My mom love Gaga

I was horrified when my mother told me she loved Lady Gaga. I think I may have puked a little. Gotten that taste in my mouth of bile and half digested ramen noodles. Then I swallowed and began again. My Mother likes Lady Gaga, and I’m okay with that. Lady Gaga is probably happy with my mother’s devotion. To be an entertainer in today’s industry it seems you have to be a sex symbol. We have seen many teenage women exploited for their sexuality not only to teenage boys but also older men, toeing the line between child pornography and sex sells. Gaga has subverted this standard with her recent decadence into the sexual horror fantasy. With her video for Bad Romance and her cameo in Beyonce’s Video Phone she shows that sexuality is only one part of the industry that strong women should be fighting against. Gaga plays off men’s desires of bad women and then turns them upside down when she depraves what are normally seen as the sexual parts of her body and shows that her will power is dominant and she is more than just a body. Gaga’s forcefulness to be a monster and horrify further extends her willingness to be unique instead of being what she is told. You can see the maturation with her videos. When sex was selling she was another name, when she went gothic she became the name. So I find it okay for my mother to like her, because today’s generation of women have no one smart to follow. Rosie the Riveter died a long time ago and even Madonna has thrived on her sexual image recently. If I wanted to state the negative effects of Brittany Spears I’d lose the rest of my day. The image given to women today is that of sexual fulfillment through male attraction. Modern entertainment are teaching women that they can define their worth through what men fantasize about them, Gaga is subverting them. She is mastering the world by dominating men and playing off what they fear. I’m terrified of Gaga, and that’s a good thing. If women need a role model it is someone who is strong willed and does what she wants. I have younger cousin’s who are girls and I’m happy they are Gaga fans. Last year I heard one of them singing the Souljah Boy song involving superman’ing a ho. Which is ejaculating on a woman’s back and then sticking a sheet to your sperm so when she runs away it sticks. I’d rather have they spurting poker face any day. In a world that glorifies rap lyrics that involve smacking bitches and tapping asses I guess I’m happy my mom and cousins have someone like Gaga around. I’ll never know what it is like to be a woman but I can still say I’d rather have them be strong ones, even terrifying ones, than bitches and ho’s. Even if it means I can’t tell what to do anymore.

Nostalgia and Cusack

John Cusack is one of America’s most consistent actors. What I mean by that is every movie you watch him in he is always the same, always playing himself. The range of John Cusack is smaller than the distance an Olympic figure skater could throw him, but we love him anyway. Part of the love for Cusack is what he represents for his generation. For the crowd who reached their teens in the eighties Cusack is a member of the brat pack who instilled in their hearts the meaning of love with his courageous stereo lift. As they aged they maintained their viewership of Cusack’s films following him through the nostalgic “High Fidelity” and the action packed “Con Air.” His roles define generation’s failures as well as triumphs. Look at Cusack’s most recent film, “Must Love Dogs.” Cusack plays an aging single man who has not found love; he meets a woman in the similar predicament. Spoiler Alert, they fall in love. Much like his earlier roles they end with some one from his generation taking hope in Cusack’s character’s ability to find connection. Much like Cusack’s first big role in “Say Anything” he has been a wanderer trying to commit. Many people of his generation have found themselves in the same predicament as they aged. They follow Cusack’s characters hoping similar situations will be abound in their future. Cusack also offers certain nostalgia on love lost. Many of us are past our stereo lifting years but we still want that connection when love felt so simple and sweet. What Cusack does is highlight that feeling in our hearts. No matter what role he takes on he will always be associated with the accomplishments of his character that showed devotion and faith in love. With his maturing years his role in “High Fidelity” he plays a character stuck in the past. His music is dated and so is his dress. His love life seems to have passed him with the breakup of his most recent girlfriend. Cusack is essentially living in the past and so is his audience. As his character pines for the yesteryear where music and fads were “better” one has to wonder how many aging fans were right there with him. How often do I have to hear my music sucks and my jeans are too baggy to understand that Cusack’s generation is not only in control but stuck in their OP shorts and Kangaroos playing Ramones records and blasting Tears For Fears. Our discussion on nostalgia and White Noise can be specifically seen in Cusack’s character in “High Fidelity.” He ultimately finds his way by living in past relationships and confronting the women who once broke his heart. This is ultimately dangerous because nostalgia lies. What we once thought was grand is really a time we experience through memory. Since our tendencies are to block out the bad or focus directly on what was good for us we are often clouded by our fantasies of what once was instead on concentrating on the future. Our love of Cusack is only matched by our love of living in the past. Until we can control our pining for the “once was” our future will be filled with “never going to happens.” Cusack’s character eventually goes back to his recent breakup and goes forward in life. As dangerous as nostalgia is, liking old music and clothing are the least of our worries. The debilitating effects only come from the refusal to move forward. Learn from the past, live in the future.

