Friday, September 03, 2004
dammitt. I haven't been inspired to write as of late. plus i've been busy as hell. School started. i had my first week of classes and think it's going to be a great experience. i've met almost everyone in my program, which is only about 20-25 people, in various concentrations (writing/directing fiction, writing/directing documentary, editing, producing, and camera). I'm in writing/directing fiction...which, btw, is the hardest program to get into...(whoop whoop. give it up!). But, if you read my previous blogs, you'll know i really was 2nd choice since i was waitlisted, but i think its only cuz i applied on the very very last day. I have a lot of respect for the other concentrations especially camera. I think it takes a lot of skills to be a cinematographer, probably more than directing or writing. Technical skills anyway. The big plus to being a writing/directing major is you get to produce your very own work by the end of the program, which gets showcased at a big festival, while everyone else basically works on your project. It's really great to get the creative juices flowing again, but i worry about juggling work and school. It really is 2 different worlds. Anyway, back to school....the people are great. All very diverse. It's a very international program, drawing people from all over the world. There are a few Koreans (mostly editors for some strange reason), a swede, a catalonian, polish, wisconsian. The swede and catalonian went to the film school in prague, which i've always been curious about. I feel awed sometimes and mostly happy to be in good company. I just feel like i'm home.
other than that, the convention ends today. thank god. i really have not been involved in anything political for many months now. I guess i became cynical again. i went out of town to help my boyfriend work on someone else's short film during the big protest last sunday. i just can't get into protests anymore. i know this sounds like a bullshit fuckin' cop out excuse, but i'm glad someone else is doing it. i just don't have the energy for it. i mean, if i do really get into it, which i do when i do, i find i have no energy for anything else. i guess i am learning to balance my life better. i don't know. plus its like the people you are protesting against or want to hear your message, they just don't fuckin' get it. they're either too goddamn ignorant to understand anything you're arguing or they're completely brainwashed or just an asshole. But today as i left work, all of 34th st. was barricaded by police cars and policemen lining the road. Their presence just made me feel like i was a suspect in my own town, in my own streets, even though i was just crossing the road to the duane reade like every other day. like i felt when i was a teenager being watched for shoplifting. i don't blame the nypd. they're just doing their job and i like NYC cops for the most part. it's just the climate. the atmosphere of fear. anyone is a suspect while the "war on terrorism" rages on. fuck man. its like nazism meets the red scare. aye carumba. and don't get me started on bush tonight. jesus help us all.
Posted at 12:10 am by knowmadic
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
pandemonium is what the world seems like to me most of the time when i am tuning everything out and zoned out in my own world like how i usually am when i'm in the subway or when i'm walking around harlem and i'm scared of how i'm being perceived so i try to pretend like i don't care whats going on and everything is just noise to me but i try to make myself focus so that i can be present to things. i notice though that most of new york is just pandemonium especially in midtown where i work and its just buses and noise and foreign languages and excited voices at the empire state building of tourists taking pictures of the inside of a building which i find so pedestrian because i'm in it everyday.
Posted at 10:39 pm by knowmadic
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Busy busy busy.
My boyfriend's brother and his common law wife had their TWINS on sunday! We went to see them at the hospital yesterday. I have to say that was my first newborn experience. I'd never seen 1 1/2 day old babies up close like that before. They were amazing--all the cliched words people use to describe babies- pure, innocent, beautiful. But they were. and they would open their eyes occassionally, completely nonplussed that you're there. I loved it. Babies are so awesome.
I received a very interesting article the other day. It's a psychoanalytic critique of Bush and our current political state a la Jung and argues that Bush suffers from "malignant egocentrism", which also happens to pervade our culture. This is my favorite part of the article: "Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with the evil inside our own hearts. If we solidify Bush as being evil and react with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we're accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting the shadow).
