BlitzBlog

He was black as coal. A curly, 5-pound black ball of fur. He was shy
and unsteady. He was as cute as, well, as cute as an 8-week-old puppy,
which, of course is what he was.

He didn't have a name, yet. He was my birthday present, so my wife
deemed that I should decide what to call him. I took this as a Great
Task, to be mulled and perused, for a few days. Since I knew he'd grow
a Puli's quintessential dreadlocks as he got older, I was leaning toward
naming him Rasta, but my mother-in-law decried that as racist. (Doing
anything my mother-in-law protests is frequently a plus in my book, but
when it comes to charges of possible racism, no matter how far-fetched,
I'm inclined to steer clear).

My son, who at the time was almost 2 and was beginning to talk, kept
calling this tiny puppy “gawgy.” We took this to translate to “doggie”
and somehow twisted  gawgy into Gogi, and thus, our new pooch was
named.

As a purebred Puli- the first pure breed I'd ever owned- we received
Gogi's AKC registration papers from the breeder. They show Gogi's
lineage, with illustrious and regal sounding names of his dams and
sires, his great-dams and great-sires, going back 3 generations. The
breeder's business was called Sunday Pulik, and all the dogs in Gogi's
lineage had some variation on the word Sunday in them. Since I'd
allowed, in essence, my 2 year old to give the pup his “every-day
name,” I took the responsibility to give Gogi his “official”
name.  I took the hubris of putting a little of myself into the
name, and hence, if you look up my dog in the annals of the AKC
Registry, you will find one Gogi For A Chocolate Sundae Blitz.

Gogi cried the first night in our house. We'd put him in his cage, with
some toys and a blanket, under the kitchen table, where we thought he'd
be warm and feel safe. But this was his first night alone, ever,without
the familiar surrounding of his birthplace and the company of his
brothers and sisters. it was dark and quiet, and he squeaked and yelped
when we all left him and went upstairs to sleep.

Kate and I wrestled with putting him in our bed with us, and we tried
it a few times for a little while each time, but each time he was left
on his own, he cried.  Tough love prevailed, and eventually he
settled down and fell asleep himself. This pattern disappeared in only
a night or 2, as Gogi got used to us ad his new home. His quick
adaptation was the first sign he was going to be a smart and obedient
dog.

Gogi's housebreaking period lasted not much more than a few weeks, with
few accidents. He learned quickly to stay and come when called, with
almost no real training on our part. It was if he just knew what he
was supposed to do.  As a sheepdog, he was naturally instinctive
at herding, and I recall a time when Zac was not much more than
2-and-a-half, making Gogi about 6 months, when Zac started to walk from
our back yard, and head towards the
front of the house near the road. Gogi circled Zac, never taking his
eyes off him, and when Zac started that 2-year-old waddle towards the
front, Gogi got directly in front of Zac, put his nose firmly on Zac's
chest and pushed him onto his butt. He stood there as Zac cried in
frustration, but didn't budge until Zac got up and waddled in the
opposite direction towards the back door.

Gogi would bring me a ball to play on any nice day, but with all the fur
in his eyes, his vision was not particularly acute. As long as we we
aligned in the yard the same as always, Gogi knew which way to run to
get the ball, but on the one occasion I took him to the park to try to
teach him Frisbee, or give him more room to run for long throws with
the ball, he was hopelessly lost as to where the objects were being
tossed. At one point, I'd bought a ball with a small bell inside, which
definitely helped him track the thing better, especially on unfamiliar
ground.

After about a year, we noticed Gogi was losing his hearing. “Great,” we
thought, “A blind deaf dog. Should have named him Old Keller.” We
brought him to the vet, who gave us drops for his ears, and
miraculously Gogi's hearing returned. We decided to clip the fur in his
eyes a bit shorter at that point too.

By the time Gogi was 2-and-a-half, we moved to a new house in the
country, where there was about 100 acres of woods for him to explore.
Our new next door neighbors had a German Shepherd/Lab/miscellaneous
mutt named Rainy who they also allowed to roam free, and eventually
Rainy and Gogi became such fast friends that Rainy began to think she
was our dog. The two of them would spend afternoons alternating between
lazing on the front porch in the sun, to running mad laps around the
house and into the woods, chasing each other. I do believe this was the
happiest time in Gogi's life.

