A Man Called Otto

The thing that first caught my attention was the cat.

We'd gone to see "The Fabelmans" a few weeks ago, and in the trailers for upcoming movies there was a snippet from Tom Hanks' latest release, "A Man Called Otto." I wasn't even aware at the time that Hanks had a new movie coming out, but there certainly was a cat involved. Kim and I were determined to see it.

So we did. Yesterday.

I didn't know much about the flick going in, other than it was supposedly about a curmudgeonly old man who'd recently lost his wife, which is what made him a curmudgeon.

I'd taken a quick look at Rotten Tomatoes, the online movie review site, and the critics had given "Otto" a so-so 69 percent rating on the Tomatometer. But what really caught my attention was the audience score of 97 percent. That's a pretty amazing disparity between the professional movie goer and the nonprofessional movie goer, if you follow the numbers. Plus, I'd heard that "Otto" was kind of surprising in how well it was doing at the box office. Better than expected, it seems.

Makes you wonder what do critics know anyhow?

So we bought our popcorn and soft drink and for the next two hours rode the emotional roller coaster that was Otto.

It's humorous in some spots, smaltzy in others. It's pretty predictable, often sentimental, maybe even cheesy at times. So what? I like cheese.

And we both loved it. Add us to the 97 percent. Maybe the 97.1 percent by now.

The movie is yet another serviceable vehicle for Hanks, even though I don't think the role stretches the two-time Oscar winner's talents in any meaningful way. No weird Colonel Parker accents. No out of body experiences like in "Big." No saving Private Ryans. No exceptional Forrest Gumps. Just good ol' steady Tom Hanks, thank you. That's usually more than enough.

I've said more than once that Hanks is our generation's Jimmy Stewart. I stand by that.

There were a couple of other notable performances as well. Mariana Trevino is compassionate and smart as the neighbor who eventually peels away Otto's gruff veneer. And Truman Hanks – one of Tom's three sons in real life – plays the younger version of Otto in lookbacks (not flashbacks). He gets a surprising amount of camera time and is very capable. Must be the family DNA.

It is not a story about redemption, as I've read. More like resurrection. Some people are suggesting this is the movie we need right now, in the midst of our current national dissonance, despair and divide, because of its understated message of hope and healing.

Kim pointed out that the movie, to her, is a love story, and she's not wrong. But I saw it as a love story on many levels: a man and his wife; a man and his neighbors; a man and his neighborhood. Even a man and his cat.

Ah, yes. The cat. The feline, feral in the flick, is unnamed in the movie. In real life, the cat is called Schmagel. Don't ask me why. But I was amazed that you could get a cat to respond as he did for his role in the movie. How do you train cats to perform without them running off somewhere when the director shouts "Action!"

In the end, the movie will tug at your heartstrings. I guarantee it. I didn't know I had that many heartstrings. 

And sometimes, they need to be pulled.

 

 

 

 

A world of (health) care

I discovered that while spending a few days in the hospital, as I did recently for a troublesome bile duct blockage and infection, your world is suddenly condensed.

There's plenty of time for television, of course. And reading.

And pondering.

But beyond that, you'll probably see immediate family members, the occasional doctor or PA making the rounds, and plenty of nurses.

Oh, my. The nurses. It seemed as if I had an entire platoon of RNs looking after me, all of them attentive, all of them pleasant. I'll never remember all of their names.

The one nurse that I will remember, though, is Thomisha. Her 12-hour shifts during my stay seemed to cover me more than the others, including deep into the nights.

One night, probably her last full shift with me before my discharge, I apologized for calling her to my room to unhook me from my IV tree so I could pad my way into the restroom and pee. You pee a lot when taking IVs. You also pee a lot when you are a man in your 70s. I think it's God's little joke on men.

"You're no trouble at all," said Thomisha, an African-American woman who said she has three other jobs besides this one. "I'm lucky because I have good patients on my shift now."

That got me to thinking...

"So does that mean you have some patients who resist everything you try to do for them?"

