We're Not Gonna Take It, Anymore

Many journalists got the mystique of the Johnny Depp defamation trial all wrong.  I've read countless articles that miss the main point of the common (wo)man's intrigue.   First of all, a lot of young, brainless trolls are making Tik Tok videos mocking Amber Heard. That type of gotcha nonsense doesn't exist and should be ignored.  I wanted to hear her story. I had no idea she was bonkers. I hoped Depp wasn't a wife beater but was ready for any outcome.  Amber Heard was whacked out on that stand and it was entertaining in a sick sort of way.  I didn't feel good about it, but I couldn't not watch her squirm inducing testimonies without shaking my head and for the first time in a while, feeling glad my life is so simple.  

But here was a man that didn't take being brought down unfairly without a fight, even if it meant airing his worst behavior through audio and pictures.  His addictions on full display.  That took a lot of guts, especially for someone who is so private.  His reasoning and explanations, rang true for the most part, even though it also revealed many revolting parts of his character.  

This trial consumed me for many of the reasons some articles point out.  The world is a scary place right now.  Name your worst fear and I'll bet it exists in some form today. Of course we want to escape in a mystery with a good plot, with likable characters and a villain.

Of course an emotional trial featuring one of our most treasured actors being accused of heinous acts is by itself intriguing enough.    Frankly, Ms Heard was already suspect in her motives and when our coveted actor married her, many of us believed it would end poorly but could never predict this.  During the trial, she clearly lied about so much that to try to dig for morsels of truth, became pointless.  But, I'm sure it's there.  Something probably did happen, but it's nothing like she's telling it.  Regardless of all the obvious appeal, and that our interest in this particular celebrity couple is multi-leveled, the core fascination goes much deeper.   This story also connects to our current boiling point from the progressive bullying and redefining of reality.  We're ready to fight back ourselves, before we see another man go down unjustly, in ways we never agreed to operate. 

If you were paying any attention, you saw this was a blatant set up.  Amber taped her marital conversations, said things on the recordings that were clearly framing and throughout was paving a story line straight out of the Gone Girl movie. Could someone play the world for such fools under the cloak of the #metoo movement and get away with it?  Then, the ACLU helps her to write a story to bring a powerful man down, tagging on their own agendas to this damaged girl.  But the joke was on them because they probably never bothered to check her sanity level.  If it was good enough for the British courts, right?  Wrong.  We covet our stars.  We get into the crevices of their personalities.  Johnny Depp was guilty of a lot of things but just not the ones she was serving up.  Instead of uncovering his criminal deeds, this trial publicized Heard's own sneaky physical abuse and their toxic dynamic.  We heard a man trying his hardest to walk away when she became violent, locking himself in rooms like a vampire so that he doesn't attack her back.  

Articles this morning say the win was about who had the most Star power.  Way off!  Had she been sincere and copped to some of her own crazy, she would have support.  But her stories were unfathomable. She went beyond the beyond.  Further proving she was not only falsifying each encounter in some way but was directly operating maliciously and calculated, for years!  Alternately, he bared his worst moments and we saw the real Johnny, stuttering, broken at points, but he was no wilting flower and was not going to let her take him down.  It took too long, but he did fight back, in court.  We heard him beg her to stop the legal mess before she regretted it, that they could settle amicably, which told me he understood it was two-sided, and neither was innocent.  Meaning both were guilty. 

This story is huge because a man stood up to the dark side of the #metoo movement. One that has turned irrational with their demands, just like it's radical creators.  When Vogue recently wrote the ridiculous, It's time to believe all women piece, it became clear to me why many of us took this trial as a final test to see if the world had gone entirely mad.  This is serious, Vogue got that part right.  Believe all women as they state it doesn't serve common logic.  Believe all victims, might be a better statement.  Either way, unfortunately women and men lie, batterers absolutely do, but occasionally women lie.  Especially scorned, mentally ill starlets suffering from abandonment issues, apparently.  It still doesn't change that most normal women who will come forward with physical and sexual abuse charges mainly tell the truth.  We're talking about Amber Heard specifically, the woman who should not be the spokesperson for women's causes.  

