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I Must Make My Witness: Technojunkie-ism, Unemployment and the Loss of Anger

I’m sitting in a coffee shop. Surrounded by techno-junkies…and I…well, I might as well be one of them.
My “smart” phone is on the left of me, charging through my computer. I have my headphones on, listening to the clips that I’m playing and readying for this piece and my iPod is on the right of me, charger underneath, just in case the battery runs low.  It is truly amazing, this. What the hell am I doing? This isn’t me.

I look, for all intents and purposes, either like some weird Star Trek creature, with wires and mechanical technology hanging out all over the place (that is, if you include my tattoos & piercings), or some mad automaton you would call for assistance with your cellphone perhaps. “Hello, this is Verizon, how can I help you?”

The rest of the coffee shop? Not so much. They look happy. Dependent. Smiling. Ready to send off that next resume before hitting that next audition. But first, they’ll hit up Facebook to see what’s up, ya know? And that’s the hilarity. I come to this place with some regularity. It’s near where I live. I can take a pretty good gamble and say that amongst the very filled up shop (yesterday it was almost difficult to find a place to “plug-in”) most of ’em, myself included, are unemployed.

But this is Los Angeles. The LAND of the unemployed. After all, isn’t it still possible to get discovered? No, boys and girls, it’s not. Oh, and just to shatter your dreams even more, That Schwab’s story is an urban myth as well. Lana Turner, if she was discovered *anywhere* was most like discovered somewhere down the street. Schwab’s, on the other hand, much like the place I current am inhabiting, was also a  locale for the unemployed to “check in” and “catch up” and perhaps get a break from someone else who may have a lead.

When I lost my job, everyone smiled and laughed and said, “Hey!! Now you’re on FUN-employment!” and I looked at them like they were crazy because, really, it’s an insane way to look at the world. Insane, in every sense of the word. See, you take away someone’s work/worklife/space, and you take away their reason to get up in the morning or their reason to leave the house. Quite literally. Say what you will, but it is true. And I always knew this, which is why I never took my job for granted when I had it. I liked my job. I loved my job. I did anachronistic activities sometimes with anachronistic materials but that made me feel like a million bucks. Now? Well, I’ve totally read a mass of books. I’ve watched a bunch of movies. But I’ve gotten to the point where Law & Order episodes are repeating themselves and that. Is. Not. Good. I miss having a job.

Here is the basic problem: Working give us parameters and schedules and rituals and routines. Human beings need these things. We always have and we always will. Most importantly, work gives us purpose. Just like relationships with other people give us purpose. What happens when we lose one? What happens if we lose both?

See, we have social worlds that are significantly interwoven and related to our working lives. Take away one…well, I don’t think I have to explain what happens to the other. You would be surprised at how much you actually depend on your co-workers. Those people may not be your best friends; in fact, you may not even like them, but you need them. The nauseatingly interesting thing is this: we are learning to supplant all of our social interactions- even those with the most disliked of office co-workers- with those of technology.

So perhaps, then, due to your Iphone 8.5,000 and your awesome new Ipad and whatever the latest and greatest techno-toy is, when you get laid off you won’t be so lonely?

See, I’m not actually sure that this will be the case. Argue what you like, but I have historical back up. When I was in elementary school, I became madly obsessed with the transcendentalists. I thought they were incredible. I should not have been surprised, therefore, when I went straight into an obsession with the Beats. Just made sense. What didn’t was the fact that I was also reading Stephen King and ridiculously thick, poorly written gothic romance novels, searching incessantly for another “Jane Eyre” or “Rebecca”, but hey…who’s counting?

At any rate, there was this guy. Henry David Thoreau. I thought he was a rock star; his ideologies and his whole conception of the world were beyond anything I had ever heard before and it blew my mind. At one point in his career he decided to go and take a cabin in Massachusetts, alone.

By spending  a good long time there, he realized he had to leave. But not before having learned something extremely important. In his words, he left the woods:

…for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now. (Thoreau, Walden)

His desire not to “go below” speaks of something a bit more than simply non-conformity. Walden is, by no means a simple piece of literature. It is a gorgeous piece that discusses a litany of topics that, while having some sway on this discussion, would, literally, SWAY us off-course. Thoreau did not wish to “go below” because he recognized that his place was with other human beings, not in seclusion. To paraphrase and oversimplify, people need people in order to move forward through the world in a productive manner. He left for as good a reason as he came: solitude. The recognition that he had lived the “solitary life” and found it to be not as satisfying for the long-haul was a big step for a man as independent as Thoreau. So he left the woods.

The human connection is actually quite strong. Strong enough to leave the woods for, strong enough for people to give up organs for, strong enough for people to do lots of incredible things that make all the people on Oprah cry and go “Aw…” and “Wow!”  And that’s great. It’s the wonderful part of the Opposable World. But it seems to be changing a lot as we attempt to turn flesh and muscle into metal and wire, like in the latest Droid commercial…

So here is the problem: we are working very very hard at making very very sure that we do not need people at all. The more we do that, the more jobs are lost and the more unemployment we have. The more unemployment we have,  the more relationships and social worlds are lost and broken. See a pattern here? So, with all of this, and especially with the substantive rise of unemployment, don’t you think we should be more ANGRY?

You would, wouldn’t you? Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet certainly did, back in 1976. But back then, their major technological contender was the luminescent screen of the television, with some politicians and advertising schlumps vying to control people’s minds! What a thing to say…Oh Network, life was so much simpler then…*cue old-timey music and the squeak of a rocking chair*

I am not trying to downplay Network‘s content or the film itself by any stretch of the imagination. Every word, every bit of that narrative, every slice of that piece of cinema remains as true today as it was in 1976. What terrifies me is that in 1976, Paddy Chayefsky was discussing anger, and in 2010, due to a malaise come upon by what I call technojunkie-ism, no one gets angry anymore. Or heartbroken. Or even, dare I say it, really excited or happy. Being attached to these techno-toys, as shown in the Droid commercial, is turning us into robots, really sick robots, dangerously fast. There is even a new anxiety that is being written about called “disconnectivity anxiety” and it is EXACTLY what the words mean. It’s damn scary.

As you saw in the above clip, Peter Finch’s character, Howard Beale, walks into the studio to “make his witness.” What isn’t shown is that he has recently been fired and this is his last appearance on the show. He is, for all intents and purposes, unemployed. And he isn’t just unemployed, he has threatened suicide as a result…while he was on live television. The “last broadcast” in the above clip is supposed to make up for this “poor reaction” to being told he was, as the British say, being made redundant.

What we are shown here is his rage, pure and primal, beautiful and real in all of its intensity. As he asks the audience everywhere to join with him, we watch as he is being co-opted by Faye Dunaway’s character, and the remainder of the film just spirals gloriously from there. However, what is essential to this discussion is the way that Howard Beale expresses himself at this moment in time. He is being removed from and losing everything. He has spent his life working towards his goals, he has the aforementioned social connections (in fact, his best friend/co-worker was the one who had to give Beale the news) and now he has…nothing.

