My Problems with Requiem for a Dream

So many ideas, but today I chose this blog because I want to get it on paper. A storm is coming, and for some time soon I will not be able to type.

I was in my very early 20's when I saw the NC-17 version of Requiem for a Dream in Washington D.C. I've loved the director, Darren Aronofsky, since I saw his first movie, the symbol Pi. This film was highly anticipated by me.

First, the film is true to Hubert Selby, Jr's book of the same name. Aronofsky is a highly talented artist who uses original ideas (the "Hip Hop Splice for drug intact, for example). But in many ways this movie has little to do with the real World of a heroin addict. Also, I remember being banned from recommending anymore movies as my friends (one a film student) were leaving the theater. So yes, the movie did highly impact all of us. But accurate? No...

If you are going to make a movie so many authorities dub "The greatest drug movie of all time" you need it to be a realistic movie on drugs. As stated Aronofsky tried to cast actors who physically resembled the description of Selby's book. One of the most beautiful actress, Jennifer Connelly, plays a wealthy addict with a therapist who only needs sex to give her thousands when her parents do not return her calls. That is a clique. Her partner is Jared Leto, who actually looks like a friend of mine in jail now for heroin use. Both of these actors are very attractive people. I've seen junkies with such bad staff infections on their face, you only see sores and malnutrition marks. Not purple make-up under their vibrantly colored eyes.

Addiction is a disease, not a moral failing (I sound like a broken record). But to go that deep into such strong addiction, I believe the person is burying something. Bravo for the subtle line from Leto's character on Marion's father (Connelly's character) being, "big into women's panties". Who knows the motivations for Leto, other then selfishness.

Another major flaw is that the movie takes place in New York City. I'm sorry but it's not so hard to find heroin there that anyone has to flee to Florida to, "sniff out dope." No way. Heroin makes their users extremely constipated. If you want to take the wind out of a glamorous idea of drugs being 'cool' just say these words: How often do you have to do an anal probe? I missed that scene in the movie. The beautiful Connelly, on the toilet, straining and yelling with her neck veins bulging out. Lesser movies have had the courage to tell that side effect. She goes 'ass to ass' at the end and some people on YouTube find that sexy, yet no one added a toilet straining scene.

Also, when Connelly's character goes to Big Tim (one of my favorite actor's from The Thing, although he was so infected at the movie's end!), she is going to a New York City Penthouse, drinking (I assume) nice liquor, and she has to give a blow job for her fix. Yes, although I have never sunk to that level, there are exploitative people like him in reality. But in Penthouses? Get a better shrink and get over it.

Finally the score. Drugs are so ugly. Anal probes, nose dripping, losing fake friends as well as real friend who can not stomach your pain. Don't set this ugly struggle to such a beautifully orchestrated soundtrack. I have terrible insomnia, and when I listen to that music and see these actor's faces on YouTube lit up in neon colors as I sit in pain watching the morning light fill the room, it makes me furious. Gorgeous actors with purple make-up under the eyes, sublime visions of colorful frames and tears dabbed away on professional make-up jobs. Addicts who feen that much do not shower! That can't shower because their joints hurt so badly and air feels Arctic to them. They should be drenched in ugly sweat. Sweat that makes them look like they stink. They should look like leapers. Not the end scene where she looks like a supermodel heading for a photo shoot.

I will not dispute the ass to ass scene, although it is not in the book, because Aronofsky himself has been to such an event. I would not try to dispute that scene anyway. He did a good job showing how a person will sell their soul for pain to go away. At this point, for Marion, it's not about a 'high'. She is 'getting well'. That's heroin speak for feeling normal.

Briefly, I'll say that I believed Ellen Burstyn's story the most. Loneliness like that is an epidemic which parallels the woe's of a heroin addict. But I'm confused as to how she never got better after extensive treatment. What happened to her to make her psychosis permanent? As a side note to the film maker, I know that he did not use red (Marion never has red lipstick) in the film except for Burstyn's red dress, because he wanted to emphasis the importance of the dress.

