Maurice: Stevens! What the hell do you think you're doing?
Chris: Whaddya mean?
Maurice: You know exactly what I mean! Das Rhinegold's one thing but if you think I'm going to subject myself to the whole Ring of Nibelung, you're sadly mistaken!
From "Northern Exposure"
Richard Wagner has long been vilified and quite unfairly from my perspective, mostly because the moral kaleidoscope is so often thrust upon us from birth, a distant cousin of the appreciation of art, which comes from a deeper, more primal space within us. The difference is that one of them is chosen for us by other people, the other is a point in the evolutionary timeline of our DNA. Certain preferences, lines, colors, shapes, and sounds are pleasurable to the eyes and ears because a few million years ago, learning to recognize and enjoy them helped our monkey forbearers to survive. Since we are no longer monkeys and have some sense of self, those preferences have dimension and of course, since that dimension is based upon a completely unique set of factors, it's all intensely personal. Moral plates are ever changing, colliding, and reforming around new centers of gravity if we are to believe Nietzsche but when it comes to art, one likes what one likes. Sure our tastes evolve, become more refined. For me, it's always been about color and the mysterious eyes that know how to slap it together so poetically. The red tapestry in so many of Vermeer's paintings, those blue, stiff figures and hilarious perfection in Matisse's impressionism, and my beloved Van Gogh who could somehow exorcise the vibrancy from his paint so that it leaps inside me each time I look at one of his paintings. It's too bad you can't touch them because they seem really multi-sensory.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, the truth of this matter is that the only time art and morality meet is when someone sets them up on a blind date and the result is usually a bastard child conceived after too much cheap beer and sex in the torn back seat of a Chrysler.
At any rate, I'm glad to see that this opera (ok, technically a bunch of them) is getting some well deserved attention. If you're a horn lover (he sure was, and if you have any lingering doubt about his sexuality, you're not alone), this is surely your cup of music.
The art or the artist. Which voice is louder? Probably the one the moves us the farthest in the direction we were headed in the first place.
*edited...because I can.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Ah, Jeunet
Finally, Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles is available for comfy home viewing. I cannot recommend this film enough. Though at this point, I am quite the cynic when it comes to romance, I wept through half of this film and by the end, I found myself clutching my tissue like a rosary and praying for the conclusion to turn out as I'd hoped it would.
It reminded me a lot of Longfellow's Evangeline except that when you read Evangeline, you kind of get the feeling that you're swallowing something really syrupy with bits of sand in it...unlike this film where you get all the sweetness going down but nothing catches in your throat.
Also, for the Jeunet fans out there, there's an homage to Delicatessen at the beginning.
Vive le squeaky bedsprings and you know, amour and whatnot.
It reminded me a lot of Longfellow's Evangeline except that when you read Evangeline, you kind of get the feeling that you're swallowing something really syrupy with bits of sand in it...unlike this film where you get all the sweetness going down but nothing catches in your throat.
Also, for the Jeunet fans out there, there's an homage to Delicatessen at the beginning.
Vive le squeaky bedsprings and you know, amour and whatnot.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Vegging Out
It all started a couple of months ago when this guy I knew gave me some green tea . I stopped drinking as much coffee (a feat accomplished only once before after reading a Hubert Selby Jr. novel) and it created an avalanche of clearing out all chemicals.
That made it easier to stop eating meat. I was a vegetarian for about three years back in the day. But for some reason (I still can't remember why but it must have had something to do with living in Texas), I got back on the meat train. I'm not one of your militant meat-is-murder type gals. In fact, if chalk outlines of chickens was all I had to worry about when I feasted on the flesh of non-sapiens, I'd be skipping down gravy lane. But sadly, it's much worse than simple animal carnage these days. It's even worse than Upton Sinclair's horribly, terribly depressing "The Jungle". The exploitation of Polish immigrants is the least of our worries in the ever increasing, animal-shit entropy producing U. S. of hyper industrialized A. My darling girlfriend Terry interviewed Michael Pollan and it wasn't very appetizing. I was rather shocked by what I heard.
