A Plethora of Roses

| ericabutler77

Hi Friends!

I just attempted to type five different excuses as to why it’s been so freaking long since my last post and I’m just going to accept my grave failure. But alas, here is my attempt to start anew. This post has to do with the 28 bouquets of flowers with accompanying cards given to Blac Chyna by her fiancee, Rob Kardashian, for her 28th birthday. Congrats to the couple, particularly to Blac Chyna, who served the Kardashian family the strongest batch of karma tea that I could ever have hoped for her to brew. The come up is real.

The flowers were only one component of Rob’s gift to Angela for her birthday, but a debate erupted between my friends about the flowers in particular. Half of us gawked at the sweetness and thoughtfulness of the gift, while the other half of us gawked at the sheer wastefulness and unoriginality of it. I belong to the latter group. Now, you obviously have to know the person you’re buying the gift for, so none of this is a jab at Rob. The discussion centered around what our own personal reactions would be to the flower gift alone, in real life. And my verdict is as follows: if I came home to a living room full of flowers, I would projectile vomit instantaneously and slap my significant other upside their head.

See, nothing about my general demeanor suggests I would want such an excess of uselessness in my space. I don’t know that I really need a lot in life besides Hulu, Beyonce and chicken tikka masala. I like the clothes at Target. The only car I hope to own in the future is a Chevy Equinox. I ate chicken and broccoli for eight months straight not so much because of the health factor, but because it takes a half hour to cook. I have my moments of unadulterated materialism where I buy a bunch of crap I don’t need, but I’ll always get some use out of whatever it is for a month or two.

I’m a terribly emotional, contradictory human being so in general life, I like to keep things as simple as possible, especially since I’m often messy. What about any of what I’ve said makes it seem like I would want 28 bouquets of flowers? 336 flowers and how long do they keep? Three days? Four? You mean to tell me you spent $1000 on 28 dozen roses that are going to die before the week is up instead of on… I don’t know… literally anything else? Get creative! One bouquet is lovely but for you to purchase 28 of them tells me you just don’t know what else to buy/do/present to me. You want my everlasting love? Walk into Sephora, tell the saleswoman it’s your girlfriend’s 28th birthday and you would like to get 28 different things (assuming we’re keeping with this 28 theme… that amount is truly unnecessary) and she will help you out! Listen… if I came home to 28 different things from Sephora, no matter what they are, I’m having your baby on sight… on sight, I tell you!

But that’s because I enjoy makeup. I enjoy books. Give me one I’ve never read. I enjoy travel. Take me somewhere I’ve never been. People like flowers, sure, but I don’t know anyone whose primary thought around their birthday is, “Man, it sure would be nice to get a whole shit-ton of flowers!” Deciding to make 28 commercial purchases is a fantastic albeit excessive opportunity for you to show the person you love how deeply you know her, how intently you listen… so don’t cop out and take the ostentatious route that, to me, is the most superficial and eye-roll triggering. There are so many other less obvious ways to show your care. One year for my birthday, my girlfriend was somehow able to leave one of my favorite flowers in various locations throughout the day for me to find, accompanied by a note and a small gift. We were broke so they weren’t lavish gifts, but they certainly spoke to her attentiveness and she even enlisted some accomplices at my job at the time to help her out. It was probably the most wonderful thing anyone I’ve dated has ever done for me.

The other side of the argument which my friends were making was that of appreciation. “You wouldn’t just be thankful that he thought to do that for you?” My answer is really and truly… not so much. The beautiful notes he wrote, of course. But what thought does it take to buy 28 of the same thing that I have nowhere to keep and will probably have to pass out to the neighbors or take to the nursing home? In fact, if he incorporated a trip to a nursing home to pass out the flowers, that is something I would appreciate. Because fundamentally, a person who would spend $1000 on such a soon-to-be trash item as flowers for one person is not someone I would ever want to be with. In a world in which the 100 richest people alive could end poverty, don’t blow a grand on me for that shit. Our love is not that deep.

