STALLONE AS ARTHUR MILLER FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM, HANDING OUT SIMPLE ACTS OF GRACE

There's a moment midway through Rocky Balboa that moved me to tears. Rocky is talking to his brother-in-law, Paulie, at the meat factory where Paulie works. Where Rocky, thirty years before, pounded slabs of beef to train for his one-in-a-million fight with Apollo Creed. Where Paulie, thirty years before, working in that same shithole, slapped the same heaps of meat and raged about how his life stank to high heaven. And here they are, in the same place, thirty years later. And Rocky, still grieving over the death of his wife, Adrian, from cancer a few years back, is telling Paulie that he didn't know that it would be like this -- 'it' being mourning, and life, and 'this' being, well, everything that remains. Rocky is about to come apart. Fall apart. Wrecked once again by grief. And Paulie senses this, as he's probably been here before, seen Rocky go through this before, and so he holds up his hands in a calming gesture and says: "It's okay, Rock, it's okay." And we understand that Paulie understands that another meltdown by Rocky is possibly on the way, and he's trying to head it off at the pass, so to speak, to stop Rocky from once again breaking down all over again. And it's this small moment between two friends, no more than a few seconds or so of screen time, that stands for what's best about the Rocky films -- the sense of love, and compassion, and friendships full and lasting, that elevates Stallone's thirty-year saga into something more than boxing, something approaching life, and what it means to endure it.

Oh, and the fights are cool, too.

This sixth and final (?) film is a wet-dream for Rocky fans, meaning fans of the first film, the best film. Rocky Balboa is about aging and loss and melancholy and regret. In the beginning of the film, Rocky cruises the haunts of his youth, the places where he first met Adrian, the places where the pieces of what would become his life first locked into place. There is a sad, pathetic, bittersweet melancholy to Rocky`s meandering, because it is not only Rocky that mourns -- it's us, too. The audience. The faithful fans of the Italian Stallion.

I can remember being seven years old, disappointed that my parents' and their friends were heading out to see Rocky III in the theatre while I had to stay at home, silently staring at the black-and-white ad in The St.Catharines Standard. I remember watching Rocky IV at the Pen Centre Cinemas, that epic ode to Cold War adversity, and the crowd around me and beside me chanting `Ro-cky, Ro-cky' in the final scenes. When I was fourteen, fifteen years old, I would watch the training clips from all the old Rocky flicks the night before my races, to psyche myself up, to help me become more than myself.

And so watching Rocky mourn that which has fallen away is to remember a time and a place in our own lives that has been slowly eroded by circumstance, and place, and time. Always time. Give me back that first film, we think, that rawness, that energy. But we can only watch Rocky try to wrestle his own past to the ground, and try to hold onto it for as long as he can, and wonder how he'll finally let go. And how we will, too.

Of course, that's when the fantasy comes into play. Like the first film, the first half of the flick sets up a rather downbeat, grim scenario, and then injects a fairy-tale shot of adrenaline into the narrative mix. The original Rocky asked: "What if you had a one-in-a-million shot at glory, to finally become the person you might possibly have been meant to be?" This film asks: "What if you had a one-in-a-million shot to finally put all of your demons to rest in one epic battle?"

Stallone understands that these films are, in the best sense of the word, fantasy; they are about allowing us to believe that we can set things right, or try to. And Stallone -- as writer, director and star -- has the skills to succintly highlight, accentuate and encapsulate the mythic resonance that Rocky has added to the American cultural landscape.

Burt Young, who plays Paulie, recently said that Stallone writes like Arthur Miller. And I can see that. I can sense that. Here we have a group of lower-class people in Philadelphia trying to make it through the day. Dealing with the grime of life and the horrors of life. And if Stallone has swiped anything from Arthur Miller, it's the sense of dignity bestowed upon ordinary, working-class people, either by others, or by themselves. The feeling that the writer -- whether it's Stallone or Miller -- understands who these people are, and what they want, and what they won't be able to attain, no matter how hard they try.

"I don't want to remember all this," Paulie tells Rocky as the champ reminices about Adrian in all their old haunts. " Because you were nice to her and I wasn't." Boom. Beautiful. There we have Paulie, his character, his heartache, his regret. All in that one line.

And later: Paulie echoes Rocky earlier line about everybody becoming the places that they inhabit, and how he, Paulie, has become this meat factory, only later to be fired from the one place that he belongs. Such is life. People die from disease. Jobs are lost. The giants fall.

