Sister, Brother, Teacher, Mother.

Imagine having drinks with your teacher. Now, imagine having drinks with your mother. Now imagine the complete opposite of what you would expect.

It all started about a week ago. Finally finishing up with school, I was headed out for a celebratory lunch with the girls when our professor invited himself along. An odd twist on our plans, but, we went with it and had lunch at Bar 89 (and several other locations). Who knows, maybe it improved our grades. So, I did what any perfectly normal young man would do when going out with a man old enough to be his father: I drank. Three beers, two absinthe and a shot of tequila later I felt better than I had in a while. Alcohol cures all. And while no sex resulted from my inebriation, I realized something: here I was, plastered, hadn't paid for a thing, all in front of my teacher. It seemed wrong.

Flash forward to the next day of cocktails at the Algonquin. Too much drinking again, this time martinis, this time with my mother. She had begun to tell me about how she recently got in touch with an old college mate who now does the makeup for "All My Children". She relayed to me how they used to fawn after the same bisexual guy in school. My mother would even smoke to impress him (though she never inhaled). Again, aside from the nausea, dizziness and mediocre piece of theater we ended up seeing, I felt wrong.

Maybe it's just the onset of adulthood, realizing that everyone is more or less a rather complex person whose identity reaches far beyond your perception. But, nevertheless, it is alarming when the barriers break down, considering how much you thought you knew about a person, let alone your purported role models.

Why So Serious?

This past summer I, like millions of other hopeless sheep, paid $9.50 to see The Dark Knight. I never bothered to review it (did I? no, I didn't) because it wasn't worth it. It was okay. Nothing spectacular, despite what everyone has been saying (and the horrible buzz of getting a Best Picture nom; bitch, please). Anyway, I felt today, the anniversary of Heath Ledger's tragic passing, was the time for me to address an issue: the pity praise. Now I know I'm a cynical little bitch, but I want everyone to be honest with themselves: if Heath hadn't died, would we all think the movie, and in particular his acting, would have been praised so heavily? Would it have been such a box-office smash? Perhaps, but I'm inclined to believe what I believe, namely that because of the horrifying events we the people are elevating the movie to a level it never reached on screen.

I say this because Heath was nominated, quite expectedly, for an Oscar this morning. Now. Not to intentionally criticize his performance, but there is little precedent to have an actor from a comic book movie be nominated for such an award. I can't remember any actor within the past 20 years who starred in a comic book-based movie be nominated for an Oscar. But, there's a first time for everything, right? I suppose. But let's just call a spade a spade: it's a little too coincidental that no role like this was ever recognized before by the Academy, and all of the sudden they found one to be worthy of a nomination just when said actor happened to die. 

Personally, I find it a tad insulting to almost all parties involved, and I'm pained to remember other posthumous  awards, such as the Tony and Pulitzer to Jonathan Larson for Rent, and posthumous nominations, like James Dean for East of Eden. Look. Everyone should realize that, whether by right or not, these accolades have some level of pity within them, and even if the greatest actor or writer or whatever does the best job, if he dies, that's always a fact you can't ignore. What's worse, people will probably get insulted if you don't award them and deem it "insensitive". Remember when everyone stood at the Golden Globes for Heath? What if it had gone to Ralph Fiennes? Would anyone stand for that? No. They'd be cursing under their breaths that Heath didn't win. It's ridiculous.

Is it a big deal? No, maybe not. But awards should be given to those who did the best job, and sometimes, it's hard to decide that with such extenuating circumstances. The solution? Special awards. They should just do it. That way, the dead can be honored for their performance without the academy feeling obligated to give it to the dead guy.

RIP Heath Ledger.

Oh, and THIS doesn't help anyone's case.

All Buses are Created Equal

The Times (New York, not London) has written a piece on an Atheist ad campaign to run on the sides of buses on the streets of England. Headed by great thinker and Bestselling author Richard Dawkins, it was conceived after a woman noticed religious ads on the sides of buses, and created as a counterpoint to said delusional propaganda. 

While I am biased towards the notion, I do believe that everything deserves equal attention, and if there are going to be Biblical quotes driving around, there may as well be ideas to the contrary presented. Cheers, Londoners! I can't wait for the streets of Manhattan to be riddled with similar advertisements. 

More Here.

"My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you!"

In 1978, Proposition 6 would ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools. In 2008, Proposition 8 overturned laws granting equal marriage rights to all people in the state of California. We have taken two steps forward and ten steps backward. We have made progress, and we have regressed. But what are we to do? Gus van Sant's striking portrayal of the late, great Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected into official office in this country, reminds us the one thing we need to fight: grit.

Through his incomparable vision, Gus van Sant has portrayed Milk in an honest, searing spotlight that chronicles the era in which he fought for our rights. There is little more to say about the film itself because, honestly, it doesn't read as a film at all; it is a living, breathing entity showcasing the struggle we all face everyday with everyone. It is a memorial to all those who have died for what they are or what they believe in, and a testament to how guts and guile are all it takes to fight for your rights.   

It is our time as people to speak up; we are almost ten years into the new millennium, ten years into the dawning of a new age, and yet we still cling to what is safe, and what is comfort, and not to what is right. In 1978 Harvey Milk was assassinated after having served only ten months in office, yet he will remain an icon for all those, gay or straight, who believe in peace, love and justice. We should, we must, follow in his footsteps each day to create a society which truly is a society; a place where we can all be free from hate and prejudice and fear. It will happen one day, but it is our duty to make that day not next year, not next month, and not next week, but tomorrow.       

