Love songs

Wow... just seen the movie Les chansons d'amour and have to say, it is a beautiful piece of work. With beautiful actors, great emotions and lovely songs. Love songs.

And watchgin this great piece of french cinematography, it reminded me how I have been recently thinking about whether I am able to fall in love again. To make it short and painless - yes, I know I am able, however I have not been in love for a long period of time now, which weirdly feels like ages... so I almost forget how fine it was to be in love and be loved. Puh! Thanks goodness, there are soaps like Hollyoaks and Verbotene Liebe, which let me remember those moments. And also thanks to this little french movie, I do remember.

Btw, tomorrow (means today, as I am writing this half past midnight) is Rosenball in Vienna. And Oliver and I are going. This is the first ball of this season for me... and seems like the only one, as I did not plan to attend any others. I will make some photos and try to post those here. :)

Now, saying: good night! and going to bed.

This made my day

Just imagine the three hottest young male actors of our time in the same movie... Doesn't that feel like Christmas!? To me it does: check out the coming soon movie STOP-LOSS with Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and *omg* Channing Tatum! Yeah!!! I feel like dancing! :)
Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/stoploss/
Website: http://www.stoplossmovie.com/

Heath Ledger dead

This is the blow of the year (so far).
Heath is dead.
Gone.

With him goes also the unexplored potential of a person and an unprecedented actor. He has touched a lot of people's hearts through his movies and it only is in our imagination how many could have been touched and changed through his further career.

The humanity has lost one of her guiding artistic spirits yesterday. And the loss is extraordinary in this case...

He was just several months younger than myself.
Sadness...

P.S. It is quite weird but many of the fansites are down. Maybe some kind of family intervention... who knows. More info on: http://www.heathledgerdied.info/

Why should I bother?

I have been thinking yesterday... while arriving home after a social activity, which by attending I was able to sponsor a new bed sheet for a friend of a friend of mine (long story, do not ask *g*)... and was asking myself this question:

Why should I bother making something special out of my life?

And I tell you honestly, so far, I have no clue. I really do not know why I should bother making a difference in the world... creating a better place or such... I mean, I am living in balance with myself and the world... I am not bothering anyone, I am a pacifist, I do separate my garbage, I work my hours, I pay my taxes, I am tolerant towards others, I also state my point if I feel that it is important for me or others, I love my family and friends... I am quite happy with myself and thus do not feel like there is a need for going out and preaching my way to others. Also, where would I take the right to do so? To impose my private believes and values upon others?

This is a very strange thing for me to write like this... and a very strange thing to read what I have written. Just several months ago, I was still a strong proponent of the notion that we as humanity diminish by each one death there is in the world... And there are a lot of deaths in the world... many of them undeserved, unnatural. And that I should do something about those deaths... Change the perception of people, lead them to understanding (each other and the world around them).
Somehow that has changed. I still feel that we as humanity diminish by this acts of unneeded violence and cowardice and that there is a need for more understanding... but I feel like I have established stronger and more solid barriers - rules - to my behaviour for it not to be pushy and imperative. People should not be instructed in understanding... they need to want it. They have to arrive at the understanding by themselves. I may be able to catalyse this change but I am not willing to do this by taking drastic methods. It is the slow change, which is the strongest among changes... slow and steady.

After reading this thing again, I feel clearer about some of my values. And that's good.

However, I need to go back to the original question...
I had always seen myself as a hero... It was an archetype I have created around myself... and now, suddenly, I feel it to be wrong, as it did take over some of my life. It pushed me into decisions I sometimes did not wanted to make... to be on the front line, to be the mover of things. I want my ideas to be represented and incorporated however I need not to be the one who speaks for those ideas. I just love creating them. Creating concepts, new things, optimisations... I would even feel greater if these things would get implemented but that's not my role to play. Well, at least not entirely. :)
Maybe I also feel too much under stress with this archetype hanging over me... and I just want to get rid of it. It does mean also that I do ditch some of my personal expectations too... and that is actually an opportunity. :) To feel the void. And explore it... and let it be filled again, after I decide to do so.

