Crazy Whaley

This evening I watched Boys Don’t Cry, Directed by Kimberly Peirce.

I was happy to learn that the two men who raped and killed Brandon Teena and killed two others were both sentenced: one to life in prison and one to death row. ( In this post I will not deal with the significance of death row and whether or not the death penalty should actually be inflicted upon someone).

I was not happy to see that it was unclear if Nissen and Lotter were convicted of both rape and murder.  The report seemed to only speak of murder sentencing.

I was also appalled at the sequence of events that led up to the murder.  Given the information I have from Wikipedia, Brandon Teena’s mother still refuses to call Brandon “him”:  JoAnn Brandon publicly objected to the media referring to her child as “he” and “Brandon”. Following Hillary Swank’s Oscar acceptance speech, JoAnn Brandon was reportedly “infuriated” by Swank’s comments concerning her child.

The questioning of Brandon after the rape and before the murder occurred was done by sheriff Charles B. Laux. When questioning Teena about the rape; reportedly, he seemed especially interested in Brandon Teena’s transsexuality, to the point that Teena found his questions rude and unnecessary, and refused to answer. Nissen and Lotter (the murderers) learned of the report, and they began to search for Brandon. They did not find him, and three days later the police questioned them. The sheriff declined to have them arrested due to lack of evidence.

Brandon’s girlfriend, Lana Tisdel claimed that the film (Boys Don’t Cry) falsely portrayed that she continued the relationship with Teena after she discovered Teena was not anatomically male. She eventually settled her lawsuit against the movie’s distributor for an undisclosed sum.

Brandon’s violent death (1993), occurred 5 (Five) years before the violent beating and murder of Matthew Shepard (1998).  Both led to increased lobbying for Hate Crime legislation. And not until October 28, 2009 did President Obama, sign the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010), which expanded existing United States federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, and which dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity (going to school, buying things from a store, serving on the jury of a court, etc)

I am so disappointed at the lack of interest and understanding of those closest to Brandon Teena. The fact that American culture as well as many cultures worldwide are not willing to accept and care for members of our society who are other than what we deem as ‘NORMAL’ is a terrible truth to understand.

After seeing ‘Black Swan’ I can rest assured that my nightmares of Ballet Hell are embellished forms of real psychological problems in the (dance) world.  But after seeing ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, I can only sit up awake at 1 Am in the morning and wonder who is going to stop loving me or kill me if they ever see me walking down the street with a woman.

More and more these days as, yes, I am getting older, the concept or rather reality of only having one body in this lifetime has become glaringly obvious.

As I accumulate years, I accumulate experiences.  Some of these experiences do not stay in the body, emotionally, mentally or physically.  But there are many that do.  There are events that produce actual reactions in me; that change the way in which I deal with the world. This makes sense. I learn from my experiences.  There are also acute or over-use injuries from dancing or running that have changed the structure of my bones, the elasticity of the tendons in my ankles and knees.

There have existed moments in my life where the way in which I reacted to a person at a certain moment in time shapes the way I deal with them now, or the way in which I deal with similar situations with different people implicated.

This whole idea sounds pretty simple.  CAUSE and EFFECT, right?

Why, then, did it take me until 25 years old to actually recognize it?

Why is such a simple idea so hard to wrap our heads around?

This post is in reaction not only to my own life ‘realizations’, but to the NYTIMES article about Obama lifting the ban on Deepwater Drilling in lieu of a new support system of rules intended to prevent another disaster.

A quote:

“Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters on a conference call early Tuesday afternoon “We have made and continue to make significant progress in reducing the risks associated with deepwater drilling[,]” ….”

I am all for significant progress.  But why don’t we understand that the EARTH, like our BODIES, is a one-time shot?  Yes, it has lasted longer than any of our physical carriers can even dream of, and although there are renewable resources about, the earth itself amasses experiences too and does not forget.

This is not to say that the earth or our bodies don’t forget and they are mad at us. It is to say that all of the actions we take, physically, emotionally, experientially, affect our bodies and affect the earth.

Hello,

This is Anna.

From now on I will also be contributing to CRAZY WHALEY, since i am one!

I am mostly going to use this as a template for expressing ideas, thoughts, reflections and also to speak about travel and DANCE in our society today.