Here's the full article:
THE MADNESS OF GEORGE W. BUSH:
A REFLECTION OF OUR COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS
by Paul Levy
George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is
endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It's an illness that has
been with us since time immemorial. Because it's an illness that's in the soul of all of
humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which
makes it especially hard to diagnose. Bush's malady is quite different from
schizophrenia, for example, in which all the different parts of the personality are
fragmented and not connected to each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As
compared to the dis-order of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite coherent and can
appear like such a "regular," normal guy, which makes the syndrome he is suffering
from very hard to recognize. This is because the healthy parts of his personality have
been co-opted by the pathological aspect, which drafts them into its service. Because of
the way the personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a
pathogenic core, I would like to name Bush's illness "malignant egophrenic (as
compared to schizophrenic) disorder," or "ME disorder," for short. If ME disorder goes
unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive, particularly if the person is
in a position of power.
In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking
at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation. We
can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell,
Wolfowitz, etc.), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are codependently
enmeshed with, the media that they control, and the voters that support
them, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a "field." Instead of relating to any
parts of this field as an isolated entity, it's important to contemplate the entire
interdependent field as the "medium" though which malignant egophrenia manifests and
propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as
such.
Being a field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is non-local in nature, which means
that it is not bound by the limitations of time or space. Being non-local, this disease
pervades and underlies the entire field and can therefore manifest anywhere, through
anyone and at any moment. The disease's non-local nature makes the question of who
has the disease irrelevant, as we all have it in potential. It is more a question of whether
or not we are aware of our susceptibility to fall prey to the disease. This awareness itself
serves as an immunization that protects us from the pernicious effects of this insidious
illness, thereby allowing us to be of genuine help to others.
2
Bush, like all of us, is both a manifestation of this deeper field and simultaneously an
agent affecting this field. He's become so fully taken over by the disease, all the while
not suspecting a thing, that he's become a "carrier" for this deadly disease, thus
infecting the field around him. He's become a portal through which the field around him
"warps" in such a way as to feed and support his pathogenic process. A non-local,
reciprocally co-arising and interdependent field of unconscious denial and cover-up gets
constellated around Bush to enable and protect his pathology.
Falling victim to one's own deception as Bush has can have a very mesmerizing and
gripping effect on others, as he appears so convinced of what he is saying. To quote C.
G. Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists of the twentieth century, "Nothing has such a
convincing effect as a lie one invents and believes oneself." Bush has the seductive
coherence of someone who is fanatically identified, like the typical fundamentalist, with
only one side of a polarity. Thomas Merton, commenting on the case of the obviously
demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, points out "One of the most disturbing
facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and
pronounced him perfectly sane." A key feature of malignant egophrenia is that it is very
hard to recognize when someone is a carrier, because the person can seem so normal
and even endearing. The person afflicted can be very "charming" and have a certain
type of charisma that can entrance those who don't see through their subterfuge
People who don't recognize Bush's illness and support him are colluding with and
enabling in the co-creation of the pathological field that is birthing itself through him into
the human family. People who vote for Bush are somehow blind to what is very obvious
to others. It's as if they've become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is
casting. People who support Bush become unwitting agents through which this non-local
disease feeds and replicates itself. By supporting Bush they are collaborating with and
becoming parts of the greater, interconnected and self-organizing field of the disease.
The situation with Bush is analogous to when seemingly good, normal, loving Germans
supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader trying to help them. The German
people didn't realize that the virulent pathogen malignant egophrenia had taken
possession of Hitler and was incarnating itself through him. By not seeing this and
supporting Hitler, they became agents used by this non-local, deadly disease to
propagate itself. This was a collective psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our
country right now. Whereas Hitler's evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush's
dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous.
Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching
something very deep in the American psyche. Bush is acting out on the world stage an
under-developed psychological process that deals simplistically with issues such as good
and evil. It's as if he hasn't grown out of and fully differentiated from the realm of
mythic, archetypal fantasy that is typical of early adolescence. This immature aspect of
Bush's process speaks to and resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a
reflection of their own under-developed inner process.
