Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Dope. And from both sides of the law. Dopes. And on both sides of the law. And all that murky shit that unfolds when you aren’t quite able to put your finger on who the hell the good guys are. What does that even mean in a context this squalid?

Meth addicts, hoods, crooked cops. The scum of the earth embodied in some pretty grim sequences. And one guy weaving in and out of them on his roller coaster.

Great opening scene. Danny sitting there trumpeting the blues while the room around him [with stacks of money] is consumed by flames. Then the voiceover begins…

My name is Tom Van Allen…or Danny Parker. I honestly don’t know anymore. You can decide. Yeah, maybe you can help me, friend. As you can see, I don’t have a hell of a lot of time left. You can decide who I am. Avenging angel. Judas Iscariot. Loving husband. Prodigal son. All of these? None of these? You decide.

On the other hand, as Danny points out near the beginning of this trajectory, “keep your eyes open…for nothing is as it seems.”

As always, folks will react to a film like this in one of two ways: it will either scare them straight and they will never do dope…or they will be all the more drawn to the part where the dope gets you high. It just depends on how badly they want to block out the shit they have to endure from day to day when they are not high.

But let me guess: Not you, right?

Vincent D’Onofrio purposefully mouth breathed during the entire production to create a unique timber and respective speech patterns. He then added a “nose squeak” after finding that some persons who lost their nose secondary to trauma or cancer produce a high pitch sound after completing certain sounds.

Peter Sarsgaard’s character is based on a real person who was a meth user in Riverside and according to D.J. Caruso “Just wanted to be liked”. IMDb


The Salton Sea

Danny [voiceover]: Speed. That’s as good a place to start as any. But first, a little background on the mad world of the tweaker. Methedrine was first distilled by a Japanese scientist before WWll. Hand it to the Japanese, they knew a good thing when they saw it. This guy is so tweaked he thinks he can survive this without a scratch. Maybe not. By some estimates, 2% of the Japanese had a meth problem after the war. Factory workers, soldiers, pilots. That’s why it took two bombs to get them to surrender. A nuclear blast is just a minor nuisance to a determined tweaker. In the 50 's, the housewives got a hold of it. Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Methedrine. Now, that’s a classic speed freak for you. Skinny and cleaning the house. Her husband never knew what hit him in the sack.

Any tweakers here? Well, you're up. 

Danny [voiceover]: By the late 60’s, the government cracked down and sent it underground. Bikers controlled the market for a while. But now anyone with a chemistry kit and the ingredients can cook it at home. Ever see a long-haired, tattooed freak buying up all the cold medicine at 3 in the morning? Take it from me, he doesn’t have a cold.

What could he have then?

Danny [voiceover]: So that’s where I found myself. No, I should choose my words more wisely. This is the world I sought out. The land of the perpetual night party. Day swallowing night and night swallowing day. The crank compressing time like some divine piston on its awesome downstroke. We’ve been at this for three days… or is it four? Tweakers, lokers, slammers, coming and going, swearing eternal allegiance and undying love for one another, only to wake up after the binge and realize you wouldn’t walk across the street to piss on one of them if their head was on fire. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t give up on me just yet. Just wait 'til I’ve told my whole story. And keep your eyes open. Nothing is as it seems.

Of course, your own dope reality may be different. New thread?

Danny: How do you know you’re doing the right thing, Finn?
Finn: I dunno, like…people around you are happy, you know, they say thank you and stuff, right…?

Next up: why there's no equivalent of that here.

Danny [voiceover]: For the people who don’t do drugs, or just do them occasionally, it’s something that becomes your life, and you belong. You finally hit bottom and you know you are, because you can’t go any lower. When you find a friendship that you wouldn’t have found anywhere else. Still and all, there’s a kind of intimacy with those that can go the distance. Sometimes you see the world so clearly…and you know just what to do, and just when to do it. Just what you should’ve done, and when you should’ve done it.

Want to hit rock bottom yourself? Philosophically? Start here some say: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Kid Selling Guns [to Danny]: Mister, I only deal in high-end weapons. All guaranteed stolen. All traceable only to the original owners. Glock, semi-automatic 9 mm. Tenifer matte finish, polymer grip, fixed sights, 4 and 1/2 inch barrel, 22 ounces, double action, and a 10 round magazine. Mister, I could hook you up with this gun for the low price of three hundred and “fitty” dollars, well below market value. Maybe you’re looking for something with a chrome finish. Something to impress the ladies. This right here is a Llama Mini-Max .38 Super Auto semi-automatic. Fresh satin chrome, black rubber grip, 3 dot fixed sights, 3 and 1/2 inch barrel, skeletonized hammer with an extended slide release, eight capacity magazine and single action. Mister, I will not lie to you. This gun is not the bomb. It’ll do the job, but it ain’t all that. That’s why you can walk out of here with this gun for the incredible low price of one hundred and “fitty” dollars. Maybe you looking for power. Well, this gun got mad power, mad kick, and mad reputation. That’s right. It’s the Smith .357 Magnum revolver. Rubber combat-style grips, fixed rear, ramp front sights, 2 inch barrel. Weighs in at a feather-like 21 ounces. 8 shot capacity and double action. Mister, if it’s impact you’re looking for, the Magnum will satisfy all of your needs. Mister, these are my guns. All sales are final. All prices are negotiable.

Of course, he's only paraphrasing Easy Andy:  https://youtu.be/3dBn3fW1ijU?si=gP-lL-7kfhy0qAgw

Danny: Why do they call him Pooh-Bear?
Finn: On account of his nose.
Danny: You have to explain that one.
Finn: He doesn’t have one.
Danny: I’m sure it’s me. I’m not making the connection.
Finn: You know the Winnie the Pooh character…the way he always got his nose caught in the honey jar? Well, Pooh-Bear did so much gak they had to cut his nose off. Now he has a plastic one.

Bummer.
Right?

Finn: They say Pooh-bear hasn’t slept in like over a year.
Danny: Bullshit!
Finn: Naw, it’s true. I’ve never seen him sleep. Seriously.
Danny: Have you ever seen Queen Elizabeth sleep?
Finn: No, why, is she a tweaker?

I forget...is she? Or, rather, was she?

Pooh-Bear: Introduce him to Captain Steubing.
Danny: Hey, now, listen. We don’t have a deal, fine. I’ll just go. What do you want me to say?
Pooh-Bear: Captain hasn’t eaten in over a week. That and the rabies don’t make for a happy badger. Now, he thinks that you might work for the police.
Danny: That’s crazy!
Pooh-Bear: Don’t impress me. I’m not the one making the accusations. Address Captain Steubing.

The other one?

Pooh-Bear: A man will say just about anything when he’s sportin’ badger-food for a pecker.

You first.

Danny: You’re lost. The Salton Sea. You’re in a bathroom. You’re shot in the shoulder. Your wife is about to be murdered by two thieves with ski masks on.
Gus: Jesus…
Danny: Do you crawl out and die with her? Do you stay? What do you do?
Gus: I don’t know.
Danny: Answer the question.
Gus: I don’t know!
Danny: What do you do? Do you die? Or do you fight?

How about you fight and then die.

Danny: My name is Tom Van Allen. I’m a trumpet player.
Quincy: No. Your name is Danny Parker. You’re a motherfucking rat.
Danny: What’s happening?
Quincy: I’ll tell you what’s happening. The fucking cops came. They didn’t find shit. Their fucking rat gave them the wrong information. Fuck with the Mexicali boys, that’s what you get. Domingo figured you were the one that ratted on him. Guess what? I brought a fucking rat of my own.
[he shoves Collette to the floor]
Danny [to Collette]: You set me up?
Quincy: Man, that fucking bitch played you like a squeezebox, Romeo.
Collette: They’ve got my daughter.
Quincy: She had no fucking choice, man.

What don't you have a fucking choice but doing?

Danny [voiceover]: Oh, shit, what is this? Am I dead? Linoleum? This must be hell. Oh no, what a cliche. I’ve had some time to think about it and it’s pretty simple after all. I think it’s like the man said, “Man is the measure of all things.” I should know. I ran the gamut. Tom Van Allen got his revenge. Good for Tom. And Danny Parker? He got gut-shot for being a lowlife rat. That sucks for him. As far I’m concerned, they’re both dead. So who is this guy? Tell you the truth, I still don’t know. But I like his chances. I really like his chances.

For all I know, he might be me.

[iambiguous]

Umberto Eco from Foucault’s Pendulum

I don't know, maybe we're always looking for the right place, maybe it's within reach, but we don't recognize it. Maybe to recognize it, we have to believe in it.

And, no, not just posting here.

I will tell you the deeper significance of this, which otherwise might seem a banal hydraulic joke. Camus knew that if one fills a vessel with water and seals it at the top, the water, even if one then opens a hole in the bottom, will not come out. But if one opens a hole in the top, also, the water spurts out below.
Isn't that obvious? I said. Air enters at the top and presses the water down.
A typical scientific explanation, in which the cause is mistaken for the effect, or vice versa. The question is not why the water comes out in the second place, but why it refuses to come out in the first case.
And why does it refuse? Garamond asked eagerly.
Because, if it came out, it would leave a vacuum in the vessel, and nature abhors a vacuum. Nequaquam vacui was a Rosicrucian principle, which modern science has forgotten.
Excuse me, Belbo said to Agliè, but your argument is simply post hoc ergo ante hoc. What follows causes what came before.
You must not think linearly. The water in these fountains doesn't. Nature doesn't; nature knows nothing of time. Time is an invention of the West.

Post hoc ergo ante hoc. Go ahead, use this yourself.

The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.

Philosophically?

The Templars' mental confusion makes them indecipherable. That's why so many people venerate them.

Hint, hint.

The rest is just sex, copulation, the perpetuation of the vile species.

On the other hand, that's not exactly nothing.

As long as you remain in your private vacuum, you can pretend you are in harmony with the One. But the moment you pick up the clay, electronic or otherwise, you become a demiurge, and he who embarks on the creation of worlds is already tainted with corruption and evil.

See, I told you.

[iambiguous]

The secret life of bees? Sure, but what’s that next to the secret lives of folks like you and I?

What do we share in common? Well, we are both part of the evolution of life on earth. We are both considered to be “social” animals. We both inhabit a certain hierarchy that always seems to be maintained.

What else?

Here it depends on who you ask. But one can surely rest assured that the secret life of bees is no where near as complex and convoluted as the secrets that we keep. And not only from each other. Sometimes there are things we know to be true, but we just won’t let them come to the surface. Or not all the way.

And here in America that will often revolve around race and gender and class and [for many] “the Lord”. Especially back in 1964 in South Carolina. And in the rural South to boot. Right on the cusp of all the changes that many people today just take for granted.

And then the part about contingency, chance and change. It starts with Lily seeing a bottle of honey in a store window. And then she learns about a beekeeper who is “a colored woman”. And takes her around full-circle. One secret at a time.

The lesson some might take from this is that you need to make yourself as far removed from the “outside world” as you possibly can. Find yourself a small circle of friends [or a close-knit family] and keep it that way. In other words, for as long as you can. Knowing that sooner or later, one way or another, it will find you. Or, as August put it:You know, Lily, people can start out one way…and by the time life gets through with 'em, end up completely different.

But that still leaves all of the terrible things that we can do to ourselves. Or to our children.

Jennifer Hudson said in an interview that director Gina Prince-Bythewood had sent her to a store to get several items and while she was there, the staff and the customers verbally and racially abused her. The incident was, in fact, staged by actors under Bythewood’s direction in order for Hudson to get the feel of a racially tense environment, the time and setting of the film, and to help her with her characterization.  IMDb


The Secret Life of Bees

Lily [voiceover]: I killed my mother when I was four years old. That’s what I knew about myself. She was all I ever wanted and I took her away. Nothing else much matters.

Intriguing enough for you?

T-Ray [to Lily]: You wanna know about your mama? She used to spend hours lurin’ roaches and what not out of the house with graham crackers and marshmallows. Swear to God. She was a lunatic about savin’ bugs.

