a possibility for arguments over one's choices: if I cast Diana Dors but my wife is a dead ringer for Celia Johnson, well I'd be a fool to expose myself. Even therapists should probably be noted as possible snoops. If I change John Garfield in Body and Soul with Clifton Webb, there's every possibility that my therapist will jump to some untoward opinions about me. Best to keep it under your hat; at least until the perfect movie mate comes along. A prospect that keeps many of us codgers flicking that Pause button and waiting for the years to run along, backwards.
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