BEFORE THE BURN GETS OUT OF CONTROL

MEDIA MATTERS?

I am not at all sure what went down on the television show “The Bachelorette”. In reading the cover of ‘US’ magazine, seems poor Ali was the victim of typical male douchbaggery. When took the headlines and compared them to the douchebaggette’s on the Bachelor, what, last year or whenever, this is what I see.

Some of the ‘real’ in reality being exploited purely for entertainment purposes and as with other reality entertainment, it also clearly reflects what goes on every single day in society. As much as people would like to think that the kind of behavior on shows like ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘Real Housewives of Wherever’ are not more than fringe examples of society. Unfortunately, I think that there is a lot more ‘reality’ than society cares to admit.

Watching the FULL video of Shirley Sherrod speak at the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, there is NO DOUBT that a hatchet job was done on her speech. At first I had my own twist on the Breitbart clip that one would not be too far off if you thought like what those on the right wanted you to infer from the clip, that maybe she allowed bias to affect how she did her job.

After looking at a tape of her ENTIRE speech and gaining full context, there is no doubt that someone was looking for a clip to be slanderous and hurtful to the Obama administration. The knee jerk reaction to fire her is one of the big problems of the 24 hour news cycle, full of sound bites and snap judgements. If you got 45 minutes, you will see a very good speech about working together and overcoming the problems that our country faces right now.

The overall speech was about growing past these superficial divisions and finding a way to make the ‘other side of town’ work with us. She did exhort a little when it came to trying to talk to the younger people in her audience. A Toni Morrison quote she used could have been the title of her speech.

“Race exists, but it doesn’t matter.”

She gave black people a lot of ‘tough love’. That was about it for any purposeful speech that was for ‘just us’. Even there, you can see where it would have been applicable to any ethnic group. If I were her, I would worry about my reception back at work, too. She has been smeared and she already knows that the folks who should have had her back from the beginning can’t be counted on. I would also add that only so many would actually be bothered to watch the entire speech and be able to understand where she was coming from. There is still room for misunderstand because it was tailored to her audience. But as far as being something that was demonstrative of racial animosity, it was so FAR from that, that her bosses should be ashamed for hanging her out to dry.

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(video comes with a content warning)



This is the song that I mentioned earlier that had the inappropriate content video that I didn’t want to share. I did find a live version that I felt comfortable with associating myself with and then I found this super clever mash up of Disney and industrial anger management music!!

I think one of the aspects of this kind of music is how emotions coalesce in me around it. I remember when this song was new and how despite the profanity how it felt as it my blood pressure was dropping and I was in a trance, thinking about the times that ‘this sh*t DID f*ck me up’, or I wanted it to f*ck up someone or that I could bang my way through someone, throwing double hooks, up and down, then bringing a right hand over the top busting up an opponents guard. This would be a GREAT song to run, lift, or beat the living daylights out of that cretin that cut you off on the highway!!

While I don’t fret much over the lyrics too much when it comes to the music I share, the video that I was watching to this song before I saw this one was simply too much to be connected with and I didn’t want to disrespect anyone. What that video DID do on a subliminal level, was make me confront my sex life, as in, will there BE anything more to it? When the course for the last ten years of my life was still in its developmental stages, along with international travel, being ‘active’ in the dating scene was another part of my life I was going to put under a severe restriction. I wasn’t going to worry about that and while I wasn’t going to declare myself ‘celibate’, there wasn’t going to be any ‘pinging’ either. See, I am not afraid of being alone.

WORLD TRAVELER

I have struggled to put this to words, not because I am uncomfortable with the topic or with acknowledging what has to happen at some point in life, the accepting that I won’t have an active physically intimate life. Period. As with wanting to go to another country across the seas, with which I have had my fill, same applies to, well, getting laid.

Were I already in a relationship, it would be a different matter entirely. In my thirties I was hoping to become more of a minimalist with the various odds and ends that were in my life, not for the sake of getting rid of things that I didn’t want to deal with, but so that I could commit more energy and achieve more in other areas of my life, areas that I would not have to be concerned with what kind of benefits were being brought to my life.

Understanding boundaries is something that I have always stood clear on, that ‘I get’ when people are giving me their ‘rules, boundaries and limitations’. I may appear to be excited and moon-eyed over the prospect of getting to know someone, I feel that I am still tethered to certain realities and not letting myself be fooled into being swept away into fantasy.

So when I would say that ‘Nebraska promised me her friendship and I was cool with that’, that was what I meant. Though I won’t pursue a relationship, it is not a case of me cutting off all possibilities. I don’t see myself as doing anything like that. In my mind, it is about priorities and being able to find someone understands their priorities so that we can find out how compatible they are with mine. In short, someone with whom I can ‘work with’ and accept for all of their idiosyncrasies as well as their being able to deal with me and mine.

Since one can’t ever ‘know’ all of anything, I do know that my focus has certainly changed. And being in a relationship is too blurry for me to make out, a part of the hazy horizon where all I can make out is uncertainty. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be my biggest enemy for the rest of my life. Why, then, would I invite that marauder to be a major part of my future well being?

Whether I believe my own story, believe that I have been victimized as much if not more than I have victimized others, what matters is where I am going to go from here. Starting with being more responsible for my own well being, which is why I am adjusting my plans as of now.