Hello People of the World;
Here we are at the celebration of the birth of
a nation. To celebrate I found a bunch of Europeans notarizing an affidavit in
my back yard.
Honestly, I have to say that part of me is
enjoying the summer heat. Sure, global warming has ratcheted up the thermostat
a bit but last week’s 96-degree days were some of the best 96-degree days I
have had the pleasure to encounter. It was hot in the sun and there was breeze
enough to keep you out and about and the shade actually acted like shade.
Look, I walk everywhere. Most people who
complain are used to sitting in their air-conditioned cars and apartments, so
of course the heat will feel oppressive. Once you flippin’ decide to go out
into it. And to all the Natives that state we need to get back to the old time,
well, the old times had some hot, fucking days and no AC. Shiiiiet, some lived
under tents made of animal skins man. That must have smelled awesome….
I actually enjoy the change of temp once I get
off an AC-ed bus or walk out of the store that I spent 30 minutes in buying
dinner and to have the heat seep into my skin. Sure, I’ll be sweating like a
melting ice cube but that is nature at works, folks. It gets hot in the summer
and cold in the winter. And we have the frickin’ gall to complain, like God got
it wrong…. Sheesh.
Anyways, let’s get started shall we?
1:[ First item of the month: Last month I closed with a piece about
fearing to express my honest opinions. I heard some really good advice lately
about being honest or truthful, there is no set time to be truthful. It is not
like it will get easier to do so, so why not just be truthful as you can be.
This has helped me make up my mind about a lot of things that have been on my
mind lately and I decided that I had to make some changes and make some choices
about the things and ideals I want to adhere to.
So, in the spirit of this new discovery and
attitude I feel that I should not hold back on a few, certain topics. For instance, I have decided that I
believe in evolution. Mainly because I feel that as a human species, where are
not done becoming. That goes for our ideals and beliefs. Those also need to
have room to evolve and expand and to not be static things we are forever
chained to.
My own proof for evolution is how much we, as
the human society, act like a pack of apes. We cheer violence and strength,
mating and reckless behavior. Have you ever noticed when a comedian is on TV
performing and when they mention drinking, fighting or fucking, the audience
WHOOPS and hollers? Apes do that when two gorillas fight. Shoot, that is
basically MMA. Yeah, I said that. Apes cheer violence. So do we. We promote war
and aggression. How is that not animalistic?
I call it the Primal Instinct of Getting our Ticklies Tickled. We enjoy things
that make us feel good: booze, sex and the idea that we are stronger than the
other animals, that our intellect is sharper, our humor funnier than others. It’s
Ego. Again, it comes back to that because as humans we need to have our egos
massaged, that is a step up from being an ape. We enjoy getting our Ticklies
tickled when a comedian mentions a topic that we agree with, so we whoop or
click the “Like” button” or when someone in authority offers us reasons for
actions and we happen to believe same and we thumb it up or share it online.
Our intellectual egos get tickled.
And this can cover a lot of topics from left
to right, atheist to believer, we like getting our Ticklies tickled and we
follow the things that tickled it best for us: film, arts, politics, drugs, sex
and so on…. Much like the apes in the field, we humans are never without those
causes for our tickles….
In a more concentrated effort at being
truthful I have decided to expand a few of my thoughts into longer articles
that I will begin posting to The Redshade Report. Yep, little Mikey Redshade
will be moved to Flickr, probably, to make room for my new bent on
truthfulness….
So, keep and eye you for these upcoming articles:
The Five Hypocrisies of Native America (August
2012)
NAMELESS: My Thoughts and Feelings on Native
American Art and Artists (Soon!)
ONE: A Spoken Word (Fall 2012)
Sure, I won’t get elect President because of
these but then again, who wants to be led?
2:[ On a more serious
note: Why is that whenever we address a group of girls, women, females, we
always, ALWAYS address them as “You Guys….”?
3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:
+ I think that Pixar’s
streak remains intact with their latest, “BRAVE”. It is rare that you see
movies about a mother and a daughter. The movie moved along at a brisk pace and
I found myself enjoying the premise as it did take me by surprise. “Brave” is a
great addition to the streak of Pixar’s animation dominance, uh, “Cars” &
“Cars 2” aside….
