numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)

The folks who voted for Trump and the Republicans are going to get the illness, poverty, and eventual death from both that they voted for: which seems to be ok by them as long as a white man with a western sounding name is in office.

The W. Bush years should have taught them better - They got everything they wanted for eight years on a silver platter and it sucked, and they suffered. Republicans promise the moon, but all they ever deliver is misery, recession, and war. Nothing is ever going to "trickle down" to the likes of us. It didn't happen with Reagan, it didn't happen with Bush sr, or Bush Jr. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different to happen this time.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not going to stop fighting for the people who are generally the targets of Republican bigotry. But the so-called “working class whites” (if you consider an income of $72,000 or more a year "working class") who voted Republican AGAIN after what happened 2000-2008 can fuck right off.

They WANTED this. when they whine and cry about losing healthcare and benefits, remember that they voted for this.

I was freaking out this morning. But you know what? I survived the last Republican Recession with no health plan. I will drink cheapass champagne, sit back, and watch them be the architects of their own destruction. When they all die off, I propose that those of us who are left go with Canadian or Scandinavian-style socialism.

numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
Last week, I re-examined X Files, and the unintentionally toxic effect that I believe it had on pop culture - a hypothesis which was reinforced by the soft reboot miniseries from last year, and will most likely be reinforced again when the new season begins.

I've already posted at length about the impact that The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai had on my life, here and here. But while those posts touched on the history of my involvement with it, and became an examination of the story's more problematic aspects, there is a side to it that I haven't addressed yet - my perception of it as a part of my growth as a fan.

When I was sixteen and seeing the film for the first time, I was very attracted to the random, offbeat humor that permeated the whole film. I was, at that point, in the orbit of several people who professed to be "Subgeniuses," one of them being a math teacher at my High School, and I was participating in the antics of a loose collective of social misfits who engaged in acts of Dadaist and absurdist humor (to give you an idea: we saw the description of Chaotic Neutral in the AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook and were like "this is us.")

So when our computer science teacher gave me a bootleg VHS copy of The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The 8th Dimension, it was right up my alley. I immediately went out and showed it to as many of my friends as would take the time to watch it with me.

But underneath it all, there was an idea that we were "signal jamming" something very sinister and malignant in nature. As this was the early 1990s, the pop culture conspiracy theory engine was just getting warmed up. One of my friends at the time (who, somewhat ironically, ended up working for the US Government in the defense industry) confessed to us that he was the agent of a Extraterrestrial force which was working to safeguard humanity against "The Other Side." "The Other Side" was a rigid, hierarchical, mechanized intelligence of fascistic order, which could only be defeated by random, chaotic white noise.

It was a narrative borrowed directly from John C Lilly's writings, and the conspiracy theories about "Influencing Machines." We glommed onto this narrative, because it gave us an excuse to behave in the "LOL, WE'RE SO RANDOM" manner in which we already had been up to that point, and feel like we were saving the world. It also gave me a ready-made explanation for my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, since I was diagnosed with the primarily obsessional, or "Pure O" type. No, I wasn't mentally ill - I was the focus of a concentrated attack from sinister, sentient machines. Because we were onto them.

And when my best friend snapped and suddenly went weird and hostile, and was controlling. and physically and sexually and psychologically abusive towards her then-girlfriend, it gave me a ready-made explanation for that, too. The Solid State. Influencing Machines. Project Stargate. We were a threat, so we were being neutralized. It was damnably effective. They didn't even have to kill us for it to work.

And Buckaroo Banzai worked its way into this mythos. We really believed that Hanoi Xan (the original Big Bad of the Buckaroo Banzai mythos above and beyond John Lithgow's character, who was referenced in the Across The 8th Dimension script and the novelization, and the fanfic we had access to at the time) was a real, evil force and behind it all. I even linked Nostradamus's prophesy of The Third Antichrist to Xan.

The fandom itself encouraged this. Writer Earl Mac Rauch, who wrote the original screenplay, has always insisted that Buckaroo Banzai is a real person and that the stories written about him are "docudramas, based on real events."

We were a bunch of crazy kids whose grip on reality was already tenuous at best, and it fed right into what we were already caught up in.