She stopped what she was doing. She looked at me.

"You have no idea."

Then came a quiet moment that lasted just seconds but was profoundly heavy by what was not spoken. I don't think I was misconstruing her intent. I know nurses sometimes have problem patients. But this, this was very different. She was coming from a world I'll never know. A world I might never understand, or even could.

"You have no idea," she repeated. "Sometimes it makes me wonder why I even do this job."

A few hours later, I was ready to be discharged. All of my nurses have been great, even going back a few years ago to when I had colon surgery, and then later when I had gall bladder surgery. They do jobs I can't comprehend doing. They do grunt work that can be repulsive or uplifting. They deal with the obnoxious and the obvious, as well as the helpless and the needy and the confused. They deal with blood, feces and urine.

They don't need to carry anybody's extra baggage. I'll let you make your own way through my otherwise unspoken moment here.

Thank you, Thomisha. Thank you so much. You'll just never know how much.

•   •   •

My entire hospital stay turned out to be universal. I guess it's because hospitals are universal.

In addition to African-Americans and Caucasians attending to little ol' me, there was an Asian helping with my MRI, an Hispanic with my procedure to remove the stones, with the actual endoscopy performed by a person of Mediterranean descent. I thought my radiologist came from Germany because of her accent, but then she told me she was from Ukraine. Oh, my. And my CT scan was conducted by a hippie with wild, long hair and laid-back personality. We hit it off immediately.

Look, I'll still do anything to avoid going to the hospital. But my world of health care has been phenomenal.

 And I am eternally grateful.

Well, that was different

For the first time in what I can't remember when, we didn't go to a New Year's Eve party.

We weren't invited to any. And, ta da, we weren't devastated.

Actually, it was quite nice.

I figured our New Year's Eve would be a quiet one when, by Wednesday, none of our neighbors talked about having a get-together, as we usually do at somebody's house for this particular moment. Thursday came, and not one word. Then New Year's Eve day, and nothing.

We didn't have to prepare an appetizer. Or come up with a side dish. We didn't have to buy a bottle of champagne, although we had one on hand from a week or so ago, just in case.

That was fine with me. I ended up watching one college bowl game after another, content as a clam in its shell in the sea, snacking on Cheez-its and soft drinks.

There was an added bonus. The weather was lousy, with a light rain falling most of the day and into the early evening. That meant no fireworks going off to annoy us or send my cat into bewildered hiding.

It was kind of neat. The Ohio State-Georgia semifinal College Football Playoff game turned out to be a thriller that went almost right up to the midnight hour. With just a few minutes to go, I looked out our front window and noticed most of our neighbors' house lights were off. Everybody, it seemed, was home or off to a separate non-neighborhood party.

I turned the TV to ABC and we watched the crystal ball at Times Square slowly drop in its awkward countdown. When the New Year arrived, prompt and on time as usual, we shared an old married couple's kiss and klinked together our week-old champagne from heavy iced tea glasses. 

I don't know if all of this was a symptom of our advancing years, but it all seemed somehow appropriate.

And, surprisingly, we both managed to stay up for the ball drop. We were wide awake at midnight, which almost never happens. It must have been that nap we took at 3:30.

•   •   •

I don't know what Kim has in mind for our New Year's Day meal, if she has any plans at all.

She's a girl who is sometimes rooted in tradition, which usually means black-eyed peas and collard greens are somewhere on today's menu. Yuck. I've never been a fan of unappealing New Year's meals. Back in Pennsylvania Dutch country, from where I can draw my roots, the traditional meal was German-based, featuring pork chops and sauerkraut.

I think all this is built around wishes for good health and good fortune for the coming year, but eating something you're not crazy about seems a bit counter-productive to me. Why start the year off with a belly purge?

I guess if worst comes to worst, we can have a Chinese meal, or perhaps Mexican.

Or, if nothing else, I think I still have some Cheez-its and champagne left over.

Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year. I think we deserve it.

