Hello People of the World;
Well here we are in the middle of all this rain and
cold. We have flooding streets and sink holes swallowing cars. This month has
been a pretty terrible one so far with such insane things going on in the
world, especially this last week. Makes me wonder why you would turn to a trite
little blog such as mine in these times. But, here we are.
Anyways, let’s get started shall we?
1:[ First
Item of the Month:
More Truthfulness
My Useless Self: On Ego and
Dating (…Kinda)
The more I thought about writing on dating the more
I thought it was a stupid thing to write about as I have never dated much to
begin with. I have never been on a date. Some confusion over one, once. I just
don’t rate with the ladies when all is said and done and I’m fine with that. Right
now I am in a stable relationship with Bonnie and she has become one of my best
friends. So, it seems rather dumb for me to espouse about dating. See, what ego
to think I could write about something as such. Beside Louis CK says it better HERE.
Updates from my other Truthfulness Projects:
+ NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger Art of EW3
A Treatise on
American Indian Art
“All you care about is money. This city deserves a
better class of artist. And I’m going to give it to them.”
I’ve
taken an unexpected break from my Ledger Art Project because I find that I am
overly-planning the sketches and they are getting more elaborate. I miss the
fun spontaneity of a “Chief Batman Horse” sketch but I have a ton of images
that I want to draw. Plus, I’ve been writing a lot lately, so that sort of cuts
into my drawing time. Rest assured, I will return to it soon, as I still not
have seen a project quite like mine. Yet….
+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies of Native America:
(Because Seven is a sacred
number) COMPLETED:
I am constantly surprised that no one ever sees
that Native Americans do the exact same things. I am going to post this soon. I
just need to get it out of the way to get to other things.
+ ONE: A Spoken Word:
I have decided to get this done as soon as possible
and by the time you read this I may have a rough draft ready for open mics….
+ Shouting in Circles: A Spoken Word:
It’s done. I just need to start finding a forum to
read it aloud….
NEXT MONTH: Ego and Fatherhood? Let me know.
2:[ Why I never smoked pot: I
was not a big pot smoker in school. Actually, I never smoked pot in my life. I
just never care about it. Also, I get headaches from really strong chemical
smells. Though I never judged my friends that do or did. But here is another
reason I have never gotten into it. I recently heard an Internet star espouse
about The Concept of Preset – automatic behaviors that we never think about,
such as taking off your coat when you come home, going to the bathroom. This
guy said that for him weed turns off the “presets” and he begins thinking of his
automatic behavior in terms of as-it’s-happening: “I am taking off my coat
now”, “I am sitting on the couch”, “I am looking at the ceiling”, “I will think
about this or that.”
That is how it affects him. I am wondering if that
is how it affects all smokers. You see, I do this anyway without smoking weed.
My brain is constantly going all the time. I have conversations with myself
that solve every crisis imaginable and with people I wish I could talk to and
all manner of things are discussed, I think about where I put my coat, my keys,
my bag, books, kicking off my shoes, everything. It is so much that I run MST3K
on the VCR to give me something to go to sleep to. So, I don’t need weed to
make goofy connections to my thought or to turn off the “presets”, I’m wired
like that already….
3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:
+ Have a ton of Redbox
Reviews: Redbox is good to me. I have heard a bunch of movie snobs say that
there is nothing really good in the Redbox. Come on. So, as a result I have a
ton of quick movie reviews for you:
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 – shoddy
animation, flat voice overs and a too nostalgic fan base made for the right
combination to make this clunky work as popular as ever. Come on compare this
to this and tell me the comic book was not more powerful. Plus, they gave Batman a
Quagmire chin.
The Heir Apparent: Largo Wench – I finally got
around to watching this riff on Hamlet. Interesting work but the twists actually
weaken the premise for me. Good but not great.
End of Watch – SPOILER (!) This really should have
been titled “All Latinos Must Die” because that is all Latinos do in this.
After being riddled with bullets and Jake Gyllenhal appears at the funeral with
only a hurt leg, I threw up my hands in exasperation. What a crock!