Aronofsky is following the book, but he is too good of a film maker for this subject matter. Addiction is not epic in any way. People end up dying. I've always said that Gollum is a junkie. The reality is that you wake up alone in pain and terrified. You won't lose your arm because you only know how to shoot into one vein. It's not a subtle decline, but it is a bottoming out. Not many people have the option to look so good while withdrawing from the strongest drug and selling their soul. Film a white room with a person dialing every number they have manically in sweat pants and a dirty blanket around them. I just captured the life of a heroin addict going through withdraws. Addiction is a tragic struggle. I've seen movies like this, where people do self destructive acts to feel good, but I've never seen pain captured even close to what withdraw feels like to a person.

My favorite (and 'favorite' is not the right word) movie for this subject is A Scanner Darkly (a Bible reference), where he simply says: Let them play, and let them be happy. This is followed by a list of Philip K. Dick's friend's who have died literally or figuratively from drug use. When I see that list, I'm brought to my knees in grief.

People are a Drug

This morning I went to my 'group'. In reality it's a conscious raising group to deal with anxiety and be able to be a single, strong, superhero in a random and cruel world. Our group therapist calls it a "stress management group". Call it what you will, does not matter. What matters is that I need it!

Besides me, everyone in the group is on the heroin withdraw program (the methadone clinic patients). All are unique and sensitive (highly so) good people who are bonding to support each other as if we were family. We talk about everything, even the things that make us vulnerable, to each other; and we are strangers.

Today we had a talk about the 'need' to have people in our lives. Sometimes when you speak so long openly things come out that are not on the four front of our thinking. I blurted out that people are like drugs. We don't need them for our happiness. They are an addiction.

A woman objected, saying that without relationships it would be like the novel "On Waldon Pond". I suppressed blurting out that his mother did his laundry while he wrote that entire novel.

Do we need people to be happy? And what if their happiness or anger makes us act accordingly. I don't like being a slave to anyone, any drug, or any negative or positive emotion. But I am addicted to the idea of people being some cure. I admit this even though I don't want people's lives to be my own.

I told the group that I enrolled to be strong myself so that I don't need anyone but myself. There is no underlying blueprint that will make life certain and fair. It's a throw of the dice.

I lied when I said I did not need anyone, or hope to work up to the point of never needing anyone. The heart was meant to love (thank you Professor Zimmerman for that lecture.) I live for people. I watch them from afar. I listen. I react to them. I don't understand them. But they have their moments of cutting out the bullshit and actually expressing good stuff.

My good, if not best friend (at one point) talked to me for a while on the phone yesterday and she make a comment that sickened me. She said that she hired a black man and, of course (because he was black) he quickly quit the job. Never mind that almost ten employees (including me) quickly left. Why did she have to say that? But I can not eliminate her from my life. She can make a fairy house out of bark. She has loved me more then myself. She once cried when she saw a chicken on the highway because she knew it would get crushed by a passing car. But yet she said that. My point is that people- everyone- are too complex to sum up and cut out or worship. They keep me going. The good ones mostly.

The Reading List Of Dan McCloud

I met Dan MacCloud while at work as a waitress: serving the wealthy rabbit pate and veil at a French restaurant near Baltimore. Dan was a soft spoken, well mannered individual that we called the "Flank Steak Man" because that's all he ordered. Dan was unique among our elite customers because, unlike the suit and tie men who drove up in Jaguars because their wives never cooked, Dan had a large windowless brown construction van (I'm convinced just so he could say, "Hey I'm Dan The Man in the Tan Van"). He also had a grizzly beard like an Alaskan prospector, and a long, string thin rat tail.

Luck would have it that I had no ride lined up to get home (nearly an hour away from work) so Dan volunteered to drive me home. On the way home he asked what books I was reading. I judged him too soon (I admit) because I spouted out some authors I was quite sure he had no clue existed. Wrong! It turned out that Dan came from a rare background, having a father that worked as a NASA scientist and a mother who was the dean of the literature department at the University of Maryland. Dan was gifted with a first rate education, even attending the private school that Chelsy Clinton would later graduate from.

As a side note most of the east coast private schools are based on the Quaker religion (who knew?) and Dan later converted to the religion himself, minus the belief in Jesus. One of Dan's sayings was that he, "Saw light in everyone". He was one of those hippie types that did Owsley acid, found a different path then working a convention job (he worked under the table to avoid having his taxes go to fund war) and he lived on a Yacht that he built himself. He was probably a little crazy too.