I knew that the meat industry was responsible for a fair amount of pollution. I didn't know that the reason for much of the methane gas that cows produce is because cows have a highly specialized (and very interesting from an evolutionary perspective)digestive system that requires them to eat grass only. When they're fed corn (among other things), they bloat, creating infection (hence so many antibiotics in meat), among other, even more yummy side effects. They must often be purged, spewing caustic cow squeezins that then lay in shimmering pools of chemical, nitrogen laden doom around the farm lands, seeping into ground water supplies. Suddenly, tragically, my five minutes of happily devouring another creature doesn't seem to be worth the weeks of torment that a cow has to endure or even the moment of pain that a sweet, tiny, fluffy baby chicken must suffer (I didn't know that they burned the tips of chick's beaks off, which is fucking horrifying), thank you Baraka for that nightmarish, from the bowels of hell image.
So, while I can't logically say that meat is murder, it does carry a higher moral price tag than a trip to Wal-Mart for me and you would sooner catch Pat Robertson nailing Ozzy Osbourne in three different orifices than catch me in Wal-Mart. And now, of course, eating a piece of ex-bloated cow meat.
That made it easier to stop eating meat. I was a vegetarian for about three years back in the day. But for some reason (I still can't remember why but it must have had something to do with living in Texas), I got back on the meat train. I'm not one of your militant meat-is-murder type gals. In fact, if chalk outlines of chickens was all I had to worry about when I feasted on the flesh of non-sapiens, I'd be skipping down gravy lane. But sadly, it's much worse than simple animal carnage these days. It's even worse than Upton Sinclair's horribly, terribly depressing "The Jungle". The exploitation of Polish immigrants is the least of our worries in the ever increasing, animal-shit entropy producing U. S. of hyper industrialized A. My darling girlfriend Terry interviewed Michael Pollan and it wasn't very appetizing. I was rather shocked by what I heard.
I knew that the meat industry was responsible for a fair amount of pollution. I didn't know that the reason for much of the methane gas that cows produce is because cows have a highly specialized (and very interesting from an evolutionary perspective)digestive system that requires them to eat grass only. When they're fed corn (among other things), they bloat, creating infection (hence so many antibiotics in meat), among other, even more yummy side effects. They must often be purged, spewing caustic cow squeezins that then lay in shimmering pools of chemical, nitrogen laden doom around the farm lands, seeping into ground water supplies. Suddenly, tragically, my five minutes of happily devouring another creature doesn't seem to be worth the weeks of torment that a cow has to endure or even the moment of pain that a sweet, tiny, fluffy baby chicken must suffer (I didn't know that they burned the tips of chick's beaks off, which is fucking horrifying), thank you Baraka for that nightmarish, from the bowels of hell image.
So, while I can't logically say that meat is murder, it does carry a higher moral price tag than a trip to Wal-Mart for me and you would sooner catch Pat Robertson nailing Ozzy Osbourne in three different orifices than catch me in Wal-Mart. And now, of course, eating a piece of ex-bloated cow meat.
Friday, April 15, 2005
FeS2
When I asked one of my friends why cats must always plop down on even the tiniest piece of paper instead of sitting on the bare floor, he glanced over at my overfed and deplorably spoiled feline companion and said, “Because they don’t have pants.”
This, in the weirdest way, sums up the week I’ve had.
This, in the weirdest way, sums up the week I’ve had.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Going to Hell Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
A few years ago, one of my dear friends committed suicide. She had hooked up with a mean mistreater and he’d pretty much fucked her in the ass and left her bleeding. For her, the solution was to down a bottle of pills and wait to die. The next morning, people came to check on her when she was late for an appointment. They found her nigh lifeless body (which has somehow managed to keep plugging away) and rushed her to the hospital. After some doctor magic, they thought she had a shot. Alas, no. She had destroyed her kidneys. She was awake when they told her she was going to die. So she asked a priest if she was going to go to hell since she’d been the cause of her own demise.