my view today

I wish I was better at science. because like all things science strives to provide solid facts for unanswerable questions. for scientists there are no impossibilities, just things that cannot be explained yet. correct me if i am wrong but i assume the same goes for atheists.
I have never been fond of the negative connotation that goes along with the word atheist, and never less proud that my twelve years of catholic school probably has something to do with that. I do not consider myself a catholic because i have major issues with their dogma, but i do consider myself a man of faith.
if i wanted to put a word on it i guess it would be agnostic, because i don't really acknowledge any religious sect because they were all made by humans, who are inherently flawed by power, greed, and other vices. and yet i still have faith.
lately i have been calling myself a humanist, because i believe that if you want the world to be a better place you have to acknowledge that we are all human beings, and with that acknowledgement we must then agree that we are all worth the same, and worth saving; not spiritually but from persecution, social injustice, and genocide.
all that said i also know that in the scope of humanity everyone living now is insignificant. trillions of humans have lived since the first man and woman evolved, my name along with every other from this time may be forgotten, but it does not mean i didn't live a good life.
this is where my faith comes in. i have faith that there is something higher, something above all that when i die will take my soul into a better place. maybe i have faith because i fear nonexistence, or because i just don't get science, but i have it. now some people call this being by a different name but i guess like you i am not sold on there being one correct religion, and yet unlike you i think there has to be something.
i don't think i am any happier than you and when you and i die i don't think we are going anywhere different. i hate people who see otherwise, and i hate when religion is used to persecute people or to make laws in a land that is supposed to be free. if my faith makes me naive to a scientifically explained world than i guess thats a causality i am willing to take to ensure my own inner peace. as i previously stated, for me it comes down to respecting humanity as a beautiful construction, scientifically or deity inspired. until we all learn that no one should be denied basic rights we won't learn much of anything. in a world where you can literally connect with anyone anywhere we lack people with the urge to connect, and that above all else is the worst sin to me.
hope that explains an agnostic side, well my side i guess.

A bottle of whiskey and a box of tissues

How do you comfort someone if you can't empathize? Not to say I'm cold hearted, but empathy is often tossed around, but today I was confronted of not knowing what to say in a sensitive situation and I could not empathize. We toss around empathy and I am not sure I really know what it means, because there are many times I cannot relate to the situation that causes the pain. I am speaking today about talking to my grandfather on the phone when he mentions how much he misses my grandmother. I think the worst feeling is the one you get when you know nothing you can say or do can alleviate the torture of another. When you reach a breaking point in the conversation where the only thing left to say is goodbye because it is well known that one cannot help the other. I have never been married, never truly loved the way he has, so when he mourns the loss of a wife, a best friend, a completing piece, I have nothing to say but "sorry." As defeating as this sound sit is the sad fact of life that by the time I will understand his pain he'll be with her again. So in that situation what is the expected outcome? What is the expected reaction? The shitty part about death is that it affects everyone different. As close as I was with my grandmother I will never be able to come close to the attachment that a man who spent 60 years by her side. For one man it is losing his life, for another it is losing his youth. The two diverging instances alienate the grief among men. While we are both in mourning we handle it in different ways. He confides that it is hard for him to cook dinner without breaking down. I can cook fine. Yet we both can't look at pictures without pressure in our gullet. I can't remember her voice, and I wonder if he can. I only had twenty two years with it, he had six decades. I wonder what he misses the most, but I would never ask. It is tough to see your parents cry, and in some ways tougher to watch your grandfather. So much of my life was spent laughing with him that the sudden change has separated me from emotion. I want to cry along with him but I stare instead. Like a voyeur with a pain fetish I find myself taking it in, writing it down, prostituting an emotion I never want to forget. I often wonder what this memory will be when I am his age, in a situation I never want to understand. Death finds me selfish and wandering. They say I'll see her again, and when he passes him as well. Then maybe I'll understand, I'll have the words. Yet the way life works thats too little and certainly too late. As the world passes and I get older I find that all the knowledge I gain only leads to more questions and a vast amount of things I realize I will never understand. You don't get smarter getting older, you just begin to realize there is an infinite amount of answers you wish you could know. But like my grandmother used to say, "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

Ageism

There was a time when I thought being 18 made me an adult, and I guess in the eyes of the law that is true. yet recently adulthood has crept up on me, leaving me mourning the simpler days. So if it is not age, what is being an adult all about? Responsibility is the first thing that comes to mind. As I enter my last semester of college I become fully aware that in six months I will be twenty thousand dollars in debt and most likely still searching for employment. Responsibility sucks. If leaving college is a marker into adulthood then the experiences gained along the way must factor somehow. So what have I experienced in college? All night dance parties, bingeing, reckless abandonment, and homework. Perhaps college is not really about maturation but more likely a passage of the frivolous toward a more sustainable lifestyle. That being said, there is a push to do more of the above in the last semester than ever before because as an accepted part of being a productive adult is not staying up all night drinking from plastic cups and hitting on slightly inebriated girls. So in this last stand of a youth well spent I find myself arguing my inner conscience over where the cash shall be dealt and the hours budgeted. How much time can I spend at the bar? Then again when else will I be in this situation where it is expected? I guess it boils down to what you believe responsibility is in your own life. If the word is a negative for you than by all means drink up, realizing, of course, that responsibility is what holds us all together. For me being responsibility does not have the negative connotations. Sure being responsible sucks sometimes but with the personal freedom being an adult brings there is a responsibility that balances hedonism with sanctity so society can function. With four months to go I do not expect to descend into depravity but I will not be the square in bed by eleven. Balance. It's what keeps us walking the tightrope that is life.