One recurring argument was the fact that Rob could afford to waste money in the way that he did. But again, a person that wasteful, living in this world where there is just so much overwhelming need, has no place in my life. Either put on for your city (as the youths say) and get creative or keep it simple, your choice. But don’t make it rain on some bullshit flowers and expect a pat on the back. That’s not who I am, and everyone in my life can attest to this. I don’t want the show, the bravado, the flash– I want the click. All of those tiny mechanisms within the camera working to make it work, that’s the heart I need to see. I’m not so desperate for love that I would overlook such a blatant lack of responsibility to your fellow [impoverished] man to, at the very least, not be so needlessly reckless with the money you do happen to have.

In conclusion, I don’t think I would have been rude to a lover who’d done this for me. But as I surveyed the room, I would have donned a fake smile while saying, “There’s just so manyyyyy.”

-EMB

Irreversible

| ericabutler77

This past weekend was the first weekend in I don’t know how long that I had absolutely nothing to do requiring my immediate attention. I mean, there was a lot I could have done, but nothing too pressing. I finished the second draft of my pilot the weekend before and submitted it to Slamdance, and so after having agonized over it for months and months, I finally felt a sense of peace and underlying anxiety. What next? Lots of television.

I mostly binged Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I’m late to the party on that one but it’s a really hilarious show. Then I watched a film that has been on my IMDB watchlist for some time now. It’s called Irreversible and it’s a French film starring Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel. I’m probably late to the party on this one too, but better late than never says the general population. I came across it on IMDB message boards where people were discussing the most disturbing movies they’ve ever seen, and as I lurked, I built up my watchlist. Irreversible did not disappoint. It was excellent… and by excellent I mean devastating and extremely disturbing. *SPOILER ALERT*

The plot is fairly simple. Alex (Monica) leaves a party early following a disagreement with her boyfriend, Marcus (Vincent). While waiting for a taxi, a stranger tells her to take the underpass since it’s supposedly faster. Unfortunately for her, she does so, runs into a pimp abusing a prostitute, and is attacked by him as the prostitute runs away. By attack I mean brutally raped and assaulted. Brutally. And she’s being put into an ambulance just as Vincent exits the party himself. After being approached by two men who convince him the police aren’t going to do anything and that they can help him find whoever committed this crime, he sets out on a quest for revenge.

I can’t stop thinking about this film. It’s complete impact really doesn’t hit you until the end. It’s told in reverse chronological order, therefore the scene in which Marcus and Pierre (Alex’s ex-boyfriend who tagged along this evening as a third wheel) enter a gay club called Rectum in search of “El Tenia” is one of the first scenes of the film. It’s very disorienting, even moreso since Marcus is in such an elevated state of rage. It’s confusing for the viewer to experience this side of Marcus since we haven’t seen Alex’s attack yet, and we’re forced to sympathize for reasons yet unknown. When no one in the club is paying attention to him because they’re too concerned with fucking each other, we vacillate between feeling Marcus’ frustration and siding with Pierre, who remains adamant that they should just leave and go to the hospital with Alex, as revenge is always a futile mission. But in the end, it’s Pierre who exacts revenge on a man who wasn’t even the perpetrator of the crime! Marcus finds two men in the club, one of them we later figure out was El Tenia, but it’s the other who attacks Marcus, breaks his arm and threatens to rape him. And then Pierre comes out of nowhere after having been logical and level-headed the entire time, and beats the crap out of that guy’s face with a fire extinguisher. I mean… he beats the crap out of this guy.

More than anything, Irreversible is a study of man’s animalistic nature. When El Tenia rapes Alex, it is nearly unwatchable because we are forced to bear witness to an act void of kindness, morality, rational thought, or anything remotely human. Most rape scenes show you just enough to think “this is terrible” in order to trigger an emotive response and guide your expectations for the remainder of the film. This film forces you to sit through its entirety, as El Tenia grunts awful obscenities at Alex, and withstand every heartbreaking moment with her. It’s a scene that sinks down into your soul and makes you truly understand the complete atrocity of rape. And as if that wasn’t enough, El Tenia finds it suitable to disfigure Alex’s face, because since she’s pretty she obviously thinks the world is hers. Then, at last he’s done with her.