My first thought (after the initial shock, this gal was an amazing woman and I couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing) was that if she knew (in her Catholic mind) that she was certain to burn forever just to dull the temporary pain of rejection from a soulless, gutless twerp, why then would she not wish to take him down with her? I mean, what more does one have to lose when they're convinced that one act of desperation means that they're doomed to dwell in the fiery pits of damnation? And especially when they've decided that it's best to just give up and jump ship since someone else keeps trying to push them overboard.
Asking around, I found a surprising amount of hostility in the answers from women. Psycho has become as feared a word as whore these days. The ladies I questioned said that women who spoke up after being treated badly were psychotic bitches. They should just walk away. In other words, if they didn’t just lay back and take it in silence, their reputations were torn to shreds and their rights to be treated with a modicum of dignity were ignored. Sometimes, sadly, by other women who were no doubt fearing that denying these standards would mean that they too were psychos.
In the end, I figured out that a lot of women are afraid to speak up when they are mistreated because they’re afraid of being branded a psycho. The same method of denying women their voices is just as effective now as it was when Greco-Roman writers invented it. By calling women hysterical, they’re basically saying that any intense emotion that we feel is simply a side effect of being female.
This is where my friend found herself. She knew that speaking up would only cause her more pain. So, she threw her life in the toilet, and all because of one man, who probably breathed a sigh of relief that his life would not change because the woman with whom he’d been messing around on the side had shuffled off this mortal coil.
I say fuck that. I say it’s worth it to speak up, if only to hear your own voice in a cacophony of squealing pigs. There are plenty of people out there who are more than happy to deny all of us our voices. If you allow them to do that, even with the threat of being branded a psycho (or better yet, a psycho whore) it means that you agree that you have no right to exist, because what are we if we meekly allow people to trod upon our existence with no repercussions?
Of course, there is something to be said for diplomacy. But there are times when that just isn’t realistic. Sometimes, and those times are rare as I do think that people deserve to be treated fairly, a person proves him or herself to be a predator and must be thwarted before (and sometimes after) taking a bite. I also think that in cases like my friend, not speaking up about a two-timing rat fuck means that you're accepting at least part of the blame for the pain caused later when his significant other figures out his ruse. What other people call a psycho, I call a woman who isn’t going to submit to the rules laid out for us a few thousand years ago by a bunch of stupid men and perpetuated today by pretty much everyone.
So back then, I vowed never to deny myself a voice, no matter what might happen because of it. And a lot has happened because of it. But, in the blanket of reality, I can find my loud ass, psycho self pretty easily. That’s really all any of us truly has.
My first thought (after the initial shock, this gal was an amazing woman and I couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing) was that if she knew (in her Catholic mind) that she was certain to burn forever just to dull the temporary pain of rejection from a soulless, gutless twerp, why then would she not wish to take him down with her? I mean, what more does one have to lose when they're convinced that one act of desperation means that they're doomed to dwell in the fiery pits of damnation? And especially when they've decided that it's best to just give up and jump ship since someone else keeps trying to push them overboard.
Asking around, I found a surprising amount of hostility in the answers from women. Psycho has become as feared a word as whore these days. The ladies I questioned said that women who spoke up after being treated badly were psychotic bitches. They should just walk away. In other words, if they didn’t just lay back and take it in silence, their reputations were torn to shreds and their rights to be treated with a modicum of dignity were ignored. Sometimes, sadly, by other women who were no doubt fearing that denying these standards would mean that they too were psychos.
In the end, I figured out that a lot of women are afraid to speak up when they are mistreated because they’re afraid of being branded a psycho. The same method of denying women their voices is just as effective now as it was when Greco-Roman writers invented it. By calling women hysterical, they’re basically saying that any intense emotion that we feel is simply a side effect of being female.
This is where my friend found herself. She knew that speaking up would only cause her more pain. So, she threw her life in the toilet, and all because of one man, who probably breathed a sigh of relief that his life would not change because the woman with whom he’d been messing around on the side had shuffled off this mortal coil.
