Worlds & Time

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

When Gay Streetwalkers Attack

I watched Cold Case last night. I'd never seen the show before, and I don't particularly like the format of constant flashbacks. The only reason that I watched it was that I thought the victim was kinda cute.

Well, I'm actually really glad that I saw this particular episode, entitled "One Night" because it featured something that's come up before, and that is a couple of street hustlers in love.

The first time I ran across this was in the movie "Twist" featuring Nick Stahl. For some reason, the movie tore me emotionally to shreds. It effected me so much that I wrote a poem for a class about it, which has since become one of my best received works, and can still make me upset just by reading it.

"Twist" is a tragedy. It's one of the films that led me to believe that most media representations of gay people are tragic, and I was an emotional wreck after seeing it. It's a particularly dark portrayal, as one boy pulls the other into the world of the drug addicted hustler in what might become and endless vicious circle. I personally happen to think that it's very well done.

"One Night" is different, happier. One of the boys is kidnapped by a murderer, and is buried alive, only to be rescued at the end to find his almost love waiting for him. The performances by Shiloh Fernandez and particularly by Cole Williams (who also was in North Country, which is how I found his name because Cold Case files does a miserable crediting job) were excellent and three dimensional for all of their 8 minutes total air time. It's also unusual to me, because the person that dies is the straight boy and the gay boys are together in the end.

Why do these stories resonate so strongly with me? I'm an emotional wreck afterward, although with the happy ending not as much as with the sad.

The only thing that I can think of is that I'm so alone. I can't help but to identify with the boys that have no emotional connection to anyone or anything . . . and then find love despite that.

Which is odd, because you think that someone that has never lived on the streets, who still has a family and friends, and works full time in a customer service industry where I don't service the customers would be hard pressed to identify with four boys that live on the streets.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but something about their situation just clicked with me. I can't understand it, but I can't get past it either. What does it say when four teenage prostitutes are less lonely and almost as well adjusted as I am?

Anyway, kudos to all of the actors involved.

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Racism

First, it sucks that Brokeback Mountain didn't win the Oscar, but at least I know that I can buy Jake and Heath later this year and treasure them forever. But this entry is about race and racism. The Best Picture winner Crash and the new FX show Black. White. are creating another dialog in this country about racism.

But it's not going to work.

Because white people love subversive racism. You can intellectually think that racism is the worst thing in the world and and you can reap the benefits of it.

Have I ever walked into an interview and said to myself, "I hope that they'll see past my whiteness and look at my qualifications?"

No, of course I haven't. And when I got my new job I never considered that there might have been more qualified Hispanic or black candidates that didn't get the job, and even now I'm not really considering it because that could mean that I might have to accept that I might be the beneficiary of racism. Even though I'm intellectually and more importantly vocally not racist, I can't bring myself to look at my actions.

What can I do, really? Demand to know if there was a black person that was passed over for me to get my job? How would I know? Further, if there was a black person that was passed over, how would I be able to live without the job. I was lucky to find one as quickly as I did. I have marketable skills in some areas, and it's hard to find work that I like doing.

So it's not going to work. White people aren't going to be able to not take advantage of "white currency" that they get just for being white.

Labels: , ,

Monday, March 06, 2006

Memory

I mentioned in my last post that I may have memory problems that are similar to my fathers.

It's not based completely on forgetfulness. On certain things, both of us have a good clarity of recall in some subjects. My father has an amazing knowledge of Water Law. I'm sure that I could come up with a subject for me, but right now I don't trust my memory.

The issue is that we can't always trust our own memories. Other people, they can remember what they've done in their lives. We remember things not only that we've done, we remember what we've imagined.

I can remember things that, logically, I can discard as impossible. I can remember sleeping with a person in Rochester that I know never happened. I can remember flying, not in a plane, but like a superhero, though a city.

It wasn't something that I consciously controlled. It wasn't something that I tried to imagine, and even though it's a dream, I can remember the the feeling, the weightlessness. I can remember the wind in my hair in the same way I can remember sitting on my porch watching the lightning storms behind my house . . . and I'm pretty sure that happened.