Around 5 or 6 years ago, our neighbors- Rainy's owners- who had pretty
much neglected Rainy for all these years, finally decided to ship her
off to a farm upstate. We loved Rainy almost as much as Gogi, but Rainy
had a lot of uh, personal hygiene issues. She had a naturally greasy
coat and, due to her amazing penchant for catching and eating anything
small and fur-bid, she had the worst body odor and breath of any dog I'd
ever met. Plus with Zac's asthma, there was no way we could have added
another animal to our house.

About 2 years ago, as Gogi passed his eleventh birthday, his physical
state started declining. He was getting arthritic in his hindquarters,
and his hearing and sight were starting to deteriorate. Gogi had never
been a particularly kid-friendly dog. As it turns out, the Puli breed
bonds to whoever is the Alpha male in the house, and hence, Gogi was
pretty much my dog. He
tolerated both Zac and Sarah, and would occasionally deign to play with
them, and would put up with being pet by them, but by no means was he a
lovable dog when it came to the kids, or even Kate.

My daughter, who was about 9+ at the time, was really itching for a dog
she could truly love and play with.  Since we pretty much figured
Gogi wasn't going to live another 3 months, we bought a harlequin
colored, party-poodle puppy. (This tale is a whole 'nother blog entry
in itself, and that will come later).

Well, the poodle is now 2 years old. Gogi is still with us. His
arthritis is worsening, to the point where he will cry at the bottom of
the stairs before attempting to climb them. He's almost blind, and he's
stone deaf. But he muddles along when we go out to walk in the woods,
taking the smoothest, most unobstructed path to keep up. He pants a bit
on the uphills, but he never whines. He still barks like mad when my
dad shows up on the weekends with treats, and somehow, conveniently
forgets the pain of climbing the stairs to the kitchen as my dad hands
them out. At those times, he's as excited as a puppy again.

I miss those times when he was young, and I  would sit on the
front porch, or in the back yard after work and tossed the ball for
him to fetch and return to me, while I unwound with a cold beer in
hand.  On hot days he would lick the cold condensing off the
bottle, and when he was tired, he go plop down in the shade of the pine
trees and pant. Life was good.

For both of us.

I'm at the point of contemplating putting Gogi to sleep. Not just
conversationally, as it was two years ago, but where I look at him and
wish there was some way Gogi could tell me what he wants. Puli's are a
notoriously stoic breed. In their working environment, they sleep out
in the fields with the sheep, braving harsh cold, fighting off
predators much larger than themselves, enduring great pain. Now, I wish
I could know just how much
pain my dog is living with. Whether he's lost his Inner Dog Joy, and he
wishes the pain, and life, would just stop. 

I don't know he's at that point, yet.

I hope I'll know when.

Read an article the other day regarding the use of high-definition TV
and DVDs in the porn industry. It seems there's a problem with the
definition being a bit too
high for many actors and actresses in the films. I mean, it's one thing
to see the mole on  Cindy Crawford's face. It's entirely another to
see, in great detail, the zits on someone's ass.

Luckily, the cinematographers are finding ways around this problem with
creative lighting, changing shooting angles (of the camera I mean), and
special after effects filters. The actors and actresses are also
shaping up and  trying to look their best. I imagine the makeup
budgets in the porn industry will be rising also.

The real point of the story, however, was that Sony- the company that
owns the rights to BluRay (the high-def DVD technology that is in it's
nascent sales stage) refuses to license the technology to pornographic
film makers. This has forced the porn producers to burn their DVDs in
the also-new, competing technology, called HD-DVD.

What's the big deal, you ask?

There are estimates that the percentage of Internet commerce that
involves one form of porn or another constitutes roughly 70% of said
sales. (I've heard estimates from 40% to 90% percent, but the point is,
it is a significant portion).

If we translate that percentage to movie DVD sales, there is a very
real possibility that many folks who might consider buying either a
BluRay or an HD-DVD player in the near future will be swayed by the
amount of titles that are available in either format. Should Sony
maintain its political position regarding pornographic BluRay DVDs,
there is a very real possibility that the company will have a deja vu
experience that hearkens back to the early 1980s.

In short, Sony faces the very real possibility of once again, getting Betamax'ed.

For those too young to remember, back during that  early time of
video tape rentals, there were two competing formats of video tapes on
which one could rent movies. The first was called, ironically, Beta and
could be played in Sony's BetaMax players. At the time, these
top-loading behemoth's were state-of-the-art. The tapes were sturdier
and slightly smaller than VHS tapes, but the picture quality was vastly
superior to VHS. Sony took its time licensing it's technology to other
manufacturers, so for a while, if you wanted a Beta tape player, you
were forced to buy a more expensive machine available only from Sony.
VHS format, on the other hand, was an open technology and pretty much
every manufacturer had a multitude of models and price ranges.