I say fuck that. I say it’s worth it to speak up, if only to hear your own voice in a cacophony of squealing pigs. There are plenty of people out there who are more than happy to deny all of us our voices. If you allow them to do that, even with the threat of being branded a psycho (or better yet, a psycho whore) it means that you agree that you have no right to exist, because what are we if we meekly allow people to trod upon our existence with no repercussions?
Of course, there is something to be said for diplomacy. But there are times when that just isn’t realistic. Sometimes, and those times are rare as I do think that people deserve to be treated fairly, a person proves him or herself to be a predator and must be thwarted before (and sometimes after) taking a bite. I also think that in cases like my friend, not speaking up about a two-timing rat fuck means that you're accepting at least part of the blame for the pain caused later when his significant other figures out his ruse. What other people call a psycho, I call a woman who isn’t going to submit to the rules laid out for us a few thousand years ago by a bunch of stupid men and perpetuated today by pretty much everyone.
So back then, I vowed never to deny myself a voice, no matter what might happen because of it. And a lot has happened because of it. But, in the blanket of reality, I can find my loud ass, psycho self pretty easily. That’s really all any of us truly has.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Apophenia Jones
I am editing the poo out of a previous post because I either presented a joke too sloppily or vastly underestimated the sophistication of my readership.
I got an email from a friend (which sort of got me on this subject) telling me I had to see a film called "What the Bleep do We Know?" He said, "Wow this film really opened my eyes." Ok, all systems go. I'll roll the dice. There is no fucking way I'd ever link the film and after reading this post, you'll understand why.
So it’s a tale of a photographer who is at an impasse in her life because her husband has left her for another woman. She’s really pissed off and bitter and I think she’s trying to figure out how she could have seen it coming (at least this is how I have stitched the story together within the context of the subject matter that surrounds this woman's journey). So, interspersed with the events in her life are different “scientists” discussing quantum physics and reality and how us monkeys can’t perceive "true" reality, la la la.
So there I am, watching this movie, descending slowly into uncomfortable silence. You know the kind: You're a little afraid that the person next to you is actually enjoying what you're experiencing as a preachy, Jesus-less but still frighteningly dogmatic onslaught. The first hint that it was going seriously off into the whimsical forest of "What the fuck...." was when one of the "experts" in the film claimed that the natives of the Americas couldn't see Columbus' ships approaching because “…it was so unlike anything they’d ever seen before. They couldn’t see it.” No, I’m not kidding. I am not kidding. This, among other gems, like the claim that the sub-atomic world is a fantasy concocted by mad physicists and um, the assertion that a camera "sees a lot more than what is here". Wait, if it's not there...what??
That’s when I began the old lady "quiet-but-agitated muttering". And the highjinks just keep getting higher. By the end, I was shouting at the television. I was also looking forward to seeing the credentials of the people who had done some of the commentary. I mean, if these folks were real scientists, what the fuck had I been studying for three years? As the list went on, I noticed one thing in particular. There was a name: J.Z. Knight. And another. Ramtha. And between the two names? “Channeled by”. Cock of the head, blink blink of the eyes, slow nodding. Ohhhhhhh....
I hightailed it to the computer and uncovered the tragic truth. J.Z. Knight has made lots of money by claiming that she can channel an Atlantean (yes, I said Atlantean) warrior name of Ramtha. Together, she and Ramtha made a movie called “What the Bleep do we Know?” with the help of some of their pals and a dupe from Columbia whose testimony was apparently “creatively edited” to back up their claims.
The pals? Well, where to begin. A rundown can be found here.
What's bothersome about all of this spiritual junk is that there are people seeking truth who turn to people like Knight (among others) because they talk a good game about viewing things from a different perspective. The truth about she and other con people/gurus is that they're like methadone clinics without the methadone.
So, this leads us back to the original post about bullshit.
