Recently in Essays Category

Let me begin by pointing out that I am a strong believer in the right of animals to be free of human-inflicted cruelty. Animals deserve to live pleasant lives with appropriate food and shelter, adequate exercise, social interaction and, when the time comes, as painless a death as possible. Most of us can agree that it is wrong to cause pain or discomfort to animals for petty reasons.

It is important for you to know this because I am about to speak out against PETA, and they seem to be convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is an elephant-beater who wears live cats on her feet and loves thinking about cows being abused while eating a huge pile of bloody meat. I may like to eat a huge pile of bloody meat, but only from a cow who has lived a nice life. Just so you know.

When I was a little one, the thing I wanted most was a pet monkey. I grew up in a household moderately interested in exotic pets--at various times we had miniature horses, llamas, African pygmy hedgehogs, parrots, foxes, a skunk, and Bengal cats, and had acquaintances who had emus, deer, zebras and even a serval cat that literally clawed its way through its owner's bathroom door. My family had toyed with the idea of getting a wallaby or a fennec fox. Yet my mother still didn't consider a monkey to be an appropriate pet.

In retrospect I am relieved that she didn't give in on that one (mostly because there is no ending for that kind of story that does not involve stitches), but at the time I found it unreasonable. Of course monkeys were safe, I thought; otherwise they wouldn't sell them! I didn't see what could be wrong with having a little organ grinder monkey to ride around on my shoulders wherever I went. I fantasized about it.

I didn't know if I was going to write about this, but over the last few days it has been progressively weighing harder and harder on my mind. There's been an onslaught of celebrity deaths over the last month or so, and usually even in the best of times this kind of thing serves to remind me of my own mortality. But Michael Jackson. There's a part of my brain that doesn't even believe it's possible.

I was never a huge fan, but I've liked his music since I was a little one. And I liked him as a person, and I think he deserved better than how he wound up. He seemed like a sweet guy--very troubled in a wide variety of ways, but a sweet guy. I wish I could have met him or seen him in concert or something before he died, or even just sent him a nice letter to tell him he's not the only oddball in the world, that I think he's a good person. Would it have made a difference? Probably not. But maybe it would have, in some small way. I agonize about this kind of thing, I'm sorry.

Actually, when I initially heard that he was going to the hospital, I sincerely believed he had been revived and would be fine. And that I would have the opportunity to send him a pleasant little card. That would probably have made me feel better than it would have made him feel, but I don't know. I really don't like that this amazingly skilled performer who's spent twenty years being a media punching bag died before he could have any public redemption. In death I guess he finally has it--it took him being gone forever for people to realize they loved him after all. That may be the saddest thing.

And I don't think he actually molested any kids, for the record.

A lot of people have ridiculed the sort of international grief that's sprung up in light of his death, but I think today's Achewood nails it. Chris Onstad really captured most of my feelings about the whole thing in that strip and in this little article, written in-character as Ray Smuckles:

What I think a lotta folks are feelin' now is a regret. Not regret that a man died; no. They regret that for almost three decades they been mockin' this guy.

And, in a nice counterbalance to the tragedy, here's a nice little humanizing anecdote about the King of Pop from someone who worked at a laserdisc store where he used to shop.

It has come to my attention that VHS tapes are officially no longer being manufactured as of January 2009. We all knew it was coming (does anyplace actually sell new VHS tapes anymore?), but it still feels awfully bittersweet. It's the end of an era.

Very soon there will be a generation of children who do not know what it means to rewind. We (you and I, gentle reader) are among the last to have listened with anticipation to that mechanical whine, waiting for the familiar click and grinding gears to signal that it was all right to press "Play."

We are among the last to open up our VCRs to retrieve "eaten" tapes (and in some cases that act awoke the spirit of the engineer within us).

We are among the last to instinctively turn tapes on their sides to make sure the side of the box says "VHS," not "BETA."

We are among the last to adjust the tracking.

So give your old VCR a hug tonight. Pull out that well-worn copy of Jurassic Park or Mortal Kombat or, God help you, Evil Toons, and give it one more run for old times' sake. Curl up with those memories and take comfort from the familiar sounds and rituals and unabashed flaws that came with the VHS format, for that shared experience belongs to us and our youth.

NOTE: The image is a great VHS memorial t-shirt from Nakatomi.