It's a wonderful movie

The other day Kim came up to me and said, "Let's go see 'It's a Wonderful Life.' It's going to play Thursday night at the Lexington theater. It's an old movie and it was meant to be seen on the big screen. I think it'll be a lot of fun and it'll be free.

"Besides, I've never seen the whole movie. I've only seen bits and pieces of it here and there. C'mon, let's go. Pleeeeez."

Say whut?

I tried to process this request on several different levels. I mean, gee whiz, I've seen this move about a thousand times. I can quote dialogue from it before Jimmy Stewart does. The denouement, where the grateful population of Bedford Falls comes out to lift George Baily, is one of the best cinema endings in moviedom. I start to tear up about an hour before Clarence gets his wings, even though I know what's coming. I actually look forward to my tears.

So there's that.

Plus, the theater is old, drafty and could use some serious upgrades. I still wasn't sure, but then, what the heck. It was free. Anyway, even in spite of the theater's shortcomings, this was a thoughtful holiday treat by the staff. They were showing a different classic Christmas movie each night ("Polar Express", "Miracle on 34th Street", "Home Alone", "A Christmas Story", for example). So we went.

And guess what? Kim was right. This movie (like all movies) was meant to be seen on the big screen. I found myself chuckling at little bits of humor and nuance that I miss when I watch it on television. There were about 20 other people in the theater (a bigger audience than I expected), so when somebody laughed or giggled, we all did. Psychologically, I guess it's like some kind of mass contagious dissociative behavior. Or maybe it was just funny, I don't know. But it added to our big screen experience.

I also looked for the little stuff that is now movie trivia. The phone kiss between Stewart and Donna Reed was Stewart's first movie kiss since returning from World War II, where he flew 20 harrowing missions as a B-24 pilot. The passionate one-take kiss he gives Reed barely passed the censors of the time. Understandable, I guess. Reed was a 25-year-old beauty and Stewart was suffering from PTSD for the hell he'd just been through.

I also look for Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in the Our Gang comedies. Switzer is the wiseguy who opens the swimming pool floor during the dance scene. Stuff like that.

So we stayed to the very end. When Clarence got his wings, the audience clapped, like they sometimes do in movie houses. And I brushed away a tear.

Merry Christmas.

•  •  •

There's one other Christmas moment I want to mention.

Kim and I have been to several Christmas parties this year, and the one treat I'm yearning for – and have been for years – is toll house cookies.

Nobody, it seems, makes toll house cookies anymore. I think I know why. It's a pretty labor intensive project to make these things. 

"If you want them so badly, you can make 'em yourself," said Kim. "You're home all day."

Well, the last time I made them, about 30 years ago, it nearly killed me. And I was a young man then. The recipe I used made three dozen cookies, I think. Mmmm. Gooey oatmeal dough drenched in butter and brown sugar. Chocolate Nestle morsels. Walnuts. Mmmm. Try mixing those together by hand. It's like mixing quick-dry concrete. Like I said, labor intensive.

Anyway, Kim's already tied up making Moravian sugar cakes, so I'm not asking her to make cookies, too, if I want to stay married. It's either one or the other. If given an ultimatum, it'll always be the sugar cakes. Soooo good.

I am contemplating making some toll house cookies next Christmas, though. We'll see. 

But if I do make some, don't expect me to bring them to your party. They're that good. They might get gone before I get there.

I guess that's why I don't see any at the parties I do go to.

Mmmm. Toll house cookies.

Merry Christmas.

Thank you, Joe

Gas prices are dropping. Inflation, while still high, is hovering around 7.1% in this country while most other nations are experiencing double-digit inflation. Democrats avoided a red tsunami in the midterm elections and by doing so quite possibly saved democracy for a few more years.

And President Joe Biden's favorability numbers are rising. It's now 42.9 percent, the same as Ronald Reagan in the second year of his presidency.

With the year coming to a close, I thought I'd look at some of the more important legislative progress we made under the Biden administration despite some irrational blowback from many Republicans who, ironically, also stand to benefit from Biden's accomplishments:

• Passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package to improve highways, bridges, airports, etc.

