John Oliver's response to Trump

Sunday Son #8: "This is a Man's World" by James Brown

This is a man's world, this is a man's world,
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road;
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads.
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark.
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark.

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.

Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys,
Man makes then happy 'cause man makes them toys.
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man.

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness

Loving Vincent, Trailer

This will be the first fully painted film in existence. They are still in the process of making it and are asking young artists to help contribute to its creation. This movie will follow the life of Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most inspiring and original artists of all time. it will follow his style of art. Loving Vincent is currently being made in Poland by award-winning Breakthru films. I'm looking forward to it.

Want

"Dave?"
I called out into my empty house, but the lamp glowed faintly and my cat looked up at me, her eyes half closed in boredom. The house stood still, silent.
I couldn't remember him leaving. I must have dozed off; I lay on the couch with my computer open and "I'm Gonna Lose you" playing, barely audible, from a list of songs Dave and I made together. Our tea cups still sat on the table with spoons in them and mine was still half full. I wrapped my hand around the cup, letting the warmth seep through my fingers, and sipped the look-warm tea as I sat alone.
Now I remembered. He had kissed me at the door on the nose, and I had called him a dork; "No," he replied as he always did, "I'm you're dork." He told me he loved me, and then I had opened the door and let him disappear into the dark damp night. He would be here in the morning to take me to work, even though I hadn't asked; he said he wanted the extra time together.
And the time has been short lately. I work in the mornings and he works at night, and when I get a day off I feel desperately like being by myself, away from this swarm of humanity I see every other day.
Soon my cup is empty. I place it back on the table and stretch my arm out to my cat, scratching her behind the ears as she likes it. Her neck stretches out and her body begins to vibrate softly, like a hum. I pull her onto my lap. Slowly I let my head sink to the arm chair and stare at the lamppost outside my window. The night is so dark tonight, so heavy with mist that the light from the lamppost only penetrates a little into the fog, A grey globe of mist surrounds the light and muffles its glow.
I let out a deep sigh.
Sleeping alone grows harder; saying goodnight grows lonelier. I like having his arms wrapped around me and his face nuzzled into my neck, more than I've ever enjoyed someone else being so close to me. When we cuddle we feel so comfortable, like we're puzzle pieces fit exactly right for each other. And when he falls asleep cuddling, he looks so very happy. I am addicted to that face.
A guilt-free conscience, a guilt-free love, I remind myself silently. My cat shoves her face under my hand for more pets, still purring contentedly.
"I want all of you, body, mind and spirit. One's gonna have to wait; let's focus on the other two." Dave says this to me gently whenever I feel like complaining. And I remind myself again, that only two of those things will last forever.
I think of the random things Dave taught me this week. He taught me politicians wear either red or blue ties; one to show power and the other creativity. He taught me that although Switzerland was a pacifist country, almost everyone has guns, and that nakedness is associated with innocence in Japanese culture.. He always leads off with, "here's one of the funny one's" whenever he pulls out a random fact no one besides him would ever learn about.
I think about the slips of poetry he has scattered around his room, in unkempt piles on the floor, on his music stand, in his notebooks. I think of all the odd faces he makes while playing guitar, too focused on his music to notice or care what he look like. I think about the way he throws his head back when he laughs alone, and how bashful he gets around people he's never met. When he's with his friends, he's the first to make a wisecrack that earned him the nickname Boomhower. I remember complaining to two of my friends about how I missed an ex, and both of them immediately jumped on me. "You have a man who worships the ground you walk on," my roommate reminded me, "It's disgusting, really. But most girls would want that." My other friend said, "He obviously respects you and loves you; that's what you deserve."
I wouldn't say I deserve it. I only want to be the woman he deserves.
These are just parts of his mind and spirit. There's so much more I want to learn about him, so much more I want to do with him. I still need to show him some of the woods near our college, and he has 4 more animes he wants to introduce me to. I think we'll stay busy.
After a while I gather my cat up and walk upstairs. I leave the door open a crack, in case the cats wants to get out, and let on a record of ELO; then I throw the duvet over me and let my cat purr under my arm.
I go to sleep thinking about those green eyes, the color of the sea and as deep as it too. I'm still learning what those eyes are saying when they look at me, but most of the time they're saying I love you.
And they'll be waiting for me tomorrow. Because I love him too, and neither of us are going anywhere..

