Thursday, December 30, 2004

Beyond the Sea


In recent history and indeed in our not too distant past; man has become emboldened with the ability to control his surroundings; the environment. We've basked in the glorious sunshine of our technological advances, our seemingly endless desire to conquer others, and the environment. But time and time again, we are shown that we and all our "advances" mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. This recent tsunami should illustrate to mankind the shear awsome power and force of nature that no matter what we do and how many literal or figurative mountains we climb we are suseptable to being swept under and out by the tide of nature's wrath. We are all game all those tourists on the beach front properties, almost temping the sea, the calm sea that one can feel so close to at times but that reared up to belie the shear horror that it was capable of. The rich and the poor were lined up side by side, a prince, Swedish tourists and poor service peasants; all washed out alike, none dying better or any different to the next. We must remember that we can only admire, but never forget all that lies beneath the most serene in nature - be it the wind, an idle mountain, the ice or the sea. Now the sea has returned to its calm state; watching it one can't believe that the beautiful blue was to blame for all the heartache and destruction that has now been wrought on these poor souls and these destitute countries.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Weeping after the Waves

I couldn't help but comment on the awful horrendous power of nature's fury at this past tsunami. It came out of nowhere crushing and killing all in its path, or at least people not lucky enough to be able to hold on to a variety of objects, tourists sunbathing, local city goers seeking a beach front weekend, children playing. The sea lurched back, and tossed angrily into land sweeping the people like pieces of timber. No matter how we try to think that we are so technologically advanced and superior in our cars with our computers and all our fancy shit; we are no match for God and the forces of nature, we are powerless in its face. Nature crumbles houses, throws our prized possessions about and basically makes a farce of everything we hold dear to our mortal hearts; our families and loved ones. People wandering, lost children, wives, hushands etc. All stolen away with nary a warning, on minute here, the next being surprised and dragged out to sea. Just imagine the terror those people must have felt. I am from and island and have had samples of the shear brute force that waves can deliver, so something of this magnitude must've been terror envoking and devastating and I am sure we haven't seen everything, every heart wrenched soul. And of course in fine fashion my husband with his staunch Christian upbringing was half pondering why these people in this part of the world are always hit with some disaster and he sumised that it is their lack of the acceptance of Christianity and the worshiping of idols and etc etc. This is when I go ape and crazy, why do we always look to blame these poor penniless peoples for events way beyond their control and events that are common to their part of the world. If they had had the money that's held in say Beverly Hills or the Upper West side, they woulda been well taken care of - alerted of oncoming disaster and well preserved, but they were just poor poor people.
Check out this link for a first hand account of this horrible disaster and also where you can give your donations.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

'Tis the Season?



Yes 'tis the season for everyone to run around asking each other: "did you get all your shopping done?" (up to 2mins before xmas day) and no one knows whether to say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas what with all the legal wrangling and ACLU suing! Now kids can't sing Joy to the World the LORD is come, this is suddenly a lightening rod for the fear against church and state melding. And boy are we paranoid that happens...why then, we'll have the Taliban here - that's right this could lead to Talibanization, and we'll all remember how it started with good ole Joy to the World and yes that Nativity scene on the front lawn down at City Hall. Oh boy all the ruckus, from certain groups...just be happy that folks are running around giddy shopping and keeping out of trouble! Well enough of that, I GOT my pitiful shopping in and that's that for the end of this year.
Went to another interview and I have my reservations, that's all I'll say on that matter, might have another next week. Whew! there is so much that I could go into on this blog, that awful news of the carnage in Iraq, legalising drugs, my diet (or lack thereof this last week), work (that whole other struggle) life in general, Religion and just the shear madness of the world, more Iraq and how silly the President is for thinking that that mess has become anything other that a friggin' blood bath and the fact that if anyone thinks elections there will run like a well oiled machine, well they must be on crack! Well I saw a quite from Sir Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes (famous heroin addict) and it relates to life in the most perfect way - life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Choices??

They say when it rains it pours I hope that this will ring true. Ok so I didn't get that initial job @ Getty but I got a call for yet another new one. ok so if nothing comes from this at least I know that my resume and experience is decent and hey...interviewing practice can't hurt either! So I get left that message and then on the advice of a colleague in the industry I was told to call another footage outfit and then upon checking my e-mail I see that the same outfit contacted me about a position! What does this mean!! Ok hopefully good things can come out of this and if nothing else at least I'm sort of happy where I am, but if I see the door there, doesn't bother me either especially since I am not working with an emotionally unstable wreck of an individual! So the saga continues.
On a new front, I finally put the mental debate over whether to get a personal trainer to bed and went for it. With 8 sessions paid for I'm on the way to something that should be fun at least. Aaah what a week..now I'm on hold at Sirius trying to sort my account out...1hr on the phone what an astronomical waste of time!!! Now I am angry!!!

