It’s the morning after the Golden Globe awards. I don’t have a hangover but I do have a severe headache. Ahead of my rant, the first order of the day? Congratulate Barry Jenkins who brilliantly won the best drama golden globe for his exquisite film, Moonlight. By awarding this black/queer film best drama the HFPA have thrown down a gauntlet to Hollywood. They are daring The Academy to address its crippling lack of diversity. I predict that Moonlight will go on collecting nominations and awards (will win SAG, Spirit Awards) but can it win Academy Awards? Here lies the rub. The only two bankable commodities in this little film are Jenkins and Harris who are both Hollywood gold.
The liberal, Hollywood talent elite are trilling about Meryl Streep. They forget the less liberal Hollywood majority booed Michael Moore after receiving his Bowling for Columbine Oscar and using the academy podium to remind us of President Bush’s fictitious reasons for invading Iraq in his brilliant and oft quoted ‘fictitious times’ speech. President Obama of course, perpetuated those fictions but did it by stamping out dissent and whistle blowing within the United States. Snowden, Assange, Manning. My heroes.
The real money in Hollywood is behind Trump… the power. The talent can make art out of outrage and in turn make billions of $ for the white Hollywood establishment. I can’t imagine former friend and UTA boss Jeremy Zimmer is anything other than thrilled by the prospect of a Trump presidency, salivating over the kind of big money he’s going to make these next four to eight years.
I wonder who reps Barry Jenkins? I can tell you one thing. He won’t have a black agent or manager at one of the leading agencies or management companies… because there aren’t any. Until there are black faces repping big money at the agencies, black faces producing movies or living on Carbon Beach in Malibu or heading up the teamsters union… Hollywood will be as is it always has: racist. A white industry where predominantly white men control the money. It is not a place where your dreams will come true, it is a place where old white men will decide which of their dreams will come true using your talent.
It’s simply not good enough to call Trump names at award shows. Yeah he’s a prick, yeah he’s hollow, yes he’s predictable. Are we gonna repeat ourselves every day? Expecting a different outcome? Let’s call him what he is: Donald Trump is the most powerful white supremacist in the world. Riding an international wave of fascism. Your president is a white supremacist.
As I’ve asked a million times before, are you willing to put your life on the line to fight fascism? Are you willing to demonstrate, be interned or tortured or imprisoned? Sooner or later Facebook rants and memes just won’t cut it. History proves that when things get nasty the people do as they are told. However brave they say they are before the black shirts arrive. It’s my guess that you’ll put up with it too. You’ll go on the one million woman march… then they’ll round-up the South Americans in California and what will you do? Then they’ll go after lgbt rights… and what will you do? They’ll outlaw abortion. What will you do? They’ll shoot to kill and fill the prisons with any and every black man who looks scary and what will you do? Tweet?
You’ll tweet about it.
2.
I’m very slowly going blind. Foolishly, after many years of not looking carefully at my plate, I started wearing my glasses when I eat. Oh My God, revolting! Gelatinous sauces oozing from the edge of beef and chicken. Seeds baked into bread. Glazes and jus and creamed potato sprinkled with chives. I want to vomit, overwhelmed by the detail, the slightest movement as you press down onto the burger and my lunch becomes a suppurating sore discharging blood, guacamole and mayonnaise. I am captivated by gravy as it seeps under and drips around roast pork. Nauseated, I have to take my glasses off. On Saturday night we had pasta with sea urchin butter and caviar at Fish and Game in Hudson. Although delicious, I couldn’t fully enjoy it until it was just a blur on my plate otherwise, it was a mesmerizing… awful experience.
3.
The dogs know it is bitterly cold this morning. Minus 13. They are under the covers. Hidden away. Unlike England which is cold, wet, dark and raw thankfully it is bright and cold here upstate making the day less of a chore. Our store, Tivoli General is open and there are AA meetings in Hudson.
I stayed in bed, too distracted by pain. The infection in my jaw getting worse.
The third Monday of January is notorious for suicide. This third Monday in January will be no different. A mass suicide event will take place in the USA and nobody will say a word.
Did you know I fell out with Stephen Fry a year or so ago? I had the audacity to mention the freedoms and privilege a celebrity enjoys. Celebrities HATE when you discuss their fame. Or in his case… his twitter feed. We then had an email fight about God and the existence of God. I asked him if he realised almost all of his sober friends have a god in their life. He reluctantly accepted that spirituality may be very loosely beneficial for some people but that’s that. There’s a connection (if you can be bothered to work it out) between his reluctance to discuss celebrity and his eagerness to dismiss a certain kind of God. “Stephen, you don’t have to believe in God,” I said. “As long as you know you’re not God.”
He said rather ominously, “Be very careful.”
Not being very careful, I asked, “So if you don’t belive in God… who do you cry out to every time you try killing yourself?”
That was it. No more Stephen Fry.