Men In Porn

Men in porn - straight, gay, whatever - have the worst possible tattoos.

I Love You, Bret Easton Ellis

Yesterday, Xeni Jardin tweeted this link. In it, Bret Easton Ellis's feelings on why women aren't necessarily as good film directors as men are sort of criticized. Sort of because, well, where's the support in the criticism? Says the post's writer:

"Where to start? The part where he sounds semi-apologetic about his misogyny and then reclaims it all over again to claim that The Proposal is worse than say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? How about the part where Ellis thinks a director is always responsible for the visual components of a movie, except for when that director is a woman like Sofia Coppola? Or that women don't have a visual sensibility because he thinks only men get one? Or when he says that all female directors are "emotionalist"?

It is tempting to go through one by one, and point out the absurdity of these claims. Then again, in addition to his printed and onscreen oeuvre, this is a man whose previous Tweets have included, "John Mayer in the March Playboy is one of the most interesting, funny and revelatory celebrity interviews I've ever read. He just gets it." In other words, his idea of revelatory is saying things that are deep-seated, prejudicial convention and protesting that everyone can't handle his edgy truth. So he really doesn't care if it's actually true or not."

I for one would've loved to hear the support against Ellis's absurd claims. Really. I'm not overreaching, I think, because a good argument is based on, well, arguing, but I think this little post doesn't do what I thought it might do, which is tear apart Ellis's comments with supporting claims of the writer's position. But there were none. It read to me the same way it sounds like when folk claim they're Mexican but don't know why.

And what about Bret Easton Ellis's comments regarding women as film directors? He says:

"Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn’t a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don’t know."

And, just prior to this, Ellis states:

"There’s something about the medium of film itself that I think requires the male gaze...We’re watching, and we’re aroused by looking, whereas I don’t think women respond that way to films, just because of how they’re built."

Is there any truth to what Ellis says? The knee-jerk reaction is he is wrong, as highlighted in the livejournal post. But as person who enjoys movies and film, I'm finding it very very difficult to disagree. I'd ask everyone, which are your favorite woman-directed movies and I'd wager a lot of us would need a moment or two of thinking to come up with a few. We can each come up with our favorite movies list in seconds, and I'd ask how many of these were made by women directors and I'd guess none.

It's very difficult to come up with a film that I love that features a woman at the helm. AMERICAN PSYCHO is one (of course, being that the source material is also a top three favorite of mine didn't hurt), and my favorite movie of all last year was THE HURT LOCKER. It isn't that I love these films because they were made by women, but because they're fantastic stories told with such fearlessness and with individual aesthetics that it would be hard to point out each films' flaws. But, personally, aside from these, what else do I get? My boyfriend and I were briefly talking last night about this. I read to him the bit where Ellis says that TRANSFORMERS is a better movie than THE PROPOSAL and Corey's reaction was that the TRANSFORMERS is trash and he really liked THE PROPOSAL. I asked whether or not us liking the movies made them any good (I also said that if given the option between the two, despite the terrible amounts of shit TRANSFORMERS is, that's the one I'd chose to watch), which of course lead us to the bigger question of what 'good' is, which to me sounds like what Ellis is saying: is a movie a good movie because a woman made it? If what I get from women directors are romantic comedies that don't really serve any artistic purpose, how can I not think women make bad movies? It's all in the evidence presented by the creators.

But, here's an example. Take THE PUNISHER: here you have a comics character in two movies made within a decade of each other, neither of which is spectacular film making. The first iteration was made by Jonathan Hensleigh and it's absolute trash. It isn't even fun. Everything about this movie makes me retch because it took what has been a good idea for action movies (revenge!) and made it a caricature that no one finds redeeming (he has a story credit as well). Four years later, Lexi Alexander made the second movie, and it's endlessly a much better-made movie that's not only more fun and violent and funny and exciting. Does it mean that the latter movie is better because a woman made it?

Like Ellis, I love the work Sofia Coppola puts out, even MARIE ANTOINETTE. I think her way of making movies each time has a clear vision and therefore genuinely brilliant artistic value. Kathryn Bigelow's STRANGE DAYS is also an incredibly brilliant film (but now a much dated story than I imagined back in the early 1990's). And I've loved all of Floria Sigismondi's music videos (I've zero interest in a movie about The Runaways, incidentally). So, the women who've access to making movies, how come they make such claptrap trash? What happens? It just seems that even just asking the question, or as Ellis did and sharing the opinion, labels you as sexist and misogynist. Okay. Fine. Just show me where the movies are and I too will re-think my opinion.

