THIS BLOG IS MOVING TO A NEW HOME...yea!

"Pandora's Box", you Know, The Curious Women who just had to open that box. (which incidentally was not a box, but a jar) And in doing so, she had released all the trials, tribulations and hardships to the world. I have felt that over the years I have done what I could to avoid this very box, yet somehow it seemed to have found its way to me.

I also found my last entry to be somewhat of a "sign" or "omen" of what was to follow. I wrote about the character "Nomi Malone" in Showgirls, and her struggle to survive and come to grips with her own demons. Much to my own surprise it turned out to be my very own "sub-conscious" talking. As within a weeks time, I was that very girl in the car going over the words I wrote in that post about leaving and looking in the rear view mirror, and standing up for myself in face of abuse, thinking to myself, "I am out of here!"

For a brief moment a sense of relief had washed over me, like some much needed rain. I had just left my a man, who abused me for well over a year.

"What a remarkable thing to do" they say. What "they" don't tell you is, the moment of "relief" is only temporary and there is a long, long, long road ahead. But, it was worth it.

Had I not left that day, I am pretty sure that I wouldn't be here typing this right now.

I suppose that in the next few entries I will write more about this experience in more detail. I still am dealing with a lot of PTSD, and still asking myself what seems to be the never-ending question of "WHY"? and how can a person that you once loved so deeply, and loved you back, actually finds that evil within themselves to abuse another human being mentally and psychically.

I still wrestle with those emotions to this day and I still pray every day that they will somehow go away. But I believe Domestic Violence is like the death of a loved one. It's something that no matter what, you will never fully get over. Perhaps we recover, and heal, but we just never forget it. The wounds are just to deep, and wounds leave scars.

I can say this for sure, after almost 3 years that I am not in any place of forgetting what had happened to me. Yet, form an enormous amount of thought and dare I say "Prayer" I have come closer to "Forgiveness". Which was something that I also felt would be an absolute impossible thing to do. I am now more on the side of "victor" as opposed to "victim".

This is the part where the image of "Pandora's Box" comes in. Over the course of the past few years, why would I even want to come to this blog and explain all this? I don't have to explain anything to anyone, especially this.

Why would I want to open this box of pure evil and re-visit a flood of bad memories, fear and anxiety release itself out into the blog universe? Because, simply, I feel ready to do so.

In my journey to heal myself, I have learned, much to my dismay, that the only one who is really going to heal me is me. Despite the initial feeling that the whole world was going to come to my aid with a sympathetic ear and a warm place to feel safe again.

Leaving is just the beginning of many things that you would never see coming, Things and emotions that you didn't even know you could feel or existed.

I was very confused about two very standout things. The first one being, how could I have been so stupid? and why did I stay as long as I did?.

I had the will to "move forward". That word constantly seemed to be the "go-to" word for every single person that I had encountered after I left.

Sadly, it's so much, much more complicated than that.

I had felt I was finally on track and after months of moping around, sleepless nights and lack of showering, I was ready to go out and face the world and go and see a few friends. I got my hair and nails done. I got new clothes. I went to a party, and met someone new that very day.

It felt like all the pieces that had literally been knocked out of me, were slowly falling back into place.
　
But it was so far from that.
I left one hell and stepped right into another.

And here it we are, almost three years later.
Ironic How close it is to the date of my last entry to returning here, and that this Month is "National Domestic Abuse Awareness Month".
That's the "Pandora's Box" that I haven't had the desire to open and kept me from confronting and writing about the face of evil and abuse.
It was hard to come back here and explain the reasons why I had stopped putting entries in.


I can now. And I am grateful for that.

Photo: Curiously of ancienthistory.about.com  

Elizabeth Berkey A Showgirl

Watching a recent interview with Elizabeth Berkley, I was a intrigued on what she had to say. I don't know why, but for some reason I have always been in this girls corner.

She is obviously making random appearances around the media circuit due to her current stint on "Dancing With The Stars", which I didn't think much of, except I knew that this women can dance. I know this because of her performance in the Movie "Showgirls".

I saw "Showgirls" on DVD, when it first came out, and one of the reasons was because of the harshest, meanest, vastly crewel, as bad as it could get for a movie reviews, and not just by one person, by everybody who were the voice of the cinema back then.

Here is just a snippet of some of the reviews.

...a bad film, borderline inept, with an anti-erotic toxic charge about it. It deserved all the mean things people said about it.

-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

 

...despite its rampant sexual material, it is not a sexy film. Dang, this thing couldn't get anything right.

-Movie Metropolis

 

Showgirls... is one of those delirious, hilarious botches that could be taught in film schools as a How Not To.

-TIME Magazine

And it goes on and on, you get the point.