Sunday Song #7: "Ocean of Noise" by Arcade Fire

In an ocean of noise,
I first heard your voice.
Ringing like a bell
As if I had a choice.
Oh well!

Left in the morning
While you were fast asleep,
Into an ocean of violence
A world of empty streets;

You've got your reasons
And, me - I've got mine,
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time.

In an ocean of noise
I first heard your voice;
Now who here among us
Still believes in choice?
Not I!

No way of knowing
What any man will do;
An ocean of violence
Between me and you.

You've got your reasons
And, me - I've got mine,
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time.

I'm gonna work it out
'Cause time won't work it out
I'm gonna work it out
'Cause time won't work it our for you
I'm gonna work it on out
'Cause time won't work it our for you
I'm gonna work it on out
'Cause time won't work it our for you
I'm gonna work it on out

Why People With Power are Selfish

Millennials

We're the generation that can communicate with anyone, anywhere on the planet, at any time, speaking to them through little machines like they were right next to us.
We're the generation that can go to a different universe and live in it for days, killing dragons with magic and building houses with stone we've collected while making friends with aliens or humans or elves. We can do all of this by moving two of our fingers.
We're the generation that can access and process almost all of the information in the world, current and past, in our homes. We can instantly watch what is happening 300,000 miles away, like we were there. We can access free history, free opinions on history, free counter-theories on that history, free different perspectives on that history, at any moment. We can look up any word in any language for free. We can listen to the opinions, the blogs and the facebooks and the twitters, of most human beings on the planet, whenever we care to listen.
Most of us carry a little device in our pocket, five inches long and three inches wide, that gives us all of this at any time we want.
We're the generation where for a month's pay we can visit a different world in a day, where people look differently than we do and speak differently than we do and have differently shaped houses and clothes and think differently than we do. But when all of this is stripped away, we still all need to love and feel happy and eat and sleep and work, and the easier it is for us to visit one another, the smaller the world becomes, the more we realize that we are all neighbors, all needing one another to get by.
We're the generation that treats people like they're people, no matter what they look like or what they do. At least we're trying to be.
Yes, we're lazy. We get so caught up in our magic machinery, our alternate universes and our instantaneous communication that we put little emphasis on money and a 9-5 job and an education. I guess our little phones keep telling us that education doesn't get us a job. Our phones keep telling us 9-5 jobs don't make you happier or a better person. Our phones keep telling us that people of different races, different sexual orientations, different religions and different genders are people with just as many flaws and just as much goodness as anybody else.
So stop making fun of us. We're in our twenties and thirties, and our phones tell us how when you were kids, you were doing drugs, being racist and inventing the trends we're still following today. We're your children and your grandchildren. Give us some time, let's see what we can do.

Sunday Song #6: "Ticket to the Moon" By Electric Light Orchestra

Remember the good old 1980's,
When things were so uncomplicated,
I wish I could go back there again;
And everything could be the same.

I've got a ticket to the moon,
I'll be leaving here any day soon;
Yeah, I've got a ticket to the moon,
But I'd rather see the sunrise, in your eyes.

Got a ticket to the moon
I'll be rising high above the earth so soon,
And the tears I cry might turn into the rain
That gently falls upon your window;
You'll never know.

Ticket to the moon.
Fly, fly through a troubled sky
Up to a new world shining bright.

Flying high above,
Soaring madly through the mysteries that come,
Wondering sadly if the ways that led me here
Could turn around and I would see you there,
Standing there.

Ticket to the moon
Flight leaves here today from Satellite 2
As the minutes go by, what shall I do,
I paid the fare, what more can I say,
It's just one way.