Skyfall – Enjoyable flick. Getting back to Status
Quo really. Q, M, Moneypenny the whole thing, just gave me a bad feeling after
the other two Craig Bond movies…. Typical. Getting back to fan service, give it
no integrity, just service the fans for the money in their pockets.
The Man with the Iron Fists – The Man with the Iron
Fists was the shit! Oh, wait, it was just shit. No, I don’t care who made it,
with how much love for the genre or what he was trying to do. It sucked. If you
are so steeped in the genre and still cannot get it right? Call yourself
Quenten Tarantino and maybe you’ll get fans to buy into it.
Killing Them Softly – Pretty good little caper film
with an interesting performance by Brad Pitt set against the economic downturn
of the US and the ensuing elections. Check it out. Sorely unseen in the
theaters.
+ Hey, I also actually got
to the movie theater this past month:
Evil Dead – was just what I needed to wash the taste
of the shitty “Life of Pi” out of my movie-going palate. Not that this was
great, I enjoyed it some. But it was still much better than “Life of Pi”. This
is a remake of Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” that so-called cult classic that
everyone never watches because of “Evil Dead 2” and “Army of Darkness” exists
but still cannot get over the “raping” of. (“Raping”, really guys?) Fucking get
over it. This was pretty good. It dragged at some points. I don’t really see
scary movies but this was enjoyable.
Jurassic Park 3D – saw this with Bonnie and Char
and enjoyed every minute of it. It stands the test of time. There were no added
scenes, no updated effects just the movie converted to some really good 3D. It
just goes to show that when your little girls still gets scared by it, it is a
classic film.
+ For some reason I am
growing my hair out for “Hamlet” and yet I have no way to even get anything
shot and edited right now. A haircut might be in order soon. But first, I
actually will be rolling camera on “Hamlet” very soon. We are shooting Act One,
Scene Two this late spring early summer. I am so looking forward to it.
4:[ One thing I always here in
today’s political discourse is the use of the derogatory term “redneck” to
describe Conservative Republicans or, at least, their constituency. Today it is
used to describe folks as backwater hillbillies that have an ancient and warped
sense of morality, degrading working class and rural white people. Well, the
actual origin of the word “redneck” is truly deeply steeped in Democratic Party
labeling. Now, before you RepCons celebrate another checkmark on the list of
Bad Things Liberals Do, it was actually used as a good thing, a positive trait
of Midwestern and Southern farmers.
See, the term redneck was used to gather political
support of pro-Democratic parties in the southern states. The earliest use of
it was around 1891 when in support of local elections for Democratic
candidates; local newspapers offered the support of the local “rednecks”, or
the hardworking, rural people in the area. Red neck because the backs of their
necks where burned red from their labors. Later, in 1900, the term was used to
describe the faction within the party itself to represent poor southern
farmers.
By 1910, the faction began wearing red bandanas
around their necks at rallies and other party functions as a way of making
themselves visible. Which is why when you see toys and images of the nostalgic
farmer type, they usually have a red bandana. I remember my sisters and
brothers and I having a Fisher Price Little People Farmer set and the farmer
did indeed have a little red plastic triangle for a bandana. Weird, that I
remember that.
Anyways, in the 1930’s and 40’s when southern mine
workers began forming unions to strike against terrible working and safety
conditions, the term was used again. There is debate as to the actual meaning
of it, whether it was to represent the workingman or the blood spilled in the
violence that erupted from those events. In any case, by the 1970’s the use of
the term became a derogatory slur against people of the south in general.
Whether it was the people or the Dem Party that changed is a tough call. My bet
is on the both….
5:[ Ah yes, settle in Dear
Readers for more of:
Adventures at
the Coffee Shop!
+ Been hanging out at the Starbucks at Chase Tower
of late because I find myself downtown more often these days and since I am
always using the bank I go to the coffee shop in the Chase Tower. It is a very
different kind of patron, lots of stuffed, blue dress shirts with white collars
and business ladies. Yet, the people serving them are very much NOT of the
“Business Sector”. Funny, how we think that equity reigns in America….