Because I didn't get my hands on the Buckaroo Banzai novelization until much later, we had this idea of Xan as a paramilitary Colonel Kurtz-like figure with psychic powers; the obvious resemblance to Fu Manchu, and the racist/problematic Yellow Peril connotations didn't even occur to us at the time.

I didn't even learn until recently that Earl Mac Rauch had borrowed Xan from another author, H Ashton-Wolfe. Hanoi Xan first appeared in his 1918  novel Warped In The Making - Crimes Of Love And Hate - which again, was professed by the author to have been based on true events.

The "loose collective of social misfits" dissolved as we tried to put as much distance between ourselves and my crazy, abusive ex-best friend as possible. We graduated. We drifted apart, and into other circles. We went to college and got jobs. We integrated into "normal adult life." One of our previous associates is now a conservative Evangelical. Another, as I mentioned before, now works in the defense industry.

Years later, I tried showing Buckaroo Banzai to a new group of friends, and the random, offbeat jokes in the film just fell flat. They all just watched in silence. I could feel a part of myself wither and die as I saw it as if for the first time through their eyes. I believe one of them even asked me, "So why is this your favorite movie, again?"

I've recovered since then, obviously. 

I look at things now and see how the polarities have shifted: Neo Nazis and the "Alt -Right" have appropriated the chaotic "white noise" of symbol jamming and culture jamming, claiming to be harmless memesters. Merry pranksters poking fun at ("triggering") too-serious liberals, all while churning out dangerously toxic symbols of hate, violence, and genocidal oppression towards their usual targets: Jews, women, Muslims, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and the Black community.

I remember what Buckaroo Banzai and the other absurdist heroes of our shared mythos meant to us once upon a time, and wonder if there is a way we can fight fire with fire.

When I heard that Kevin Smith was going to reboot Buckaroo Banzai into a new series for Amazon, I was cautiously optimistic. The initiative fell through because MGM didn't ask permission from Earl Mac Rauch, the original writer and creator of the Banzai universe (never mind what he claims to the contrary, and the fact that the Big Bad was borrowed from an earlier work) and "Mac" has always maintained that he still holds the rights to any new material. A legal battle has ensued between Earl Mac Rauch and MGM, and who knows if a sequel, or a new series, will ever see the light of day.
numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (needlegun)
 One of the reason I keep returning to the same fandoms over and over is that my interaction/consumption/fanfic creation around said fandom is like a snapshot of where I was, mentally and emotionally speaking, at that point in my life when they first became important to me - especially before I started blogging.

I used to journal in spirals, but the ones from my late teens/early twenties are mostly either in storage, or lost or gone. And I've gotten to a point in my life when I realize that stuff from my "memory palace" (as it is called in the Silence Of The Lambs/Hannibal mythos) is also getting lost or missing or altered.

Also, it was helping me get through stuff. There were periods of terrible loss in my late teens and early twenties in which I was never able to get back even a semblance of the well-being I had before, ever. I would have the epiphany of, "you know you're still allowed to exist in the way you wanted to, right?" and then I never would. 

There are mental snapshots and impressions of the way things were before everything went to hell. Sometimes, I see an edge or an outline of what might have been had things been allowed to proceed in the way I had wanted them to. Part of the problem of being in a co-dependent relationship with a person with borderline personality disorder is that they get to define who you are - and the moment you try and grow or change out of that role, you've suddenly mutated into this frightening thing they don't know, or have become a horrible, evil impostor - someone who is a fair-game target for any vengeance they feel like taking.

And I think back upon my old Buckaroo Banzai fic, for example, and realize how much of that was influenced by the narrative of being someone on the receiving end of that kind of blowout. Because I was, IRL.

So much of it was because I'd been happy for the first time in my life - for the first time in my life - and then I wasn't, again. My childhood was a haze of confusion, humiliation, rage and depression. So when the perfect situation seemingly popped up, and then it all went south, it was like the Universe making a correction. "Oh, excuse me - you weren't supposed to have that. We're taking that back. See here, in the contract? It says right here that you're supposed to be an emotionally isolated, obsessive compulsive rage monster living a life of quiet desperation and self-loathing. So sorry for the mix-up! My bad."