Smoke

A wave of smells hit me as soon as I walked through the door—the smell of spilled wine and perfume, the smell of incense and withered roses. Another, stronger smell penetrated the air as well but I couldn’t identify it, thought it made me think of a woman who had spent many sleepless nights in a crowded room and it made me sad without knowing why.

            Sissy hadn’t seen me come in yet. I could see her face illuminated in the mirror light and the silhouette of her slim white shoulders, her curly black hair. No, she didn’t see me yet. She had her lipstick pinched between her fingers and pressed against her small mouth. She did it slowly, and I stood watching her quietly where she couldn’t see me. Always it had amazed me how much time it took for a woman to paint such a small part of her body and I wondered why she ever bothered. When Sissy finished she rubbed her lips together and clicked the lid of the lipstick back on decisively.

            Little Noel had the T.V. on in the corner and was sitting in front of it, her legs curled up to her chin as she hugged herself close. Sissy had finally seen me in the mirror. “Hi,” she said, still facing her reflection, still covering her face. “I missed you.”

            The sheets and blankets lay twisted up on the bed; I pulled a red corner out and flattened it against the mattress, sat down. I had come here to say something warm and comforting but now I had nothing to say. I just looked down at the red carpet and listened to the quiet voices in the T.V.

            “You okay?” I asked. I could ask nothing else.

            She slowly lined her eyes with black. “Yes. It’s the best thing.”

            I glanced at Noel. She had scooted around so that she faced me and now she grinned with all her little white teeth showing. I grinned back and she shyly buried her face in her knees, still grinning and looking.

            “You want to talk?” I asked Sissy.

            “Nothing to say,” she said. I knew there wasn’t. She had said everything already, shouting it out in the living room every day of their lives. She finished her makeup and looked dully around the room, then at me. “It’s hot in here,” she said. “I want to smoke. I want to be outside.”

            We left Noel with the door cracked. Sissy leaned against the stair rail and looked out over the parking lot where the trees met the sky. The sun hung threateningly low over the branches and a warm dull breeze seemed to fly from that sun. Nothing is worse than a warm breeze; there is no refreshment in it. She sighed, pulled out a cigarette and lit it up.

            I slowly settled myself next to Sissy. “Thanks for being here for me,” she said, taking my hand in hers for a moment and squeezing it hard. A faint wisp of smoke drifted up from between lips.

            I wouldn’t have missed being here for the world. I had known it would happen for months, and when I got a call yesterday I hadn’t been surprised. Maybe I had even been happy, I don’t know—all I knew was that Sissy had cried and cried as if all the tears she’d been holding in her whole life suddenly opened up. She wasn’t crying now.

            “Where’d he go?” I asked.

            “Didn’t say.”

            “Not a letter or anything?”

            “There was a letter, but he didn’t say.”

            Sissy’s face was yellow under the sinking sun, and despite her makeup I could still see the shadows under her eyes. She took another long pull from her cigarette and as she did a mask of ashes fell from the glowing red tip, fluttering down and down into the air below us. Her eyes stared absently at the sun.

            “Pretty,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

            “What?”

            “I don’t know.” The silence grew longer as the sky grew darker. Noel was talking to herself in the bedroom and a cicada shrieked out in the trees, but Sissy and I were as silent as the sun.

            Slowly she turned and glanced at me for only a moment. I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked away back to where the sun’s rim glowed faintly in the tree branches, etched black and yellow like spider webs. A moment later the rim was gone. Slowly I lifted my hand from her but quickly she grabbed it and held it like a lost child. Her cigarette was shaking between her fingers and the smoke wavered, but only for a moment. She took another pull from it and let me go.

            “Maybe he’ll come back,” I said softly.

            “I don’t want him to.”

            “No?”

            She paused. “Maybe for Noel I want him, but not for me. It’s too late for me, but Noel deserves more.”

            “What do you mean?” I asked.

            She looked at me and opened her lips for a moment as if she planned to speak, but quickly turned away. “It’s not going to be easy on her. I don’t think she’s figured it out yet. He’s been gone before.”

