LOVING THE ALIEN

For english version

"Just gonna have to be a different man/ time may change me/ but I can't trace time"

David  Bowie - Changes

Convertir a Bowie en mi ídolo me ha llevado a la buscar hombres chistosos pero complejos, inteligentes y un poco extraños. O de pronto fue mi gusto por hombres bizarros, lo que me llevó a Bowie, no lo sé, es el dilema del huevo y la gallina. Pero como en una multiplicación, el orden de los factores no altera el producto: mi héroe es David Bowie y él define mi amor por las excentricidades.

David Bowie no es mi ídolo porque maneja el rango más amplio de música que he visto: inventó el glam-rock, empezó a usar sintetizadores antes de los 80's, hizo un soul delicioso, mainstream de los 90’s, electrónica, experimental y hasta rock industrial. Tampoco lo endioso por ser un gran compositor, un gran productor (ej. the Idiot), ni por haber actuar en Broadway, pintar  y esculpir. Claro que todo lo anterior importa, y es parte del paquete de David Bowie, pero existe tanto talento en el mundo que el es mi diolo porque ha sabido cambiar de un estilo a otro, probando que una persona puede ser tan versátil como su imaginación, como su bagaje, como sus ideas. Él cambia manteniendo un sello personal: un estilo atrevido, con porte y efecto sorpresa.

David Bowie siempre será un flaco sofisticado (aunque la edad haga estragos), con un increíble sentido del humor, deliciosamente raro, como sus ojos. El agravó mi gusto por lo andrógeno, es por su culpa que no me  llaman la atención los hombres simples. Tampoco me gustan los hombres que se ven como un G.I. Joe, ni  los estereotipos de macho alfa, en otras palabras Bowie me enseñó que los hombres pueden ser suaves, raros y caballerosos, sin ser en lo absoluto menos hombres.

Cuando Bowie se cansa, busca en su cabeza, como en la bolsa del gato Felix y crea una nueva persona, que es su priopia reinvencion, otra etapa para explorar, compone bandas sonoras que lo acompanian en el camino, y acaba reinventadose a él mismo, al punto de ser un Dr. Jekyll que crea diferentes Mr. Hydes; como ziggy Stardust o el Thin White Duke. La mejor parte es que aquí, vuelve a cambiar cuando le da la gana.

Hoy en día, en el que todo se reinventa en versiones nuevas, déjenme decirles que David Bowie es el mejor exponente de mejora continua. Y es que quien hubiera pensado que este junkie de principios de los 70’s que parecía sacado de una película de Lynch, con un matrimonio más raro  que un perro a cuadros, llegara a ser normal, con un matrimonio corriente y estable con Iman, se portara como es debido y fuera un papá entregado. 

 

David Bowie me enseñó que lo que nos hace especiales, no es “la razón” ni la “conciencia”, es la habilidad de reinventarnos. Cuando una persona no es lo le gustaría ser, lo único necesario es levantarse al otro día y cambiar lo que esta mal, con Bowie todo se puede cambiar, las arañas de marte son el limite.

Por ultimo Bowie decía que sus transformaciones también eran una forma de no dejarse estereotipar, porque tristemente todos tendemos a clasificar a las personas, etiquetamos a simple vista... gran error! y es que a mayor complejidad, mas facetas, mas posibilidades, mas ideas y contradicciones. En esta linea Bowie es un caleidoscopio, un ejemplo de como no tenemos que ser blanco, negro, rojo o azul, sino que podemos ser todos los colores, sin agotarnos. 

Bowie cambia y se reinventa, canta y actúa, la caga y la arregla, me enseña y me inspira,  por eso es mi héroe.

KUSTURICA'S UNTOLD SEX LESSONS

*Play this video, before start reading*

The mainstream cinema is out of the comfort zone with Kusturica, as Frank Zappa said "Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass." But that, I'll extend it to all the art expressions, most of the people play safe, safe is going where the majority goes. Nevertheless the great minds by definition are those which go further, and think out of the box, Kusturica's way is highlighted out of the world. 

For all the classic, fancy and pretentious directors; he is a "wolf at the door, a flan on the face"... He manage the aesthetic, the chaos, the ugly, the crazy, the poor and all this elements make a Molotov bomb; that when explodes, surprisingly leaves the essence of beauty and catharsis. 

