What's Going On!

Of all the things I thought 2011 would be, it was not year of the protest. The wave of popular uprising that is spreading through the Middle East has mobilized citizens in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Turkey and Wisconsin and there have been rumblings in Ohio. I guess the average person here and everywhere has taken just about as much ass-raping as they can take and are finally ready to fight back.  It is heartening to see our average citizen’s finally acting like engaged participants in our democracy. They may not be getting shot at or tear gassed like their counterparts in Bahrain and Egypt but they are doing it. There have been some massively large protests in the last 10 years. Protests in Washington and New York involving 10’s of thousands of people, but this one in Wisconsin does not seem to be one the media can ignore and it is growing by the day.  And boy, did the Democrats grow a pair by doing the only thing that they can do to fight this Draconian power-grab; they have up and excited stage left. If what is happening in Wisconsin is successful for the Republican whores and their corporate pimps, expect to see this type of thing spread throughout the country. Hopefully it can be stopped here, that there is finally a line that they can’t cross. The unions are being demonized because despite what the right wingers would have you believe, they do stand up for the average person and they don’t like that. Why is it okay for a corporation to band together to cut pay, fire employees, ship jobs overseas, loot pensions and whatever else but it becomes bad when the people band together to fight it? It is a blame the victim mentality. We have so much to thank the unions for, the 40 hour work week, an end to child labor, a living wage, paid sick time and decent benefits. These are all because of them. They are not the enemy. They are teachers, police officers, fire fighters and blue collar guys who are fighting for the rights that many died for not too long ago. We can’t continue to take from the poor, the elderly and the helpless to give to those who don’t need any more. When is their greed ever going to be satisfied?  It is time to say, enough is enough! 

Please read more about this:

http://dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=380 

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479146/wi_governor%27s_fake_budget_crisis:_gave_tax_breaks_to_wal-mart_to_cloak_his_real_agenda_--_union_busting/#paragraph5 

Valentine's Day Countdown Finale-Love on the Fringe

I know that I have thrown around the word epic quite a bit in these entries but there is one couple who epitomizes the word like no other. They actually had to cross universes to be together. A twist of fate so unlikely, the product of a scientist mad with grief and a dead son, that these two should have met at all is miraculous. I'm talking of course about Peter and Olivia.

#1 Olivia crosses over to another universe to tell Peter that he belongs with her from Fringe.

Much like Mulder and Scully, these two are building their relationship slowly and with plenty of obstacles thrown in for good measure. When the show started Olivia was happily involved with another man who was killed and a mother who died when she was young. She is very reserved, making it hard for people to know her. But she is a good person, who will do anything to help another. She is strong-willed, brave and independent. Peter is a nomad. Damaged with a mother who killed herself when he was young and a adversarial relationship with his father. He is a good person, who is learning that he will do anything to help another. He is very self-contained making it hard for people to get to know him. He is strong-willed, brave and independent. They both are lonely and have much trauma from their childhood to overcome. They are both unfathomably deep but that depth is disguised and hidden. They are beautiful together. She can give him the feel of a family and life that he could never have conceived on his own. He can make her feel the love that she has never allowed herself to feel before. They complete each other. If you have not watched the show, I cannot go into all the details of their relationship. The looks, the touches, the worry, the conversations. If you have, you know what I am talking about. But, the relationship moved into new territory with part two of Season two's finale. Peter has returned to the universe that he was taken from as a child and Olivia has crossed over to save him. This is where she finally confronts her own feelings for him and acts on them. For those of us who have taken this journey with her, we know how absolutely hard this must have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMhx4QDNVU

A beautiful moment, beautifully executed between two of the most gorgeous characters on TV today.

Well, that is the end. I hope you have enjoyed this journey as much as me. Tell your Valentine that you love them, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with and for all you singleton's, love yourself. Love comes in many forms and guises, sometimes it comes quickly or not at all. But everyone should have it at least once in their life. It really does make the world go round. Happy Valentine's Day!

No VD post today

I will wrap up the countdown tomorrow. And that's okay, I was a bit ahead of myself and tomorrow is the appropriate day to finish it up. So please check in then.

Valentine's Day Countdown: All You Need is LoVe

I have another TV couple, that much like Pacey and Joey, I discovered only recently but can't get enough of. The two actors have amazing chemistry and their coming together on the show was a surprise. But once it happened, that was it. Perfection. Unfortunately, the show was canceled prematurely and we never got to see a satisfactory resolution but as anyone who watched the show knows in there heart, these two were the end game. Nothing else would do. There are 2 scenes I want to feature in this installment simply because I just can't choose between them. 

#2 Logan and Veronica kiss for the first time and Logan tells Veronica that he thought they would be epic from Veronica Mars.