What Beale does, at this juncture, is appeal to the one community that he still has: his audience. He is no longer their television anchor; he is one of them. At the beginning, it seems that every time he says “we”, Beale might as well be saying “I.” However, his only somewhat-subtly disguised subjectivity does not take away from the effect his speech has on his “new peer group” due to the fact that he has now joined their ranks. In fact, if his rawness does anything, it only draws them in closer (thus making it easier for Faye Dunaway to continue to exploit him, and the television audiences, throughout the film).

His next dialogic switch from accusatory direct address to strong demand for everyone to stand up and assert themselves is key. Due to his recent termination, Beale has been left feeling invalid, not even human. He was going to take his own life on broadcast television due to the fact that the station had already done so. Beale gives adamant instructions. He states,  “All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a human being, goddamnit, my life has value!'” Beale, through his anger, has connected with another community (his audience) and gotten back some sort of personal value for himself.

Tragically, that same personal value that Beale regained doesn’t seem to come into play when it has to do with techno-toys. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything much “personal” about them, save, perhaps, the painfully bedazzled cell-phone case or an iPod with your name inscribed on the back. Even those aspects seem to speak more about the “value” than the “personal.” Due to our heightened dependence on the largess of the technological empire, whether it be within Network (1976) or reality, our connections to each other are failing deeply. Howard Beale says it perfectly at a different juncture in the film.

Yep, Howard Beale, I couldn’t agree with you more. We ARE in a lot of trouble. These days, it’s not just that one tube we have to contend with. There are chips and boards, and all sorts of wonderful items that create trouble. Oh, Howard, we’ve let you down. 30 years later, have we learned nothing? When you pleaded for us to turn off that set, who actually did? More importantly, was there anyone at that juncture who actually would have? Who didn’t want to see what “happened next”? And ah…therein lies the rub.

We are now a generation of people in need. We need to know, need to have, need to be updated, needneedneed. It is as though we went through two World Wars, Vietnam, Korea and other assorted conflicts, and then, upon getting new technology, decided it was high time to regress to child-like mentality again for everyone so that we can play. The most problematic feature of this (ok, so it’s all problematic, but the very worst one) is that we have no one to parent us or tell us no. Thus, we are losing our way (and each other) as fast as we can develop new toys to play with.

David Wong wrote a brilliant article entitled, “7 Reasons Why The 21st Century Is Making You Miserable” and he hits the nail on the head every single time. He mentions that our social interactions have degenerated to basically less than nothing, making it so that we rarely interact with strangers and we very (if ever) open our friend groups. This alone is heartbreaking. OK, so beyond our retracting our social claws, we also communicate increasingly poorly (almost exclusive through text and online), are almost never criticized (there is a difference between a criticism and an insult…he explains it quite well!), and because most of our friends are online or “virtual,” they are actually a great deal less demanding and therefore the friendship is much less fulfilling and deep. Those are a few of the reasons. I would love you to read the article. It is fantastic and alarmingly accurate.

What Wong hits on is something that I find scariest of all: it is all being taken in stride. Our separation from ourselves and our friends is being shrugged off like a drug charge on Paris Hilton. There is no Howard Beale out there, and if there was, who would listen? These instruments are too much part of our culture now, too convenient…If anyone got upset, all someone would have to do is offer them a free upgrade or a new model and *whoosh*…gone…They would be happy as hell, and gonna find a new app!

As we slip further and further into the abyss of some Cronenberg-ian nightmare, where our Smartphones become part of our hands and our iPods and their holders become permanent bicep attachments from jogging at the gym, it would be nice to think of Howard Beale every so often, and hope that maybe we can figure out a way to put down the techno-toys for a bit before it becomes too late. Unless it is too late. But I would like to think that it isn’t. We need to be responsible about our technologies and each other.

Realistically, I’m not sure I want to know everyone sitting at my coffee shop. But I’m unemployed, I’m lonely, and frankly…I’m game. If we don’t get along, fair enough. But to be perfectly honest, I would rather be out in the world right now trying to have conversations with sentient beings than cooped up in my room continuing a road to ruin and devastation along the lines of what David Wong discusses.

Dear Howard Beale,

Thank you for inspiring the anger in me, and reminding me that I, too, am a human being, goddamnit, and I have value.

I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Love,

Ariel

Every time he says “we”, Beale might as well be saying “I”

Martyrs & Misogyny: Simply Disturbing, or Disturbingly Simple?

I’m not going to lie. This particular article is going to have some **spoilers** in it. So if you have not seen the French horror film, Martyrs (2008) and you are as sensitive as I am about spoilers…stop now. I just can’t see any way of writing this without talking about the film in its bloody, intense, entirety.
So, in general, I don’t do straight up reviews. I usually have some other kind of trajectory. However, I feel like this film got me in a way that, while this is not exactly a straight up review…it’s close enough. But enough of that. As Julie Andrews said, in one of the only musicals I actually dislike, “let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start…”
See, women and horror cinema have always have a pretty interesting relationship. While it has been anything but boring, it has definitely been less than complimentary much of the time. We are generally portrayed as Crazed Killers (ie Mrs. Voorhees, Friday the 13th), Helpless Victims (oh, just choose any slasher film and any girl that dares to have sex in it!), or, if we’re lucky, the Surviving Heroine. But that’s been the standard horror for the last 30 years. Then along came the two genres that collided (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say unhappily mated) to create the film of our current discussion: the amazing boom of foreign (especially French) horror films and that grand ol’ thing called torture porn (which can also be termed “extreme or ultraviolent horror” so as not to offend our delicate sensibilities, mind you).
Don’t get me wrong. I am no prude and I am not a woman who gets easily offended. By *any* stretch of the imagination. AT ALL. In fact, I have been loving the horror films that have been coming out of France and other countries recently. Ironically, some of them have been incredibly attentive to issues in/around the female body, in a way that I find remarkable and intensely smart.
However, upon watching Martyrs,  I became horrified…and not in a good way. I had been told by so many friends, “This film is amazing!” or “This film is SO DISTURBING!” and various sundry other hyperbolic statements, hyping it to a degree that I was quite enthusiastic about finally watching the damn thing. And mind you…it starts out with a bang! And continues quite well. There was even a point where I was a *little* bit scared(ish), when I was waiting for something to do the “jump out” horror film gag. But then……..the film turned on me.
And it turned HARD.
When I watched the introduction from the director afterwards, and he admitted himself that he didn’t know if he liked the film, it didn’t make me feel better but…well, maybe just a little. And perhaps the fact that I watched the TOTALLY UNCUT FUCK YOU WE’RE LEAVING EVERYTHING IN version made a difference too, but…I’m not sure. But I know when the big problem for me started. **MAJOR SPOILER HERE*** When the woman who is the head of the Secret Society Who Torture Folks To Get Ecstatic Facial Expressions says to Anna, after showing her all the photographs and telling her what they were about, “Don’t try to tell me that the notion of martyrdom is an invention of the religious. We tried everything, even children. It turns out that women…are more responsive to transfiguration. Young women. That’s how it is, young lady.”
That was the point where the movie completely lost me. I knew that Anna was going to be next, I knew exactly what was gonna happen, it was all pretty predictable. What wasn’t predictable, and what almost led me to turning the film off was the sheer amount of damage being done to the female form. I wasn’t forced to watch it, it was of my own volition, but I wanted to see the film out and in order to do so…I had to watch a woman’s body undergo some of the most needless and retarded scenes of violence I’ve ever seen. It was back-to-back shots of her chained up, getting punched around by a big burly guy (there were *several* of those), there was a violent hair-chopping off scene (gotta have some humiliation in there!! Wouldn’t be the same without it!), and her prone body looking more and more abused, and being less and less responsive.
And that was part of the problem.
OK, ok. So lemme get this straight- the idea of the second part of the film (because the first part- the truly AWESOME part- was a kickass revenge story) was that Anna reached some kind of fucking GLORY through being kidnapped by perverted psychos, chained up in their lair, beaten until close to death and then skinned alive? And then she reaches salvation and we are supposed to get….exactly what out of this??
What I saw was a director getting his kicks out of hitting girls because he was allowed to on screen. Which…ya know, Freedom of Speech and all, but my Freedom of Speech says that this is a poor way to deal with what could have been a great film.
The concept was amazing. The first act was intense, well-done, dramatically synthesized to a T, and the timing was wonderful. I was enjoying the fucker. But I’m sorry. I don’t think that the martyrdom concept can be achieved through MY being beaten over the eyeballs with her breaking body.
So the next time someone says to me that Martyrs was a disturbing film, I’m going to have to counter with: Please don’t mistake disturbing for offensive. There is a fine line, and if the film had remained just in control of itself, reeled itself in, not tried to kowtow to the Torture Pornographers of the world, it would have been a real masterpiece of what you can do with violence, the mind, and ideas of religiousity and pain.