Harry Frankfurt's book/essay is especially relevant at the moment given the inordinate amount of liars I've come across of late and the creepy acceptance of lying by the masses. Or acceptance of things they'd previously shunned. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is that some of the former catholics that I have known, who've complained heartily about the Pope (among other "holy men") call the Dalai Lama "His Holiness" without question. If that's not the biggest crock! Remember the good ol' days when you had to stage an inquisition or at least take over the world for that kind of reverence? Now all you have to do is be super-nice and get exiled from your mystical place of origin to score a sweet title like that.
Ahem.
If a person can create a passive audience, he or she becomes their own celebrity. And in a culture where celebrity has become more relevant and valued than integrity, it makes perfect sense that scripted conversation would outweigh objective reality. Junk food for the psyche. Or, people are just so damned apathetic they can't even manage a conversation anymore. Pedestrian answers I suppose. I think the truth rests somewhere in the fact that many of my own peers have either raised themselves or were alternately abused and then given idle "grudge affection" here and there. A lasting bitterness with a desperate desire for validity has produced a generation of selfish beings who are somewhat lost and lack the understanding of how rewarding emotional maturity can really be.
The point of all of this is: Everyone one is trying to make sense of a reality that not only thrives on bullshit, but exists because of it. We're the products of the vast amounts of fertilizer that we create. Making sense of fabrication is difficult at best and some of the roads that one travels in order to sort things out are fucking endless. Now that deities have to tug the rope against shrink wrapped, pop-culture icons, the gettin's good at the id/superego buffet. Simply put, there are more people and lots more bullshit to choose from. Like "What the Bleep" and the Dalai Lama (tm).
I'm also irked that William Orbit let them use one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack of that crap movie.
*edit: This is a fun link...
I got an email from a friend (which sort of got me on this subject) telling me I had to see a film called "What the Bleep do We Know?" He said, "Wow this film really opened my eyes." Ok, all systems go. I'll roll the dice. There is no fucking way I'd ever link the film and after reading this post, you'll understand why.
So it’s a tale of a photographer who is at an impasse in her life because her husband has left her for another woman. She’s really pissed off and bitter and I think she’s trying to figure out how she could have seen it coming (at least this is how I have stitched the story together within the context of the subject matter that surrounds this woman's journey). So, interspersed with the events in her life are different “scientists” discussing quantum physics and reality and how us monkeys can’t perceive "true" reality, la la la.
So there I am, watching this movie, descending slowly into uncomfortable silence. You know the kind: You're a little afraid that the person next to you is actually enjoying what you're experiencing as a preachy, Jesus-less but still frighteningly dogmatic onslaught. The first hint that it was going seriously off into the whimsical forest of "What the fuck...." was when one of the "experts" in the film claimed that the natives of the Americas couldn't see Columbus' ships approaching because “…it was so unlike anything they’d ever seen before. They couldn’t see it.” No, I’m not kidding. I am not kidding. This, among other gems, like the claim that the sub-atomic world is a fantasy concocted by mad physicists and um, the assertion that a camera "sees a lot more than what is here". Wait, if it's not there...what??
That’s when I began the old lady "quiet-but-agitated muttering". And the highjinks just keep getting higher. By the end, I was shouting at the television. I was also looking forward to seeing the credentials of the people who had done some of the commentary. I mean, if these folks were real scientists, what the fuck had I been studying for three years? As the list went on, I noticed one thing in particular. There was a name: J.Z. Knight. And another. Ramtha. And between the two names? “Channeled by”. Cock of the head, blink blink of the eyes, slow nodding. Ohhhhhhh....
I hightailed it to the computer and uncovered the tragic truth. J.Z. Knight has made lots of money by claiming that she can channel an Atlantean (yes, I said Atlantean) warrior name of Ramtha. Together, she and Ramtha made a movie called “What the Bleep do we Know?” with the help of some of their pals and a dupe from Columbia whose testimony was apparently “creatively edited” to back up their claims.
The pals? Well, where to begin. A rundown can be found here.
What's bothersome about all of this spiritual junk is that there are people seeking truth who turn to people like Knight (among others) because they talk a good game about viewing things from a different perspective. The truth about she and other con people/gurus is that they're like methadone clinics without the methadone.