The show starts with Veronica as a pariah and Logan and her are mortal enemies. Over the course of the first season and with the suicide of Logan's  mother they get drawn closer and closer together, until…

…let's watch shall we?...I'll wait till you get back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RckDZi9hhTU

I know right! That is one of the best first kisses ever.  I just love how absolutely dazed Logan looks. And you can tell that she felt that kiss all the way down to her toes. Those two have the kind of intensity that will never get old, no matter how long their together.  Their physical compatibility matched only by their ability to match wits. They could keep up with each other and were perfect sparring partners.

But as is the course of all TV couples, the sailing is never smooth and they break up (they break up a few times, but that never sticks). Until one night at a prom party a clearly unhappy and inebriated Logan sits down next to Veronica and tells her a few things.

Veronica: So what are you like now?
Logan: You know, tortured... ever since I got my heart broken.
Veronica: Hannah really did a number on you, huh?
Logan: Come on, you know I'm not talking about Hannah. I thought our story was epic, you know, you and me.
Veronica: Epic how?
Logan: Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. EPIC. But summer's almost here, and we won't see each other at all. And then you leave town... and then it's over.
Veronica: Logan...
Logan: I'm sorry about last summer. You know, if I could do it over...
Veronica: Come on. Ruined lives? Bloodshed? You really think a relationship should be that hard?
Logan: No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrDx-7FHnGE

I just don’t know how she did not let him kiss her. You could see that she wanted nothing more in every bit of body language.  These two really are an epic love.  I wish more than anything that we could have seen them get back together, overcome those obstacles (many of their own making) and just let themselves be happy, damn the consequences. Alas, that is not to be, unless they are ever able to get a movie made that is.

Valentine's Day Countdown - Love in The Emerald City

#3 Steve tells Linda that she belongs with him in Singles.

One of my all time favorite romances is the romance between Steve Dunne and Linda Powell in Singles. It is a very real and sweet relationship. This is one of my go to movies whenever I am feeling down and I can relate to it on so many levels. I think it helped that I lived in Seattle at that time and certainly wore my fair share of plaid and Doc Martins.

Steve and Linda meet cute at a night club and he tries to pick her up with a cheesy line. Linda is having none of it after just being put through the wringer by a major player. But they meet again outside the club that night and they just clicked. The two of them become a couple for a while and then due to an unexpected pregnancy and miscarriage, they start to drift apart. Leading to this late night phone call from a bar Steve gives from a pay phone to Linda’s message machine (the ones with the little tapes).

Steve Dunne: Hello? Linda, uh, it's me. I had to call you. It's about midnight. I was just having many beers. And, uh, I just wanted to say what I should have said at the dock. I fucking chickened out when I acted casual, like Mr. Casual. I should have said it. You... belong... with... me! We belong together. And what really pisses me off is that, now that we're really talking, you thought I proposed to you only because you were pregnant. What's that about! I mean...(There is a line of people banging on the door of the phone booth to get in)...HEY, this is not the bathroom! And you know maybe if I had said some of these things at the dock it would have made a difference because, but I think we made a big mistake because, we had good times and we had bad times, but we had times. And I would like to start over. I would like to be new to you. I want to be new to you. I want to be Mr. New. So call me back if you want to. But this is the last time I'll call. And, if you really needed to know how I feel, how I really feel, that's how I feel. I love you. And that's something you should know, so I won't bother you again. So, good night. And good bye. And call me back. Good bye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiuBG2nQlnQ&feature=related  Scene starts at the 2:02 mark.

Of course, the tape is eaten by her machine and she never gets the message and Steve loses his job and ends up in a downward spiral. The loss of her was eating him alive and he quit showering and his apartment became a garbage dump. Then one night months later there is a knock on the door. He opens it and there is Linda…

Linda: I was just nowhere near your neighborhood. Look, I don't need to be your girlfriend or anything. I just wanna know you again.

Steve: (His whole face is suffused with relief, longing and love) What took you so long?  

Linda: I was stuck in traffic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UmLnFEcCwA&feature=related  Scene starts at 2:29.

Needless to say they have a happy ending. I just love the way he enfolds her in his arms, like it is miraculous. Which, to people who have been separated for a while unwillingly it must feel like.

I include this movie in the countdown for many reasons. Too many to recount here but it really means something to me in a very personal way. It makes me laugh, cry, cringe, a whole gamut of emotions, both positive and negative. But that is life isn’t it, the good and the bad. Just like love.

Valentine's Day Countdown: Not all love stories have happy endings.