+ I recently rented the
superhero “found footage” movie “Chronicle” and found that I enjoyed it very
much. I like the conceit of the found footage angle but had a problem with the
premise that once again, the athletic doofus becomes the hero against the
intellectual nerd, who becomes the bad guy. For once, I’d like to see the
reverse. I don’t count Iron Man because he’s basically a smartass and no
different than someone who picks on nerds. Plus, the fact that he is a cool,
suave smart guy is inherently false. For the bad guy to be smart and the good guy some athletic doofus always reminds me of this.
It also gave me another thought on the recent
The Avengers movie, why it did not resonate with me and on Escapism
Entertainment in general. No one challenges the rote anymore. They want
escapism. It hit me again when I came across this quote by Dan Jolin in the
latest issue of EMPIRE Magazine in writing about the upcoming “The Dark Knight
Rises”: “Escapism is blissfully untouched by relevance.”
As loud and fun as those movies are, they will
never be more than that. We don’t strive to challenge ourselves artistically
anymore. We promote Mediocrity as Escapism and we hold fast to zeitgeists and
promote that as a new voice, even more so in Native American art, but more on that
later. I am glad Nolan is trying to add some substance to what is essentially a
comic book movie. It is trying to ground itself in relevance that will help it
endure long after the fun of “The Avengers” has faded. Much like the fun of Iron
Man, Captain America and Thor have. We need that challenge. I fear the idea of
the Grown Up movie is fading ever fast in this age of escapist entertainment.
Which is why I do not consider film to be Art. Which is why I was sooooo happy
to see the film in this next item;
+ Bonnie and I were
able to catch the sleeper hit Beasts of
the Southern Wild, very much a DIY film about a young girl living in a
flood area with her father and her quest to make the universe fit together that
was supremely touching and heartfelt. It melded the fantastical with an
off-kilter realism that played out beautifully. Hushpuppy reminded me of the
strength of my own nieces and my Char. I highly recommend this film. And I do
mean “film” though it appears to be shot on digital video. This movie is the
textbook definition of “film” in the hipster-cool sense….
4:[ So, Bonnie and I went
to the store for some snack while we watched “Game of Thrones” and while we
were grabbing our cart, we noticed this little guy crying up a storm and giving
his mom a hard time. I mean, this was angry crying, not scared or sad crying.
(Parents can tell the difference.) This little guy did not want to be put in
the little seat at the top of the cart. He was old enough to be mobile. Say
about four-years-old. He was carrying on and struggling against his mom when
she was trying to put him in the cart. Now, she had an older daughter that she
had to wrangle, before you accuse her of being lazy and not wanting to keep an
eye on her boy by putting him in that seat.
Once she got him situated, he f*cking just
belted it out man, just let loose full-lunged bawling and then he just up and
whacked his mom right in the chest, the cleavage area, SMACK! He put all his
strength into an open-handed slap and you could hear it: SMACK!
Her reaction was awesome and very motherly,
she f*cking smacked him right back, SMACK! He bawled for a bit until she said,
“Now, stop it.” I thought, Go Mom.
Now, if you smack your mom right in the
cleavage, open-handed like that with all the aggression and anger reserved for
bar fighters or wife beaters, well, “Take your medicine, son….”
5:[ Ah yes, settle in
Readers for more of:
Adventures
at the Coffee Shop!
+ I think I need to
visit other coffee shops. I mean besides Starbucks. Any suggestions? Of late I
have be stopping in the Dunkin’ Donuts for their summer special and liked the
change of pace and atmosphere of actually just sitting inside and people
watching. Since there are Baskin Robbins’ attached, a lot of families and dates
come through. But should I frequent more “Cool” coffee shops? What is “Cool”
anyways…?
+ I have the habit of
using napkins to make room in my coffee for cream. I have always felt that I
demand too much as a customer. I order an iced coffee, which Bonnie rightfully
points out that I was against a few years ago, with sweetener. That should be
enough. But, no. I feel bad asking for “easy ice, room for cream” especially if
there is a line behind me. I always see a jerk dumping coffee into the trash
can but felt that was stupid. So, I get stirrers and scoop out ice and for hot
coffee I dunk some napkins to absorb a bit of coffee off the top. That way, in
my mind, I am not slopping coffee into the trash but used napkins…. I know. I’m
weird….
+ It’s pretty cool when
you meet a fellow Batman fan. A few months ago at the B&N coffee shop I ran
across this young lady who noticed the magazine I was carrying had Catwoman on
the cover and we ended up chatting about the latest “The Dark Knight Rises”
trailer and we both geeked out about it. Then, last time I was in there, the
instant we saw each other we both said “Seven more days!” Yeah, it’s fun
running into others who share your geeky passions….