So, this leads us back to the original post about bullshit.
Harry Frankfurt's book/essay is especially relevant at the moment given the inordinate amount of liars I've come across of late and the creepy acceptance of lying by the masses. Or acceptance of things they'd previously shunned. For example, one of my biggest pet peeves is that some of the former catholics that I have known, who've complained heartily about the Pope (among other "holy men") call the Dalai Lama "His Holiness" without question. If that's not the biggest crock! Remember the good ol' days when you had to stage an inquisition or at least take over the world for that kind of reverence? Now all you have to do is be super-nice and get exiled from your mystical place of origin to score a sweet title like that.
Ahem.
If a person can create a passive audience, he or she becomes their own celebrity. And in a culture where celebrity has become more relevant and valued than integrity, it makes perfect sense that scripted conversation would outweigh objective reality. Junk food for the psyche. Or, people are just so damned apathetic they can't even manage a conversation anymore. Pedestrian answers I suppose. I think the truth rests somewhere in the fact that many of my own peers have either raised themselves or were alternately abused and then given idle "grudge affection" here and there. A lasting bitterness with a desperate desire for validity has produced a generation of selfish beings who are somewhat lost and lack the understanding of how rewarding emotional maturity can really be.
The point of all of this is: Everyone one is trying to make sense of a reality that not only thrives on bullshit, but exists because of it. We're the products of the vast amounts of fertilizer that we create. Making sense of fabrication is difficult at best and some of the roads that one travels in order to sort things out are fucking endless. Now that deities have to tug the rope against shrink wrapped, pop-culture icons, the gettin's good at the id/superego buffet. Simply put, there are more people and lots more bullshit to choose from. Like "What the Bleep" and the Dalai Lama (tm).
I'm also irked that William Orbit let them use one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack of that crap movie.
*edit: This is a fun link...
Someone Needs a Whuppin'
It began with the murders of Joan Lefkow's mother and husband. It seems to be catching on. The word "kin" is popping up more and more often. So this leaves me with only one question:
When the fuck did we get to Dogpatch??
When the fuck did we get to Dogpatch??
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Burning the Double Standard at Both Ends
Jamie Lee Curtis “came out” and exposed the kinds of trickery that the entertainment industry uses to make women look more beautiful in film and print. Why? Because at age 40+, she was through being poked, prodded, and starved to maintain a media friendly image. Kirstie Alley is stepping up to the plate to speak out against the same kinds of standards. What do these women have in common? They only chose to complain about these images and standards after they no longer met them. How can we blithely applaud them for their efforts against unrealistic expectations of beauty when they and other highly visible women achieved (and continue to achieve) wealth and success perpetuating them?
The same can be said for every over-forty actress heard voicing her disgust at the lack of juicy roles in Hollywood for women their age. How much effort was made by these women to thwart sexist ageism in Hollywood when people were lining up to take their picture? How many of them turned down roles because they had to play a much younger wife to a sixty year-old, Viagra chugging geezer? Does it occur to either Curtis or Alley that their efforts today would not be necessary if they and other women had not sanctified those potentially dangerous stereotypes to begin with? Those women are not standing up and saying "no" to someone else's stupid expectations. They're trying to sell empowerment because they can no longer sell their young, beautiful asses. Now, they're on our side? Give me a break. I'll let them play in my sandbox when I think it means something, not because it's their only other option.
When we bask in the reflected glory of false bravado, we can easily forget that unrealistic beauty standards are not only reinforced but celebrated because other women agree to meet them. As long as not-so-visible women and former media darlings are the only ones in the vanguard against an entirely unhealthy image of beauty, we're screwed. The world is saturated with images of young women who are so thin that they have to buy breasts. And it's only getting worse.
Fostering the illusion of eternal youth and beauty is worth it for famous actresses because at the end of the day, they know it is bullshit and they're getting paid a lot of money to pretend that it's not. I will stop doubting the sincerity and intentions of these babes when there are fewer shows like “Fat Actress” and more shows like “Thin Gorgeous Actress Eats a Ham Sandwich and Refuses to Pretend She’d Actually Sleep with an Old Skanky Bastard”.