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Holiday Madness

Well the Holiday season is upon us and as much as I'd like to ignore, I've got to comment. The mad dash started the immediate day after Thanksgiving, before that, no one seemed to pay a single 1/2 mind to Christmas, then all of a sudden I woke up to sickening syrupy carols, holly, snowmen icons and all the other such fare that make up the 4 or 5weeks of imagined bliss. The final run down 'til New Year, where we then pick up the pieces of our broken diets, bank accounts or whatever and make resolutions anew that stay intact 'til oh say around March and then, the cycle continues. I don't know how or when Christmas became a total burden or absolutly repetative, and constant reminder of fading time. I think it was somewhere around when I was 18 and it just suddenly got tiresome, the hunting for another original gift for the same people you bought for last year and last year seeming like just 6mths ago. The hunting searching and plus being somewhat selfish....just wanting to go off on a tangent and shop for myself anyway...hey, I could use that!! Its labourious and the choices are mindnumbing. So I've chosen to mostly ignore this for the last 10yrs and its worked out really well. So I enjoy watching all the mindless shoppers chase around, looking stressed and frazzled, spending all their non existant cash! Ooh its such a lovely feeling knowing that one is not caught up in this mess. So off I go now to look for curtains for my house with some new found free time from editing!!!!

Monday, December 06, 2004

Race Card

I am sometimes amazed and crazed at how much of a factor race plays in this country. To me it is silly and is an indication of narrowmindedness that often times stems from a lack of exposure. This being America and truly an insular culture, race is maddening. It seems to dictate where people live, what they eat, what malls they go to, how they're catered to by social services and I could go on forever! Yesterday I went shopping at the lovely Short Hills Mall in Short Hills New Jersey. From the looks of the shopper make-up at the Mall, I'm guessing that the surrounding 'burb is mostly white...well ok no prob. But the Mall was decidedly worlds different than the Newport Center Mall in Downtown Jersey City, where the color scheme is a lot different. Lets start with what Short Hills had and what Newport Center doesn't:

Free Parking

Live classical music/caroling

5th Ave under one roof as opposed to 14th St. under

No annoying mall Kiosks selling all the shit you don't want but think you do at that given time when the attendant pounces on you!

No crummy food court full of cheap yucky food and Chinese garbage - and just so you know that chicken is thigh meat no white breast meat folks


I mean Short Hills just does not facilitate a certain type of crowd, which I am sure was done on purpose, it is also not easily accessible to the "general" local class public, no busing in here. Race separates, just drive up Park Ave to about, oh say 109th st. go downhill and you literally go DOWNHILL! I was once called and surveyed about E-Z Pass, and at the end of the survey they asked my race....what the f*&k does that have to do with my ease in getting in, out or over a bridge or friggin' tunnel! In my neighborhood I am figuring that most of the people don't know what the hell a real array of vegetables looks like, since they are mostly gorging on rice and low level bottom feeding food. I drive 4mins down to Hoboken and viola! A large spread. Go thru some 'hoods in B'klyn and you'd be hard pressed to find anything diet or low fat... or anything resembling a healthy meal. Would I've to tell you that most of these 'hoods are black or hispanic. Its like we live in 2 separate universes, not even in the same country. It is baffling and mind boggling. Black 'hoods are festooned with graffiti honoring our heroes and there are constant reminders of, "no violence" and "we were kings & queens" but it's almost like someone trying to convince themselves of something that they're not 'cause the violence and lack of self worth is so evident. The 'hoods are nasty, the people crazy and all lack of peace and self worth are out the plain as day. Constant calls for mediation, but gang warfare flourishes. Sometimes I think that it's the behavior of people who've been pushed aside and swept under life's rug and then sometimes I just get angry at how stupid; don't they get it, have a drink of life's sobering coffee already will you. And sometimes its a combination of both, but the fact is that America is still consumed with race and what race and where are you from and what are you and as a black and first black and on and on goes the blather. People on both sides of the fence are prone to puny mind sets and a constipated mentality. Until their minds expand a little more...well there will be black ads, white ads (albeit for the same product), black voters, "mainstream" voters, black church, white church, black music, white music and on and on and on with the race card bullshit!

Friday, December 03, 2004

The White Male Anchor Still Reigns!