6:[ In my recent
experience of job searching, I remember this one place about six years ago that
I applied to for media production reasons and got a call to show up for an
interview. I think I wrote this story out before but in my searches the
media-related places labeled “LLC” make me think of this one particular place.
It turned out to be a cattle call interview, 30 or 40 recent college grads and
me showed up and we were herded around what appeared to be a refurnished
storage space made to look like “high tech” offices.
They blasted that crappy euro-techno-dance
music in the lobby and we were led into the “conference” room to be told about
what the company does. It was basically a promotions place for no-budget
companies that they tried to convince us were “Fortune 500” clients. Then, they
had us all sit in the waiting area and they interviewed all the college grads,
one at a time. The room cleared in about 15 minutes. I sat there for nearly two
hours, watching too-young “executives” rushing around in too-big, boxy, “silk”
business suits, and gelled hair, looking into offices, opening doors, rushing,
rushing, rushing!
I sat there for so long that I began to
suspect that Bonnie was pulling a practical joke on me. From that context, the
phoniness of everything seemed to make sense. I am serious, after about two
hours of waiting I really began to think someone was pranking me! Then,
finally, someone asked if they could help me. I said that I was part of the
group interviews and they seemed surprised. They shuffled me into the office of
the executive on-site. He asked what I could offer their company if I worked
for them. To which I replied:
“Well, to be honest, you had me waiting in the
lobby for nearly 2 and a half hours. If this is how you treat your prospective
employees, I don’t think I want to work here. Thank you for your time.”
The guy only said, “Oh. Uh, sorry.”
I shook his hand and left.
So, every time I see a “MEDIA-Something, LLC.”
in the job listings, I immediate think of this place and suspect it is a phony
set up for a practical joke….
7:[ And now Wisdom of the
Sages presents:
“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”
+ Have you noticed the
new style of haircut, or maybe it’s been around for a while. A short buzz cut
with a sort of forelock thing going, like Ed Gremley or JB’s Big Boy? Yeah,
that needs to stop….
+ Using the word
“ghetto” to describe unkempt, shitty things. Ghettos are where society puts its
undesirable people, in the worst places in an urban setting in the hopes that
that section of humanity eventually dies off. In a more modern vernacular,
ghettos are where black people live. Saying something is “Ghetto” is saying
that the thing isn’t up to YOUR standard but it’s up to the standards of poor,
black people…. Stop that….
+ When has wearing
black-framed glassed been equated with being a nerd or smart. Damn Hipsters,
ruin another thing. I mean the word “smart” not black-framed glasses. It seems
like the “cool” suburban social kids are appropriating the word “nerd” to lend
some air of intelligence about themselves. Where I came from being a “nerd” was
not a socially acceptable thing. You had to be smart about something, science,
math or the like and be a social outcast.
Now, I saw this YouTube video of this cool guy
calling himself a “Nerd” because he liked comic books. But that label should
not be applied. It seems like a backhanded self-compliment hiding as
self-deprecation. This was a dude no woman would resist. He was reviewing a
Batman-design motorcycle suit. He was no un-handsome either. So, to call
himself a nerd over a liking of comic books seems especially disingenuous.
Now, kids all over are trying to pass off as
smart without the intellect. Those hipsters with the black frame glasses lend
credence to a non-smart trying to be something they are not through a current
fashion zeitgeist. Now, I am hypocrite enough to state that we should not
complain about current trends (See next item) but I draw the line at nerddom
being appropriated by cool kids that would honestly make fun of actual nerds if
they ever come across them.
Patton Oswalt made a comment that when he saw
the muscle-bound jocks wearing the Boba Fett t-shirts at the gym, he knew that
Geekdom as we knew it was over. Now, so nerddom is nearing extinction. I hate
that intelligence is disliked, so is rationality and reason. So, a good first
step in bring these back is the wearing of black-framed glasses to look smarter
needs to stop….
+ Hypocrisy Alert: We
really, I mean REALLY need to stop complaining about the current teen fashions.
I mean, come on, it’s a trend that will end sooner or later. Let them have
their trends. How fucking dare we! To think that we are justified to judge and
condemn these kids for wearing their pants past their ass like we were sooo
much better at fashion and cool. Freaking failing generation that we are.