3
At the root of Bush's pathology is a deep dissociation. Like the terrorists, he has split-off
from his own darker half, projecting the shadow "out there," and then tries to destroy
this dis-owned shadow. By projecting the shadow onto each other, Bush and the
terrorists are each seeing their own shadow reflected in the other. They see each other
as criminals, as the incarnation of evil. By projecting the shadow like this, they locate
the evil "out there," which insures that they don't have to recognize the evil within
themselves. Ironically, by fighting against their own shadow in this way, they become
possessed by the very thing they are trying to destroy, thereby perpetuating a neverending
cycle of violence.
Projecting the shadow like this, to quote Jung, "deprives us of the capacity to deal with
evil". By projecting the shadow, Jung continues "evil has us in its grip, for only the fool
can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is
the best means of making him an instrument of evil." By projecting the shadow, Bush is
unwittingly being a conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him from behind,
beneath his conscious awareness, and to act itself out through him. At the same time,
ironically enough, he identifies with the light and imagines that he is divinely inspired.
People afflicted with extreme cases of egophrenia like Bush can become so inflated that
they believe that any action they desire is justified in the name of God, as they can
rationalize it as being God's will. Unable to self-reflect, they are convinced of the
rightness of their viewpoint, which they consider non-negotiable. They react to other
people who don't agree with them and who don't support their narcissism not just with
aggression but with sadism. They have contempt for and flagrantly violate the rule of
law, which they believe themselves to be above.
Bush has fallen into a state that is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing to the
temptation of power, he has become corrupt, which is the inevitable consequence when
one prefers power over truth. Bush has fallen into a vicious cycle where he is
compulsively driven to do everything and anything he can to hold onto the position of
power he finds himself in. He has become addicted to power, which generates a
counter-incentive to self-reflect. Underlying this resistance to look in the mirror, whose
inner meaning is "shadow holder", is an unwillingness and seeming inability to
experience his own sense of sin, guilt and shame. It is as if he is afraid of being
exposed, of being found out. To quote Jung, a person stricken with a pathology such as
Bush "cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not help incurring it. He will stoop to
every kind of self-deception if only he can escape the sight of himself ...which consists
essentially in one hand not knowing what the other one is doing, in wanting to jump
over one's own shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in
others." All of these factors set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of denial, cover-up
and projecting the shadow, all of which are based on a lie. Bush then falls into an
endless loop of hiding from his own lie, which is to say, from himself. This process
allows Bush to becomes a conduit for egophrenia to take him over and incarnate its
malignant aspect through him.
Malignant egophrenia is crazy-making. It induces a very hard to recognize form of
insanity. It's a world where up is down, as its flawless illogic is convoluted and inverted
at its core. People with egophrenia do not recognize the mirror-like nature of reality, so
they accuse other people of doing what they themselves are doing.
4
For example, Bush is talking about himself when he accuses Saddam Hussein of being
"a man who has defied the world," and "a man who has made the United Nations look
foolish." When we fall prey to egophrenia, we are unable to recognize that we are
taken over, as we become bewitched by our own projections. Part of the disease is that
when we point at it and call it by its true name - as being a form of insanity called
ignorance - people who are stricken with the disease will see us as the one's who are
crazy. Unless we recognize the insidious nature of this non-local disease, there is a
crazy-making field around it that will make us a part of itself. Collective psychosis is like
that.
One of the signatures of ME disease is that it hooks people through their unconscious
blind-spot, so when people are afflicted by this deadly disease they are truly asleep to
what is getting acted out through them. Bush doesn't suspect a thing about his
pathology because the field around him unconsciously conspires and colludes with and
enables his psychosis. Bush himself is being manipulated, used and victimized, like a
marionette on a string, by a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has been
perpetrated by him and his very regime, and has now taken on an autonomous life of its
own. This disease, if it gets out of control, means self-destruction for both victim and
perpetrator. There are no winners. The entire interconnected web that supports Bush
can be recognized to be tentacles of this virulent, non-local pathogen that, to the extent
that it is not seen, is potentially gaining more and more sovereignty. Like a sci-fi movie,
we have dreamed up a higher-dimensional Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life
of its own and truly threatens all of us.