Because I could learn a lot from this fellow, I asked him to recommend his favorite books to me. The following came from a manically scribbled list that was torn out of a notebook (I have put asterisks next to the ones I have read):

-The Polish Lieutenant
-Mosquito Coast
-Catch 22
-My Side of the Mountain
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
-A Suitable Boy
-Sarah Canary
-In the Skin of a Lion
-Life of Pi*
-The Dog That Wouldn't Be
-Master and Commander
-Even Cowgirls get the Blues
-Huckleberry Fin
-One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
-Wild Swans
-July People
-The Shipping News
-A Walk in the Woods
-Madam Bovary
-Canary Row
-East of Edan
-All The Pretty Horses
-The Brothers Karamazov
-The Idiot
-The Red and the Black
-War and Peace
-Dead Souls
-Ship of Fools
The Iliad
-The Odyssey
-The Bible By Everyone

Also:
Anything by:
Ursala Leguin
John Steinbeck
F.Scott Fitzgerald
Amy Chan
Micheal Ondajel
&
Emil Zola

The Weight of Happiness & Appetite for Sunshine in the Heart

About two years ago I sat down with a Guinness and one of my favorite professors. He had a logic test on his syllabus which had not been solved in his 15 years of teaching. The prize was a beer. My brother solved it, I took the credit, I won a free beer.

This professor was such a beautiful soul; lusty and clever and honest. Directly wired in life I thought. We talked about jazz. How Frank Sinatra gave an olive from his martini to one lucky fellow he really liked every night. Then the subject turned to personal drama. Turmoil for him. His daughter was dying of cancer. I was fighting bad vices that anyone who knows me knows about. We could only talk about intellectual barriers because what we were going through was unspeakable.

He mentioned that out of all the things that can happen in life, being happy is not important. He referenced Cathrine Deneuve, the gorgeous French actress (so French!) who was asked in an interview at the height of her career if she was happy. She sat with a cigarette and her long blond hair (which that professor said reminded him of a cocker spaniel's mane), sultry accent and replied, "Happiness, what is that?!". Ah the French.

In my own life I have to ask myself that a lot, because I'm not happy very often. I get angry, jealous, resentful- just frustrated with people in general. But I love them so much- hold such high standards- that if they let me down it stings. They usually do though. But I still love them- just from a great distance apart.

Happiness is only one emotion of the broad spectrum of feeling that passes through me every day. And I don't want to group emotions into black and white categories anyway. Happiness is a hard one. I take it when it comes.

The 'Straight Line Length' Test

This is a subject dear to me. I consider it knowledge that liberates me from my limited body, limited mind, and makes my life unique and well worth living. In short, what this blog is about is my 'robot revolt'. My love song to creation.
Community college video in psychology at the tender age of 19 gave me this gem of information. In this video, a group of students- about 14- sat around a rectangular desk. All students but one knew that this was a test. And the 14 or so students changed after every test until a dozen or so of the same example was done. Here was the test:
Two penciled lines were drawn by the instructor. One line was obviously longer then the other- by inches. The paper with these two uneven lines was then passed around, and each student said openly (to the 13 or so other students) which line was longer. Since all but one student in the experiment where in on the experiment, each student would openly say that the shorter line was the longest. In every single test the same bizarre result occurred: the test subject not in the know would agree (when their turn came up) that the shorter line was the longest. They were asked twice, just like the students who knew the correct answer, and every single subject agreed that the shorter line was the longer line.
This was not an optical illusion experiment. The line was clearly shorter- by inches- yet the test subject never disagreed with every other person who said otherwise. Why?
Perhaps they were afraid to differ. Perhaps they did not want to argue. Perhaps their brains actually saw the line to be longer by some trick of imagination; when the mass group agreed, not a single person disagreed.
I call it the critical thinking test. Fear is probably what made the subjects say otherwise. Or they wanted to be agreeable. Maybe if they disagreed they would have to face that there was something wrong with them (in their mind). For whatever reason, no one wanted to go against the group and say that the line was inches shorter then the other. No one wanted to (or could) give the correct answer.
I love independent thought. Original thought. The human brain is an ocean of ideas, generated by electricity. I like to think of my creativity like a perpetual thunderstorm; I barely have control of the flow; but like a storm I can freeze moments of these ideas in photographs. Write it down, like a fisherman catching a fish in a great flowing river. Ideas plucked from ever changing forms of energy- thought, movement, image.
Stay true to yourself no matter how much they object. If you see the line is shorter, even if they are hostile and shout you are wrong, you know the answer. You're thoughts are what keep you unique. Be true to yourself. Because 'what is in vogue' is just a table of test subjects, told to say the opposite of truth.

