Category Archives: Just Sayin’

05.20.18
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What the World Needs Now

Ten dead in the latest high school shooting by a deranged White teenager.

Fifty plus Palestinians killed in Israel protesting the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Trump ordering ICE agents to separate kids from parents crossing the border illegally and hold them in internment camps, calling them all animals and defiantly reiterating he always will.

And then – a Royal Wedding.

But not just any royal wedding because, honestly, who gives a rat’s ass?

This wasn’t me.. I swear… really!!

What was interesting Saturday morning (Note: Yeah, I stayed up, more on that later) was watching a member of one of the Whitest families in the world marry a biracial American actress where the most controversial thing about it was…well…nothing.

Except that —

In less than an hour they managed to school the world (an estimated 1.9 billion watching) on race relations, dignity and true international co-existence better than any combination of leaders – elected or self-anointed – simply by…example.

It’s not really very complicated.

It also doesn’t hurt to leave your wedding lunch doing a full James Bond #thiscouple

Not to get all 1960s on you – but then again, why not – it once again comes down to this little ditty written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and first sung to the top of the Billboard charts by Jackie DeShannon:

What the world needs now is love sweet love,
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of,
What the world needs now is love sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone…. 

Don’t stop reading.   Only I’m that cynical and I’m the one who brought it up.

Tell em Sally!

The truth is, when was the last time you heard a Black Reverend in the Church of England (Note: I could just stop there) sermonizing with the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Note: Or there) in a tribute to a Prince and his half Black/half White bride (Note: Or even there) in front of a crowd of lily white royals, lay people of various races, and celebrities (this includes movie stars, billionaires, singer/songwriters, icon talk show hosts and sports heroes, et al) from a pulpit:

We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world…

Cause, see, it’s rumored Meghan and Harry are gonna have kids. Lots of kids. And what kind of world do you think they will be so inclined to help build?

He took us to CHURCH

Oh sure, I know this is a little like all of these things politicians proclaim a day or two after a dozen or two or three or more high school students or gay disco attendees are gunned down in cold blood and we’re all nodding our heads and agreeing that change will come from our better angels and that something must be done and if we put our collective minds to it as only we know we can we will all do it.

But when you get to a certain point in life (older) where you realize NOTHING is working you begin to suspect that change doesn’t and actually can’t happen from any one thing. It’s a cumulative effect built on a collective effort – a lot of spitting into the wind on a particularly windy day and having it all come back flying into your face.

Until finally it all doesn’t because nowhere in the world, not even London, has shitty weather every day. Certainly not London on that Saturday.

And we’re not just talking about this drop of sunshine #AmericanRoyalty

A lot of people talked about the sun coming out once again just as Meghan Markle arrived at the church in a car with her Mom – an L.A. social worker and part time Yoga teacher – yeah, put that in your marijuana pipe and smoke it.

For me, it was enough that a divorced, African American, single Mom had a private tea earlier that week with the Queen because her also divorced daughter was marrying the Queen’s grandson, who also happens to be three years younger than the California girl the single Mom had managed to raise on a single income all alone without a husband….a gal we will all now officially refer to as:

The Duchess of Sussex.

The real American Royalty  #moviestarangles

Who could make this up? On the other hand, who would dare to make any of this up??? #2016 #2017 #2018

I never got the whole Charles & Diana thing. Or even the Kate & William thing. And I was never intrigued, not one little bit, with the whole Royal Family of it all. Your majesty, bows and curtsies? Really?

Which doesn’t mean I don’t like The Crown or, well, Downton Abbey. But only as some escapist soap opera relic from an alternate universe I can happily say has no relation to 21st century life or to me.

The Royals, however, ARE real. And intriguing to…billions. I’ve never been exactly sure why. But any wedding that includes a Black Choir singing Ben E. King’s Stand By Me and then serenades a church full of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-aged straight, gay, bisexual and no doubt questioning guests to the strains of This Little Light of Mine and the Negro spiritual Amen as they all begin to file out is just fine in my book.

Princess Charlotte waving away my cynicism #byegurl

Because it offers a much better strategy to effectively navigate through the minefields of today’s world, including everyday life, better than anything now being advanced on Fox, MSNBC, the BBC or Al-Jazeera combined.

Not to mention, it is a lot more reflective of how the #RealWorldMajority is now – finally – beginning to think.

“Stand By Me” – Performed by Karen Gibson and the Kingdom Choir

 

03.11.18
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My Second Coming Out

It wasn’t easy to come out the first time.

