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This morning I'm reading Dan Renzi's site and he has seen Murderball. Anne told me I should see this movie and frankly, I thought I would have little interest in it. Read Dan's write up of the film, it's excellent. I love it when Dan advices our wheelchair bound friends to head for the dance floor because most able bodied people can't dance anyway. You have to admit, he has a point. OMG! I would so want a pimped out wheelchair!
Believe me, my friend Josh is not a Kelly Clarkson fan, but I love this song and our friend the lovely and talented Jeanna burned the CD for me. I blast this song in my car and it always makes me think of Josh and his current "situation." You know...the realization that you are SO much happier since that person stepped off? Here are the lyrics...
Here's the thing we started off friends
It was cool but it was all pretend
Yeah yeah
Since you've been gone
You dedicated you took the time
Wasn't long till I called you mine
Yeah Yeah
Since you've been gone
And all you'd ever hear me say
Is how I pictured me with you
That's all you'd ever hear me say
But since you've been gone
I can breathe for the first time
Im so movin on
Yeah yeah
Thanks to you
Now I get
What I want
Since you've been gone
How can I put it? you put me on
I even fell for that stupid love song
Yeah yeah
Since you've been gone
How come I never hear you say
I just wanna be with you
I guess you never felt that way
But since you've been gone
I can breathe for the first time
Im so movin on
Yeah yeah
Thanks to you
Now I get
I get what I want
Since you've been gone
You had your chance you blew it
Out of sight, out of mind
Shut your mouth I just can't take it
Again and again and again and again
Since you've been gone
I can breathe for the first time
Im so movin on
Yeah yeah
Thanks to you (thanks to you)
Now I get
I get what I want
I can breathe for the first time
Im so movin on
Yeah yeah
Thanks to you (thanks to you)
Now I get (I get)
You should know (you should know)
That I get
I get what I want
Since you've been gone
Since you've been gone
Since you've been gone
Apparently former club kid now convict Michael Alig still garnishes controversy. He sends one little birthday card to former celebutant turned author James St. James and the world goes nuts! Of course you will find yours truly in the thick of things taking some heat. You know I love it.
I rented this documentary from Netflix called The Celluloid Closet. It tracks Hollywood's portrayal of GLBT people in films. It's a very enlightening film. I realize that Hollywood did the same thing to GLBT people that it did to black people. It defines them for white middle class America the way they believe middle class America wants to see gay people, stereotypical. Basically they were presented as suicidal, tragic, depraved figures taken down due to abnormal sexual perversions. Things started to change a bit in the early 1980's but today I still see many gay folks presented as the flaming sidekick of some straight person who is looking for love. It's the same as when African-Americans are always the "best friend." Illuminating the limitations can only help us open our minds and challenge repressed societies attitudes about sex.
Ahh Leonardo and a pizza....well at least I can have the pizza.
On a more shallow note, aren't these Kenneth Cole shoes the cutest?
More bombings in the UK and it's really getting annoying now. Can't these terrorists come up with more creative ways to protest? Stand on the corner and hand out flyers like a normal person. Whats with all these bombing materials? No wonder they are living in caves if thats what they spend their money on. Terrorists, my advice to you is take the money you spend on bombs and buy your families something nice. Everyone will be happier.
* Bush nominates a new Supreme Court justice and the homo phobic religious right is chomping at the bit to do away with Roe vs. Wade, a woman's right to choose. I promise you if that happens, I'm going to go all Vera Drake up in here and I mean that!
* Usually I am taken with more serious issues like the one noted above, but this summer I have been spending time reading the World of Wonder site. James St James is there and you know years ago acting as a doorman, James welcomed me and my then b/f into the Tunnel club in NYC. I never forgot him for that and his numerous appearances in Details magazine (the cool NYC nightlife bible). August 1st is James birthday and I'm doing something I have never done before, I'm sending a celeb a birthday present. I hope he loves it and doesn't put in a call to the bomb squad when it arrives.
James St James, 39 yrs. old and still the belle of the ball.
I loved the original Willy Wonka movie starring Gene Wilder. Today we went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I really intended on loathing it. From the previews it looked creepy and I was so annoyed with an androgynous looking Willy Wonka (AKA Johnny Depp). Turns out I really liked the movie a lot. I was really keen on all the new spins, there are quite a few. The kids are first-rate and Wonka's characteristic eccentricity is explained in detail therefore making it palatable. Go see this film if you loved the original.
Later, I started thinking about the things I grew up with that are no longer around or mean something different now. I recollect....
* Watergate
* Patty Heast's kidnapping
* Rotary phones
* Phone booths you stepped into and closed the door
* Gas lines down the street
* No remote control on the TV
* No answering machines
* Typewriters
* No such thing as video games
* No such thing as Aids
* Whitney Houston was the only black girl in Seventeen magazine
* Father Decals always favored the boys and took them places. Never the girls.
* The movie JAWS really had people scared to go into the water.
"Body of Light" By: Clancy Cavnar
I have expressed some frustration recently and tonight Tony left this in the comments. It was so helpful (Thanks Love) that I wanted to give it more space and light. Tony is right. There is no such thing as the next level. It is what it is and it's actually pretty great. My life that is. Today I got to hang out with a really cool person and we were talking about the BS people deem important. This person was making the point that some folks get pretty filled up on illusions and end up thinking they are a hellova lot more important than they are. Read what Tony wrote and maybe it will shed some light for you as it did for me.