The same can be said for every over-forty actress heard voicing her disgust at the lack of juicy roles in Hollywood for women their age. How much effort was made by these women to thwart sexist ageism in Hollywood when people were lining up to take their picture? How many of them turned down roles because they had to play a much younger wife to a sixty year-old, Viagra chugging geezer? Does it occur to either Curtis or Alley that their efforts today would not be necessary if they and other women had not sanctified those potentially dangerous stereotypes to begin with? Those women are not standing up and saying "no" to someone else's stupid expectations. They're trying to sell empowerment because they can no longer sell their young, beautiful asses. Now, they're on our side? Give me a break. I'll let them play in my sandbox when I think it means something, not because it's their only other option.
When we bask in the reflected glory of false bravado, we can easily forget that unrealistic beauty standards are not only reinforced but celebrated because other women agree to meet them. As long as not-so-visible women and former media darlings are the only ones in the vanguard against an entirely unhealthy image of beauty, we're screwed. The world is saturated with images of young women who are so thin that they have to buy breasts. And it's only getting worse.
Fostering the illusion of eternal youth and beauty is worth it for famous actresses because at the end of the day, they know it is bullshit and they're getting paid a lot of money to pretend that it's not. I will stop doubting the sincerity and intentions of these babes when there are fewer shows like “Fat Actress” and more shows like “Thin Gorgeous Actress Eats a Ham Sandwich and Refuses to Pretend She’d Actually Sleep with an Old Skanky Bastard”.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Almost Dead
My “I can’t believe it” moments of late have been due to really terrible news and the mood resulting from them has certainly been obvious from my last few posts.
On a gray, snowy day in Ohio, good news spanked me into a wonderful afternoon.
There are many reasons to be happy today and they all have names and birthdays. Aside from the obvious, the good news is that we, the country that thinks that it can dictate how the rest of the world behaves, has eliminated at least a tiny bit of hypocritical barbarism from our (cringe) system. I hope (so much) that rehabilitation becomes a reality instead of just a nice way of saying, "Cheap Labor".
On a gray, snowy day in Ohio, good news spanked me into a wonderful afternoon.
There are many reasons to be happy today and they all have names and birthdays. Aside from the obvious, the good news is that we, the country that thinks that it can dictate how the rest of the world behaves, has eliminated at least a tiny bit of hypocritical barbarism from our (cringe) system. I hope (so much) that rehabilitation becomes a reality instead of just a nice way of saying, "Cheap Labor".
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Blood Stoned Days
When looking for an online version of “Fear and Loathing” to use for the previous post (that’d have been a lot of typing and I was sleepy and sad), I found many articles, but the one that really stuck out was “The Rolling Stone Interview”. It was that bullshit "The Rolling Stone Interview" tacked beside Thompson's name. As though reading it required someone to unroll red carpets from those sacred pages straight to my visual cortices. As though “Rolling Stone” meant something more than just an echo of a subversive element in America that no longer exists.
Do you think that anyone there actually believes that anyone else over the age of say, 21 takes that magazine seriously? I hate Cosmo but they’re not only aware of what they are, they celebrate it. I can respect that. But whenever I see Rolling Stone, I think “Hello, we’ll be selling you your youth culture today (which is pretty much a recycled version of your parent’s youth culture), you’ll be empowered more by the imagery, symbolism and superficial envelope pushing than you are by the music, which will later be sold to you on 6 CD compilation sets with clever names like “Doze Wer da Dayz”. You’ll play it a couple of Saturday nights a year and remember your glory days, tell all your friends how you were there first (nothing existed before you found it, and as long as we keep dangling that virgin cherry, those of you who are a little more resistant to our marketing will keep buying what we’re selling), and put it away on Sunday morning, get to your job Monday, which will require you to wear a tie (and you’ll be too broken by that point to argue), and at worst will be at a convenience store, you’ll probably have a couple of kids (but you’re fulfilled!) and your cholesterol levels will be higher than twice your IQ. Thank you, that’ll be $4.95, please.”