+ Since my modem died I am back in the Starbuckses
(Starbucksi?) and libraries (librari?) for Internet access. Sitting here in my
old Rogers Park haunt notice a family of three gaming with each other over
their cell phones. Very nice….
+ I am pretty surprised at how much people do not
care about the events in Boston, East Texas and now in Denver. Sitting in the
Chase Tower Starbucks, I could not help but overhear everyone’s Very Important
Conversations! Business guys acting like they’re in Mad Men and talking about
suddenly getting their project and how much thy can make from it. Dudes in the
coffee shop talking to their friend about letting them buy some stupid thing
and buying it from them for cheap so they can make money, dudes in the street
talking about flipping houses and how much they can make from it. Even on the
train the day the Boston explosions happened, people would mention it then ask
what bar they were meeting up at and about the game. People are selfish.
6:[ My Cellphone Floyd: So
recently my phone service recently reset my voice mail system. Which they do
every so often but I had my phone Floyd for many years and one of the saddest
thing to happen because of this was losing My Charlotte’s voice message. I have
had that on there for all the years I owned the phone. It used to be Char’s
account before it was ine. So, for years, Char’s little voice would alert
callers to leave a message. People would note it and I would know that they
actually called me. I have even had some folks I know, have their kids leave
voice mail messages after they found out Char was on mine. But, now, like many
things from my past, it is gone. I will have to get her to record a new one for
me I guess.
Bonnie mentioned that the new message that cuts off
so now. Because I haven’t completed the update to the service and now when you
get to my voice mail the voice alerts you that you’ve reached my number and
then it says, “Please leave-CLICK!”
Somehow, that’s perfectly all right with me….
7:[ And now Wisdom of the
Sages presents:
“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”
+ One of the things I learned from Facebook is
this: “The shit that todays’ kids are into fuckin’ sucks! But pining for those
same things 15 years later is awwwwwwesooooooome! It’s cool!”
Hipster Nostalgia must stop.
+ The End of Cool: I guess I really shouldn’t blame
the Hipsters for ruining Cool. It was and remains something that is packaged
and sold to all of us. So why should I care if a bunch of rich kids trying to
act poor bought into the idea of ironic self-reference? They are as stupid as
any of us buying into a trend. Do you want to know who really killed “Cool”?
Fonzie, believe it or not.
Yep, the Fonz himself killed “Cool”. Once he was
declared cool and all the audiences across America bought into it, it was
something ABC packaged and sold to us ever since. There was always something
cool before that – style, movements, cliques, people or what-have-you. But we
were never sold it. We had to earn the moniker of being cool or something had
to be really special and so outside of the norm to be cool. Now, it’s simply a
trend repackaged and sold to us every year and every generation buys into it.
Thanks Fonz.
+ I think I wrote about this before but it bears
repeating – use of the word “ghetto” to describe things. “That’s too ghetto”
and so on. I don’t know when that began but I know it has to stop. It shows
absolutely no consideration for those living in ghettos now. Ghettos used to be
the places society put it its undesirables. It was the worst place to live in
hope that whatever population put there would kill it self off. These days,
ghettos are more closely associated with African-Americans. Far be it for me to
speak up for them, but when you say that broken down something that you think
is so funny because people still use it is so “ghetto”, what you are really saying
is that it’s not good enough for you, but it’s good enough for poor, black
people. That needs to stop….
8:[ Working with AYV and going
to various schools for class visits, I was recently reminded of a fact of life:
That teachers still catch a whole lot of crap. No, this isn’t pro-union, down
with CPS Corporate buffoonery. No, teachers still catch crap from the
STUDENTS(!), those lithe, fragile little angels that deserve our best efforts,
intentions and resources. Unless, you know, they live on the south side, any
south side of the city, then, f*ck ‘em. (If they don’t look like my kids then
I’m not gonna post my gun outrage on Facebook.)
No, I was sitting in as one of the teachers was
teased and made fun of. It reminded me of the torture I put my own schoolteachers
through. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I guess I could have said something but the
way this teacher reacted to the crap she got was that is was pretty much that
it simply comes with being a teacher. She knows. So, yeah, they put up with a
lot: growing class sizes, limited resources, catching shit from both the
administrations and the parents as well as getting it from their students on a
nigh daily basis. This particular teacher that reminded me of this was pretty
laidback and cool about it – came with the territory. Something I think most
teachers forget. But it was rather interesting to be reminded of that again….
