Sighinide

Oh. My. GOD.

She KILLED it! LOVED it and loved her.

And no, people, this doesn’t represent Taylor’s “split” from country or anything. This is just her trying something new and expanding her boundaries, as she should as a young musician.

The performance was awesome and charismatic. Her singing was on point. It wasn’t technically stunning like in a Mariah Carey or even an Ariana Grande ballad, but the personality was there times ten. She owned the stage, commanded the audience and rocked the house. Pure pop perfection.

And… I couldn’t believe my eyes at the choreography! Not because of the quality (though it was great), but because Taylor’s performance had so many obvious visual rhymes with Madonna’s Material Girl video. The male dancers dressed in tuxedos lifting her up and pursuing her, the stairs, the overhead shot at the beginning, all of it… I couldn’t believe it! I nearly fell off my chair when I realized who Taylor’s inspiration was here!!!

Tay, darling… I was just kidding about the enormous cone bra. Don’t do that, dear. Thanks.

Even the shiny tassels on Taylor’s outfit reminded me of Madge’s glittering jewels in Material Girl. It was crazy to watch.

Come to think of it, Taylor’s back up singers in her performance reminded me of how Madge’s backups were presented early on in her career. But, perhaps that’s just me stretching things.

The song… is very good, and indeed reminiscent of early Madonna with the higher vocals and attitude. But- it doesn’t reach Madonna’s transcendent heights. Not that it needs to.

But whatever. I’m stopping this before I go too far into critic mode.

I’m going to have to watch the whole VMAs later on. I just caught Swifty’s performance this time.

Do you think MTV will ever broadcast this again?!?! Gosh, I just don’t know!

Ok, I take back what I said earlier about doubting Taylor. I mean, it’s Taylor Swift! I went through some of my Taylor memorabilia late last night and was just amazed at how cool it all is and how perfect Taylor is.

Yes, that’s right, I said perfect. She just doesn’t do wrong. I mean, she just does it all so well!

I’m sure that when her album comes out, it’s going to be unbelievably poignant and amazing. I just know it. I mean, how can it *not* be?

What’s great about Taylor and I is our ability to just know what the right thing is. So I just misjudged her a bit.

I treasure my Taylor guitar pick collection just so so much. It’s probably the best of it’s kind in the world, in fact, I’m sure it is. I have at least one of single official Taylor Swift guitar pick variety. I even have the guitar picks that Taylor used on her last Nashville show at the end of the Red tour. I mean, beat that! I wouldn’t sell any of it for anything!

Plus I have a copy of the first print of her original album, the uncensored one, with a legit autograph on it. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

I do sometimes regret not buying the autographed Taylor Swift demo CD I saw on eBay, but it was too expensive. It also had someone else’s name on it, so it wouldn’t have been totally mine even if I would have gotten it.

Overall, though, I’m glad I have the stuff I have. It’s all so cool and interesting.

… So now, in other words, I’m confident that Taylor is doing well. I mean, she listens to me and my abilities better than anyone. Better than myself sometimes, even. I shouldn’t doubt her. I love her and know she’ll be successful more than anything, because that’s who she is. That’s who WE are.

So I’m totally going to be waiting for Swifty’s performance today. It’s going to be one for the history books.

Go forth and kick ass, Taylor!!!!

I was pleasantly surprised at Hollywood’s silence regarding the events in Ferguson. It looks like they’re learning, albeit slowly and with much pain and awkwardness. But progress is progress.

What I suspect happened is that after the public tongue lashings I gave my girlfriends after the Trayvon case, they had a sit down with each other and resolved to not force themselves into the middle of racially charged issues that they don’t have much information on and don’t fully understand. Good.

Well done, Tom. Well done, Hollywood.

As new information about Michael Brown continues to leak out, it’s becoming obvious that his death was yet another self-defense killing of a roided up career felon with a yard long rap sheet. You know, like so many of the others.

Hollywood’s exemplary silence on this issue stands in a nice, stark contrast to the familiar bleating of the “news” media, which is *still* playing up the preposterous fiction of a cop who just up and shot a random black guy because he didn’t like his skin color (!), which by the way, totally justifies why the black neighborhoods in that area went on a horrifying rampage that destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of innocents and caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damage. Because of RACISM!!!

Right.

And thus, the “mainstream” media lets nothing get in the way of its long slide into irrelevance.

After a thorough scan of twitters and tumblrs, I’m pleased to say that even super liberals like Katy Perry and Mary Elizabeth Winstead didn’t say anything regrettable. Excellent.

Proper leadership is tough, but if done right, can yield great rewards. Well done everyone, all around.

FINE. I’ll be Ariana Grande’s boyf too. Since that’s what everyone wants and expects, I might as well just go ahead and do it.

FINE.

I’ll be a good little slut and do the conformist thing and fuck people that everyone wants to me to fuck. Because that’s just the way I am, I guess. Whatever.

And also, where the hell is Taylor Swift? Didn’t she just release a new song or something? So where the hell IS she?!?!?!? I don’t get it. She walks around in primped up dresses and 2 pounds of makeup when she has nothing to promote, but the second she does, she disappears!!!! Taylor- what the fuck?!?!?!

Well, here it is. Swifty’s new song and video premiered last night to enormous anticipation and fanfare.

I’m still thinking about it. It’s too early to discern whether or not the direction that Taylor chose for her new album is a wise one from a celebrity standpoint. My take, based on the very limited information I know and the one song I have, is that the album will be an interesting misstep.

The song does not flow well with the zeitgeist, IMHO. Shake it Off is a very fun, well made, light and airy pop confection, which does not fit well with these times of mass unemployment, race war, mental depression, and extreme stress.

These are times that identify with the nihilism and despair of the 90’s, not the lightness and confidence of the eighties. At least, that’s the case outside of Taylor’s .01% milieu. I’m sure that inside of the NYC / Huffington Post / Gawker / “Yes We Can!” bubble culture, things are different, though. Perhaps Taylor was trying to please both ends of the spectrum, the .01% and the 99.99%. If so, only the album will say whether or not her attempt will be successful. We’ll just have to see.

I was very surprised to see that the music video was directed by Mark Romanek. The first time I saw it I kind of brushed it off as being not really worthy of serious, artistic inspection. Maybe that was just me, though. My focus was, natch, on Taylor Swift. I’m often too infatuated with her to see around her.

It’s an honor to see some of my ideas and thoughts brought to life by Romanek. He was the first music video director that pop culture aficionados really paid attention to. Remember that special lifetime achievement award MTV gave him back in… 96? 97? It was during the Music Video Awards. They showed a montage of clips before the award presentation, and I think everyone was stunned to see that one dude had managed to direct essentially everyone’s favorite music videos. A legend for sure.

I’ll need to rewatch the video with an eye for art and imagery, and not just for OMG TAY IN GLASSES AND SHORTS!!!!1

Tay should work with Romanek to made a kick ass abstract video like the ones he did with Madonna. If Taylor is going pop than I want to see her with a giant cone bra that would scare even Madge.

But I digress, but not enough, so back on topic.

I don’t know. Maybe people will take to Taylor’s confectionery pop as a respite from their immense problems. But, I can’t see that because there’s already so much of that out there.

What people really need is someone, anyone, within the oligarchy who actually seems to live on planet Earth. Taylor was the hope for some of these people (me). If she isn’t, well, I’ll not sure, then.

For the lower 90%, the future in too many ways is not bright. For them, the six year old economic depression grinds on relentlessly with no end in sight. For them, the future is bleak and filled with regret, lost opportunity, and violence. What is happening in Ferguson is a small taste of what lies ahead for them.

A month ago, I wrote a violent, dire Taylor Swift fanfiction, Seeing Black, about a race war between blacks and whites. I didn’t publish it because I was suffering from that crushing depression and was wondering if I was going off the deep end. In light of what is going on these days, perhaps I should’ve.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from Tay. Perhaps we all are. She’s not a politician or a social commentator. Perhaps the people should really direct their disappointment not at celebrities, who are after all just doing their job, but at the real perpetrators of our malaise: the politicians and business leaders who are so corrupt and uninspiring that people will actually turn to people like Taylor and give her more of a listen than they really should.

