Gay Movie

If I could pick one gay movie (and by "gay movie" I mean a movie that no straight person would see without a gay friend to force them) that everyone should see, it is If These Walls Could Talk 2.  I have seen it probably 95 times (and by 95 times I mean 95 hundred times.)

Let me preface this choice by stating that this is definitely an R rated movie.  Kids are not invited to this party and anyone who is not comfortable with, um shall I say bedroom scenes, should not be invited, either. 

However, ITWCT2 is an amazing glimpse into lesbian culture and issues.  There are three different stories, the first of which features Vanessa Redgrave!!! as an older lady in a long term relationship living in the 60's.  Heartbreaking and frustrating, it shows some issues that gay women might have faced in that time period.  But it also encourages the viewer to think back on this couple's life and struggles together.  The second story highlights the issues that gender rules and feminism played for lesbians in the 1970's.  Featuring Michelle Williams! and Chole Sevigny! the segment reminds us that many women found themselves at odds with their feminist notions and their own attractions.  Because culture for lesbians was new, rules were confusing and structure rejected.  The third and final story shows a 90's lesbian couple, played by Ellen DeGeneres!! and Sharon Stone!! who are attempting to start a family. It brings to light the questions, pain, confusion, stress and hope that lesbian couples face when trying to address their motherly instincts. 

The movie, while provocative and emotional, is one of my favorite movies of all time, and every single time I see it, I wish that at least a few more straight people would be aware of the messages it contains.  If anything you can convince your husband to watch Sharon Stone having some lady sex, right? 

Disclaimer: if you would like to continue in your delusion that Ellen is a sexless, adorable, super lesbian, then I would skip a certain part in the third episode. 

Crazy Eyes

Allow me to preface this blog by stating that when I am mad about something I blog.  I hope this doesn't cause my readers to think that I am an angry person, because generally, I am not.  In fact I have been accused of being "too nice," "too sweet," or even "too happy" at times.  However, writing out my feelings helps me to get over certain things.  Once I write out what I would like to say about the situation I find that it no longer plagues my thoughts.  Sometimes when I have issues with people in my life, I will write out my points in an essay complete with examples and arguments but then 9 times out of 10 delete it and never send it to them.  It simply helps to get it out of my brain and onto paper.  It works, try it!

So today I was driving to work and encountered a crazy person I thought warranted a blog.  I held my phone in my hand, unlocked it with my code, found mom's name in my "Favorites" list, and called her.  Suddenly I heard repetitive honking so I looked in my rear view mirror and spotted some freak trying to signal to me that I was a DWT (Driving While Texting) offender.  At least that is what I think he was signaling to me; it was either that or he was trying to tell me that he likes to point dramatically at his own hand.  I held up my phone to indicate to crazy man that I was actually talking on the phone rather than texting while driving, which clearly to him is on par with making love to Satan.  This did not satisfy him, he was clearly on a higher mission to make me more distracted and possibly run both of us off of the road.  That is when this guy drives up next to me on my left, rolls down the window on his passenger side and starts spewing language and flailing his arms about, all while driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour.  So dude, at this point you are more distracted by trying to shame me than I would have been had I actually BEEN texting, which I was not.

People, you don't need to be the texting police; that is what the actual police are for.  And to make it worse this dude sped off going about 75 in a 55 ahead of me after he felt he had made his spastic point.  So he was distracted while driving AND speeding but I am the bad guy for calling my mom.  I bet he doesn't even ever call his mom.  I wish that people would mind their own business more often and everything would be more peaceful.  Who is this guy to judge me and what I do in my car?  There are so many things that can distract people while they drive: quieting a screaming or fighting child in the back seat, smoking, eating, talking, singing, sneezing, making phone calls, typing in a GPS, etc.  The police, the law and more importantly citizens have no way to keep everyone from being distracted while driving all of the time.  Being on the highway is dangerous, we all know that, and the best we can do is try to be the most aware we can be all of the time.  For me this includes watching out for people who are distracted and keeping a cautious eye on them.  That being said, please watch out for a guy with crazy eyes in a maroon sedan, license plate DUM-528* driving on 71/75 south in Northern Kentucky...that guy is most likely distracted. 

*I completely made up this license plate number because I didn't want to "distract" myself enough to write down his real one.