” You are still _________ (insert body or psychological pain), you said it yourself!  Why don’t you try __________ (insert alternative medicine practice or religious practice) ? I know you are not very interested in it, but I really think it could help.”

Isn’t it interesting when you feel so passionately about something, and another person does not?

In January or February, X hurt herself lifting equipment. Subsequent bowling aggravated and cemented the injury into being.

She is still in pain and it is the end of August.

After months of on and off pleas, urges and crying from my side, I am faced again with the SIMPLE realization that what is interesting, good, helpful, informative, groundbreaking for one person is not automatically that for another person.

After my phone call with X, I immediately realized that me trying to convince her to go see an osteopath is almost like a religious person trying to convince a not-so religious person to go to church— well-intentioned, filled with love and care, and based on my own experience, which….  is not hers.

&           

The #22 ranked Maryland Terps beat the #4 ranked Duke Blue Devils last night.  Way to go Terps Congratulations to the Seniors! Great win on Senior night in College park.

This is an old picture of my Buddy but the only one I had available at work where I am writing this post.  Yesterday was Nico’s 8th birthday.  I remember the day he was born.  Anny had been in labor for over 30 hours with Isa and we were scared that this delivery would be a repeat of the same thing.  Anny was having contractions but they had not been coming at regular intervals.  We had the idea to walk around trying to make the labor progress faster so I took anny to the Home Depot.  We walked around there and then headed to the mall.  We had been walking around the mall with Anny saying that her contractions were getting stronger and closer together.  The thing was that every time she had one, she would stop walking and make a face showing just a little discomfort.  She never seemed to be in real pain.  Finally she talked me into going to the hospital to check everything.  When we got there they told us that she was 8 centimeters dialated. The doctor said I think you are going to have a baby in the next couple hours!  About 45 minutes later Nicolas burst onto the scene.  He was daddy’s boy from day one.  When he cried and I held him he would calm down right away.  We were inseperable.  He has grown up so fast since that time but he is still my sweet loving boy.  Just like he was back then.  I love you Buddy Happy birthday.

Growing up I did not have a television.  I was a veracious reader my whole childhood.  One of my vivid childhood  memories was being in Kindergarden and being able to read already while the rest of my class was just learning the sight words.  My mother had worked with me diligintly to teach me how to sound out words and I enjoyed reading from day one.  When I moved out of my parents house I got a television.  I was glued to it and still find myself watching hours a night rather than reading a book.  There is something to be said for the pure thoughlessness that it takes to watch T.V.   I have found few things more relaxing than changing into my pajamas and watching the history channel.  I do this every night as I drift off to sleep listining to a program on some military genius or some ancient civilization.  Surely there is good to be gleaned from drifting to sleep while listining to an educational program.  I beleive that you hear and process audio even while you are asleep.  I have not given up reading by any means.  As a matter of fact I just got a new book from the library about the history of the secret service in America.   So far so good.  I will review this book after I am finished reading it.  The whole point is like with any thing else, moderation.  I feel that as long as I still am reading there is room for the television and the thoughtless relaxation that it brings.

Have you seen any good movies lately?  I saw Sherlock Holmes on Christmas day.  Now before I tell about it I have to preface my statement with a little qualifying information.  Guy Ritchie is one of my favorite directors.  Two of his movies are in my top ten of all time.  Snatch is one of my all time favorites and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a close second.  Also I think that Robert Downey Jr.  is one of the most underrated actors of our generation.  Needless to say I was very excited to see this movie.    Well after seeing it I was a little disappointed.   It wasn’t that it was a bad movie, it was just that I expected more.  I was really stoked for the cast and director to blow my socks off with a great action movie and was left wanting more.  I would recommend seeing it but I would not spend the extra money to see it in the theatre.  I also recently purchased The hangover.  Now if low-ball sophomoric comedy is your thing than this is a movie for you.  It is very funny, and the highest grossing “R” rated comedy of all time.  I laughed a lot and would recommend it highly.  I also bought The newest Quinton Tarentino movie The Inglorious Bastards.  Historically inaccurate,  extremely violent and wonderful.  I loved it.  I also am a big fan of Tarentino’s movies with Kill Bill and Pulp fiction again among my favorites.  This time I got what I expected a typical bloody, violent, funny movie.   I love movies and am always looking out for new ones to see.  If anyone reading has any recommendations please leave them in the comments.