The Lost Boy: A Eulogy For My Dad

“Don’t the sun look angry through the trees?” - Warren Zevon

My dad finally died which is something I’ve thought about for a long time. Not in an excited sense but in the wonder of “what happens then?” What happens when dad’s gone?

My dad was, at his level best, a bad uncle. He was like one of the relatives you’d be cautioned to avoid when extended family you didn’t normally see arrived for the holidays. Don’t get me wrong: he wasn’t the molesty uncle but the “let’s give the 13 year olds booze and weed” kind of uncle. I was 16 when my dad started giving us booze and weed, my younger brother would’ve been 13 or 14 then. For Christmas when I was 18 we each got a fifth of booze and our own personal flasks, you know, so we could drink on the go like we were beat cops about to retire in a 1970’s crime movie. 

My dad was always good if you needed to get fucked up or needed to borrow twenty bucks, or just needed a couch to pass out on. He always had weird people coming and going from his life who only ever had first names, weed or pills, and eventually disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Mostly they were fat, drunk guys like him but sometimes they were teenagers. He had a succession of teenage girls living with him on and off for several years. One brought in boys when he had to go out town when my grandmother died and he told me his guns had been stolen when that happened. Another teenage girl who lived with him was, as he was fond of repeating “a lesbian”, which was something I’d never bothered to confirm or deny. She eventually left and when she bumped into my wife a few years later said she had to cut ties with him because he’d call her constantly to verbally berate her. I never fully knew the details of his relationships with these kids and probably never will but it always felt off to me. I’ll leave it at that.

My dad notoriously burned a four unit apartment down by dumping a pile of congealed bacon fat he’d been saving into a skillet, cranking the heat up to max and walking away. Turns out spattering liquid animal fat in large quantities can catch fire, although I’d always wondered if this was the cause given his habit of passing out with lit cigarettes in his hands. Anyways, he grabbed his dog and jumped two stories off the balcony after inhaling burning soot and was intubated and sent to a burn ward out of the area for copious skin grafts. Just so I’m clear: he wasn’t supposed to be smoking in his apartment or keeping a dog. My dad wouldn’t be controlled by the rules of polite society, a lifelong rebel without a thought.

He had learning difficulties as a kid, suffering from severe dyslexia and color blindness. I have to wonder if he had mental health diagnoses that, had they been addressed, may have helped him in later life. 

The small Oregon town he grew up in was one of the beautiful to look at but hard to survive in places that populate the Oregon map. Lumber and mining was the bedrock of the economy and when those industries shut down my grandfather, a man who’s first name was the letters EB (not pronounced “ebb” but “eee bee” with neither letter standing in for any other name or designation), had a mental breakdown and was institutionalized when my dad was a boy. Eventually he came home but on a cocktail of heavy duty narcotics that kept him sedate and unable to work. He spent his remaining decades wandering in place and sucking down chewing tobacco when he wasn’t staring off into the middle distance. 

My grandmother was a kind woman but one without any real control of anything, let alone her brood. My father was the last of five children: the eldest, Ernest, was a “jailbird” and had been in prison since I’d been aware of him and presumably he died there; my aunt Shirley married a series of abusive men starting when she was 15, one of her suitors being the only friend my mentally deficient cousin Doug had ever made and having his mom running off in a sexual flurry with his buddy didn’t do him any favors; my uncle Delbert was the success story of the group with a barber shop and other business endeavors, he famously divorced his wife at the same time his cousin was divorcing his and somehow they ended up marrying each other ex’s (and they say true love is dead); my other uncle Larry was the slimeball of the lot, when he wasn’t stealing from everyone to feed his speedball habit (fyi, a speedball is when you shoot up a mixture of heroin and crank, in case you weren’t white trash enough to know) he was beating the shit out of his wives, the last time I saw him I remember thinking “I don’t think I ever want to see this man again”, and thankfully I haven’t. 

My dad was the last child of the family and in an economically depressed place with a tumultuous home life, difficulties at school, and whatever else he experienced that he took to the grave with him, it’s not a shock he resorted to getting fucked up as a kid. In that kind of environment substance abuse is two things simultaneously: an expected behavior and the only escape from the crushing boredom and depression. 

My dad took that attitude with him across state lines and into California where he met my mother and tried to remake himself. He was “sober”, at least in the sense that he said he was, and he became a Christian. He wore that mask as long as he could until he grew to resent it and left. My dad was the kind of man who would’ve been a born coal miner a 100 years ago, one in a gaggle of nameless workers going from dusky mines to taverns then to cots and back again until black lung would’ve taken him at the age of 41, but in the Reagan 80’s that wasn’t a thing on the west coast, so he tried to be an upstanding family man instead.