Mother Knows Best

From the very opening of Grace, I had a feeling that it might be a slightly different kind of film. With its very delicate and feminine visuals and sounds, it opens as a film that is very much in accordance to what ends up being the subject matter: maternalism and child-rearing.  However, as it is indeed a horror movie, the light and airy features of these opening shots and the camera drifting languidly over Jordan Ladd’s recumbent naked form seem remarkably eerie when the promos so very clearly advertise death and something “unnatural.”

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So the opening, with its almost Downy-commercial-type cleanliness, seems to be underscoring not only the most physically sensual elements of the female but the very natural elements of the female body in general, as the first action we see in the film is the sex act (and what could be more natural than that?).

Throughout the film, what is “natural” seems to be a running theme, which I found to be quite interesting. At first, since there were so many discussions about health food, midwifery and non-traditional health methodologies in general, I initially took the film to be making a critique of all these kinds of hyper-liberal vegetarian/vegan sensibilities. However, I then realized Grace had much deeper-seated and smarter thematics then that. See, ANYONE can take a horror film and chuck in a few “Oh, check out the seitan-eating, soy-milk drinkin’, edamame chompin’ folks!” jokes. That’s simple. Put a few of those in, then have them be the first to suffer and/or die, and *presto*!!  Instant laughs from the horror community!  Hell, I’d probably laugh…if they were funny! But it takes a pretty special film to take these issues and involve them into a deeper seated narrative that discusses mother issues and what is natural to being a mother. It also was pretty impressive to me, as a female, that there was a male director who was able to hit on as many issues as he did in this film without it feeling in any way, shape or form invasive, exploitative or disgusting.

This was a horror movie. No doubt about it. But it was very sophisticated and brought a great many women’s issues to the forefront, whether intentionally or not. To a woman like me, who digs on women’s issues? I found that pretty exciting.

So let’s get my problems with the film out of the way first: the lesbian shit. There was one character who had a jealousy issue and…the actress wasn’t my fave and the lesbian jealousy weirdness angle is…a bit played out in my opinion. HOWEVER, it was done with a bit more class than normal, and I’m not sure if I could see another route to take if they were gonna have that involved, and it sorta was part of the story, so…I guess it was alright. I really do wish that there could have been a different way that the narrative could have gone without using the age-old (and somewhat tired) old college-relationship between 2 women that comes back as a central figure within the film, but…hey- it didn’t distract me SO much that I didn’t like the movie. It was the ONLY thing that I had ANY problem with and to say that? That’s pretty awesome. It means that this is a pretty damn good film.

On to the good stuff: EVERYTHING ELSE. This movie has tension coming out of every pore of celluloid. When we stayed for the Q&A, the composer discussed some of the aural reasonings why and I thought that those reasons ALONE were incredible. Turns out that Austin Wintory recorded actual baby cries and then mixed them into the music that he composed for the film. The reasoning for this, he said, beyond the actual sound which increased tension in and of itself, is that the pitch of a baby’s cry is the one sound that every human can hear (well, unless you’re deaf, I suppose), no matter what. Scientifically, he reported, the sound is at such a level that your body will respond to that sound in a way that it does not respond to anything else in the world. Indeed, I would say, this does seem to make sense, as somehow we can ALWAYS seem to hear babies crying whether we want to or not. Wintory used the example of being on an airplane and being able to hear a child in the very back of the plane and yet having it sound like the infant was right in your face. Ever been there? Thought so. At any rate, I am a huge sucker for music in film, and THIS FILM had it, and I will say that Wintory’s intermingling of baby sounds with the rest of his lullaby-esque tunes as well as the other scoring was incredible. A good score/good music can make or break a horror movie for me. Would Halloween have been the same without that tune? Psycho? Exactly. So…well done, Mr. Wintory, good addition!

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Margaret White *seriously* loved HER daughter!

On to the story now…Within the horror film genre, we have seen some pretty interesting mother figures,  have we not?

Norman tried to please you, Mrs. Bates, he really did!

Norman tried to please you, Mrs. Bates, he really did!

 

Dude, Mrs. Voorhees, we get it. We would've been pissed if Jason was our kid, too.

Dude, Mrs. Voorhees, we get it. We would've been pissed if Jason was our kid, too.

The mothers represented within Grace bring forth a whole new kind of mothering to the horror world that I feel has begun within the last few years, and I last saw represented within the astonishingly fantastic French film, Inside. It seems to me that there has always been a certain amount of fascination with the mother figure within the world of horror. Clearly, as shown above, that figure has not always been the figure of protection in, um, the most positive manner, shall we say? Now within films like Grace and Inside I feel like we may have turned a corner. I’m wondering, since men made BOTH of these films, if there hasn’t been a certain change within the way that these directors have come to synthesize the maternal representatives within the slasher genres at large, as well as other horror cinema venues. It seems that, with these films, we are starting to witness a kind of sea change that, frankly, is ALL TOO WELCOME.