Malignant egophrenia is both an expression of and at the root of the extreme
polarization and dissociation in both the human psyche and the world process at large.
We can even say that it's the "bug" in the system that has in-formed and given shape to
all of the conflict and disharmony of human relationship. ME disease is as old as the
human species. However, we're now at the point in our evolution where we can finally
recognize it, see it, give it a name and diagnose it.
The recognition of the disease is itself the beginning of the cure. By recognizing the
nature of this collective psychosis, we snap out of being part of it. Malignant egophrenia,
unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now, has wreaked havoc all throughout human
history, and is at the very root of our current world crisis. To the extent we are unaware
of the nature of this collective psychosis, it has us in its grips and will unconsciously get
acted out through us in a destructive manner. The choice is truly ours.
The prescription for this disease is simply for enough of us who see it to connect with
each other in lucid awareness so that it can be (alchemically) contained. The pathogen
then can't possess us from behind, beneath our conscious awareness, and act itself out
through us. Seeing the nature of the disease we know its name, which takes away its
omnipotence and autonomy. The pathogen is then anchored to consciousness so that it
can't vaporize back into the unconscious. This de-potentiates the disease, beginning the
process of metabolizing and re-integrating it back into the profound unity of the psyche.
The energy that was bound up in the compulsion to endlessly re-create the disease
becomes liberated and available for creative expression.
5
This is an evolutionary impulse from the universe in which we are invited to participate.
Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with the evil
inside our own hearts. If we solidify Bush as being evil and react with righteous
indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we're accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting
the shadow). We then become a conduit for the very evil we're reacting to. Who among
us has not been guilty of being a channel for ME disease at one time or another? If,
when we see this virulent pathogen, we contract against it and react in any way, be it in
judgment, hatred, anger or revulsion, we're helping to perpetuate the diabolical
polarization that is the signature of the disease. Our reacting in this way, which is typical
of many political activists, is itself an expression that we ourselves have the disease, or
to say it more clearly, the disease has us.
Jung says "Everything could be left undisturbed did not the new way demand to be
discovered, and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of Egypt until it finally is
discovered." Malignant egophrenia is a modern day plague of Egypt. If we don't see
what it is symbolically revealing to us, malignant egophrenia will destroy us. It's a
gesture from the universe, beckoning us, demanding us to integrate it and thereby
receive its blessing. By prompting, pressuring and challenging us to come to terms with
it and receive its gifts, malignant egophrenia has the potential to awaken us, thereby
furthering the evolution of the species.
The question is, do we recognize what is being symbolically shown to us by egophrenia,
or not? The inner meaning of the word apocalypse is "something hidden being
revealed." Will these apocalyptic end times we are in be an initiation into a more
expansive part of our being? Or will it destroy our species? How it will manifest
completely depends on us.
Malignant egophrenia has so taken over President Bush as its living embodiment that
this deadly disease could be said to be incarnating itself through him. Because of his
position of power, Bush is able to act out and give shape and form to his inner
pathology in such a way that his inner process is both literally, as well as symbolically,
getting played out as the world process. Bush's process, as well as the world's process,
is a reflection of our own process. ME disease is unique in that it collapses the boundary
between inner and outer. Egophrenia is an inner disease of the soul that expresses itself
via the medium of the outside world.
Being a non-local field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is something all six billion of
us are collaboratively creating and dreaming up together. Bush is an embodied, mirrored
reflection of a part of ourselves, just like we, reciprocally, are a reflection of a part of
him. His disease is our disease. Bush and his regime are a living embodied reflection of
our collective shadow. We have all dreamed them up to play out these roles, in full living
color, so that we can see and integrate these parts of ourselves. Compassion
spontaneously arises when we recognize these fear-ridden parts of ourselves.
6
The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us, for all who have
eyes to see. If we don't look at what's happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and
contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we're colluding with and unknowingly
feeding the disease. Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form
of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, IS itself the disease. Our resulting
complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. To quote
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. "One who passively accepts evil [allowing it to happen]
is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."