The only entities left that have the audacity to take themselves that seriously are writers and advertisers.
*Blood Stoned Days from "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs.
Do you think that anyone there actually believes that anyone else over the age of say, 21 takes that magazine seriously? I hate Cosmo but they’re not only aware of what they are, they celebrate it. I can respect that. But whenever I see Rolling Stone, I think “Hello, we’ll be selling you your youth culture today (which is pretty much a recycled version of your parent’s youth culture), you’ll be empowered more by the imagery, symbolism and superficial envelope pushing than you are by the music, which will later be sold to you on 6 CD compilation sets with clever names like “Doze Wer da Dayz”. You’ll play it a couple of Saturday nights a year and remember your glory days, tell all your friends how you were there first (nothing existed before you found it, and as long as we keep dangling that virgin cherry, those of you who are a little more resistant to our marketing will keep buying what we’re selling), and put it away on Sunday morning, get to your job Monday, which will require you to wear a tie (and you’ll be too broken by that point to argue), and at worst will be at a convenience store, you’ll probably have a couple of kids (but you’re fulfilled!) and your cholesterol levels will be higher than twice your IQ. Thank you, that’ll be $4.95, please.”
The only entities left that have the audacity to take themselves that seriously are writers and advertisers.
*Blood Stoned Days from "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Meat Hook Reality
*update
The post below was written (a lot of it pasted) at around 2:00 AM on the day of Hunter Thompson’s suicide. I had been awake doing some research and stumbled upon the AP site that bled the news to the rest of us. I thought for sure it was an accident. Then I realized that it wasn't. The suddenness of death makes one feel awkward and stilted and even tears seem trite. And suicide is the only cliché that still takes a bite.
Now, having had a couple of days to ruminate, I can understand why a man like Thompson wanted to end his life on his own terms. Of course, I cannot say for sure whether there was a deeper meaning in his actions. I can say for sure that it was just as I wrote him off as being a hedonistic jerk-off (the first time I read anything by him, which was Generation of Swine), he'd pop out with this incredible, eloquent insight, skewering humanity with an ice pick; the kind that makes other writers well up at the sheer magnitude of the beauty in his perspective. He was one of the few human beings who not only existed within the full range of human emotion, he exploded within it.
SJ
______________________________
The following is an excerpt from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and one of my favorite things that Hunter Thompson (or anyone for that matter) wrote.
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
There was madness in any direction, at any hour... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the sixties.Uppers are going out of style.This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him...but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. Not that they didn’t deserve it: No doubt They all Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create ...a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force —is tending That Light at the end of the tunnel.
Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005
The post below was written (a lot of it pasted) at around 2:00 AM on the day of Hunter Thompson’s suicide. I had been awake doing some research and stumbled upon the AP site that bled the news to the rest of us. I thought for sure it was an accident. Then I realized that it wasn't. The suddenness of death makes one feel awkward and stilted and even tears seem trite. And suicide is the only cliché that still takes a bite.
Now, having had a couple of days to ruminate, I can understand why a man like Thompson wanted to end his life on his own terms. Of course, I cannot say for sure whether there was a deeper meaning in his actions. I can say for sure that it was just as I wrote him off as being a hedonistic jerk-off (the first time I read anything by him, which was Generation of Swine), he'd pop out with this incredible, eloquent insight, skewering humanity with an ice pick; the kind that makes other writers well up at the sheer magnitude of the beauty in his perspective. He was one of the few human beings who not only existed within the full range of human emotion, he exploded within it.
SJ
______________________________
The following is an excerpt from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and one of my favorite things that Hunter Thompson (or anyone for that matter) wrote.
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
There was madness in any direction, at any hour... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the sixties.Uppers are going out of style.This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him...but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. Not that they didn’t deserve it: No doubt They all Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create ...a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force —is tending That Light at the end of the tunnel.
Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005
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