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Disclaimer: some of the names in this post have been changed, sort of, to protect the bipolar.

It started last spring.

My dear old friend Butch, a guy I grew up with in the suburbs of Detroit, now well into middle age and living in Texas, got a wild hair up his ass.
Butch was born in Texas but as a child, moved with his family to the Detroit area, land of belching smokestacks, 25 degrees below zero winters and the beating heart of Rock ‘n Roll.

To say that Butch (and I) grew up in Detroit is a bit like saying Iggy Pop grew up. We spent our most malleable years there but I’m not really sure any of us in Detroit actually became wise, mature, responsible adults. We did grow taller, started shaving, lost our virginity and then, our naiveté. But as decades flew by I think most of us remained just kids with the same insecurities, neuroses and obnoxious habits we had in high school. Most of us, like Iggy, with a propensity toward addiction.

So, sometime around 1977 Butch aimed his pea-soup-colored Datsun southwest and put ice storms, industrial-hell-on-earth cityscapes and his maladjusted circle of friends in his rear-view mirror, forever.

Well, almost forever.

After spending a few decades irrigating golf courses in the Phoenix area Butch found himself back in Texas, this time as the single parent of a teen-aged, skateboard riding, mini-me named Ron.
Butch and Ron are best buds now. Butch buys Ron’s breakfast, takes him on airplane rides to places like Los Angeles and turns him on to other things that stirred his soul growing up, like the sound of a stratocaster and the smooth ride of a Cadillac STS.

And Ron is teaching Butch a thing or two, such as what the word iPhone means or the “noun” Ass Knife (When you mess up a trick and the board comes up and sticks you in the butt. “Dude Josh looked like he was enjoying that ass knife.”)

Oh, and Facebook.

Continue reading →

Last week, Linda and I were surfing around through the 80 or so movie channels we subscribe to through ATT UVerse – UVerse by the way, is another story altogether – and we stumbled on Scosese’s film “Casino” and since it had just started we decided to watch it, yet again, for the like the 5th time.

We have pretty eclectic taste in film and as a rule we’ll watch and enjoy nearly any movie, with a few exceptions. To me, “Rescue Dawn” has no reason to live.

But for us, “Casino” has just about everything we like in cinema. DeNiro, Pesci, Frank Vincent, Kevin Pollak and Sharon Stone – who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress – all favs. The plot, crime-drama with mob overtones. Another fav.

And it’s directed by Marty. What more do you want?

According to Wikipedia, when the film was released in 1995, it had the most uses of the “f-word,” 398, in a feature length film. But if Marty was trying for this somewhat provocative distinction, at 178 minutes, he kind of cheated.

Another favorable quality of the film that I don’t think I ever noticed before is the amazingly diverse soundtrack. Appearing on the official soundtrack are the likes of Louis Prima, Muddy Waters, Otis Redding and Ramsey Lewis as well as Cream, The Jeff Beck Group (more later,) Roxy Music, Fleewood Mac and The Moody Blues.

Oh, and somebody named J.S. Bach.

Unofficially, you also hear a bunch of Rolling Stones (whatever,) Derek and the Dominoes, even Devo. And although I can’t find any reference to it anywhere, there is one scene in the Tangiers casino where “Stone Cold Fever” by “Humble Pie” can be heard playing in the background.

Humble (effing) Pie. Continue reading →

Last weekend Linda and I attended a wake, for a kitty cat.

This might sound somewhat out of the ordinary but it wasn’t the first funeral that we’ve been to for a creature with more than two legs. Over the past few years we’ve held more than a couple of memorial services for bunny rabbits that managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up, literally, on or near our property. We have a bunny burial ground a couple of blocks from our house. It’s on a hillside and has a nice view of the sun setting behind the mountains.

During the drive to Ventura for the wake Linda and I were discussing how many people just don’t get how devastating it is when you lose a pet. Sometimes you’ll hear them say something like, “It’s not like it was a person.” Paaaaaleez. There are a number of persons that I could do without.