My Badger Coffee Cup Epiphany

A few years ago, when I used people for survival, I began a loveless but eye opening relationship with a man I met on Craig's List. He answered one of my hair brained schemes in ad form. They were all ridiculous, but intentionally laced with an air of adventure, or intrigue: the stuff that would attract a man with a life as ordinary as molasses.
His house was bare. No photographs, paintings, or posters. Just institutional white walls in a consistently dark apartment. The darkness came from blankets (not curtains) to blot out natural sunlight for the purpose of watching movies on an impressive home projector (turned his living room into a home theater, and our relationship was based on silence and downloaded movies.) Any light, even during the day, came from light bulbs. He was too lazy to take the blankets down, and saw no purpose when he would have to re-tack them to the windows for a nightly movie.
Once I asked him to put some life in the apartment, where I was basically living for the sake of 'a meal ticket' as my blunt friends said. He came home with almost identical posters- ads for a local beer- placed in rows a few feet apart. Typical clique of what a man in his later 20's should be interested in, plastered to the walls. He was probably proud of himself to not have gone the ultra clique route of, say, a Bob Marley poster in the town we lived in (Humboldt County.)
We had nothing in common. But I liked two things about him: he listened to N.P.R. for a few minutes after work, and he drank coffee. Folgers coffee though.
Perhaps it was the caffeine coursing throw my blood that caused a mind expanding revaluation one morning at this man's home: all because of his coffee cup. Folgers coffee in a plain old, thrift store (which, to me, a thrift store can be on the other spectrum of awesome and quirky finds) coffee cup, with some type of animal (a badger I believe) as it's decoration. It was picked up mindlessly (believe me, this man had no affinity to badgers...he had no affinity to anything whatsoever) to serve the function of holding a coffee brand for those with no taste buds. And from there my head went spinning...
I've seen the other bad and opposite spectrum of trying to make every purchase cool for the sake of what seems cool. Did not like that either.
What happened to cultivating a personal style? Taste. Having critical reasoning and a lust for life. Passion! I don't drink Merlot, no matter how good people say the bottle will be. Mindless gifts (bath soaps) draw the same reaction from me. Thought needs to be put into life. Otherwise what is the purpose? With no ideas, dreams, lusts, and beautiful pursuits, there is only mechanical action and reaction. There is only a pulse.
I read an article on a famous Italian businessman, who said that, getting dressed in the morning is your first opportunity of the day to cultivate your own style. He has his favorite espresso brand, his own fashion sense; here is a man living on a higher plane then most people. And that is what this blog is about. Being conscious in every decision. It's all we have; and it's more then enough to make life explode everyday. Every morning you chose your outfit, your diction, what book to read, your politics. I may not like a certain persons style, but I respect the effort. Unlike the man who blocked out light; such a metaphor for his unconscious state.
One more aspect to discuss on the subject of lusts. There is nothing I hate more then being persecuted for having a personality; style; interests; love. It has happened to me many times. These drones do not understand, and their fear makes them dangerous. Or their jealously. I was thrown out of a town (with 100 or so illiterate residence) because of a strong personality. This was in the hills of Big Flat, off of the 299 highway. I consider it a compliment and a personal achievement to be physically removed from a town of hicks, all because of a collected intimidation. Or when I hear a crude nickname for myself. Hey, I am out there loving the air I breathe. Please don't loath my love for my short time on this Earth. I try my damnedest to soak up all light; all the magnetic energy around me. It comes out of the ground, the clouds, people: I feed off that warm light.

Why mullets are so funny

Just a quick thought, since my new computer is a tiny little Linx operated toy- until I adjust to it's tiny key pad, I am only going to have quick thoughts to jot down.
I love that show, "Flight of the Conchords" because it's brand of humor celebrates and creates, rather then makes fun of society and life. Plus it's not crude and desprate for laughter. Maybe it's the absence of the ever annoying 'laugh track'.
It is so easy to laugh at what is wrong. It takes a brilliant mind to laugh at what is right. I favor creation.