Retro-Blog 2009:12:31 - Something Completely Different (and disposable)

Avatar: a cause for action by Roger Dean against James Cameron and his associates
Michael Kepler
December 31, 2009   · 7 min read  · Shared with Public

I'm taking a break from what has become my usual chronicle of family drama to offer some observations about a motion picture I viewed this evening.

First the obvious: the design of the geography, flora and fauna of the fictional planet in this film is based very closely on the artwork of Roger Dean.  It is not credible that the designers of this film could have come up with these images and structures without having a familiarity with very specific works by Roger Dean, particularly his paintings for the Yes albums Yessongs and Fragile, among others.

There was no mention of any kind of Roger Dean in the credits of the film, and an initial online search uncovers no evidence of any agreement between Roger Dean, or his assignees, and James Cameron or his associates in the production of this film, licensing the adaptation of Dean's work for use in this motion picture.  As such, absent any such agreement already executed in secret, I strongly believe that Roger Dean, or his copyright assignees if applicable, have a strong cause for action against James Cameron and his associates for copyright infringement and unpaid royalties.

Then the less obvious: to a lesser extent, the music and thematic concepts of the film could be considered as "inspired" at least in part by the works of Jon Anderson and Yes.  In fact, the film could have been better if Anderson and Yes had been directly involved in both the score and the conceptualization of the story.  As it is, James Horner, as much a musical thief as any soundtrack "composer", managed to hack out a score so beautiful it made me wish he would provide a bibliography of the works from which he had lifted it.  I don't need any help to identify Jon Anderson's Toltec, and some of his other solo works, as a source.   For the most part, however, both musically and conceptually, Cameron, Horner, Anderson and Yes have all drawn from the same deep well of over-used cliche's, and who could have cause to sue whom would be impossible to sort out.  As has been pointed out by others, the copyright holders for "Ferngully" probably have the strongest cause for action regarding plagiarism of the story. Still, I wish it had been Jon Anderson's voice singing over the end credits, instead of some generic female soul singer.  The Yes song "Homeworld" would have fit, both musically and lyrically.

Blatant and arrogant piracy aside, it was a better film than I had expected.  It was a more immersive cinematic experience that I had expected, and the character and story development edged out over my admittedly very very low expectations.

My biggest complaint of this film is the same complaint I have about most recent films which rely heavily on the attempt to merge live action and computer-generated graphics: jarringly incompatible visualizations of a subjective reality are juxtaposed awkwardly.  Much of the enjoyment of a good film is the escapism that comes from being drawn into it's seamless alternate reality.  Films which intercut or superimpose incompatible realities are like having someone in the theater poking and slapping you repeatedly and shouting "Hey, by the way, you're watching a MOVIE right now!".

Right at the beginning, the cuts between spacecraft interiors and exteriors were visually non-credible to a laughable degree.  While the interiors had very moody, shadowy lighting, the exteriors were bathed in such an excess of gamma (self-illumination), the spacecraft looked like initial drafts of designs for toys.

On the positive side, I was surprised at how quickly and completely I felt immersed in the hyper-real imagery of the planet, which was actually quite beautiful (thanks, again, to the uncredited, uncompensated, Roger Dean). The longer such sequences extended, the more I was drawn in.  The film even worked well enough when inter-cutting between the hyper-real planet and the mundane reality of the live-action interiors.  In a way, that contrast almost seemed to be quite intentionally the visual point of the film.   But then there were sequences where components of these two fundamentally incompatible realities were used in the same scene, in the same frame, at the same time.  That felt pretty much like getting kicked out of my seat onto the sticky theater floor.

Cameron's effort would have been much more successful if he had opted for a purely photo-realistic computer-generated film with no live action elements whatsoever.   Either that, or a consistently cleaner delineation of the two visual realities, as had been accomplished with such success in Disney's Tron (which actually managed to seamlessly combine elements of live action, early CG, and hand-drawn animation, as well as a unique use of backlit masks, to form the "inside the computer" reality).

In the end, it was an enjoyable enough spectacle, especially in 3D, but ultimately the kind of over-priced, over-worked yet sloppy excessiveness we have sadly come to expect from James Cameron.

Finally and again, if I could grab his ear, I would strongly encourage Cameron to do the right thing and enter into good-faith negotiations with Roger Dean for appropriate compensation, and at least proper credit, and maybe a tribute featurette, in the Blu-Ray and DVD releases.

ADDENDUM: 4:30PM December 31, 2009

I just wanted to make clear that Cameron's use of visuals originally executed by Roger Dean are not limited to the "floating islands" of the Yessongs album inner artwork.  It would be an interesting and difficult task to map every derivative scene and setting in the film to the specific works from Dean from which they were adapted.  One that springs immediately to mind, however, are the specific appearance of the stone circles and arches in one area of the Pandora planet, and their origins in the artwork for the Yes Union album cover.

I would also like to note that over-emphasis on visual spectacle, while treating story and dialog as a secondary afterthought, can have disastrous results on the finished product.  A single word choice can make a world of difference, and this movie is perhaps the penultimate case in point.  It doesn't matter how many hundreds of of millions you spend on the visuals, if you name the precious mineral at the center of the conflict "inobtanium".  This resulted in giggles from a significant portion of the audience.  A silly word like that would be expected in some kind of fairly-tale-like fantasy film, but it seems Cameron worked very hard to take concepts and visuals usually associated exclusively with fantasy and bring them credibly into the context of realistic science fiction, only to have that single word make it all seem silly and childish.

Given the inherent limitations of the cinematic form, we can perhaps forgive many of the outrageous liberties taken with so-called "science" in this film.   Never mind no attempt made to rationalize islands floating in the air on which normal physics appear to apply to people, animals, water and loose objects, although there was a missed opportunity to tie this into the properties of the mineral "inobtanium", the great value of which was never really explained.  Least credible of all was the ease and speed with which the main character adjusted to the experience of living inside a humanoid, yet in many ways vastly different, body, and being surrounded by people, culture and animals that are significantly outside of his experience and knowledge.  It almost seems like the script wanted us to honor his often-mentioned "stupidity" as a form of strength that made it easier for him to adjust and accept with a minimum of "freak-out".  Ultimately, it is the strong suggestion of  some supernatural "destiny" upon which we must rely to believe in his rapid transformation from Marine to, in his words, "tree-hugger".

