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. 

That One NSFW, Child Endangering, Little Viewed ... Post

Tulsa, Oklahoma

2016

What is the difference between what is happening on the news now and the lynchings of yesteryear? I suppose if you use the absolute definition for lynching, there will be some difference. Lynchings, for example, were usually by hanging. Lynchings certainly weren't televised. People would come and take lots of pictures though, and those pictures were sold sometimes, and put on postcards and distributed with the daily mail. People liked to look at the pictures, I guess, though I can not imagine, for the very life of me, what kind of person, what kind of human being, would like to look at something like that. Or rather, I can. I just can't relate. 

By definition, "lynching is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a group. It is an informal form of group social control, but with a drift toward PUBLIC SPECTACLE. Lynchings have been more frequent in times of SOCIAL and ECONOMIC tension, and have often been a means for a dominant group to suppress challengers. However, it has also resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice."

In taking this wiki definition apart, one could say that the police are not exactly an informal group. The police are not, however, a judge, jury, or executioner. Perhaps they can be considered somewhere in the middle of the angry mob that chases poor Frankenstein and a judge, jury and executioner. The police, for example, are allowed to take a life when innocent lives or their own lives are threatened, which definitely launches them over the line of angry mob...but, how far? Where is the line? Does anybody even know anymore?

The above few questions are not for the police, particularly. The police are a group of people who are governed by the society for which they perform their duties. What some police are doing, they are doing because the society allows it. Things really are JUST that simple. 

A good example will be this comment that I pulled from...somewhere...and want to analyze. I picked this one because it is not, by far, the most hateful that I've seen. It is also not the most unreasonable. 

"...its very relevant..."

This refers to the dead man's prior history of drug abuse. I don't know what drug they're talking about here because I don't t think it matters at all, but this person does think that it matters. This is one of those: It matters if Trayvonne was maybe/possibly making lean but does not matter that George beats his wife and waves guns at people, people.

"Honestly I am really tired of this mass media on these cases."

I'm tired of looking at what I consider to be senseless death too, but for very different reasons than this person. I would like the deaths to stop and, therefore, there would be no need for mass media coverage. What I do not want is for the deaths to continue and there is no mass media coverage. The truth may be ugly but I try not to flinch away from it. I most certainly will not ignore it. There is a problem, let's solve it together, shall we?

"Its doing nothing but creating a divide."

Uhm, there's already a divide. Pretending there is not a divide does not solve the division problem. Unarmed people are being shot down in the street by the people that are supposed to be protecting them.

"A persons prior or usual behavior is very much relevant it also describes the person in question." 

If you have a video of a man with his hands up in the universal gesture of submission being shot down in the street, I don't see what his prior record has to do with anything. Did they ask to see his prior record before they shot him and used that information to deem him a threat?

I can see why such information would be useful in court--but, uhm, you gotta GET to court. Alive. 

"Now do I think this man should have died, of course not."

This is something of a relief.  

"But I also feel if I were black I would be pissed off at my own people..."

You mean humans, right?

"...change the bad image..."

Humans do have a shitty image. We rob, rape and kill everything we touch. Well, some of us anyway. 

"... get control of the thugs killing each other..."

What do 'thugs' killing each other have to do with this incident or any of the multitude of others? Are you saying that all black people are "thugs" and that this somehow justifies the murder of unarmed citizens who happen to be black? By "thugs", I am going to assume you mean 'bad guys". Mass media has tampered with the original definition of the word. How, pray tell, does one "get control" of the bad guys? Aren't the bad guys rather uncontrollable by nature? That's why they're bad guys, yeah?

 "...and you will see racial profiling disappear."

           ______________________________RETARD_________________________OR ...

Lynchings have been more frequent in times of SOCIAL and ECONOMIC tension, and have often been a means for a dominant group to suppress challengers. However, it has also resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice."

Nightmare mode deescalates

Fairy Tale

Been reading manga like crazy--all love stories like a constant throbbing fever dream. Over the last couple of days, I've read so many I stopped counting long ago--which drives that never ending ache to produce something like it. Writing is a symptomatic disease, I swurr. Recent experience made it that way though. What was once my only sanctuary became a prison. And all them damn boxes that other people like to put you in. "You must do it this way, Raquel...It's got to be that way, Raquel...You should think like this, Raquel."

I won't say that I don't care. That would be a lie. It's like...

...a huge ocean of water pressing against a wooden door. The door is just strong enough to hold the water back but there are cracks in the wood and little rivets of water seeping through those breaches and I've got my back up against the fucking thing, trying to hold it back...And I'm getting splinters so my blood is mixing with the water, and I can't swim so when it breaks, I'm a goner...

Imma drown...