The problem is that they're so vivid that they're indistinguishable from reality, and sometimes I don't catch them before they slide into long term memory. Did I really run into the bookshelf in the living room of my mother's house? Did the house next to ours burn down the day I left for college? What about that ballgame with my father? Have I even been to one? I can remember being at a ballgame . . . but the memory doesn't seem to work out completely because I don't know when that was, and the people there seem to be an impossibility.

So . . . I have these memory problems. I don't exactly know what to do with them. I'm not exactly delusional, and certainly not hallucinating. I don't see things that aren't there at the time, but sometimes I worry that the false memories are taking the place of real ones.

Now, the frequency of this is very rare, but I have an example of someone that has them more often . . . and that scares me.

Labels: ,

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Updated List

I got a message from the bro.

I moderate a message board. I'm not a complete stranger to arguing. But there's arguing and then there's what we eventually fell down too.

I'm sorry that I called him a Republican.

Labels: ,

Laundry List

Here's a list of what concerns me at the moment. What better place to air it than in front of a million strangers.

1. My first day of work was good. It's a beautiful hotel and the people are interesting. I feel kinda boring in comparison, but I suspect in a while I'll be insane enough due to the influence of Santa Fe. It's nice working in a place where there are attractive guys again, too.

2. I'm sorry that I went with Matt and Dad to dinner. Dad's birthday was a few days ago, so Matt takes him out to dinner. It was a mistake, and at a certain point, I knew I was hurting them to be there, but we'd all driven together and I couldn't leave them.

3. I'm not stupid. More importantly, I'm not stupider than my brother (or compared with my brother, semantically), despite what my Dad says. I used to tell everyone that my brother got 10 points higher than me on our IQ tests until a few years ago when my mom got sick of that and showed me the results. I don't deny that he's better than me, but I no longer ascribe that to intelligence. Instead, it's part of his drive, his will to live. It's simply stronger than mine, and it always has been.

After my Dad said that he had proof that Matt was smarter than me and I asked him for that proof, he waved the reciept for dinner in my face. Matt paid. I don't have the ability to buckle down and do the work like Matt can, but that isn't intelligence. Not in my book.

4. In "The ends justify the means" the reason is the "end(s)" and action is the "means."

So, the war in Iraq is the means, America corporation control of Iraq's oil is the end. No one really listened to me during dinner, both of them were shushing me, but this is what I would have said about it:

These things exist on a continuum. They can be a simple a therefore b, or a complex chain. The ends of one might be the means of another chain link and vice versa. For example, to make himself richer, Bush must make oil companies richer. Getting rich is the goal, and his actions are the means to that goal. That's the first link. The second link is that in order to make the oil companies richer, Saddam Hussein can't be allowed to continue to behave in a manner that continues sanctions against Iraq. Making oil companies richer is the end, and removing Saddam Hussein is the means. In the third link, in order to remove Saddam Husseing, there must be an invasion by America. To invade, there must be a politically correct reason to do so, such as claiming that he's a genocidal maniac. Invading is the end goal, claiming that he's going to continue to murder his own citizens is the means.

That's four links in a very long chain. Those are fairly general links. Those individual link can be broken down into multiple individual links. In order to understand the chain, it's important to know what part of a link is the end, and what is the means.

5. Yes, I care.

About lots of things. I care about people dismissing my ideas. I care about individuals on television embarrassing themselves. I care about how well my brother can express himself.

6. What the hell good is a memory that lies to you? It must be a genetic thing. I can remember certain things vividly . . . but I can't always trust myself to know what is real or not. Was that McDonalds spanning the highway a real place, or was that a dream? I can't tell except when I have feelings associated with it. If it was free of pain, it wasn't real. If it sucked, it probably was.

This is related to the Ben's maxim of Sexual Orientation: Ben's attraction to a person is inversely proportional to that person's homosexuality.

That's the laundry list. I wonder what will happen tomorrow.

Labels: , ,

Friday, March 03, 2006

Whoo Hoo!

Accepted a job offer today. One of the best hotels in Santa Fe. Always dreamed of working there when I was being slapped around that awful hotel job I had in Santa Fe. Coolness.

Labels: