Not the Usual Usual

I’ve already written (in other blogs and my “autobiography”) about how my life has seemed like a movie lately. In the past nine months, I’ve birthed a journalism career that has taken off almost precariously.

Last week, I was in New York’s Times Square covering a story about protesters wanting to “Free Tibet.” Five days later, I was standing in Down Town Los Angeles, the site of a presidential speech outside of the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. As I was driving to school that morning, I heard on KNX 1070 that President Obama was on his way to Pomona. Little did I know, I would be headed to Pomona an hour later, and catching a glimpse of a skinny black man wearing a suit and waving. It was Obama. I, along with Frank and Magali, captured the Village Academy Students (also enrolled in courses at Mt. SAC) on film. They walked outside of the electric vehicle plant across from the high school victoriously after having met the President. A joyful vibe of excitement was in the air as they shared their stories.

We headed out to Los Angeles, covering a crowd of supporters and protesters outside of the Complex. There were Obama fans, political activists, and a couple loonies. A man with a black suit, a diamond grill in his mouth, and an Obama mask stood on a fire escape hovering over the crowd. When unmasked, he said that he was there to speak against the crime in Los Angeles. A man selling tamales had recently been killed near the area.

A woman dressed in patriotic red, white and blue sold, “Barack-in-the-Box” a jack-in-the-box toy with an Obama doll inside. She created the contraption that her and her husband sold on the Internet.

One of the more serious groups at the site, The Armenian Youth Federation, was chanting, “Recognize genocide…Obama keep your promise.” Shunt Jarchafgiam, 22, central executive adviser, said the Armenian protesters wanted Obama to keep his promise on formal U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Waltzing through the crowds was a short-haired man in a white suit. He carried a loudspeaker in hand, voicing his message. “If you need to get the government’s attention, you know what to do. There are hundreds of numbers to call to reach the white house.” He called himself H.R.M.S. Cesar Saint Augustine de Buena Parte (“His Royal Magesty Supreme”).

Buena Parte said he runs a movie prop business, a Church (Las Cirisis Church Group) and gives people advice on anti-aging. Buena Parte said he did not support President Obama, and that he himself came up with several ideas that would have helped the housing crisis.

Buena Parte said he has ran for president many times, since 1996 while listed under the federal elections committee. He complained that the country is being controlled by a view dominant, wealthy groups-The Williamsberg Aschiatic Group, Bilderberg Group and The trilateral commission.

He had a few good points, but his eccentricity made you wonder….

“1996 I declared war on the United states symbolically. I sent video tapes of my program, I had a program on cable axis TV and told them, that I over threw the country. I declared war first, gave them 30 days to answer. They didn’t answer, so I became the emperor of the United States, and you’ll find me on the internet with that title.”

Buena Parte added that he had renamed the United States of America.

“It’s no longer America. I renamed it in 1996. It’s The United States of Turtle Island.”

So Long "The Big Apple"

“So, how was New York?” people have been asking me lately. New York.... the first day of the trip: it was 6 p.m.; I was on one hour of sleep; I hadn’t eaten since noon; I badly had to pee; there were no public restrooms available, and I was following journalism peers out of Brooklyn, and we were lost. I found myself in a back alley where one of my peers was peeing up against a wall. No, it wasn’t the public restroom I had been searching for. I turned around, tears streaming down my face with the shame of someone carrying a tear-stained face because of primal human urges calling.

“What’s wrong?” one of my peers asked me. “I have to fucking pee!” I said angrily. He suggested I use the back alley as a restroom. “I’m not going to pee against a fucking wall,” I said…He found me a restroom soon after, but the fun I was having wasn’t about to end.

We ended up at the Tea Lounge after a long subway ride and lots of walking. It was about 8:00 p.m. and I still hadn’t eaten or slept. Loud techno sounds boomed in the room, punishing my eardrums, telling my I couldn’t sleep. A show by the name of “Exploitation Extravaganza” or something like that was showing on a movie projector. Offensive images of bloody women, topless, being tortured in some scenes or brainwashed as sex objects in classrooms in other scenes played. I wanted to get out of there, go back to the hotel and sleep, but I was stranded because I didn’t know how to get back on the subway station. Midnight approached and we had Chinese food, but then some genius decided it was a good idea for everyone to go to another bar and go dancing. That was the final straw. I was not about to stay any longer. Luckily, I made my way back to the hotel with the help of some of my journalism peers.