So out walks Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, into the sunset ending the era of the fatherly male comforting; daddy's-home white male anchor. But really, has it really ended. If anyone for $50 give me the name of a "reliable" female anchor!!! Thought so, no one. The white male anchor still reigns supreme, he is the eye candy, the voice of reason, the voice we as Americans still believe, you hear that baritone and you believe every word coming out his mouth, he can do no wrong, he is your God all knowing truthful and totally in charge, taking care of your every need. You just can't believe that he might just not know as much as he seems to. It seems that women these last days are relegated to the Fox News Channel where they are nothing but sexy eye candy...I mean really do they even know where to find anything on a map. Yes the lipstick is all there in place and glossed up, but you know that she's an air head. The women are stuck in for the filler news breaks and such, the men...well they are the big guns, they are at the helms of all the "serious" news shows, that stern look, the authority in the voice, just calls attention...This is what the voice of God would sound like. Yes we believe white males, especially handsome ones in great suits. Boy a white man in a well cut suit could sell you sand on a beach and the Brooklyn Bridge. He can walk into any board room with nothing but rice pudding for brains and convince everyone that he is 2nd to none in intelligence. Yes as much as we move ahead with all the technology and "know how" we're still backwards - and therein lies that old saying, "never judge a book by its cover" and "all that glitters is not gold" But we still fall for the okey doke anyway.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Is YOUR house in Order!



Is Your House in Order - this is the theme of many a Christian funeral, and that was the theme of the funeral last night - Is Your House In Order - The pastor & assist. Pastor kept asking; do you have all your stuff together, together before you unceremoniously drop dead; did you accept Jesus as your saviour 'cause Lord knows if you didn't, well you're going to a "lost eternity" aka HELL. They kept pounding this phrase over and over all night. And then the Pastor insisted in giving oh say about a billion examples of people cut down in their lives, going about miscellenious activities and killed throwing them in for good measure or should I say, theatric impact. I think that this is literally a tactic at scaring up more church members or "saving souls" Scaring people to Jesus, we never hear the good things about Jesus, what he stood for or what he was about, just that you should "accept" him and get busy with fixing your "house" 'cause he's coming back and, well; you got it - Is Your House In Order? And if not you're not with him you're pretty much damned. All I kept thinking about (besides my aching feet standing there) was all those 100s of 1000s of people that came before Jesus, who didn't "know" Jesus, people in far flung parts of the world like say Fiji or The Aztec Indians in South America who couldn't have known about Jesus and think...what about them, have they gone on to a "lost eternity"??? Is your house in order?? After this usually comes the heart-string tugging, guilt laden alter call where the floatsome and jetsome drift like unfettered balloons to the front to be prayed for, comforted, brought into the fold and "find" Jesus, whichever one is in order. Couple this with the accusations of "backsliding" and yeah, you've got one hell of an alter call. The alter call is usually themactically underscored by the pianist, twinkling some mood evoking musical arrangement. Don't get me wrong, I'm no atheist but somehow I don't think that Jesus had this in mind or that he was as narrow minded. But then again, what the hell do I know!

Feeding Frenzy


I was always afraid that I would end up a fat jolly woman, I don't know why I was so paranoid about this, maybe because my aunt was pretty big, grandmother too and my mother was constantly warning me to watch out. I was pretty much afraid of food since I'm allergic to eggs which seem to go into everything savoury and fattening. But on observing the way most women; especially women from the Caribbean eat...well lets just say I just KNOW that I won't be or couldn't be obese!! After a wake in Brooklyn - observation...mounds of macaroni pie, rice & peas, greasy chicken, fish, potato salad, cake AND wash that down with full caloried soda...and hey why not a Styrofoam package to go!! Sitting there shoveling all the grovel into their greedy mouths, chicken skin and all. Simply amazing, what they were having for regular dinner is an all out binge for me. Needless to say that the scene was an orgy of belly rolls, wide behinds, large stomachs, fat backs, double chins,rubbing legs, swollen jowls and more complaints about needing to "lose weight" than anything else. I sometimes wonder, what part of the diet message somehow misses these folks, I mean isn't it always on the cover of Times, or any other friggin magazine! Watch out, American Obesity...One woman in front of me was absolutely gargantuan!! She was literally 2 of me; and I am not 90lbs! Simply huge and wide, I stood there trying to think what the hell goes into this leviathan body to keep it so ridiculously large. The feeding frenzy continued on and fat faces kept on shoveling. The sight was offensive to my eyes all those greedy people with not a clue...supposedly in mourning just thinking about the next meal! But I guess the Pastor before had given them comfort by disclaiming diets, exercise or any other healthy thing as irrelevant as we're gonna die anyway, just prepare your "house" accept Jesus and hey...go for broke - will someone pass me the cornbread please!