My final objection is to how much groundwork was laid for what could have been a mold-breaking big Hollywood movie, only to have the movie fall back on bankable, focus-group-tested cliches.  The people of Pandora were depicted as a kind of idealized version of the native peoples of the Americas, using violence rarely and sparely, without even any mention of wars between tribes (although why else would they have a word for "warrior", or an apparent warrior class).  Again, this is an idealized version of the native peoples of the  Americas, as in reality some tribes and nations were viciously violent against others and their own. The people of Earth were, of course, depicted as the "bad guys", with the exception of the modern-day cleric class of "scientists".   There was an opportunity here to present a different model for conflict resolution than is depicted in most big Hollywood films. Yet, ultimately, it was a war film, with the Pandoran peoples essentially "lowering" themselves to the level of the "evil" humans.

Ultimately, this seemed like a film at war with itself, and in such case, there can be no winner.
8 Comments

Kevin Romero
Have you read "MIDWORLD" by Alan Dean Foster? Talk about piracy

    12y

Kevin Romero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midworld - also reading the comments in Amazon it is apparent there are a little of people noting the similarity

    12y

Kevin Romero
http://img.denihilation.com/delgovatar.html - another source

    12y

Michael Kepler
Kevin, given my age, it is probably easy to guess which was the first Alan Dean Foster book I read: the novelization of the first Star Wars movie. Now there is a movie in which all absurdity is forgiven because it's false reality is so seamlessly consistent in it's visual style.

    12y

Michael Kepler
Jeff, I may have mis-quoted the movie. I'm not sure if they said "inobtanium" or "unobtanium". Either way, it's just plain silly.

    12y

Kevin Romero
I think it was mispronounced in the movie...

    12y

Stuart Pitman
I just keep thinking of Ricky Gervais "joke" about buying a Golden Globe...

Retro-Blog 2009.12.29 - "Another Tricky Day"

"Another Tricky Day"
Michael Kepler
December 29, 2009   · 2 min read  · Shared with Public

"Another tricky day
Another gently nagging pain"

-from the lyric of "Another Tricky Day" by The Who, written by Pete Townshend

Table of Today's Contents

Chapter One:
The "Dad Meeting"

ChapterTwo:
The Kitty Hunt
Part One: The Man Who Dances With Trains
Part Two: The Cave of Mystery
Part Three: Detained by Deputies

Chapter Three:
The Emergency Room

To Hell with it.  I'm way too tired right now to do justice to this very bizarre and very long day.  Sadly, I will probably not remember it well enough tomorrow or later to write about it then, either.

In particular, I wish I had recorded the "Dad Meeting", as it demonstrated so much of what is wrong, not just with my extended family and the Warehouse of Sorrows in which my Father is being held prisoner, but our broader culture and industry as it relates to the eldest and most vulnerable among us.  Maybe later, with some help from one or two others, I can piece something together.

The Kitty Hunt episode is a story in itself, and not likely to be forgotten any time soon, so that will be forthcoming, most likely.   Not only is it a strange tale of adventure in itself, it begs a discussion of the dark history of the Railroad Police, an anachronistic horror show that lives on virtually unchanged.  Sadly, no missing kitties were found, and the animal shelter closest to where they were lost was closed.  I will return there tomorrow to make sure they put up the posters, and to check if, by some miracle, either cat has been turned in.  I am not The Man Who Dances with Trains (with his pants down), but it took a few tense minutes to convince the deputies of that.

Finally, since any mention of an Emergency Room is potentially alarming, I should at least note that it was, in the end, much ado about mostly nothing.  Most of what I have to say about it is just more of me being a bitter crybaby about things I should just leave alone.
 

Retro-Blog 2009.12.28 - A Bad Day (that could have been much worse)

An "eventful" day, and a grim tomorrow.
Michael Kepler
December 28, 2009   · 6 min read  · Shared with Public

Just to throw something positive out here first, I went to my friend Jeff's birthday party on Saturday night, and it was fun.  Just to prove I can never let anything be completely positive, as my second attempt at karaoke in recent months, this further convinces me that I can no longer sing well.

Then came Sunday, which is still for me "Today" subjectively, although it is already a Monday I have been dreading for a week now.  It won't get any better with less sleep, so I am attacking my consciousness from multiple angles, which may affect the coherence or prudence of the content of this post as it goes on (and inevitably on).

Sunday, our daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend, three cats and a mouse, left in their little Subaru to return to Ft Collins CO (from PDX OR).   We had advised them against taking the northern route, but something or someone convinced them otherwise.  Out around Troutdale on the I84, just as the freeway really gets into the wicked Columbia Gorge winds, she attempted a lane change, a gust of wind got under the little car, and over it went, bouncing off the median and rolling, according to witnesses, three times.

Our daughter and her pet human came through it virtually unharmed, physically at least.  Her other pets did not fare as well.  While she was still sitting in her, thankfully upright, totaled vehicle, a stranger handed her Baz, their little black kitten, apparently unharmed, through her broken window, and reported that he had seen the large cat (Merlin) running off into the brush on the shoulder.

Sadly, there were no eyewitness reports of what happened to Mia, the kitty I had almost begged her to leave with me.  Mia had seemed so happy to be home, and even our other cat Vivian, had forgiven her absence by earlier that same morning, running and playing with her in the house.  Fortunately, there were no flat cats in the area, on either side of the freeway, and no blood trail on the road or shoulder, but also no Mia.