“…I’m just tired of being wrong all the time just because I’m a guy…I mean, a male chauvinist isn’t born, he’s made, and more and more of them are being made by women…Women are right. You’re wrong. You get used to the idea. You live down to expectations.” - Chuck Palahniuk, CHOKE

Choice

Here I am.

There's a bit to be said for going into things half-cocked, you know. Probably, most of what can be said isn't very good because jumping in the water without knowing how deep it is could lead to brain smashing results. Anyway.

It's been difficult. It is difficult. All these things that are happening right now and the things that are not happening. Said to my brothers the other day how it is the first time in our lives that we're finding ourselves more alike than ever...in dramatically despairing ways. We kind of laughed about it for a moment. Before, last week or the week before, the entire family is having lunch and we're talking about my niece's schooling and we're talking about the paradoxism of parents telling kids to not do what they did even though they came out better people for it. We're talking travel and we're talking going back to school (my sister-in-law is currently in a Master's Program) and having kids (new nephew, exactly twenty-three days old today). We're this little group of people who, when the water's not been deep enough, has been there for each other. For me. And I look around at these people I love and wonder who can we, collectively, turn to now? There is no one you see. And I'm talking about pragmatism, because that's an out right now that none of us seem to have.

Neither of my brothers and I have been able to find work. For whichever reasons there may be, it's come to the point where, personally, I'm having a lot of difficulty thinking about anything but and feeling, not lost, but a huge sense of weight, you know. My father has three more weeks worth of work. There are two kids in my immediate family, my mother and I are in treatment for our respective illnesses. This is what I think about a lot. It's what's making me worry a lot. Literally, it's what's keeping me up at night.

Corey and I were talking before and we said how despite my own take on it, I do very much feel like part of what makes me me is that I feel the responsibility of being able to provide not for myself but for him, for my family. For everyone. And it's affects me when I can't. It really does. Noble or not, just or not, courageous or not, it's fucking driving me insane.

And it's making me very sad.

I don't want to rant on and on about these weirdly socio-econimic structures we're in, the plight of the poor, the battles of the middle class, our constant consumerist culture, the irrelevance of bits of the private/public sector.

When I left Las Vegas five years ago this coming weekend, things were dismal and low and shattered in very many places. And the cliche of history repeating isn't far from my mind, and just like then, doing something about takes so much damned time. It does. It's not the lack of doing or the lack of focus or the lack of attention. That's what gets me a little powered for something. It's the waiting, this interim, this space that makes it all seem overwhelming and very stressful and very, very terrible. And, honest, this interim, as terrible as it feels sometimes, I don't know that it's not entirely deserved, you know.

I've never been one to cast off blame to anyone or anything when something bad occurs to me because these things happen because of what I do or don't do, and blaming anyone and anything else other than myself is total bullshit. But my problem is I'm harder on myself than anyone else. I guess that applies to most of us, doesn't it?

So, I've spent the last few hours imagining how I'm going to tackle this upcoming week and after a quick talk with Corey the other night, and joking a bit with my two brothers earlier, perhaps it doesn't need to be so difficult. What's upcoming? Choice.

Blue Sky

Last night, while on the phone with Golden, I needed to take one my meds, and did. And tried very hard to articulate to my best friend how I'd just had a little dispiriting moment. She said I better continue taking my meds and I tried to tell her that it wasn't that I wouldn't continue taking them, but that the fact that I had just then done it made me think, 'Shit, here we are, for life,' and she said I better. So, I tried again that it wasn't as if the medication was an option but that I was yet again reminded that I had to take them because it'll keep me a little safer for alittle while longer (Corey and I joke that they keep us alive (which is true but then I guess for someone who's not HIV/AIDS positive, they might think that's a fucked thing for anyone to say, but, hey it makes us laugh)), and my best friend just castigated me a bit that I better not consider stopping.

Sigh, right?