How could such a much anticipated movie at the time be so harshly ripped apart?.

So I had a look for myself. And I still cannot figure it out.

I liked the movie. I liked the movie a lot. So much that I wished I could dance like that, and had the guts to do it.

There were some things in the movie that I still don't quite understand, and like "ART" isn't that the essence of what makes it interesting? or perhaps even good?.

Plucked from the squeaky clean halls of her T. V. Show "Saved By The Bell, Berkley who went on to say that she "was just 22" when she made this film. which to me, she should of got an Oscar for that kind of transition. I can't even imagine the horror to a girl in her 20's reading reviews that could pretty much kill you, not to mention any hope of wanting to ever act ever again. That is some major strength there.

Yea sure, she got paid and all that other monetary argument, but you cannot put any kind of price on ones self esteem, or the people who are viciously out to just crush you.

 

After the movie, there wasn't much sight of Berkley, and rightfully so. I am sure no one in Hollywood was ringing her phone to cast her. I don't think anyone at the time had her kind of guts. Granted, I think she probably layed low for a while, I didn't keep up on it, but in listening to the girl who played a "brainiac" on a T. V. series years prior, I will give this one to Berkley whom I think was smart enough to just "back off". And let time heal, and move back slowly into the harsh world where she left off.

She didn't fire back with harsh words, or send out "open letters" to everyone she could muster up to tell them they are all asses and practically ruined her life and she had every right to.

She also went on to say that  "Showgirls" is a cult classic and is one of MGM's most successful movies on DVD"

 

"Showgirls" is the highest rated ever movie on DVD since it's 2010,  15th Anniversary "Sinsational Edition" in a two-disc dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition.

How's that for Karma?

                                                                                           

 

One of the reasons that I feel this movie has so much success in it's later years is that most people (mainly the Men who reviewed it) lost something in it that seems to stand out very much today. Empowerment and Honor.

 

In the shards of the very flawed character of Berkley's "Nomi" there is such a paradox.  Despite her devious ways to the top, ( and don't we all feel we have to fight to get there?) and her tragic past, she had enough conviction and wouldn't agree to the terms of the Hotel for that which employed her to "Shut Up" about the incidents that took place. Mainly abuse and rape.

Taking mattes into her own hands, she literally kicks the crap out of the man that did this to her friend. Realizing deep within this flawed person, that there is some good in her, and tired of being "kicked" around herself, she finds the strength to battle her own demons and make right out of not only hers, but everyone's wrong doings. I think that Elizabeth Berkley has a bit of Nomi Malone in her, and that is not so bad.

                        

As seen in the last shot of the movie, while riding in the car back to Los Angeles, there is a glimpse of the billboard in the rearview mirror. She put it all behind her as Nomi Malone and she did it with grace and class as Elizabeth Berkley.

Further things that have happened since the Theater release of this movie are:

 In the United States, Showgirls is shown at midnight movies  

 It has generated more than $100 million from video rentals^[4] and became one of MGM's top 20 all-time bestsellers.

 

The rights to show the film on TV were eventually purchased by the VH1 network. 

( Berkley refused to redub her lines, so a noticeably different actress's voice can be heard on the soundtrack.)

 

The film was also ranked #36 on Entertainment Weekly magazine's "The Top 50 Cult Movies list

 

Recent years have seen a re-evaluation of the film's merits. Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum and Jim Hoberman, as well as filmmakers Jim Jarmusch and Jacques Rivette, have gone on the record defending Showgirls as a serious satire.

Rivette called it "one of the great American films of the last few years", though "very unpleasant: it’s about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that’s Verhoeven's philosophy".

 Quentin Tarantino has stated that he enjoyed Showgirls, referring to it as the "only [...] other time in the last twenty years [that] a major studio made a full-on, gigantic, big-budget exploitation movie", comparing it to Mandingo.