And I still have mental snapshots of the longest period of happiness in my entire life - which I managed to capture, along with the eventual collapse, in my fic at the time.

And I keep going back to those fandoms because I can feel even those snapshots starting to fade.

And I know it probably seems selfish and regressive. "Why do you spend so much time dwelling in the past? Why don't you make new friends and new good memories?" Well, partially because I kept getting pulled back into the same types of cycles with the same types of people for nearly fifteen years after that. I'm in a good place *now*, with good people *now*, but it took twenty years or so. Also, because stuff happened last summer to cause me to re examine a lot of those events and see them in a new light. And because I need a template, a basis for comparison of what "happiness" feels like opposed to the depression that I'm used to. And for most of the other reasons you don't go up to a mentally ill person and go "Why don't you just xxxx?! See, all better!~~~ :D:D:D:D"

But the thing was, I needed to find out how to find my way back on my own, without getting back into the cycle of co-dependency. And my life has been full of people trying to force me into the other half of their co-dependent binary system (or one of several nodes to feed upon.)

It's gotten to the point when I can generally recognize if someone is genuinely interested in me as a person, or as just a bolster for their own ego, playing a role in their own film that they have running in the back of their imaginations - or as a resource that they can drain dry, and string along until I've recovered enough to be useful to them again.

I didn't really mean to go into all of this. I meant to talk about fandom. And how it's gotten me through so much.



 
numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)




There's a popular, well-known "organic"  grocery store chain where I don't shop anymore, because the owner is a conservative homophobe who scoffs at "the hippies" for spending money at his establishments. Well, NOT THIS HIPPIE.

Still, I used to frequent them for scented glycerin soap. I was able to find a nice essential oil which smelled similar, so I figured I'd make my own.

The top ones are made with the mold that came with the kit. I tried doing a layered, two-tone soap in greens. I used a silicon heart shape mold for the white glycerin soap with the blue swirl pattern. I really like how it came out!

This is fun! I'll probably do more of it! Why throw down good money at Lush, when I can make my own custom bath products? I'm already making my deoderant (recipe here) and it's more complicated than soap.

 

numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (needlegun)
I undeleted my LJ, and did one final import to get some of the comments I missed the last time. I put a message up proclaiming I will be deleting again for good in three days.

I had an anxiety attack at the new job yesterday. My boss felt so bad for me that she gave me chocolate. This boss is a keeper.

I realized that I have been disassociating like crazy again over the past month. (EDIT: For more info, check out "Are You Disassociating?")

My brain becomes obsessed with fandoms in order to nope the fuck out of whatever is going on that is causing me to disassociate. I've always done this. If I become weirdly obsessed with a new fandom or franchise, odds are that there is something going on in my life that I am trying to tune out - or I've found something that clicks SO WELL with what is going on in my headspace (like TRON did at the end of 2010, or The Matrix did in 2004, or like Dark City did in 1998) that it's like I've discovered a new drug.

Pen-and-paper bullet point journaling helped me keep my head together during the 2010 period of zoning the heck out all the time, and it looks like I am going to have to pick it back up again.

Other than that, there have been a few posts kicking around in my head that I have been trying to make, but lack of time has been a deterrent. I will try something tonight.

I went to the Immigrants' Mega March on Saturday, and I'm worried that I am not up to the upcoming Tax Day March. I am worried that I am overextending myself. But it's kind of important that people show up to that one. We'll see how I feel the day of, I guess.

There actually isn't a whole lot of woodworking to do for Flipside this year. While I like that part, I am relieved that we won't be stressing about getting everything done before the event, and it leaves more time for other projects. Granted, we probably won't get *every* project done that we want to get done before the burn, because no one ever does. But I need to pickle some beets and onions, and maybe more of the carrots and daikons before heading out there.
numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
A Republican president is making an ass of himself after attacking a middle eastern country, Power Rangers, xXx and Star Wars movies are in the theater, and I am spending a Saturday evening making blog icons. LOL, what decade is this?

I made a bunch of icons from Ralph Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings. Next up is Buckaroo Banzai! I'm going to watch the film again and just screencap stuff.

I also went through my photobucket account from 10 years ago, and realized that I got a bunch of screencaps from the 1970s adaption of Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme. I'll be making some icons from those, too.