I've often wondered what goes on through my family's individual minds about me whenever this topic comes up, intentionally or not. I was on the phone with Golden, so I just verybalized what I thought, and I wonder if she did the same. Who really knows. Sometimes I just want to ask them straight out if they think I feel different physically, do they think I feel as if I'm ebbing away, are they constantly thinking that I'm dying, what do they see when they see me? Two years ago I began shaving my head, and my mother had a fucking fit over that because she and my father both said it reminded them I was sick. Now, so far removed, I call bullshit on that. At the time I didn't, but I did ask if they honestly thought that's what I looked like, a sick person. Neither really said so.

Yes, every so often I have pangs of, 'Man, I am seriously fucked and sick and shit,' and I feel bad about it for a moment but it passes more quickly than you'd think. Maybe feel bad is the wrong phrase. But for a brief moment, I'm taken back to three years ago and I'm thinking that I've this weird dark cloud over me that no one I love except for Corey really understand. The people in my life, how do you tell them that randomly, briefly, for just a moment, I realize I've a disease that could be killing me rightnowthisverysecond?

Sure, even a dark rain cloud passes over time, but mostly after it's left its mark on the rain-soaked ground.

Assembly

Early last week I turned on the television and browsed through the channel guide and saw that BBC America had a STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION marathon on. And that's what I did last Tuesday.

And I'm watching it and it's still entertaining after nearly twenty years of not having watched it (although I have watched the movie iterations of this series several times). I still find that Data is my favorite and I've a newly-found crush on Marina Sirtis and Gates McFadden. It's pure cheap sci-fi escapism of course. But it's terrible. As a piece of work, it's bad. It's nothing to do with production values and maybe even the acting. But its structure as a television program makes it bad. The melodramatic beats are basically semaphored way in advance, the tension is only called tension because you want it to be over not because you want to see what happens next, the comedic bits are only there awkwardly to try and shoehorn in some semblance of humanity into this odd construct of television, the lack of suspense is pretty much guaranteed because STARK TREK - any of its derivations - is the basic good guys versus bad. I still enjoyed these few hours of television nostalgia, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it again at some point (if I could manage to get my hands on some DEEP SPACE NINE episodes that'd be sweet!). But it doesn't mean it's not bad television.

Yesterday, Corey told me about the latest episode of GLEE, a television program he enjoys very much, and is apparently very popular and I don't understand why. But then, it's not GLEE that I've a problem per se: I've never seen an episode and I don't think I will ever choose to [so I might watch it in the future]. No, my problem, I think is with the fact that GLEE, much like STAR TREK is bad because television is just a bad medium, and unfortunately, most people take television to be something so important and relevant and as art. This is my problem with television.

I used to plan my classes around FRIENDS and WILL & GRACE and ALLY MCBEAL. I remember it was because in the first case, of course I wanted to know what happened; in the second case, it was the first time I saw an openly gay (albeit, oddly unfamiliar) male on television; and in the third case, I thought the writing was so clever and Ally was so adorable, I just had to watch. But between then and now, nearly fifteen years later, something happened that made me stop. And I'm not certain what. Corey and I were talking yesterday and I said the same thing. I don't remember really having an aversion to television until I was well into my twenties, and I still watch television shows from time to time (more on that bit later), but it doesn't have any weight to it for me as means of information, as means of disseminating the culture, and definitely not as art. Why am I the odd man out here? I don't think I am.

So, I'm watching STAR TREK and I'm loving and hating it. Hating it because its basic structure for a one-hour drama is of course very evident. You know all the cues, for example, but I don't think you're aware of them. In a show like STAR TREK for example, you've four commercial breaks which means there must be four pseudo-cliffhangers that make you stay in tune so that itself defeats many of the emotional and dramatic suspense you might have, and because this is STAR TREK, regardless of what's happened in the story, you know the status quo will be the same and comfortably back to the beginning, you and the characters and the story are basically back to being where you were unchanged and unaffected. I know what you're thinking: this is fucking STAR TREK for crying out loud! Right. What about the television shows you watch, is this their basic structure? Of course it is.

Television is just bad entertainment not because of the stories it tells (cliches or not, a lot of television storylines are excellent, but are wasted in the medium) but because of how it chooses to tell them.