Ah, but this is a Rocky movie, damnit, and we can be redeemed. We can be elevated. We can enter into 'RockyLand', as the ringside commentator so aptly announces, and seek to be become the best version of ourselves.

But more than the music, the fights, all that cool shit, there's a feeling to this Rocky that I've never felt before from any of the earlier films. It is a kind of warmth, of acceptance of life's essential unfairness, an ambience of nostalgia burdened by longing for something more, but not quite knowing what that might be.

And also kindness. There's a kindness to this film, and this character, that Stallone wisely shifts to the forefront. Rocky is who we want to be when we grow up. Spider-Rico, Rocky's first opponent in the first scene of the first film, is now an old man who simply wants to help Rocky wash dishes in the kitchen of his restaurant. And Rocky lets him, because he know it means something to Spider, because he knows it's a way of giving him a last slab of dignity in a world of winter. Because that's who Rocky is. And Rocky, giving Little Marie from the neighbourhood a job at his restaurant, even though she doesn't think she could handle the duties of being a greeter at the front of the bistro. And Rocky`s son, being embarrassed by his dad, and Rocky sensing that, and the awkward exchanges between the two of them in the street, one wearing a suit, the other the hat. (Always that hat.)

All the right notes, this movie hits -- the ones we expect it to, being a Rocky film, and the ones we hope it will, being the capstone to the series.

It struck me, as the credits rolled, as a montage of ordinary people running up those Rocky steps danced across the screen and Bill Conti's iconic music does what it does best, that there was, quite simply, a hell of a lot of people being kind to each other in this film. Good to each other. Helping each other out. Dealing with each other's grief. Lending a hand.

I thought about how rare that is to see in movies, but not in life: these simple acts of grace.

I'M ALL FOR EXPANDING THE COLA MARKET, BUT THE MADNESS HAS TO STOP SOMEWHERE...

For foreigners, Japan has always been notorious for its rather odd brand of beverages and foods that pop up in stores and restaurants from time to time. (And, in Japan, 'from time to time' translates into every single week, it seems like, as trends and fads come and go, rise and fall at the speed of light in these here parts...)

The Teriyaki Mega Mac on sale now at Mcdonald's is one example of how western foods are slightly altered to suit the sensitive, discerning palate of the Japanese market. Gatorade, too, had to scrap its usual array of half-dozen flavors on sale elsewhere and simply settle for a generic, slightly-fruity, mostly cough-syrupy translucent flavor that mimics all the other sports brands on the market. (POCARI SWEAT being the most famous -- and the one with the ickiest name...)

However, at my local dollar-shop the other day, I spotted a cola flavor that takes the cake, hands down, as the least appetizing liquid that I've ever seen advertised, at home or abroad. (And remember that I used to live in Cambodia...)

Ladies and gentleman, I give you:

PEPSI ICE CUCUMBER

And it's the colour of a slightly pale Kermit.

Who's up for a round?

JUST ANOTHER STORY IN THE PAPER; WORKING

Just another story in the paper.

From this morning's International Herald-Tribune:

Dengue Fever has killed 102 children but no adults in Cambodia this year and is expected to spread further when the rainy season peaks in the next few months, officials said Friday.

A small, one sentence, almost offhand story, one of those wire-service dispatches from the AP that clots the corners of the daily paper. We read these stories, and shake our head, and move on to Dilbert and the Sports section.

But I lingered on this story.

Couldn't let it slip from my mind.

Because I'd been there.

In that place.

With that sickness.

Because I had lived in Cambodia. (Two and a half years of my life that seems an eternity ago, and also like this morning, or five minutes ago, or now.) And because, I, too, once had dengue fever.

At the time, I didn't know what it was. I was feeling sick, and tired, and nauseous, and the expat doctor told me that if I broke out in spots, at any time, day or night, to call her. That night, out broke the spots, all over my chest. I called her. She gave me medicine. I spent the next four or five days crashed out in my room, puking, having nose bleeds, hallucinating in bed. (I kept thinking: I have to get to Baltimore. I have to get to Baltimore. I have to get to...) I remember trying to jog ten meters outside, in the brutal afternoon heat, and stopping after five. I was exhausted. In five days I ate a bowl of cereal and a banana. Then it was gone. The fever broke. The spots disappeared. I could eat again. I could run again.

So here we have a story about a hundred children dying of a sickness that I once had, in the same country where I once lived.

I had medicine.

They didn't.

I had twenty dollars to pay for it.

They didn't.

I am sitting in a suburb of Tokyo typing these words.