When we meet Vincent, he’s at the peak of his rage. And in him, we are forced to watch a man interact with other human beings when his emotional state makes it impossible for him to do so effectively. When the two men take him and Pierre to the prostitute (after finding her ID in her purse left at the scene), Vincent nearly kills her trying to get her to tell him the name of who did it. We still haven’t seen Alex’s attack yet, but by this time Marcus has described it as rape and so we sympathize with him, yet like logical Pierre, we just want him to calm down, because nothing about his current emotional state is helpful. The prostitute tells him to look for El Tenia at Rectum and he and Pierre jump in a cab. The driver, an East Asian man who has no idea what or where Rectum is, fires Marcus’ anger even higher. Marcus lets out a string of obscenities bashing the man as Pierre profusely apologizes. There was so much screaming I don’t even really remember all that Marcus said to the driver, though I do recall “chink” and something about him being yellow and something else about fried rice. It was horrible to witness and again, we cling to Pierre in the sense that so much more could be accomplished if Marcus would just calm down and be rational. But he can’t. They end up getting out of the cab as the driver pulls some sort of gas canister from his seat. Marcus pulls the driver out, takes the can, sprays the driver, then steals the cab. Pierre has had enough at this point and refuses to go with Marcus to Rectum, but Marcus beats the windows out of the cab and belittles Pierre until he’s all but forced at gunpoint to join.

On an existential level, more than anything it’s distressing to think of how a day can start off so well, end so horrifically and how it is all ultimately irreversible. What more could be accomplished in our lives, what hurt could be avoided, if we had the option to just go back in time? Alex wouldn’t have taken that underpass. Maybe she would’ve taken Marcus’ offer to drive her home after their disagreement. Would he have even let her leave? Would they have even gone to the party at all? We find out at the end of the film that Alex took a pregnancy test earlier in the day when Marcus left out to buy alcohol. And she was pregnant. Would she have taken more precaution during sex seeing as Marcus, with all of his wild, youthful party antics, was not the man she thought him to be? Maybe, maybe not, but the most damning thought is that it doesn’t matter. We tend to dwell on everything we could have done differently if we’d just had a tad bit more wisdom, but the fact is that it is all irreversible. What is done cannot be undone. And we are at the mercy of our own actions, thoughts–our own notions of what is good and acceptable and in what circumstances we can be bad and unacceptable. Can we only be animalistic when we’ve been pushed to the very end of our proverbial rope? When we’ve been stripped by the world of everything that separates us from the animal kingdom? Or is it prudent to retain self above all, even when we have nothing, for fear of what our loss of control may bring in the future? Or… is it not even our choice at all? That appears to be the stance taken when Pierre loses it and commits murder by the end of the night.

If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you watch it once (that is all that’s necessary). It speaks volumes about the fragility of our existence on Earth, our perseverance through just a day, how thoughts manifest in life, how every occurrence in the world is cyclical in nature, always a mirror of something in the mind of another. It speaks about the resilience of humanity, the atrocity of humanity. It questions whether humanity is really even a thing to be proud of at all.

-EMB

Hello Friends!

| ericabutler77

Hi guys–

Just wanted to introduce myself. I’m an aspiring TV/film writer, Houston-born and bred but now blazing my trail through the delicious smog and green juice of Los Angeles. California livin’. I don’t know what else to say, but I watched a video series of people talking about things they love, so I thought it would be a nice introductory post to do the same:

1. Potatoes in all forms

  • Regular or sweet; fries of every shape and degree of sogginess; hashbrowns, breakfast potatoes; mashed, creamed (as my grandma would say), baked, au gratin or what have you… I. LOVE. POTATOES. Their existence is evidence that God is real, that He loves us all (especially me), and wants us to be happy.