We were not the first called, yet we were first on the scene among family members.  I know that's a petty point to make at this time, but it relates to what follows.  Tony, Jennifer's brother, was waiting at the towing yard when we arrived, following the wreck, and helped recover personal possessions from the wreck and transported them in his car back home.  He waited for hours while the rest of us, now including the parents of Jennifer's boyfriend, returned to the accident scene to search for the cats, in the biting cold wind and darkness.

Nothing was found.  This is not surprising, as both cats were still probably very frightened by what had happened, and would be laying low and keeping quiet somewhere, hopefully well out of the wind, and hopefully together.  Merlin has good street smarts and proven cold weather outdoor survival skills.  Mia has always been an indoor/outdoor cat, but has never had to spend a night outside, much less in winter and a strange and hazardous environment.  Both wore breakaway collars.  Merlin's was found in the car, and thus he carries no identification.  Mia's was not found, so there is some hope that if she is found by people, they will have Jennifer's contact information on Mia's tag.   If they stuck together, this could help with Merlin's recovery as well.  I plan on returning in the daylight, and dressed better for the cold, to resume the search.

At the end of the day, Jennifer chose to stay with her other family, her boyfriend's family.  There is no good reason for this to surprise or hurt me, but it does.  Part of it was how it came down.  Tony drove us over to unload the recovered contents of the Subaru at her boyfriend's house, after previous discussion at home had seemed to pre-suppose that Jennifer would be returning home for the night.  As we finished unloading, she casually mentioned that she would be staying there, as if it had been the plan all along.  I felt I had been, if not directly misled, passively allowed to mislead myself.   I know it is natural and normal and expected for children to grow up and lead their own lives, I just didn't expect our child to choose another family, other parents, before she even left home.   It is normal and natural for her to want to live with her boyfriend, but is it normal or natural that we don't know him, or his parents, at all?   Is it normal and natural that their relationship began, under his parent's separate rooves, when she was 18 and he was only 15 years old?  I can't put this all on his parents.  Somehow, we let it happen, too.  Too afraid of driving her away, we kept mostly silent, yet still said far more than enough to make it far too easy for her to turn her back on us and close most of her life off from us, while embracing not just this boy, but his family, as her own.

Again, I know this is petty stuff and should not matter, especially today.  She should be where she wants to be.  I still have not come to terms, after years of reminders, that her real home is not our home.  I know I must have been over this previously in my blogs.  It just surprises me that I can still be so naive and vulnerable.  More than just a failure as a parent, I feel like a sorry excuse for a grown-up.

Anyway, this should be a happy day, because she is unhurt, and it is.  But I can't ignore the fact that I am still so very sad about so many things, and this day brought new wounds along with opening old.

So, on to "tomorrow", which is already technically "today", but I am still trying to convince myself to sleep.

Today, Monday, is the day of the "family meeting" with the staff of the facility where my Father is, essentially, being held captive at this point, and the bizarre cast of characters that pass for an extended family, so many of them so sure they know what is best for him and that they have the right to impose their will on him.  In the various discussions in phone calls and emails leading up to this day, and the interactions we had on previous occasions, most notably a sort of Christmas party we held for Dad last week, the battle lines have been drawn.  Some parties to this battle do not hesitate to distort their interpretations of my Dad's condition, if not outright lie, just to see things go the way they feel it should.

I suppose I'm going to have more than enough to say about this after the fact, and I am finally starting to get sleepy.

I should just delete this whole damned thing.  It does nothing to help anyone.  But if I start deleting myself here, where do I stop?  I spent most of the past year being mostly silent and mostly absent.  Maybe that was for the greater good in more potential situations than I will ever know, but it still leaves me wondering what reason I have to persist, to exist, if I am nothing but silence and absence.  I know too much and nothing are not the only choices, but I find myself increasingly unable to reliably judge what other more subtle choices may be safe and acceptable.  Today, obviously, I choose too much.  No doubt, I will soon learn the horrible foolishness of that choice.
My apologies, for what little they are worth, are offered.  My apologies for thinking and feeling, speaking and acting, wrongly.
1 Comment

Elaine Romero
It's a lot. Hang in there.

Retro-Blog 2009.12.22 - Dad has a temporary improvement

Dad continues to improve
Michael Kepler
December 22, 2009   · 6 min read  · Shared with Public

We went to see my Dad last night (Monday) in the non-hospital facility where he is now housed.  Patricia and I brought along Jennifer, our daughter recently arrived home for Christmas, and Patricia's guide dog Reuben (who we had not brought to the hospital in previous visits).

Although I am afraid of "over-selling" it, I really feel that Dad was remarkably better than he has been since this ordeal began.   He was sitting upright in a manual wheelchair when we arrived, and had little difficulty maneuvering it around.  He was regarded by the facility as someone who needs a two person assist to use the bathroom, but he completed the transfer from the chair mostly by himself, while the first attendant was still waiting for the second to arrive.  This is a huge improvement in his strength.

His conversation was much more coherent, and his voice stronger and easier to understand.  He continues to have difficulty hearing voices that are quieter or in a higher register, but had very little difficulty understanding me.   I think this very much has more to do with his long-standing hearing problems that it does with any cognitive function.  My younger sister, in later conversation with me, expressed doubts about his comprehension, but I suspect that she was mis-identifying a hearing problem as a cognitive problem.

He repeatedly mis-identified the dog as "Liesel", Patricia's first guide who passed away a few years ago, and would confuse Jennifer and Patricia for each-other at moments.  I hasten to point out, however, that these specific mis-identifications have been common for him, and other family members and friends, for years now.

His situational awareness was very good.  He made statements which, to me, clearly indicated that he knew that he was previously in a hospital and was now somewhere else.  He also made some very clear statements about the quality of the care he has been receiving.  To quote, or rather paraphrase, as my own rote memory is poor:

"Medical Care certainly has changed from what it once was."

"Common courtesy seems to have gone completely out the window."

He also made statements indicating that there had been some manner of unpleasant behavior from both the staff and other residents, although he expressed that he understood that many of the residents are in a lot of pain, and not at their best.