Wouldn't you almost have to be? Depending on the bug of course.

Lyndon Johnson on TV: It does say that there are those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths…in the classrooms, in the factories…and in hotels and restaurants and movie theaters and other places that provide service to the public.
Rosaleen: Holy shit.
Newscaster: Today, July the 2nd, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law.

And look where we are now.

Frank: Daddy know you out here with her?
Lily: Rosaleen works for us.
Frank: Whole lot of niggers been coming through here today. You wouldn’t be going to that secret meetin’, would ya?
Man: Well, hell, we ain’t gotta worry about this one. Can’t register to vote if you can’t write your own name.
Frank: Tell me, Lily. She a smart n***** or a dumb n*****?

Not much of this sort of thing happens with bees. Or not that I know of.

Lily: You alright?
Rosaleen: I feel like I’ve been beaten with a stick.
Lily: You have been beaten, remember?
Rosaleen: But not with a stick…

Like [here] when Atla comes after you. Though no, admittedly, not with sticks.

Rosaleen [to Lily]: I know you can’t understand but apologizing to those men would’ve just been a different way of dyin’. Except I’d have to live with it.

If you get her drift. Or do you need it explained to you?

Rosaleen: What we gonna do for beds?
Lily: Find a motel, I guess.
Rosaleen: Lily, there ain’t gonna be a place that’ll take a colored woman.
Lily: Well, what about the Civil Rights Act?
Rosaleen: Ain’t nothin’ but a piece of paper.

Toilet paper for some here, one suspects.

Lily: If they knew I ran away, they’d have to call T. Ray to come get me. Then they’d find out you a fugitive and they’d have to call the police. I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. I really do. I just need some time to figure out why, so don’t say anything.
Rosaleen: Your secret. You do what you want with it.
Lily: They’re so cultured. I never met Negro women like them before.
Roasleen: Just us dumb ignorant ones.
Lily: That’s not what I’m sayin’.

Not even close, in fact.

August: Why, you ain’t scared a lick, are you?
Lily: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

She loves her.

Zach: Miss August told me about you being here helping out. She didn’t mention anything about you being white.
Lily: Maybe she didn’t notice.

I spotted it immediately.

June [to the family]: It’s ironic how white people hate us so much…when so many of 'em been raised by black women.

Yeah, what about that?

May [to Lily]: A worker bee weigh less than a flower petal, but she can fly with a load heavier than her. But she only lives four or five weeks. Sometimes not feeling is the only way you can survive.

How's that working out for you?

Lily: How come, if your favorite color is blue, you painted the house so pink?
August: That was May’s doing. When we went to the paint shop, she latched on to a color called, “Caribbean Pink.” She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish Flamenco. I personally thought it was the tackiest color I had ever seen, but I figured if it could lift May’s heart, it was good enough to live in.
Lily: Well, that was sure nice of you.
August: Well, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house and whatnot. But liftin’ someone’s heart…now that matters.

Let's try that here...someday.

Lily: Where are all the bees?
[cut to August and Lily, their ears pressed to the box]
August: You hear that? They’re coolin’ the hive. That’s the sound of 100,000 bee wings fannin’ the air. People have no idea about the complicated life goin’ on inside a beehive. See, bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.

More to the point though [perhaps] do they know that?

Lily [to August]: I brought the outside in here. And what happened to Zach and Miss May…If I’d never come here, it would’ve never happened.

See how it works...existentially? No, of course not.

August: I think Deborah liked the fact that T-Ray was decorated in the war. She thought he was brave. Said he treated her like a princess.
Lily: It’s not the same T. Ray. I can tell you that right now.
August: You know, Lily, people can start out one way…and by the time life get through with 'em, end up completely different.

Yeah, believe it or not, even you.

Lily [to T. Ray]: My whole life has been nothing but a hole, where my mother should have been. It always left me aching, but I never thought about what it did to you.

Let alone how or why.

Lily: The day my mother died, you said she was only comin’ back for her things. Is that true?
T-Ray: No. She was comin’ for you.
Lily: Why did you lie?
T-Ray: 'Cause she didn’t come for me.

And look how that turned out.

[iambiguous]

Hell

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” Winston S. Churchill

Around in circles?

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

Or, sure, whatever you're having.

“I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.” C.S. Lewis

No, really, as a Christian, think about that.

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you
know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.” Charlotte Brontë

On the other hand, is that even possible?

“Maybe this world is another planet’s Hell.” Aldous Huxley

Not much that wouldn't explain.

“Hell is other people!” Jean-Paul Sartre

And that's certainly true virtually, right?

[iambiguous]

As in most films of this sort, the focus is on nabbing the bad guys. The bad guys who own and operate a prestigious law firm with ties to the mob. Sure, it hints from time to time about the role that it plays in perpetuating the ruling class, but the primary emphasis is on all the clearly illegal stuff they profit from. Still, 30% of it does involve protecting the interests of the rich and powerful –- those who do what they do within the law.

Of course, that’s just the way it has always been. It is the very nature of crony capitalism today to sustain the political economy that is sometimes referred as “late capitalism”. The late part revolving around the distance between the way it really works and the way in which idealists [Libertarians and their ilk] would like to see it run instead. After all, many objectivists are as disdainful of crony capitalism as the folks on the left are. Just from completely conflicting political narratives.

Anyway, this particular law firm is not exactly like all the others. And it is entertaining as hell to watch Mitch tie them all up in knots. And still be able to practice law! You know, in the end.  

Mitch, it seems, has a lot to learn about the real world. He wants to make a lot of money and he knows that means corporate law. A tax attorney. But he still has a smidgen of decency -– so it has to be the right firm. He needs to be around folks who seem to have at least some sense of commitment to the “community”. So it can’t be a gigantic firm in New York. How about a small firm in Memphis? Memphis by way of Chicago. A firm in which everything revolves around being a part of “one big family”? And this is, after all, “the South”.

On the other hand, when push came to shove, it really was all about money. Not only that but $96,000 a year in Memphis is the equivalent of $150,000 in the Big Apple. Only at the very end does the part about the money fade a bit.

As for that ending [Mitch against practically everyone] it is preposterous to say the least. Scripted right down to the fucking bone. Even the mob and the feds fall for it.

At least I think it is.


The Firm

Abby: Do you work?
Kay: Well, not since I put Lamar through law school. But you know working isn’t forbidden.
Abby: Forbidden?
Kay: Women working. You know, by the firm.
Abby [perplexed]: How could it be forbidden?

She'll find out.

Mitch: Okay. The Love Boat band, the secret recipe ribs, they’re a little square, maybe.
Abby: I don’t mind square. I like square. Weird, I mind.
Mitch: What do you mean, weird?
Abby: Well, here’s a quote. The firm does not “forbid” me to take a job, and they “encourage” children. Ask me why.
Mitch: Because they love kids.
Abby [shaking her head]: Because children promote stability. Want to hear more?

No, not really.

Avery: Everything depends on billing, how many hours you spend even thinking about a client. I don’t care if you’re stuck in traffic or shaving or sitting on a park bench. Now my particular field is…
Mitch: …forming limited partnerships through offshore corporations, mainly in the Cayman Islands.

Hey, the rich need to get richer somehow, right?

Mitch: What do you mean by “anything”?
Avery: Do you think l’m talking about breaking the law?
Mitch: No, I’m just trying to figure out how far you want it bent.
Avery: As far as you can without breaking it.
Mitch: In other words, don’t risk an IRS audit.
Avery: I don’t care about an audit. They just better not win.

On the other hand, it's not called crony capitalism for nothing. It's just that some of the cronies are more "connected" than others.

Mitch [after Avery asks him why he turned to law]: I was a delivery boy for a pizza parlor. One day the owner got a notice from the IRS. He was an immigrant, didn’t know much English, even less about withholding tax. He went bankrupt, lost his store. That was the first time I thought of being a lawyer.
Avery: In other words, you’re an idealist.
Mitch: I don’t know any tax lawyer that is an idealist. When he lost his store, I Iost my job. It scared me.
Avery: Being out of work.
Mitch: No. What the government can do to anybody.

What even today?!

Avery [explaining to Mitch why he turned to the law]: I used to caddy for young lawyers…and their wives. I’d look at those long tan legs and just knew that I had to be a lawyer. The wives had long tan legs too.
Mitch: So we’re not a couple of idealists.
Avery: Heaven forbid.

And still does,

Sonny [the filthy rich client pissed off because he still has to pay 4% in taxes]: What did I say?
Mitch: Maybe it’s what you didn’t say.
Sonny: What I didn’t say?
Mitch: “Thank you”. Mr Tolar handed you a schedule that virually guarentees you zero tax with zero risk. The basis of your stock would be the face amount of the installment, only the stock would have no value. Even so the stock would be deducted and offsets income. You defer your tax in full, even with a bankable L.C.
Sonny: Deferred till when?
Mitch: What do you care? Whatever it is it’s still the best interest-free loan you’ll ever get.
Sonny: So the worst is I pay my taxes much, much later?
Mitch: No the worst thing is next year they’re closing the loophole, changing the regs, and if you haven’t grabbed this proposal, you will feel like you’ve been fucked with a dick big enough for an elephant to feel it.

He finally gets that part.

Mitch: Avery, who’s in Chicago?
Avery: We’ll get to all that.

One way or another.

Avery [to Mitch]: Hey, you’re about to take the bar exam. Here’s a multiple choice. The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is A] whatever the IRS says, B] a smart lawyer, C] 10 years in prison or, D] all of the above. Being a tax lawyer has nothing to do with the law. It’s a game. We teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich. The IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich teaching them.

He wondered if that was still going on.

Mitch: Are you saying my life is in danger?
Denton Voyles [from the DOJ]: I am saying that your life as you know it is over. Your law firm is the sole legal representative of the Morolto crime family in Chicago, known as the mafia, the mob. They bring in a new rookie. They throw money at him, buy him a house, a car. After a few years, your kids are in private schools, you’re used to the good life, they tell you the truth.

Which you are then required to take to the grave...one way or another.

Mitch: Let me get this straight: you want me to steal files from the firm, turn them over to the FBI, send my colleagues to jail…
Wayne: They suckered you into this.
Mitch: …breach attorney-client privilege, thus getting myself disbarred for life, then testify in open court against the Mafia…
Wayne: Well, unfortunately, Mitch…
Mitch: Let me ask you something: are you out of your fucking mind?!

He'll come around. And then some.

Bill [showing Mitch photos of himself with the prostitute]: Not just screwing, Mitch. All sorts of intimate acts, oral and whatnot, that can be particularly hard for a trusting wife to forgive and impossible to forget.

Insurance, let's call it.

McKnight: He lied about his brother.
Avery: Wouldn’t you lie about having a felon in the family to get a job like this?
Bill: I still think he ought to be kept on a short leash.
Avery: Why? You’ve got nothing to be suspicious about.
Bill: I get paid to be suspicious when I’ve got nothing to be suspicious about.

Him and that Saw guy.

Mr. Mullolland: You know, this over billing has gotten so common, nobody gives it another thought. It’s kind of like tipping.
Mitch: Well, I can assure you it’s not policy, Mr. Mullolland.
Mr. Mullolland: It sure seems like policy. It’s been going on over there for years. People forget something else too. When somebody over there stamped this and mailed it, you know what happened?
Mr. Mullolland and Mitch in unison: It became a federal offense.
Mr. Mullolland: Damn right. Each instance punishable by…
Mitch: …a $10,000 fine. And 3 to 5 years in prison, each instance.

The loophole! The way out!!

Mitch: There might be a way of doing this without getting disbarred and without breaking the law.
Tammy: Is that our chief concern?

Good point?

Wayne: How about you get down on your knees and kiss my ass for not indicting you as a co-conspirator right now, you chickenshit little Harvard cocksucker?
Mitch: I haven’t done anything, and you know it!
Wayne: Who gives a fuck? I’m a federal agent! You know what that means, you lowlife motherfucker? It means you’ve got no rights, your life is mine! I could kick your teeth down your throat and yank 'em out your asshole, and I’m not even violating your civil rights!