Uuuuh... exciting! :D

Listening to: I have discovered a great jazz station: Jazz24 - they have an online stream and I so much enjoy it these days! Brilliant music!

The McDean story - A must-see!

I am not a big fan of daily soaps... I mean, until there is not a good story to be watched with some cute guys in it. It was a marvel and a pleasure to find out that there actually is one! Or was this year... It is called Hollyoaks and it is a British soap series.

The whole substory is circling around two guys - John Paul (JP) and Craig, who are best mates, till JP figures out that he is actually gay and in love... with Craig. Wow! That is however only the start of a high-end state-of-the-art drama-deluxe teen gay romance with enormous potential to suck you in and hold you at the tv screen for a long time. (As the World Turns has crappy performances and bad camera work, this one is way better!)

For those, who would like to give it a chance, the whole story - by fans dubbed as The McDean story (because of the names of the characters: JP McQueen and Craig Dean) can be watched on the youtube playlist JP & Craig from the start by crumpetsandjam. I will warn you though... it is about 96 videos! Well, ok... if you are interested in the main story, begin somewhere around January 2007 and work yourself up till October. :) And do not forget the handkerchiefs!

(At the end you will figure out why I am listening to Dusty Spriengfield so fiercely!) *g*

Listening to Findlay Brown - But you love me (the Other best song from Hollyoaks)

The Break(ing)

I know, I know... what a long time no see... I know. And somehow I feel, it was needed and useful. To me. The last two months have been quite uneventful on the outside and still very strong on the inside of me: work was tough but good, I have neglected my physical state even more than usual (who needs a shower or a shave! they are totally overrated! *ggg*), I was longing the whole time for something more, something higher and finer and greater and... but it was always just that - the Longing. No steps forwards, though no steps back neither. I felt stuck. I could not move. It was a feeling of being trapped by myself. By my indecisiveness and laziness. Precisely knowing where these bars, which were holding me back, came from... though at the same time not being able to do something against them. Not wanting to... The Longing was sooo much easier and comfortable. The wangling in daydreams, in daily routines, in goals set by others... It is so much easier to follow paths chosen by others.

The freedom has become one of my prime values and objectives in the last two years... I have never thought that freedom would be so important to me... and now, I suddenly go against it? Was it the feeling of a silent understanding that there is no absolute freedom which made me grow so weak during these last two months? Or was I just being fed up with the energy I have to create for me to feel free? Or was it maybe the opposite of freedom which I was unconsciously looking for? The bonding... I do not know.

I remember the catalyst of the change from the Break(ing) precisely. It will sound cheap but it is true: it was a Hollywood movie. It is called Freedom Writers and it is a story not dissimilar from the movie Dangerous Minds. A young fresh starter English teacher arrives at a school torn by gang violence based on racial conflicts. As a welcome gift, she receives a class of damaged kids and sure-to-be drop-outs. Only slowly she learns of the differences which separate these kids... and the similarities which connect them. She changes her curriculum after a moment of shock when one of the black students is mocked because of his big lips, which she compares with the beginnings of a holocaust, when people were treated differently only because they looked differently. The moments after depict the process of the class bonding together and trying to accomplish the unspeakable - the graduation. What was even stronger than the film itself is that it is based on a true story of Erin Gruwell, who was the teacher in question. The Freedom Writers have established a foundation which aims it is to help kids all over the US to reach over their racial borders and violence and achieve their dreams. I wanted to know more, so I have also bought the diary of the Freedom Writers, which was the integral part of their experience. It certainly is a must read for everybody! It is a great story of overcoming unspeakable obstacles for a greater good and personal future... in many ways it is also very emotional and staggering to read about these kids who have all these problems of dysfunctional families, street violence and multiple responsibilities and financial problems, who - despite this all - are making their best to reach their goals... and finally to compare those situations with mine, which is none of it. That did shift a gear in me.