If what I believe is true, Amber Heard did a terrible injustice to the #MeTooMovement and also committed perjury.  If that's the poster child, then the movement has become radicalized.  Women should be calling her on it.  Not demonizing her on TikTok but not allowing corruption in our own circle.  This soils our attempts to correct past injustices on women.  Instead, now the movement is blaming our court system, blaming us.  We do have a responsibility to be considerate and thoughtful.  I believe my sins provide a hell suitable for my crimes and no one has the right to judge my character but these things are changing our lives and we can't let them keep happening.  This has nothing to do with Amber's rights to act or model.  I would never consider taking that from her, or assume I have any right to do so.  

I don't believe Amber Heard nor Johnny Depp will stop actual victims of domestic violence from coming forward.  If anything they've only shed light on unique rich people problems that most of us wouldn't have the luxury of suffering.  Their marital oddities were simply a leech on the skin of the real issue.  Powerful men do get away with too much and we'd all love to bring some down.  This was just the wrong woman to do the job.  

Johnny heard his rants in these recordings, calling his wife a cunt, screaming obscenities and vile things at her. He did do that and it's inexcusable behavior.  He'll have to live with that.  Is it abuse punishable by law?  In many circumstances, yes.  That's why I think Heard botched her case by coming with such preposterous tales.  She had a shot if she could have just been more credible and honest with her own faults. It makes you wonder why she was so ill advised.  I think her inability to lose some ego, lead to giant holes in her stories. How can one get raped on a table by maybe a broken bottle and not know, then bleed and not get medical help.  Could you have also been so high on drugs that the night became a blur and you're not sure what happened?  That could be understand by a jury but to go take a long nap and then come down to tend to your rapist's 'self' wounds cannot be. 

Why does any of this matter to us beyond entertainment?  Many of us can no longer give consent to unsound logic just because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  There is only the truth and no one gets to have their own in opposition to reality.  

This trial is what happens when people believe we can hold individual truths.   If Amber would have spoken 'the' truth, she may have won because many of us believe there was abuse but instead she didn't, she doubled-down on her fabrications. It's not 'time' to believe all women as Vogue would have you believe.  It's time to get honest.  Granted, this time with more mindfulness of all the past hatred that made us so skittish of words that we became silent.  We should be able to say that this 'woman' who painted herself as Mother Theresa lied on the stand and was herself an abuser that labeled herself a victim, which is insane and disgraceful.  That doesn't say anything negative to actual victims, it doesn't send any message at all.  We can still stand with honest women.  In the end, we, the middle, lost a lot of ground by being complicit in our silence through the last years.  It is far better to give the straight dope than placate people. It's more respectful to them.   

At every turn from the silent kneelng to marching for Police brutality, these organized movements have taken our good nature, put words in our mouths, and took some out.  I never said I want cops dead. I am not obsessed with celebrity.  And now after what sure looked like perjury to me, we're supposed to shut down our reactions because it's going to stifle some housewife who's husband kicks the shit out of her if his baseball team loses?   Nope, not buying this half-baked logic any longer.  Just like the passive mom that finally loses her shit when that last straw finally sends her over the edge, we are done with this tomfoolery.  

This cowering started because we wanted to support the rights of people that have been bullied or abused, made to feel inferior.  Because we do have tons of compassion and understanding and lots of stuff was going on that wasn't right.  Of course we wanted to stand by folks that needed help.  Good people have gone along with these organized movements but now we're living out the equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes story of our childhood.  More and more is asked of us, it keeps coming, getting harder and harder to swallow.  Now it's playing us for fools.  Amber gathered all her cultural weapons thinking we'd fall in line and remain compliant.  We are that mom now, saying, this stops Right Now!  We can no longer go along with a blatant disregard for reality.  THAT is why this trial was so important.  That's why we followed along as if it affected us, because it does.  Johnny Depp is that last straw.  He may be a highly imperfect person, a terrible husband at certain points but he sobered up enough to realize that baloney could have gone on forever.  He ended it, painful as it was.  In fact, as he was an abuse victim too, he displayed key noble acts in attempts to save the marriage and correct their vial behavior by paying for round the clock nurses and psychiatrists, therapists and counselors.  His was an ugly truth, but at least it's real. 