He said on tape.

Tammy: Mitch sent me to tell you the plan’s been changed.
Ray: I didn’t know there was a plan.
Tammy: Well, that’s good, because it’s been changed.

Again, in other words.

Avery: You’re not being truthful.
Abby: Why are you doing this?
Avery: Because I’m sick and…
[he shakes her]
Avery: I want you to tell me the truth!
Abby: I came here to punish Mitch for letting the firm run our lives. I came because when Mitch was here, he slept with someone else. Is that what you want to hear?
[he slumps down to the bed]
Avery: It’s better than the alternative.
Abby: What alternative?
Avery: That you came here to see me.

Talk about drawn and quartered...

Avery: Abby, the girl on the beach was a setup. She was a setup. They do things like that, in case the other inducements don’t work.

Like that should matter?

Wayne: Mail fraud. How the hell did you come up with that?
Mitch: It was on the bar exam. They made me study like hell for it.

Mail fraud! Of course! That will surely bring crony capitalism down to its knees!

[iambiguous]

I don’t know the first thing about ballet. I have never been to a ballet performance. I do not listen to the music that generally accompanies such productions. In fact, I would say that my life has been about as far removed from the world of ballet as anyone born and bred in the belly of the working class beast can be.

And yet I am always fascinated by those who come to love something passionately…so passionately they are able give what is, for all intents and purposes [for all practical purposes], their entire life in pursuit of it. And, in particular, if they come to be this way “on their own”. In other words, not just because mom and dad groomed them to excel as part and parcel of their own hopes and dreams.

By contrast, I recently watched a documentary on the lives of Venus and Serena Williams. They came to great fame and fortune in the world of tennis. And they seem to love the sport. But it was anything but “on their own”. Their father basically took over their lives at a very early age and shaped and molded them into who they are today. As did the father of Tiger Woods. But I couldn’t help but wonder about all the children who were “driven” by their parents that did not achieve fame and fortune. What must it have been like being them?

For instance, the character Natalie in the film Keith above. It was her parents dream that she excel at tennis. And, over time, she discovers that it was not her own dream at all.

Here it is hard to say. The dancers featured certainly seemed -- click -- to embrace ballet of their own free will. But there in the background are the parents who may or may not be the main impetus behind all of this hard work and sacrifice.

Michaela’s story in particular is simply astonishing. Like nothing I could ever possibly imagine experiencing myself.

It’s just mind boggling to watch them go through the years of grueling work – and [for some] that is only to get them into a school where their training will really be amped up.

It also becomes clear that making it or not making it to the finals often revolves solely around whether you happen to have a good day or a bad day when your few minutes up on the stage come. You might actually be better [much better] than the other competitors but they have a good day and you don’t. Talk about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat…

Defeat in part because ballet is not exactly a growth business. Especially not in America, where, increasingly, year in and year out, pop culture chips away at the interest in the “fine arts”.

Still, the performances at the finals were extraordinary. At least to my untrained eyes. You have to keep reminding yourself that many of these dancers are just 9 to 12 years old!


First Position

Title card: Ballet competitions are the most effective way for aspiring dancers to be seen by the world’s elite dance schools and companies. Youth America Grand Prix is the world’s largest ballet competition that awards full scholarships and job contracts to dancers ages 9 - 19.

I guess I missed my chance.

Aran [age 11]: I began ballet when I was 4 years old. I love ballet so much that…it’s hard to explain.

The kid is amazing. Watch while he jumps rope while bouncing up and down on a pogo stick. Then watch him dance. The kid is fucking sensational.

Aran: My ballet teacher’s name is Denys Ganio. He’s French. He’s very strict, but not mean strict. When you don’t do something right, he really corrects you. He, um, well sometimes it’s painful.

Me, here? Cue the Stooges.

Aran: It feels good to work that hard and to be in that mind-set and then have everything hurting when you come home.

Let's stick to philosophy, okay? Not counting the assholes here who, well, you know.

Michaela [age 14, born during the height of the civil war in Sierra Leone]: I was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. It’s a miracle I’m even here. It’s…I can’t believe I’m here. When I was younger I used to think I was dreaming. Everywhere you looked you saw someone die. And it was just for no reason. My parents were shot by the rebels, and so my uncle brought me to the orphanage, and I lived there.

She was adopted and brought to America.

Michaela: One time I tried to save my teacher [in the orphanage] but I kind of, like, blacked out and they just cut her arms and legs off and left her there. And then we came to America and everybody cared about us. It was amazing.

That ever happen to you?

Michaela’s mom: I had a mother once say to me, ‘Everybody knows that black girls can’t dance ballet.’ Do they talk that way because she’s adopted and they figure I don’t feel the same towards her that they feel towards their own child? Or do they say that because they are really that crass about race?

Yes.

Michaela’s mom: We were in the process of adopting Mia and I said to my husband, ‘there’s a second little girl and they can’t find a family for her because she has vitiligo, and everyone is afraid to adopt her because they thought that she was a child of the Devil because of her spots.’

Etcetera.

Michaela: The thing is, there’s a lot of stereotypes saying that if you’re a black dancer, you have terrible feet; you don’t have extension. You’re too muscular. You’re not graceful enough. I want to be known as a delicate black dancer who does classical ballet.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... ballerinas

Title card: Each year, over 5,000 dancers enter the Youth America Grand Prix semi-finals held in over 15 cities around the world. Only the most talented will advance to the finals.

On the other hand, how subjective is it all?

Larrisa Saverliev [founder and director of the dance competition]: A ballet competition is controversial. People maybe don’t realize how important it can be for the dancer’s future. They already know exactly what they want to do in their lives. And they have to start looking for a job by age 17.

And just how many jobs are there?

Larrisa Saverliev: You have five minutes onstage to prove why you deserve this chance and not somebody else.

Let's try that here.

Rebecca [age 17]: People size each other up as soon as you get there. You can see it immediately when you walk in. Especially in the dressing room.

Let's imagine it.

Joan [age 16 from Columbia]: I work for this very hard. Sometimes you wake up, and your body is really tired. Then you say, ‘why am I doing this?’ Like no, I want to quit. I want to go back to Columbia. I want to be with my family. But when I start taking class, you just feel this magic thing that you have. So it’s like, ‘no, I wanna, I really wanna do this.’

On the other hand, so do all the others.

Larrisa Saverliev: So many, many dancers would like to succeed but so very, very few do. You have to have the right physique. You have to have the right technique. You have to have the right financial situation, because ballet is very, very expensive. Shoes, costumes, travel, entry fees, coaching, tuition. You could probably buy two cars.

A single tutu alone can range from $1,500 to $2,500. Why? Because it takes about 100 hours to make it.

Miko [age 12]: Most kids my age don’t know what they want to do. But I know I want to do ballet for the rest of my life. Those people who say that I have missed out on my childhood – I think I’ve had just the right amount of childhood and the right amount of ballet. So far.

Whatever that means.

Gaya’s mom: When she dances, something in her face is changing. The expression and the concentration is changing. And she becomes an adult when she dances.

Gaya is 12. And yet her dance is very, well, sultry, erotic. As though she were in fact a woman. You can’t help but feel ambivalent watching her.

Rebecca: You practice so hard and then it’s like, not even a whole minute onstage and you’re done…that’s it. No one sees all of the hard work you put into it.

Same for you here, right?

Coach: People don’t realize how hard it is to make it as a ballet dancer. You have as many injuries as professional athletes.
Dancer: People always think that only football players and lacrosse players and soccer players are the people getting injured but, I mean, ballet dancers get injured every day and still have to work through it.
Dancer: The bottom of my feet, the skin sheds off, and like they cut up and the top of my feet can get scraped from floor burn and then they will start bleeding.
Dancer: You are working your body to death since you were, like, five.
Dancer: My feet are nice in ballet shoes, but once you take them off, not so pretty.

And that’s no exaggeration either.

Michaela: Making your body do what it’s not supposed to do isn’t natural.
[the camera then cuts to the dancers, in order to show the consequences of this…including Michaela who is almost forced out of the competition due to an injury]

Then the parts that [to some] will seem supernatural.

Tadeusz Matacz [ballet school director]: Everybody is looking for the combinations of body, training, passion and personality. It’s very rare. It’s, uh, one in a million.

Or, say, there about.

Michaela: This actually could stunt my tendon and ruin the rest of my career. But my teachers know that I won’t stop. Even if I’m injured, even if I’m in pain, even if I’m sick, I still dance.

Talk about a roll of the dice. Thank god for adrenaline.

Michaela’s mom [after Michaela wins a scholarship to the American Ballet Theatre]: I always think of that little girl that was so sick, I didn’t think I was gonna get her home alive.

A miracle, perhaps?

[iambiguous]

Stupidity

“It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity.” Remy de Gourmont

Perfected it in fact.

“The sad thing is that so many people, in the belief that the universe is organized to suit and influence them, are willing to sacrifice even the slight cranial capacity with which evolution has equipped us.” Christopher Hitchens

Pick three:
1] astrology
2] religion
3] what we do here

“Caius was one of those who gloried in his ignorance, called his lack of letters purity, scorned any subtlety of thought or expression. A man for his time, indeed.” Iain Pears

Hell, we've got one in the White House now.

“I used to think that communication with a stupid fool would be useful for him. But now I have changed my mind. Nothing would be better for him than to keep his stony silence.” Elmar Hussein

Here? I'll go there if you will.

"We repeatedly, and knowingly choose the same dastard, corrupt, dishonest, disqualified and criminal ones, and expect from those, the welfare of society and people; it is pure stupidity and ignorance.” Ehsan Sehgal

If only, here in America, going back to 1776.

“In the aftermath of the recent wave action in the Indian Ocean, even the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson proved himself a latter-day Voltairean by whimpering that he could see how this might shake belief in a friendly creator. Williamson is of course a notorious fool, who does an almost perfect imitation of a bleating and frightened sheep, but even so, one is forced to rub one's eyes in astonishment. Is it possible that a grown man could live so long and still have his personal composure, not to mention his lifetime job description, upset by a large ripple of seawater?” Christopher Hitchens

A really large wave of seawater:
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=2 ... 3&dpr=1.38

[iambiguous]

1969

The year of Woodstock, men walking on the moon, the Stonewall riot, Chappaquiddick.

But not so much for me. Why? Because in 1969 [most of it] I was smack dab in the middle of one or another MACV in South Vietnam.

But not these folks. These folks met, fell in love and turned their lives upside down [if only briefly] with all of these tumultuous changes swirling about them. But then they were not exactly on the front lines of the “cultural revolution” that was unfolding politically from coast to coast. Instead, they were on vacation in Squaresville. Think Dirty Dancing in “the Sixties”.

Well, aside from Alison. She’s the hip daughter.

But there’s just no way a decade like this can be coming to a close without having at least some sort of impact on your life. And now it seems to be Mom’s turn. She’s lived out the American dream as scripted. But: Is that all there is?

Still, this sort of thing is actually timeless. You’ve been married for years and it’s the same old thing. A young and dashing and very handsome man pops up in your life. And even though he is just “the blouse man”, anything is better than “the same old thing”. It’s just that for men this tends to revolve around sex and, for women, love.

This one’s all about the way life [and love] become intertwined in a great big ball of ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty. And then that big gap between the life you live and the one you wanted to live all those years ago. Well, for most of us. We sort of stumble into the life we have because of the options that just weren’t there. Or because we let the opportunities that were there slip right through our fingers.

That and the part about how everything changes when you have kids. Kids you love for example.

Look for Ray Donovan.

Diane Lane wanted Viggo Mortensen to be in the film so much that she gave up part of her salary so that the production could afford him.

