Give A Little Bit

So, I’ve been having a lot of “love” coincidences recently. This isn’t about my love life or anything sappy, just some very bizarre moments that have made me think about the subject of love.

Incident #1: I was given a book to read called KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE by Chuck Klosterman. It’s a "kind of" true story about this reporter from Spin magazine traveling across the country visiting locations where famous rock stars have died. He spends most of it contemplating the women in his life and what they have meant to him. He ponders love and all that it entails. I had just finished the chapter where that giant black out happened in NYC and instead of riots or crazy shit happening, every one just danced and partied and enjoyed each other. This lead directly into…

Incident #2: I spent the rest of the evening watching SHORTBUS. It’s the John Cameron Mitchell movie that has real sex in it. It’s main focus is on the balancing of emotional and physical love. A good movie, not great, but well worth the time (if you can deal with guys swallowing their own jizm.) Now the climax of the film, (pun intended) is when everyone’s lives have gone nuts and things are at there lowest, the NYC black out happens.

“Huh”, I say to myself, “That’s some pretty weird coincidental psycho-nutsy- stuff happening.” Two things both dealing with love, relationships and the NYC black out are tossed at me on the same day.

So where do I stand on this. I know love is a human creation, designed to represent emotions that make us feel hopeful and strong. The feelings that keep us going versus the feelings that tear our brain from our skulls when we know we are just spots of dust on the edge of the void. Love is a good thing. Love heals… kind of.

So I walk out to the living room thinking about these two things that have happened and all of this pondering I am doing about the nature of love when I turn on the tv and what is on?

Incident #3: 2046 by Wong Kar-Wai. Kar-Wai is the most romantic filmmaker in the world. He doesn't make, "hope-filled-gooey-ain’t-love-grand-full of fluffy-bunnies" crap. He makes films about love that deal with the great ups and all of the frustrating messy parts that are a part of any relationship. It’s awesome, because you feel so much for the good times and completely understand the arguments and why people can’t say what they feel; because they might not understand those feelings yet.

It was the embodiment of everything that had been passing through my skull that night, after all of this philosophizing that had been tossed on me. All of this in a four-hour period, just nuts, right?

Love is great, love sucks, love is messy and convoluted and you can’t live without it. Well you can, but then life gets kind of boring.

Now I’m going to screw this up by going all shallow on you.
Check out the Film Geek Primer podcast. This week we talk about Russ Meyer. Nothing about love in it, but it does have boobs. And who doesn’t love boobs?