He repeatedly made statements that indicated that he understood that his cognitive and physical functionality had been much worse, and is improving, yet is still not quite what he feels it should be.  He repeatedly expressed a hope that he would continue to improve and be allowed to be returned home at some point.

He said that he and his wife had met together with someone in the administration of the facility, and that there had been a minimum period of time established for his stay.  He could not, however, recall what that period of time is.

We exchanged a number of statements which jokingly compared the facility to a prison, such as speculating on the possibility of "time off for good behavior".  He has again demonstrated a clear understanding of the difference between reality and more abstract statements such as jokes.

His memory is still not quite what it was.  I am fairly sure that he has little or no specific memory of his time spent in the hospital, and seems to have difficulty sorting out what visitors he has had on specific recent days.  I hasten to point out, however, that his memory of the specific events of recent days is not much worse than my own, and the very unstimulating environment of the facility, and the general sameness of the daily routine, would make sorting such things out difficult for just about anyone.  I would not be surprised or concerned if he never recovers much memory of his experience in the hospital.

The facility itself is clean, but very old and with some broken equipment.  The rooms have the appearance of a Motel that has not been remodeled in at least 30 years.  The staff was outwardly nice enough towards both Dad and the rest of us, but we found it objectionable that they were openly complaining about another resident within earshot of all of us, while they were assisting Dad with the bathroom.

As long as he doesn't have any kind of incident that triggers a reversal of his current rate of recovery, this facility should provide adequate care for him in his present, and improving, condition.

This is not an exact science, and I am not exactly a scientist, but I would estimate that my Dad is currently operating at about %60 of his previous baseline general competency, as compared to his observed behavior as recently as two weeks prior to his hospitalization.  I would further estimate that his baseline competency has been fluctuating in recent years to as little as %80 of optimal.  This is not bad for a survivor of both lung and brain cancer, and with a life-long history of alcohol abuse.  He has had no access to alcohol for over a week now, and seems to be handling it well, so hopefully he will remain "dry" when he is allowed to return home, just for the sake of his obviously fragile general health.

No "Dad" post would be complete without an update on family politics.  In the past couple of days we have learned that in 2004, my Dad wrote up a document that gives, in the event of his incompetency, power of attorney first to his wife, and secondly to her daughter.  Additionally, his wife has declined to exercise this power and has chosen to defer it to her daughter.  Initially, this was very upsetting to my younger sister, who felt strongly that the secondary power of attorney should have been assigned to a blood relative such as herself, or me.  Over the years, she has been much closer to Dad than I have, and spent a lot more time with him, and certainly has been the most consistent advocate for his interests, and attendant to his immediate recent needs, of any family member.  She was even angry at Dad over this, although I believe she was kind and prudent enough to not express this to him or in his presence.  Her anger was somewhat mitigated upon learning that his wife's daughter had not asked for this responsibility, and did not really want it, considering that she had already borne the burden of that role with other members of her own family before.   However, the power of attorney still cannot be transferred unless it is done so at Dad's request, and at a time when he is judged to be competent to make such decisions.  Barring that, the only other option would be to make him a ward of the State, which nobody wants.  My hope is that my sister and other family members will be allowed to work closely with his step-daughter in managing his care and other affairs, both to lessen her burden and to make sure that his interests are being represented, to the best of our ability to know or guess at them.

That's more than enough on the family politics for now.  If everyone agrees to work together for the good of both my Dad and his Wife, the legalities and politics should be relative non-issues.

This has been a very boring post, for a change, and I am very thankful for that.
What I thought had started as a chronicle of my Father's imminent decline and death, seems to be evolving into a story about an episode that will pass.  Perhaps his new baseline condition will be a little lower than it was before the episode, but I see a good chance of an extended post-episode period of maintaining a relatively stable condition, hopefully back in his own home, after some minor upgrades to his home and other accommodations.
2 Comments

Elaine Romero
Not boring at all, Michael. I am glad to hear of the improvement and wish you all strength for whatever comes up for your father in the future.

    12y

Marilen Wood
I'm with Elaine. Please keep going with the updates on your father. I, too, wish you guys all the strength for whatever comes down the road for your father and family.

        12y

Retro-Blog 2009.12.19 - More About Dad, Too Much About Me

More about Dad, More about Me
Michael Kepler
December 19, 2009   · 8 min read  · Shared with Public

When I last saw Dad, a little over 24 hours ago, he was the best I had seen him since he entered the hospital.  My wife and I arrived a little late, and he was tired from an evening with a room full of relatives, so we didn't stay long.  But he was fairly conversational and semi-lucid, and even was aware of the nature of his condition, and able to joke about it.  When we mentioned that our Son Tony and his wife had been by earlier he said:

"Were they?  I'm not sure.  I'm still pretty small-minded."

As we left, we even shared another small joke.   He asked me if it had been snowing.  I said it had not, and there was none in the forecast, but that snow would be pretty.

"From a distance" he said.

I replied, "Yeah, no so pretty from a ditch.".

And he actually laughed a little.

That was yesterday.  Today he was transferred to a nursing and rehab facility with some of the worst ratings and customer/family reviews in the area.   My younger sister, who was there for the transfer, described the place as "yucky".  I imagine that was an understatement.

Why such a place?  Mostly, because it is the facility owned by the same people as the hospital.  Secondly, because family members who knew this was a bad choice, who had done the research to find better places, did not have the authority to affect the decision.  Basically, it was up to the hospital to decide, unless they were directed otherwise by my Dad's wife, and the only concern she expressed is that it would be as close as possible to her home.  And it is the closest to her home, but she doesn't even drive herself anywhere and plenty of family members were ready and willing to drive her farther, in order for him to receive better care.

As in most things, I have the audacity to blame myself.

When I was first belatedly informed of my Father's hospitalization,  the situation as it appeared to me was being dominated by my sisters, and they seemed to be cutting my Dad's wife out of things, leaving her in the dark and making decisions she should be making.  So, at first, I was among those who advocated for the social worker and hospital staff to include his wife more in the process.