I looked up the most popular television program currently on network television, LOST, and watched its first half-season ever. The basic story is okay and a little intimidating from one point of view, but possibly too derivative to be taken fully seriously (remember, only seven episodes watched, alright?). However, the pilot episode works pretty well story wise, the acting's decent (actors trying to find their show-voices), and the direction is not bad nor good but, well, bland. But this isn't about story, it's about structure. And LOST, regardless of how good its story or acting or production is (frankly, after the third episode I decided LOST wasn't for me; if it was a book, I would've closed it and returned it to the store by page fifty-something), is pretty much what you'd expect a television program to do. Its use of music to give the audience emotional cues and attempting at ratcheting up drama via horrible camera work, and the little segments of story that just have to have enough information to keep you locked in for a commercial break because it MUST GO TO COMMERCIAL BREAKS, all of that make this program, regarless of story, unwatchable.

(I went with LOST due, really, just to all the fucking hoopla regarding its upcoming end.)

((If I were talking story-wise, LOST is useless, but that's a different and less informed (seven episodes!) opinion.))

Of course, this is the reason why networks like HBO and STARZ make original content because of this lack of 'rules'. Network television is a pop song while paid-programming is a concept record.

I don't recall when I couldn't get past this way of watching television. That decision is somewhere in my memory but I can't remember it. But network television still has two stand outs for me. Still not talking story, SEINFELD and THE SIMPSONS avoided these conventions not necessarily by mere story alone. I'd imagine these two shows' producers chose NOT to do what everyone else is doing (one argument for THE SIMPSONS has been the fact that it's an animated program to begin with) because when I watch them now, yes, they're still entertaining, but I also don't feel the need to disassemble them into their corresponding parts the way that I have LOST and STAR TREK. I get that it's a business model as well as a television program model, but that's where it loses me.

I think television stories can be better told in either film or comic book form in a much more effective and artistic way, but that's another post for another time (yesterday, Corey and I briefly discussed Y: THE LAST MAN, whose writer, Brian K. Vaughan, eventually became a writer on LOST, incidentally.).

I will probably watch GLEE at some point in the future. My boyfriend is a fan and I think his influence might have something to do with it. But when I do watch it, or any other television program, hopefully I can enjoy a story the same way I can enjoy a pop song without the need to recognize its parts and take it as whole instead. And if I can't, that's okay too. I've been okay without regular television for years. I'm sure I'd be okay without it for a few more years as well.

Space

Last night at Corey's writing workshop's reading, I chose a seat away from everyone else who was there. Because I don't like to be around a group of people I don't know. I'm weird that way. I think I get on pretty well with strangers, but I'd much rather not. I've no problems saying hello, and making small talk, and asking questions, and talking about things. But I'd much rather not. I hate the familiarity people automatically assign themselves even if we've not met.

I met Brittany, what, seven years ago? We've talked maybe four times in all those years and I still think it's weird she hugs me when I see her. I mean, I suppose it's a nice thing to do but I don't know her, not really. And I think that's weird. A month ago, Corey and I began going to church and few weeks ago I met Alejandro (I think), one of the pastors, and we chatted a bit. The next week, pleasant and all, but he came over to say hello before service and hugged and kissed me on the cheek. I don't know him either and I think it's weird (Corey asked me a bit later what I thought about that because he knows I hate it when strangers touch me (which in itself is probably weird to everyone else), and while I can't recall what I said a few weeks back, I think it was the same.).

Last night at the church where the reading was held, I was thinking about six years back, when I first met Jobea and David and Justin at the Chuck Palahniuk reading. I don't remember how the three of us started talking. I was there on my own, so was Justin, and Jobea and David met on the plane as they moved to Las Vegas (I might be remembering this wrong), and clearly we were there for the same reason and we already had something in common, so probably it was that why we started talking. Funny thing is, as I'm sitting in the church last night, I'm thinking at every other of the type of event that I like like last night's reading, I've never made the effort to talk to anyone. How does that happen I wonder.

I like my space.

Make It Chemical

Went to pick up my meds and the lady at the pharmacy tells me my insurance has expired. Sure, I can pick up my pills but at full price. What is the full price you ask? Roughly $1200 each. Without insurance, for me to be able to continue living, I'd have to pay these people about $2400 every month. Puts the whole renting vs. buying a house in a weird sort of perspective.

The two pills I take are Truvada and Intelence.

