I can take it, People!
I think I can. It’s day to day.
The arc of feelings from self righteous anger to suicidal ideation. I get that it's a limited range. The dark spectrum. On the light spectrum I have fleeting blurts of mania to exhausted peace of mind.
My maternal lineage goes back to Ukraine. Galicia. Which was an oil boom town. I’d like to think of my great, great, great grandfather working those wells. A Jewish roughneck. I stand with Ukraine politically and genetically.
I’ve been out in New Mexico for a few days visiting my dad and his wife who has a huge family. It strikes me that as a person who doesn’t have kids and is relatively disconnected from my extended family that I have a lot less unfolding and seemingly never-ending drama in my life. That is the excitement of family and connection. There’s always someone to talk about for better or worse. In the absence of that, it’s just the daily garbage churn of the manifestations of my own insecurity, shame, panic and despair along with all the other trash I throw in the hopper. The four horsemen of my personal apocalypse.
I know, I’m tired of me too.
That’s why, lately, I am taking every opportunity I can to be among other people talking in real life. I was waiting on line at a coffee shop here and some guy complimented my sunglasses and the next thing I knew we were talking about his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, his family, trips to Venice he had taken, his Italian roots and my boots. That happened in five minutes. People like to talk to people. It’s better when it’s casual and loose and not driven by ideology and politics because that’s when you're listening to a self editing recording device and the person’s humanity fades into the machine or disappears.
I’m writing this before the Oscars which I hope to watch and record the intro of the show after.
I’m hoping for Anora to win Best Picture. I think it’s a perfect Hollywood movie in that it subverts its Hollywood movieness.
I’m hoping for Brady Corbet for Best Director because he’s a visionary artist with real old school, almost European mastery.
I watched his first film last week, The Childhood of a Leader. Made in 2015. I have to say, it may be better than The Brutalist, which was very good. It’s real deal cinematic art. It poses more questions than, if any, answers. It leaves a lot of space for engagement and wonder. It has a seamless logic, cinematically and story wise. Corbet is a rare talent.
I’ve gotten a bit of reaction to my cynicism around boycotts. I get how they work. I get the intention of leveling economic pain against a corporation or in most cases, a particular billionaire oligarch. What I don’t see is its impact on the current political hellscape that is unfolding and deepening daily. I don’t see how it stops Trump or has any real impact on his presidency. If it makes you feel good, go for it. I’m onboard but it feels to me like we are beyond that having any real political impact.
Maybe public perception will change and maybe more angry people will once again believe that civil service in the form of candidacy will manifest. People who believe in democracy and how it actually works will seize the minds of the angry, disenfranchised and disillusioned, and make them believers in a government by the people, for the people, voting the grifters and shills and useful idiots out. That’s if voting remains a thing.
But in the meantime, if you want to go out in the world and shop at actual stores and stop buying Teslas, all the power to you. Whatever gets you through the day.
Today I talk to Don Johnson, a real Hollywood veteran. On Thursday I talk to Will Oldham, aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, about the power of art and humanity and other lighter things.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