At first the split as to what movies were available on either format
was pretty even. But as each year passed, the distribution of VHS
players grew, and demand for the VHS format movies grew in lockstep.
Beta format movies became more and more scarce, until by the
mid-to-late 80s, anyone with a 5 years old Betamax was stuck with a
white elephant, and was forced to buy a new VHS machine.

While Beta consistently maintained its strong presence in the
professional realm of video, even up until today (at least where tape
is still used, anyway), Sony pretty much lost out on billions of
dollars because the company was too slow to realize its marketing
mistakes. They let their belief in their superior technology “go to
their head” so-to-speak, and it was a monumental mistake.

No, 20-something years later, the company may be on the verge of doing
the same thing. They've allowed politics and social morality to affect
their bottom line. One in some cases, this could be admirable, in this
case it's ludicrous. There's probably a good percentage of
high-definition porn being shot right now on Sony hi-def cameras and
recording equipment, and the company has no problem providing
pornographers with the means to  creating whatever they want. But
the company has decided to try to take a stand on the distribution of
said porn. “Well, the Sony can't control who films what with their
equipment,” you might say.  My answer, “Sony cannot control what
movies get burned to their BluRay DVDs either. Whether it's Harry Potter or Hairy Pooter, the movie is going to be put on hi-def DVD one way or another, so why does Sony think it can control what people want to buy?”

All this being said, I hope Sony comes to it's senses. I like a lot of
the products they've come out with over the years- from WalkMan and
DiscMan to big TV Wega and Bravia- Sony is the Apple Computer of the
Japanese consumer electronics industry. Leading edge, with good design
and innovation, the company is a cut above the rest of the me-too
electronics companies.

As for me, I'm not so sure I need to see more detail in my pornography. Sometimes it's just a little too…graphic.

I was asleep when the phone startled me awake. This was 28 years ago,
when phones rang with an actual bell, with a rudimentary volume control
knob that could change the sound level of the metallic ring from “annoy
the neighbors” to “annoy the patrons in the Metal Bar down the block.”

RING!

I had been out partying with Friends that evening, so I was more
unconscious than actually sleeping. I'm sure it took a few RINGS to
actually wake me enough to grope for the receiver.

I croaked groggily, “Hullo?”

The voice on the other end screamed, “SHE'S DEAD! MATTHEW SHE'S DEAD!”

It was my psychotic sister, 17 years my senior. I was 19, she was 36,
and this is how she calls her baby brother to inform him that our
mother has passed away.

Whew.

I'm sure that many people who spend years in psychotherapy come to
realize the moments in their lives by which they've been permanently
scarred. Me?  I've never been analyzed, but in this case, I know,
to this day, that a phone ringing in the dark brings instant dread to
my body. I hate answering the
phone in the middle of the night. I have gone so far as to keep my
nightstand phone-free;  the only bedroom phone is on my wife's
bedside nightstand, and not mine. Conveniently she's a much lighter
sleeper than I am (hell, there are rocks in my yard that are lighter
sleepers than I) so she usually answers on the first ring anyway. If
left to me to answer, the whole house would be awake and both dogs
would be barking by the time I answer the phone on the eighth ring.

Anyway, these days, Karma has intervened on my behalf against my being
awoken in the middle of the night by the phone, and being scarred
forever. While the phone may still ring  with bad news at some
dark hour as I dream, my everyday morning crankiness has been forever
changed to a more palatable demeanor, as I blearily pull myself from
nightly hibernation.

You see,  I am a spoiled man. Almost every morning, as my alarm
clock rings, a beautiful blond walks into my bedroom and places a
steaming cup of coffee, dark, one sugar please, on my nightstand, and
then gently kisses me to wake me from my slumber.

Some mornings, usually on the weekend, the beautiful blond says, “Good morning darling. It's after 9. Time to get up.”
 
During the week, I usually hear, “Wake up daddy. I brought your coffee.
Could you make my lunch?” or “Wake up Dad, I missed the bus. Can you
drive me?”

Karmic payback for that horrible night so long ago. I'll take it.

The five of us piled into the minivan cab for the 15 minute ride to Fat
Matt's. It was me and my cohort Dave The Mighty Blue Frog McCarty,
along with 3 other mopes, Gil, Mike and another Dave (who we shall call
D'fo) from the company where we work. We'd all been working the last 4
days at the annual trade show our company was attending, and combining
the 10-11 hours each day on our feet and the sumptuous feasts at
exquisite restaurants and large quantities of alcohol we'd consumed
each previous evening, we were all pretty burnt out.

