Thinking Out Loud about CONFIDENCE...OR NAH

I live in a world where Donald Trump is running for president and might win. A good portion of the country is going to vote for him against their own interest because he's singing that siren's song of oppression that makes them feel good inside. They're still broke and he's not going to change that, but there are some brown people underneath them--and that's all that really matters to them. He is running against a woman who labeled African American youth "Super Predators" in the 90's. She said: "...they must be brought to heel" in her speech, like they were dogs. Animals. Ultimately, these people are ants in the point that I attempting to make here, which is a shame, because they are a nightmare, or should be. But they're small, insignificant to the point. And the point is confidence, or, a lack thereof. 

Confidence is a thing that comes from the self. While I believe it can be greatly affected by the workings of other people ala Jean Paul Sarte's line of reasoning, it is still an issue of self. A good example would be a rats in a maze (common saying, apt too). The Makers of the maze have all the keys and levers for trap doors that the rat has no idea about. The Makers of the maze have all the cheese. He/she can give the rat cheese or not. If the rat hits a brick wall or falls through the floor into a subterranean tunnel within the maze and has to take days, weeks, even years, to make his way back to the starting point, does the rat feel bad inside and lose confidence in his/her attempts to navigate and free him/herself from the maze? Probably. That's the set-up, right? The design of the maze. Ultimate control. 

Coming to understand the maze is the impossible thing. And you should have seen my little rat brain working, attempting to understand why publishing company after publishing company failed no matter how much revenue that company was generating--all of it in an attempt to control the hungry rat population, desperate for the cheese...willing to do anything for some recognition and a toothy nibble of that delicious Swiss in the hopes of one day eating enough cheese to become a Maker One Day and having sadistic control of all the other rats. Biting one another over crumbs while their Maker/Breaker Overlords bet against them and pick winners and losers at whim. 

Another publishing company has failed (name withheld 'cause they never did a damn thing to me), and, frankly, I am vaguely sad about it. This one was rather beautiful. I liked the way it began. That audacity and bravery that started it. The person that created it was a hero to me in a distant kind of way. They bucked the unjust, rape-like, system, much to the system's absolute rage and despair. They were a rat that became a Maker--one of the very few that actually made that happen. They had a beautiful thing going as far as rats and Makers go. The other foolish rats are taking pleasure in the death of this company in their Trump-supporting rat-like way. Tittering to themselves as the destruction of something beautiful--watching the world burn, so to speak. And I'm just watching what I can only consider to be a kind of rat-like-senseless-self-destructive-witch-burning mania. When there's no cheese, the rats turn mean and cannibalistic, you know. And the Makers laugh their asses off at the gladiator sport of it. 

-Sigh- What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, confidence...

...or, a lack thereof...

I like to write. 

I just discovered that I'm not a fucking rat. 

And I'm confident in that.

Black Mirror: San Junipero

If I was a Saudi Prince with a Saudi harem, these two ladies would be my stars

I consider the show Black Mirror to be horror. Normally, it shows the ugly side of the way humans are living today and how that's going to expand into worse horror in the future. It knocks the 'like me' desperation of social media. It makes little mechanical bees that'll kill you. It show us what a human zoo would look like if we lose any more of our souls to the various machines. I enjoy this show and I've recommended it before. I like horror stories a lot. 

However, this season, I saw the most beautiful love story on Black Mirror and I don't want those people who crave love to miss it. It's my public responsibility to rave about this thing. 

San Junipero is a place you can go that eliminates the mystery of what happens to you after you die. It is one big constant party and when you are dying you are allowed into San Junipero at five hour increments in preparation for the day that you truly 'pass over'. Yorkie (brown hair, glasses, above) is wandering around the party town. She's lovely in a nerdy way and lost. She spies the beautiful Kelly trying to get away from some guy and she follows them, already enchanted.

Yorkie has never known love. She has been in a coma for most of her life because she came out to her parents as gay and the pain of their rejection caused her to get into a terrible accident that stole away her life. Kelly was married for forty-six years. She put away her desire for women early on and she really did love her husband. Kelly wants to follow him and the daughter she lost into whatever lies beyond death. She does not want to be a part of San Junipero.