2. Ballroom Dancing

  • When I think back on my childhood, this was probably my first real obsession. Every year on PBS on New Year’s Eve, they would show back-to-back ballroom dance competitions and I became infatuated with the sport. Yes, sport. It is a sport. That was my New Year’s tradition every single year until they stopped airing the competitions and I was certain death was near. One year, one of my best friends even sat on the phone with me and watched with me on her TV, because she knew I wasn’t going to do anything else. What a great friend. When YouTube became a thing and I had videos and videos of dances to sift through, you better believe I was at my computer siftin’ away. I’m partial to International Latin and American Rhythm because, you know, hips and stuff. It’s a lot more fun. But Int’l Standard and American Smooth are just as lovely, and the dancers just as worthy of the highest praise for their skill and athleticism. I took a few classes at UMiami but stopped because I kept getting paired with weird dudes with really bad breath and it was unbearable. I probably should’ve stuck with it, because I could’ve joined the competition team, which turned out to be pretty good. I did take a lot of salsa classes and actually got pretty high up, but I didn’t want to get too good. One of my dreams is to be on Dancing with the Stars, and I don’t want to mess up my chances by being to good at it already, you know? I will also definitely be a star one day, so… this is all a lot more than just hypothetical.

3. Horror/disturbing cinema

  • I feel weird saying I love the horror genre, because like most sane individuals I don’t necessarily enjoy watching scared people being attacked by killers or ghosts or their own minds. It’s more so the cathartic aspect of it. I have two favorites. The first (and by favorite here, I mean one of the best I’ve seen) is Martyrs. It’s a French film (the French really know how to do horror) that I couldn’t stop thinking about after I watched it, I think mostly because of the “point” of the film (or the fact that there was a point at all). Whatever lies beyond after death has always drawn the curiosity of man since time immemorial, and Martyrs deals with that curiosity in twisted, bloody, heartbreaking fashion. My other favorite (and by favorite here, I mean the one I’ve watched the most), is The Others. I still think it has the best ending of any movie ever, even though after re-watching it a few times as an adult, I realize it’s not that great of a movie. It’s still suspenseful and creepy and Nicole Kidman is stunning, so whatever. I love slow burn movies. The Omen (original) is another one of my favorites. Let the suspense build up, sheesh!

4. Chinese cinema

  • Keeping with the cinematic chain of thought here, I’m a fan of Chinese films, and I owe my fandom specifically to Zhang Yimou and Gong Li. The first Chinese film I ever saw was Raise the Red Lantern. In one of my undergrad film courses at UMiami, our professor used RRL as an example for literally every point he made in class. I was like, “Let me watch this damn movie and it better be amazing OR ELSE!” I never had to figure out or else what though, because that movie did not disappoint. I loved it. Curse of the Golden Flower was the second film in their series of collaborations that I watched and it instantly became one of my favorites ever. When I tell you that movie is visually stunning–the sets, the costumes, every component of its staging is magnificent and, let’s be honest, I love a good, ol’ fashioned family drama. Farewell, My Concubine and 2046 are some of my other favorites. Pretty much any film where I can watch Gong Li sneer with a slightly psychotic undertone.

5. Bookstores

  • If anyone were to ever ask me the very boring question of what my idea of a perfect date is, I would promptly tell them, “Take me to Barnes & Noble.” That’s all. I mean, extra points if you buy the books, but it’s not really a requirement. Walk with me. Talk with me about the books. I love books. I love the smell of bookstores. I love all of the possibilities. Growing up, I always wanted to go to Border’s (when there was a Border’s). I thought I was so sophisticated, because all the other kids went to Barnes & Noble when Border’s was so much better. Well, only one still stands today so I guess I was wrong, but back then you couldn’t tell me my trips to Border’s with my grandma weren’t the best times ever. But I’m not a bookstore snob; like potatoes, I love them in all shapes, sizes and forms.