In 2004, MGM released "The V.I.P. Edition" in a special boxed set containing two shot glasses, movie cards with drinking games on the back, a deck of playing cards, and a nude poster of Berkley with a pair of suction-cup pasties so viewers can play "pin the pasties on the showgirl." The DVD itself includes several bonus features, including a "how-to" tutorial for giving a lap-dance hosted by real strippers, and a special optional "trivia track" feature. When on, it adds humorous comments and factoids in the vein of VH1's Pop Up Video that relate to the scenes as they play out. It also includes "The Greatest Movie Ever Made: a commentary by David Schmader". In 2007, MGM re-released the V.I.P. edition DVD without the physical extras.
On June 15, 2010, MGM released a 15th Anniversary "Sinsational Edition" in a two-disc dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition.^[25] This edition contains most of the same bonus features as the VIP edition DVD, except the trivia text feature has been reformatted. The NC-17 edit of the film is used.
The trivia track on the 2010 edition contains some errors, such as a statement that some of the dancers featured in the film were recruited from the XFL football league cheerleaders, an impossibility as the XFL wasn't formed until 2000.
In 2012, actress Rena Riffel wrote, directed, produced, and starred in an unofficial sequel/parody of the film. Called Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven, Riffel reprises her role of naive newcomer Penny. The film essentially follows the plot of the original.
In 2013, an off-off-Broadway parody called Showgirls! The Musical was mounted by Bob and Tobly McSmith of Medium Face Productions. Originating at The Krane Theater in New York City, the critical and audience response was overwhelmingly positive. It was moved to a 200 seat off-Broadway theater, XL Nightclub. The production continued to be successful, its original run was extended through July 15, 2013. Actress Rena Riffel reprised her role from the films as Penny for one month of the production.

Sources: Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Poison - Something To Believe In

Because Otherwise It'll Be Like Everything else I Do. (Part 2)

I am so utterly frustrated right now with the way things in my life are happening or lack there of happening. I absolutely cannot stand the fact that I have no motivation or drive to get myself to do anything that requires some sense of real work or find something that has any meaningful passion for me.

I think I am tired of trying.

No, I am tired of thinking of things that will WORK!

Tired of believing that the biggest success in my life is that I am not a success.

 

Maybe I should be a writer, because I am so fed up with this art thing, I really have come to believe that it is just not in the cards for me.

Blogging hasn't produced much either. I more or less write to the air, and that's okay. I rather put it there and spill it all over people who really don't want to hear how things are not where I had hoped they would be, and I probably will most likely edited this before I even post it, because it sounds so "poor me" and that's not really what I am going for, not to mention the complete run-on sentences.

 

So, if I were to write, what exactly would I write about?

Would I write a book?

Would I write a column on how crappy I think some people dress? or just keep on tossing my thoughts into the air right here. Where according to "Google" I have had 1 person look at this Blog in the past month, so if that is indeed true, then I would like to know who you are, just so I can not add Google to my list of cynicism and doubt concerning their counting abilities.

Don't really know WHY I would even consider writing. I was the quintessential kid in high school, that every paper that I got back in any type of writing class was so full of the teachers "evil red pen" that it was a wonder I was even able to see what was being corrected. I failed every attempt at writing anything. Especially in collage. Oh, they hated my work as much as they hated my art. I can still hear that ripping of my work from the boards after hours and hours of creative thoughtfulness went into the project. I wonder if I still am harboring some kind of bad vibes from that, like the angry children in Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" ..."Hey Teacher, Leave Us Kids Alone!". Yea, that was me alright. I was such a rebellious brat, and thing was, I had no idea that I was. Wish I did, Then maybe I could of been one of those real angry arty types.

But I am not.

 

I did have this epiphany. Came in dream. Yes, for real. (to you that one person that reads this) And it went something like this.

I had mentioned in a previous post about the "mural from hell" that I did for this couple, and when something like that occurs and becomes that of an disastrous event in ones quest for "Art Greatness"  it will hang on for a while. Thus, the dream epiphany. And it said

"Do not do any more art for people to buy, let people buy your art".

This was like gates opening and the angels singing, "that's it" I thought.

I have been so consumed with "CUSTOM" Design, that I didn't see anything else. "If a person can see  it, then I will draw it". But wait, what then happens to my own vision of Art? It's non existent.

Not saying that "designers" are un cool, or they are not artists at all.

Designers are great, I just happen not to be as good of one as I thought.

 

This is the problem with designing. First you have to without a doubt do what "the client wants". I don't care how much they go on and on about "You have full reign on whatever it is -YOU- (the artist) want to do".

No, it doesn't even work that way.

Then, there is the gosh awful thing that I am sure every artist without a manager dislikes more than anything and that is "pricing your own work".

Lord, I may as well give my work away for free. I can in no way get a simple electric bill figured out much less price out my time. (speaking of which my eclectic bill just happened to get shut off completely as I was writing this). 

We also, always try and pull the "what materials will be needed" thing to cushion the blow. And, it's always the same look on the clients face. They do not want to pay that amount and look at you like you are crazy for even throwing that number out there. It feels a bit degrading, and you haven't even started the actual work.

 

Look, I am just speaking for myself, and maybe there is my one friend that reads this who can relate. I don't know.

So then you start the process of doing what you hope is this fabulous design, and it literally takes me weeks to put the paint to it.

 

Color scares the crap out of me.

Don't know why.

Don't have any problems with color. 

Yellow and I have never had a serious altercations.

My box of Crayolas and I are in perfect harmony.