Fuckin’ A, do I love a good horror movie. Slashing, hacking, blood, guts. You name it? I love it. I ADORE GORE. But I’m not one of those people who loves without discrimination. I *am* particular. But what I love, I do love very much. And I am extremely fascinated by this new turn in the world of horror. It seems that for years and years we have had a certain set of (for lack of a better term) Horror “Family” Values, many of which have been covered by academics such as Carol J. Clover, Barbara Creed, Harry Benshoff, just to name a precious few (as there are *so* many goodies!). These Horror Family Values have very stringent ideologies in regards to sexuality and motherhood. Essentially, in a horror movie, if you fuck, you’ll die and if you’re a mom, you’re a crazy homicidal bitch with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, emphasis  on the crazy, if-you-please. While I think we’re still all waiting for a film where kids can safely orgasm and survive past the post-coital beer (if they even get that far before a knife/axe/murdering-object-of-choice rips through their young nubile flesh), the Mother Issue seems to be making a change.

I hate spoilers, EVEN in reviews, so I’m not going to give anything away. But I will go so far as to say that starting in the film Inside and now continuing on with the film Grace, I’m seeing an evolution in the depiction of motherhood in horror which I quite like. While I could attempt to use some of my Freudian feminist film scholarship stuffs on this, I’m not sure I want to at this juncture. My feelings about this transition probably need more fodder in order for that kind of highly formulated (and quite possibly extensively boring to many) discussion on Sigmund and where he’s at today. I’d probably use the ol’ Virginia Slims adage, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.”  I think that the concept that we are no longer treating the mother figure with anger and exposing her to the kind of harsh negativity within the horror film that we have been doing for YEARS is a big step.

It could definitely be argued that both of the mothers seen in Grace have elements of Teh Crazy in them, and Have Issues. However, on the whole, I feel that their portrayals actually have a kind of yin/yang sensibility to them, and do more for exploring female mother issues and issues of loss and attachment. And to say that there are characters in a horror movie that are explored with class and sensitivity is a pretty bold statement, but it must be said. This is a very mature film, and comes with high recommendations from me.

So, here’s to ya, boys. Its fascinating to see that it took a few young men to promote women and motherhood within the horror world. I like it. I like it a lot. I hope to see more people do it. It has actually brought the calibre of the horror film UP, significantly, which, in my eyes is DREADFULLY needed sometimes! End points? If you haven’t seen Inside, holy shit- SEE IT!!! And if you haven’t seen Grace? WELL, what’re you waiting for?

See ya in the front row!

Forged in Fire: Heavy Metal and the Male “Bromance”

Disclaimer: I will have you know that I hate the word “bromance.” I hate it with the burning heat of a thousand fires. That said, as a writer and a pop culture participant, I will retain the use of the damn word in my title as it has become part of popular language and is firmly recognized to mean the exact type of relationship which I wish to discuss within this piece. Thus, for brevity and, in truth, more for ease, I’ll use the word…. I still abhor it though.

So the other night I went with a friend to see Anvil! The Story of Anvil at the Nuart Theater.  I had heard many good things about it, but was not certain what to expect. Was it going to be ironic? Was it going to be serious? Were we going to be watching Spinal Tap or were we going to be witness to something completely new?

Now, I cannot say that I was introduced to anything new and different with Anvil. But that does not mean it’s a bad film, by any means. It’s GREAT. I just know how these documentaries (and rock’n’roll stories) go. They’ve been around for 30 years, never got the recognition they deserved, still busting ass to *try* to get *something* out of the dream. The main difference with this band is that these guys toured with big names a billion years ago, yet never made it while their peers did, yet they stuck it out. IN CANADA.

anvil1

In a way, it reminded me a bit of American Movie, only…not as depressing (I find that film to be a wee bit depressing. Many find it funny, but my sense of humor is often weird and picky like that…). I felt that Anvil afforded more dignity to the individuals represented in the film and there was rarely a sense of “making fun” of them, even when it came to bits where the band (and their songs and notions) were clearly beyond the pale of normalcy. In a time where it seems like everywhere you look things are chock full o’ snark, this was quite refreshing.

But…they are still Spinal Tap in their own way. However, looking at the ad campaign, they seem to be pretty aware of their stature in this whole engagement, and, as they say repeatedly (with a genuine zeal rarely heard anywhere I might add) they just want to rock.

So…….at the end of the day? Fantastic movie. We had a great time. Why the title? Because this film got me thinking. A LOT. About metal. And guys. And guys’ relationships with each other. And how metal is the catalyst, the solder, the very cornerstone, for some of the most intimate and tender, loving and loyal relationships between men I have ever encountered in my life.

I had this boyfriend once. Metal guy. Amazing vocalist. He was totally the guy I dreamed about dating when I 13 and hanging out on Hollywood blvd. at the rock shops by day, and surreptitiously on the Sunset Strip by night. Only I met this guy when I was in my 20’s, and in grad school, so it was a little late for me to be whisked off my cowboy-boot-clad-feet into the sunset. No matter, he was my Metal Boyfriend. Super hot, long hair, tattoos, the whole nine yards.

At any rate, we were together for quite some time. Practically living together. But he had this friend, from back in the “old days” of Hollywood, and this friend had since moved away, but they still talked. A lot. And even if they hadn’t talked, every story involved  this person. They had clearly spent a GREAT deal of time together and it meant something very very significant. Now, when they did talk, they watched football together or talked music, or things like that. But they still did it together. It always struck me as one of the most beautiful things I had ever come across, actually, to see my significant other who was very much not someone you would gauge as vulnerable by any stretch of the imagination, having this fantastic relationship with his Best Friend, across state lines. I absolutely loved it. I wanted to meet his friend SO bad. But we broke up and that was never to occur.

What does my ex-boyfriend have to do with Anvil? Well, everything, I’m afraid. You see, it’s sheer METAL BROTHERHOOD, as the band Manowar might say….

What seems to occur within the world of metal (and I will freely admit that it is not ALL metal- for example, I have not seen this happen as extensively within the world of Black Metal male relationships, or Death Metal male relationships, or even Doom Metal male relationships, but these are subsections, albeit large ones, of the larger “metal” body) is that the men within these music cultures seem to come together and couple in a way that they do not seem to do in other musical cultures; this especially occurs if they are in a band together.

Upon this coupling, this “bromance” if you will, a certain sovereignty is given to that relationship above and beyond all others. And the most fascinating part of this whole dynamic is that everyone else gets it and goes by it. Married? Well, your wife’ll know that she’s second best to your BFF. Because, the bottom line is, it’s not personal.

It’s a slippery slope and quite tricky but the bonding that these men do with their chosen male partner is so exceptional and unusual that it is like a marriage of a different sort altogether. So one might say that these men are both gay and poly-amorous at the same time, but that would be quite silly.

But society gives creedence to the relationships that women have with each other over those that they have with the men in their lives. It is one of the few things that we do get, undeniably, as women (although we do periodically get teased about that too, so perhaps not completely without strings attached…). So men should not get these relationships?

At any rate, I’m not really here to discuss the dynamic between the way society treats men’s and women’s relationships, but the relationships that men form themselves.

For some extremely ODD reason (to me, anyway) it seems to be that heavy metal/hard rock brings out these relationships. I will give you 5 prominent examples, some fictional, some real,  that show the kind of “bromance” of which I speak, each one more intense than the next.

