Remy Carreiro
Well, it’s not technically divorce, but rather, emancipation. And as you will see from a few of these examples, it is not always because their parents are shitty or the kids trying to protect their money. In some cases, becoming your own legal guardian loosens up the child labor laws associated with kids working, which means the actor or actress are then free to take any roles they want, regardless of how much time is expected or location. But, in some other cases, it is because these kids have shitty parents, and outside of killing them, this was their best option. Safe to say if I was my own guardian, I would already be dead, three times over. These five seemed to fare much better than that. For the most part. But not really, though.
When was the last time you saw someone who scared you? And I don’t mean because they were carrying an axe, or dislocating their jaw to swallow a newborn whole. I mean based solely on how they looked? And I also want to stress, not because they intentionally tried to look scary, but because there was just something mutant-esque about them. And I don’t mean cool X-Men style mutants. No, I mean like “I might have a baby arm growing out of my back” mutants. The kind of person who blinks sideways, like some Men in Black cast off. Well, I’ll tell you right now, the people on this list scare the shit out of me, yet I am partially sure it would hurt their feelings if they found it out. In other words, there are no Marilyn Manson’s on this list. Nope, sad goth kids all grown up don’t scare me. Weird f*cking albino’s scare me. Like, for example….
Wes Anderson even makes suicide look beautiful.
Did you know Spring is the time when suicide rates are at their highest? Most people like to think it would be February (that great, gray beast), or maybe the middle of Summer, but no. And it is actually LOWEST around Christmas, despite whatever may cause you to think otherwise. And because I am insane and equate spring with death and not birth, I thought this would be an awesome time to talk about cinematic suicides that had an impact on me. I also knew this was the necessary next step in my series of alliteration articles, which is now two entries deep. Also, I wanted to take the time to say I am not in any way glamorizing suicide here. Quite the opposite, really. Sometimes, even in the case of cinema, we can see just how deeply these moments affect those around us, and maybe that will be enough to deter some people who oft (justifiably) feel trapped in a world of sadness. I also wanted to write this list to show how delicately suicide is handled, even in cinema. It is taboo and it is heart breaking, but in the same breath, it is all around us, and these moments, sadly and astutely, remind us of that.
How much you wanna bet that one of these two has a computer virus?
I know that title seems a heady concept to wrap your mind around, but give me a thousand words and I bet I can get you to agree with it. The idea is, if you were a teenager in the nineties, there were two things you were told and reminded about on a daily basis. Heroin will kill you and everyone has AIDS. Really. Our parents were the first generation who had to give the AIDS speech to their kids when they gave the sex speech, and considering there was no formal training for them on how to do it, they just told us to wear a condom, 24/7, and get into a monogamous relationship. And that, my friends, is what kept us line, and in some ironic way, probably kept our entire species from going extinct from poor decisions. Now that AIDS has become a manageable disease and no longer a life sentence for everyone, I can openly shill this theory for the public. I know it won’t sit well with everyone, but please, atleast hear me out.
All I wanted was to get some goddamned antihistamine at the dollar store. That’s it. That is all I wanted. But ofcourse, no matter where I go or what I do, assbags just seem to find me and attempt to shit on me in some way or another. And the kicker is I am really friendly. Like REALLY friendly. I honestly have no problems with anyone other than the usual chum scrubbers we all have problems with (bigots, pedophiles, bad drivers), but in the same breath, I have a switch. And when some ignoramus (yay for sounding like my Grandma) wants to test those limits, it flips my switch pretty quick. Like, for example, the racist old veteran who just told me, and I quote,”A Jap woulda cut my head off…” because of the hat I was wearing. No, really, this JUST happened to me a little under an hour ago. I am so filled with rage that it is hard to type this with shaky hands, but my hands are shaking from multiple revelations, which will reveal themselves over the course of this insane story. And though I say my life is like a movie, I never say from which genre. That is for you, and fate, to decide. I am leaning toward tragic comedy, though.
So I was talking to a good friend of mine today and he informed me he is in the current throes of passing a kidney stone. Whenever I hear those two words next to each other, kidney and stone, I get chills. The worst kind, too: Sweaty chills. Those moments when you get the chills and the sweats at the same time, and your body can’t decide which of the two is winning, so it lets you shiver while you are dripping sweat. Yes. Those chills.The reason I get those chills when I hear those words paired up is because about a year and a half ago, I had a run in with a rather cruel kidney stone of my own, a sort of many-pointed star of David, trying to find its way out of my urethra Franklin at the worst possible time. While I was buying a bag of weed. I wish I was kidding, but much like the rest of my insane tales, this one is true, and I held on to the stone as proof. Come on, I bonded with that thing. You don’t just throw away something that you bonded over almost dying with. No, you keep that shit in a jar and look at it every time you start taking life for granted. Don’t worry, I include pics, so you can just look at my kidney stone now when you are taking life for granted and don’t have to actually pass one. I took care of that part. Man, enough with the Pariah complex, huh? Anyway, on to the story of the Grape Nut that came out of my dick.
