Love - Art - Disease - Pain - Life-Humanness - "Otherness"
In our desensitised society,
the artists,
the bohemians, poor, discarded,
"others", recovering addicts -
all are more in touch
with their human-ness
than the so called
mainstream.
Despite everything -
HUMANNESS, LOVE, LIFE, ART survives.
-Jonathan Larson
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Friday, May 16, 2003
"You're living in America...Where it's like the Twilight Zone
If there is anything that I hate, loathe, despise and abominate...it's fake and pretentious people.
Lately, I've been encountered by someone who has a very distinct disassociative displacement disorder. To set the record clear, I was never dating this person. I was never anything more than a friend to this person, and he had claimed that he would be okay with this. Boy, was I soon too wrong to have any kind of faith in this joker! I write about it here for several measures. One being that I wanted to understand why he was so...to put it ever so eloquently...fucked up. The others are varied, but lets just say that I'm glad there hasn't been a restraining order on this go 'round.
Random Pertinent Rant:
I don't usually judge a book by it's cover, everyone that truly knows me understands this. But...when I order a magazine from amazon.com, I don't expect to open the box and find a 600 page, hard-back novelization of that same magazine. I've also never been impressed with the flaunting of money...especially when it's not of your own merits. Touche.
Anyway, this nameless guy, who several of my friends had met, became enamored of me for some bizarre reason. He had raged at me not only once, but twice over the course of about a month and a half. The first time it happened, I made it clear to him that it wasn't going to be forgotten. I never got mad and I never got upset, but instead gave him a second chance. Sure enough, within three weeks it happened again! The second time it was just plain laughable, because it was so predictable. For someone to be so low as to take my friends, family, passions, and beliefs (all of which totally rock and that anyone would be jealous of) and throw them into my face like a pig is just so middle-school-pond-scummy disgusting, especially when they are just as guilty of everything they spew forth from their drivelous, tactless and uncouth mouths. People who often rage with such bearing as this usually find such fault within themselves that they use that as ammunition. We learned that this person not only wore a mask to conceal his insecurities and flaws, but is also grossly hypocritical throughout the human condition. The sad part about this whole situation was that he didn't even get to know or trust me, because his head was so muddled with thoughts of being in a relationship. Because he didn't know me, I could have cared less about his insignificant words of abuse. Love does not know jealousy and anger. It knows patience, kindness and respect, among many other things. He obviously had no respect for me, and I forgive him now, for he has nothing else to take his aggressions out on. I have sympathy, but it only goes so far as to wish him the best at exorcising his demons. One thing I've learned amongst mildly schizophrenic queers is that their behavior, and sometimes even their thought processes are very easy to predict. You'll never share real love until you love yourself. I should know.
"Let he among us without sin, be the first to condemn! La Vie Boheme..."
-RENT
6:27 AM
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
The gestalt of it all
Hasn't the weather been awesome lately? It won't be above 80 degrees this week! What is it they say? April showers bring May glowers? What's with the superficial speak? I've got to cut the cryptic.
May has been an important month in the life of John...
• Spring Event went swimmingly well; much less stressful than last year's media fiasco.
• Amanda rode from Orangeburg to Charleston that same weekend for her charity bike ride. Go Amanda!
• Chicago at Workshop Theatre really was an impressive feat. I didn't like some of the stolen unuendo from the film, but for the most part, the talent was pure and did justice to the Kander & Ebb revival from 1998. I have yet to see JEKYLL & HYDE at Town. I hope that it is as good...
•Most of my USC friends graduated last Friday. That sure was an interesting thing to see, as G.W. gave his commencement speach to the new graduates. It really wasn't much of a charge, but more or less an opportunity to speak out about his military actions forthcoming. Hmmm.
• Eric graduates from Dutch Fork High School at the end of the month. He's doing really well post surgery, and has lost about 110 pounds so far. He's looking great! I'm steadily climbing down the scale, too. Just about another chunk and a half and I'll be at my weight loss goal! I'm hoping to be down another few pants sizes by the time I head to NYC in July. Oh how I long to fit into my size 32's!! Ha! It's all good...sort of like J-pop.