So tonight The Blue Frog and I decided to “slum it” at Fat Matt's. No
fancy cocktails or exotic menus. Just great BBQ, beer and Blues.

Since The Blue Frog and I were the only ones going tonight who'd
previously been to Fat Matt's, we tried to describe the place to our 3
guests as accurately as possible. You see, Fat Matt's, is a dive. It's
not dirty or gross, but by no means is it even as fancy as say, your
average Wendy's. It's just a small place, maybe 40 feet long, 20 feet
wide. All glass along the street side, with dozens of photos and
memorabilia on the inside red-and-yellow painted walls. At the entrance
end is the Order Window where one can decide between barbecued ribs or
chicken (or both!). Sides of baked beans and cole slaw, and of course,
pitchers of beer. At the other end is a tiny stage, right next to the
bathroom- so close that the bass player has to turn a bit to allow
people open the Men's Room door. On the wall behind the stage is a
crude mural depicting the “Blues Mount Rushmore” with the faces of W.C.
Handy, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. In between the
Order Window and the band is room for 2 rows of communal tables and
chairs, 50 or so, tightly packed and always full.

Whenever The Blue Frog and I bring a group here, the newbies are
always full of worry that we won't all fit inside and be able to be
seated together, but the turnover is fairly quick, and we've never had
to wait more than 15 minutes to find a table, and tonight was no
different. Our table was right up front, 3 feet in front of the guitar
player, who was part of the Kerry Hill Band, tonight's entertainment.

So we sat down as the band played, and the beer started to give me that
happy-place buzz. The order of a full slab of ribs hit the table in
front of me, along with those spicy and deeee-liscious baked beans,
along with slaw, and some extra BBQ sauce for dippin'. We all dug in,
and soon, we were all up to our elbows in BBQ, beer and blues. It was
heaven. The ribs fell off the bone, the beans were sweet enough to
stand up to the BBQ sauce, and spicy enough to add some kick, The cole
slaw was sweet and cool, the perfect compliment to the ribs and beans.
Even the 4 slices of white bread that you're supposed to mop up your
plate and palette with was outrageously tasty. I inhaled part of this
feast for a few minutes, and then sat back to enjoy my surroundings.
The Blue Frog looked over at me across the table, his Coke bottle
glasses glaring in the fluorescent lights from the parking lot behind
him. We both smiled boozily, and I said that this was so good, so…..perfect, I wanted to cry.

Mike, Gil and D'fo were chompin' away at their own plates, grunting and
smiling too. Mike, who is from St. Louis, stated that these were the
best ribs he'd ever had. Gil, from San Francisco, was also in hog
heaven. D'fo, whom we decided to take along even though he'd once said
he didn't like the Blues (!), was also grunting contentedly. We were so
close to the band, we could basically talk to then between songs, and
the guitarist's order of BBQ chicken was set down on our table, where he
had to stare at it longingly until the set was over. We feigned a few
attempts to pick at his food, but he smiled and gave us the evil eye as
he played.

After the set, we got to talking to the band, and as usual, the Blue
Frog made reference to his blues harp experience, here on this very
stage over the past few years with a variety of bands, in Clarksdale,
and on Bourbon Street. Once they were sufficiently convinced of his
credentials, the told him he'd join them during the third set.

But about 5 songs into the third set, we starting thinking they'd
forgotten about the Blue Frog, so we decided that I should phone for a
cab back to the hotel. They told us it'd be about 5-10 minutes. No
sooner than I got back to the table to say the cab was on its way, than
The Mighty Blue Frog was called up to the stage. Of course, as usual,
he wailed through the song, with the band nodding to each other with
their approval. Dave traded licks with both keyboardist and guitar,
finishing with a wailing high note that got everyone in the place
applauding and whooping. at this very same moment, the driver of the
cab pulled into the parking lot outside and came in to look for his
passengers. The 4 of us stood up, threw The Mighty Blue Frog his
jacket, and we hightailed it out of there like the Blues Brothers
leaving the country-western club in the movie. Except this time, the
Blue Frog was glad-handing and high-fiving the whole way out the door.

“Hate to harp and run folks, but we gotta go!”

I've had a fair amount of friends in my life. Some have been friends
for a few years and drifted away. Some I've become friends with in the
past 10 years and we remain friends. Some I have been friends with
since childhood.