Also, did you know that Winamp is still a thing? It totally is! 

I undeleted my main account on my LJ to do a last-minute backup of comments from that side. After that, I'm deleting for good.

EDIT: Also, I'm listening to APC. It's officially 2001 all over again! But who cares when there are KITTENS? Evolene and Corsica have finally had their babies over on the Tinykittens #kittenwatch Youtube channel.

numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
 DEVA LIFEWEAR is apparently no more, but when they closed shop, they gave their patterns to this online retailer:  https://devabycammy.com/ who is making their merch to order for comparable prices. Note: all of the Deva clothing that I own is still going strong, considering that it was mostly purchased between 1998 and 1999, and the colors haven't even faded.  

numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
 Guess who has to get up EVEN EARLIER now? LOL. It's only temporary and my boss was super apologetic. I have to be scheduled at the same time as the guy who is completing my training. But going to bed at 8/getting up at 4 is something that I have never really been able to do very well. I guess we'll see.

I am making one last run out to the second run theater tonight to either catch xXx again or Rogue One again. Actor/martial artist Donnie Yen is ending up in all the newer franchises I am a fan of, like Jeffrey Combs did way back in the early aughts. 

More to come later in possibly a locked post. I have to go to work, and it is 5:20 in the am.




numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
 

Do you ever get the sense that your life was supposed to unfold in a certain way, and include certain people, but something happened to completely derail that and now you’re just floundering and flailing in a vain attempt to get by in the wreckage of what otherwise would be the life that you were supposed to have, an imposter living a lie in your own life?


My brain has been trying to do this to me on and off since last summer, when certain events sent my brain back down memory lane. I *know* what happened really *was* the best case scenario, as far as I am concerned personally. Other people weren’t so lucky, even if they eventually got out ok. (And no, this is not about the Matrix Cult. This came way before that.)


But still. My brain still is trying to convince me that the summer that year would have totally kicked ass. That we would have spent the time at each other’s houses the way we had been doing the previous nine months, and that nothing would have changed, except that we would have learned more, grown stronger in our knowledge of the occult and Magick, and come out the other side as inseparable badasses ready to fight against the forces of darkness. (Basically, an Invisibles cell. None of us had read The Invisibles yet in 1994, but that was pretty much what we were aiming for.)


Like I said, what happened really was the best thing that could have happened. It happened, and I went on to have other experiences and actually live the life I have lived since then.


But what really, really sucks is that I can’t revisit very many of the places we used to go...because they’re not there anymore. Now it’s just a bunch of dead storefronts and urban blight. No one cares enough about that part of Garland enough to try and save it. The craft store is gone. The water park is gone. Most of the restaurants are gone. The flagship Wal Mart Superstore is still there - but now those are everywhere (and anyway, Wal Mart is the devil.) The theater is still there - Dallas’s first multiplex. It’s a shadow of its former self, and it is now a second run theater (though I still go sometimes to see stuff, and may even do so Friday.) The hippie flea markets (both of them) are either long dead or still dying, and have been since the aughts.


I still have memories, and the knowledge that what happened probably was “the thing that was supposed to happen.” I did not get stuck in an abusive relationship with a sexual predator and professional manipulator and gaslighter for years. I got out, even if I was thrown out. I was lucky.


Somedays I still have to work to convince myself that this is the case.

ETA, 4/4/2017: Well, I went back. And they actually are fixing the area up a little, or at least making it less dead. There is a 24 hour gym being built on the site where Mervyn's used to be. I'm still a little salty that the bookstores are gone, the craft store was replaced by a Big Lots, the water park was leveled and replaced by a car dealership, and the family-owned Mexican restaurants and Chinese restaurants we used to frequent have been replaced by chain restaurants - but the little dive bar is still going strong, and the Cinemark Hollywood Dollar Theater+restaurant probably has the best food offerings in the area anyway. I'm going to try the little dive bar out soon and see (when the events I was vagueblogging about last week occurred, none of us were of legal drinking age. :) So, here's to nostalgia. Sometimes things really do turn out for the best.

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numb3r_5ev3n: Dragon pendant I got at a renfaire. (Default)
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