This song popped up in my CD player one day recently...and it's a great thing, I tell ya that.
A Change In Me
There's been a change in me, a kind of moving on,
Though what I used to be, I still depend upon.
For now I realize that good can come from bad.
That may not make me wise, but, oh, it makes me glad!
And I--I never thought I'd leave behind my childhood dreams.
But I don't mind, for now I love the world I see.
No change in heart--a change in me.
For in my dark despair, I slowly understood
My perfect world out there had disappeared for good.
But in its place I feel a truer life begin.
And it's so good and real, it must come from within!
And I--I never thought I'd leave behind my childhood dreams.
But I don't mind, I'm where and who I want to be.
No change of heart--a change in me.
No change of heart--a change in me.
-Belle
Beauty and The Beast On Broadway
This month's music picks:
So Long Astoria
Ataris
Editorial Reviews
With a handful of indie releases and a few hectic years of touring under their belts, this release marks the Ataris big-label bow. And if the concept uniting it is an ode to the power of memory--a conceit attributed to Richard Hell , but one that ironically might as well have originated with the likes of Billy Joel --Kris Roe and company blitz their way through it with kinetic power and hooks to spare. But therein lies the rub: Fans will find this an album rife with positive energy, bright, well-constructed songs, and upbeat deliveries (if sometimes in service of awkward intellectual pretensions like "Unopened Letter to the World"'s parallels between Kurt Cobain and no less than Emily Dickinson); cynics may hear at as further evidence that punk and alternative rock have been co-opted in service of formulas as well-honed--and rigid--as anything the dreaded Corp Rock '80s ever yielded. Still, if play-it-to-the-back-rows, unabashed power-pop is what the Ataris were after here, they've delivered it with nigh perfection, right down to a slick, pumped up cover of Don Henley 's classic-rock warhorse "The Boys of Summer." --Jerry McCulley
• My favorite track is "IN THIS DIARY". It will never beat out "SUMMER WIND WAS ALWAYS OUR SONG", from their "END IS FOREVER" album, though. That one will forever rock my world.
Scarlet's Walk
Tori Amos
Editorial Reviews
From the confusion and chaos that marked one of the most harrowing episodes in American history comes Tori Amos's masterwork. Scarlet's Walk, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed covers LP, Strange Little Girls , was written on a cross-country road trip shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. Over the course of 3,000 miles and 18 tracks, the crimson-haired singer encounters rogue lovers ("A Sorta Fairytale"), reformed porn stars ("Amber Waves"), and an entire cast of characters who embody the spirit of a country suddenly searching for an identity. The album serves as both an ambitious travelogue and as a graceful rejoinder to the bitterness and frustration that inspired it, with Amos wading through swells of sadness ("I Can't See New York"), anger ("Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"), and insecurity ("Your Cloud") with velvety grace. --Aidin Vaziri
• Wow. This album rocks. I've had it since it came out, but what's really interesting about it is that, now I can totally appreciate the narrative quality that the album has as a whole, not just in parts. I think it would make a killer movie...ala Pink Floyd's THE WALL.
Monthly Movie Pick:
Bend it Like Beckham (2003)
Comedy
1 hr. 52 min.
An Indian family in London tries to raise their soccer-playing daughter in a traditional way. Unlike tarty elder sister, Pinky, who is preparing for an Indian wedding and a lifetime of cooking the perfect chapatti, Jess' dream is to play soccer professionally like her hero David Beckham. Wholeheartedly against Jess' unorthodox ambition, her parents eventually reveal that their reservations have more to do with protecting her than with holding her back. When Jess is forced to make a choice between tradition and her beloved sport, her family must decide whether to let her chase her dream...and a soccer ball.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content.
Release Date: March 12th, 2003 (LA, NY, Chicago).
2:19 PM
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