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What's It All About, Alfie?

How sweet is this? Candy coated strawberries and grapes.

There is a cool cat at work named Reggie, who could be Snoop Dogg's grandmother.  She's over 76, tall and lean, wears bright yellow high tops and has a stride as smooth as Larry David.  In her delightful deep, raspy voice, she offers me a free sample of her daughter's fruit and sugar laced creations.  I love strawberries so this was a welcome treat.

Every emotion that comes out of this woman feels contrived and deceptive but Johnny needs to stop laughing.  I want to slap them both at this point.

That's the way the Johnny Depp Defamation trial feels, like someone just gave me a giant, delicious, red strawberry.  Its unclear why it's so satisfying.  It's escapism with a twist of realism. I have the tiniest of doubt there is an actual abuse story in this heap of random falsehoods.  Testimony from real victims of domestic violence looks much different.  However, Hollywood really needs a special set of rules for evaluating these types of accusations.  The stakes become more complicated when people become commodities.  There could be ulterior motives, much to gain, financially and power oriented plays.  Timing could also be very key for these folks that need to control their image at specific times.  This particular starlet carries all the perfect ingredients for exactly this type of assorted nonsense.   When the very gracious, Believe all Women chant began, many people knew this was coming, the predictable opportunist.  The #MeToo movement was sure to release the Kraken of all scorned women as society is clearly producing more dregs in every sex.    

I've watched more of the trial than I care to admit and it's a drag to hear the grotesque personal relationship banter that was normal for both of them. Johnny's drug abuse at a particular time is extreme but not significant unless this is the time he became violent and broke his normal persona.  I have a smidgen of doubt because there is a difference in a person who's doing coke versus opiates and Amber speaks of this, possibly honestly.  Speedy drugs with high amounts of alcohol might prime you to become violent.  His bodyguards and managers said Johnny had a super high tolerance for alcohol.  I've known a lot of drunks and druggies though I've never known that combination, someone so low key and overly polite that once high would be capable of rape and the most atrocious violence.  In all of my experience, passives prefer heroin, sinking further into numbness.   But its also hard to grasp the woman who would outright lie about something so extremely heinous.  She has no credible evidence despite being a serial photographer and recorder of her relationship.  That is hard to believe.   It's hard to get passed the fact that she never sought treatment for bleeding of the vagina for example, after being raped with a broken bottle, or that someone making money off her looks wouldn't go have a broken nose checked out.  She's described living through real life action scenes from Die Hard movies, yet suffered injuries no one even noticed.  Again, if her accounts are not true, what kind of monster falsely accuses someone of such serious crimes and then claims to still love them?  I watched two hours of a group of body language experts saying this was the only time in decades of experience, that they were unanimous in certainty that Amber's testimonies hold massive deception and lies. 

Life is hard right now, also unclear why it feels that way.  Sure, there is impending doom most areas you look, whether it be violence near you, disease around the corner, weather disasters, drought, war, inflation. Many dark clouds hover over us.  Still, nothing feels normal anymore, even though some days are uneventful.  Time feels different under the surface.  I can't help but notice much of what happens in the physical plane feels senseless, slightly meaningless all of the sudden.  This shit is broken, this way we're living life right now.  

I hear educated, respectable people discussing this now.  Even though it scares the bejesus out of me, I hold a lot of faith we are being forced to shift directions, to experience life from a different angle.  Life truly is only a birdsong, as Johnny said in his Depposition.  It isn't about getting money and better looking houses.  Brazilian butts are not the answer.  Cheek implants are not going to bring us closer to knowing love.  Revenge and self righteousness is hollow.  I believe in my gut the human experience can be incredibly satisfying if we could just be slapped awake.  Not woke, but awake. 