When The Grateful Dead were invited, their manager wanted the promoters to add another act he managed; he offered them two. They tossed a coin, chose Santana, and the rest is history. There is no Santana music in this movie, but perhaps they are subtly represented by the act the promoters did NOT choose, It’s a Beautiful Day, with their hit “White Bird”

Much of the licensed music in the movie is by acts who performed at Woodstock, but two famous names associated with it actually were not there. Joni Mitchell felt she had to decline her invitation, but later composed a song (“Woodstock”) about the festival. Big Brother and the Holding Company were never invited. Janis Joplin had left them the year before, and she performed there with the Kozmic Blues Band. IMDb


A Walk on the Moon

Daniel [with Dad driving the family on vacation and the kids in back singing the Name Game song]: Let’s do “Chuck”
Marty: No “Chuck”. We don’t do “Chuck”
Daniel: You never let me do “Chuck”.
Marty: When you’re married you can do “chuck”.

Fuck that?

Alison: I don’t believe in July 4th. It’s patriotic puke.
Pearl [mother]: This is Daddy’s last chance to be with us. He’s gonna be working all week.
Alison: Well, it’s not my fault he’s a slave to the establishment.
Pearl: Could you just for one afternoon put aside your beliefs?
Alison: That’s easy for you to say, 'cause you don’t have any!
[the look on Pearl’s face says it all]

Been there, done that. Then over and over and over.

Pearl: How does your week look?
Marty: Same as always.
Pearl: Anything new happening at the shop?
Marty: Nothing new happens at the shop ever.

Been there, done that over and over and over too.

Marty: What’s wrong with us?
Pearl: Marty, this whole decade’s gone by, and the most important decision I make during any week is whether or not to go to the A&P or Waldbaum’s.
Marty: That’s easy, A&P. Their Wing Dings are fresher.

No, seriously...?

Pearl: Neil gets a whole week off in August.
Marty: Yeah, well, Neil doesn’t have a boss like Sid…and Neil doesn’t have two kids to feed, all right?

Always the part about options, isn't it?

Pearl [to Rhoda]: Sometimes I try to picture my life if I hadn’t had Alison so young. Maybe my life wouldn’t be that different. I don’t know. Sometimes I just wish I was a whole other person.

You first this time.

Pearl [looking at Walker’s tiny television]: I never saw one so small.
Walker: It’s cool, isn’t it? My kid brother picked it up over in Asia.
Pearl: What was he doing over there?
Walker: Killin’ people.
Pearl: Oh. Is he still over there?
Walker: I don’t know. Maybe. He’s been missing now for four years.

My guess: you'll make of this what you will.

Lillian [Marty’s mom]: Pearl? You believe in fate?
Pearl: I’m not sure what that means.
Lillian: It means that there are certain things that no matter what you do that they’re meant to happen. They’re in the stars. They’re bashert, destined. But even if they’re in the stars, a person, a grown-up responsible person, a mensch, can make a different choice. They can make the right choice.
[pause]
Lillian: You’re shtupping someone.
Pearl: What?!
Lillian: The Blouse Man.
Pearl: I am not.
Lillian: You’re shtupping the goddamn Blouse Man, Pearl. How could you do such a thing?
Pearl: Are you gonna tell Marty?
Lillian: So it’s true.

Oh, yeah. Just as with Connie Sumner and Paul Martell.

Lillian: Why, Pearly? Have you forgotten who you married? When your husband was 12 years old, you know what he dreamed of being? A scientist. So he entered the school science fair in the hopes of winning a microscope. Such a doorbell he made, I don’t even want to tell you about it. It not only rang, it lit up. It chopped liver. It made matzo balls. First prize. He was so proud, Pearl. And when that son-of-a-bitch husband of mine ran out on us, you know what my boy did? Came to me with $10. And he says to me, “Mama, you don’t ever have to worry. I will take care of you”. He had sold the microscope.

He wondered if those those things actually happened.

Lillian [to Pearl]: You think you’re the only one with dreams that didn’t come true?

Go ahead, use that yourself.

Lilian: Do you remember when you were a little boy and you wanted to go swimming with your cousin?
Marty: Yeah - you didn’t wanna let me go because…
Lilian: Because I knew something terrible was going to happen. I knew your cousin was gonna drown.
Marty: Yeah, but nothing terrible happened, Ma.
Lilian: And why is that?
Marty: Because I was careful.
Lilian: No. Why did nothing terrible happen?
Marty: We were extra careful because you told me.
Lilian: And your cousin wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for me.
Marty: What’s goin’ on, Ma? Who’s gonna drown?
Lilian: You are.

Spooky enough for you?

Pearl: I went to Woodstock.
Marty: You went to Woodstock.
Pearl: Ummm…
Marty: Was it groovy? Was it far-out? Out-of-sight?

Which one should it most be?

Marty: Tell me something, Pearl. Are you screwing someone?
Pearl: We’ll talk about this when you’re not upset.
Marty: I’m not upset yet. If you tell me you’re screwing someone, then I’ll be upset. So…are you?
Pearl: Yes.

And sure enough...

Marty: Who is he?
Pearl: You don’t know him.
Marty: Well what’s his name?
Pearl: Walker.
Marty: What’s his FIRST name?
Pearl: That IS his first name.
Marty: Well then what’s his last name?
Pearl: Jerome.
Marty: Walker Jerome. That’s his name? Does he realize it’s backwards? What’s he do?
Pearl: He’s a salesman.
Marty [laughs]: A salesman, that’s great. What does he sell?
Pearl: Blouses.
Marty: Blouses?
[he pauses, then looks shocked]
Marty: He’s the blouse man. You’re screwing the blouse man. Jesus, Pearl, why not screw the dress man? At least then you’d get a whole outfit.

Pick three:
1] Dateline
2] 20/20
3] 48 Hours
If you know what I mean.

Marty: What are you doing, Pearl? Did you think about this for even a - a second? Did it ever occur to you what this might do to us? What this might do to Danny? What it might do to Alison? I want to know what you think about that, Pearl. Did it cross your fuckin’ mind? Tell me. I want to know if you fuckin’ thought about it! Tell me, Pearl, I want to know. I want to know if you thought about it. Tell me.

I think she did. But, for any number of us, what difference would that make?

Marty: So…what are your plans? You and the Blouse Man.
Pearl: I don’t know.
Marty: What the hell is that supposed to mean, Pearl?
Pearl: It means…I don’t know.
Marty: You don’t know? Okay. Okay. Well… I’ll tell you what. You take all the time you need. It doesn’t matter. 'Cause, to me, you don’t exist anymore.

Typical. First reaction, I mean.

Daniel [to Pearl]: What’s a “whore”

Dad, right?

Alison: I never have to listen to you ever again. I saw you. I was there. You should have seen yourself. You looked disgusting! I’m the teenager! Not you! You had your chance.
Pearl: No. I didn’t.
Alison: Well then why do the rest of us have to suffer just because you fucked up your life!
Pearl: I did not fuck up my life, Alison! Things happen. Things happen that you don’t plan for. Do you know how old I was when I got pregnant with you, huh? I was 17, just 3 years older than you are right now, honey. Do you know how many boyfriends I had before I met your father? None. Do you know how many times I slept with your father before I got pregnant with you? Once. That’s all it takes, Alison.

You get this part, don't you?

Alison: You love the Blouse Man more than all of us?
Pearl: No! Sometimes it’s easier to be different with a different person.
Alison: Can’t you just try and be different but still stay with us?
Pearl: Oh, baby.
Alison: Daddy’s just a big square, you know that. But, I mean, he’s Daddy. How could you leave him?!

Forget about it...

Pearl: It wasn’t you, Marty. It was me. There were things I wanted to do with my life. I – I don’t even remember what some of them were. Somewhere along the line, I disappeared. I stopped being the person you fell in love with. And I wanted…I wanted to be that way again with you. But I couldn’t.
Marty: I wanted things too, Pearl. Think I like fixin’ TVs? Think I said, “Gee, that’s what I want to be when I grow up”? I mean, who knows what I could’ve been if I had a chance to go to college. But I didn’t. And you know what? I was okay. Because I figured no matter what I screwed up in my life, no matter what I felt gypped out of, I had the most important thing right.I had you. Now, I don’t. But I still have one question, Pearl. Who stopped you? Who stopped you from doing these things? Did I stop you? I mean, did- did-did you ever once come to me and say, “Marty, I want to make a change in my life”? And did I say, “No, Pearl, you can’t”?

Of course, it hardly ever works out that way in "real life". Anyone  here know why?

[iambiguous]

Determinism

“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” Viktor E. Frankl

The death camp philosopher...

“There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.” Ulysses S. Grant

If there are any events at all?

“The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific inquiry.” Max Planck

Like he could have ever assumed otherwise?

“...if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like” Zeno

Another fucking paradox, he suspected.

“Seriously, what is the source of our thoughts? How do artists create art? How do writers write? What is it that is doing the creating?” Abhaidev

In other words, if it's not a homunculus or a ghost or a sim world or a demonic dream or solipsism or some fucking Matrix 'reality".

“Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only 'pseudo problems,' because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision.” Percy Williams Bridgman

Uh, absolutely maybe?

[iambiguous]

American youth. Kids coupled with a mindless pop culture coupled with mindless consumption coupled with the mindless worship of celebrities: a vast, vast wasteland.

So anytime you can bump into characters in a film that are at least a bit off this beaten [wretched] path you find yourself drawn to them…if only by contrast to all the rest of it: Youth Culture! A product of by and for the Social Media. Only this all unfolded before there even was one.

All the usual cliques, all the usual narratives, all the usual tedious conflicts over all the usual inane things. High school back in my day was actually almost tolerable by comparison.

Charlie is the wallflower. He’s very, very smart, very, very sensitive, very, very diffident. And very, very troubled. He wants to be a writer. Of course he has a backstory that contributes to all of this. But that only comes out at the very end.

In the interim, what he really needs are a couple of friends who are not like all the other assholes in high school. Hip friends who like, say, the Smiths. And back in the early 90s when that still really said something about you. Like being one of those kids who never missed a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In other words, back when “cool” still had some cachet.

Charlie even listens to Nick Drake.

On the other hand, they still manage to fit in with all the other “normal kids” under the Friday Night Lights. We’re not exactly talking J.D. from Heathers here. More like “misfit toys”. Upper middle class misfit toys. Indeed, some of them are even “rich”.

But it’s mostly about how a traumatized past can follow us into the present and make the future all the more problematic still. It’s dasein all the way down to the bone. Both in and out of the mental institution.

Look for the “hip” Hollywood ending.

Stephen Chbosky wrote the book that the movie is based on, he also wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. It’s rare that a book author actually ends up directing the movie.

In an interview with Movieline, Ezra Miller said that he first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show when his older sister showed it to him as a young kid. At the end of the movie, his sister turned the TV off and said, ‘you can’t tell mom and dad’.  IMDb


The Perks of a Wallflower

Patrick [mimicking his shop teacher]: The p**** punch is not a toy! I learned that back in 'Nam in '68. ‘Callahan,’ Sergeant said, ‘you put down that p**** punch and go kill some gooks!’ And you know what happened? That p**** punch killed my best friend in a Saigon whore house.
Mr. Callahan: I heard you were going to be in my class.

Tee-hee?

Bill: You know, I heard you had a tough time last year. But they say if you make one friend on your first day you’re doing okay.
Charlie: Thank you, sir, but if my English teacher is the only friend I make today, that would be sorta depressing.

It does work both ways, right?

Patrick [to Alice and Mary Elizabeth]: This is Charlie’s first party ever. So I expect nice, meaningful, heartfelt blow jobs, from both of you.

I didn't see one. Let alone two.

Patrick: How is it that you’ve got meaner since becoming a buddhist?
Mary Elizabeth: Just lucky, I guess.
Patrick: No, you’re doing something wrong, I think.

Ah, that ever elusive True Buddhist

Sam: So, I’m guessing you’ve never been high before.
Charlie: No. No, no, no. My best friend, Michael, his dad was a big drinker, so he hated all that stuff. Parties too.
Sam: Well, where is Michael tonight?
Charlie: Oh, he shot himself last May. I kinda wish he’d left a note. You know what I mean?

What would the note say though?

