Reinvention

I watched a documentary last night on Max called Donyale Luna: Supermodel about a black model from the 1960s who had an interesting career, but that few people had ever heard of. I'd never heard of her. Donyale totally transformed herself from a black girl named Peggy from Detroit to an exotic, mixed-race woman whose origins were unknown. Donyale created an entire phony persona for herself. She was part Mexican, she was part Asian, she was from the moon, whatever. Back in the 1960s and 70s (and beyond) you could get away with that kind of thing, I guess. There was no internet. No one would peep you out for not being who you said you were, so Donyale (formerly Peggy) was able to reinvent herself without a lot of scrutiny. The documentary talked to friends and family members who knew Donyale and gushed about how great she was and how the racist modeling industry back then really crushed her. But what they didn't talk about (and what I gathered from the documentary) was that Donyale seemed to have some mental problems. She was briefly hospitalized at Bellevue in New York for a mental breakdown, but it seemed clear to me that this woman needed more mental help beyond that stay. Back in this woman's heydey, she was running with a crowd that did a lot of drugs and I'm sure a lot of her bizarre behavior was just excused or ignored due to the drug use (drug use that ultimately killed her). It's a shame she never seemed to get the mental help she clearly needed. And she ended up leaving her child motherless because she died so young.

The subject of reinvention is interesting to me. The fact that some people just become someone else is fascinating. I used to work with a woman who grew up in public housing, but transformed herself into a different person who shunned all of that and married a man who had a totally different (and more financially stable) upbringing. I think when people are younger, they're more apt to try and present a different side of themselves to others to fit in. Maybe you're ashamed of where you're from or how you grew up, so you give a different narrative to people. You create a diffferent upbringing for yourself to present to others. But doesn't it get exhausting being someone you're not? Keeping the lies straight must take a lot of mental energy. Telling the truth is much easier to recall and recite.

Random Thoughts

 As September winds to a close, I've been thinking about a number of things.

1. Drivers: Is it just me or are people driving a lot worse than they used to? I don't know if the Covid situation impacted people's driving, but I feel like I'm dodging bad drivers left and right lately. Either they're speeding down residential streets like they're on the Autobahn or they're driving too slow and not keeping up with the flow of traffic. I think a lot of folks are learning to drive too late in life for a variety of reasons. Public schools don't have free driver's ed classes anymore so people have to pay, a lot of young people simply don't want to learn how to drive or, when they do learn, they're too fearful and make terrible mistakes that cause accidents.

2. Telsas: In keeping with the driving theme, I can't figure out why anyone would spend money on a Tesla. First, they're ugly. I'm sorry, but they look like giant eggs. I'm old enough to remember the AMC Pacer (and I drove one, the wagon version, back in the day). It's an ugly car and the two-door model was egg-like, just like the Tesla. Plus, why line Elon's pockets? I'm not a fan of electric cars anyway and I'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get rid of my gas-powered car but, even if I did get an electric vehicle, I wouldn't get one from Musk. That Afrikaner isn't getting a dime of my money. No sir, no ma'am. 

3. The Black Crowes: I recently heard the song "Jealous Again" by the Black Crowes on one of the Sirius stations I listen to during the workweek and that got me to wondering why I don't have any of their music currently. Well, I remedied (get it?) that situation and downloaded some of their songs. Listening to the Black Crowes brings out my hillbilly roots. Yeah, they're in there and they surface from time to time when I find myself liking music like the Black Crowes and the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. It's good music and I'm happy to claim it and praise it!

Wacky

I love a good documentary. Over the weekend, I watched the second part of the docu-series, The Vow, on the Nxvim cult. After watching the first part some time ago, I lost interest in learning more about the cult because it just seemed so ridiculous. But I got sucked back into it over the weekend. I still find the whole premise of the group largely ridiculous and don't understand why so many people (mainly women) just fell all over themselves to be close to the group's leader. The guy oftenlooked like he hadn't bathed in weeks and he didn't seem to really "do" anything over than give wacky group chats and screw a lot of women on dirty sheets. (Ugh.) The dirty sheets thing came up more than once in the series, but I digress.) Why anyone would latch on to this guy and his group is a mystery to me, yet so many did. I know I'm late to the party in watching The Vow, but I didn't have an HBO subscription until earlier this year, so I could only catch that stuff if I got a free HBO weekend via my cable provider and then I had to cram and watch as much as I could before they cut me off.