As the days have gone by and I have observed more of how each person has handled things, I realize my misguided heroism was a terrible mistake.  It has been my sisters who have stayed at his bedside nearly 24 hours a day, while his wife has dropped by for a few minutes a day, perhaps not even every day.   Yes, I know she is very old, too, and has her own infirmities, but she is being offered any and all support and assistance by multiple family members, including her own daughter, and she is, frankly, behaving like a spoiled child who doesn't want to her husband toy any more because it is broken.

This is heartbreaking, because no matter how many people visit him, the only question he has for them is to ask where his wife is.   The only face he really wants to see by his side is hers, but she is almost never there for him, when he needs her most.

This is where the "in sickness" part of those marriage vows are put to the test, and she's failing the test.  It's not the first time either of them has broken vows they have sworn to others, so I suppose it should come as no surprise.

I know that I am being harsh.  I know that I'm being as asshole.  But that's me, and that's the way I see things.  I don't give her a free pass on being selfish just because she's old any more than I joined the medical staff in writing my Dad off as "as good as dead" just because he's old.   I know, I know.  I'm not inside her head, inside her life.  I haven't been there, don't know her, don't know what else she is dealing with.  I know, I know, I know. But still.  I can't help it.  From the outside it looks cold and selfish and childish and petty and it makes me mad and sad and hopeless.  Maybe accepting too much help is as destructive to her sense of personal dignity as what my Dad is experiencing.  Maybe she feels so close to hole that is swallowing his mind, that if she holds his hand, he'll drag her down with him.  I can't blame anyone of being terrified of that. I'm judging based on nothing, and I'm sorry, but not sorry enough to erase it all.  The feelings, and the concerns, are still real.

To be frank, none of this is being motivated by some super deep bond and loyalty shared with my Father.  The two of us have been largely strangers to each other for my entire life.  But that doesn't matter.  This isn't about earned loyalty, this is about basic human dignity that everyone deserves.  Well, almost everyone, but I don't want to get into my personal exceptions right now, especially considering that having such exceptions is morally reprehensible.  That's a cross I'm willing to bear, and will endeavor to do so in relative silence.  Wow, all things considered, the "cross" metaphor is pretty much exactly the worst choice I could have made.  Keep my room in Hell warm, I'm on my way.

Besides, I feel I owe my dad something, because I took something from him years ago, something important to him, something I can't give back; can't undo.  When I was born, I was named after him exactly, first middle and last name.   He was always a "Jim", but I was always called "Jamey", and I always hated that nickname.  To this day, most of my childhood family still address me by that name, which is one of the reasons I avoid them.  My parents divorced when I was somewhere around 16 or 17.  At age 19, acting as my own attorney, I petitioned the court for, and acquired, a legal change of name.  Not just the first or last name, but the whole damned thing, first middle and last.  I stole from my Father whatever disappointing legacy he might have lived out through me.    I'm still not sure what kind of legacy that was supposed to be.  He never made clear any specific ambitions he might have had in mind for me.  By the time I was 18, he was in a position of some influence in his industry, but would not use that influence to help me get a foothold in the field.  Besides, he was a man among men, and I was a weakling, decades away from learning that my lack of stamina was due to a congenital arterial defect.  But now it sounds like I'm just making excuses.  Excuses both for being a disappointment to my Father, and for the unthinkable insult of changing my name.  The fact that he would have anything at all to do with me after that is probably more than I deserve.  He would even try to remember to address me by my chosen, legal, name.

This is certainly, to the best of my knowledge, more consideration than he ever showed to his first family, his first children.  Somewhere, in Colorado unless they have moved on, he has other Sons, and another Daughter.  I don't even know their names, and by all accounts, he has never been in contact with them since he divorced his first wife and ran off to Oregon with my Mother, already pregnant... with me.  Me, the ugly stain on the family history.  Just ask my aunts.  I heard enough growing up, through their uncomfortable silences, their judgmental looks or more often, eyes averted in shame.  Am I imagining this?  Hard to say.  As I have probably said many times before, my childhood his mostly a blank.  Odd little dreamlike snippets of memory, nonsensical and out of context, and in between, vast expanses of nothingness.  For all I know the bits and pieces I have really are just fragments of dreams, and not my real life at all.  Does it even matter?

Now that my own children are grown, and I look back over it all, their childhood, and my own, I realize that my Father was in many ways a better Father to his children than I have been.  At least he took me camping.   Now, it is my son who takes *me* camping, even though I never took the time to do so with him when he was growing up.  My Father and I were both absentee fathers and absentee husbands during the most critical years.  Both of us were married first to employers who never, in the end, really loved us back.  Nothing we did at work was as important, or as lasting, as what we should have been doing as parents, as husbands.    And now it is too late, and what is left of our precious minds is slipping away.  He's only a little farther ahead of me down that path to oblivion.

Who will sit by my side as I slip slowly away, staring, half-seeing, half-recognizing, half-remembering?  There's another thing I have in common with my Father.  Everything, ultimately, is about me.  That, and we are both cold-hearted selfish bastards who don't care who is hurt by what we say and what we don't say or do.
1 Comment

Kevin Romero
Is there a chance of getting him moved to a better facility?

        12y


 

Retro-Blog 2009.12.15 - The Night of The Violently Demented

Dad update, the night of the violently demented, and way too much more
Michael Kepler
December 15, 2009   · 11 min read  · Shared with Public

During the day Monday, while my son and others were with him, my dad went from semi-conversational to mostly unresponsive.   Just as it had happened previously, the transition occurred while nurses were tending to him and family members were out of the room.  This obviously makes family members wonder if he is being sedated by the nursing staff.  Upon questioning, they deny that this is the case.

This is an ongoing issue I may have failed to mention in my previous update.  We can never be sure how much of what we are seeing is due to medication, rather than his actual condition.  We are repeatedly assured by staff that he is not being sedated.  But clearly something they are doing when they interact with him is pushing him back over the line.  Either that, or it's just an amazing coincidence.