            I could hear the advertisements floating out of the room and Noel’s soft childish singing. She’d figure out in a few days that her Dad was gone, and she would cry hard and long but her tears wouldn’t bring him back. But she was young now, and if he never came back it didn’t matter; in a few years she would forget what he looked like except in maybe a few faded photographs and how his face was captured in her own reflection.

            I saw in my mind’s eye the moment when I first held Noel in my arms two years ago. Her blond hair was just beginning to curl around like her mother’s, and she smiled for the first time as I made funny faces at her. Something swelled up in my heart, something hot that made my eyes burn. I pulled Sissy close to me and held her head against my chest; her body stiffened for only a moment, bristled, resentful, and I could feel the tension in her shoulders and neck. Then it was if a knot inside of her was untied and everything went loose. If I had let go of her at that moment she would have collapsed but my hands still held her head against my chest.

            “If you need me, Cecilia Devonport, I’m here for you. I’ll be there for Noel. If she needs a father, then even though I’ll never be the real thing I’ll be the closest thing possible.”

            “James—you don’t have to—“

            Something weird and dry came out of my throat, something like laughter. I pulled her head up and looked into her eyes. “Sissy, you know I’m here and there’s no one else.”

            For a moment there was silence. Then Sissy squeezed me hard and said in a dazed voice, “Thank you.”

            The shades of the sunset darkened and left us in blackness.

Art at its Best: This is Where you Make it Permanent

Sunday Song #5: "Yellow Brick Road" By Elton John

When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm,
I should have listened to my old man!

You know you can't hold me forever,
I didn't sign up with you.
I'm not a present for your friends to open.
This boy's too young to be singing, the blues!

So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can't plant me in your penthouse;
I'm going back to my plough!
Back to the howling old owl in the woods,
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh I've finally decided my future lies:
Beyond the yellow brick road.

What do you think you'll do then?
I bet that'll shoot down your plane.
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again.

Maybe you'll get a replacement;
There's plenty like me to be found.
Mongrels who ain't got a penny,
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground.

So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl!
You can't plant me in your penthouse;
I'm going back to my plough.
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad.
Oh I've finally decided my future lies:
Beyond the yellow brick road.

Lily

There was a time when I knew you quite well. You were like a garden; I knew all your flowers and colors, all of them etched in my mind with your touch. Then it happened and the door slammed shut--bolted, chain, silence. None of your beauty remained but pale green paint peeling off an iron door, and the windows were empty.
I wanted what was in that garden. My tears fell but they wouldn't open the door. I stroked the stone walls but it did not open the door. I laughed and spoke-no word in return. I will find other gardens, I said; perhaps it will help me forget.
You have flowers that no one else has; I could go to the most exhotic garden in the world and sit unmoved, saying, "Where is the lily?" Our lily. You put it into my hair once, but you seemed to have forgotten.
You became all walls and closed doors to me, but there were still windows. When spring came I could see the tips of the hedges bud and thought, "would you let me enjoy them?" And in other windows I saw dead branches, but you tried to shutter them from me--from everyone. I see things you would forbid me to see, but I have wandered too often in that garden to not know the signs. You are dying, but you are all walls to me. How am I to love the walls as I did your garden? Are the walls apart of the garden of something of their own? I do not know; before I didn't know the walls were even there.
So I will love the walls. I will watch the moss grow on the stone the way you used to bloom in spring. I will ask you if anything was happening within, and you will answer that if there was it wasn't important. Thaat is how we talk now.
It's been a while. I have stopped caring. The other day you hugged me and whispered, "It'll be all right." It was like a flower blooming on the topmost branch, barely reaching over the wall. I looked at it and thought, "Didn't I used to love that tree? It's been so long, but it's not as pretty as I remember. I have forgotten what you looked like on the inside."
Except the lily. I will never forget that. Although I'm sure that if I could enter you today I would find all our lilies shriveled and dead forever. No, I will not enter the garden again.