Needless to say the first day of New York didn’t go so well, but luckily, the next few days were much better. I went to a couple of workshops at the CMA convention, and met up with the journalism crew at the Rockefeller Center by Radio City Music Hall. I noticed a curious sensation, the corners of my mouth upturned in a smile. It felt so good to be smiling again after a long period of blackness. Lately, every time I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward, it is a noteworthy sensation.

New York

Friday the 13th.  It was the day I boarded a plane to New York, the day traces of deja vu continually reemerged: the familiar site of tiles on my bathtub.  I remember that memory, but it happened so long ago.  How could I just be seeing it now I thought.  Some other moment in the day felt familiar, I think it may have been when I was helping out Elderberry Elementary School.  "For some reason, talking with her made me feel nervous, but I got over it..." I wrote the passage when I was writing in my diary thousands of feet above the ground.  At that moment, it hit me again, deja vu.  

What is deja vu?  There is no universally accepted answer, and no universal belief in the existence of the phenomenon.  The firing of neurons in the brain is the explanation by psychobiologists.  Others believe in a form of spirtual or paranormal explanation for the occurance.

"What is deja vu?" I asked Frank who was sitting next to me on theplane.  He spoke of reincarnation, which I do believe in to some extent.  I was introduced to the concept during my upbringing.  He interpreted deja vu as a recollection of meeting others, "kindred spirits" perhaps in a former life.  but deja vu is a memory of an isolated event from this life I suggested.  

He spoke of time travel.  Perhaps there is no past or present life, just a single life, but he said,  "Reality is not constant.  Time and space are relative.  Everything is connected.  It's just how you manipulate it."  Then he ended with," I can't wait to get some fucking pizza."  

Dreams

“What the hell do you want?” she said to me. It’s not exactly how I like to start my day. I was thinking I knew how she must feel when I speak coldly to her. She had been laying in my bed looking sickly and I rubbed her arm and maybe murmured some kind words. She, was my mother, and it was just a dream.

My remaining minutes in bed today were comprised of terse scenes and intermittent blackness. We don’t dream all night, just in between periods of R.E.M., about every 90 minutes, I think.

I dreamt I was standing out in the side yard of my house, looking up at a bright white half moon in the night sky. I asked my mom, “This is really happening, right?” It seemed too real to be a dream. She said no.

In another dream, I saw the Hungarian church across the street from my house. It had a blue and gold banner with an emblem on it that made it very recognizable. It was the emblem for PTK or something.

“You never set your alarm clock” Charlye told me in another dream. She said that the power must have gone out (at my house). I was thinking about how wise she is. I was thinking how I had just set it, but to my surprise, when I looked at the clock, four flashing green zeros showed. She was right.

I know why I dreamt some of the things I did. Last night, my mom was laying on the couch with a heating pad on her hands and her feet were soaking in a bucket of hot water. She has arthritis. I got a little frustrated by the third request she made, to turn off the light, but then when I saw her on the couch I felt bad. Some of the guilty feelings in my psyche were released in the dream along with the scenario of her sickliness and laying down. The dream about the alarm clock resembled the fact that the night before the power had gone out and I did have to reset my alarm clock.

Several months after having written an article about “Dream Analysis,” I’ve come to take on an opinion on the matter. I’ve always thought dreams are significant. I think our emotional and mental states reflect something higher about us, some sort of Nirvana. Our dreams are a reflection of that higher existence, a higher reality that is traceable in our emotions and psyche. Maybe they are somehow the doorway. Examining these states is absolutely imperative for “transcendence.”

What I’ve come to believe is that dreams are meaningful, but not through a clear-cut application of precision. Symbols, experiences and feelings are chopped into our dreams, sometimes with seemingly random application. However, it isn’t just the art of the mind or some means of self-expression. Some or entire parts of dreams may just be self-expression, but not all. I believe dreams are an expression of the physical (i.e. environmental factors), unconscious, and superconscious factors acting upon us.