1.  Wayne’s World

2. Anvil

3. Spinal Tap

4. Aerosmith

5. Rolling Stones

In each of these examples, you have real or imagined relationships between male rock characters that not only overstep the boundaries of what would be essentially seen as an acceptable “friendship” level but also border upon intimacies that mirror those of a romantical nature. We all know that Rock’n’Roll and sexuality are conjoined twins, but these relationships only go that extra step in making it a little bit more substantial.

Wayne & Garth’s relationship in Wayne’s World, while being entirely fictitious, is also parodic and based upon an entire generation of kids who were just like these characters. So, while humorous, this structure was also demonstative of a larger part of young male rock culture and young male social culture. It was, in fact, a perfect recreation of how they related to their media, their peers and themselves. But what is most important to be gleaned from all this, was that unlike many other subcultures that strove to isolate  and drive wedges in between people, supporting their right to be an “individual” and all that, metal and rock fostered a kind of community, albeit almost solely male.

wayne-garth-waynes-world-15834539

So in Anvil, when “Lips” says that if they don’t make it this time he’ll jump off a cliff, it only makes sense that his partner and bandmate, Robb, states simply, “No you won’t.” Lips then looks at Robb quizzically, and Robb just shrugs and says, “You won’t jump off the cliff cuz I’ll stop ya.”  As though it were nothing. Like Lips had asked him to pass the salt. It is that much a part of his being.

Realistically, the way that a band structures itself is not unlike that of a familial structure anyway, so it is not beyond reason that the key figures might play the roles of the paired-off/romantic leads. Even when there is infighting, it is always more painful to watch that infighting go on between the key players because you know that there is more love, more loyalty and more at stake in THAT relationship than in any other relationship in the band.

We all would be much more concerned if we heard that Mick and Keith were on the outs than if Mick and Ronnie Wood had a conflict.  And each time that Joe and Steven from Aerosmith have had issues? Well, we know that it has effected not only the band but the musical output, and even their solo work isn’t as much of a force to be reckoned with as it is when it is a full band. But these are just examples. Some out of many. You can take any number of such examples out of the rock world and do the same.

The point is  the relationships are there. There is a certain magic that comes to exist between two men that spend an inordinate amount of time together in all sorts of ways. This magic mirrors the romantic magic that comes to exist within the most deep, intimate relationships that you can ever have based on the kinds of things that these men share: creativity, life experiences, hardships, success, drive, ambitions, dreams, and, most of all, time.  One might argue that these relationships could exist anywhere, but I would argue against that. I would say that the ones that exist within rock music and certain time periods/genres and mentalities (as evidenced by the examples I have given previous) make these ones quite unusual.

Male relationships are, in and of themselves, strange beasts. So, too, is heavy metal music in all of its variants and especially its variants on sexuality and masculinity. However, the fact that we can find some of the most pure and tender, loyal and true relationships within that musical arena is fascinating and quite satisfying, to say the least, in a genre that many times supposes itself to be devoid of emotion and focused solely on carnal desires.

California Dreamin’ or There’s No Place Like Home-ophobia

What is California to me? It’s my home. The place I have grown up, gone to school, and lived my life. It is also the place I have partied with drag queens, watched my friends die from AIDS, and educated other teenagers on how not to get infected when I wasn’t even old enough to get a driver’s license. Being raised in California, primarily in Los Angeles, has made me part and parcel of gay culture just as much as liking music with a harder edge included me in certain musical subcultures. But that means that today’s battle which was fought & lost last November and had a lovely little deja vu experience today was also part of my battle.

And it made me tired. It made me very very very tired.

Because NONE of it makes any fucking sense to me. It’s like giving a few kids some candy in the classroom, and ignoring the rest. Don’t get me wrong- I’m beyond ecstastic that the people who are already married get to keep their marriages because I truly believe that at the end of the day, THAT is the thing that we’ll be able to have in our favor, but….seriously? Where is the logic in all of it?

OH YEAH! THAT’S RIGHT! THERE IS NONE!

Why would you do that? It just makes us look stupid, backwards and illogical. It makes us, as a state, look like we can’t do our math right or make our decisions correctly or stand by ANYTHING we’ve ever stood for. California used to be this amazing, mystical Gay Shangri-La back in the day…is this a backlash? And is it a backlash just from the people who have money? Because, realistically, no one who lives in this state would really care after a while…They’d get used to it. After all, man, this is California….home of The Dude!

theDude

The Dude abides.

And need I also remind you that we are also the undisputed birthplace of figures such as Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Bill & Ted??

spicoli-fast-times-ridgemont-high-surf-no-dice

All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.

billted

Excellent!

Now I do not mean to knock these guys by any stretch of the imagination. Please do not misinterpret my words. I could write separate pieces on the philosophical significance of each character and why they are integral to the film and to that film’s ultimate discussion of California and/or Los Angeles culture on a whole. However, in this particular circumstance, one of my thoughts is that in a media-ridden society like ours, perhaps we have been taken on a bit of a ride recently as to the “state” of our state.

Maybe California is no longer the place we once knew it to be. It most certainly is not the place that Harvey Milk escaped to so many years ago. And yet…look what happened to him. On the other hand, we all know that Dan White was a crazy bastard (played terrifyingly well in the film by Brolin- if you haven’t seen it, rent the damn thing, what’s WRONG with you???), and was ready to blame his own insecurities partially on a cream-filled snack cakes, for crying out loud.

So then…what *is* it to most people? A place of sunshine, a place of freedom, a place of escape. If you look throughout the diaries and landscapes of most of the folks who came here in the 60’s/70’s  from other parts of the country, it was refuge, solace, a home. They had literally put on the ruby slippers and…….HEY! Here they were! San Francisco, Venice, amongst friends, lovers, confidantes…There were very few other places like it. New York had its moments, but, well, y’know- the weather?

And you had ART. And LOTS OF IT. And theater. So you had things erupting like The Cockettes…

Or you had films being made like Flaming Creatures by Jack Smith. Or you had Harvey Milk.

Or you could JUST BE.

See, that was the glory of California, right? It was the state of freedom.

So what happened? Why is it that I was disappointed by my state but utterly unsurprised? Why is it that all of my thoughts today revolved around the fact that I find that perhaps there is a certain level of complacency that is just not being looked at? We can march, we can complain, we can blog and yell our gay/straight/transgender/purple/blue/whatever heads off, but is it going to make a difference?

Because the point to me is NOT marriage. Everyone knows that marriage is no guarantee of anything, and never was. It is no guarantee that your spose will not bring home a fatal sexually transmitted disease, no promise of a lifetime of passion and triumphant well-being, no out-and-out-swear-on-yer-mama’s-soul that someone will love you forever.  Sometimes love ends and sometimes people are just assholes. Other times you just have to work your soul-fingers to the bone to keep your relationship together if you believe it’s worth it and that’s fine. But the institution of marriage is no guarantee that any of this gets better or easier or any of it.