6. Lions, tigers and other big cats

  • They’re just my favorite animals, and I’m not entirely sure why. I definitely like the look of them collectively, with their manes, spots, stripes or what have you. I think more than anything, big cats emit a sense of royal dignity that I admire. The way they carry themselves, hunt for their prey–they’re kings and queens of their environment and just super cool.

7. Houston, TX

  • I struggled a bit with this one. I didn’t know if I specifically loved only Houston or if I loved Texas as a whole. I concluded that I don’t think I’ve been to that many different cities in Texas to know it as a whole, but I do know Houston. It’s as much a part of me as my skin, and it will always be home. I think more than anything it’s that I could never say I’m anything other than a Texan. If I’d stayed in Miami after graduation I would still never be a Floridian, same as how I will never be a Californian even though I plan to live here for quite some time. Screwston is my home. Frenchy’s chicken and Shipley Donuts are home. The Houston Rodeo is home. Third Ward is home. The bayou is home. Sometimes you end up being born in such an influential city and in such a beautifully Black section of it, that you couldn’t get out of it if you tried. That’s what Houston is to me.

8. Beyonce

  • That’s my neighbor, y’all! Okay, besides the fact that Beyonce is also from Third Ward and is Texas’ finest export, she is one of my biggest, most consistent inspirations. She’s obviously one of my favorite musicians/entertainers of all time (the other two being Michael Jackson and Etta James), but when it comes to who has influenced me the most as a fellow artist, as a woman, and as a Black woman, she takes the crown. I don’t think I need to really go in depth, because her greatness certainly isn’t veiled in any way. She is the greatest female entertainer, in my opinion, of all time. There is no other woman, alive or dead, who has her vocal chops and ability to put on an athletic live performance well. No one. She inspires me to be my most fabulous self at all times. When I get home from work, tired and beat down and wanting nothing more than to lay on the couch and go into a coma, I think “WWBD?” WHAT WOULD BEYONCE DO, MAN? WOULD SHE LAY DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP OR WOULD SHE GET UP AND PUT IN THAT WORK? Then I promptly get my butt up and hit them squats. She works so incredibly hard, is so generous without asking for her generosity to be publicized, and is now comfortable being who she really is. I love it. Give me more. I will never tire of you.

9. Trap music

  • It has the best beats.

10. Window shopping for houses

  • I’ve been obsessed with houses for most of my life. I would say real estate, but it’s really just nice houses I’m into. I look at and/or tour different houses and imagine myself living in them, or how one experience would be different, better or more interesting than another. I’m constantly on theagencyre.com and that is where I found my dream home. I can’t tell you which one it is, but just know that it’s mine as soon as I gather the couple million dollars I will need for purchase. That’s probably why they haven’t been able to sell it yet–the universe is waiting on me to get my act together.

Honorable Mentions:

11. Beijing opera and Kabuki theatre

  • I’m basically an East Asian culture slut. I discovered Beijing Opera while watching Farewell, My Concubine. Kabuki Theater I discovered on my trip to Japan in high school when my host sister took me to a show. Both are exceedingly beautiful art forms that combine many different aspects of live performance, including instrumentals, vocals, mime, and dance.

12. Any time period but the present

  • I think it may be due to the fact that I’m a Cancer and Cancerians are generally nostalgic but I find myself intrigued by every time period except the one in which I live. I love reading about Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. In fact, if UMiami offered a degree in Egyptology, I would’ve promptly applied and wasted all of my free tuition money. Not that Egyptology isn’t a worthwhile career choice. It’s just quite specific. Anyway, I often wonder what it would be like to live in any of those time periods or even the ’20s. If I could go back just one day (ONLY one… one is more than enough to be Black in the ’20s) I would, just to know… to feel the rhythm of the times and to see if it matches what’s in my head, in books I’ve read or movies I’ve watched. I’m also a new fan of science fiction, and am enraptured by the future and what it could possibly hold. If I could travel to the future for one day (ONLY one… it might be terrifying), I definitely would, especially considering how far technology has advanced since I was born. It’d be a sight to see.

Welp, that’s me. Hope I didn’t bore you to insanity.

-EMB