I guess I can lend the medical staff some credibility here, just due to the fact that they clearly did not sedate a number of other very vocal, active and even violent patients over the course of the night.  

One elderly patient completely trashed his room, breaking glass and cutting himself in the process, and impressively making abstract blood-art of the walls.  Police were called in to help the nurses get him into restraints.  Unfortunately, he was moved to a closer room, so I spent the night listening to this remarkably energetic old man constantly yelling for his son to "bring your pocket knife and cut me out of these straps.  I'm trapped up in this silo."   When the nurse attempted to distract him, and to evaluate him, by asking some simple questions, he was very quick and confident in his answer that the year is 1979.  It would be difficult to convey just how loud this guy's voice was.  Every time he yelled out his son's name, it would make my dad twitch and utter a startled grunt, followed by a short, weak, coughing fit.

Meanwhile, directly across the hall, was another loud and obstinate old man who kept setting off his very loud bed escape attempt alarm, which would be followed by lengthy arguments and wrestling matches with the nurses.  At one point, when a nurse attempted to remind him yet again that he was in a hospital bed,  it was very late, and he needed to rest, he replied: "I don't care if I'm in a barn; I don't want to sleep on this damned couch!".

That ends the dark entertainment portion of this article, but please read on if you want an update on my Dad.

I arrived for the night shift, at about 10PM, just as they were transporting Dad back to his room after the CAT scan.  My son Tony, was still there since leaving work. My younger sister's husband Jason, and my older sister Renee were there, too.  She, apparently, as not left the hospital for more than a couple of hours at a time ever since Friday.

At this point, my dad entered a period where his response to any external stimuli was to say "I love you, darling".  He would also occasionally utter this phrase seemingly spontaneously.  The only other verbal responses, if someone was trying extra hard to talk to him, would be seemingly automatic, either repeating some portion of what had just been said to him, or making generic responses like "Ok".   

At one point, he appeared to actually follow an instruction to cough from one of the nurses.  I'm sorry to be skeptical about this positive sign, but he was coughing often enough, and the nurse was patting his back hard enough to loosen things up at the time, so it may have been a combination of coincidence and physical response, more than a cognitive response to the instruction.

I spent most of my time sitting next to him at eye level.  He would frequently open his eyes in my direction, but I was never sure if what we commonly consider to be "eye contact" was actually happening.  He seemed to be in a different place.  Fortunately, with all of the "I love you darling", it seemed to be a much better different place than some of the other residents of the hospital.

He gradually became less responsive, and the "I love you darling" period ended.  During the night, he occasionally seemed to be asleep, and at other times was weakly restless and would open his eyes and move his limbs around a little.  He continued to cough fairly frequently, but was, fortunately, on his side for most of the night.

A doctor came in and talked to us a couple of times during the first hour or two after the CAT scan.   He was very adept at finding very time-consuming ways to say "I don't know anything helpful" without ever saying anything close to those actual words.   He had no idea what Dad's previous baseline cognitive or physical function had been like, and was not interested in hearing about it from us.  He also seemed very frank and completely unapologetic about having virtually no communication or coordination of care with the other doctors who have been in and out of this case.  The idea of picking up a chart and reading it seemed too much trouble for him and his colleagues, and for all I know, putting adequate information into that chart to assure some continuity of care was probably too much trouble for all of them as well.

Most frustratingly, the doctor consistently characterized my Father's condition as a linear decline from the time he had been admitted until now.  This despite repeated attempts on our part, particularly mine, to point out to him that Dad's cognitive function and general strength seemed to be going through cycles over the past few days, getting better then worse repeatedly.

I was left with the impression that the medical staff has a "one size fits all" diagnosis and non-treatment plan for every patient above a certain age.  The doctor talked his way around my point that there are plenty of men older than my Dad who write books and run companies, and thus "he's just old" isn't really a credible diagnosis.   I resisted the urge to suggest that there was probably even a man somewhere older than my father with the power to fire any doctor on staff in this hospital.  I don't know this to be the case, of course, but it is a reasonable conjecture.

I understand that the human mind and body are extremely complex systems, and in any given case, there are severe limits on what can be definitively known about the condition of a patient, and even more severe limits on treatment options, all of which carry their own, largely unpredictable, risks.    As a family member of a patient, it is probably nearly impossible to ever be completely convinced that everything reasonably possible is being done, especially when things are not going well for the patient.

And then, there are times when it seems fairly objectively certain that simple and important basic care is being neglected.

The battle to get the CAT scan was won by Tony and Jason before I arrived.  The next battle, which took most of the night, was to convince the nursing staff that Dad was running a fever and that this might indicate something which should be brought to the attention of an actual doctor.   We only had a partial victory, in that the nursing staff did eventually confirm that he had a fever, but only in the course of their already scheduled rounds.  Their response was not, of course, to inconvenience any actual doctor in the middle of the night, but rather to administer Tylenol.  This however, ended up being accidentally helpful for winning our third battle of the evening.   The nurses had to administer the Tylenol non-orally, as Dad was too weak and unresponsive to take it orally.  Later, in our continuing campaign to get them do do something about his obvious dehydration, and our requests for IV fluids to be administered, the nurse invoked a roadblock of "a swallowing evaluation would have to be conducted before we could do that".  She made it sound like this was some kind of complex "wait until morning" kind of procedure.   Fortunately, our verbal assurance that previous nursing staff had obviously performed such an evaluation when they resorted to non-oral administration of Tylenol was sufficient to convince her to order IV fluids and bring some ice chips.  Again, this is hardly an all-out victory, as it took all night, and when I left at 6AM, we were still waiting for them to follow through with the IV fluids.

