Dark Night

"The United States did not ratify the the treaty after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979." -- a nice, staid archive consulted for strange, forced cohesions

It is interesting to note what glimpses of ruthless brutality Ronald Donaldson chooses to offer viewers in his 2007 expose, The Bank Job. We're allowed to see Jason Stratham's supporting crew member Eddie get tortured with a blow torch by a cop on the take, but we are spared seeing the henchmen of hustler pimp "Michael X" slit the throat of Gale Benson, the MI5 operative, perhaps in order to staunch racial backlash, which certainly hasn't stopped the spastic dowager from coming into creation, or emerging into her unpleasant incarnation, which is about to cost her a great deal, though she is paying greatly already.
American directors are certainly capable of ruthless, merciless films which show violence in its own linguistic context. When I still had cable, I saw an independent, the name I cannot remember, about a black cutter who got off on stabbing his victims to death. He too wiped out a family, with the plastic bags over the head, sealed with duct tape technique, and at brutal cost, the white cop, who had a biracial boy, took these ruthless psychopaths out. Ebert, still able to speak, liked it. I did not, and obviously its unsparing malevolence still ignites my dread. Unless some brave soul comes to my rescue, one day I'll battle search and find Ebert's review. Despite my recoil, both the directors and the actors were courageous to make the film, because it exposes harsh realities which our British progenitors do not fear to reveal. I'm not indicating The Bank Job corresponds to the earlier American film, even though they both involve violent crime, and Donaldson made me think of the other. I'm only acknowledging exceptions to the rule. Britons, Europeans at large, tend to be more unsparing than the colonists they left behind to form the last major powers, though truth be told, Canada seems just to be lucky, and I know sum total of zilch about its defense capacity, nor if its benevolent neighbor down South has given it access to warheads. It is not listed as one of the nuclear eight, but with such a vast land mass, second only to Russia, I can certainly entertain a Boys from Brazil intrigue, especially in the event that Syria and Israel decide to end civilization as we know it. I don't mean that the CIA is conspiring to clone German fascists with Canadian Intelligence, but that there are fail safes of the sort that would leave James Gardner exasperated, in his tough detective jacket. If it is true that people died needlessly because Princess Margaret couldn't be embarrassed, what right do I have to say I'm not expendable to a black urban majority which destroyed my health and social conscience? In the years Joan Tarshis claimed Bill Cosby raped her, I was being denigrated in a whirlpool bath by a minority orderly who actually believed her abuse of a nine year old girl abandoned by a shamed father was "God's work". The woman probably many years since passed away, given her weight, her age then, mine now. I couldn't prosecute, and I am not certain that scapegoating Cosby does anything, for Miss Tarshis or anyone else. The comedian is too old to functionally survive prison, but whether he was married or not, I would have never put myself in the position of a naive progressive willing to be alone with a stage personality, though I was naive enough to go into the hood and emerge like this, willing to sacrifice shelter to staunch such emotional scars as I've sustained. I am nearly in the space Joan herself seems to inhabit, uncertain veracity against injustices beyond the ability of the law to rectify, sorely in need of difference.

Phosphorus Angel

"They are more afraid of assisted living than they are of dying." A liberal analyst

Liberals always ably diagnose problems of their own making, which invariably leads to retrenchment, the brawn of knocking a defined but slightly less ripped contract killer Jason Statham inhabits as himself. Statham is not a portrait actor. He doesn't inhabit. He performs as an action figure, in most of his films in affiliate circulation, but he seems to have a particular comprehension of his niche that is put together just well enough to be funny. I like Crank, which says something about me. Some of my regular readers know this already. 

Having stipulated viewing pleasure, however, doesn't mean a trained eye doesn't see the narrative as fantastical.  Gangsta may get off on breaking each other down, but surely Chev's employers knew he was dangerous, and if they wanted him to die hard, they would have further disabled him in the opening jump, mind games aside. Neveldine and Taylor make up for their preposterous plot devices, and Statham is in obvious sympathy with the notion that action achieves more than sensitivity training, but even here there is a beneath the surface subtext: Defiance is maintained through perseverance. Loopholes, like keeping yourself on uppers, can pay dividends, and being smart about not over-reaching can pull you out of a tight spot. How real world is Statham's urban jungle for the rest of us? Well, poverty is mostly accrued in increments of petty vandalism. Not that gun ownership isn't ubiquitous in black society, but city violence is by and large, banal, taking a toll on everyone.

My eye was running over my old files, and I still have Dana's email from Poets & Writers Speakeasy, banning me in 02 for personal attacks against other users, as if I was the Tantrum Special Needs student from The Slap, or Modern Parenting. I remember a few flares, and suppose, justifiably, users may have been frightened. Vitriol comes from unreachable pain-- but what I wanted, from P&W, from anyone, was out of the regimented hell of my domestic life. The poet Bob Zordani suggested going back into the MFA system (if you know of him he was pretty cool back in the day) and so forth. I wanted the fucking liberals and more moderate suburbanites to come rescue me, literally, and a part of me still does. We do not, in general, tend to do that for each other, but cripples do, without much hesitation. The new social media, to some extent, reigns me in, and there are only so many ways to reap revenge on a system, and a supervisor, who did their number, then their expulsion; family pushes back, even mio padre, however, on the arc of where I've been, where I'm going, honestly, children do not need to be saved if they cannot make their own decisions. I may start something in the morning, filing a police complaint against Presby. It may not be enough of a something that the officers will arrest me. I don't know, but I'm starting it anyway, hopefully with enough composure intact. I want to be able to vacate Riverside with a modicum of safety.

My instructors meant well, but my wounds go too deeply for ever a full recovery. "Hang on for a little while." Whisper in my ear. May be a bummer busy week.

Lethal Injection for Horses

"What?"-- Jason Statham

It is difficult to evaluate Jim Webb as an alternative to Hillary on the basis of his one recent interview with Judy Woodruff. He hasn't been exactly visible, but is a potential candidate who used to have a gravitational pull for me, and he seems to recognize progressives are free-falling out of a helicopter in an ironic, fantastical, denouement. If Mrs. Clinton doesn't run, or in some context loses the primaries in a bloody fight with a dark horse like Webb, the problem becomes obvious, in that, all things being equal, Webb would lose to the Republican nominee, barring something extraordinary, like a Rand Paul Ben Carson ticket, and by Christ wouldn't that be fun! 

Pleased to recapture a cultural reference, I remember Carson doing an interview on his advisory role on the Bijani twins, and he cut an impressive figure. I was going to do a very long apologia for him on his views of homosexuality, and we may return there, to my delicate gay bashing with its hideous implications-- but not today, since I can't handle a battle with the German left and moral umbrage of my minority wardens combined, at least not without becoming a full fledged Libertarian first-- I've flirted, spiritually, with Libertarian philosophy for a long time, and telephoned the party from the ghetto, years back, and argued with the gentleman who answered my call about my terror over guns-- however, if one has to pick a side, I'm leaning heavily, today, towards becoming an operative, without any reason, thus far, to like Carson-- remembering the eclipse of Herman Cain. Even at the price of losing ground, Carson should have explicated his anti-homosexual bluntness, not backpedaled.

The right needs more courage to remain unpleasant; if a neurosurgeon of such skill and compassion can see homosexual activity in a vein so similar to mine, journalists with a platform might want to ask more questions before dismissing us as bizarre.

Jason Statham has the bizarre action thriller humor all to himself, and Crank nearly had me pissing myself with its humorous subversions, including its homage to Jon Voight and Midnight Cowboy. My thought processes need fermentation, however, in my balance between rough draft and polish.