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Just The Good Ole Boys
February 27, 2009 by NaysWay · 2 Comments
I couldn’t even do a FEAR Feature today… I mean, I did. But now I have to push it out of the way for more current events and shat with the nation. I hate doing this. Hate, hate, hate it. I hate being Black and having to talk about these issues. STILL! I hate having to turn the other cheek. I hate that my intention of this blog/site was to reach out to someone – anyone – in hopes of saving a life. Talking about suicide. Depression. Things I know affected me in my youth.
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FEAR Feature: The Latest Trend
February 27, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
I love movies. I think I’ve mentioned that enough times here to prove my point. Heck, I just love being entertained. Anything that causes my right-brain to do jumping jacks and fierce calisthenics are right up my alley. When I was on the brink of my early teens, I had a mild obsession with all things Winona Ryder. I also had a mild obsession with astrology, so the fact that she was a Scorpio meant she was ten times cooler in my book. Around this time in my obsession, she and Christian Slater starred in a movie that would later become the cult hit of my generation: Heathers.
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE tell me you’ve heard of this movie. Have seen it in your lifetime. Have experienced its awesomeness. If not, run (don’t walk) to your nearest video store, redbox, or Netflix and PICK. UP. THIS. MOVIE! I am not even exaggerating. Heathers put the spotlight on teenage suicide in the affluent suburbias of Midwest America. It was the first time a movie went so far as to delve into two pots of teenage psyche: suicide and bullies. Heathers is the mother to Mean Girls, if Mean Girls were a step-child. Featuring a pre-90210 Shannen Daugherty and a bunch of people who either went on to have a semblance of movie stardom -- or not in some cases. (Who knew Kim Chandler [a.k.a. Heather Chandler] died? More importantly, who knew she was dating Christian Slater during the movie, who then made the cavalier move of dumping her and dating Winona Ryder? What an arse!)
Fast forward over twenty years later (I think I just passed out as I typed that), and suicide is back to being the latest trend. All the kids are doing it. Again. How did this happen? When I had my brushes, I wasn’t thinking about being immortalized by my peers. I was thinking about how much this life sucked. How much I couldn’t handle it. How much I didn’t want to wake up the next day. I am in no way saying suicide is a cultural phenomenon. But at the height of its occurrence, it wasn’t kosher. Drug overdoses were more on the rise than suicides. It was the 80′s. Who wanted to die by their own hand in Generation Me? But suicide is back?
Even worse… suicide RINGS for assisted suicides are vogue? What?!
With the world in its current state, I can’t say I’m that surprised. A little stunned at the numbered rise in cases, but not surprised. Could we categorize this as a national cry for help?
If you’re feeling pretty good about life, I recommend having Heathers in your life and in your movie catalog. It may be hard to believe, but there’s a moral in there somewhere and its still relevant today. Unfortunately.
J.D.: Is your life perfect?
Veronica Sawyer: I’m on my way to a party at Remington University… No, my life’s not perfect. I don’t really like my friends.
J.D.: I… I don’t really like your friends either.
Veronica Sawyer: Well, it’s just like -- they’re people I work with, and our job is being popular and sh*t.
J.D.: Maybe it’s time to take a vacation.
Kids: What Not to Own During a Recession
Times are tough.
The talk of the moment (and probably for a long while to come) is money. Budgets. Taxes. Small businesses. Corporate fat cats. Earmarks. Government spending. Bank bailouts. Mortgage upheavals. Not an end in sight… unless you’re the Federal Reserve Chairman, then the end is in 2010:
Capitol Hill is in a mudslinging contest of epic proportions. Everyone vying for the next spot. The election of 2012. Merchandisers are offering the best consumer deal at low, low prices. All claiming to be lower than the next guy. And cities like Fargo, North Dakota are outlasting us all. Recession? What recession? Pack up your long underwear, kids. We’re going to NORTH DAKOTA!
And who has time for things like sleeping, taking care of your health, your overall physical well-being. Who has money to throw around on mani-pedis?
The rich are crying foul, the poor are just plain crying. How does one cope in such dire and uncertain times?