They died.

I didn't.

Just another story in the paper.

************************************************************************************

I sometimes see the occasional foreigner bopping their way up and down the stony steps of Sakura-gaoka station, where I live, an hour outside of Tokyo. Some of them are African. Brazilian, perhaps. Possibly even Filipino. I don't know where they work. Often, in the morning, I'm going up the steps, and they're going down. They're coming home from work (the night shift, perhaps?), and I'm heading in to work. I am white and they are black but we are here, all of us, foreigners.

When I first went to Asia, back in '99, it was for a job, yes, but it was a lark, a journey, a step beyond myself and something else. Not better, not worse -- else. I could have stayed in Canada, found a job, settled down. But there was something out there, somewhere, and I felt I should see it.

But for most of the world, work remains paramount, and they don't have the luxury of introspection, or quixiotic quests of self-enlightenment. I first noticed it in Japan, spotting a handful of Africans here and there standing on streetcorners in Machida, the same town where I'm writing this blog. They had come to Japan, opened up clothing shops, made a life.

In Cambodia, I discovered a large Filipino community, and, at the school where I taught, there were teachers from Kuwait, and Cameroon, and India, and South Africa. (Not to mention Canada, and England, and the States.) They did not necessarily come to Cambodia for adventure. They came because there was work; they came because it was a way to live, or to find a means to live.

Later, in the Philippines, I was startled at how many people wanted to get the hell out. Not because they hated their country; quite the contrary. They loved it, loved it so much, and the people in it so much, that they had to leave to support both their nation and their families. In Canada, telling people I've worked in Japan and Cambodia and the Philippines sounds adventurous, exotic and, dare I say it, debonair. (Not that anybody would accuse me of being debonair -- the intentional act of exile itself, I mean.) In the Philippines, they don't bat an eye. Half of their relatives are in Hong Kong, or Canada, or Dubai, or the United Arab Emirates. Washing dishes. Changing old people's diapers. Cleaning up after rich folks. Wipping their asses and tucking in their beds. You go where the money is.

It's been good for me. Perhaps that sounds self-centred, or elitist, but what I mean is that I grew up in small city in a country that is big and wide and prosperous and full. I've now lived, for a total of almost four years, in countries where I saw poverty on daily basis, the deep kind, the type where somebody with no arms and no legs begs you to put a twenty-cent note between their teeth, and where a desperate, dirty child, lugging a wagon full of garbage, runs up to me to return an American one dollar bill that I had accidentally dropped, an act that brought a lump to my throat.

I've seen the bottom of the barrel, and the humanity underneath it, reaching up.

And now I'm back in Japan, where I can sit, and compare, and try to figure out what it all means.

I can watch the foreigners in this land of plenty go to and from work, trudging up and down the same steps I do, and although I'm not sure where they come from, I can sense why they're here, and why I am, too.

WORDS TO LIVE BY

"All men are mad who devote themselves to the pursuit of power when they could be fishing or painting pictures or sitting in the sun."


-- A.J.P. Taylor,
historian

A LINK BEYOND LINKS

Is it better throughout the course of one's life to focus your individual efforts on one thing, and the achievement of singular competence, or examine many things, diverse and detached, and long for a universal link?

I ask because of interesting conversation with Japanese writer and thinker Kenichiro Mogi published in Sunday's edition of The Japan Times. Mogi states:

The way I see it is this: I come from a scientific background, but I also know many of my former classmates from the law department who have gone on to become government officials and corporate executives and so on. I know many art students and famous novelists in Japan. Also, musicians. Through meeting all these different people, I realize how divided modern society is.

I've discovered that even people with very high achievements actually live in a very closed context. Novelists only care about novels. Artists — painters, they only care about paintings. Musicians only care about music. Scientists only care about science. I find that very very unsatisfactory. That is why I try to push myself through all these different fields in modern society, in addition to doing my scientific work.

By doing that, I would like to make myself a kind of link, in the flesh, between these divided societies or subcultures. I think I'm doing an experiment with my own body. Maybe the product can be a book or a philosophy or a new concept or whatever, but I'd like to somehow, someday, reach or generate this something which would encompass all these myriad, miscellaneous aspects of modern life.

"I think I'm doing an experiment with my own body," Mogi says. In a sense, aren't we all doing that? We are a community and a context of one; we seek to become the kind of person that only we were meant to be. And yet to do that means that we have to exist within a community of others, who are also seeking the same purpose -- some consciously, deliberately, others collectively, in a trance. Mogi is hinting at something I've long struggled to articulate: the desire to understand life, and our relationship to it, with it, in a manner that is not limited to four or five seemingly random aspects of our personality, but instead embraces all of us, collectively, impassionately. Almost mathematically.