At any rate, I hope that Taylor does well and that her new album is quality. If it isn’t, in the absolute worst case scenario it will kill her career. There seems to be no second acts in the life of a pop star these days. These are times of extremes, and people are just so, so alienated and angry. Once they turn on you, there’s no coming back to respectability. You will stay a fixture, like Bieber, but you will never be really and truly liked or respected by anyone again. You will have money forever, but at the cost of being the laughingstock of the world for the rest of your life.

I don’t expect this, though. As I said, that is the worst possible case, and Tay seems more than able to dodge this- unlike so many of her peers, who can’t seem to do much of anything right in regards to their long term viability. Tay also seems a bit smarter than them overall, but she is, of course, increasingly suffering from the .01% syndrome I’ve discussed already.

Time will tell whether the .01% syndrome will overtake her entirely. If it does, I’ll sell my Taylor Swift memorabilia for what I can get and move on, and so will almost all of the rest of the Swifties.

I’d hate this. Being a Swifty has, thus far, been a source of real pride. I’d hate to see the term tossed into the same joke bin where people have disposed of terms like Beliebers, Madonnabees, the Kiss Army, etc.

We shall see.

Anna Margaret’s instagram is back!!!! YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!! Thank you thank you social media gods!!!!!!

I’m so happy I could just scream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank GODDDDDD

Let’s return to the well, shall we?

This week saw the re-emergence of large scale rioting from the black “underclass”. Of course, no intelligent discussion about the riots was permitted from any national news source. Of course.

Apparently, the rioters were inflamed by the shooting death of a random kid that almost none them knew. Mmmm hmmm.

The fact that we’ve been in an economic depression for six years and running is apparently not pertinent to any analysis of the riots. Neither is the fact that mass immigration has destroyed all career opportunities for all young, natural born American citizens under the upper-middle class stratum. Neither is the fact that all the money in the United States now resides in the hands of a twisted criminal overclass. And, certainly, it is not important that the national black culture now consists of nothing more than stupid, mindless, violent thuggery, and that black America as a whole has become lazy, entitled, and spoiled beyond redemption.

No, none of that is important. The riots are all about the shooting death of some kid that nobody knew. Right.

And so it goes. And goes. And goes, with no end in sight.

You know, I sometimes wonder what the point is of me complaining about the media. Is there anyone in this world who actually listens to the Western media anymore? Every fool these days knows that it has no credibility. So why am I even wasting my energy?

Force of habit, I guess. Can’t think of any other reason.

I think that the blanket coverage of Robin Williams’ death is a good example of how screwed up the media’s priorities are right now. Look, I liked the guy and I’m sorry he’s gone, but isn’t the fact that we’re in the middle of the worst economic crisis in a century right now, oh, I don’t know, just a wee bit more important?

Apparently not.

For the “mainstream” media, nothing but oblivion awaits. It’s already dead. It’s just the last one to know.

I’ll bet you can guess what I’m about to write about next! So can I. It’s a muse on the oligarchs’ real intentions.

What are they thinking right now? Are they deliberately avoiding real discussion to buy time to unfold some master plan that they believe will fix the nation’s ills? Are they procrastinating on fixing things so they can flee the country before the sheep wake up? Are they sadists who enjoy causing chaos? Are they preparing to sell the United States and it’s population to foreign interests, so they can wash their hands of the problem entirely? Or do they just not know what to do?

Surely they’re not stupid enough to think that the status quo can continue indefinitely. Their media coverage makes them look ignorant and horribly out of touch, and makes their figurehead, Obama, look like a bumbling, hopeless fool (which he is, of course, but that fact must be successfully hidden if the oligarchs are going to continue to steal the nation’s assets).

