Click images for desktop size: "The Wait" by Luis Royo
I like Godzilla movies.
I always have. Hopefully, I always will.
I saw the first one when I was under five. My mother worked at a drive in theater. I would have to sit on the patio by the concession stand and wait for her to finish. I got to see the movies.
I saw the first Godzilla that way. The black and white one that the American distributor chopped up and stuck Raymond Burr into with unconvincing process shots. The film, for me, was redolent with car exhaust, eucalyptus and stale popcorn.
And a monster who walked through anything that got in his way. Godzilla never walked around anything, always right through. He was so big that he seemed to move slowly but he was so much bigger than that it was impossible to outrun him.
The kids in the neighborhood and I used to play Godzilla. We took turns being the squished natives and being the monster itself. We'd build things that we could delight in smashing up.
When the first commercials for Godzilla VS King Kong appeared on TV we spent days speculating about who would win the fight. There were definitely two camps here. I still figure the guys who were pulling for King Kong ended up being Evolutionists and those of us pulling for Godzilla led happy productive lives.
When the film finely opened we had to endure a Samson/Hercules film. Normally I'd like those - big strong guys throwing big rocks and stuff at other guys and lots of sword fights! But that day I knew King Kong or Godzilla would just squish them all without even a thought. And that thought appealed to me!
I loved the movie then until some stone faced American in it explained to us with scale models that King Kong had a brain the size of a basketball while Godzilla had a brain the size of a pea!
I was crushed.
Kong won.
I took small comfort from the false rumor that the Japanese version had Godzilla winning. Then I didn't understand versions. I only knew what I'd seen. Godzilla lost.
I still shudder someplace inside.
Years later I saw the original black and white Godzillas, in Japanese and uncut. I was surprised. There was more of Ozu and Mizoguichi in these films than Corman or Castle. These were deliberate serious films. Godzilla really was a metaphor for the terror of the only people on the planet to have ever been hit with the A Bomb.
In some ways I liked him better as just a big guy who didn't have to be afraid of anything and who liked to bust stuff up.

Click images for desktop size: "Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles" by Stag In the 70's there were all those kind of kiddie Godzilla flics. There were some interesting moments in them but, who knew? There were other things in life.
In the 90's things got intense. The young guys who grew up with Godzilla revived his career and started to make exceedingly good films. They brought back the monster. They eschewed CGI and stuck with the man in the rubber suit and let him smash up real miniatures!
They created new story lines that fit the current environment. They created a billion dollar Godzilla hunting task force. In one of the best of these new films the head of the task force confronts Godzilla after he has failed to kill the monster but has inhibited Godzilla;s plans to save the earth, Godzilla's earth, from monstrous invaders. The man stands defiantly at the edge of some broken scaffolding, eye to eye with the monster. He is no bigger than Godzilla's iris!
Godzilla stares at him and then roars for minutes. He doesn't breathe fire on him (what I was hoping for) he just roars at him until the man cowers.
Then Godzilla turns away while, in voiceover, the nominal human hero says to his son, "Yes. There's a little Godzilla in all of us."
While Godzilla, in spectacular color and effect,uses his fire breath to incinerate a circular swath out of the middle of Tokyo.
I've never really understood what that meant. I just knew I liked it.

Its fair to wonder why I'm going on so old man nostalgic about a monster.
These last 3 months have been pretty turbulent, with only the briefest patches of relief and ease.
I've thought about it and even with all the hell thats been heaped up I still don't regret my decision. Its binding.
The only truly rueful thoughts I have are of those 3 weeks were my puppy and I were separated.
She rues those too. She still sometimes just checks on me to make sure I'm still here and not vanished into whatever hell her puppy brain conceives.
So, to answer the question. I'm here. I'm glad. I'm happy.
Difficulties can change your life if you want them to. Difficulties aren't tragedies.
We live in a capitalistic world where fewer and fewer people are worth trusting, for sure. The ones that are worth it just become a shine more precious. That's all.