Fandom:

One of my favorite “soap box” issues lately stems from my intolerance of rival bickering.  So that I am clear, my motivations behind cheering for my team (my alma mater, UK) have nothing to do with hating UL and everything to do with traditions, family, memories and fun.  I have no interest in wasting my time and energy arguing back and forth about something that will never be settled: which team/school is better.

Please, be a fan of your team, but there is no reason to carry around anger towards other teams and fans.  I’ve said a thousand times, all fans are the same, so why do we have to hate each other?  Prejudice against rival teams’ fans seems to me to be the last socially acceptable form of bigotry (since homophobia seems to be finally mostly taboo.)  I have friends who are UL fans and UC fans and every other kind of fans, and I don’t want them to be sad or to have their feelings hurt. 

I do understand that some people enjoy some “friendly” rival back and forth, but I am definitely not one of them.  I’m not competitive; I don’t like confrontation, so please leave me out of it.  When I cheer for my team I’m not challenging yours or inviting banter.  I’m simply cheering.  There are too many other things to be upset or angry about in life that I don’t need to provoke anger in others over simple fandom. 

Go All The Teams!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

 

racism is poo

            Recently there was a story passed around on Facebook about a little white baby girl who was “killed just for being white” in a predominately black neighborhood.  According to the author no one even heard about this child’s death-by-black because the liberal media pushed the story of black teen Treyvon Martin’s death relentlessly.  My mom frequently complains that there is nothing interesting on her Facebook News Feed but when I told her about that posting she proclaimed it to be blatantly racist and was likely then relieved for the quiet nature of her Facebook.

While I agree that the media sensationalizes stories for ratings; I have a hard time understanding how a person couldn’t see that post about the white girl, while sad if true, as nothing but a racist rant.  Do you even understand how many black children and teenagers die in poor neighborhoods every single day?  Do you know how many of their stories are passed over in favor of that of a suburban white girl gone missing for a few hours? 

            I understand that no one really knows what happened between Trayvon and George Zimmerman that tragic night.  But the fact that the media keeps obsessing over the story like some kind of Royal Baby Birth has nothing to do with the ridiculous idea that white news is somehow being repressed.  Look at Casey Anthony, Jaycee Dugard, Anthony Weiner and Jodi Arias, just to name a few.  The news certainly isn’t lacking for white stories or even white news casters.  And even if Trayvon’s story is deemed by some to be overplayed, it doesn’t make it any less sad or worth talking about.  The very fact that it sparked so much racial debate and anger shows that we have a long way to go in this country. 

            My Mom and I also frequently discuss (I love talking to my Mom) the abundance of complaints about having to “push 1 for English” on touch tone phones.  Is this really that much of an inconvenience or is it merely promoting fear in certain white hearts that they might not always be the majority?  I tend to lean towards the latter.  Americans are spoiled in that English is becoming the predominant language across the world.  We don’t have any trouble traveling to non-English speaking countries.  That is because most of the people in those countries learned actual English in high school, as opposed to the 5 words of Spanish we learn in 5 years of Spanish classes in America.  Most Americans have ancestors who spoke zero English when they stepped off of the boat and most of them experienced extreme prejudice just as Hispanic people are facing today.  Irish, Germans and Italians were all accused of “stealing ‘our’ jobs” at the time they immigrated.  Will this cycle ever end?  

            Traveling to NYC a couple of weeks ago I landed at JFK and stepped onto the runway into a maze of tunnels towards the terminal that would confuse even my own grandmother.  Next to me, however, was someone else’s grandmother who didn’t speak a word of English.  Luckily, that sweet lady caught my eye and I helped her navigate through.  I was so grateful for that little bit of Spanish I did retain because I was able to help her find “la maleta” (her suitcase) as well as her grandson who looked as relived as a mother finding a lost child.  This country is huge and full of every different kind of person.  Why can we not embrace our differences as the very thing that makes us beautiful?

I don’t want to fast forward my life nor do I wish that I lived in a different time.  I just wish that I could for a second peek into a future where racism is gone, breathe a sigh or relief and then keep on keepin’ on.  I understand things are better than they used to be and I rarely have to “unfriend” or block people for posts such as this.  But the thing is; I don’t want even a little bit of racism on my Facebook news feed.  It’s kind of like stepping in a little bit of dog poop.  It doesn’t really matter whether you step in a little pile or a big pile of poop; you still have shit on your shoe.