A holding pattern in the media would only generate additional riots from blacks who feel they are being ignored, naturally, along with the coming retributions on blacks from working class whites, which people got a taste of this week and should begin in earnest in 10, 9, 8…

These retributions are as inevitable as the coming of winter. Black crime has been a problem for God knows how long, but it was a problem that could be easily avoided because the United States used to be wealthy. Whenever black crime became a problem, whites were rich enough to simply move away. Hence “white flight”.

Now that the US is a bankrupt third world tyranny, there is no money for this. Black crime can only be dealt with one way, and that is head on confrontation. White flight is not an option since nobody but the oligarchs has the money to just pick up and relocate.

This is why the term “racist” has lost it’s power to impress. Being nonjudgmental about race is a rich man’s luxury.

In a choice between being called “racist” and openly avoiding blacks, and being “tolerant” and finding yourself a victim of a mob of niggers set on gang rape, I would rather be racist.

So unlike previous years, when the rioting stopped and tensions chilled, it’s not going away this time. It’s here and it’s going to stay and get worse, possibly indefinitely.

And so it goes and goes.

I wonder who will take the blame for all of this. It may be necessary for the oligarchs to sacrifice Obama, or if he’s undeservedly lucky, his successor, to try to appease the bloodlust of the angry masses. I’m sure that they have already made plans to do this should the need arise. But, IMHO, that will not be enough. So, who else, then?

It could be that there aren’t going to be enough scapegoats to appease the people, and the real perpetrators of this disaster may actually be targeted. In that case is no way for them to escape, and they will all be euthanized. This is especially likely if foreign powers with a grudge get involved.

And the best part is that very few people here will care, especially when the litany of evils that they have done is released to the public.

Fine with me.

*Yawn*.

It is sad to hear of Robin’s death and the reasons for it. It absolutely is. It’s tragic and scary that someone so successful and beloved could kill himself.

It makes you think. Or, at least it should.

For some reason, his passing doesn’t seem to be affecting me as much as it is others. I’m genuinely surprised by this, considering my place in Hollywood. I *do* feel as though his death is tragic, and that the world was robbed of a man with a kind heart and amazing talent, but I’m not going to actually sit and cry over the death of someone I’ve never met.

Does this make me callous? Selfish? Sensible?

I’m not sure. Perhaps my own recent experiences with depression have hardened me to it. Truthfully, I just want nothing to do with depression in any form anymore. I’m totally exhausted with it and I want it out of my life.

I think it a good thing that I sandwiched my twitter goodbye to Robin between a handful of funny, snarky tweets to Maisie and Co. It shows others in Hollywood that the show must go on.

And- I can’t help but think that that’s how Robin would have wanted it, anyhow.

Yesterday I rewatched one of my all time favorite movies, the awesome French art film Last Year at Marienbad. I’ve seen this flick about a dozen times now, including the six or seven times that I watched it during the summer of 2000, when my obsession with French cinema was at it’s peak.

I didn’t understand it, thank goodness. One of my great fears is that I’ll someday watch this movie and actually get it. I don’t want to ruin the viewing experience.

Rather than torture readers with an amateur’s review of a purposely incomprehensible movie, I’ll just quote here the great Jonathan Rosenbaum:

“A highly seductive parable about seduction, it’s set in and around a baroque European chateau/hotel, where the nameless hero (Giorgio Albertazzi) tries to persuade the nameless heroine (Delphine Seyrig) that they met the previous year. Shot by Sacha Vierny in otherworldly black-and-white ‘Scope, it oscillates ambiguously between past, present, and various conditional tenses, mixing memory and fantasy, fear and desire. The overall tone is poker-faced parody of lush Hollywood melodrama, yet the film’s dreamlike cadences, frozen tableaux, and distilled surrealist poetry are too eerie, too terrifying even, to be shaken off as camp. For all its notoriety, this masterpiece among masterpieces has never really received its due.”

I love movies like Marienbad, where the environment is so overwhelming that it becomes a protagonist in it’s own right. To be honest, this time I found myself halfway through the viewing not even caring about the characters. They were just window dressing for the glorious hotel and Vierny’s masterful cinematography.