Liz you can never go back to square one – don’t make me come over there and wag my finger at you! - learning is not a linier progression from here to there it is more like evolution, an organic process.
Awards, diplomas, exams are simply milestones on a path that may be for you but may not be. Most, if not all, of the great philosophers were self taught because they were driven to think not to get a degree in thinking.
Forget about the next level – it is illusion – life is about growth and nothingness ( sorry waxing Buddhist here) all the rest is static
If you can, as Kipling put it, ‘fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run’ then you are on the right level and no need to worry!
I heard two really great things last night. Someone said you must seek knowledge and love learning your whole life. Information is out there but you have to make yourself accessible.
I was thinking the other day, what a distracted student I was. School was really a social event to me. My parents never made a big deal about grades. Unless they were awful they never seemed to care. We weren't presented with college as a viable option. In fact, I'm the only one who wanted and did go to college from my family.
It's only been, as I've gotten older that I realize how much I love learning. It is truly my passion. I could never be in a relationship with a mental loafer I know this. Astuteness and surrounding myself with people who can impart wisdom is utmost in my mind, seriously.
I'm always, always pushing myself to the next level. I constantly come across new people whom I think I will learn from because they intrigue me. Now with that said I don't really know what the next level is or exactly how I'm supposed to get there. I have actually contacted some very astute people and presented them with this question, as if they could answer it for me.
I find myself back at square one with something. Why am I back as square one? Because I didn't listen to myself the last time this came up for me. When the going got rough, I backed down and went back to what I knew. Surprise! There is that vacant feeling again.
No, education never ends. Today I will get quiet and listen for new insights.
Bastille Day is a National holiday in France. It is very much like Independence Day in the United States because it is a celebration of the beginning of a new form of government.
At one time in France, kings and queens ruled. Many people were very angry with the decisions made by the kings and queens.
The Bastille was a prison in France that the kings and queens often used to lock up the people that did not agree with their decisions. To many, it was a symbol of all the bad things done by the kings and queens. So, on July 14, 1789, a large number of French citizens gathered together and stormed the Bastille.
Just as the people in the United States celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence as the beginning of the American Revolution, so the people in France celebrate the storming of the Bastille as the beginning of the French Revolution. Both Revolutions brought great changes. Kings and queens no longer rule. The people rule themselves and make their own decisions.
I came across two links today that I want to share. First off, P.R.D. is actually very strange. I had no idea there was any such occasion
Secondly we have the blog of Joseph Duncan, the Idaho kidnapper, molester, and murderer. I saw this on the news tonight. Police are investigating his hard drive for other "thoughts" he may have written about. ICK. It's so disturbing. I'm always amazed at the isolation these people are living with. Sure he had work etc. but he doesn't seemed connected or plugged in anywhere. They want to use this blog in the penality phase of the trial.
I am completely addicted to Being Bobby Brown! I forced my mother to watch it last week and she was so horrified she couldn't make it through the entire episode. Watch as Bobby annoys and embarrasses his family. Watch Bobby talk trash and go out of his way to mingle with hoodrats and riff raff everywhere! Watch as Whitney snaps into song, laughter, tears and gibberish all while donning dark shades. See Bobby guzzle booze and then get the rams with Whitney. Drugs, domestic violence and court hearings- this show has it all. Just when I thought I could never be as riveted as I was for the Jackson molestation trial THIS comes along!
Next week: Bobby buys a gun. Yea!
More destruction at the hands of people who hate the United States and its allies. This is Tony Blair's punishment for getting into bed with George Bush. If we don't stop the hunger and starvation in Africa, we will have a whole knew generation of people who hate the western world. Ironically, my Mother made scones this morning and I ate mine with strawberry jam.
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!
London
I've been away from here for a while. Just busy with summer flings and all. Thus far my summer has consisted of working here and there. I've been collecting my cute little nieces from their individual summer classes and amusing them with shopping jaunts. I took the girls to see their first fireworks; I just wanted that to go on record.
Major fun, fun, fun, corresponding with the one and only author/celebutante James St. James. Also delightful emails back and forth from Village Voice columnist and VH1 host, Michael Musto. These superstars couldn't be more generous with their time. I love them both! I have even met a mutual fan named Molly. What an awesome kid this one is. They're not all out shooting up the school or killing their parents, believe me.
Two old friends turned up unexpectedly and thats nice. Usually I'm the one that harks back to the past. Its nice when I have the feeling that not everything or everyone from my past has to politely chalked up to a "learning experience."
Most of my free time on the net has been spent reading the Village Voice, The WOW Report:edited by Stephen Saban and A Socialites Diary. I've been reading the autobiography of Che Guevara. Oh- I also read Party Monster and watched the movie. Both tremendous books for insight into the inner workings of a genius mind. I can clearly see how being a genius is often fraught with tragedy.
Oh and Tony love- Looks like the Brits get the Olympics games. Good luck with that fiasco! Can you imagine that mess in New York City?