Ultimately, my dad’s biggest sin was being himself. He was a broken, beaten child that never grew up. I don’t know what the chip was on his shoulder but it was a big one and he carried it with him everywhere he went. He was angry, never fully knowing how to connect to people and forever caught between needing people and hating them for being needed. I don’t feel bad that he died or that I haven’t talked to him in years; he lived his life how he had to live it and I lived how I had to live mine. We had divergent paths, and the man he tried to be and failed at is the man I’ve strived to become. He’s left me with a lot of bitter memories, very little of them good, but he did leave behind a detailed roadmap of where not to go and what paths to avoid when the inevitable fork materializes in the path. He was like the mirror opposite of John Bunyan’s pilgrim in Pilgrims Progress: my dad was a conglomeration of all the characters who attempt to lead Pilgrim astray. He lives on as a reminder of what not to do and where to avoid going if you want to flourish.

I don’t have any actual pictures of him and truth be told I don’t really want them, but I do have an image of him that lives in my mind, a school picture of as a boy of maybe 9 or 10. I remember it because it was one of the only pictures of him as a boy I’d ever seen; stuff like color photography and Kodak cameras would’ve been an expensive commodity in tiny Riddle, Oregon in the 60’s and 70’s, a luxury that wouldn’t have been considered. As far as I’ve ever known my dad’s family didn’t keep a lot of pictures.

He had deep, weary eye bags for a child that belied an inherent exhaustion kids don’t normally have. I believe that picture stood out to me then because it would’ve been the only time I would’ve seen him as an innocent person, just a kid who’s worst sin at that time would’ve been cursing or stealing coins from my grandmas purse. I knew him as the giant, hulking and angry thing that yelled at my mom, punched holes in the walls and threw shit at us; The man who would come home just to scream then storm off and disappear; The man who made my brother and I pack up our clothes into garbage sacks and load up in the car so he could go “sell us into white slavery” because we didn’t clean our room fast enough; The man who insisted on driving me to school one morning when I was 13 just to tell me he was divorcing my mom then dump me out of the car without another word, my world destroyed and P.E. starting in 20 minutes. But at some point in his life, before all of that, he was just a little kid who needed someone or something to intervene and direct him forward, and he never found it.

At some point when I was in my mid-20’s we were sitting around drinking in my yard. For a brief time we found some semblance of camaraderie in alcoholism, and when we were together we were drinking. 

I don’t know what possessed him but he looked over at me and asked “I was a good dad, right?” I didn’t know how to answer, and I think I might’ve laughed. What kind of question is that? Why ask a question you don’t want an answer to? Are you joking?

I said something like “sure, dad, whatever”, and I guess that appeased him or at least gave him the ability to quiet the internal dialogue looping in his mind enough for the subject to change.

It’s weird having him gone now because we were estranged for so long that he became a non-person to me. After so many years of struggling with him he just became something I didn’t consider after I could finally loose myself of him, which was a source of relief at the time.

I don’t feel guilty about that but I do feel pity for him, I feel bad for that boy who had so much stacked against him and no one to help him grow into a functioning person and teach him how to be a parent or what it means to be a father. I think the core of my dad was that scared and exhausted child, and all the intervening years did was build up a grizzled man around that perpetual core.  

Some peoples lives are suffering and pain and my dad was one of those people. I may not have been able to when he was alive but I feel like I see him clearer now, although the image will always be muddy. We may not have talked these last several years but I hope he can find some peace, and I hope that his suffering and struggle is over. 

So, “what happens then?” I don’t really know. I expected some kind of revelation or understanding to wash over me but I’m left cold. I’m left with a sense of sadness for who he was way before I was born but not for the man he became. I’m left conflicted, and probably always will be.

That was my father, that was my dad as best as I can understand him. 

Rest in peace, dad. 

To Eric

This feels really weird, dude, because I have this strong sense that the episode will end and fade to black and then the next episode will start and you’ll be back, like nothing happened. Poof, no problem, back to normal. 

It’s hard in this moment because I feel like I need to say something but I don’t know what that is exactly. I guess I need to say goodbye to you.

I feel guilt because we haven’t seen you much the last few years since we had kids. All day barbecues, all day beer drinking, and late nights babbling about esoteric stuff over absinthe are pretty impossible when you gotta be up at 4am and juggle work, karate, doctors appointments and so on. I know it’s all excuses now that you’re gone and there’s no going forward with you in the picture but it’s the truth.