I thought I would do something different this time. Instead of scenes I would just include a few unhappy love stories that I adore. They are the ones that make me cry and not the pretty type of crying like in Ghost with one tear falling so perfect. I'm talking the braying, nose plugged, eyes red and swollen and tons of used tissue crying. This is not a complete list by any means but it is good enough for the purposes of this countdown.

#4 Unhappily Ever After - The Bridges of Madison County, The Age of Innocence, The Thorn Birds and Titanic

All of these films are about love denied. They portray a love that is a wanting of something so much but not being able to have it, as it is out of reach for various reasons, unattainable and forever. These stories are the saddest and they are gorgeous in their sadness, they are EPIC. The separation can be from societal expectations, one of the lover's choice, death or distance but the pain is immutable. These are couples who yearn in vain for each other and they never forget, because despite time or distance they are irrevocably entwined.

It always starts the same way, with their meeting and they are like most everyone, each just going along with the paces of life. Blindly accepting things as they are, until that other person comes along, that other piece of the puzzle, and there is a seismic shift, the scales fall from their eyes. Something changes deep down inside them and once unsettled it can never quite revert back to what it was and therein lies the beauty and the pain.

It is Robert in The Bridges of Madison County who doesn't want to need Francesca. Because it is a need that he can never fulfill and the pain of that is unbearable. While she chooses to continue in her lonely life without dreams or passion, made worse by the fact that Robert brought her back to life. She'd been dead for years and hadn't even known it. It was the only way she could tolerate her unhappiness. 

It is Rose watching Jack slip beneath the waves in Titanic and vowing never to give up even while realizing that because he showed her what love is supposed to feel like that he is irreplaceable. So she goes on to live the life that she knows he would have wanted for her, even though much of the sweetness of it is lost without him to share it with her.

It is Newland telling Ellen that she gave him his first glimpse of a real life only to have her tell him to carry on with a false one in The Age of Innocence. To take that safe path into old age, which unfortunately he does. A life lived only on the surface with a woman who has no depth of feeling and no imagination, whose very placidity hides a chilling emptiness.

It is Meggie Cleary telling Ralph in The Thorn Birds that from the day their eyes first met that she has always known that even if she never saw him again that the last thought she would have this side of the grave would be of him. She says that there is nothing she can do to change it and asks if he knows how terrifying that power he wields over her is. But he loves his ambition more and she has no place there.



None of these lovers end up together on the physical plane, at least.  But it is their journey together, the experiences they share, the bonds that are formed that stick to you as you watch and hope against hope that the obstacles can be overcome. That somehow they can be together, if only that one thing could be different. Love and tragedy have been around as long as man could tell stories. The star-crossed pairs from Tristan and Isolde to Romeo and Juliet to Rick and Ilsa to Sarah Connor and Reese. All who loved a lifetimes worth in a few hours, a few days, weeks or years. But to them never enough. Nor to those of us who share their journey with them as they blaze across the screen.

Valentine's Day Countdown: I Want to Believe in Love

I chose to feature them because Mulder and Scully was my first foray into manic shipperdom.  I became obsessed with them. I delved deeply into fan fiction because of them and was even inspired to write some of my own. They could say so much to each other without words. Their relationship was built slowly with a glance here or a touch there, every one of which was examined and cataloged by my discerning eye. Shared suffering and the nature of their work bonded them together in a unique and indefinable way. They understood each other, knew each’s strengths and weaknesses, they made each other better then they ever could have been on their own. When one or the other was hurt, you could see the pain reflected. Neither could stand for the other to be away for any length of time. Mulder especially was lost without his Scully. She brought him peace and he brought her a sense of purpose. There are so many scenes over the course of this show, moments both big and small, that I could use for this installment. It was really hard for me to chose just one. I started to ship them in the first season but it was cemented for me in Season 2 with an episode entitled One Breath.

#5 Mulder keeps watch over Scully as she struggles to live after being abducted and experimented on.

Scully had been abducted and was now returned. She was in a coma in the hospital and they were going to pull the plug on her. Mulder is an absolute mess and is given the choice to confront the person who did this to her or see Scully before she is taken off of life support. Basically, to see her before she dies, as that was the outcome that they were expecting.  He comes and sits by her bedside. You can see how he is suffering. There is not much dialogue. It is done mostly with expression but he does tell her:

Mulder: I feel, Scully... that you believe... you're not ready to go. And you've always had the strength of your beliefs. I don't know if my being here... will help bring you back. But I'm here.

He takes her hand and gives her his strength. He leaves her and goes back to find his apartment trashed and he just breaks down in the most heartbreaking manner and from that moment on, they enter the pantheon of greatest TV couples ever. 

I could not find any video for this scene, I’m sorry about that. I almost didn't include it for that reason, but they deserve a place here.