It had been my plan to leave when my younger sister returned at 9AM, but I have to admit that I found my presence to be depressingly pointless and unhelpful.  Dad at no time appeared to be aware that I was there, my older sister only left the room a couple of times for an hour or two each, and my son remained all night, only getting a four hour nap in a freezing cold waiting room, with a full day of work ahead of him.   He was awake and still staying with my Dad when I left.  All of the minor victories in getting some basic care issues addressed were won more by my son and Jason than by me.  I suppose it is just as well, as I nearly fell asleep at the wheel in the last few blocks on the way home.

This marks the end of the Dad update, and the beginning of the making it all about me.  Those who understandably don't give a shit about what a self-involved asshole I am can stop reading here.  But, if like me, you find self-involved assholes to be oddly entertaining, or just enjoy the warm feeling that comes with a good hate, feel free to read on.

I recognize that a lot of my criticism of the doctors is a projection of my own feelings of guilt.  I have this strange sort of third-hand guilt.  I feel guilty that I don't feel more guilty about not feeling as emotionally engaged in my father's situation as I should be.  I feel for him the same degree of basic human compassion I would have for anyone in his situation, no more or less.  Even worse, my strongest emotional response is entirely selfish.  When I get to be my dad's age, and possibly in similar condition, which with the way time flies lately isn't that long from now, I want better care than this.   I am horrified to think of myself in his condition, receiving the same careless and passive "he's just old" treatment.   I hope to be the guy who trashes his room and keeps everybody up all night yelling nonsense.

Having raised what are potentially "end of life" type of issues, at the risk of being redundant with things I may have said or written before, I wish to make it clear:  I want to be as big an inconvenience to as many people as possible for as long as possible.  In other words *DO* resuscitate me, over and over again until you can't take it any more, and then have someone else take over.  DO NOT PULL ANY PLUGS.  I assure you with the utmost confidence that I fully deserve the full measure of any suffering I may appear to experience in the process.  I also assure you that you probably fully deserve the full measure of the discomfort that witnessing this horrific spectacle may cause you,  whoever you are, imaginary person who at least pretends to care enough to be there, if any such person might exist at such a time for me.

Also, for any period of time that I am to any degree unresponsive yet alive, I wish for there to be a radio near me tuned to a classical music station, or some equivalent thereof, even if you don't believe that I can hear it.  It can be quiet and very near if there are concerns about the noise disturbing others.  Avoid opera if you can with convenience.  Beethoven, Bach, early 20th century ballets and late 20th century minimalism are all great stuff.  Not a huge fan of most Mozart or the Baroque period, either, but I can deal with it.

I do NOT want any self-righteous evangelical zealots yelling prayers in my face.  A proper preist administering formal last rites is acceptable.  Quietly praying the rosary in my presence is also acceptable, but I mean *quietly*.  And, no, I'm not a real Catholic, just more of a "fan" of the original church, more in the ideal than some of the less than ideal practices over the years.  I feel much the same way about America, but I *am* a real American.

Carrying this out to any possible memorial service, less talk is better, and traditional ritualistic stuff is preferred over more self-righteous evangelical masturbation, especially from some asshole who didn't really know me.  The music is what matters to me.  During any period of time leading up to any unavoidable talking, I wish for the ambient album "A Blessing of Tears" by Robert Fripp to be played as background music.  After any yammering is done, everyone has to stay put for the entirety of "Here Comes The Flood" by Peter Gabriel, preferably in one of the simpler piano arrangements, or my own cover if I ever finish it.  It's only about 4 minutes, and it's a great song, so I think you'll survive the ordeal, no matter what your "I'd rather be..." bumper-sticker calling to you from the parking lot says.   When finally released from this gruesome event that nobody really wants to attend, especially me, you are to be played out to the tune of the closing theme to Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It would be extra awesome if that could be played live on a real pipe organ, but I know that's probably asking way too much, especially coming from a dead guy who won't even know the difference if you play polka music while you piss on his grave.   I'm not even aware of an available transcription to sheet music.
    
1 Comment

Marilen Wood
Thanks for the update, Michael. A few questions I would like to raise (not to mention some unsolicited advice.) (Sorry about that.):
1) Is it time to be moving your dad to a different (hopefully better) hospital? This one can't be the only one around. I promise you, not every hospital has an entire staff holding a "he's just old" attitude.
2) Failing that, is it time to be directing your complaints up the food chain? Maybe you could talk to nursing supervisors, heads of departments, state agencies. There is absolutely no excuse for any of this! Document EVERYTHING on paper, not just here, and start talking to people. If you're not up to it, sick Patricia on them. (If nothing else, it will be entertaining to watch.)
3) You wrote, "...I have to admit that I found my presence to be depressingly pointless and unhelpful. Dad at no time appeared to be aware that I was there...." You also wrote, "..., for any period of time that I am to any degree unresponsive yet alive, I wish for there to be a radio near me tuned to a classical music station, or some equivalent thereof, even if you don't believe that I can hear it." This would indicate to me that you think you would be aware on some level of what was happening around you. If that is the case, how can you be so sure that your dad was unaware that you were there? You might be right; however, you have no proof.
I hope he is able to come out of it soon and tell you himself. Take care of yourself; that goes for the rest of the family too. Let me know how it goes.
-- Marilen

        12y

Retro-Blog: 2009.12.14 - More about Dad's condition

More about Dad's condition.
Michael Kepler
December 14, 2009   · 4 min read  · Shared with Public

For anyone who might want more detail, I'll do what I can here.  The problem is, I get mostly conflicting second and third hand information.  Oddly, that's how just about everyone feels, including his own wife.   I can only report what I have observed.  I don't know how many relatives or anyone else who would be interested might read this, but I feel I might as well post it just in case.

I do not know of any definitive diagnosis, or even exactly what his condition was when he was checked into the hospital.   He had been in the hospital for at least 24 hours before I even heard about it.  That is a whole stupid petty story in itself.

Yesterday, he was conscious, but only semi-responsive.  Speaking appeared to be very difficult for him, and what he said was mostly impossible to understand. He only occasionally appeared to understand some portions of what was being said to him.  He was physically very weak and cold to the touch.