Again, it feels weird. 

I look at your pictures, watch that video of Kurt talking at you, and you’re alive again. You’re not dead. New episode, it’s all back to normal. 

At your funeral I kept thinking people there were you because, and let’s be honest, most of us were white guys with beer bellies and facial hair in baseball caps. Still, I kept looking up and briefly catching you before realizing it was someone else. 

I also forgot how much your dad sounds like you, or I probably should say that you sounded like your dad. As a father myself I can only imagine his loss in a way that taps into my most primal fears. 

I lost a friend and the ability to make a proper reconnection when the time was right, but your dad and your family lost a son and a brother. Honestly I’m surprised your dad did so well today because I put myself in his shoes and I don’t think I’d have been nearly as composed. 

I’m sorry we’ve been unintentionally distant the last few years. Hindsight is awful. 

I hope that if there’s something else or anything after this that you’ve ended up someplace you’d want to be. I know that at some point after 40 beers we’ve discussed this kind of thing, probably several times, but I can’t remember specifics. 

There’s no easy way to leave this world and there’s no easy way to end this kind of thing so I’ll leave it at that.

I miss you, dude. We all do. 

Film Review: “Godzilla vs. Kong” (2021)

 4 1/2 out of 5

I fucking love monsters, especially big monsters. I don’t know why but I always have, ever since I was little. Monsters of one sort or another have existed on the periphery of my consciousness for my whole life. I was just at the coast and while taking in one beautiful rocky vista all I could imagine was a giant crab crawling up from the depths. That’s just who I am. 

So I’m the target audience here. I could be critical but I’m an easy lay for this, and unlike the prior two Godzilla films that think we want human characters and human drama (we don’t, by the way) this gives us big monsters doing big monster stuff in places that are silly. It’s the best of these Monsterverse movies second only to Kongs first outing in Skull Island and much better than the prior Godzilla films. 

It’s hard to imagine the ground level serious Godzilla of 2014 being connected to all this soft science fiction silliness (hollow earth flying snake monster reverse gravity gobbledygook) but it’s a monumental improvement. If you thought the family drama of King of The Monsters was lame you’ll love the simplistic characters here. Most importantly if you love the monsters you’ll enjoy this. 

Godzilla is mostly cast as an antagonist but Kong is expressive and strangely relatable; alternately exhausted and driven. As a father of three I felt every time he flopped down with the look of “do I really have to keep doing this?” on his face. They did a great job giving the monsters personality. 

I get why some people will balk at this and if you do then go watch fucking Nomadland and pat yourself on the back. I don’t know why you’d watch this if this is the kind of movie you know you don’t like. I like big monsters. I like this movie. 

If you like big monsters you’ll like it too.

A Eulogy For Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh, or El Rushbo (English translation: “The Rushed Beau”) as he preferred his followers to refer to him as, died and went to Hell this morning with only his beloved humidor of cigars and his tolerated pomeranian Poopsy by his side. A temperamental man of few words repeated many ways, Rush saw himself as an underdog of American Exceptionalism in a time when American Exceptionalism was the standard. Always willing to fight even when there was no fight to be found Rush would make a point of arguing with any inanimate object he found objectionable, up to and including garbage bins, the bread selection of his neighborhood Kroger’s, the wooden Indian outside of his cigar shop, and most notably with a half eaten Big Mac he’d forgotten about on his broadcast desk (“I’ve been infiltrated by feminazi scum! Who do you think you are, you lipstick besmirched chowderhead?!??”). He had many enemies during his tenure as America’s favorite radio blowhard but counted a select few as confidantes. He was known to golf with exiled Cobra leader Cobra Commander, was once spotted giving advice to Ming The Merciless, and most recently was “the devil” on President Donald Trumps shoulder. He leaves a divided legacy, remembered as a terrible father, an inept lover (12th wife Sharon Sharons was quoted saying “Rush called love making a ‘grunt n’ dump’ and it was as passionate as it sounds”), but also as a tender defender of every bad idea the GOP could concoct. He’s survived by his humidor, his second humidor at his studio, and his third humidor at his Boca Raton retreat El Rato Rushbo, as well as his legion of loyal morons The Dittoheads who now, having neither the guidance of Trump or Rush, are experiencing an existential panic and have begun fleeing into the surrounding woods and forests to disappear into the shadows. In accordance with his last wishes his body will be cast in bronze and sunk to the bottom of Loch Ness where he hopes to prove that not only Nessie is a secret hedonistic lesbian but also that this is the location where the corrupt Democratic Party had hidden the Dominion servers that prove Trump won the 2020 election. He also wished to have a plaque bearing his name and a quote, “Daddy would like some sausage?”, left near the shoreline.