What this is about is equality. And if we’re going to use marriage to symbolize that, so be it. It was never about where you sat on the bus or what particular fountain you drank at anyway, as long as you were able and free to sit wherever you wanted and drink from which ever one you wanted, correct?

The hilarity to me is that today would be John Wayne’s 102nd birthday. Yup, that’s right, folks, The Duke would be a right ol’ geezer at this point. Course, we all know he’s all frozen and stuff anyways, but that’s besides the point….Oh Duke- this your way of reaching out from beyond the grave to try and reclaim “your MANLY California”? The cowpoke land?? Too bad Red River is one of the most homoerotic Western films I’ve ever seen, and one of my all-time fave gay references comes from that very same director in his film, Bringing Up Baby:

I can’t help but feel that this is still a loss. We will continue to fight, but do not ever think that just because we lost again, we did not lose. And look at WHY. It’s the people with the MONEY. Because it sure as hell ain’t the working folks who could care less at the end of the day who’s putting it in who’s whatsit and what who’s doing to who in what bedroom. I’ve noticed that the more money you have, the more you seem to care about sexuality and sexual preference. I wonder if there is a direct correlation. Hrmmm.

You think once you get beyond a certain tax bracket, you have to sign a series of documents swearing up and down that you will absolutely care about what people are doing in their sex lives over what they are doing in their political or financial lives? Because, really, THAT’S important…………….*sigh*

ARIEL’S UNAPOLOGETIC WORLD VIEW: I would much rather have a bunch of very happy politicians/bankers/etc that were getting happily laid ALL the time CONSENSUALLY by adults over the age of 18, even if it was for money (yep, I could care LESS about prostitution & I think it should be like Amsterdam- it works really well there!) than what we have now.

I want the California back that was the dream. The California that people wanted to escape to. The place that people felt safe in. Not the place that my friends want to leave, where people’s Facebook statii are reading “___wants a divorce from California.” It’s not the damn state’s fault! Dude- we’ve got a gorgeous state! Yosemite, man! Rainbow Falls, Half Dome, ya dig? THEY most certainly didn’t say it’s not OK to be gay in this state.

So my point is that somehow we have to try to start to CREATE this place again. Through art, through belief, through faith, through film, through working towards attaining this goal of water fountains for everybody. It’s not just a stupid march on Santa Monica Blvd in front of the Mormon Temple. Those are important too, but what we really have to do is consider ourselves to be nesting in a way. Building something. With our friends, our family, our peers. Let’s bite & scratch & claw at the fuckers!!! YES!!! But let’s drink a bottle of wine and paint a mural for the kids while we do it!!

If we can do that, then we might be able to recreate something of that dream. And maybe, just maybe, we can awaken some of these ones who remain still sleeping….

Journey to the Center of a Girl

Growing up in Los Angeles- Hollywood, to be precise- can be a very odd experience. Not that I would know any different, so I suppose that it should all seem perfectly normal to me. However, as someone who is a trained critical thinker, I do consider my evolutionary process quite frequently, moreso when an icon that speaks to me passes on.

On February 4, 2009, Lux Interior died.  For me, this was a heavy loss and spanned multiple areas of my life.  In a way, this man’s death was also one of the final nails in the coffin containing the slowly deteriorating body that was the Los Angeles that I grew up with. See, Los Angeles used to be ALIVE. Vibrant. Pulsating. Now I fully recognize that at 30 years old, I am too young to have fully experienced my city to its capacity, especially in the ways that I am writing about it now. That said, I have always had eyes and I have always paid attention. See, I remember when Melrose was a little bit “dangerous.”  When my mom used  to drive down the street and I used to look at all the people whose hair color matched my crayon box, I sensed that this place was a bit verboten and dangerous; not a location for “nice” people to be seen, necessarily. Of course, the greatest irony is that now I *am* one of those people…but I digress. When I was very young, Melrose was not what it is now. vinylfetish I do remember how it all began, though. My mother used to joke about the stores staying for 5 minutes. In fact, since I live so very close to Melrose these days, I still make that same joke- because it still happens. But Melrose now is not Melrose then. In fact, trying to find pictures for this entry was very difficult. As most people know, you can find pictures for just about ANYTHING online. you want pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s original bellybutton piercing? You got ’em! But old school Melrose? HARD. The picture above is a store that is no longer there, Vinyl Fetish. Right across the street was Retail Slut. I remember going in there after school when I went to Fairfax, and being gazed upon with incredible disdain by the employees. I felt as big as a peanut. Shell not included. I remember how horrible that felt. It was terrible, because the honest-to-god truth was that I was a really smart, sweet kid who got swooped up by some crazy slightly older punk rockers later that same year and everything ended up being perfectly ok, cuz I got my “boots’n’braces” education eventually, but…

A very very short time later, my baby brother was WORKING there. Working there. At Retail Slut. My little brother. With a nickname and everything. HUH?!?!? Yeah, that’s what I said. But that’s a whole other story, I guess.  At any rate, that’s not what this is about. this is about  My Experience With Lux. It’s not EVERYONE’S.  And it is most certainly not a *striking* one, but it is mine, and I cherish it because it is part of My Los Angeles.

How long have you been a slut?

How long have you been a slut?

Images as a teen are strange things. Especially if you exist in some kind of perverse “subculture” or have a desire to do so. I was initially part of the latter variety that (luckily for me) ended up in the former. So many visuals came with the territory, and I remember seeing hoards of them. Many that would end up becoming part of my everyday sartorial choices. The Two-Tone label, Bad Religion, Madness, X…all of these iconic things found homes upon my body somewhere, sometime. The FEAR insignia, the Crass logo, the Christian Death symbol- I learned how to read them. It was all a kind of language- a new symbolism almost. But…I remember that the Bad Music for Bad People image scared me.

I cruise through the city & I roam the streets...

I cruise through the city & I roam the streets...

HOW AWESOME IS THAT???? I say that with enthusiasm, because that is every bit of the intent. While I don’t adore every single everything by The Cramps that has ever been done, as a band they are one of the best that has EVER crossed the face of the planet because they hit on all of my favorite things: sexual permissiveness/provocativeness/perversity, horror cinema, b-films/culture, combining aural stimulus with visual stimulus, and, most important of all, breaking boundaries.

I loved being scared, then. I love being scared now. I will probably always love it. If you can find something that can scare me, I’ll kiss ya and buy ya a soda pop! I’m the kinda girl that can go to bed right after watching The Exorcist, and I don’t think that has anything to do with the fact that I’ve been Bat Mitzvah-ed and am not Catholic in the least.

OK. So you wanna know what else I REALLY love about The Cramps? You REALLY wanna know? Sure, my heart is broken and totally devastated that I never got to see them, but here’s the other stuff that makes me all gushy inside when I think about why the Cramps are integral to the world as we know it, musically, socially, and artistically. This band changed the world. Now, I’m gonna get all theoretical on you, so if you hate that stuff, here’s your chance to jet……NOW.