Middle of the Pack

In our earlier years, it was probably quite common to hear that we could do anything and be anything that we wanted to be. That steaming string of optimism was stitched into our minds from the beginning, but slowly began to unravel with each waking year. Cynical as it may be, it is undeniable to admit that the majority of people are not special. In fact, it is possible to say that we are all almost invariably interchangeable.

For the most part of my life, I have considered myself average; I am not the smartest man alive, nor the dumbest. I don’t have the best body or the worst. I’m not ridiculously wealthy, nor am I destitute. It’s rather depressing and fairly nerve-wracking to see that most other people fit into this category as well. How can we even imagine the possibility of the philosophy of individualism when it’s all together true that everyone fits into some general statistic or percentage?

What’s worse is this is all coupled with the sheer mortality of life, the inescapability of death. Why put ourselves through the misery when we end up with nothing to show for it? What if we become great successes and generous do-gooders, what does it matter when we’ll end up in the same place as the rapists and murderers? It’s odd to just sit and reflect on the banal existence we all partake in, and how random and ineffectual it all is. So what if we find a cure for cancer? So what if we help orphans in Africa? We’ll die anyway.

We go through life living in the shadow of someone else; we know that as soon as we die, someone exactly like us will fill our place like some big, existential vending machine. Perhaps it’s sound advice to live for ourselves and be the bet we can be, but in the end how can we not look back and say “What was it all for?”    

How do we know what we really see?

Having viewed Psycho for the second time this evening, I took a very long, nervous bath in lieu of a shower. Aside from the obvious reasons, it just seemed to me that this time the infamous shower scene was much more terrifying than I had ever remembered it to be. Being the good little procrastinator that I am, I forwent doing any actual work and consulted my resources to find all that I could regarding this scene. Gathering what I could from various sources (mostly Wikipedia) I discovered that the scene is comprised of around 71 angles and 50 cuts, (which is a hell of a lot for a three minute scene) and the "Soviet Montage" style in which it was shot contributes to the hasty, psychotically horrifying tone. I also discovered that there are only three frames of actual penetration (knife to skin, that is), which adds up to about an eighth of a second in that stretch of time. So little, in fact, that it would only register subliminally.  

That made me think (of course) about how much we really see. The three frames of stabbing must have been noticed by my brain, and added to my irrational paranoia this evening, but I had no awareness to them. Much research has been done concerning how effective subliminal messages are, ranging the gamut from a lot to nothing, but in any event it does make you wonder how much of our emotions and actions are dictated by things we never consciously see or hear. It must happen, to some degree, because a lot of the things we are told or shown influence us to do certain things, even if we don't connect the two right away. I believe I am going to be a little less impulsive as the days go by, especially in these important times. Before I do something, I'll pose the questions "Why am I doing this?" or "How will this affect me in the long run?" or "Are these actions really my own?". 

It's a frightening prospect to believe that what we do does not come from ourselves. 

Au Naturale

Recently, I had an enlightening chat with some girlfriends. Apparently, they have no inhibitions when it comes to seeing each other in the nude; it's completely platonic, naturally, and stems solely from the fact that they're comfortable and trusting of one another. I, apparently, do not have that luxury, because of one small (well, not that small) appendage. When asked with a more substantial explanation, however, I was met with scoffs and rolled eyes. Perhaps I'm naive, but I still do not understand why nudity is such a big deal. 

Waxing nostalgically on my sheltered high school days, I remember dreading gym class as the absolute worst torture man had ever invented; until, of course, I would see all of the guys naked. Call me a pervert, but it was the ultimate gratification to see the boy I had a crush on strip down to the buff. But, reminiscing without the glaze of hormones and unrequited love, I can see now how comfortable most of the guys were stripping down to nothing among their peers. I ask, why so comfortable? Why are we inclined to get naked only among members of the same chromosome legs, and not the other? Especially when we now know that it needn't be sexualized in any way? 

Perhaps coming from someone whose sole career ambitions include dressing people this may sound ironic, but why aren't we all naturists? In certain climates it understandable to pile on the gortex, but if you're comfortable, why not walk down 7th ave in nothing but a smile? Why must there be laws prohibiting something as natural as the exposure of the human body? The uptight puritans that run the world are sad, sad people. 

I say, if you feel like it, be naked. It's only natural. 

Bored-In

                                    

I got excited for the first time in a while when I read that there was going to be a human Be-In in Central Park; I grabbed my love beads and patchouli oil and set out. 

Turns out I should have just stayed cynical. No pot, no LSD, no nudity, no protesting, no singing, no dancing, no lovemaking. Just haughty actors who, while not staying within their own circle, lackadaisically handed out flowers (roses of all things! and plastic daisies! plastic!) and grapes from Gristedes. How disappointing to see that no youth or vigor can be stirred up for one of the most important philosophies that may ever exist: Peace. Especially in a time of war. 

But that's not what cinched it for me; once I saw a skinny blonde girl pull an iPhone from her Marc Jacobs bag, I was out of there. As much as I can respect the certain accouterments that go hand in hand with the modern consumer, there's just a disconnect from reality that stems from said materials. And a Be-In is not the place for a disconnect.  

Perhaps we will never relive 1967; and maybe that's a good thing. Let us strive to create our own gatherings and offerings for peace.