Remiel

Rapture. I have questions

I’m on a westbound plane during Rapture tomorrow. Will everyone ascend at the same time worldwide, or is it a “rolling Rapture”, dependent on time zones? 

If it’s everyone all at once, and my grades aren’t good enough, is the FAA smart enough to mandate that all co-pilots be heathens? It would be ironic if those post-9/11 safety doors ended up killing everyone whose flight crews ascend to the sky mid-flight.

On the other hand, if it is a “rolling Rapture”, and I don’t want to spend eternity surrounded by Mormons, so I jump on an Asia-bound flight the moment I land in CA, can I avoid it entirely?

Finally, if I do get taken up from the seat of my plane, does being 60,000 feet above the ground at least mean I’ll arrive in Heaven early enough to get first dibs on top bunk? I hope so.

Raging Bull

Most American films are written, directed, produced by, and star: men. They are intended for men, and explore male values. Even “women’s” films are merely targeted at a demographic… still made by men; made to make money.

All of this must be ignored when watching Raging Bull. Yes, you’ve seen this before: the unlikely boxing underdog struggling against the odds. You’ve seen Robert De Niro be the taciturn tough guy. You’ve seen Italian husbands yell at their Italian wives. You’ve seen “boxing movies” and, for that matter, “sports movies”.

But you must forget all that when watching Raging Bull. Cleanse your palette and take this movie in with fresh eyes. 

Foremost, Raging Bull is about masculinity. It’s not a celebration of masculinity (like most Hollywood films), nor a complete indictment of it. De Niro and Scorsese (who went uncredited as co-writers), labored obsessively over the character of boxer Jake LaMotta, and it shows.

LaMotta embodies every male contradiction in the book: strong but abusive, committed but unfaithful, ambitious but paranoid. Cocky, but deeply insecure. Since the insecurity is what fuels those contradictions (in all of us, arguably), it is that flaw which functions as the lynchpin of the narrative. LaMotta can never be happy, and never be wise, because he will always hate himself more than he loves his achievements.

Filmed up close, in black and white, with little spectacle (aside from the crushing boxing scenes), the movie is just as important today as it was in 1980. Like its protagonist, it’s hard to like at times (LaMotta’s no Rocky, and that’s the point), but it is riveting, painful, and beautiful.

Friday, Rebecca Black, and celebrity hate

I love “Friday”. Unabashedly. I hope Rebecca Black makes a million dollars from it, her debut album is a Gaga-caliber hit, and she marries her dreamboat, Justin Bieber.

When I first heard “Friday”

I thought “This is quite possibly the worst song ever!” Every pop musician who pays attention now has to contend with “Friday”. It’s a critical line in the sand. Pop is easy, yes, but say something, at least. Or risk ridicule. Weird Al himself couldn’t write something this hilarious and damning.

I imagined Black wrote the song herself; always a silly assumption to make about pop music. Purportedly, both Rebecca and her mother had doubts about the quality of the lyrics, but the 13-year old did what the vanity studio told her to do.

Whether any artists notice or not (pop is exceptionally poor at “noticing”), Rebecca Black and Ark Music Factory have given us something necessary. Finally, we have a pop song that is loudly, perfectly, about nothing.

On the other hand: who hasn’t fetishized Friday? It’s the beginning of the weekend! And goddammit if the song wasn’t stuck in my head after only one listen.

Yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards

Rebecca Black is a privileged, teenage girl who probably wouldn’t know good music if it bit her on the ass. 13-year old Remiel made a mix tape for his girlfriend featuring Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love”.

Teenagers are idiots. That’s their job. They think having a dream is the same as deserving it, and eventually either give up, or make the enormous effort to make the vision real. But sometimes, they win the lottery, and have their goals delivered on a silver platter. And we hate that.

We we we so excited, we so excited

Celebrity hate is the lamest hate.

What’s the difference between a death threat against the pedophile next door, and one posted on a Paris Hilton YouTube video? The differences are vigor and intent. Despite her massive exposure, Hilton exists relatively free of the loathing we’d feel about an active sexual abuser in our own neighborhood.

But somehow, the rhetoric is the same. “Worthless piece of trash”. “Die you stupid fuck”.

Like a snot rubbed off on a public restroom wall, celebrity hate is fueled by anonymity, not malice. You wouldn’t leave a booger on your own wall any more than you’d actually take a swing at Chris Tucker if you met him in person.

George Carlin wrote:

I love and treasure individuals as I meet them. I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

What has Rebecca Black done to you? Why not celebrate the fact that it’s possible to become famous just by being a “professional socialite” like Paris Hilton?

Hate Monsanto, if you want. And if you’re willing to do a little legwork and figure out who’s truly responsible, you can hate those guys, too. Even though you’ve never met them, and they’ve probably never personally hurt you the way the guy who ran over your dog did.

Money is just money. Fame is just fame. They’re numbers. Metrics. Piles of stuff somebody got because they multiplied a talent by an opportunity.

If the opportunity seems undeserved relative to their talent, why not celebrate the success of a fellow human being and politely encourage them to use their influence benignly, instead of tearing down a stranger to impress your friends and whitewash your jealousy?

Posthumously ghost-written

Forget laboring for years, honing my writer’s craft, struggling with dialogue and other pretentious shit. I’m just going to buy an old-fashioned, lockable desk. One of those deep brown ones with antique-style slots along the top for “correspondence”.

A desk with a key.

Then I’m going to hire a ghostwriter to pen me some novelicious shit. Something about hubris and railroad empires and dogs finding their way home.

I will not publish this novel. I will lock it away in my writer’s desk, with coffee stains and dust obscuring it, Old Werther’s Originals wrappers partially clinging, and the corners of the pages blunted by casually shoved objects.

Then I will die.

And someone will find “my” novel. They’ll be amazed. ”We had no idea!”

The newspapers will rally. “Character development!” “A story with a beginning, middle, and end!” “Man who could barely write a coherent email apparently had competent understanding of basic story structure, after all!”

Postumously ghost-written.

What bugs me about Yelp (and how to fix it)

I think I finally put my finger on it. I used to hate Yelp because the reviewers are so often unreasonably whiney. But hey, all reviewers are like that, right?

Now I’ve come around. Yelp is a great resource. By digging into the reviews and using my judgment to filter out the jerks, I’ve found some great places: Ethiopian food, LASIK, and a decent haircut.

But I still don’t like the whiny jerks. And now I know why. I used to work in food service, and I can tell you this: in the five years I waited tables, I was the worst server you could ever get, and also the best server you’ve ever had. Sometimes even both on the same day. It’s hard, it’s unpredictable, and sometimes: shit goes wrong.

You can’t properly review a restaurant (or service establishments in general) in just one visit. You go, you order one meal, you eat it, it’s great or it sucks, and the same is true for the service.

Here’s what I’d prefer. How about “Visit Reports” instead of “Reviews”?

You log in, you write about your most recent visit, including a star rating, and it gets attached and aggregated into your general review of the place.

I log in, search for Ethiopian food, click a restaurant, and there, as usual, is the list of reviews. But each review is actually the aggregated experience report of one particular user.

The best part is, now I can sort by things like descending number of visits, so if I want to favor users who are “regulars” instead of one-time tourists, I can do that.

Meanwhile, Yelp sees the amount of user-contributed content increase as users vie to log the most visit reports to their favorite places. And since Yelp has recently “Foursquared” their site with a geo-app, you could even highlight the number of “verified visits” each user has logged. This increases everybody’s credibility, and helps Yelp promote its mobile app.