Having kids ain’t one of those coping mechanisms. Women? Step away from your spouses. Love them from afar. You’ll thank me later.
I am glad I had my kids before there was a time I’d be really nervous about bringing someone into the world. Like now. Never mind my being seven months pregnant with Mooter during the World Trade Center events. Who’s worried? Yes, kids are expensive. People can tell you that all they want, but you never really know just how expensive until you have two of your own. Not one. Two. Or anything more than one. One is a friend. One is a helper around the house. One can entertain themselves. One means only having to do everything once. One birthday party. One annual trip to the circus. One college tuition. Two is only good for tax purposes. (Are you putting little Johnny on your taxes this year, or mine?) Kids do not come with a return policy. You don’t get a discount. You don’t get a stimulus.
All you parents out there laying claim to multiple spawns, you’re crazy. And, I salute you.
Now stop having all those kids! Don’t you know we’re in a recession?!
Accountability
I’m doing something a little different here at FEAR. Since the concept of the site is to try the new, different and, otherwise, unexplored (since I’m a big chicken, and all), I figured it might do me a little good to streamline things. Give this place a feel so you know where I’m going, and would buckle in to take the ride with me.
What better way to streamline than to give some goals. Inspired by the President’s speech last night, I’m going to make myself accountable for change. I am a Type A personality, after all. Streamlining should be in my blood. But then I have that whole scatterbrain problem which I don’t think Type A’s dig too much. So, I’ll toe the line and get us some order around these parts.
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The One With Taraji P. Henson
February 23, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
I am not an Oscar watcher. I could care less who’s nominated, could care less who wins. The whole thing seems like a popularity contest where the really unpopular kids are doing the judging. And you know what happens when the unpopular kids judge the cool kids who’ve promised to give them wedgies in gym class unless they vote for them? Politics.
Of course, pop culture sparks the most conversation in my house. And with Heath Ledger winning for best supporting actor (Whoo! Big shocker there.), it got me and BFam to talking about fairness and the Academy’s voting system. Should there be a posthumous award for those who’ve kicked the bucket before the ceremony? Should you be nominated if you were only in the movie five minutes? Should the audience have to sit through Best Sound Mixing, Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography, and the like, when no one cares? Should you have people like Will Smith presenting for these mundane awards, no matter how cool he tries to make them sound?
And, wouldn’t you know it, all this talking before bedtime apparently screws with my subconscious. Because here I am dreaming about Taraji P. Henson, the person I wanted to win most of all for Best Supporting Actress. Granted, the amount of time BFam and I spent talking about Taraji (look at me on a first name basis) was all of two seconds, and it went something like this:
Him: Taraji lost.
Me: Aw, man. For real?
Him: Yeah.
Me: That sucks.
Riveting. So imagine my surprise when I find out the impact of her losing affected me more than I was aware. The dream went something like this:
Taraji’s just leaving from the Oscars and attends one of the many parties I hear they have after the ceremony. I’m there in plain clothes (I mean, it’s just the Oscars. Why go all out?), and I’m at the bar. For some reason, she and I spark up a conversation while she orders a stiff drink. And I’m not talking no girly drink with twisted lime rinds and salted glass rims. No, I’m talking stuff that would put hair on your chest. Stuff I imagine a girl like Taraji could throw back in two seconds. And she does. Somehow we end up some place else – not a bar, not a club, not a party – just somewhere. By this time, the background is becoming foggy leaving her face and mine the only clear things in the scene. She’s still wearing her Oscar dress. I’m still in plain clothes. And we talk about her loss. And I tell her how much her nomination means to Black people, especially Black women. And then I start to cry. Not that pretty cry, but the Oprah-ugly cry. Snot. Running make-up. And she’s snot-crying with me. And we’re a mess. And we’re feeling sorry for ourselves.
End scene. Fade to black.
What the hell?! Did I really feel that way about Taraji’s nomination and subsequent loss? NO! NO, I DID NOT!
I am SO telling my doctor I need sleeping pills. I hear you don’t dream when you take those things, and I must need a vacation from my brain.
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