Nevertheless... that was not the end of the story... October came with another surprise (another climax in the Break(ing): I came out to my dad!
Hah! Yes, I am 28 years old and I had finally had the guts to come out to my dad. (My mum and brother already knew.) I tell you, it wasn't planned... but it turned out great... well, not really. What I mean is that the overall outcome is great - I am out of the closet. The other consequences rather suck... and I will not put them online, as they are rather nasty... just ask me if you would like to know more... I am open to share.
I also think that he certainly will calm down with some time passing. :)

Hm... when speaking of Break(ing)... I do not think the Breaking actually came to a real climax of a Break. I kind of reverted it and gone back to what was before... which I do not like. I just have not seen the potential which was there and I am not sure about this other iteration which I am in right now. But there is not pushing in this state, I am going to see how it turns out. :)

Listening to Dusty Springfield - I close my eyes and count to ten right now.

Tim Fish rocks!

Many of you know that I am geek when it comes to animation or comics. I have not grown up on western comics though as those were unavailable during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia when I was a kid. But I was a big reader of all the ABC comics they published and those were great!

So, I could not resist yesterday while stopping at the Loewenherz bookshop to have a look through the comics section... and I have found a gem - Tim Fish's Cavalcade of Boys! I have actually only bought it because of the cute guys on the cover and the art... but it surprisingly is full of great characters, rich stories and overreaching arcs which connect these together. Bravo, Tim!

While reading the book, I actually had two or three flashes of truth... I have seen myself in one or two of these characters... and eventually wished, I would be in their shoes sometimes. ;)

For those of you, who would like to get to know more about Tim or his work, just have a look at his webpage: www.timfishworks.com.

Currently listening to the soundtrack of Kinky Boots.

Disillusion

I have just returned from the first this year's screenings of the LGBT film festival in Vienna, identities. This year, my focus is on de-constructing pornography (with movies like v.o., That Man: Peter Berlin Story, or Gay sex in the 70s) and current male gay cinema (Heights with James Marsden and El Cielo Dividido directed by Hernandez). Btw, the festival is not really overrun, so you should be able still to get the tickets you if you should decide to go and see some of the program.

Just before the second film started, I met Philip and Markus in from of the Top Kino and we chatted a bit, Philip telling about his current amazement with kids and how he wishes for a child some day and how crazy he is about kids these days... My answer was that just two days ago I felt disillusioned about this topic, feeling that I am slowly letting go of this dream of mine because a solid guy who wants to build a family is hard to find these days... and I kind of do not feel yet strong enough to do this just by myself.
Returning to these thoughts makes me feel extremely sad and somehow broken as I have always wanted to have kids. I even remember one of the discussions about having kids with my first love, Pedro, while I have been in Oporto. I remember it so clearly and precisely, as if it would have been yesterday... We were in a shopping center, sitting at the food court, I have just finished my meal and Pedro was playing with his, when we kind of slipped into the topic about children. I have asked him how many kids he would like to have and he slapped me with his answer: six. OMG, six! I was taken aback and surprised... in the first seconds, I did not know whether he tells the truth or whether he jokes around, as he was always very keen of joking around... The next thing he tells me than is that we would need to buy a family van, which I say, I would be driving the kids to the schools with. He suddenly tells me that he would not allow me to drive the van because I am a lousy driver and he would not feel comfortable about putting their lives into my hands... and that he would buy me a sporty car to drive around alone...
You can certainly imagine, how pissed I was hearing this! *g*

Well, nevertheless... Pedro is past and so are other guys, who I would imagine as great dads (e.g. Lumpi)...
Hm...
Makes me feel disillusioned.

Listening: to the silence of my room and the running of the fan of my computer. :)

Picture: Desillusion, 2005 by Lou/Gaço.