So, keeping up, Arizona Dream is a jewel of modern cinema and one of my favorites, is close to my heart, because from my point of view is about; how crazy each and everyone of us is, how messed up, and how isolated in a private world, with a private language as well. Is exactly there, where the beauty of life remains, and when those isolation collide; it causes a boom in which you see lots of miscommunication, confusion, love, and connection. If as a result of this, we fuck it up, big time, he shows us, that is in our believes, hopes, and convictions; in the core of our private little world, where our strength resides. No matter how flashy the crash with other worlds may look like. 

If you haven't seen this film, please do, that's why I wanted to write about it in the first place, because is the best one to get started in Emir Kusturica's world; who's one of my favorite directors as well. Arizona dream is "Kusturica for dummies" so, if is the only Kusturica's you've seen, please keep on... I personally recommend you Underground, (wow, that one is gonna blow your minds, is pure awesomeness).

I love him, maybe because I can relate to him. He is from Sarajevo, one city with all the modern history condensed; with war, with poverty, with very vivid and picturesque stories.  Therefore when you live in this kind of environment, you must learn to see the beauty behind all of this. And If you mind happiness; you'll learn as well, that laughing at yourself, and everything that surrounds you, is the way through. I say it with knowledge, because I'm from Colombia, and many unexpected events have happened in my life, so I realize by now that Kusturica's point of view is common to people who live in a difficult environment as Sarajevo, or Bogota. Actually I do believe that he's the only great director, that can deeply understand the complexity of Colombia, and make a brilliant movie, out of stories, like One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I was forgetting something! one of the most important things about his movies; the music; is so freakin' good, so gypsy like, it gives magic to what is visually happening, because is part of his folk, his culture, which he's proud of. Many of his movies have music by Goran_Bregovic, (the first video with which this blog started is his, feat. Iggy Pop). But amazingly Kusturica is also a brilliant musician himself, who's been touring for years all over the world, his band is named: "Emir Kusturica and the No smoking Orchestra" 

If John Lennon said "love is the answer and I know it for sure" Kusturica (I think) would say is music and laughter! 

Last but not least, I wasn't bluffing when I wrote the title; all that you just read was me,  introducing you to Kusturica's epic world, by now you should now that in his movies there's no space for phony, in a shallow way; he is always giving you, pure and raw humanity; people that's struggling and laughing, living from the guts.  

And that my friend, is sex in real life, there's no space for shallow beauty, as you may think, good, really good sex, is as cathartic as Kusturica's movies, in which you're flying and enjoying so much, that you don't care anymore about the "how do I look while doing it" but quite better, you'll find that there's a lot of pleasure in letting yourself go. What I'm trying to say, is that if your approach to sex comes from a neat point of view, you'll find yourself doomed to restrain your body, trying to look like barbies and kens, trying to evoke something far from the animal function that sex actually has, this from my point of view resembles directors that are visually speaking pretty good and clean, but the end is empty, and you walk away unfulfilled; those directors didn't manage to give you a movie erection!!!

But if you go, in the opposite direction, and see sex like a way to get pleasure, believe me, you're not gonna look like a model, but who cares? you're gonna have the time of your life, instead! With pleasure as your goal, you can give yourself to whatever you're feeling, to rage, to tenderness, or only God knows what; at the end, after the sweet orgasm everything is full, calm, cathartic. And you get this characteristic smile, that can last for days every time you remember that moment...that's why I chose Kusturica's way, in a very personal way, he gives me a deep sense of pleasure that is quite memorable, like a good fuck!

Watch and learn from the master! 

Nights of Love and Laughter by Henry Miller

I'm not that much into Miller, but it had happen to me, with several writers that I'm not big fan of;  when I read their short stories, I get a pleasant surprise, because usually short stories are funny and easy-reading with some sparks of wisdom in it, that, at least for me, work perfectly in a sunny afternoon as I had today. 

In this book, specifically speaking in a short story called "the Alcoholic veteran" I found a couple of memorable quotes that I would like to share: 

"the heart cannot be broken. The heart can be wounded (...) but the heart knows no limits in its ability to endure suffering and torment. As long as the heart pumps blood it pumps life"

"The only way in which any one can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our guidance (...) but the men who dazzle us and lead us astray are the men who promise us those things which no man can honestly promise another" 

"To invoke fate is to expose oneself to the chaos which the blind forces of the universe are ever ready to set in motion once the will of man is broken. The man of destiny is the extreme opposite: in him we have an example of the miraculous nature of man, in that those same blind forces appear to be harnessed, and controlled, directed towards the fulfillment of man's own microscopic purpose"

Edgar Allan Poe's Birthday

"On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before", then the bird said "nevermore"...
 y yo me pregunto, dónde diablos está mi cuervo?

el Shakespeare que llevamos dentro