9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: Just thought
I would take this space to announce that very soon I will be self-publishing an
ebook of short stories titled “The Autobiography of Ble Woman”. I am publishing
through SmashWords and hopefully, this will be a source of income though I will
not be selling the book for a huge price.
I have been working on the Blue Woman stories since
about 2002 when I wrote the first story in a sitting as a Seattle’s Best. I
brought out Blue Woman in a Fiction Writing course at Columbia College my last
year there. The stories were greatly liked by my classmates. I have always had
plans to sell them as short booklets containing 10 stories each with four
volumes. I plan about 33 stories all are actually titled and some are half
finished. They are put into the books in the order they are finished with the
final three in the fourth volume standing apart and a sort of closing to the
three main character’s lives.
Once I get this to SmashWords and it goes through
their publication process, I will post the link to the ebook page here and
other places. I am thinking of doing a book release event or a reading or
something afterwards but I am very broke and will have to figure that out
somehow.
So, look out for “The Autobiography of Blue Woman”
volume one, coming soon….
10:[ Last Item of the Month:
My Charlotte
This month I was given permission to write about
one of my all-time, favorite people. So here goes:
Where to begin? I guess when we first met. She came
into the office in a stroller and a yellow sundress that she looked like she
protested against. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I got up
from my desk to greet her. I crouched in front of her and her suspicious glare.
I had read that waggling a finger at a baby shows trust if the baby grasps it.
I waggled my finger at her. She eyed it, then me. Giving me the Eye that she
still does today. Then, suddenly and without warning, the tiniest of smiles
spreads across her face, eyes on me, then, in a flash it is gone and suspicion
returns. Above us, Bonnie remarks, “Wow, I’ve never seen her react that way to
anyone.”
So it began. She asked me to not write anything
embarrassing about her but my praise and awe of her can only serve to embarrass
her further as she is quite humble in my opinion. She still knows she’s awesome
though. She reads daily, not just school but for fun. She asks questions
constantly. We took her to see “Argo” and had so many questions about US
Foreign Policy. She saw the connection to Apartheid when she saw “District 9”
when she was 10. We have had discussion on global economics and how it
influences our foreign relations. What other child thinks of these things? She
is so smart and athletic and artistic and musical and so very present. That is
how I describe her mentality, as present. She is aware and questions
everything.
She still is a teen, buying music and close and
looking at her cellphone, but she is so much more than that. Samantha and her
both. I just saw her again today and it seems that she is growing more every time
I see her. She is beginning to look like a high school student before my very
eyes. Her face is blossoming and she has an athlete’s build thanks to her going
out and making the team for every sport this year! I mentioned her growth and she
shoots me her patented look and says, “That’s why it’s called ‘growing’.” Then,
playfully throws in a “Duh!” That’s my girl.
I know that with my age, my looks, my income level
that I will never have natural children of my own. That is something I have
come to accept in recent years. Having Charlotte in my life MORE that makes up
for that. To know her is a blessing. To be with her is a blessing. To have had
a hand in raising her and educating her is a blessing. To see her grow into the
brave, intelligent young woman that she has always been is a blessing. I really
do not think that God exists, but if he does, he did one thing right and put
Charlotte on this planet….
That will do it for this month.
I hope you are safe and sound where ever you read
this. Once again, I invite comments, corrections and contradictions to what I
have written here. Feel free to open the discussion. Sorry that these have been
getting out so late lately but my job has me running all over the city
assisting teachers with video or poster projects. Couple that with running the
film festival, which we have a site visit soon, starting my writing career and
a hell of a lot of uncompensated commuting, I get home beat every day.
In fact today was the first day in while where I
had a day off. Tomorrow, right back to school visits. So, let me know how you
are doing and what is going on in your world. Take care of each other and give
some considerations. Thanks.
Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers how
pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III