In lieu of flowers the staff of his EIB studios is requesting that bags of dog and/or human shit be sent to President Joe Biden 

Goodbye, All The Best Video

I’ve spent the last few years audibly being thankful that in the modern age my mid-sized college town still had a video store, one that was founded the year before I was born, and had survived big box renters like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and the proliferation of streaming services like Netflix. But 2020 had one last punch to throw and it landed squarely on the temple of my beloved video store, All The Best. 

I feel silly admitting how hard this is impacting me. I see myself going through the grieving process in the expected steps: I feel guilt for not renting more than I did and not racking up heftier late fees than I could’ve, and I’ve begun concocting hairbrained schemes to keep it afloat. Eventually I’ll accept it but I’m already planning on avoiding the street it’s on because the thought of seeing the building shuttered and the purple awning removed genuinely makes me want to sob. 

I can imagine most people will think my reaction is ridiculous. The majority of video stores closed within the last decade and the mass public abandoned physical media almost as long ago. It’s the vestigial tail of an animal that evolved some time ago, I get that. I also get that in an era where you have thousands of hours of tv and movies that are pumped directly to your phone the idea of driving to a building to wander aisles to select something to watch seems an absurd act. 

For me going to the video store was more than just watching a movie; it was an experience and a connection to like minded people. Growing up in the country in a conservative religious family I found culture and saw the world through the movies I found at our local video store. That’s a quaint idea now and I can’t imagine what it must be like growing up with everything ever being available at your fingertips, but in the 80’s and 90’s it was an oasis in a desert, and without it I could’ve easily been a different person. 

Beyond that it was a way to share a part of my childhood with my own children. Going to the video store meant they’d get to pick a movie and some candy and popcorn, maybe buy a used movie or two. I rarely faced a weekend as a kid without renting a 5-for-5 (5 movies for 5 days) and although I think they mostly enjoyed the candy I tried my damndest to give them some of that. 

Times change, I guess, and old ways die. I’m only thirty five but I feel like an old man watching the culture I’ve held dear alter into something unfamiliar and unappealing, as overly dramatic as that sounds. 

I don’t know if I’ll be leaving the area any time soon but I do know that should I ever transplant my family somewhere else one of the first requirements right after good schools and safe neighborhoods is “is there a local video store still?”

All The Best you were the best. Your employees were friendly and helpful and most importantly they liked and knew movies. Your selection was great. You had the popcorn tubs I loved that doubled as a way to carry out my movies and snacks. Most importantly you were a human way of doing things and the sterility of a streaming algorithm will always be a poor substitute to your tangible, tactile humanity. From the bottom of my heart I say thank you for everything you’ve done for our community and for all of us who habitually occupied your aisles. I’ll never wear my Leprechaun shirt in a place where it will be properly appreciated ever again.

I desperately hope there’s an 11th hour reprieve but should we not get the PG-13 ending where the spunky teens of the youth center save the video store then know that your memory will live on in our hearts. 

Film Review: “Scoob!” (2020)