I like The Cramps because they are, to me, a visual-musical representation of Julia Kristeva’s theories of the abject and abjection. And I think abjection is endlessly interesting. Kristeva wrote that “It is not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite. The traitor, the liar, the criminal with a good conscience, the shameless rapist, the killer who claims he is a savior…He who denies morality is not abject; there can be grandeur in amorality and even in crime that flaunts its disrespect for the law-rebellious, liberating & suicidal crime.  Abjection, on the other hand, is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady: a terror that dissembles, a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you…” (Powers of Horror, p.13) So what were The Cramps BUT a band about abjection? They were the outside, the other, yet with some very odd traditional sensibilities. In that sense, they bore a significant musical resemblance to Kristeva’s idea of the ambiguous, the composite…. From their very beginnings and their first album, Songs The Lord Taught Us (1980, Illegal Records), they had set up that status. Through singing traditional cover tracks like “Fever”  or “Tear it Up” and marching them up against their self-penned original titles like “The Zombie Dance” or “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,”  The Cramps established themselves as a band that could do exactly what they wanted to do…TO YOU. Especially since they were under the auspices of the Lord, right?

They had a message from God!

They had a message from God!

Variety Lists the Top 10 Cramps song titles as follows:

10. The Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon

9. I Wanna Get in Your Pants

8. Eyeball in My Martini

7. The Most Exalted Potentate of Love

6. Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs

5. Fissure of Rolando

4. Journey to the Center of a Girl

3. Don’t Eat Stuff off the Sidewalk

2. Two Headed Sex Change

1. Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

First thing to be noted here: at least half these songs reference significant physiological issues. The Fissure of Rolando is an area deep within the brain, not immediately accessible or visible. A sex change? Let alone one of the 2-headed variety? Yes, I do believe that would border on “outsider” status, don’t you?  With Abject Cramps Logic, this is all just par for the course. And the lyrics do not deviate any more than the titles do. For example, let’s just take “Eyeball in my Martini.”  On a deeper, more psychological level, abjection is about the breakdown between the subject and object or the self and other.

Sooooooo, our illustrious frontman croons, “I went out to eat the other night. Picked up my girl at eight. In my soup I found a fly. But, there beyond my plate. Was an eyeball in my martini. A highball with a twist. One in my linguini, too. I said, “There’s somethin’ wrong with this.” Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs. Eyeballs everywhere. Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs…” OK. Not only are we hitting on Kristeva’s issues with abjection and the uncleanliness factor in this instance, but we definitely have significant issues surrounding the recognition of the abject. Kristeva writes that “A wound with blood or pus, or the sickly, acrid smell of sweat, of decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death…I would understand, react or accept. No, as in true theater, without makeup or masks, refuse & corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death. There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being…” In this song, it is exactly this. Whether he’s looking at his drink or staring at his dinner, he’s being confronted with the very “condition of his humanity” through the existence of a piece of it. Removed from it. One basically can exist without one’s eyeball, most assuredly, but most would choose not to if it could be helped. However, singing a song such as this, where the eyeball/humanity/abjection/symbol of the body’s breakdown or demise is continually appearing in his linguini, drink and so forth???  Lux is about to eat his own flesh. Drink his own sight. Inhale his own existence. He cannot get away from the fact that he has to face mortality, and existence. The pus, the defilement, the breakdown. THIS IS THE ABJECT….

My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border...-Kristeva

My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border...-Kristeva

See, the abject also refers to our reactions to that which is considered “abject” which, according to Kristeva, can be quite a traumatic experience all-around.  Kristeva mentions examples of certain items that illicit these reactions, inclusive of corpses, open wounds, piss, or the skin on the top of warm milk (don’t ask on that milk one- if you want to go further, read her full piece, which I would highly recommend doing anyway).  Because these items remind us of our own mortality, of our own physicality, of the things that we do/are /the “uncleanliness,” (see earlier quote), or other things that rip us away from the general state of “pretty happy shiny” that we tend to live in, the abject causes us to, essentially “flip out,” and experience a very real, significant sense of cognitive dissonance. Yeah, pretty fucked up. So in a sense, we are confronted by our own existence and bodily functions, we don’t like to recognize that we die or bleed or crap, and……OMGWTFBBQ!!!!

We fear. This is exactly why horror films work. This is why Cronenberg has built a cinematic empire upon body horror. This is why the Aliens series works. This is why SO MANY things work. I could go on. Buuuuuuuuuut…..my point here is this is also why The Cramps work!!!

The Cramps played a lot. So did X. So did a great many bands that my friends were able to see and I was never able to bear witness to. However I remember the visual. I remember, as only a child/adolescent does, COMPLETELY mixing up Lux Interior and the cover of Bad Music For Bad People (the main image I always saw around town). I always thought THAT was him. But I enjoyed the fear and the THRILL that he put in me. Years later, when I became a fan, and then a film and pop culture theorist myself, I was able to think about things (obviously) on a different note. However, to this day, I will always think that Bad Music for Bad People is a scary album cover. I will also think that it clearly references theoretical issues of abjection, etc, which only makes me adore it even more.

I am sad for my loss. After all, what is sadness after a death but personal loss, really? I am just sad that I was unable to see them. That is my tragedy. It is an aural & visual loss that I will always regret. However I am proud to have experienced them as a Hollywood girl, having them be such a crucial part of my lifecycle, and and even happier to have them continue to prove to be a brilliant source of education and inspiration for theory and learning. Even if, at the end of the day, I am just a Goo Goo Muck…

Curtain Call

I have a bone to pick. And there is a hellovalot of marrow inside so…watch out.

Look, I know the economy sucks. I know prices of things have gone up substantially in the last 10+ years. And furthermore, I know that changes in technology have gifted us with the wondrous ability to have more things at our beck and call than ever before in our small and insignificant lifetimes. I KNOW. I’ve been here, living it too.

I’m not unsympathetic. However, at some point we have to make a choice. Draw a line. We have to figure out what is important to us as individuals and as human beings, and we need to stick to that. I like technology as much as the next person, however I am seeing some very difficult things within its soft and welcoming folds.  As it envelops, it seems to also trap and keep in certain circumstances. It’s intoxicating and addicting. And THAT is where the danger lies.

The danger with technological advancement lies in the part where people would rather interact with each other over a video game system online than even playing video games together in the same house. The danger lies when people would rather text message each other complete conversations than have a vocal conversation. The danger lies in people preferring to stay at home and watch a film because the “other people” at the theater are really annoying, and at least at home it’s more comfortable, completely forgoing the entire way that a film was designed and created to be watched.

Theoretically, all of these things are fucking fascinating. They are creating an entirely new culture that is removing itself from each other and human interaction. Human robots, so to speak. The less contact we have with each other, the less effort we have to put forth into our relationships and the less energy we have to put into knowing other people. We expect less, we want less, we give less. Tragedy is, those of us who don’t buy into this? We also get less from the vast majority of folks on the planet these days, as well. But that doesn’t stop me from expecting more, as frustrated as I may be and frustrating as the whole thing is. I was not raised to have 1/2 relationships, nor was I trained academically to interact with people in such a way that was unbecoming to what my full potential could be. Now I fully recognize that in the last few years my behavior has been less than stellar, and I have been less than 100% of what I “could be” but that only gets you so far until you realize that its utter crap and makes you incredibly unhappy.