I told her, again, about how I lost a kitty named “Saturn,” (don’t ask) back in 1979. That puddy loved me like no thing or no one before or since ever has and the feeling was mutual. I still haven’t gotten over her 30 years later. Then there was “Spike.” A big, fat, orange tabby that lived with me for about 9 years before a coyote got him back around 1990. I still think of him. He loved broccoli.

Jean Claude, the kitty whose wake we attended, left this world last week and took with him the broken heart of our dear friend Alexis who had the privilege of watching over him during his stay on Earth. He lived nearly 19 years. He was jet black and very lovable.

Claude was known for many things but one of his characteristic traits was his bullwhip of a tail. You needed to be wary when walking past him or he might cut your legs clean off at the knees. He could wake you from a dead sleep slapping that tail on the floor and he would flog you with it when you pet his back sometimes leaving welts that hurt but healed soon enough.

Claude loved the sun and just hanging in the garden. He liked salmon and stretching out across in the bed.

He also enjoyed a good Cuban cigar and a single malt scotch while sitting poolside with the New York Times. He liked the music of Cat Power and was a fan of Pink Panther movies.

All this past week I’ve been watching the moon. The moon is my planet and I like watching its mood change from month to month and year to year. But for the past 10 days or so the moon has been particularly beautiful.

Last week I rushed home so I could try to get a photograph of the moon juxtaposed with Venus. They were so close they seemed to be holding hands as they dipped below the horizon in the west.

Watching them through the viewfinder in the darkening sky I could have sworn I saw the silhouettes of Saturn and Spikey chasing each other around the moon and Venus. I often see them, up there, dancing with the stars, but this time there was a third kitty silhouette, his tail whipping up little clouds of stardust.


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

I‘ve seen this a lot lately. The title of this post, –30–. Mostly I’ve seen it at the end of farewell pieces written by journalists who are leaving their newspaper jobs because the companies they work for are downsizing or cutting expenses or closing down. And after 26 years in journalism I can’t say, with any certainty, exactly what it means.

I can venture a guess though.

Back in the days of the typewriter, writers would have to put certain characters into their text that typesetters could understand, markup actually. Things like quad left or CR or em space.

Although the first newspaper I worked for did use typewriters, I didn’t. I was a photographer and had no need to learn typesetting code. But I did see a hell of a lot of hard copy going in and out of the backshop. Different typesetting systems used different types of code but there was some similarity overall.

I’m going to guess. –30– means end. The end. Stop.

So, yesterday as I sat at my desk at work looking over a newsroom that has been picked away at like carrion on a dry lakebed, and doing the work that just a few weeks ago would have been scheduled for two individuals, on an election night, I get an IM from my wife Linda.

“Bad news,” she IM’d.

“Oh shit,” I replied.

I pretty much knew what that meant. Earlier in the day she was chatting with me that she had a bad feeling, that there was just a dreadful vibe permeating her workplace. Now, she told me, her boss had held individual meetings with her and her co-workers and that he’s having to cut everybody’s pay by 20% and that one person, and a damn talented one, was going to be let go.

This after having to cut all their hours just a few months ago by another 20%.

At least she wasn’t the one that was being let go. At least I’ve managed to dodge that layoff bullet for the past year. Our newsroom which was at 125 last February is now at 65. Somehow, I’m still there. I think it’s because I’m invisible.

Invisible is good. But my shields are getting weaker.

Last night, one of our reporters asked me if I had watched the video at the Rocky Mountain News yet. I said that I hadn’t and she told me that I must. So this morning I looked it up, found the HD version on Vimeo and watched the whole 20 minutes with a lump in my throat the size of a fruitcake. I don’t think I know a single person that worked in that newsroom but my heart was breaking anyway.

My heart was breaking for the loss that every one of those people at the Rocky are feeling and the loss the entire industry that I’ve loved for 26 years is feeling and the loss that Circuit City employees are feeling and the loss the auto industry is feeling and the loss anyone who owns stocks is feeling and the loss that Linda is feeling … and on and on.

At the end of the video, as the music melted away and I sat alone at my desk in my quiet house, a very hard rain began to fall.

It was, kind of, beautiful.

It was devastatingly beautiful.

Fade to black.

–30–