Compassion is sometimes fierce, though. Sometimes it says "no," and sets a boundary.
Genuine compassion is not always smiley-faced, otherwise known as "idiot compassion,"
which just enables and reinforces asleepness. Genuine compassion is not passive. It
propels us to act for the benefit of all beings. True compassion demands us to be willing
to consciously step into our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage
to speak our true voice. The Bush administration is breaking the moral code, the law of
the planet, what Thomas Jefferson called "a decent respect for the opinion of
mankind". Like a bully who is in a position of power and privilege, the Bush regime
abuses its power simply because it can. What the Bush regime is doing is truly criminal.
The malignant egophrenia epidemic has induced a form of criminal insanity in the entire
Bush regime that we are all complicit in by allowing it to happen.
Being truly patriotic and compassionate in our current situation involves doing
everything and anything we can, however big or small, to remove Bush and his regime
from office, for their good, as well as our own. It's our responsibility to recognize the
extreme danger of our situation and to do something about it. This is what Al Gore was
trying to tell us in his speech when he ended with the quote by Abraham Lincoln, "Weeven
we here- hold the power, and bear the responsibility." Now is the time to act
before it is too late. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. says "Our lives begin to end
the day we become silent about things that matter."
A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritual and political activist. He is in private practice, helping
other people who are also spiritually awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. He
can be reached at paul@awakeninthedream.com. His website is
www.awakeninthedream.com, where a longer, more in-depth version of this article is
available. Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. ©
2004.
Posted at 07:21 pm by knowmadic
Thursday, July 29, 2004
so i'm out of commission. i pulled my hamstring for some reason or another. i really can't fgure out how i did it but my leg was hurting like a bitch so i came home after making the penn station multi stairway-ed trek to the empire state building where i work only to sit down for half and hour to turn around and make the same stairmaster hell trek back home. and now i'm lying here with my legs propped up like an invalid. its sort of a comforting feeling like when you stay home from school and get to feast on the endless series of daytime television blocks, but then again i feel lonely like i did when i was a kid and wished someone was there to take care of me. my friend just came over but she didn't seem entertained enough by me so she blew through and left only to tell me about the latest dramatic story in her life and halfheartedly listening to me. "are you okay? you seem...mentally...i don't know...like your sick" well, i have a fuckin limp. what the fuck do you expect me to be goddamn sunshines? maybe i'm sick of selfish fairweathered friends who just want you to play with them and accompany them when they're bored. they love you when you're up but could give 2 shits when you're down.
Posted at 01:12 pm by knowmadic
Friday, July 02, 2004
holy shit. so i'm reading the local Metro paper on my way home from work on the subway and on the cover is a story about how Ja-Rule and Savion Glover were both arrested early yesterday morning on separate occassions for marijuana possession. And they both took place in the village. And Ja-Rule was arrested at 2:19AM on 6th Ave. in the village which was exactly where i was when i saw the undercover taxi/cop car pulling over the well-dressed black man in the mercedes the other night (read previous blog entry). That was Ja fuckin' Rule being arrested. OK, so apparently Ja was pulled over for not using his turn signal. nooooooow...i have been pulled over on numerous occassions including not using my turn signal when switching lanes and not once have I ever been searched. And I bet you a million dollars that if a white man in a mercedes was cruising down 6th Ave. on a early Thursday morning, he wouldn't have been tailed by an undercover taxi cab. So....what did i learn from my local paper today? Even if you're a succesful famous black man, you're still suspected as a criminal. What'd you think of your constitution now, p. diddy? Still believe in freedom?