Except when I reach for them and they turn into PMS (Prismacolor Mental Syndrome). Not even going near them. Even the angry artsy type person uses a color block pillow in his all Black and White dwelling.

I truly prefer to be in my Black and Gray shading of a world when it comes to my art.

 

But now I have a dilemma. The wonderful world of "Pintrest" which I consider to be the best of social media and my escape has gotten into my world of

"Post Design".

For some odd reason pictures that I have posted of "designs" that I have done are being re-pinned all over the place.

I am thrilled, because it falls under the epipthany concept of "People choosing what they like". I didn't have to sell these designs to anyone, they spoke for themselves.

So I wonder do I take this as some kind of "clue" to an answer I have been looking for?. The set back is that all these "designs" in question are all in color. (GASP!)

Do I really want to start all over again with this kind of project?

What is it about them now that makes them invoke some interest?.

Do I want to get back in there and try the same thing again? only to find it just may be the same mountain, that I have been around and around.

Honestly, I have been quite comfortable with coming to terms with myself that I don't want to draw anymore. But at the same time, I am very uncomfortable with the thought of "What do I do now?".

 

Even My Blog got off track with posting from other blogs (which I have taken down, the ONLY thing I have taken down).

Since Collage, have all those years up to now been wasted?

Is there really anything to show from them?

I think it is more that I have done it because it is something that everyone expected me to do, and like I had said in "Because Otherwise It'll Be Like Everything else I Do. (Part 1)" of the piece before this one, I am not sure that is what I truly wanted for myself.

Now comes the part where I have to look around, climb out of this rabbit hole, and see what's out there and what ignites a passion? (Still A question)

 

EGO=LOVE=FEAR

Motivational speaker Marianne Williamson once said "The Ego is suspicious at best, Vicious at worst" In the movie "Under The Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane's character, Frances says "What is it about Love that makes us so stupid?"
I put these two quotes together because I think that you cannot have one without the other. I also like that it is extremely deep. EGO=LOVE=FEAR. Essentiality isn't it the need to fill our own ego that we seek love?

And then when we do finally find "love", we become incredibly stupid.
We do stupid things, we think stupid things, and we definitely say stupid things. Then after all that, we become fearful, of all the stupid things that we have done, thought about and said.
I look at the word "Ego" and don't see a word, I see a Thing, the "ego" as this horrible little monster that is out to drive the self crazy. It is this bouncy monster that has tremendous power in getting into the very core of all the things that as any rational person would know better not to do.
Yet, the ego can somehow make all your best intentions turn into a big pile of dusty swirling gray air.
I am amazed at the power of the ego. It shows up in so many forms too. It can be the mere presence of a person that exudes it, or it can be in a bad speech, a broadcasters words, or it can just be it annoying a good thought which is the biggest weapon in the ego's artillery.
"Suspicious at best".
The ego is always suspicious, that is the first big clue that it's lurking to screw things up. It will make you begin to wonder, and use all it's crafty thoughts to get "suspicion" going. It will even go so far as to convince you that "it's not me, the ego, its your gut, go with your gut". "How can you ignore the gut". Well, maybe it's not always the gut. I have come up with some really good suspicious thoughts all on my own, with the help of my little ego friend that have really nothing to do with my "gut feeling" at all. The ego is just so good at pointing that way, because of all the pangs you are feeling inside your stomach. Your head says "yep, that my gut feeling" but the ego is over there in the corner laughing on it's side. What it really is, is nerves from all the worrying and thinking your ego has got you to do. The stomach always feels it first and then it's usually followed by the head. Nasty, Nasty little creature it is. And it doesn't stop there.
"Vicious at Worst"
Ever said anything so bad that after it has come out. you stop and can't believe that you honestly just said that? It happens at lot I suppose. I know I have done it countless times. And I also believe that my little ego Monster has screwed up my "karma" over the years, that I am still trying to clean up its dreadful messes.
So what is it about Love that makes us so stupid? Ego. Simple.
The ego places us into "Fear Mode" Fear of "what if's" and "what I said" and bad thoughts. With Fear there can not be light. And without light, there is always darkness. You cannot have Love and Fear at the same time.
Love is unconditional, and to the Ego, that is like it's kryptonite. If you truly love a person, place, even a thing, totally unconditionally, I can almost guarantee that there will be no further presence of the ego bouncing around. Yes, he will make every attempt to seep into any crack or crevice that is exposed and slide on in. But one must try as best they can to stay valiant and get out the mind caulk and seal those spaces at the first sight of this crazy creature.
That's the thing about the "Ego Monster" you are always cleaning up after it.
It's like the bad Gremlin, don't feed it, especially after midnight!