Updates

I would like to apologize to all of my readers (my Mom and a few other friends, I can't even get Cristy to read this sometimes!) for my lack of posting over the past few months.  I am currently working on two separate books in the unlikely event I can get something published in the next year or so.  Yes, I do understand the level of unlikelyhood involved in making money writing.  I would probably be better off running around buying tickets for every lottery in the tri-state.  However, that doesn't require any skill so I am attempting to use this skill I have been developing, the only one I have much confidence in these days. 

In the mean time if anyone has any ideas of how to crack one's way into journalism, publishing or anything related to writing with zero experience or education related to the field, any suggestions would be appreciated.  Lottery tickets received in the mail will be taken as a sign that it is as impossible as I assume it to be. 

The Door to Narnia

What if every room had a magical escape portal?  Many books and movies geared towards children contain just this concept…a doorway for a child to leave their reality and enter another. Narnia, Wonderland, even the movie Coralline give children a specific way to escape. But why do children need a way to escape? Isn’t childhood the very place to which many adults tease they wish they could take a portal? Perhaps those adults hold a memory of childhood skewed by nostalgia and as children they also had some concerns, problems, worries, and unrest regarding their future just as they do now.

Or perhaps instead of wanting to actually be a child, adults just wish they had a way to still believe in Wonderland. I suppose as an adult it is common to have a lessened capacity to absorb fantasy as reality, so many use books or movies as a way to escape to another world. Well, except for me. I literally have a clear fantasy of taking off to Never Never Land. And when I say literally (because I know the meaning of literally) I mean that I lay there in the grey morning hours when I am still sleepy but not quite awake and imagine myself flying over the sparkling blues and greens of the Island debating where to visit first. Mermaid Lagoon usually wins, in case you were wondering.

This makes me wonder if it is the active imagination in some other dreamers and me that makes us grit our teeth at the thought of being interrupted while reading. I have written about this gargantuan pet peeve of mine before but somehow it always comes up because it just KEEPS HAPPENING! An interruption mid page is the equivalent of a giant (well-meaning though completely annoying) hand reaching into Wonderland, grabbing Alice by her hair, plucking her right out of there and sitting her on a plain bench on an ordinary day to talk to her about the weather. The next time you visit a library or a book store watch what happens when all the people reading are suddenly interrupted by someone who has no control over the volume of their voice. All the readers jump from the disturbance of the silence and the disturbance of the story that was unfolding in their head.

Granted, most of the stories that provide an escape to children are driving towards the lesson of “there is no place like home.” Whether this forced turn-off from the magical other world stems from a psychotic queen, a fake mom who steals children’s eyes or the demise of a beloved lion (whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??????) the fantasy land is ultimately proven to be uninhabitable and less preferable to the safety of home. This brings me back to my love of Peter Pan. Although Wendy determines that having the security and love of family in the real world is best for a child, it is also revealed that retaining an active imagination and holding on to some of the innocence of childhood are the good strategies to having a more fulfilling adult life.

I maintain that it is best to keep an open mind to any ideas or possibilities. Whether it be alternate worlds, alien life forms, God, or just ultimate happiness, those abstract ideas keep our personal portal to Narnia open and our lives enriched.

Hurricanes and Elections

There has been some discussion stirring following Hurricane Sandy regarding the election and how or why it should affect people’s votes. The reason it should affect those votes is simple. Mitt Romney has said in the past that he believes FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) should be defunded. Of course now that FEMA is helping actual people right before an election he has changed his stance somewhat.


So while President Obama was off being non-partisan, providing immediate organized support, and being, well, Presidential….Mitt Romney was posing for cheesy photo ops with other volunteers gathering canned goods. This to me shows how out of touch Romney actually is. People throw around the term “out of touch” about Romney left and right (haha, no actually just left) but this time I feel it truly fits. The day after a Hurricane Disaster people need to be rescued. They need the flames pouring out of their burning neighborhoods to be extinguished. They need electricity and basic transportation to be restored. What they don’t at this moment right here need, is canned peas!

Some republicans believe that as a country we should not rely on the government to fix our problems, but that in times like natural disasters we should come together to volunteer our time and efforts to help our fellow man. Also the States should fix it themselves. That sounds great and pretty but in reality groups of random citizens and local governments can not organize and efficiently accomplish what FEMA and the trained rescue workers can.

I am obviously voting for President Barack Obama in the upcoming election. Otherwise if Romney gets his wishes, then following a Tornado I could be sitting in a pile of wood that was formerly my home with a nice bag of canned goods to help me overcome the tragedy.