Deep Thoughts...

So maybe I can think and entertain myself again. My head has been a busy place this morning and I am grateful about that.

I'm crediting sockkpuppett for letting me talk some things out, distracting me with season 5 Angel thoughts and encouraging me to just play with "Battleflag." I have no clear idea where it is going, but it is shaping into something - something quite different from where I was headed originally, but which feels much more real. If that makes any sense. None of what I have in the timeline currently works beyond a few seconds here and a few seconds there, but that is something. If all the seconds just line up and I get a full sequence that appeals, I think I'll just go into automatic mode and it will all fall into place. Which would be nice, as I immediately start freaking out that I will never be able to make a half-way decent vid again. Maybe I won't. I do think that I am stagnating stylistically - I watch "Superstar" and "Nightmares" and I think I should be doing so much more - I'm laying clips and it all looks well and good, but I should be advancing more - making the source my own - creating parallels and tying in unrelated scenes together - demonstrating the relatedness of the emotion/experience in clip A to clip B in some very cool way... I'm focused specifically on the razor cut sequence of Faith in the grave and then dancing in the club in "Superstar" and the clip of Cordy in front of Angelus's cage intercut with the white eyes in "Nightmares" - I should be doing that. Not that exactly, of course, but the elusive "that" those vids represent to me. The music in "Battleflag" does not want this static, clip A, then clip B then clip C approach that I am sandbagging it with. I don't want to vid like that and that may be one of my major beefs with "66" - aside from the Pure Sweet Love -- I really just laid clips down to represent the song. Not a lot of manipulation beyond image cropping. As a stress-relief project it was fine, but not artistically fulfilling. I'm also dissatisfied with the spinning movement at the front of the vid. It just does not work the way I wanted it too. It's fine and all - but in my head it could be much more. I just couldn't get what was in my head into Premiere. I need VVC.

eliade also had a post that made me think when I read it this morning about Eminem. The post was about RPS, but I tend to not focus on that - it was the Eminem-mention that grabbed me. It's strange - I am at turns excited, disturbed, entertained and provoked by his music - and I don't take that lightly. I think he is a very talented artist and I appreciate the rawness and the honesty behind his music - even when it offends me. Actually, I know on a basic level that some of the stuff should offend me. But it doesn't. It shocks me. Some of it saddens me - but I'm not offended. I suppose I am intrigued? Maybe... it reminds me of the time when I was fifteen and totally into Guns N Roses and my aunt, the scholar and a lovely, serious woman to boot, was concerned. Didn't the negative attitude toward women and the downright misogynistic lyrics offend me? How could I listen to it? And I had to tell her - no. It didn't. Hell - I'd sing along to "I Used to Love Her" and "Back Off Bitch" and have a helluva time doing it as well and that realization bugged me. Not the music, but the fact that I liked it and had no adverse reaction to the material.

I'm a feminist. I want equality and damn it, I just want to be treated as if my chromosomal make-up does not matter. If you want to see me on a rant get me started on the feminization of the "girl" athletic team names in school. For example; I went to college at the University of Kentucky. The mascot is the Wildcat. Easy enough, until you look at the women's basketball team and realize that they are the "Lady Kats (or Cats - been a while, forgive the errors)" - same with the University of Louisville - the Cardinals, right? Unless you are a "Lady Card" -- WTF is up with that? Are they afraid we will forget that the athletes on these teams do not have penises without the special names? Why can't they be the Wildcats or the Cardinals or hell take it back to high school where Dawn played varsity Basketball and was a Trojanette. What the hell is a Trojanette? I have the same sort of feelings about genderized words like actor/actress, waiter/waitress but I will stop now. No I won't - the lovely and powerful missmurchison sent me a link this morning that steamed me up as well (as I think she knew it would)- about the "Metrosexual" male - he is straight, but in touch with his feminine side - which according to the article means he cares about his appearance. Fuck. When did grooming become a strictly feminine trait? Why can't he be in touch with his narcissistic side instead?

But I made a sudden realization driving to work today. The fact that I enjoy music that is openly derogatory to women is not a contradiction to my being a feminist. I do not identify with the women in these songs on any level whatsoever. I never have. A buncha bimbette supermodels want to bitch-slap themselves around in "November Rain" - more power to them, but I don't get it and it is not me. I resent having to feel offended on their behalf because we share common genital features. Nuh uh. Not gonna do it. It's like that whole "Hunting Bambi" scam. Before the scam part was revealed, I was sickened that there are people out there that would want to do it, but I find it hard to work myself up into a feministic uproar because some silly people out there that would let themselves be shot with a paint gun while naked and there are silly people that would get their rocks off shooting a naked person. I felt bad on a human scale, but I don't feel my womanhood or ovarianness or whatever was in jepoardy because of this. Because it isn't me. It isn't me on any level. And I know all about how attitudes become pervasive and it could eventually effect me because I share a gender with these twits and yeah - that would get me up in a roar. Not because I think we should respect all people with a vagina equally. Hell, no - I don't respect those women at all. I don't. I don't respect the men involved either. Fuck gender - they're idiots and I don't like stupid.

So - I'm not really certain what I am trying to say here. But, I am having big, deep thoughts again that make kinda, sorta sense to me and that is a wonderful thing.