But she didn't count on falling in love with Yorkie.

Honestly, it's just beautiful. It has all the elements of the other stories. It is the same kind of thing. But it isn't horror. Or, rather, the love story triumphs over one of the last images which is their little batteries/cells being locked in with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of others, in the big machine that is San Junipero. 

I don't know. Maybe there is something horrific in being in a simulated kind of life. But all I could see was two miserable people who found one another and were happy. The other residents of San Junipero  seemed kind of desperate to me. Partying like it was the end of the world. Orgies seemed pretty standard there and all kinds of weirdness to make up for a lack that seemed to be there. 

It's the same way here though, yeah?

The only difference is the LOVE.

Highly recommended, 10 out of 10 and all that. Beautiful story. 

 
Kelly and Yorkie 4 Ever

Two Week Rant

Kizuna is one of my favorite animes. Ranmaru and Enjoji are dem boyz. I love them. I love their relationship. I love their love. I think I've watched this thing a hundred times, but, truth was, I'd never read the manga. Bored of the same thing, and lacking in content, I decided to add it to the Stephen King binge I'd been on lately. Nothing better than reading the actual book, right? Wrong.

So much rape. And not so much rape itself, but the disingenuous way that rape was handled partially, if not totally, because the main characters were men. None of this was in the anime. And I'm glad, though I feel tricked. Ran is almost raped, drugged, and sleeps with this dude's brother because the drug demanded that he sleep with somebody. He experiences very little trauma due to this incident. And the reasoning seemed to be, at least to me, because he's a man. Then, that self-same brother gets raped by some stranger and, save for a moment where he's triggered for like two seconds, life goes on in that shit happens type of way.

Ran was always kind of bitchy, but it was funny in the anime. His antics just made him thoughtful and kind of insecure despite the fact that's he's beautiful. It was cute. In the manga, he's feminine to the point of being really distracting and rather irritating. I kept imagining him with breasts to see if the story would change for me. And, in the end, I discerned that it would not. I found him to be so annoying, this character that I loved. I couldn't figure out why Enjoji would put with his cheating ass for two seconds, let alone a lifetime. His apology was kind of like: "You weren't there and I slipped on a dick and that's that." He was absolutely irrational at times and it was not cute. Once, casually, Enjoji asked him if he was on his period and I was like: Is he?

Mercifully, these things didn't happen in the anime. The anime just presents their beautiful relationship with its ups and downs and flaws and whatnot. Ran's still crazy but he comes of as a man who is in love with another man and they, together, are beautiful. Truth be told, I don't really mind him being extra bitchy with sauce--there are dudes like that and they deserve to be loved...alawt. That part was just a little surprising, and I wanted to slap him all the time. Enjoji likes him though and that's all that really matters to me and he's still brave, being crippled and forcing himself to walk so he wouldn't be a burden and all that good shit. Still one of the most courageous, bad ass things I've seen this fiction-life and that's after he threw himself in front of the car to save his lover's life. Sooo...

I suppose I was just surprised by the...difference. I wouldn't have liked this story as much if I'd read the manga first, I think. It would have definitely gone into the category of things written a little wrong for me. I realize that it's a little dated, and, truly, it's better than a lot of the stuff written during that time. Like...nobody died, for example. Attacked by dinosaurs. So the other could be alone forever and regret his life 'decisions'. Still, it dropped a peg or two in my esteem. Not a lot, considering, but a little. And I find that to be a little sad. 

_____

I read a lot of Mr. King. I recommend: Revival (The Great God Pan), Dr. Sleep (nice to see you again, Dannnnnny) and this weird thing called Blaze (Of Mice and Men). Also read Jerusalem's Lot over again--because I forgot the way that little town started its horrible legacy. 

_____

Side-watching: Luke Cage and laughing because 'It's racist!"

The definition of the world racism does a lunatic dance in America. Is basic literacy really that low in this mofo?

Dumb-de-dumb-dumb-DUMB.

It's a good show. All black men should be bulletproof these days. Then the cops would have to drop nukes on them.