Psychologists who believe in dream analysis consider physical and unconscious factors. Edgar Cayce was known as the “sleeping prophet” for his ability to self-induce an unconscious state and provide medical diagnoses for thousands over the years. Cayce believed in a third factor, the superconscious, which is an expression of the divine in our dreams.

Nacho Libre

I have a monkey on my back. As a journalist and educated college graduate well versed in literature and theatrical acting studies, my movie watching suffers. I recall the time I sat and watched “Instinct” starring Anthony Hopkins with my dear friend and neighbor, Manny. Afterward, I had an analytical discussion of the film with Manny. From a literary standpoint, it is enticing to examine the characters. I stood out front of my neighbor’s house as he put away the trashcans, and I discussed potential issues of racism and greed in the Showbiz characters in “Crash” with him. After watching “Silence of the Lambs,” I returned the film to Manny. I asked him something about the relationship between Hannibal and Clarice or explanations for Hannibal’s psyche, and he said: “Why do you have to analyze the film? Can’t you just enjoy it?”

He was right. The way I watch movies now will never be the same as it was years ago before I had any college courses under my belt. I’m trying to find my niche as a journalist. I know I could make it as an A&E reporter, but the more I write A&E reviews, I suffer the calamity of being unable to watch movies or play solely for their entertainment value. I pick them into little pieces so that I am no longer a viewer and evermore an analyist. Can’t I “just enjoy” them? Maybe not, especially not as I review films.

This predicament was brought to the forefront of my mind after watching “Nacho Libre” (Jack Black) last night. I’d rather sit and talk about how great the actress in the Progressive auto insurance commercials is. However, I’ve seen the film and so now I “have to analyze” it.

Briefly, “Nacho Libre” is funny if you enjoy the type of dry, oddball humor of “Napoleon Dynamite.” The film is a success because each scene is a slice of life, a painter’s great landscape. Extreme care and thought are behind the mis en scene and creation of expressionless, dull characters and authentic settings. From the poverty stricken area of Mexico, to the world of bizarre Mexican wrestlers (i.e. a pair of fighting hyena-like dwarfs or Nacho Libre’s companion, Esqueleto) settings are immersed in realism. So are the character’s. As with “Finding Neverland,” the issue of innocence and platonisim vs. romantic love between a man and a woman is examined through the doey-eyed nun, Sister Encarnacion and Nacho Libre. Jack Black carries Nacho Libre with machisimo, sensuality and such believability that you find yourself questioning if he truly is Hispanic. As Nacho Libre, Black truly is hilarious.

Childhood Recaptured

"Tonight we drink to youth and holding fast to truth; Don't wanna lose what I had as a boy..."I only want the truth; I'll never lose what I had as a boy," the Incubus lyrics played on the radio.
Several hours later, “Finding Neverland” starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet played on the television. I was expecting to see an adventurous fantasy film (i.e. "Hook," "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) but that’s not how the movie turned out. Still, I found the content of the film very enjoyable. It was a dreary tale with a slowly moving plot (neither of which are bad factors, consider the beauty of the melancholy “Prozac Nation” or the slow plot developments of “Castaway”). Recalling the Incubus quotes and watching the film reminded me of something I, as an adult, often forget myself-the beauty of childhood.

“Finding Neverland” was enjoyable because it intertwined a great childhood classic, “Peter Pan” in a film with themes of innocence. The burdens of adulthood and growing older were touched upon. An old playgoer whose husband recently passed refers to the ticking clock in the crocodile’s mouth as the ticking clock of mortality. Adult characters face sickness, death, gossip, mindfulness of one’s image and reputation, and lost love. However, the most endearing element of the film is the innocent, platonic love between Sylvia Davies (Winslet) and Sir James Matthew Barrie (Depp), as well as Barrie's flights of imagination and playfulness with her children. Yes, there is a non-romantic love that can exist between a man and a woman that is seldom remembered or seen on the big screen. Barrie is informed of the gossip being spread over his time spent with Davies and her children. He replies, “You find a glimmer of happiness in this world; there's always someone who wants to destroy it."