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Monthly Archives: February 2016

• Red Carpet, Gold Statue, Black Mark

  Posted at 2:37 am by kayewer, on February 28, 2016

  When those heavy little gold statues are handed out at the biggest film awards ceremony in the world, the only people who will be happy are the award winners. One wins one of those statues because a bunch of supposedly elite experts in film craft say it’s deserved. Who are these people, anyway, and why don’t the average movie going public have a say?

  Why are the movies nominated come out at the end of the year when nominations are due? Why are the most popular movies often snubbed (Star Wars) and movies which could easily be accused of being interminably boring art projects featuring currently high ranked talent getting overpaid for emoting for two hours get multiple nominations (The Revenant)? You can always tell when the elite members of the group determining the winners have snubbed a movie because the best it gets is technical, sound or costume nominations. Often they also lose to a period piece.

  As far as this (and other) years’ elephant in the room–the subject of non-white nominations–I was hoping John Boyega and Daisy Ridley would be nominated for Star Wars. Unfortunately big box office doesn’t always mean big nominations. Some time between the age of big epics like Ben-Hur being nominated from everything except the kitchen sink and today, the voters decided that arty movies are the only ones deserving of a nod. It’s a rigged class structure with rules meant to favor their own. This means that movies either have to get their attention, or the voters have to open their minds to other opinions of what makes a good movie. The mind is hard to turn, so we will always be at odds when it comes to that. We may never see a good pool of nominees as a result. But at least watching the red carpet is still fun.

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• No Money or No Function?

  Posted at 2:41 am by kayewer, on February 21, 2016

  Let’s set the rules down right now: if a person has no money, they are broke, but if a thing is somehow not functioning, it is broken. This must have been Bad Language Week, because I heard the word broke misused about a dozen times. One must be pretty lazy to conserve energy by leaving off one little syllable.

  It was also Cultural Bad Habits Week, because the usage of the verb “to be” was left completely out of so many conversations, I had to step away and process what was just said because I didn’t understand it.  In some places, if clothing was soiled, a person would say, “That needs washed.” The better sentence would be, “That needs to be washed,” or even, “That needs washing,” but for some reason one of Shakespeare’s most memorable soliloquies was lost in translation.  Why people stumble over “to be” may be related to the variances in its conjugation, which don’t look at all like the original. However, just as in math, memorization goes a long way.

  I heard the word broke used for so many malfunctioning things, my head was spinning. Things carrying no monetary support included our electoral system, a helicopter, racial relations and a few others in which the only part of the conversation I heard was that a thing had been broke.  Ugh!

  It’s easy to occasionally forgive some dimly conceived but permanently implanted verbal gaffes such as “daze,” for  (substituting the slurred “they is” for “they are”), “Yiz,” or “Youse,” for several secondary persons (and their third party mate, “allayiz” or “allyouse”), but our language getting shorter is a sure indicator that our brain power is getting smaller. It is we who will wind up broken. And broke.

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• Love Within/Love Without

  Posted at 2:41 am by kayewer, on February 14, 2016

  On Valentine’s Day not everybody has found somebody. I have so many friends who are perpetually lonely, this time of year can be a strain on the morale. There is really nothing wrong with people who are living without love; the problem is with the other people out there who apparently are incapable of love.

  I would rather feel unworthy of love than be incapable of love.

  People who live without love have their skins, minds and souls hardened every day by those incapable of love. The stings of physical, verbal or mental abuse often become as much a part of life as breathing. I’ve written before about the people who are so stunned by a dog who, after ages of abuse, strikes out at the next abuser to come along. That’s a fear response, and it can happen to anybody at any time, even among those hardened to the cruelties of this world. What is really amazing is when an abused dog licks the outstretched hand of its rescuers. This is a creature who was lost to love and still knows what love is.

  Life will often find a companion for the lonely if circumstances allow. Often the powerful, most of whom are incapable of real love, repress the lonely. It might be a fear of somebody else’s happiness eclipsing their own, or a conditioned reaction to anything beyond their perception of normal. It’s against nature to deny love and, if I dare to be political, it is against our founding fathers’ wishes that anybody should be prevented from pursuing happiness.

  I’ve seen my share of bullies, jerks and other people who seem challenged by the good things in life. I’ve seen beautiful miserable people and ugly happy people. Being loved is not about who or what you are, but that one other person sees you and respects your humanity in spite of what or who you are. I’ve been disappointed by lots of people, but I don’t hate them or wish them ill will. They need to be loved the most, because it is so much harder to do.

  It’s true: love is hard, just like anything good and right is hard. So those who are spending their Valentine’s Day unloved are the ones you should seek out. They are capable of so much, while people incapable of love shortchange their lives of so much more.

  So here is to all those lonely people on February 14th. I see you. I hope somebody special will see you someday, too.

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• That Darned February Again

  Posted at 2:27 am by kayewer, on February 7, 2016

  Somebody posted on Facebook recently that February 2016 had four of each day of the week; a rare event happening only once every so many hundred years. I didn’t think anything of it until I glanced at my own calendar, remembering that it is a leap year, so this February has five Mondays. I can’t find the post, but unless I misread it, I feel that I’ve done my duty in letting you all know, at least, that this is a leap year and February will have 29 days in it.

  Yes, this week was that bad that I have nothing else to post about.

   

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