Here are three reasons NOT to complaining
about them:
1- WE were NOT the height of fashion and cool.
Never were. Drop it.
2- Our parachute pants and punky, grunge tip
were today’s ass exposed baggy pants, skinny jeans, halter tops and black frame
glasses to look smart.
3- We are now the crotchety old f*cks that
just need to get over it….
As cool as we think we were, how “individual”
we thought we were, we all dressed in the trends of our teen contemporaries. We
dressed like everyone else, much like they do now. We passed on our stupidity
to them and they follow trends like we did. If you’re still trying to front the
“individual” fashion sense you had as a teen, dude, you need to get over that.
Fact: You were NEVER that cool.
We were no smarter and we need to stop
complaining about the current teen fashion trends….
8:[ Honestly, I don’t
think I have been hired at all the summer video camps I applied to because I
told them I would not treat the participants like kids….
9:[ From the “This Just In” Department:I haven't been keeping up with the latest news. As you know, I have no TV nor access to TV channels, I should say. Yahoo keeps replacing my Science and Technology News sections with Sports and Politics, which are the two most useless things eve created by mankind. i consider myself a sort of societal litmus test, if it is important enough for me here on the bottom of society's ladder, then it must be news worth hearing. I am sure there have been recent celebrity deaths that I could comment on, but really, who pays attention to celebrities...?
10:[ Last Item of the Month: So, lately, I have been noticing that I
keep running into people you don’t know someplace else: you know what I mean.
You see someone on a semi-not-at-all-regular basis at a particular location and
then some time later you walk past or run across them some place else entirely.
For, example, I see some of the cashiers at my local Dominick’s on a regular
basis, some remember me and smile and all that. But I ran across two in other
locations. One I passed at C2E2. I don’t think he noticed me as I tried to give
him a nod. He was dressed like a vampire pimp or something. And the other I
found lives in my building, even on the same floor, so now we say hello
whenever we cross paths….
Speaking of cashiers, I need to mention this
one Walgreen’s Cashier and boy, talk about doing a shitty job, shitty. I was in
line for the usual guy behind the counter when he calls for backup as the line
was pretty long. I was third in line but when this young lady from the cosmetic
counter opens up the other register and calls for the next person in line, the
next person in line tells me to go ahead. So I do. This girl just scans and
dumps my items into the bag making no effort to pack them, just tosses them,
THUMP, beep, THUMP into the bag. It came up to $8.09 and I gave her a ten and
began fishing in my pocket for change. She counted out the change and at the
same time we handed each other our change. I said, “I have nine cents.”
She said, register drawer not even closed, and
all she would have had to do was drop the coins and grab a dollar, “But I
already counted it out.”
I shook my head, said “Seriously?”
I took my change and walked out.
That will do it for this month. But before you
go, I’ll leave you with this little story about my building. One day I was
walking to the elevator, the same one I was stuck in a few months back. Now,
before I pressed the button to go down, (I live on the top floor) the elevator
began moving up from the basement. Which surprised me a bit that it would start
moving before I pressed the button. I figured some one got on in the basement
as was coming up. The elevator did not stop and I figured some one was getting
off on my floor. The door opened and no one was on it! Weird.
The other day, Bonnie was with me when the
same thing happened, the elevator began moving before I pushed the button on
the elevator. Again, it came all the way up from the basement and stopped. No
one was on it. I asked Bonnie if she noticed that but she said she wasn’t
paying attention. Double weird. I’ll try to catch it on video next time.
Again, I hope that you are all doing well and
the weather is not catching you too unawares and off guard, as it is want to do
that sneaky bastard. I hope that you will comment, correct or contradict any
item in any edition of WoS. I feel that this month’s may challenge you too. I
hope I do not offend. Which is why I do not reply to comments left here. I am
open to having an opposing opinion posted. I have had some of my reviews cited
and contradicted. Look at my review of “Scalped”. I figure my ego doesn’t need
to pound what are essentially my own opinions into people’s faces and they should
be allowed to add their two-cents.
So, feel free to comment and voice your
opinion. I feel that people are scared to voice opinions because they do not
want to deal the backlash, I think. Don’t be scared. You can change your
opinions, just as you can try to change other’s. It should be a free market of
ideas. So. Go ahead.
Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers
how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
© 2012 Ernest M. Whiteman III