I was lucky to have come of age in the nineties. My generation was blessed with a ton of great live action movies of this type. We had Dark City, Dead Man, Babe: Pig in the City, and many other, similar movies.

Today’s big budget visual movies tend to be spastic and a little too action oriented, I think. I prefer movies that are a bit slower- movies in which you can really sink into the environment and become a part of it.

You know, I should get back into watching movies regardless. I stopped watching them almost altogether about 7 years ago, once it became obvious that they would watch me back(!), but I’m not caring about that as much as I used to. Plus, the movies I’m most interested in seeing now are the ones I can watch in peace anyways.

I’ve never seen Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Lang’s M, Chaplin’s City Lights, Ulmer’s Detour, Fuller’s Shock Corridor, or… a few hundred other movies that I swore to myself I would watch at least once.

No time like the present, though- especially now! C’ est magnifique!

So the big movie this weekend was, unbelievably, Guardians of the Galaxy. Wow. I’m stunned. Honestly, I was stunned when I even heard that they were making a GOTG movie. The fact that it actually is a hit is mind-boggling. Wow.

It’s been twenty years since I bought a GOTG comic book, and since then my collection of them has been whittled down to one lonely crossover miniseries, the early 90’s Korvak Quest books. Those were the first GOTG comics I bought, and I’ve kept them for memories’ sake. I dug those out and re-read them a couple months ago when I was cleaning out my closet.

They were pretty much as I remembered them, from the story and art to the little red pizza sauce smudges along the edges. Then as now the books were fun. GOTG was almost unique in that you could always identify and connect with the characters despite their oddness. I think that this was due to the setting. Almost all other comics’ worlds are based on Earth, so strange- looking aliens always seem odd and out of place, despite their personalities and intentions. GOTG side-stepped that problem by taking the action away from Earth for the most part. This gave the series a different center, one that could accommodate a variety of strange creatures that weren’t so strange at all after a couple of issues.

This approach also made Guardians a title that was easy to get into and continue following. The fact that the series had a different center put it outside the rest of the Marvel Universe, which made the comic it’s own little world. I liked the other heros and groups, but who wants to buy and follow 5 different X-Titles a month, every month, just to stay current with the X-Men? Back when I was really into comics collecting, there was X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Unlimited, X-Factor, X-Force, Generation X, Wolverine, and countless miniseries… I mean, Jesus Christ! I tried to keep up with it all but gave up after a couple of years.

I liked how GOTG was just one comic. I could pick it up at any time and not feel as though I was missing a whole chapter in a novel because I hadn’t read a few pages in some obscure title somewhere.

That isn’t to knock the other titles, of course. I also had more Iron Man comics than anyone else I knew. But since I didn’t have too many Avengers comics, I always felt like I was only getting half the story.

And of course I loved the comics themselves. The vibe they had, their setting, characters, etc. were pretty much exactly what I wanted from a Marvel comic. It was fantastic stuff. I might be alone in this, but I believe that the 90’s GOTG was one of the all time greats. I’ve read thousands of comic books, and those still stand out for me. It is a very, very underrated series. I looked forward to each issue more than any other title.

I should watch GOTG at some point. I really should. I mean, it was my favorite. I don’t know much at all about the new team, but I just kind of want to see it. From the reviews it seems like the spirit of the series was translated successfully to the movie. Awesome.

I do wonder sometimes why I’m not as interested in seeing superhero movies as much as everyone else seems to be. I mean, it’s me! Maybe it’s because I think that the movies just can’t live up the greatness of the comics. I have such fond memories of myself reading comics on those lazy summer afternoons. I don’t want to tarnish those memories. In a way, those afternoons made me who I am. Would I be a vampire today without them? Probably not.

I will see GOTG though. Yeah, def. It’s just amazing that they made a movie out of it. I don’t care if it’s got different heroes than the ones I grew up with.  I don’t care if the movie was made because Hollywood is out of ideas or whatever. I actually used to daydream about what a Guardians movie would be like during those boring math classes. I’m definitely going to watch this at some point. In fact, I’m becoming more and more curious as I type this.

Yeah, I’m definitely going to see it.

Coolness.