Where are the Real Characters??
I have discovered that things change when you get older -- and I'm referring to culture, exploits, adventures, people. Maybe I'm just perceiving things differently, which is all too likely, but my feeling is that culturally we're in the dead zone.
Where are the real people? The characters. those politically incorrect, charming and forceful speak-your-mind kind of people. The people who are true to themselves and don't give a rat's ass about what people think. The ones that do and say what makes them happy. My auntie Darlene was one of those. So were David Carradine and Quentin Crisp.
The talented David Carradine died this last week. Part of me is actually quite sad. He was not only talented, but he was unique and driven, and had not only moved past his Kung Fu persona, but actually lived truer to it then he probably would have imagined. He was an artist, and a real friend to many, but also a creator of characters that had depth and pain. A real person portraying real people. And he lived that way.
Rest in peace Mr. Carradine, wherever you may have landed.
And I include Quentin Crisp in this category because, well, I just discovered him. I heard him speak a few lines in the beginning of a documentary called "Celluloid Closet" about gays in films and immediately I had to find out more about this person. He's gone now, passed away 10 years ago, and I wonder where those true diviners have gone. Just a person, living his life, outside of the cultural norms. He stood out immediately to me -- not just because of what he said or what he did... there was just something... From what I've read in the last 24 hours, Quentin was beyond the concept of "persona", which is cheap in all its forms, but embraced his own truth and didn't care whether the world could fit him into any stereotype or not.
Even in the early days of rap and hip/hop, there was something truer and more galant in their approach, music, and lyrics than you can find right now. NWA and A Tribe Called Quest spoke to a real truth and real goals and a reality that had soul, but also had meaning. I don't get any of the rap or hip/hop music these days. It all sounds the same to me... money, fake gangstas, bling, hot ladies. It can't be their reality. Is that all they're striving for? Is that the great heroic goal? As I said, maybe I'm out of touch, but most of today's current music is just hollow to me. It speaks to a shallow, simple world. I don't get it.
As a long-time observer of culture and politics, I see the hard-coded connection between where we have been politically and where we are socially. Not unlike the Dark Ages, we've been surrounded with myth clouded in faith, and pushed toward slavery under the guise of independence. While we now sit in the dark tunnel, we can grow and nurture new roots and emerge in multiple, exciting directions. This is indeed an opportunity.
Living your own truth - the world be damned - is an honorable direction. And while choosing that course may bring more than its fair share of trials and tribulations and heartache, in the end its purposes are more noble than any chest-pumping war. It is a crusade. Live it up. And may the characters emerge.
From the film, The King of Hearts
Where are the real people? The characters. those politically incorrect, charming and forceful speak-your-mind kind of people. The people who are true to themselves and don't give a rat's ass about what people think. The ones that do and say what makes them happy. My auntie Darlene was one of those. So were David Carradine and Quentin Crisp.
The talented David Carradine died this last week. Part of me is actually quite sad. He was not only talented, but he was unique and driven, and had not only moved past his Kung Fu persona, but actually lived truer to it then he probably would have imagined. He was an artist, and a real friend to many, but also a creator of characters that had depth and pain. A real person portraying real people. And he lived that way.
Rest in peace Mr. Carradine, wherever you may have landed.
And I include Quentin Crisp in this category because, well, I just discovered him. I heard him speak a few lines in the beginning of a documentary called "Celluloid Closet" about gays in films and immediately I had to find out more about this person. He's gone now, passed away 10 years ago, and I wonder where those true diviners have gone. Just a person, living his life, outside of the cultural norms. He stood out immediately to me -- not just because of what he said or what he did... there was just something... From what I've read in the last 24 hours, Quentin was beyond the concept of "persona", which is cheap in all its forms, but embraced his own truth and didn't care whether the world could fit him into any stereotype or not.
Even in the early days of rap and hip/hop, there was something truer and more galant in their approach, music, and lyrics than you can find right now. NWA and A Tribe Called Quest spoke to a real truth and real goals and a reality that had soul, but also had meaning. I don't get any of the rap or hip/hop music these days. It all sounds the same to me... money, fake gangstas, bling, hot ladies. It can't be their reality. Is that all they're striving for? Is that the great heroic goal? As I said, maybe I'm out of touch, but most of today's current music is just hollow to me. It speaks to a shallow, simple world. I don't get it.
As a long-time observer of culture and politics, I see the hard-coded connection between where we have been politically and where we are socially. Not unlike the Dark Ages, we've been surrounded with myth clouded in faith, and pushed toward slavery under the guise of independence. While we now sit in the dark tunnel, we can grow and nurture new roots and emerge in multiple, exciting directions. This is indeed an opportunity.
Living your own truth - the world be damned - is an honorable direction. And while choosing that course may bring more than its fair share of trials and tribulations and heartache, in the end its purposes are more noble than any chest-pumping war. It is a crusade. Live it up. And may the characters emerge.
From the film, The King of Hearts
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