HBO (now Max, unfortunately) has shown some great documentaries and docu-series over the years. I've watched the Heaven's Gate series, the Last Call series, There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, The Lost Children series (about the Atlanta child murders from the 1980s), the Jinx, and many more that were really great. 

This has nothing to do with documentaries, but I really hope we can retire the phrase "witch hunt" soon. I'm tired of Donny T and others using this phrase to describe prosecution or charges they disagree with. Also, sometimes a witch hunt turns uncovers an actual witch!

Passages

I saw the movie Passages earlier today and left the theater shaking my head. The main character was such a man-baby and an emotional vampire to his husband and to the woman he had a relationship with. First, he left his husband to take up with a woman he met at a nightclub. (And the woman knew he was gay and married to a man because she met them both at the club and they told her what was up!) But, after leaving his husband and moving in with the woman, the man-baby decided he still wanted to be with his husband. So he moved back and forth from the pole to the hole while alienating both his husband and the woman. What a hot mess! By the end of the movie, I wanted to ring this guy's neck. At one point he's riding his bike through the streets of Paris and I kept waiting (hoping?) for a bus or a car to take him out. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie that got me so riled up but Passages did it! I highly recommend checking it out if you're into messy relationship movies (as I am since I write messy relationship stories).

I'd read a few articles about Passages before I saw the movie and the director, Ira Sachs, talked about being slapped initially with an NC-17 rating for the film, something he felt was unfair and only assigned to his film because it contained a gay sex scene. After seeing the movie, I agree with him. There was no peen shown and the sex between the two men wasn't anymore graphic than a sex scene between a man and a woman would have been. The film review board claimed the NC-17 rating wasn't because of the gay sex, but I don't believe that. Sachs wisely chose to go with an Unrated rating for his film rather than the NC-17. It's high time the movie ratings board pulled their heads out of the sand and stopped being so prudish about sex. It's 2023, not 1953. 

Labor Day Weekend Greetings

I returned today from a long weekend trip to my hometown of Detroit, Michigan. I had a great time in the D seeing family, eating at places we don't have in the Chicago area (like Tubby's), and going to the Jazz Festival at Hart Plaza. Downtown Detroit has changed so much from when I grew up in the city. It's totally different now. Every time I visit, I notice how much things have changed. Some stuff still stays the same though. I went by my childhood home and it looked good! Whoever the new owners are, they have kept the place up and I'm glad for that. 

Bebel Gilberto (and Other Stuff)

I saw Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto in concert a few weeks ago and the show was great. (See the picture below from the show.)  I saw her a few years ago and she was great then too. As a huge fan of Brazilian music, I enjoy seeing live performances and just listening to music from singers like Bebel, Djavan, Maria Rita, and Ivan Lins. I highly recommend checking these performers out if you're into that kind of music (or even if you aren't and want to try something new). The music is very soothing and I could use some de-stressing in my life right now. 

In other news, I do have a new publication coming out later this year called Not Sweet Enough. More on that later when I have a release date and more info. My writing has been slow and I really need to get back on the horse and do better about chruning stuff out sooner. My German classes have ended for the summer. Ja! I largely enjoyed the classes, but they just went on too long and my teacher was nice but her way of teaching didn't really work for me. I'll try to keep up on my own through the materials I have and videos on YouTube. I'd still really like to go travel to Germany next year and I'll try to make that happen.

To Live and Die in LA

I read director William Friedkin died today and I guess that's why I heard Wang Chung's "To Live and Die in LA" on Sirius today. Friedkin directed the movie that theme song came from and hearing the song today made me think about the movie. I saw To Live and Die in LA when I was a teenager. My father, during one of his divorced dad weekends took me, my sister, and one of my cousins to the movies. We were supposed to see Rocky 4, but it was sold out so we ended up seeing To Live and Die in LA. To this day, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. So sleazy and so good. The homoerotic dynamic between William Petersen and Willem Dafoe's characters was so interesting. I wasn't sure if they were going to fight each other or end up in bed together, but I was down for it all. This is the kind of movie that would never get made today. Counterfeiters, strippers, experimental dance troups, dirty cops. What worked in the 1980s wouldn't work today. At least I've got the DVD!