A quick disclaimer: I know not all Moms are awesome. I know some people were raised by drunk Moms or angry Moms,(or tan Moms) and in some cases, even abusive Moms, and none of the shout-outs here are aimed at any of them. They suck. But also, they are the minority when it comes to Moms. Most Moms are stellar creatures, driven by an instinct so strong, we men and non-parents cannot even fathom how it functions. But anytime we fell as a child, they were there, gingerly taking the sand out of our knee wound, all whilst kissing it better. And on the nights when we couldn’t sleep, they would come into our rooms and sing us songs, and even in extreme examples, let us crawl into bed with them, so we could siphon some of their sweet dreams. Is there anything in this world that loves more selflessly than a Mom? And truth be told, every voice in my life, at one point or another, told me to give up on writing, and pursue more “realistic” means, which I did for many years, yet my Mom always told me to keep writing. Told me I had a voice I needed to share. My Mom was the reason I carried a notebook at all times, and even wrote during my breaks from my shitty jobs. She nurtured a very important side of me while everyone else was trying to curb stomp it. My creative side. The side that pays my bills (barely) and puts (dollar store) food in my mouth, but still, I am living my dream because she NEVER stopped telling me I could, and when it finally happened, my Mom was the only person not even remotely surprised by it all. So join with me while I take a moment to thank all the good Moms of the world, for loving us so selflessly, and in the process, helping to teach us to love even the most wistful sides of ourselves, that most others tried to push away.
While I do talk about horror movies quite a bit here, and here, and here, one thing you will rarely hear me talking about anywhere are things that actually scare me. Not because I am one who doesn’t get scared, but because I believe speaking about certain things, like fears, give them energy. I believe that if you project something enough, you can manifest it. I know that sounds like something out of a bad B movie, but think about someone like Natalie Wood, and how she had feared boats her whole life and made that quite clear, and drown (in a fucked up way I will talk about in-depth in an article down the road) the first time she took a boat. Or Ritchie Valens, who refused to fly because he thought he would die, and one night he won (lost?) a coin toss, took a plane ride, and died. I know to be extreme examples, but still, one has to wonder if their lives would have played out differently had they not publicly aired those fears. But talking about fictional characters from films who scare the shit out of me? Now that is a place I can go, willingly. Some of these may seem like strange or obscure choices, and some cliché, but remembers, our fears are wildly unique to each one of us, and these five freaks seemed to feed into mine, and still sometimes haunt my nightmares as a result.
You guys know I don’t ask anything of my readers other than to read my ramblings, but every so often, I realize I might have a grasp that is just a wee bit longer than your average Joe and on that occasion, I try to use my powers for good and, in the process, ask that you all do, too. The story here is a woman who I am very dear friends with had a massive tragedy befall her family earlier this week (just about the scariest scenario you can imagine someone you love being in, a violent home invasion), and the end result is that they are now proverbially trapped up against a wall regarding medical bills and relocating, and a great deal of other tragedy-driven expenses they did not see coming. And the reality is they need some help, financially. Give a dollar. Give five. Give fifty. But know, you are helping a young family rebuild their lives after an unforgettably tragic moment. Outside of the time I asked you to donate for Cancer, I can’t think of a single way you could spend money more positively.
Flashback about seven years. I am working my old job at the laser tag arena (yes, seriously) and I am just standing around, minding my own business, most likely high off my ass. Suddenly and out of the blue, a cute (but rather young) girl runs over and grabs my black gel bracelet I am wearing, and tears it off, my wrist, while looking me in the eyes and grinning. I, being irrational and having no clue about much of anything, look down at my bracelet, now ripped in two in her hand, and I say: WHAT THE FUCK?! She looks terrified, and runs off down the hall, and out the exit. My friend Sara, who was working that day, too, walks over and proceeds to tell me that girl wanted to fuck me, and ripping off my black bracelet was her way of telling me that. I sat there, dumbfounded. Now I was never one to shy away from some sex, especially on the off-chance it happens THAT easily, but in the same breath, the girl was obviously younger than me, and as lazy as I am, you must be THIS TALL to ride this ride, if you know what I mean. But it hit me a minute later how extremely messed up this bracelet thing is. So gone is the need for young people to even say anything, now they can just break each others things as a sort of next level “grunting” until sex happens? Jesus Christ, what is wrong with the young generation? What pay off is there in that, anyway? Also, everyone is disgusting, and this shit needs to stop. I know I sound old, but in the same breath, I would rather sound old than sound like this current generation of teens who indiscriminately want to fuck like rabbits. Yes, sex is fun. But when sex boils down to breaking a bracelet, something is wrong with this world.