And I am soooo looking forward to that ... release. That very personal, intimate, done-down-dirty-in-the-dark, orgasmic...release. "I-Imm...s-s-soooo c-cl-close!"

____

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away from here and now, a beautiful boy, and he was a boy then, gave a dark forest fairy a somber, but brilliant, melody. And when the fairy listened to the lovely tune, she did not understand the significance of its meaning. Still, she thought that it was beautiful and she kept that gift and left the boy behind to go back into the forest of shadow and golden light where she had been born. 

Many years passed and many things happened, but that fairy never forgot that boy--who had become a man in her absence. And sometimes she listened to that song. And slowly, over time, she came to understand it and why he had given it to her. 

Something she had considered frivolous had been so beautiful.

And

That 

Bitch

Cried...

My kinda town...Pfft.

 

(Again, again...I can't draw; nawt my work)

Get it, Ivy! Get it! Get it!

_____

Yesterday, I wrote a rather long post about how we came to the impasse that we are at now as far as the presidency is concerned. Meaning, I was debating with myself who was going to win the election: Evilyn (you know, Skeletor's bitch) or Voldemort. And, more importantly, how a nation that holds itself in such high 'self' esteem ended up with such grotesque candidates in line for the most powerful seat in the land. In the end, I deleted it all though. It said more about me than the world that I live in. 

Also realized that I live in the most racist state in the Union, which came as something of a surprise. It's weird the kind of disrespect and mistreatment one can get used to if it's always been like that. I thought segregation was illegal in this country, but this city is extremely segregated. The high school's here suck too. Most of them have a rating of one out of ten and are dangerous places filled with people with as much interest in learning as I have in joining the ku klux klan. It all seems rather nefarious and purposeful to me. 

One of the best examples I can give is this ten year old boy I saw one day and his father. I happened to be in the principals office of a relatively decent but not good school and the guy and his kid came in. The kid had a straight A average and high scores. He was from Mississippi and his father was desperate to get him into the school I was standing in because you might not get your face beat in. Unfortunately for him, his straight A student was about a half a block out of the district for that school. And that poor, smart kid had to go to a school where beating ass was the norm, where he will be persecuted for being intelligent and his grades will inevitably drop in an effort to blend in with the other kids and keep them from kicking his ass and stealing his lunch money every day. I saw it as the probable (but hopefully not) death of one of the intelligent people. The little light in his eyes has probably flickered out by now, honestly. 

It's so serious here that Kenwood Academy, one of the very few high schools of any note in the city have taken up the practice of doing home visits--something that I looked up and found highly illegal, but they're doing anyway. I thought I'd mention it, since it's not being acknowledged anywhere--like a lot of really wrong shit that people do to one another. School's here tend to promote ass-kissery instead of intelligence. And while ass-kissery will get you extremely far in this bizarro-verse of a world--intelligence, genuine intelligence is what it takes to change the world. No Child Left Behind, my ass. Lots of children are being left behind within this selective system. It's focus is wrong. It's focus is anti-progressive. It makes life harder than it has to be on the people who could actually grow up and change things. But, somewhere in there, is the very obvious plan of maintenance of  the status quo sameness of certain groups of people. It is a sad and sorry, but very real, state of affairs. 

This city, this shitty nightmare of a mayor fired so many teachers it's a wonder I don't see hordes of them standing in the street with cardboard signs that read: WILL TEACH FOR FOOD.

Word to the wise: A government that does not want an educated populace wants slaves. Brain dead, worker bee, easily controlled, slaves.

____

Playing: Elder Scrolls: Oblivion; Playing: Fallout Shelter; Wishing for: Vampire Masquerade. Played the tabletop DnD version of Masquerade and Werewolf--because those are things that a dork would do. I've heard nothing but good things about the PC version of Masquerade. Interested in: Fable 1, 2, and 3. Missed those when they were out because I am a PlayStation person and they were made for X-Box? -- the opposition, the enemy. 

_____

Not writing shit, but did read another really good zombie novel--first three books were free. Left five well-deserved stars, but, again, didn't say shit 'cause talking is for humans and I am a motherfuckin' APE--in the jungle knocking down trees, swinging from vines and shit. 

I really liked the main character in this one. He was relatable in crazy, fucked up family, everybody-leave-me-alone-but-let-me-help-you-though type way. He had a crazy name I thought only I could make up. And, just generally, I liked the dude. Liking him drove the plot because, whatever he was into, I wanted him to LIVE through it. Good book. Good writer. 

____

I always thought this singer was really pretty. Love the song.

Blah

Today is gonna suck ASS

And not in a good way...

Going to throw back to the shit that makes me happy and just try to survive it.

"Only thug in the hood that was wild enough to tame me."