• The American Rescue plan that helped put 500 million life-saving Covid vaccinations in the arms of Americans. It also cut child poverty in half and reduced healthcare premiums by $800 a year under the Affordable Care Act.

• Signed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act  to help mitigate gun violence as well as provide funding for youth mental health.

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which provides for a $369 billion investment in climate change. It also caps prescription drug prices at $2000 per year for seniors on Medicare. Medicare, in fact, can now negotiate prescription drug prices, period. I can live with that one. It also imposed a 15% minimum corporate tax on some the the country's largest corporations, forcing them to pay their fair share.

• Pulled out of Afghanistan to end the longest war in American history.

•  Passed the Covid-19 relief deal that provided $1,400 checks for most Americans. Raise your hand if you returned your check because you don't like Biden. Yeah, that's what I thought.

• Created 6.6 million jobs in one year, more than any other president in history.

• Signed the PACT Act to deal with military service members exposure to burn pits.

• Signed the CHIPS and Science Act that strengthens American innovation and manufacturing.

• Signed the bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act.

There have been other significant accomplishments, like the return of American Brittany Griner from wrongful Russian imprisonment, college debt relief, rejoining the Paris Accords to fight climate change and the authorization of the assassination of Al Qaeda terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri.

All of these achievements have been remarkable given that Biden is dealing with a 50-50 Congress. And yet, here we are. 

There's still a ton of work to do. The Electoral Count Reform Act is still on the floor and the John Lewis voting rights act to guarantee free and fair elections needs resuscitation. Immigration issues at the border have plagued presidents for decades and needed to be addressed. But with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives coming in in January, expect the Party of Retribution to conduct useless, money-burning investigations intended solely to obstruct Democratic efforts to move the nation forward.

Still, it's been a year of significant accomplishments.

Oh, what a week

As a former newsman, I guess I shouldn't be surprised when a single eventful week can be so chocked full of news.

Like what happened this past week.

On Tuesday, Georgia rejoined the World of Common Sense by re-electing incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock to a full six-year term in the US Senate, knocking out Republican opponent Herschel Walker, a former collegiate and professional football star who was, no doubt, one of the most unqualified candidates for United States high political office in perhaps forever. It was astounding to hear him give serious speeches about werewolves and vampires and all that good American air going to China. Sheesh.

Warnock's victory also gave the Democrats a 51-49 edge in the Senate. That's critical. It means President Joe Biden can get a number of things accomplished without GOP obstruction, like appointing ambassadors, cabinet heads and federal judges. It also gives Democrats full – and not shared – control of Senate committees and sub-committees. 

It also means that when the Republican controlled House of Representatives begins its threatened investigations of the Biden administration amidst calls for Biden's impeachment (as well as some cabinet heads), it's likely to be an exercise in futility because the Senate simply will vote against impeachment. There will be no sense of real governance in the GOP House, only retribution.

More of Senate control in a moment.

On Thursday night, we learned that WNBA basketball star Brittany Griner was finally released from a Russian prison after 10 months of wrongful imprisonment for what most of the world considers a minor offense: medicinal cannabis oil for her vape pen.

What should have been cause for celebration that an American citizen was released from Russian detention quickly turned into a political football (or basketball, if you will). Griner was released under the terms of a prisoner swap with the Russians welcoming back notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is sometimes known as "The Merchant of Death."

The extreme right went nuts. How dare Biden give up an arms dealer for a basketball player? What kind of unequal deal was that?

Bout was scheduled for release in 2029, while Griner would serve her sentence until 2031. So if Bout was going to be released anyway, why not take advantage of his current capital to release a wrongly imprisoned American? It's not like Bout isn't the only Merchant of Death walking around the globe.

Meanwhile, another American, Paul Whelan, has been in a Russian prison for four years, accused of being a spy. And he's a former Marine, dammit. When did we leave Marines behind?

First off, even after months of negotiations for both Americans, the Russians made the offer either Griner, or neither of them. Not much of a choice, really.

