One of the things that I find interesting about Amazon Prime, the movie streaming branch of the platform, is that they pull up all of these documentaries out of the realms of nowhere and broadcast them. Docs, that if you didn’t know they existed, you would never know that they existed. Over the years, I’ve watched a number of interesting documentaries on that streaming service. Interesting documentary that I did not even know had been created.
 
And hey, yes, Amazon Prime even broadcast a number of my Zen Films. Versions, that are available nowhere else.
 
Now, I’m not necessarily singing their praises. I mean, of those of you who love bad/crap movies, that you probably never even heard of, they have tons and tons of those, as well. Lots of bad/forgotten horror and stuff. I’m just not into horror and/or generalized stuff like that. But, they’ve been filmed and they are out there. So, if you like to watch that kind of stuff, they’ve got ‘em.   
 
The other thing Amazon Prime Video does is that they often mis-date their films. Like there is this Stallone movie currently up there, that they are featuring. It claims it was done in like 2022 but, if you look at his face, and check the records, it was from like 1988. We, my lady and I, have made a few jokes about how good Sly still looks.  
 
But, I’m getting off target here…
 
For those of you who were not alive in the early 1970s, you may not know this, but the New York Dolls truly shook up the world of Rock n’ Roll that had become so-so boring. I mean, when they came out, like many others, I was completely blown away by them. …Completely enthralled. I immediately went out and purchased their album and played it over and over and over again.
 
But, like so many other great bands from that era, they quickly disintegrated. Though, I saw a few of the members, performing in their solo projects, in the ensuing years, half of the band was dead from drugs and stuff by the early 1990s.
 
David Johansen, the lead singer of the group, went on to be in films and reinvent himself, having a strong career, as Buster Poindexter, in the 1980s. But, that’s the thing about lead singers, in many cases they are not only the voice but the face of a band and they can easily move on where the other players are less likely to have that opportunity. Except, of course, people like, Dave Grohl. But, I’m not talking about him in this piece.   
 
Who I am talking about, and who the doc was based around, was the bass player of the New York Dolls, Arthur Killer Kane.
 
The doc takes a deep look into his life and his life frustrations as a musician and a human being, plus his life trials and tribulations, culminating with the New York Dolls, one-show, reunion in 2004. It’s an interesting take on the man, and the cards life dealt him after having great success in his youth but quickly falling into the abyss.
 
I mean, I’ve personal known, interacted with, and worked with a number of people who were one-time rock stars and/or movie stars and once they fell from grace they were locked into a world that they could not escape. Yet, due to their one-time fame and fortune, they could never really let go of that programming. They were and are always re-seeking that what once was. That’s a hard life, I think. In fact, in many ways, people like that have probably one of the hardest lives to live. This documentary does a very good job of illustrating that.
 
Killer Kane eventually joined the Church of Jesus Christ the Ladder-day Saints, where me made his living in their library, at their big temple, here in L.A., over on Santa Monica Blvd. At least religion, particularly one like the Church of Jesus Christ of the Ladder-day Saints, promises that hope and that salvation that can put a band aid on a life considered lost.
 
Probably the most interesting thing about this doc, and the depiction about Killer Kane, was how the man passed away.
 
He had returned to L.A. from the reunion gig in London. Twenty-two after his return, he thought he had caught the flu in London, so he went to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with leukemia.  He died two hours later.
 
That’s really crazy and some-how some-kind of a blessing. I know by Zen Filmmaking brother, Donald G. Jackson had leukemia and he suffered for years, trying to stay alive from the disease. The last couple years of his life were really bad. But, Killer Kane got to check out quick. Like I often say, there is no good way to die, but something like that seems somehow more forgiving.
 
This doc is a really good depiction of life, success, failure, redemption, hope, the promise of god, and all of that kind of stuff. It truly illustrates how some people/many people get the feeling of, “Becoming,” early in their life, but it does not last. Then what?
 
How about you? Did you become early in your life? Do you look to those feeling and memories from a time gone past? Is that what you think about and tell other people about when you are asked about the story of your life? Or, are simply here in the NOW?
 
Life is fleeting. Success, or the lack thereof, is all based on the reaction(s) of the masses—those other than youself. Anything you have can be taken away from you. Hopefully it won’t be. But, nonetheless, it can be.
 
Life doesn’t go on forever. We’re all going to die. So, what do you do with what you had and what you have no more? What do you do with all that you desired but did not become?
 
All we can ALL do is find our peace in our moment and love what we do have as best as we can. For all we have are these moments of this life that we live. If we do not love it, if we do not feel okay in it, if we can’t find our own happiness, if we are allowing ourselves to be defined by all of that stuff outside of ourselves, then we will forever be defined by the what was and the what we don’t have. But, if you live your own peace in your own moment, though your life may not be perfect, though it may not be all that you want it to be, it is all that you have. If you accept this, if you love it, then where and what you are is allowed to be fulfilling in its own perfection. Love your life, love what you are living as best as you can, because it is the only life that you have.