Today, his cognitive functionality and ability to communicate seemed much better.  He could recognize everyone who visited and remembered our names without prompting.   He had no memory of the previous day or two.  He had short term memory problems, asking repeatedly where his wife was after she had left for the day.  His ability to communicate kind of faded in and out.  A couple of times he would form complete sentences with recognizable words, but none of it made any kind of obvious sense.  Other times, he could carry on short completely coherent conversations.  It seemed that my Son and I had the most success communicating with him, among those present. He remains very weak physically, but was very interested in getting out of bed and moving around, which he did, with help.  He very clearly wanted to leave and go home.

Going forward, he is expected to remain in the hospital at least one or two more days.  Most people involved seem fairly certain that he will then be transferred to an assisted care facility for an indeterminate period of time before he can go home.  Some seem convinced that he may never go home again, as they feel his condition will not improve sufficiently to allow he and his wife to live together independently.

I feel a lot of this is premature speculation.  If his condition continues to improve at the rate it has in the past 24 to 48 hours, he could be back to his "usual" self as early as tomorrow, which should be good enough to let him go home with his wife.

If he remains in the hospital tomorrow (Monday) night, I will be taking the overnight shift sitting in his room with him.  My sisters have been doing so up until now.

His "usual" self, by my limited observation from short and infrequent visits, is still someone with hit-and-miss memory, both long and short term, but able to move about and take care of himself.  When I saw him last Christmas (2008), he actually seemed more coherent in conversation that he had at our previous visit some months earlier.

My dad has survived both lung and brain cancer, and is in his 70's, so all things considered, he has been doing very well until this most recent episode.

And just to get the petty part out there and over with.  I am neither pleased nor surprised that both of my sisters knew he was in the hospital at least a full day and night before I found out, yet it was neither of them who called and told me.  I found out from my Mother, who had found out from her sister, who had found out from my cousin, and that's where my trace-back of the chain breaks, so I don't even know how many more-distantly-related people it took for word to make it's way around to me, seemingly more by accident than by intent on the part of those closest to the situation.  I give much credit and thanks to my Mother for promptly calling me as soon as she heard, especially considering that she has been divorced from this man for more years than she was married to him.

To be fair, I have failed to maintain contact with my sisters now for many years.  Both have made multiple overtures to which I have failed to respond.   The reasons for this are complex and involve episodes in our family history which I try to avoid remembering.   I'm not avoiding the people themselves as much as I am avoiding that history.   I'm sorry that I have to be so vague, but not nearly as sorry as I and others might be if I were to get into the details, especially in such a public setting.

That is probably more than enough said in this setting.  

This is a cross-posting, pasted from my MySpace blog, which remains my primary and preferred online presence, until I can get my own site into shape.Dad, in the hospital 2009.12.12
5 Comments

Elaine Romero
Michael, thank you for sharing. I send my prayers to you and your father and to your family. I'm sorry that your siblings left you out of the loop. My oldest brother, Mark, who can be found on my Facebook page is a good source to direct medical questions. He has a lot of years of being able to read medical signs and is intuitive that way. Much love to you and yours.
Elaine

    12y

Michael Kepler
Yeah, I was told "stroke" at first, but the symptoms don't support it. There is no asymmetry in his admittedly limited dexterity. Frustratingly, an MRI was scheduled, then canceled. He's geetting "oh he's just old" treatment from the doctors and most of his family. I have no influence.

    12y

Marilen Wood
For whatever it's worth, Michael, I know how hard this can be. Hang in there...I'm right there with ya.

    12y

Michael Kepler
To correct myself, I have since learned that a stroke in the cerebral cortex does not cause any asymmetrical motor function. Obvious in retrospect. The doctor treated me like I was an idiot over this, and I tend to agree. In any case, Dad has had no recent stroke. The MRI showed evidence of a a very old stroke, perhaps years ago, but no "smoking gun" to explain his recent episodes.

    12y

Elaine Romero
Wow, Michael. Please know our hearts our with you. I don't like the doctor treating you like an idiot. It sounds like a very difficult situation with your father's condition.

        12y

Retro-Blog: 2009.08.15 - First in a series of data recoveries from other sources

A Single Note
Michael Kepler
August 15, 2009   · 1 min read  · Shared with Public

This is just off the top of my head
So don't expect a rhythmic meter or a consistent rhyming scheme
This isn't poetry or lyricism
at least not yet

The only universe that makes sense to me
is one that is oscillating endlessly
the ultimate vibration
the deepest singular note
that only God can hear

The only thing that matters to me
is finding enough mass in this universe
to stop this cold and lonely entropy
so this can all be born again

The world is an infinite and empty hole
And we each take up such a tiny space
for such a very short time
we fill our lives so earnestly
with dust and noise and nothing
a joke for some divine comedian
and the punchline can come at any time

It is no wonder that so many choose
their moment to join oblivion
as the one and only thing
they can control

copyright 2009 by Michael A. Kepler, no matter what the "terms of use" that I did *not* read may claim.

New Statement of Intent

An introduction to an Introduction.  It is my intent to prepare content for a physical book.  If this comes about, it will undoubtedly be published via a "vanity" publisher in very limited numbers. 

This will not be a coherent, or even strictly chronological, collage of things written by me, and maybe some images/collages made by me during my lifetime so far.  And let's face it, there is unlikely to be anything more interesting in what is left of my life.

The primary source material will be things already written by me, largely culled from online presences, but also including new best attempts are at recounting stories which were once part of my verbal history, but are rapidly fading from memory.  It may also include digital or paper writings previously not shared.

I promise I will do all I can to reduce to the overbearingly mundane material, but then again, the presence of some of that material is required by a self-imposed discipline of honesty.

Right now I am full of the cocktail of drugs I use to attempt sleep, so nothing much is forthcoming this evening. 

I would like to re-state my assertion of my intellectual property ownership over everything I have written online thus far, for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I have not read the terms of service for any online forum upon which I have written.

My head is heavy.  This is the end for now.