Just yesterday, at the bookshop, killing time before Spider-Man III, I flipped through the paperback edition of Haruki Murakami's book Underground, his interviews with the survivors and perpetrators of the sarin subway attacks in Tokyo a decade ago. One of the members of the cult talked movingly about his interest in Buddhism, in the impermance of life, and his quest to find a mathematical way to prove the Buddha's philosophies. A linear means to document the spiritual, I guess you'd say. Both Murakami and myself were somewhat flabbergasted at such an attempt, but then I thought about it; about the root of such a desire. Is what we do in life any different? We start a family and choose a job, and a street, and a house, and a TV, and a sofa, all of which we intend to use as a starting point by which we can order our lives. Perhaps we don't do such things by mathematical means, no, but still: we seek a balance, and when we feel that we've achieved such a balance -- when the sofa is in the right position, and the coke is properly chilled, and the fruits are sufficiently ripe --we indulge. We look to the physical world to prove the intentions that emanate from our innermost selves. Perhaps spirituality cannot be so similarly digested and delineated, but since our brains are the source of all of our worlds, and since these brains are nothing more than electrical circuits looping around a tactile blob of inert gray matter, perhaps some kind of statistical, measureable logic can be documented.

We usually unconsciously start with a checklist of ourselves and work from there: I like to write; to run; to read; to watch movies. Hence, ipso facto, ergo, this is me -- the sum of my parts. All these interests are balanced out by the sun and the moon, the cities and the wilderness that surrounds me. We find a context, or create a context, and within those boundaries we move and slide through the days and weeks of our lives.

But is there a means by which we can find the kind of symbiosis that Mogi seeks? If we are limited to one thing, our thing, as Mogi explains, a certain, inevitable level of limitation is constructed. The writer writes; the musician composes, or plays; the architect designs. We settle into our niche and try to find meaning through what we do, repeatedly. By the age of twelve or thirteen we've decided, more or less, what we like, and why, and we go from there.

And yet part of life also entails expanding our sense of self and our relation to those other 'selves' that are also trying to understand their place in their world. And since their place is next to us, literally, on the bus, or in the classroom, or across the factory assembly line, a certain kind of compromise has to take place. We give up something of ourselves so that the other entity in relation to us can more readily find their own level of comfort.

How do we then come to a satisfactory synthesis, if our own self-inflicted needs are increasingly to be balanced with the needs of others? If we truly want to understand life, in all its maddening complexity and inconsistency, how do we choose between A and B, left and right? Or can we, as Mogi is attempting to do, incorporate not only A through Z but also mathematics, and music, and cinema, and sport, and the Hungarian language, and the pursuit of the perfect cheeseburger, and on and on and on?

I'm reminded of a book I started but never finished, Herman Hesse's Magister Ludi, Or The Glass Bead Game, its photocopied brilliance abandoned by me in my apartment in Phnom Penh the Cambodian heat, and my addled brain, not conducive to philosophical translations. In the book a game has been developed that incorporates, through an intricate and escalating series of stops and starts, a series of tests that somehow link literature to music to science to religion.

Is that what we should be doing? Finding the links? Or is the ultimate joke of life that there are no links, that the 'me' that is separated from the 'you' will remain that way -- separate -- and any attempt at an all-embracing fusion of intellect and spirit and community and individual will remain nothing more than an intellectual tumbleweed wobbling its way through the dusty streets of the universe?

Perhaps.

But I want to keep looking.

I study Japanese to try to peel away a tiny piece of the universe that had remained unknown and invisible to me, but now reveals its essence in slow, tantalizing glimpses. I've seen the despair of the poor and the misery of the sick in Southeast Asia, and I wonder how it fits with the seemingly safe, snow-swept suburbia of my youth. I listen to the sound of my own voice as it modulates, wondering if its tone and timbre are connected to the deeper voice that writes these words and thinks these thoughts. I feel the heat on my forehead, a warm slap, and I compare it to Cambodia, and the Philippines, and a water-park afternoon from the end of high school, when the future was close, and the past even closer.

I will try to find a connection between all of these things. Perhaps, some day, such a circuit might lead to you, the person reading these words, the self at the center of your self.

And if I find such a link, or even come close, you'll be the first to know.