On a happier note, even though I had only 2 hours of sleep yesterday, i went to the yankees/bosox game last night and what a game. A-mazing. Unfortunately I had to leave at the 10th inning because of my lack of sleep but I watched the rest of the game at home. I can only imagine the excitement in that stadium. The place was jumpin' when i was there. The animosity was great. The fans were great. The game was great and the players played their heart out. oh yeah, and i was also on the big screen during the 7th inning stretch singing, they panned on me when i was singing "god bless america". I really don't like partcipating in that cuz it feels like such an exclusionary song. god bless america, but fuck the rest of the world. i do like giving it up to the servicemen who have lost their lives, even though i feel they didn't necessarily die for us, but some abstract concept. Anyway, i'm off to new england for the long weekend. y'all enjoy...peace out.
P.S. i have a big bruise on my arm. WTF!
Posted at 06:12 pm by knowmadic
Thursday, July 01, 2004
the freaks come out at night
snippets from my night so i don't forget tomorrow. this guy named pitu from bengladesh who looked like my exboyfriend shane he wanted to buy me a drink as i was walking out the door. i seriously considered it because he looked harmless but my cautious side fought it but he followed me as i was walking down the street and talked to me all along the way. i noticed ring finger. i just realized tonight that i uncosiously check maybe because i am secretly attracted to him too. i bringit up he says he is married he doesn't care about that he doesn't buy into the republican concept of marriage which is that you get married and then you don't have a life and you can't talk to someone of the opposite sex. i'm not sure thats a republican theory per se but i say i don't either but i still don't trust him. he wants to have a drink with me i want to go home i'm weary and wary he says lets meet up he wants to see me again he asks when he will see me again i won't give him my number i say i will take his if that will make him feel better he asks why i won't give him my number i say that we will see each other again he wants to know how if he doens't know my number don't worry we will see each other i am half bullshitting but i mean it in that "if its meant to be then we will see each other again" bullshit which i half believe but just to get him off my back as i'm walking up the stairs to my boyfriends i'm thinking this was a bad idea and jsut want to go back home to my own house but i go up to his apt which is the familiar chaos that used to feel like home to me but doesn't anymore. i take a shower and pace around and then finally decide to go back to bleecker street to return his keys. there's a cab outside with lights flashing on it when i walk outside i realize that it's an undercover cop car and he's pulled over a mercedes with a black dude standing outside being patted down the fat cop who is dressed in a t-shirt a la cab driver is standing by the cab/cop car as the female partner is handling the perp and a drunken guy comes up to the cop and just gets up right in his face. the cop pushes him and tells him to move along i get to bleecker street return the keys and start to get in an argument with boyfriend about not leaving after the show with me he's standing with his drums getting ready to go home talking with some guys who snicker becuase "the girlfriend" is here he tells me he's sorry and i'm irrationally pissed off at the whole situation and i'm walking to the subway and my metro card has expired and i'm at the machine thinking i'm fuckin broke for a subway card and this guy comes up and says something like "metro card 2 i have" waving 2 metro cards in my face like one of those bums who sell used cards and i turn around and its the fuckin bengali guy he didn't know it was me til i turned around i think i am more surprised that he's trying to hawk metro cards he says he has an extra metro card someone gave him and that he cant believe that its me i can't either and as we're walking down to the subway platform i feel someone brush by me and a few seconds pass and i realize that she's pinched me really hard on the arm hard enough that i will bruise so i know i'm not dreaming i think that shes trying to warn me because i still don't trust this guy even though he just saved my ass i say "did you know her?" he says she just did it because she likes me i look back and realize she could be a dyke cuz she sure as hell pinched like one he can't get over the fact that he saw me again and i say i told you that we'd see other again didn't i tell you? but even i don't believe it. we both agree its fucking wierd he is getting too close to me and keeps holding my face and getting in my face whenever he wants to make a point i tell him i hate that and hes getting in my space he gets on the train i tense up a little i just want to get away from him with me he says just one stop i avoid giving him more information about me but i agree to meet him next week because i start to believe my own bullshit about us seeing each other again but i probably won't go and the moon was red as i was walking home...