Patrick: I’ll tell you Sam, this one is tough. I have received a harmonica, a magnetic poetry set, a book about Harvey Milk, and a mix tape with the song Asleep on it twice. I mean, I have no idea. This collection of presents is so gay that I think I must have given them to myself.

"Gifts for gays, again!"

Mother: She’s on the phone now? Charlie, you’ve got to break up with her.
Charlie: I can do that?

Well, sometimes.

Patrick [after witnessing Charlie kissing Sam during a game of Truth or Dare, when he’s supposed to be kissing Mary Elizabeth]: Oh, that’s fucked up.

Also, a bummer.

Patrick [to Charlie]: There’s this one guy, queer as a 3 dollar bill. The guy’s father doesn’t know about his son. So, he comes into the basement one night when he’s supposed to be out of town. Catches his son with another boy, so he starts beating him. But not like the slap kind, the real kind. And the boyfriend says, “Stop! You’re killing him!” But the son just yells, “Get out!” And, eventually, the boyfriend just…did.

Lesson learned?

Sam [to Charlie]: You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s life ahead of yours and think that counts as love.

Let alone the other way around. If that makes sense, anyway.

Aunt Helen [to Charlie as a boy]: Don’t wake your sister. It will be our little secret okay?

Not often that happens. It's usually the uncles. 

Charlie: Sam, do you think if people knew how crazy you really were, no one would ever talk to you?
Sam: All the time.

Good thing she's drop-dead gorgeous.

Charlie: Candice, I killed Aunt Helen, didn’t I? She died getting my birthday present, so I guess I killed her, right? I tried to stop thinking that, but I can’t. She keeps driving away and dying and I can’t stop her. Am I crazy, Candace?
[Candace motions to one of her friends]
Candace: Call the police and send them to my house!
[back to the phone]
Candace: No, Charlie, listen to me. Mom and Dad are going to be home with Chris any second.
Charlie: What if I wanted her to die, Candace?

Some things you should take all the way to the grave.

Charlie: There is so much pain. And I-I-I don’t know how to not notice it.
Dr. Burton: What’s hurting you?
Charlie: No, not…not me. It’s them! It’s…it’s everyone. It never stops. Do you understand?

More to the point, even if he did...? 

[iambiguous]

As much a psychological horror film as anything else.

After all, who is ever really able to say for sure what might unfold in their life to create behaviors that others could not possibly understand? Behaviors they may well not really understand themselves.

For example, what could possibly compel a young man to savagely blind six stable horses by piercing their eyes with a metal scythe?

Surely, beyond all doubt, something that neither you nor I would ever do. Could ever do. And yet there is simply no way of predicting beyond all doubt what might motivate any of us to do something that we could not even imagine doing now.

And here there is said to be allusions to homosexuality. And, as we come to understand Alan’s “backstory”, we recognize how few of us will ever be able to…empathize with it? Of course it involves religion and the Bible and God. That’s almost inevitable though, isn’t it? And then that gets all tangled up in sex. And in the manner in which folks like Wilhelm Reich explored it: re the consequences of sexual repression.

And then the relationship between man and beast. And here [in Alan’s mind] the horse [Equus] becomes Christ; and then Alan becomes Christ; and then that gets all twisted up [in Alan’s head] with the crucifixion of Christ, with the crucifixion of Equus, with the crucifixion of himself. Or it does to the extent that I understand it.

Of course in his own way the shrink is as unfathomable as the patient. And the parents? Surely, their own neurotic contributions here are vital as well.

And then finally what [to me] is a particularly striking examination of dasein:

Martin [to the camera]: A child is born into a world of phenomena, all equal in their power to enslave. It sniffs, it sucks, it strokes its eyes over the whole, uncountable range. Suddenly, one strikes. Then another. Then another. Why? Moments snap together, like magnets forging a chain of shackles. Why? I can trace them. I can, with time, pull them apart again. But why, at the start, they were ever magnetized at all…why those particular moments of experience and no others… I do not know, and nor does anybody else! If I don’t know… if I can never know… what am I doing here? I don’t mean clinically or socially doing, but fundamentally. These whys, these questions, are fundamental. Yet they have no place in a consulting room. So then, do I? Do any of us? This is the feeling, more and more. Displacement. Relentless…displacement. “Account for me”… says staring Equus. “First, account for me!”

All of this then becomes intertwined in the complex psychological relationship between passion and pain: Does one live a “normal” life, or is it better to go off the deep end and embrace life tumultuously – accepting all the emotional turmoil that will come with it?

Anyway, juxtapose this particular rendition [complex and sophisticated] with the complete and utter nonsense forthcoming from the objectivists, the serious philosophers and [worst of all] the Kids here!!

Richard Burton had hoped the success of this film would lead to a major comeback in his career, but instead he only received offers for minor films and was never again a big star at the box office.

Many critics believed that the film, like the play, was an allegory for homosexuality.

The film was considered groundbreaking at the time for the amount of full frontal male nudity by Peter Firth. Firth was shown completely nude three times in the film, and the final scene in the stable is one of the longest scenes of full frontal male nudity in any mainstream film. However, Firth’s penis was not allowed to be shown erect at any time.

Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer adapted his play for this film version and wrote the screenplay for the movie. Shaffer, who was on-set watching off camera, was horrified by the way Sidney Lumet directed the final scene in the stables, claiming he had made it like the shower scene in Psycho (1960).  IMDb



Equus

Martin [to the camera]: Afterward he says, they always embrace. The animal digs his sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hour, like a sated couple. And of all nonsensical things, I keep thinking about the horse, not the boy. The horse and what he might be trying to do. I keep seeing the huge head, kissing him with its chained mouth, nudging from the metal some desire absolutely irrelevant to fulfilling its bearing or propagating its own kind. What desire could this be? Not to stay a horse any longer, not to remain reigned up forever in those particular genetic strengths. Is it possible that at certain moments, we can not imagine, the horse can add its sufferings together, the nonstop jibs and jabs that are its daily life, and turn them into grief? What use is grief - to a horse. You see, I’m lost.

Here, perhaps, we all are.

Martin [to the camera]: What use, I should be asking, are questions like these to an overworked psychiatrist… in a provincial hospital? They’re worse than useless. They are, in fact…subversive. The thing is I’m wearing that horse’s head myself…all reined up in old language and old assumptions straining to jump clean-hoofed onto a new track of being I only suspect is there. I can’t see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I can’t jump, because the bit forbids it, and my own basic force…my horsepower, if you like…is too little. The only thing I know for sure, is this. A horse’s head is finally unknowable to me. Yet I handle children’s heads, which I presume to be more complicated…at least in the area of my chief concern. In a way, it has nothing to do with this boy. The doubts have been there for years, piling up steadily in this dreary place. It’s the extremity of this case that’s made them active. I know extremity is the point. All the same, whatever the reasons, these doubts are not just vaguely worrying… but intolerable! Forgive me. I’m not making much sense. Let me start properly, in order…

Like that will make any difference to, well, you know.

Hester: Martin, I’ve just come from the most shocking case l ever tried. My fellow magistrates wanted to send him to prison on the spot. Luckily, I got him remanded for a report.
Martin: Who’s he?
Hester: A teenager. The name’s Strang.
Martin: What’s he done, dosed some little girl’s Pepsi with Spanish fly? What could possibly have thrown your court into such Tory convulsions?
Hester: He blinded six horses with a metal scythe.

Oh...

Martin [voiceover]: What did I expect of him? Very little, I promise you. One more dented little face. One more adolescent freak. The usual unusual.

He'll see about that.

Martin [to Alan after he sings jungles from television commercials instead of answering his questions]: Now, listen. This is not a loony bin. It’s not a prison. If you behave yourself, you’ll have a reasonably all right time. If you don’t, you’ll be packed off to a mental hospital… and you’ll find things much more restricted. So it’s up to you. You’ll be seeing me every day. Your session will last exactly 50 minutes. And l expect you to be absolutely on time. All right? By the way…which of your parents is it who won’t allow you to watch television? Mother? Father? Or is it both?

"Double your pleasure, double your fun..."

Mrs Strang: I do remember telling him one very odd thing. Did you know that when the Christian Cavalry first appeared in the New World… the pagans thought that horse and rider was one person?
Martin: One person? Yes. Of course. Actually, they thought it must be a god.

You tell me: https://youtu.be/2K-ImIdbB9A?si=rrh2d_truUIfsOPZ

Martin: Mrs. Strang, is there anything else you can remember you told him about horses? Anything at all?
Mrs Strang: Well, they’re in the Bible of course. ‘‘He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha!’’
Martin: ‘‘Ha, ha’’?
Mrs Strang: The Book of Job. Such a noble passage. Do you know? ‘‘Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha!’’

Mr. Ed?

Martin: Would you say that she’s closer to the boy than you are?
Mr Strang: They’ve always been as thick as thieves. I can’t say l entirely approve…especially when I hear her reading that Bible to him night after night, up there in his room.
Martin: You mean, she’s religious?
Mr Strang: Some might say excessively so.

God in particular in this case.

Martin: What sort of things did you tell him? I’m sorry if this is embarrassing.
Mrs Strang: I told him the biological facts. But I also told him what I believed…that sex is not just a biological matter, but a spiritual one as well. That if God willed, he would fall in love one day. That his task was to prepare himself for the most important happening of his life. And after that, if he was lucky, he would come to know a higher love, still.
[she then breaks down in tears and anguish]
Mr Strang: There, now, Dora. it’s all right. Come on.
Mrs Strang: You always laugh, as usual.
Mr Strang: No one is laughing, Dora.

On the other hand, should they be?

Martin: You have a special dream?
Alan: No. You?
Martin: Yes - what was your dream about last night?
Alan: Can’t remember - what was yours about?
Martin: I said the truth!
Alan: That is the truth. What was yours about, the special one?
Martin [matter-of-factly]: Carving up children.

You too?

Mr Strang: You’ve got to tell him. The doctor, I mean. He should know about that.
Mrs Strang: You think it’s important?
Mr Strang: Yes, I do.
Mrs Strang: Why?
Mr Strang: Well, it just could be.

And around and around and around it goes.

Alan [into Martin’s tape recorder about being on the horse]: It was sexy. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?

Ever and always in this day and age.

Martin: Mr. Dalton? My name is Dysart. I’m a doctor. I’m dealing with Alan Strang. I mean, I’m treating Alan Strang. I know this is an intrusion, but I’d like to have a talk with you. l realize this must be difficult for you.
Mr. Dalton [the owner of the blinded horses]: Difficult? For lack of a word. lf I had my way, that boy would be dead. I should have killed him that night. Of course, now you’ve got him in the hospital. Private room, three meals a day…remedial therapy, ping-pong, basketwork. We’ve got to be modern about it. After all, there are no criminals now. We’re all capable of everything. I know. I’ve heard all about it. Forgive and forget…two months of ping-pong and he’s paid his debt to society.

Run that by the horses.

Alan [into the tape recorder]: It was always the same after that. Every time I heard one clop by, I had to run and see…up a country lane…anywhere… just to watch their skins…and the way their necks twist. The sweat comes in the folds. Words like ‘‘reins’’… ‘‘stirrups’’… ''flanks, ‘’ ‘‘dashing his spurs against his charger’s flanks’’…Even those words made me…The way they give themselves to us. That was it, too. They could stamp us into bits anytime they wanted, and they don’t. They just let themselves be turned on a string all day, absolutely humble. They give us all their strength, and we just give them stripes. They’ll run forever. They’ll gallop till they die, they will…if we don’t say ‘‘stop.’’ They live for us… just for us… their whole lives.

Like dogs. Only a  lot bigger.

Alan [into the tape recorder]: My uncle dressed for the horse, mother says. But what does that mean? Horse isn’t dressed. It’s naked. It’s the most naked thing you ever saw, more than a dog, a cat, or anything. Even the brokenest-down old nag has got its life. To put a bowler hat on top of it’s filthy. Putting them through their paces, bloody horse shows. How do they dare?! No one understands. No one. Except cowboys. They do. But they’re free. They just swing up, and it’s nothing but miles of grass. I bet all cowboys are orphans. I bet they are. No one ever says to cowboys: ‘‘Receive my meaning.’’ Or God. ‘‘All the time, God sees you, Alan. God’s got eyes everywhere.’’ No, I’m not doing anymore, I hate this. You can whistle for anymore. I’ve had it.

