Seems there’s always a San Francisco housing crisis. We left Astoria on account of my grandma’s sickness. My folks of rushed the move. For whatever reason, we didn’t have anywhere else to stay besides my mom’s friend Liz’s Western Addition basement. In the summertime, there wasn’t really a school or place for me to go to. My parents worked weird shifts and needed some degrees of freedom to Quikrete a new life in their old home. I was young. I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t walk around like I did in Oregon. I had a sleeping bag, a small tv/ on the concrete floor, and a special treat every week.
To keep me happy, every week my dad took me to Le Video, the biggest and coolest rental store in the bay area. They had everything you could think of. They had the craziest imports. I could have dived into any genre, actor, or series. I saw a poster and I didn’t have any other options.
Joe grew up on a strict media diet of Hammer movies, so this thing looked fucking insane. We got every Godzilla movie again and again. It was Godzilla-mania. I wanted to grow up to be Godzilla. He was, for a period, the most influential person in my life. A good chunk of that sticks with me today.
Example time
Here’s an excerpt from the soundtrack of my personal favorite Godzilla movie.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah(the Smog Monster)
It’s exactly the kind of music I fell into in junior high and never fell out of.
This movie, looking back on it, is bonkers. It’s for sure a kids oriented (this is a shot in the movie) Godzilla movie, but one complete with
- People getting skeleton-ized by an incredibly dangerous monster
- Trippy Nightclub
- LSD fish head hallucinations
- Weird animation
It’s a psychedelic exploitation movie. It’s basically right up my alley.
In honor of Earth Day, check it out
The power of Godzilla, I think, is his ability to mean so many wildly different things to different people. To a lonely kid, he was a sort of older brother. He was the older brother of humanity. He took a beating, but he eventually took care of business. If a character was giving their all, Godzilla would match that effort. Helluva role model.
Godzilla was just the coolest.
- He had that snarky, just outta bed, lazy attitude
- He took beatings….not unlike our country’s greatest action hero
- He used that endlessly expressive face to ride out 31 films.
- Seriously check it
Ya just can’t get sick of this face, so expect Godzilla to stomp around a good long while.
The Life of Joe 