Posted at 04:08 am by knowmadic
Friday, June 25, 2004
are we all really so surprised that mary-kate olsen is anorexic? So they're the model of goody two shoe all-american girls. But, come on, it's all a mirage. I'm sure she, along with her sister ashley, are nice gals (I actually was at a SNL party with them a few weeks ago but i didn't really talk to them. my friend matthew said something that really freaked them out though, but he freaks most people out) Anyway, i think putting kids in the limelight like that at such a young age really is some form of child abuse. I don't know. It's like when your image is out there you really have no control over a part of you anymore. You belong to the public. It would be cool to see them (the olsen chicks) in a role that is completely against type. I think a great career move for mary-kate when she gets out of treatment would be an indie movie where she plays a drug addict or some troubled fucked up person. It could really bring her out of that full house image and ease the transition from anorexic child star to a real actress. Maybe i'll write her a good role one day. Anyway, i'm still trippin' on myself. I can't wait to be able to get my screenplay finished and produced. That's my goal for going to city college (not just to get another master's). What's even more exciting is that there is a 2 day film festival showcasing the students' thesis films at the end of your 2nd year at clearview cinema where industry people attend (agents, distributors, etc.). My jobby job is shaping out to be rather lucrative as well. I'll be starting out as an "account executive" and hopefully in about 2 months i'll be an education consultant and making a lot more cash. I'm hoping i can balance both film school full time and working full time. It'll be a challenge, but hey, i've been sitting on my ass long enough. Time to get my life going again. There's a beastie boys concert on. I think i'll go watch it.
p.s. who the fuck does p. diddy think he is? He's flying an original copy of the declaration of independence for his hamptons july 4th party. Real hard, diddy. why don't you go exploit some more hood rats or can't you get any more talent for mtv?
Posted at 09:14 pm by knowmadic
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
happy days are here again
 So I have some great news for a change...first, I started a new job that I don't hate...so far anyway...it's only the 2nd day of training, but I can say for sure that it's one of my better ones. I'll be an "Education Consultant" for an IT Training school called Netcom, which means i'll be doing sales. At least I won't be ripping off old people. I'll be ripping off young people instead. Actually, I think it's a pretty good company. A young diverse bunch. The people who run it used to have a dotcom called Angryman back in the day. I'm learning a lot anyway, which is always cool.
More importantly, however, I got into the MFA Media Arts Production program at city college for the fall! I got into the Writing/Directing Fiction program, which is the most competitive division to get into . I actually was waitlisted because I applied really about 2 weeks after the deadline but I just found out today that someone declined. Anyway, they were "very impressed with (my) work." awwwwww...isn't taht nice? But now the real work can begin...
Oh, and I got a cat. Her name is boogey. She likes to hide and can be a real pain in the ass. But she is cute and i love her.Posted at 10:20 pm by knowmadic
Friday, June 11, 2004
I watched the documentary on Metallica tonight called "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" at the DGA, where i helped hand out programs for my friend who is an intern at the Museum of the Moving Image...where I also applied for an internship, but apparently i applied to the wrong department and didn't get it. I guess it wasn't meant to be...i've been thinking a lot lately about where I"m meant to be, career-wise and in life and all that bullshit. I guess I am where I'm meant to be, but I can't help wanting to speed up the process. Maybe its my 10 year high school reunion coming up that's reminding me of what I have (not) accomplished yet. But i hated high school anyway, so why am i lettiing the anniversary of some phase I don't even care to remember get to me? Working in stocks and talking to all the old people and widows also reminds me of how short life is too. Speaking of which, I'm no longer selling my soul. The devil decided to cut me loose. I guess it really is a blessing in disguise. I am moving on to another random job soon...with an IT school. I guess it's not as extreme as wall street.