There have been friends whose common bond with me have been particular
interests, like music, or sports, or even quasi-business friendships.
For the majority of these friendships, I would say that I valued the
people and the times we spent together, and all that that all means a
lot to me. But there have only been a handful of friends who have
significantly changed me, or changed the way I conduct my life or
myself.

Today, I lost one of those friends.

Mike Levine had a massive heart attack and died last night at about 12:30 in the morning. He was 54.

Mike and I were friends for only about the last 8 years or so, but
nonetheless, he impacted me greatly. You see, Mike was one of those
people who wore his conscience like a soft comfortable sweatshirt. It
was there to see for everyone who met him, and it tended to rub off.
Whenever you left Mike, you felt like stopping somewhere to help
someone in need. For me, he put a human face to the downtrodden and
powerless, changing how I looked at “some homeless guy” from just a
smelly bum sleeping on the sidewalk, to a pitiable and real person for
whom I could truly feel empathy.

Mike was the Editor of the local newspaper- The Times Herald Record
-the largest in the county. By dint of personality and conviction, Mike
used that viral conscience to affect the very lives of his readership.
He used journalism as his bully pulpit, assuring the Public trust in
the Fourth Estate, that his brand of watchdog journalism would always
be there to call attention to government and corporate inequity and
greed. He was a Guardian of The People. His motives were as pure as his
beliefs. Never driven by publicity or publishing corporate policy,
Mike's Mission Statement was to do Good.


In all honesty, if there's Internet
service in Heaven, Mike's self-effacing personality is probably causing
him to be appalled at reading such praise (and undoubtedly, in the next
few days, there will be plenty of praise from others for him to be
appalled at). Mike, if you're reading this, suck it up. If you wanted
to avoid hyperbole in your honor, you should have been more of a
bastard.

My private friendship with Mike was based on “doing nothing.” You see,
Mike's work was his passion- which is why he was so good at it- and he
worked tirelessly, usually to exhaustion. He was a bundle of ceaseless
movement, and I took it as my duty to help Mike “turn off” every now
and then, even if it was just for a few hours to watch and suffer with
our beloved Jets 2 or 3 Sundays each season. Even the most dedicated
among us needs some mindless diversion every now and then, and getting
my friend Mike to re-charge his batteries by forcing him to sit and relax
on occasion was my way of helping him gain some perspective and enjoy
the fruits of his labor.

For those of you who know me (or have read the BlitzBlog entries
regarding BluesCruises) this week, I'd gotten information regarding the
dates of the next planned trip to Mississippi this coming August. Mike
and I had discussed his joining me on my previous trip there, but as
usual, his work got in the way of making plans. This week, however,
Mike had expressed his definitive desire to make it on BluesCruise
2007, possibly even writing about it for the newspaper. Mike's wife
Ellen was as excited for Mike joining me on this trip as I was to have
him. We both knew how much benefit 4 days of relaxation with nothing to
but eat, drink and enjoy the Birthplace of Modern Music would be for
Mike's well-being. Now, he will be sorely missed when I walk those
hallowed streets of Clarksdale.

While I know that under that soft comfortable sweatshirt beat the
stressed heart of newspaper editor,  I hope that helping that
heart beat a little easier every now and then bought Mike a few more
hours of his life to enjoy. It is small comfort, though, at this
painful time.

Mike Levine leaves a legacy beyond his deeds. He leaves college age
sons, Ben and Sam. I have seen these 2 boys become Bar Mitzvahs, and
subsequently grow into thoughtful, insightful and just plain Good young
men. I know how proud Mike was of his boys, and he had great reason to
be. I know he's looking down on them right now with the same continuing
sense of pride as they go about being the embodiments of Mike's legacy.

Mike's leaves a wife, now his widow, Ellen. I know if there was any
pain for Mike in death, it was the pain of leaving the great love of
his life. For as passionate about his work as he was, he adored Ellen
with every fiber of his being. Ellen and Mike were married in my back
yard. My wife and I signed their ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) and I believe Mike loved Ellen even more
the day he died than he did on their wedding day back in July 1998.
Given the right company, Mike could wax poetic upon Ellen's um, qualities until it was embarrassing. My heart breaks less for my own loss than for that of my friend Ellen.

For myself, I will miss Mike next September when the Jets resume their
quest for the Super Bowl (or at least respectability). I will miss our
Mets vs. Yankees debates (he was an insufferable Yankee lover). I will
miss our shared love of music and literature. But most of all, I will
miss his Goodness. His influence on me will live on, and I only hope I
can live up to Mike's standards to be a decent and caring citizen of
the world.

Rest In Peace, my friend. I love you.