I was so nervous my friends would hate me, my peers would shun me and my family would either not understand or just decide not to deal with IT or me at all.

That was the late 1970s and though times have changed quite a bit for the LGBTQ+ community, nothing about coming out – then or now – is particularly easy.

Most of us say we enjoy being different and perhaps we do, but it is also human nature to want to belong and not feel like or be like…well, my favorite expression is the cheese stands alone.

Think of me as this sad cheese while you read on…

Still, we all need to live in our truths in order to be truly happy.

That is why I find that all these decades later I need to come out for yet a second time. It’s painful because I’m afraid this time you will hate me and shun me. At the very least, I am absolutely certain you will lose respect for me and behind my back call me all kinds of names.

It’s about to happen…

But I can’t pretend anymore.

The truth is ––

I didn’t like Get Out.

OH CHAIR

I know, I know, I know!!!

I’ve tried so hard to listen and to get on the bandwagon. Yes, I’m a white guy of a certain age so OF COURSE I benefit from the WHITE PIRVILEGE the film is lampooning. But that’s NOT why I don’t get it!!! Seriously!!!

I mean, you’d be hard pressed to find ANYONE who DISLIKES WHITE PEOPLE more at this point in our history than I do.   Even though my 401-K profits from what’s going on in Washington, I live in a deep, dark blue state (in so many ways) and sometimes back away from telling off one of the far right crazies the way I used to for fear of being arrested for strangulation, I still DO side with the values of JUSTICE AND TRUTH for everyone.

It’s just, well…..

It didn’t work for me.

Or maybe I should say.. sorry not sorry?! #donthateme

I loved what it was ultimately saying and I wanted to see THAT film.   Strap me in MY chair and play me that movie – that everyone’s writing about. I want to see an original seamless screenplay that constantly has me laughing and intrigued by characters and a plot that keep me on the edge of my seat – or even far back into my seat, nodding my head at how the inevitable will happen based on the people and events the filmmaker has unfolded.

What I don’t enjoy in my movies are deus ex machina explanations of characters I’ve been watching for three quarters of a film do bad things. Who thought I would ever yearn for a Michael Myers-like reason?

stay with me here!!!

The opening was sick, fun and promising. The act one set up was creepy and believable. The end of the first act worked. I mean, something was up, right?

Then there was:

– The Second Act boredom. A series of sometimes amusing events and set pieces – some clever set pieces but too many other perplexing scenes that didn’t move the story forward with any discernable dramatic purpose – for me, Okay? For me! At least throw me a slightly more than microscopic breadcrumb so I can play along– or two or three – and I would’ve been satisfied, thrilled even, to join the crowd. #DontDunkirkMe.

Having a sinking feeling here

–Catherine Keener spinning that effing silver spoon in that teacup and ice tea glass and… Arghhh, don’t me make relive it for the 1000th time. I crave to see the queen of indie movies pre and post millennium play this kind of character – if I had any sense of who that character was during most of the narrative.

— That reveal at the beginning of act 3 that I had to wait for-EVAH for to make any sense of why, or how or for what reason can I care when no one is making any sense to me for so long. Even when what was really going on was revealed it felt imposed and cheap, reminiscent of a device from some low budget 1950s horror flick I might have watched long before I came out on Million Dollar Movie but turned off before the end (Note: Million Dollar Movie — A showcase for old, often n.s.g films on NYC television in the 1960s).

Sorry but not even a Keith Haring style homage to the movie is going to do it for me.

You might reject all of the above as ill-informed but just know at least I’ve stopped making silly, ridiculous arguments for my case like the one I made just yesterday on social media — Hey, I really enjoyed Black Panther!

Um, right – So because you liked A Black movie that proves…what exactly? It’s like DJT telling a rally in Pittsburgh he’s the least racist person you know because Don King is one of his best friends and he gave Omarosa…her career?

It plays to no one in possession of their own brain, #GetOut pun not intended.

hehehe

Oh, And just know it really doesn’t help to add, I liked Mudbound, too!

Or give a laundry list of your fave POC films starting with Sounder and then going on through Cleopatra Jones, Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany (yes, Deal with it!), Do the Right Thing, Boyz n The Hood, Bamboozled, Malcolm X or I Am Not Your Negro.

NO ONE CARES. And a case could be made for every one that I only responded to them because they didn’t challenge MY white privilege.

I suppose that may be right. Who are we but an amalgamation of our lived privileges and denials when you come right down to it?

On the other hand, it could just be that it wasn’t my cup of….tea?

Groan.

Childish Gambino – “Red Bone” (Get Out Movie Soundtrack)