1 out of 5

I never realized how much I loved Scooby Doo until recently. As someone who loves horror, true crime, and Halloween I often try to trace my love of these back to some definitive source. My mom and grandma were big true crime readers, I was allowed to have Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark scar me at a young age, I watched The Twilight Zone and Night Of The Living Dead and spent most of my childhood trying to relive those experiences. But I’m almost certain that my interests in all these things can be narrowed back to he classic cartoon Scooby Doo Where Are You!. 
That show took monsters, ghosts, haunted houses, mysteries, and crime and wrapped it up in a package that was lighthearted colorful fun. Scooby Doo in various incarnations as a staple in my house, and I would come back to it on and off over the years. The franchise is like comfort food for me; the visuals and sounds are a soft blanket that mellows me out.
So when I saw the first trailer for this movie Scoob! became one of my most anticipated movies of the year, especially because I could take my young son to it. And then Covid came and shuttered the world and Scoob! came straight to homes. I was home from work on the day it came out and shilled our the $23.99 it cost to purchase it from Amazon and watched it with my kids.
I won’t mince around it and just say I didn’t care for it. The first ten minutes are really good and shows just how good this movie could’ve been had it followed a traditional Scooby Doo formula. This movie opts instead to focus on launching a Hanna-Barbara shared cinematic universe, so there’s no mystery and little-to-no Fred or Daphne or Velma, and instead we get a cadre of (sorry to their fans) forgotten HB characters like Dick Dastardly, Muttley, Dynomutt, Blue Falcon, and Captain Caveman, all of whom distract from our core group. I can’t be the only person who comes to a Scooby Doo movie for Scooby Doo and the gang, not the cast of Wacky Races. Honestly it’s shocking that Yogi and Boo Boo didn’t show up, I don’t think there’s a real reason they couldn’t have.
The animation is crisp and appealing and the voice acting is strong even if the studio made a big point of not offering the role of Shaggy to the resident actor who’s been behind the character for ten years or more, Matthew Lillard. Will Forte takes over the role but doesn’t really do much of anything that Lillard couldn’t have. Another snubbing is that of Frank Welker, the man who’s voiced Fred Jones since 1969. Fred is now voiced by Zac Efton, but Welker was still allowed to voice Scooby Doo so I guess he wasn’t stiffed as hard as Lillard was. Oh well.
The story is mostly incoherent and appears to have been concocted by a computer, wildly flailing from destination to character to random thing. Given the overall aimless tone this isn’t really all that shocking.
At least the Scooby Doo franchise still has a consistent output of tv shows and straight-to-video movies that don’t need to build a connected universe or feature big stars. The serialized tv show Mystery Incorporated is really good and should appeal to fans of Twin Peaks, the writings of HP Lovecraft, and even the music of Adam Ant. There’s also thirty something S-T-V movies that are either great or terrible with little in between that you can go through. This movie isn’t worth it, which is a total bummer.

Film Review: "Aquaman" (2018)

3 1/2 out of 5

During the big Lord Of The Rings style climax an army of sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads are ridden like horses into battle against an army of crab-people until Aquaman explodes onto the scene riding, and this isn't a joke, on the head of C'thulu. Every other sin this movie commits beforehand (the bad Indiana Jones excursion, the awful de-aging, the stilted dialogue, the confusing drama) are all instantly forgotten in this one ridiculous display of batshit inanity. The climax of Endgame was dramatically satisfying but this satisfied in a way I didn't know I needed satisfied: it made me marvel at the pure ectatsy of stupidity like I was a kid again watching the king of farty blockblusters, Independence Day. Hello boys, I'm back.
The closest approximation to Aquaman that I can think of is the prequels. So much of this movie is obviously green screened even if it probably didn't need to be. Watching Aquaman's dad, Aqua-human-dad, stand on a CGI dock waiting for Aquamna's mom, Aqua-fish-mom, to show up is confusing considering that there has to be at least a few docks in America that someone would gladly let them film on. I'd let Jason Momoa hang out shirtless on my dock. Heck, give me a cameo as "Neighbor hidden in bushes #1" and I'd let him do it for free.
And the dialogue and plot are nonsenical with everyone except Momoa overacting their hearts out. Patrick Wilson is Evilman, the aryan half-brother to Aquaman, who delivers all his lines like he just jumped out of a saturday morning cartoon. Oh yeah, Dolph Lundgren is also a fishman and his acting is surpringly good, probably because his acting prowess is the exact level as this kind of flarp.
But it's so stupid it's amazing. There's a "Fight For The Throne" battle that pretty much the same thing we saw in Black Panther except this has a giant octopus playing drums. A GIANT OCTOPUS PLAYING DRUMS.
What elevates the comedy here is that this is all played up as though it's high Shakespearian drama. Meanwhile, as all the theatrics roll on Jason Momoa is acting like he's on the set of a light hearted movie about a surfer bro who just wants a hot slice of 'za and a couple cold brews. He's just hangin' tough the whole movie and has an acting range that goes from smirking to light grunting. And if Momoa wasn't oozing big dick energy all over the place none of this would work, but he's literally swanging that dong like a hypnotist at the circus who's about to make you cluck like a chicken and it saves the movie from itself.
Look, it isn't high art or Shakespeare or anything like the MCU. It's a sloppy, unintentionally funny mess of a blockbuster that's so silly you just gotta let 85% of your brain seep out of your ear while you ingest over salted popcorn and chug beers just to meet it where it needs you to. It's a big dumb spectacle so have a big dumb time watching while secretely oogling Jason Momoa's beefcake beefiness beef mess. Okay? Okay.