So then you change.

And you alter your behavior. Which I have done. Much to ny satisfaction.

I had a point to this entry. I wanted to gear it towards the discussion of why we should make it a point to attend theaters for our film-viewing, but perhaps I shall go into that more in-depth another time. For now, perhaps I have babbled enough. I have much more to say, but I have gotten to a point where I am perhaps a bit more frustrated than I should be in order to write coherently.

Thanks for listening…

My time in a Dublin Police Station…

Y’know, traveling is a fun AND a funny thing.

You get to have all KINDS of experiences. ESPECIALLY on holidays.

Especially on HOLIDAYS in FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

st-patricks-day-1

So St. Patrick’s Day has a long and involved history, right? Involving religion, and snakes, and all sorts of fun stuff. But to a few 20-21 year old kids going to college in the UK, well, it was……about going to St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. Not so much about historical pretense. Even if we were well educated individuals who actually did (and still do) care a great deal about the ways in which theology and history intersect to create ritualistic celebration. However, one must admit- it’s changed quite a bit from St. Patrick and his Snakes, no?

In any case, there we were. In Dublin. March of 2001. I was 21 years old. We had decided to go to Ireland, oh…maybe…72 hours previous.

I was with my Partner in Crime, my Ultimate Traveling Companion, the girl I met at school in the UK who hailed from Wisconsin. What *is* it about Wisconsin??? Constantly meeting awesomely people from there. Must be in the custard or the brats.

At any rate, there we were.

We’d done the “night.”

We’d hit the pubs, drank the Guiness, seen the madness, and were ready to call it a night.

…only we couldn’t. And funny thing? Neither could the folks we came with.

See it was almost comedic. I do say ALMOST. It was quite like those movies where you watch in horror as the people disperse into disastrous chaos and simply laugh. And why do we laugh? Because we know, according to filmic convention, that, in the end, It Will All Be Just Fine.

This didn’t seem like one of those movies when we were standing on the street, freezing our asses off, and all the bars were closing at about midnight or 1am. Yeah. That’s what we thought too. A bit early.

See, Ireland gets super cold at night and…..we were c.o.l.d.

I admit- our planning was POOR, at best. We, um, well….were gonna wait until the bus station opened at 6am, then leave. BUT, we were hoping that there would be stuff going on until at *least* 2, and then? Well, we hoped we could find a diner or something

No such luck.

Oh, the stupidity of youth. However, that stupidity makes for GREAT storytelling. Eventually. Once the hypothermia wears off.

I have images of our somewhat inebriated compatriots waiting for the bus or taxis back to the hostel in County Cork (a good WAYS off). We kept passing them, as we searched for somewhere to hang out for a few hours. And no, it wasn’t pretty.

It looked like the damned zombie apocalypse was coming, because we weren’t the only bad planners. There were a whole bunch more, only………they were SERIOUSLY drunk and my friend and I? Well, we were actually only pleasantly celebrational. Like, as in, we could stand, walk, ENJOY ourselves.

However, we were caught up in the rest of the folks banging on hotel doors to let us in for a few hours of respite.

No such luck.

And we kept passing our poor friends who were still waiting for the cabs.

Finally, exhausted, after a few more mishaps, we just didn’t know what to do.

A kind soul took pity on us.

“The police station, “ they said, “Just go there. They won’t bother you at all. You can sit there as long as you want.”

We looked at each other in disbelief. Neither of us were, um, too keen on the idea, shall we say? However, what did we have to lose?

We headed down towards the station. And entered the next part of our adventure.

ladycraved

OK, so we were in the damn Dublin Police Station for St. Patrick’s Day.

Can you get much more bizarre than that? Well, yes you can. She and I sat there. Staring at the wall, shivering and wondering a) how the hell we got there in the first place, b) how the hell we were gonna stay awake until the bus station opened and c) what we would say to the nice Irish police officers, should they ask us why we just barged into the police station and sat down, without saying a word to anyone.

Dublin Police Station

Dublin Police Station

Just as we were coming to terms with our fate…….SHE came in, accompanied by another woman and two of the aforesaid Irish Police Officers (who, for the record, completely ignored us except for once, if I remember correctly, for the entirety of our “visit”). One of the women was taken back “behind the scenes,” while the other? She became our friend for the evening.

And boy oh boy, was she our friend. Aside from the nice homeless man, eating bread and listening to his walkman in the far corner, she was the only person in their with us. And we were her captive (and I DO mean captive) audience.

“Ah, but she’s sech a good gerl, she shouldna been done fer tha drunk drivin’, ye see, she’s a good gerl, y’see,” she kept telling us.

We nodded in agreement. Of course she was. Of course.

Then she asked us some questions, I think. Her sobriety, of course, was….less than reliable. We mostly just froze and agreed with Everything She Said. Because she Wouldn’t Stop Talking.

You think *I* talk a lot? You never met HER.

Mostly about what a good girl her friend was, and how she just “shouldna been done like tha’” of course, but she really was what my mother would call a “character.”

If you think this lasted forever, well you’d be right. IT DID.

And there wasn’t much we could do but listen to her. It’s entertaining now, but woah nelly.

At some point, she realized that as an audience we weren’t much, and started to try to figure out what to do about LEAVING.

That’s when the REAL FUN began.

She started to flip the lights on and off. She started running around the room. She started to knock on the bulletproof glass where the policeman/receptionist sat. Not only did this disturb him, but our Homeless Friend started going bonkers. He removed himself from underneath the seats, and started to be, um, not so happy with her, making sounds of protest, quite zombie-like, where he had been perfectly well behaved and just calm and walkman-listening before. Now he was ALL about the bread-chomping and pissed off at her proclivities towards flashing lights on/off and generally disturbing the peace.

The woman went a bit loopy, to say the least. At this juncture, our friend was spoken to. Firmly. By her friends, the nice police officers who had taken her friend in. They informed her in no uncertain terms that if she did not QUIT IT IMMEDIATELY, she would join her friend, the “nice gerl.”

Pouting, she sat down.

My companion and I sighed with relief as the tension left the air.

Shortly thereafter, she was escorted from the premises to meet her friend (we assume?), and it became light outside. The Dublin bus station opened, and my Partner In Crime and I removed ourselves from the freezing chairs (they left the doors open all night- it was no warmer inside the station than it was outside), and got ourselves to the airport.

FAST.

So, my friends, that was my story for this St. Patrick’s Day. Hope yours is well and good! Please be careful and well, keep safe and most of all, stay outta police stations!!

Damn Fine Panties

Yeah, so I’m failing right now on the blogging thing. Been reaaaaaaaallly busy….work, school, etc.
So the good stuff- the writing- it will come.
I found this today, though, and had to share.

Elliot Smith + Muppets = AWESOME

Thanks to my longtime friend Bill, I get to present you with morning AMAZING.

CHECK THIS OUT….