One good thing I got from 9/11

"My week beats your year."
--Lou Reed, from the liners of Metal Machine Music (1976).

It pushed me towards a radical epicureanism. Before 9/11, I was procrastinating on buying a DVD-player, but that was it. I had to finally get one, and I wasn't disappointed. One of the first films I bought was Sergei Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" from Criterion, and Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (Der Spieler, or "player"). The quality made VHS look as bad as I always thought it was--horrendous, but Americans thought it was better since the tapes were larger. Yes, we're a retarded culture. Since late-2001, I think my collection has reached over 1,000-titles.

When 9/11 happened, I told myself, "Self--you need to watch every single major film worth-watching." And so it began: Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Coppola, Bergman, Orson Welles, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky, John Ford, Tobe Hooper, Peckinpah, Kubrick, Ozu, Roman Polanski, Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: Iron Man), Dreyer, Derek Jarman, David Cronenberg, Kenneth Anger, Jodorowsky, Scorsese, Pabst, Pasolini, Wadja, Fellini, Klimov, John Carpenter, Billy Wilder, Ulrich Seidl, Wim Wenders, Paul Morrisey, Fassbinder, Herzog, John Huston, Jess Franco, Dario Argento, Stroheim, Demille, Ken Russell, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, Michele Soavi, Leni Riefenstahl, Mario Bava, Jules Dassin, Terry Gilliam, George Romero, and countless others you've never had the pleasure to watch. Why? Because when I saw two airliners slam-into the WTC that day, I wagered our time is running-out rapidly. It still is.

It reminded me that: there is no-meaning to life except what one creates, and that you had better enjoy the things that you're truly passionate about. For myself, it's film, music, and food, drink, sex (to the consumerist-slobs: quality, not quantity), and good smoke. Since 9/11, I've enjoyed all these things in-spades. If a car ran-me-over tomorrow, I'd probably have a grin on my chin(s). For tourists of this site, you might incorrectly assume that all of the topics I write about make me unhappy. You couldn't be more wrong. As bad as the Bush administration has been, at least they're incompetent assholes who have given most of the game of deceit and manipulation of all of us away.

The Democrats are better at that side of politics than the Republicans. Their drug is sex and power, mine is cinema and all the other mediums of art. I get a great outlet thrashing these morons, as well as commenters who post here not bothering to read the policies-link at my blog's profile. If you have something constructive to post, I'm listening, otherwise, you're my quarry, my prey, my videogame. This isn't a site for conformists, and I reserve the right to treat you as you treat me. Most of my passions are here, and I have a lot to say about them. If you have something to add that's pertinent, or you at least have some manners, you'll be treated with dignity. It's not a negative act to attack destroyers, anymore than it's negative to write about what you love. Both are positive acts. Realizing who we really are is a positive act in every sense. Be your own best-friend, it's a great feeling.