But some people were appalled. In comparing Griner to Whelan (why are people comparing the two? They're both Americans), Griner appeared to be the ungrateful un-American pariah. She was critical of the United States. She often would kneel for the National Anthem at her games. Meanwhile, Whelan was a Marine, dammit. Impeach Biden.

What Griner is is Black, female and gay. Her stance on the National Anthem is similar to Colin Kaepernick's, a Black man who also suffered from the wrath of the extremists for his stance, which was in reality intended to spotlight the racial social injustices that still linger under the surface in this country, despite the 13th and 14th amendments and other civil rights legislation.

Meanwhile – and this hasn't been played up much – Whelan was court martialed and received a "bad conduct discharge" from the Marines in 2008 for bouncing checks and the attempted theft of $10,000 while serving in Iraq. He was also demoted from sergeant to corporal. All of this while wearing the uniform of a Marine. Sounds pretty disgraceful to me. (See here).

But, you know. He's not gay. He's not female. And he's white. And he probably stands for the National Anthem.

And I hope like hell he's released from Russia as soon as possible, as we would hope for any wrongfully imprisoned American.

Anyway, on Friday, the Democratic 51-49 edge in the Senate appeared to be in danger when Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema announced she was leaving the Democratic Party to register as an Independent.

But it's likely Sinema will caucus with the Democrats just like Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, which will maintain the Democrats' control over the Senate and keep American government moving forward. Sinema will caucus with the Democrats because she doesn't want to jeopardize losing her committee seats, so nothing really changes.

Unless she's lying.

So, man, what a week it was.

Now all we have to look forward to is criminal referrals, subpoenas, pointless investigations, hypocrisy and obstruction.

What a country.

It never ends

Just when I think we're finally free and clear of disgraced and twice-impeached former President Donald Trump, we're not.

Silly me.

On Saturday, in yet another un-American moment, Trump called for the termination of the United States Constitution. (See here)

You know, the document that gives us the Fourth of July. The document that begins with "We the People..." The document that gives us free elections, free speech, freedom of religion. That document.

You all in for that?

He wants to shred the Constitution because, despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever, he claims the 2020 elections that put Joe Biden in office were false and fraudulent. But if we terminate the Constitution, he says, we have the choice to either install him as the rightful president, or hold new elections.

Trump wrote, "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great Founders did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"

This, of course, is American blasphemy. And he's an American absurdity.

I keep replaying an old black-and-white newsreel footage in the back of my mind where I see soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. One or two of them fall to the ground. It's almost shocking to see. Those honored fallen took an oath and gave their lives for the document Trump wants to trash. Those honored fallen have done so for nearly 250 years.

How dare he. It makes me ill to think about it. And yet, there are many who still stand in silent approval of Trump. Most are Republicans. I don't understand. Isn't there a bad taste in their mouths, too?

All of this comes just days after he hosted a Mar-a-Lago dinner with anti-Semite Kanye West (who has now abbreviated his name to Ye. Well, hey, just call me Bru. Or Ce.) and ultra-disgusting white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

And this coming just weeks after Trump announced his candidacy for a second term as president. I guess he's running on the un-American platform. I guess we know the target of his appeal.

All this follows a lengthy pattern of un-Americanism, including applauding the insurrectionists of Jan. 6 and separating infant children from their parents as his administration's declared immigration policy, along with plans for a friggin' wall at the border.

I love how some Trumpists claim that Biden has done nothing but lead us through a poop show that last two years, but the truth is, nothing Biden has done comes anywhere near the national embarrassment of Trump's Republican Party.

I'm hoping the recent midterm elections were a barometer of the nation's state of sensibility. The projected red tsunami turned out to be a red trickle, giving us a split Congress instead of a red sweep.

I'm hoping Tuesday's Senatorial runoff in Georgia between unqualified Republican Herschel Walker and incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock is a resounding Warnock victory.

I'm hoping the Constitution is stronger than any tinpot despot, in just the way the Founders intended.