Problem becomes that I haven't been able to get in contact with anyone from my old job's benefits department. This whole COBRA mess was too damn good to be true. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be able to get all this straightened out. Perhaps I should be worried but I'm not. But all of this has brought back to me the idea of a National Health Service. This is the sort of situation where this would be a non-issue if all Americans had equal access to healthcare. Never mind me, imagine if it was you and you needed some sort of treatment just to live but couldn't afford it, what would you do? What could you do?

(I'd called the Long Beach CARE Program recently about other options in regards to options for HIV positive folk in my stead and the very helpful woman on the phone said the best possible option was for me to try to keep my insurance because otherwise, even The Ryan White Act provided little in terms of assistance, and I would then be left up to whatever public assistance can do, which, she said, isn't very much considering my particular situation (which was something that I'd discussed with my older brother and Corey a bit ago, that I'm not sick enough to qualify for government programs and I'm too well off to even apply for them), and that in itself was disappointing to hear, not because of me (well, partly) but because other folk who don't have the resources that I do would simply linger.)

As I'm talking about this cost that I really didn't know until now, I'm reminded of what Clayton Cubitt said last year:

"I can't conceive of inventing a pill that would save lives, then charging money for it. I'm a failed capitalist."

Problem with every industry is that there's always someone who's out to make money. No one wants to just do the right thing, do they?

Anyway, imagine up to what point I'd have to reach before anyone anywhere who isn't family would help me. Suppose it was someone you care about, what then? That's the thing about examples and fictions and for instances, it's all make believe and not real, is it? Tell you something: I'm pretty real.

Party For The Fight To Write

I'm not very good, but I am.

Corey's been going to a writing workshop for last few Mondays. He's told me after each session how inspired he feels, and how he's amazed by how some folk there use words so well. He himself is pretty good writer (it is, after all, what got me interested in reading him way back when (it was back in 2006! aaah!!)), and so hearing such things from someone who I think is good (I'm being objective, honest!) certainly makes me curious. And jealous!

So, look, Corey tells me about his projects for his workshop and immediately I think about what I would do. I'm very cannibalizing this way. And he's excited about it, and wants to talk about it, all of which, in turn, make me excited and want to talk about it...even though it doesn't pertain at all to me. Years ago, when I lived in Las Vegas, I almost managed to get a writing workshop together. Almost. But what that would've been is a bunch of younger kids who're more creative than me, bounding about Mormonism and indie punk. But since I've been in Long Beach, I've not felt that fire. A few weeks ago, Corey said I could've taken the workshop with him and at the time he told me about it, I didn't even once think to ask him if I should or even could.

I took creative writing twice in college even though I didn't need to take it either time. I studied Language and Linguistics and that's pretty much math with words instead of numbers. But one of the things I took away from both sessions was the feeling of competition. So when Corey tells me about his workshop, I get jealous. Honest. Because I want to do that, compete, because I know I'm good at this. Right?

Last week, Corey got an email from his workshop teacher about a writer's retreat in Los Angeles. Immediately, I wanted to know more about it, but before I could even finish my thought, Corey asked me whether or not I wanted in. He forwarded me the information and on Friday we both sent off our applications and writing samples (last night, we're talking about what could happen if we both are accepted or only one. That's a different sort of post). And I'm very excited by this.

One thing that got me very jazzed is how well I work under pressure. To be honest, I am not a planner, I am not an organizational person at all. So, as we lay on his bed, talking writing (his) and looking over the application, I realized we both only had a couple of days during which we needed to get our work in order. I worked through the night editing this story and getting it to acceptable levels for my entry. And as I'm working on it, I came to the conclusion that my writing is pretty good. That I'm good at it. And I like the story, the way that it's fractured just right, the way it omits things that aren't at all necessary, the way its themes cover a lot of bases, and, plainly, the way the language in it moves.

The other thing that I found very exciting about this process was the fact that I'm in direct competition with other folk for a spot and hopefully a scholarship to the retreat (Corey and I covered briefly that we are, basically, competing for the same spot in the program). I know I'm not the best amateur writer out there, but I've this nagging suspicion that I'm pretty much top 10%. Really. Arrogance notwithstanding, it's that sort of spirit of outdoing the rest. One of things I love about working: I'm pretty much always one of if not the best.

Anyway, Corey says we'll find out whether or not we're in mid-June. That's six weeks away.