Same thing for me. If only virtually.

Martin: Did you have dates with her? Tell me if you did.
Alan: ‘‘Tell me Tell me, tell me!!’’ On and on. Standing there, nosy parker. That’s all you are, a bloody nosy parker, just like my dad. ‘‘Answer this, answer that,’’ never stop.
Martin: I’m sorry.
Alan: Now it’s my turn. You tell me, answer me. Do you have dates?
Martin: I told you, I’m married.
Alan: I know. Her name’s Margaret, she’s a dentist. You see? I found out. What made you go with her, then? Did you used to bite her hands when she did you in the chair?
Martin: That’s not very funny.
Alan: Do you have girls behind her back?
Martin: No.
Alan: Then what? Do you fuck her?
Martin: All right…
Alan: Come on, tell me, tell me.
Martin: That’s enough now.
Alan: I bet you don’t. I bet you never touch her. You’ve got no kids, have you? Is that because you don’t fuck?

Thereabouts, lets say.

Martin [to the camera]: Wicked little bastard. He knew exactly what questions to try. Not that there’s anything awful about that. Advanced neurotics can be dazzling at that. They aim unswervingly at your area of maximum vulnerability…which is, I suppose, as good a way as any of describing Margaret.

So, how am I doing here so far?

Martin: This boy…with his stare… he’s trying to save himself through me.
Hester: I’d say so.
Martin: What am I trying to do to him?
Hester: Restore him.
Martin: To what?
Hester: A normal life.
Martin: Normal?
Hester: It still means something, you know.
Martin: A normal boy has one head. - A normal head has two ears.
Hester: You know I don’t…
Martin: Then what do you mean?
Hester: Stop it.
Martin: I want to know.
Hester: Look, my dear…you know what I mean by a normal smile in a child’s eyes… and one that isn’t, don’t you?
Martin: Yes.

Next up: normal smiles here.

Martin [to the camera]: All right. The Normal is the good smile in a child’s eyes. It’s also the dead stare in a million adults. Both sustains and kills…like a god. It is the ordinary made beautiful. It is also the average…made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable murderous God of health. And I am his priest.

A new thread? Or, perhaps, an entirely new philosophy forum.

Martin [to the camera]: My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I’ve honestly assisted children in this room. I’ve talked away terrors, relieved many agonies. But beyond question I have cut from them portions of individuality repugnant to this God. Normal, in all its aspects.

Abnormally so in other words.

Martin [to Alan who is in a hypnotic state]: Now, I want you to think back in time. You’re on that beach you told me about. You’re six. Above you, staring down at you, is that great horse’s head. Can you see that?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: You ask him a question. “Does the chain hurt?”
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Do you ask him aloud?
Alan: No.
Martin: And what does the horse say back?
Alan: “Yes.”
Martin: What do you say?
Alan: “I’ll take it out for you.”
Martin: And he says?
Alan: “It never comes out. They have me in chains.”
Martin: Like Jesus?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Only, his name is not Jesus, is it?
Alan: No.
Martin: What is it?
Alan: It’s Equus.
Martin: Equus. Does he live in all horses, or just some?
Alan: All.

If only so far, of course.

Martin: Now tell me…why is Equus in chains?
Alan: For the sins of the world.
Martin: What does he say to you?
Alan: “I see you. I will save you.”
Martin: How?
Alan: “Bear you away, two shall be one.”
Martin: Horse and rider should be one beast?
Alan: One person.

Place your bets!

Martin: Now tell me…what is the stable? His temple? His holy of holies?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Will you wash him, tend him…and brush him with many brushes? Yes. And there he spoke to you, didn’t he? He looked at you with his gentle eyes…and he spake unto you.
Alan: Yes.
Martin: What did he say?
Alan: “Ride me.”
Martin: “Mount me, and ride me forth at night”?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: And you obeyed?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Equus showed you the way.
Alan: No!!
Martin: He didn’t?
Alan: He showed me nothing. He’s a mean bugger. Ride or fall, that’s straw law.
Martin: Straw law?
Alan: He was born in the straw, and this is his law.
Martin: But you managed? You mastered him?
Alan: Had to.

And all the straw here, of course. There has to be.

Alan [orgiastically…still in a hypnotic state]: The king rides out on Equus, mightiest of horses. Only I can ride him. His neck comes out of my body. It lifts in the dark. Equus, Godslave. Now the King commands you. Tonight, we ride against them all…the hosts of Bowler…the hosts of Jodhpur… all those who show you off for their vanity…tie rosettes on your head for their vanity. Come on, Equus, let’s get them. Trot! Steady, steady! That’s it, steady. Cowboys are watching, taking off their Stetsons. They know who we are. They’re admiring us. Bowing low unto us. Come on, show them. Canter! And Equus the Mighty rose against all. His enemies scatter. His enemies fall. Turn! Trample them! Stiff in the wind. My mane, stiff in the wind! I’m raw, I’m raw. Do you feel my raw? Feel me on you? On you! I want to be inside you. I want to be inside you, and be you. Forever one person. I love you!

Let's not go there ourselves though.

Martin [to the camera]: Afterwards, he says, they always embrace. He showed me how he stands in the night…like a frozen tango dancer inhaling the cold, sweet breath. Have you noticed it about horses, the way they’ll stand…one hoof on its end, like those girl’s in the ballet? Now… he’s gone off to rest… leaving me alone…with Equus. I can hear the creature’s voice. He’s calling me out of the black cave of the psyche. I shove in my dim little torch, and there he stands… waiting for me. He raises his matted head. He opens his great square teeth, and he says: “Why? Why me? Why, ultimately, me? Do you imagine you can account for me…totally, infallibly, inevitably account for me? Poor Dr. Dysart.”

Next up: accounting for me here.

Mrs Strang: I’m a parent. Of course, that doesn’t count. Isn’t it a dirty word in here, “parent”?
Martin: You know that’s not true.
Mrs Strang: I know it, all right. I’ve heard it all my life. It’s our fault. Whatever happens, we did it. You say to us, “Who forbids television? Who does what behind whose back?” As if we’re criminals. Let me tell you something. We’re not criminals. We’ve done nothing wrong. We loved Alan. We gave him the best love we could. Poor Frank digs into the boy too much, but nothing in excess. He’s not a bully. No, Doctor. Whatever has happened…has happened because of Alan. If you added up everything we did to him, from his first day on earth to this…you wouldn’t find out why he did this terrible thing. Do you understand what I’m saying? I want you to understand… because I lie awake, thinking it out. And I want you to know I deny it absolutely, what he’s doing now. Staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done… for what he is.
Martin: Mrs. Strang!
Mrs Strang: You have your words, and I have mine. But if you knew God, Doctor, you would know about the Devil. The Devil isn’t made by what Mommy says, or what Daddy says. The Devil is there. It’s an old-fashioned word, but a true thing. I only know that… he was my little Alan… and then the Devil came.

The Devil. Of course.

Martin: Underneath all that glowering, the boy trusts me. You realize that? Poor, bloody fool.
Hester: Please, Martin, dear, don’t start that again.
Martin: Can you do anything worse to somebody than to take away their worship?
Hester: Worship?
Martin: Yes, that word again.
Hester: Isn’t that a little extreme?
Martin: Extremity is the point. What else has he got? Think about it. He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make the world real to him… no paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it…no music except television jingles…no history except tales from a desperate mother…no friends to give him a joke or make him know himself more moderately. He’s a modern citizen for whom society doesn’t exist.

And then [inevitably] this:

Hester: He’s in pain, Martin. He’s been in pain for most of his life.
Martin: Yes.
Hester: And you can take it away.
Martin: Yes.
Hester: Then that’s all you need to know, in the end.
Martin: No.
Hester: Why not?
Martin: Because it is his. His? His pain. His own. He made it. I don’t understand. I don’t! Hester: There’s no merit about being in pain, that’s just pure old masochism.
Martin: I’m talking about passion, Hesther. You know what that word meant originally? Suffering. The way you get your own spirit through your own suffering. Self-chosen. Self-made. This boy’s done that. He’s created his own desperate ceremony…just to ignite one flame of original ecstasy in the spiritless waste around him. All right…he’s destroyed for it, horribly. He’s virtually been destroyed by it. One thing I know for sure, that boy has known a passion… more ferocious than I have known in any second of my life. Let me tell you something. I envy it.
Hester: You can’t.
Martin: Don’t you see? That’s what his stare has said all this time. “At least I galloped. When did you?” I’m jealous, Hesther. Jealous…of Alan Strang.[/b]

And what are the objectivists here other then ossified intellectuals trying to create a fake passion out of words?!

Martin: The “primitive.” I use that word endlessly. “The primitive world,” I say, “what instinctual truths were lost with it.” While I sit baiting that poor, unimaginative woman with the word…that freaky boy is trying to conjure the reality. I look at pages of centaurs trampling the soil of Argos. Outside my window, that boy is trying to become one in a Hampshire field. Every night I watch that woman knitting, a woman I haven’t kissed in six years. And he stands for an hour in the dark, sucking the sweat off his god’s hairy cheek. In the morning, I put away my books on the cultural shelf…close up my Kodachrome snaps of Mount Olympus…touch my reproduction statue of Dionysus for luck… and go off to the hospital to treat him for insanity. Now do you see?
Hester: The boy’s in pain Martin. That’s all I see.

But always the other side:

Hester: I understand, you know. You haven’t made that kind of pain. So few of us have. But you’ve still made other things. Your own thoughts. Your own skill. Skill absolutely unique to you. I’ve watched you do it, year after year…and it’s marvelous! You can’t just sit and say it’s all provincial, you’re just a butcher. All that stuff is stupid, hateful. All right, you never galloped. Too bad. If I have to choose between his galloping and your sheer training…I’ll take the training every time. What’s more, so will the boy, at this moment. That stare of his isn’t accusing you, it’s simply demanding.
Martin: What?
Hester: Just that. Your power to pull him out of the nightmare he’s galloped himself into.

Or, here, the hole I've dug myself down into.

Martin: What were you thinking?
Alan: It was like I’d been fooled. Like I was the only person who didn’t know. Every man in the street I’ve ever seen, all do it. They’re not just dads. They’re all people with pricks. And my dad, he’s not just a dad either. He’s a man with a p****, too. He’s nothing special. Nothing special at all. Just a poor old sod on his own. He goes off at night and does his own secret thing…which no one will know about, just like me.
Martin: You were happy at that second, weren’t you, when you thought about your dad? Other people have secrets, too. Not just you.
Alan: Yes.

Tell that to those six horses.

Martin: What did you do then?
Alan [of Jill]: I put it in her. I put it in her.
Martin: You did?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Was it easy?
Alan: Yes. Martin: Describe it.
Alan: I told you.
Martin: What, exactly?
Alan: I put it in her.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: All the way.
Martin: Did you, Alan?
Alan: All the way, I shoved it. I put it in her all the way.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Did you, Alan?
Aln: YES!
Martin: Tell me the truth. Did you?
Alan: Fuck off!
Martin: What was it? You couldn’t, though you wanted to very much?
Alan: I couldn’t see her.
Martin: What do you mean?
Alan: Only him! Every time I kissed her, he was in the way.
Martin: Who?
Alan: You know who! When I touched her, I felt him. His side under me, waiting for my hand. I refused him. I looked…Iooked right at her, and I couldn’t do it. When I shut my eyes, I saw him at once, the streaks on his belly. Couldn’t feel her flesh at all. I wanted the foam…off his neck… not flesh, hide, horse hide!

On the other hand, Doc, what does he know.