All of this new violence and deceit, contempt, in pretty packages in the guise of being strong, are all part of this sick monster.  I want no part of this.  But philosopher's say we are part of it, no matter how we may want to distance ourselves.  This ugliness is in us too and we must recognize it with as much mercy as we can muster.

In that way, I am only watching minimal parodies of this trial, even though YouTube is flooding my feed with hilarious 'take downs'.  Instead, I'm trying to consider how painful, even if she's outright lying, this must be for Ms. Heard.  There is a hell in there somewhere.  That isn't something I'd wish even on a lying sack.  Then, on the other hand in the oddest case that this bad-acting, no-evidence-producing-lunacy is true, how horrible to live through such intense scrutiny and see the offender protected and loved by the masses.  

Anyway you slice this shit pie, it's a sad mirroring of us, society, the world today, and how we process it through our individual minds does matter.  

What's it all about, Alfie
Is it just for the moment we live
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie
Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it's wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule
As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie
I know there's something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in
I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love we just exist, Alfie
Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie
When you walk let your heart lead the way 

And you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie 

Light Em Up and Watch Them Burn, Teach Them What They Need to Learn

Springtime coming in strong 

Everyone take their seats and enjoy these lovely photos of spring blooming in Brooklyn before I tell a dark tale. 

This is a tale of the death of my old, warped, cheap-ass sheet pan that lasted forever and did me good for years, how I got a new cast iron one, that doesn't fit in my oven and how this is all related to the Johnny Depp Defamation case.   Good luck!  I have no idea how this will connect but it's a morning writing exercise for me and I aim to do well.

One night I came home late, was hungry but didn't want to make a meal.  I took some store bought chips and this odd pre-sliced jalapeno jack cheese that we never buy.  I put the chips, cheese and pickled jalapenos under the broiler to make quick no fuss nachos.  Only a minute passed before they suddenly became inflamed, like foot tall blazing flames pouring out of the broiler.  When I realized the fire wasn't going out even after I turned everything off, I yelled for help.  The blaze continued, getting even higher, it was wild.  Covering the combustion with wet rags didn't extinguish but finally after several frantic attempts, together, we put the fire out and were able to handle the pan.  No nachos were to be had this night and the pan was toast.  It was time, this had been coming for awhile. This pan was bad from the start, was never a quality product and I should not have used it to broil.  I was being cheap.  I continued to use it well beyond it's expiration date, after it warped, after it began smelling like kerosene.  

I bought a new pan, of sturdy cast iron.  Being 15" x 10" I was sure it would fit nicely into my 24" oven.  All was well. Only, it doesn't fit in my oven but I can force it diagonally, so I'll probably live with this nonsense for too long.  I don't learn easily or smoothly.

Amber Heard was always too young for Mr Depp and it was ignorant of him to start a marriage with someone who clearly was not the right fit.  Emotionally though, perhaps they were better matched as he seemed to be stunted in that area regarding jealousy and relationship behavior. despite his age.  They could now live out high school era shenanigans, for better or worse in the privacy of one of his many dwellings.  But when you keep ignoring blatant signs of actual trouble, you set yourself up for future blow-outs, like these blackened nachos.  It was inevitable this would end badly for them.  We all choose our own suffering in some respect, even though we can't see it all the time.  My pan was old and not in good shape.  The new cheese had some chemical perhaps they add to keep the slices from sticking and together they created a burning pit of fire.  

A gold-digging, psychologically-damaged hottie mixed with an aging, beloved actor who was primed to deal with his demons in the most dramatic, drawn out, drug-induced way possible is definitely a recipe for disaster.  

If I put this bitch in catty-cornered, she works but in the future I'll measure the inside dimensions.

And similar to my new durable pan that's near perfect, but doesn't quite fit, Johnny may not find or even choose the right woman the next time but it's how he deals with those obstacles that will determine if he's learned anything.