The metallica movie was really good actually. I never knew much about the band, except that they were one of the metal bands with depth. I did go in thinking what assholes they were for pulling that whole anti-napster thing. Coincidentally, i just got an i-pod today with all of my stolen music on it...sans metallica. But i actually left the film thinking that the guys really have some sort of integrity, in a music world full of bullshit sell-out artists. The film itself was really about the creative process. It starts out with a comedic tone which i thought would lend itself to one big joke about a washed up band trying to make a come back, but i soon realized the director's earnestness. (I found out later that Elektra records initially funded the project for a promo for the band and later wanted to sell the project as a reality show a la the Osbourne show, but the band fought it and paid out Elektra for the footage and eventually put up the money to complete the documentary, which was directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the directors of Paradise Lost, the doc. about the 3 kids who were charged with the "satantic killing" of 3 boys, all because they wore metallica t-shirts. Berlinger was at the screening.) There were some definite funny moments in the film, where the band almost parodies themselves, which happened to be one of Lars Ulrich's overarching fears for the band, as he states in the movie, but I think overall it shows the humanistic side of "rock gods." You almost feel like you have watched a small little band become a huge rock star band by the end of the film because you feel so close to the band members throughout the filming process. Hence the title i suppose. But I thought the film was more about the rebirth of the band and the whole rebirth thing was sort of touched on in the film, but i guess they don't have a song called rebirth. I loved kirk hammett's introspective dialogue, but i think he got more laughs than he deserved. Kind of like the whole therapy thing. Metallica hires a "performance enhancement coach", or therapist, who basically gets them back together. The whole thing is pretty laughable, but very honest. I guess it's more just a nervous laugh because you have these images of these monster rock gods, but they're really just these insecure creative and emotional guys who don't know how to express themselves. Oh, now i see how the title fits in. I think one of my favorite scenes is when they perform for prisoners in san quentin. it was really moving that they got the crowd going so much. I'm sure it meant a lot for them to see them play. I liked how James Hetfield said "We're all born good." Which reminds me...what the hell is up with all the fuckin' pomp and circumstance with Reagan's funeral? The man was evil, if you want to characterize the world as either good or evil, which apparently was Reagan's claim to fame. He caused the fall of communism in eastern europe. Bullshit. He just happened to be in office at the time. It's like Bush taking credit for "bringing the nation together" after 9/11. And thanks for the weapons in space, Ronnie. Too bad those aliens never attacked. Everyone from Brokaw to Charlie Rose is waxing rhapsodic about what a great and "mysterious" man he was. So fuckin what? Hitler was a mystery. Aggghhh...don't get me started on politics and the media. But seriously, even the "good" things they had to say about Reagan were really bad things in disguise. He pushed family values even though he was divorced. He preached about religion but never went to church. He was friendly to everyone but had no close friends. The guy was a hypocrite and a phony. He was an ACTOR for crying out loud! And on Charlie Rose, they were saying how he always saw himself as a hero, and remembered every person he saved when he was a lifeguard and that those were traits of a hero. No, it's not! The guy had delusions of grandeur! Now, i know everyone fears saying bad things because the guy just died and everything but come on, let's face the facts. He made himself larger than life, kind of like how metallica made themselves, and when you look at the REAL picture, he was probably just as screwed up or more screwed up than the rest of us, and he wanted to control the world. guy with control issues. I just hope that Ronnie made peace with himself before he went.
Posted at 10:55 pm by knowmadic
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
I'm gonna start blogging soon. I promise. but first i have a confession to make...I've been selling my soul to make a little bit of paper. i basically shake down unwitting stockholders to vote for a merger so the big guys can make out with millions. actually, most aren't that unwitting. They just don't have that much of a choice. sort of like how our democracy works. But I am surprised by how many people i talk to on the phone who are against conglomerations and large corporations. Mostly from texas and the midwest and the south. of course, these are the same people who complain that they don't want to be taken over by "the jews" or the damn french (the company is merging with a french-based company. the jew thing is speculative). i'm actually hoping the merger doesn't go through and the people win. i wish people showed this much solidarity in the real election. anyway, i'm what you would call a proxy solicitor, or the euphemistic "information agent." its sad what one will resort to to survive in the city. there's a reason why live is evil spelled backwards, because we all have to do something a little evil to live now and then, don't we? or as the roots profoundly rhapsodize, "if you wanna reach somethin' in life, you ain't gonna get it unless you give a little bit of sacrificin'."
Posted at 01:01 am by knowmadic
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