Martin: And he? What does he say?
Alan: “Mine. You’re mine. I am yours, and you are mine. I see you. I see you always. Everywhere. Forever.”
Martin: “Kiss anyone, and I will see. Lie with anyone, and I will see. And you will fail, Alan. Forever and ever you will fail. You will see me, and you will fail. The Lord thy God is a jealous God. He sees you, Alan. He sees you, forever and ever. He sees you. He sees you. Eyes, white eyes all round. Eyes, like flames coming. God sees. God sees.”
Alan: My God hast seen! No. No more, Equus. Thou, God seest…nothing.

Thanks, Mom.

Alan [after he blinds the horses]: Here I am, Lord! Find me! Find me! Kill me! Kill me! Find me, and kill meeeeee!!

Instead, those two months of ping pong.

Martin [to Alan after giving him a shot to make him sleep]: I’m lying to you, Alan. He won’t really go that easily…just clop away, like some nice old carthorse. When Equus leaves, if he leaves at all, it’ll be with your intestines in his teeth. And I don’t stock replacements.

What goes around really does come back around...sometimes.

Hester [in a flashback]: The boy’s in pain, Martin. Yes. But you can take it away. Yes. Then that has to be enough for you.

Making him normal, in other words.

Martin [to the camera]: All right. I’ll take it away. What then? He’ll feel himself acceptable. What then? You think feelings like his can be simply reattached… like plasters stuck on other objects we select? I mean, look at him! My desire might be to make of this boy an ardent husband, a caring citizen… a worshipper of the abstract and unifying God. My achievement, however, is more likely to make a ghost.

Then back again to the main “theme”:

Martin [to the camera]: I’ll heal the rash on his body. I’ll erase the welts cut into his mind by flying manes. And when that’s done, I’ll put him on a metal scooter and send him puttering off into the concrete world…and he’ll never touch hide again. Hopefully, he’ll feel nothing at his fork but approved flesh…I doubt, however, with much passion. Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created. You won’t gallop anymore, Alan. Horses will be quite safe. You’ll save your money every week and change that scooter for a car…and spend glorious weekends grooming that. You’ll pop round to the betting shop and put the odd 50 pence on the nags…quite forgetting they ever meant anything more to you than bearers of little profits and little losses. You will, however, be without pain…almost completely without pain. And now for me it never stops… the voice of Equus…out of the cave. Why me? Why me? First…account for me. How can I? In an ultimate sense I cannot know what I do in this place. Yet I do ultimate things… irreversible things. And I…I stand in the dark with a blade in my hand…striking at heads. I need more desperately than my children need me a way of seeing in the dark. What way is this? What dark is this? I cannot call it ordained of God! I cannot go so far! I will, however pay it so much homage. There is now, in my mouth this sharp chain. And it never comes out.

Until it falls out six feet under.

[iambiguous]

Suicide

“You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.” Nina LaCour

Or too many to count.

“It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.” Erica Jong

Get back to us on that. While you're still around.

“What's the big fucking deal? Lots of amazing people have committed suicide, and they turned out alright.” Emilie Autumn

And that can't be easy.

“It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.” Franz Kafka

Of course, your own trial might be different.

“I think there must be probably different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type of like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 X 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types. Hurt themselves. I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all. I wanted to just stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock I would have done that. Instead.” David Foster Wallace

He is still dead, right?

“It was ironic, really - you want to die because you can't be bothered to go on living - but then you're expected to get all energetic and move furniture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops. And if you've managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work.” Marian Keyes

Not always, I'm guessing.

[iambiguous]

Is this what the class struggle has come to? Working class thugs bent on making the lives of the better off a living hell? In fact, this has actually been the focus of some critics. The tormentors are quite clearly of the lumpen-proletariat caste and the tormented are quite clearly a decent law-abiding couple who in no way shape or form deserved anything like this to happen to them.

And you won’t get an argument from me about that. Thugs are thugs. And the moment we start in on explaining that away by invoking a “society” that creates the conditions that creates the thugs, we start in on seeing the thugs themselves as “the real victims” here.

Nope. No way many will insist.

And yet, come on, who is kidding whom: capitalism does create countless communities in which brutes like this pop out a dime a dozen. And to pretend there is no connection at all between the two is equally ludicrous. And I know this first hand because my own “upbringing” commenced in the belly of the working class beast…and I saw my fair share of thuggery.

Politics aside, it is everyone’s worse nightmare: being out in the middle of nowhere when suddenly out of the blue you are face to face with that 1% of the population who do not give a fuck about, among other things, civilized behavior.

Sure, they’re only “kids”…but there are a lot of them. And Steve is hell bent on straightening them out. Through the parents. Only the parents [who begot the kids] are more or less the same.

Mostly they represent the brutes you can come upon who make your life utterly miserable [assuming they let you to live at all] but are well beyond reason. Beyond, say, Kant? You can’t “talk things out” with them because they are almost always in a sub-mental frame of mind: id, instinct, libido. All you can do is hope to christ they never come across you.

No punches pulled here. This one will really shake you up. Unless, of course, you're a thug yourself. 

No, it's not based on a true story. But who here would ever doubt that, in this day and age, it easily could be.


Eden Lake

From the radio:
Man: Good afternoon. We’ve been talking about fining parents who fail to control their children’s behaviour.
Woman: When was the policy introduced?
Man: The Respect Agenda was a big issue in the last election. Tony Blair wanted to bring back a sense of respect in schools and communities. So increase the amount of support for parents, including parenting contracts, to get parents to attend parenting classes.
Woman: It’s a case of, it’s your problem, you sort it out. It’s hard to do without the school behind you.

Respect? As though none of this involves unemployment, poverty, struggling to subsist from paycheck to paycheck – and all the other shit that is part and parcel of raising children in the midst of a teetering working class community.

Jenny [to Steve]: Gated community? Who are they so afraid of?

They find out...

Jenny [watching two bullies torment a young boy]: Hey, that’s the little boy we saw.
Steve: Little hoods.
Jenny: Oh, Steve…
Steve: It’s just boys being boys. As long as they leave us alone.

What are the odds of that?

Jenny: Why don’t we just find another spot?
Steve: I won’t be bullied by a bunch of 12-year-olds. We were here first.
Jenny: Well, this is relaxing.

Let's get back to that...

Steve [spotting the kids bikes]: What the…?
Jenny: No, Steve, it’s not worth it.
Steve: If everyone said that, where would we be?

More to the point [here], where will he be?

Jenny: Steve, where’s the beach bag?
Steve: It was right here. I don’t believe it. It’s got the car keys in it.
[then he knows: the kids]
Steve: Please, God, don’t tell me…Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Boys will be boys now, Steve?

Steve: How does it look?
Jenny: It looks worse than it is.
Steve: Let me see. Oh, Jesus! God! That’s black blood. Gut blood. I’m fucking bleeding to death!

He's right about that.

[the thugs have Steve, now dead, tied to a tree next to Jenny, still alive…they are about to set them on fire]
Brett [to Jenny]: We found him.
Mark: Brett, we can’t do this! She’s alive!
Brett: And he’s dead. We did him. Paige has got you all having a dig. It’s on her phone. No ballsing out now, lads. No backing down.

Next up: the lads here?

Jenny: They killed Steve!
Brett’s mother: Your sick bastard boyfriend!
Jenny: Just call the police!
Brett’s father: What good are they to her? You want to play with the big boys now? Eh? Eh?
Mother: Jon… Jon…
Father: She killed her little one. Look at her. You fucking look at her now! You fucking keep looking at her!! We take care of our own here!
Mother: They’re just children! Just children! They’re just children!
Jenny: I didn’t mean to…They started this!
Father: And we’re gonna finish it.

Let's not go there. You know, this time...

[Flannel Jesus]

Suicide

“You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.” Nina LaCour

Or too many to count.

nobody knows what this means

“It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.” Erica Jong

Get back to us on that. While you're still around.

nobody knows what this means

Need I go on? No, I don't think I do. Nobody knows what the silly crap you post after each quote means. You obviously think it's quite clever, but everyone else reads this shit and is like what?

You really just get these quotes, write some absolute nonsense nothing after, and convince yourself you're clever and everyone else cares. What's wrong with you?

[iambiguous]

It’s all about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Belfort

This is “the system”. This is how capitalism actually functions. As opposed to, say, the way folks like Libertarians and Objectivists imagine it “ideally” in their heads. And this is also a snapshot of crony capitalism. Why? Because there is no way in hell these things would go on unless the folks in Washington and the folks who own and operate our corporate media were not complicit in sustaining this particular political economy.

Of course it’s still the stuff that is all perfectly legal that truly sustains the ruling class.

On the other hand, from time to time these bastards do get arrested. They are put on trial, are convicted, are sent to jail. So it’s not like the whole thing is a scam. There will always be folks in the government – in the Justice Department, the SEC, the FTC – who take the Constitution [and democracy and the rule of law] more seriously than do others.

The film is based on Jordan Belfort’s actual experiences on Wall Street. On the other hand:

The real Jordan Belfort says the model for his get-rich-quick, and by-any-means greedy behavior was Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. IMDb

On the other, other hand, Gordon Gekko’s character is said to be based at least in part on the actual exploits of Ivan Boesky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Boesky

These guys are straight out of The Boiler Room. In other words, they’re basically Kids. Their whole world revolves around coming up with ways [legal or not] to make [and to spend] money. To wit:

Jordan [voiceover]: "I own a mansion, a private jet, six cars, three horses, two vacation homes and a 170 foot yacht. I also gamble like a degenerate, drink like a fish, fuck hookers maybe five times a week and have three different Federal agencies looking to indict me. Oh yeah, and I love drugs."

Bottom line: How good are you at lying? Oh, and fucking people over?

Of course, as with Wall Street and The Boiler Room, this film is meant [at least in part] to expose just how mindlessly addicted [and afflicted] these knee-jerk assholes are to being “superficially and materialistically” filthy rich. It is always [and only] about the money. But, instead, it will only spur still more sub-mental Neandrathals like them to pursue the path themselves.

Matthew McConaughey’s scenes were shot on the second week of filming. The chest beating and humming performed by him was improvised and actually a warm-up rite that he performs before acting. When Leonardo DiCaprio saw it while filming, the brief shot of him looking away uneasily from the camera was actually him looking at Martin Scorsese for approval. DiCaprio encouraged them to include it in their scene and later claimed it “set the tone” for the rest of the film.

Jonah Hill wore a prosthetic penis when Donnie sees Naomi while masturbating at the party. The surprised reactions from the actors and extras were genuine.

The majority of the film was improvised, as Martin Scorsese often encourages.

Footage of the actual 1991 Hamptons beach party shown in the film, with Jordan Belfort and then-fiancée Nadine Caridi (“Naomi Belfort”) can be found on YouTube.

The gay orgy was one of the scenes that had to be toned down to earn an R rating. V.F.X. supervisor and second unit director Robert Legato shot footage of a chair in a lobby then had artists digitally implement the chair to the shots to avoid displaying the men’s genitals.

The word ‘fuck’ and its numerous conjugations are said 569 times, making this the film with the most uses of the word in a main-stream, non-documentary film. IMDb


The Wolf of Wall Street

[Man [in ad]: The world of investing can be a jungle. Bulls. Bears. Danger at every turn. That’s why we at Stratton Oakmont pride ourselves on being the best. Trained professionals to guide you through the financial wilderness. Stratton Oakmont. Stability. Integrity. Pride.

Or not, of course.

Jordan [voiceover]: My name is Jordan Belfort. I’m a former member of the middle class raised by two accountants in a tiny apartment in Bayside, Queens. The year I turned 26, as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.

Can you blame him?

Jordan [voiceover]: That’s my wife, Naomi, the Duchess of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a former model and Miller Lite girl. Yeah, she was the one blowing me in the Ferrari, so put your dick back in your pants.

Let's synchronize that virtually, okay?

Jordan [voiceover]: On a daily basis I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month. I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my “back pain”, Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, pot to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine… Well, because it’s awesome.

How about you?

Jordan [voiceover]: But of all the drugs under God’s blue heaven, there’s one that’s my absolute favorite.
[he snorts a line of cocaine]
Jordan: Enough of this shit’ll make you invincible, able to conquer the world and eviscerate your enemies. But I’m not talking about this. I’m talking about this.
[he unfurls a $100 bill with a SNAP]
Jordan: Money is the oxygen of capitalism and I wanna breathe more than any other human being alive. Money doesn’t just buy you a better life – better food, better cars, better pussy – it also makes you a better person. You can give generously to the church of your choice or the political party. You can save the fucking spotted owl with money.

On the other hand: https://youtu.be/2aW7HweAf3o?si=oPuLkasX6-9AwnWe

Jordan [voiceover]: You wanna know what money sounds like? Go to a trading floor on wall street. Fuck this, shit that. ****, cock, asshole. I couldn’t believe how these guys talked to each other! I was hooked in seconds. It was like mainlining adrenelin.

Wow, not unlike posting here, right?!

Mark: The name of the game, moving the money from the client’s pocket to your pocket.
Jordan: But if you can make your clients money at the same time it’s advantageous to everyone, correct?
Mark: No. OK, first rule of Wall Street - Nobody - and I don’t care if you’re Warren Buffet or Jimmy Buffet - nobody knows if a stock is going up, down, sideways or fucking in circles, least of all stockbrokers. But we have to pretend we know.

You tell me.

Mark [to Jordan]: We don’t create shit. We don’t build anything. So if you’ve got a client who bought stock at 8 and now it’s at 16 and he’s all fucking happy, he wants to cash in and liquidate, take his fucking money and run home, you don’t let him do that… 'cause that would make it real.

As in the "real deal", he wondered.

Mark: There’s two keys to success in the broker business. First of all, you gotta stay relaxed. You jerk off? How many times a week do you jerk off?
Jordan: Yeah, yeah I jerk off. Uh, I don’t know like 2, 3 times a week?
Mark: Ok, you’re going to want to raise those numbers. You’re in the fucking minor leagues. Me, I jack it 12-15 times a week. Twice a day. Once in the morning after I work out, once after lunch. If you don’t do it, the stress of this job, it’ll make you explode. Or worse, you’ll implode. You don’t wanna implode. Now, the second little key to success in this racket is this little baby right here.
[he shows him a vial]
Mark: It’s called cocaine.

But...but isn't that illegal?

Jordan: Everybody needs something.
Alden: Nah, Amish and Buddhists don’t need a thing.
Jordan: I’m not talking about Amish and Buddhists, I’m talking about normal blue-collar people who want to get rich and own stuff!

An important distinction to say the least.

Penny stock broker: How the fuck did you do that?!
Jordan [voiceover]: Just like that I made two grand. The other guys looked at me like I just discovered fire. I was selling garbage to garbage men and making cash hand over fist. So I was selling them shit. But the way I looked at it, their money was better off in my pocket.

Let's run that by, among others, Jesus Christ. When He returns, for example.

Donnie: How much money you make?
Jordan: $70,000 last month.
Donnie: Get the fuck outta here!
Jordan: Well technically, $72,000 last month.
Donnie: You show me a pay stub for $72,000, I quit my job right now and work for you.
[Jordan shows him]
Donnie [on the phone]: Hey Paulie, what’s up? No, everything’s fine. Hey listen, I quit!

Who wouldn't want to say that? On the other hand, I actually loved my job.

Jordan [voiceover]: Donnie and I were going out on our own. And the first thing we needed was brokers. Guys with sales experience. So I recruited some of my home town boys. Sea Otter, who sold meat and weed. Chester, who sold tires and weed. And Robbie, who sold anything he can get his hands on, mostly Weed. This is Brad, and Brad is the guy I really wanted. But he didn’t go along with us. He was making so much money selling Quaaludes that he become the Quaalude King of Bayside.

Just out of curiosity, who is the Quaalude King here? Just in case it's not me.

Teresa: These stocks…these companies…They’re like crappy companies.
Jordan: Yeah. They’re terrible. Look, don’t worry about it. I told you, what I’m doing is completely legal.
Teresa: Yeah, I know. But they’re not going to make anyone money though, right?
Jordan: Well, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. You know how it goes.
Teresa: Wouldn’t you feel better if you sold that stuff to rich people who can, like, afford to lose all that money?
Jordan: Of course. But rich people don’t buy penny stocks. They just don’t.
Teresa: Why not?
Jordan [voiceover]: Because they’re too smart, that’s why not. I mean what person with a college education would trust this bunch of jerk-offs.

His bunch of jerk-offs in other words. But then…

Jordan [voiceover]: But what if they didn’t sound like a bunch of jerk-offs? What if I could teach them how to sell to people with money? Real money. So I decided to reinvent the company.

Next up: buying  and selling penny stocks here. If only philosophically.

Jordan [to his jerk-offs]: Gentlemen, welcome to Stratton Oakmont. You schnucks will now be targeting the wealthiest 1% of Americans. We’re talking about whales here. Moby fucking Dicks. And with this script, which is now your new harpoon, I’m gonna teach each and every one of you to be Captain fucking Ahab.
Jerk-off: Captain who?
Jordan: The book, motherfucker, from the book!

One of the particularly stupid jerk-offs.

Jordan: What we’re gonna do is this. First we pitch 'em Disney, AT&T, IBM, blue chip stocks exclusively. Companies these people know. Once we’ve suckered them in, we unload the dog shit. The pink sheets, the penny stocks, where we make the money. 50% commission, baby! Now the key to making money in a situation like this is to position yourself before the settlement. Because by the time you read about it in the Wall Street Journal, it’s already too late.

Before the settlement? Of course!

Jordan [voicover regarding Naomi]: Her pussy was like heroin to me. And it wasn’t just about the sex either. Naomi and I got along. I mean, we had similar interests and shit.

The shit I believe.

Jordan [to the camera]: And while the SEC was looking for a smoking gun in that room, I was gonna fire off a bazooka in here by offering up our latest IPO. An IPO is an initial public offering. It’s the first time a stock is offered for sale to the general population. Now, as the firm taking the company public, we set the initial sale price then sold those shares right back to our friends. The idea…look…I know you’re not following what I’m saying anyway, right? That’s okay. That doesn’t matter. The real question is this: “Was all this legal”? Absolutely fucking not. But we were making more money than we knew what to do with. And what do you do when you are m aking more money than you know what to do with…?

He shows us.

Jordan: Oh my God! You had to deal with the Golf Course people too! What a Greek tragedy! Honey oh my God!..you probably had to pay them in cash with your hands! What a fucking burden, and actually had to do some work besides swiping my fucking credit card all day? Huh? Cause I can’t keep track of your professions honey! Last month you were a wine connoisseur, and now you’re an aspiring landscape architect, Isn’t that right?
Naomi: Fuck you!
Jordan: Don’t you dare throw that fucking water on me! Don’t you fucking dare!

Consider it done.

Jordan [holding his child]: Does Daddy get a kiss from both of his little girls?
Naomi: Oh, no. No, Daddy doesn’t even get to touch Mommy for a very, very…very long time.
Jordan: Daddy’s really sorry about what he said in the other room, he didn’t mean any of it!
Naomi: Daddy shouldn’t waste his time. And from now on… it’s gonna be nothing but short, short skirts around the house. And you know something else, Daddy? Mommy is just so sick and tired of wearing panties.
Jordan: Yeah?
Naomi: Yeah.
[she pushes him away with her legs]
Naomi: But no touching.

That’s when he directs her attention to the stuffed bear.

Jordan [to the brokers]: See those little black boxes? They’re called telephones. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret about these telephones. They’re not gonna dial themselves. Okay? Without you, they’re just worthless hunks of plastic. It’s up to each and everyone of you, my highly trained Strattonites…my killers! My killers who will not take no for an answer! My fucking warriors who will not hang up the phone until their client either buys…OR FUCKING DIES!!!

The boiler room let's call it.

Jordan [to the brokers]: Let me tell you something. There’s no nobility in poverty. I’ve been a poor man, and I’ve been a rich man. And I choose rich every fucking time! Because at least as a rich man, when I have to face my problems, I show up in the back of a limo, wearing a $2,000 suit and a $40,000 gold fucking watch!! And if anyone here thinks that I’m superficial or materialistic go get a job at fucking McDonalds…'cause that’s where you fucking belong!!

Either there or in the fucking philosophy department.

Jordan [to the brokers]: So you listen to me and you listen well. Are you behind on you credit card bills? Good, pick up the phone and start dialing! Is your landlord ready to evict you? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! Does your girlfriend think you’re fucking worthless loser? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich!

How's that working out for me, you ask. And then I tell you.

Jordan [to the brokers]: I want you to go out there and I want you to ram Steve Madden stock down your clients throats until they fucking choke on it! Until they choke on it and buy 100,000 shares! That’s what I want. You be ferocious! You be relentless! You be fucking telephone terrorists! NOW LET’S KNOCK THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT OF THE PARK!!

Of course he doesn’t mention that he and Donnie own 85% of the company.

Donnie [to Jordan]: 22 FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS IN THREE FUCKING HOURS!!!

Let's consider that a challenge.

Agent Denham: Most of the Wall Street jackasses I bust are douchebags, just like their fathers before them. But you… you, Jordan, got this way all on your own.
Jordan: Did I?
Agent Denham: Good for you, little man.
Jordan: Me, the little man?
Agent Denham: Let me tell you something else. This is one of the nicest boats I’d ever been on. I gotta tell ya.
Jordan: I bet it is.
Agent Denham: Hey, you wanna know what I was just thinking too? The hero I’m going to be back at the office when the Bureau seizes this fucking boat.
Jordan [laughing]: Alright, get the fuck off my boat. And good luck on that subway ride home to your miserable fucking ugly wives.

Next up: he stops laughing?

Jordan [voiceover]: When it comes to Quaaludes, the Lemmon 714 was the Holy Grail.

No argument from me.

Jordan [voiceover]: After 15 years in storage, the Lemmons had developed a delayed fuse. It took 90 minutes for these little fuckers to kick in, but once they did…pow! I mean I had skipped the tingle phase and went straight to the drool phase. These little bastards were so strong, I discovered a whole new phase. The cerebral palsy phase!

By the time he’s rolling down the steps you’ll be rolling on the floor laughing.

Jordan [to Donnie]: GET THE LUDES! I WILL NOT DIE SOBER!! GET THE FUCKING LUDES!!!

I hear that. Too, in other words.

Jordan [voiceover]: Did you see that? That was the plane I sent to come get us. I shit you not, it exploded when a seagull flew into the engine. Three people killed. You want a sign from God? After all this, I finally got the message.

Born again?

Jordan [on getting arrested]: I’m sober for two years, stopped my drugs, settled down with my wife and kids, and then this happens! Rugrat gets busted down in Miami, and guess who happens to be with him? Saurel! That’s right, out of all the Swiss bankers in Miami, it had to be him! Even more fucked, is that he got busted for shit that had nothing to do with me. It had nothing to fucking do with me! Some stuff about running drugs with Rocky Aoki, you know, the founder of Benihana? Benihana… Beni-fucking-hana? BENI-FUCKING-HANA? WHY? WHY, GOD? Why would You be so cruel as to use the king of Japanese restaurants to take me down?!

They don't call them "mysterious ways" for nothing. Mr. Wolf.

Jordan [voiceover…and now wearing an FBI wire]: The first name on the list was Donnie.

Unfortunately, his name was first on Donnie’s list too.

Jordan [voiceover]: I gave up everyone. And in return, I got three years in some hellole in Nevada I’d never even heard of. Like my Pop, Mad Max said, ‘the chickens had come home to roost.’ Whatever the fuck that means.

When will they finally come home to roost here, you're probably wondering.

Jordan: I’m not ashamed to admit it: when we arrived at the prison, I was absolutely terrified. But I needn’t have been. You see, for a brief fleeting moment, I had forgotten I was rich. And I lived in a place where everything was for sale. Wouldn’t you like to learn how to sell it?

Commissary? Or something else altogether.