Well, today is not that late but I’m sleepy and tired so it’s better to write now!
Today I took my family to “The Van Gogh Immersive Experience”, we’ve been waiting for this event for months and it was a beautiful moment within a not-so-nice week, LOL so definitely worth it!
My kid was ecstatic! It was fun, he told me “dad I’m feeling mythological right now!” It was so funny, he’s 7 and he really likes the universe so while learning the names of planets and constellations he came to learn about Greek mythology. I’m pretty sure he meant “dad, this unreal” but yeah -I got it, little chap!
Also, I posted today about my Music Crisis which is a recurring (and annoying) situation that pushes me to discover new music (so it actually has a good outcome). And I’m excited because this is the beginning to start writing my music reviews.
You know? It might not sound like much, but having this little website and writing on a daily basis really makes my life much better; I’ve been suppressing this part of me for years but I’ve never stopped to dream about writing regularly. Now I’m doing it! I’m really living one of my dreams right now and that’s a big thing 🙂 .
I want to thank you, sincerely, for reading me. I added a Contact page today, and look, I work in technology but I don’t have any experience with websites and it was such a pain to find out what to do!!! Believe it or not, I actually changed my theme back to this black theme just because I ruined things so badly that I had to get back to something relatively known to fix it from there. But I made it!
My preferred way of getting in touch is via Instagram, I post art every day, and content which you will find complements this site quite well so I’d really like you to follow me there, pretty please! I answer messages and if you’re also building an audience and ask me, I’ll be glad to follow you back, as long as you’re a human and not a bot.
Alright, let me clarify, it’s serious enough for me to dedicate time to resolve and alleviate it, and time is precious to me; it’s not serious enough to need a special therapy session or be impaired by it. It’s my music crisis a rather annoying recurring phenomenon that on the positive side, pushes me to expand my musical horizons.
So my intention is to use this situation to bootstrap my section about music commentary in this blog since it’s really where everything began.
Let me begin by saying, like many other stories in my life, this is a story of discovery and expansion after a long period of repression. In this particular case, that repression was self-inflicted due to a need to conform to a specific group of people. I am a metalhead, and I still consider myself that, in this day and age where metal seems to be dead for everyone but a small cult following. Back in my teenage days, being a metalhead was, of course, more than a musical taste; back then metal used to be the music of the outcasts, the angry and the oppressed youth that wanted to see things burn, so it fit me perfectly because that was me, a fucking cliché of a kid with a broken family, a history of abuse, a deep hatred for religion rooted in the same family conflict, and the works. You name it, fucked up kid I was.
So although I still listen to a lot of metal music and some of my best memories from my teenage years are related to this music, friends, events, and the beauty of rebellion (that I haven’t lost), there was a downside to it: metal was in my time, a rather closed circle, it implied hating or despising most mainstream music and attitudes (even the “NuMetal” which was really the sound of my teenage years). So a respectable metalhead was a bit of a purist, knew a lot of band names, band member names, band records, and dates of release, preferred the obscure, more underground bands over the most successful ones, and took pleasure in introducing especially brutal stuff to others and so on. Lots of fun, but also lots of pressure and work!
That’s the self-inflicted repression I was talking about, no time for other musical exploration except if it was somehow within the acceptable parameters as an adult I started to realize this was OK for a stage in life, but I realized the world was much wider and there’s lots of amazing music to be enjoyed outside the ranks of metal. So I listened to the same stuff for so long that it became stale and I stopped enjoying it, that was my first musical crisis.
Now you may find that term funny, well that’s fine, look at the title of this article section, it’s not that serious but it’s very annoying because I’m one of those people who simply won’t function in life without music. I’m listening to music when I wake up and take a shower, I listen to music all day at work, and I sometimes stop working and go straight to sing karaoke (of course I have karaoke gear at home), I listen to music when I study, drive, work out and so on… So being such a musical creature it really fucks your day up when you’re blocked and don’t want to listen to anything because of how tired you are or what you know, but also you know it will be hard to get into something new that can really excite you. That’s the second issue, not just any new music will do.
But I had to do something about it…
Introducing… more metal
Yeah, for real. I know it’s disappointing but bear with me for a second here. xD
So yeah I solved my first crisis with more metal, that’s true and doesn’t seem to be quite a change; but this was a different brand of metal that took me to other places and music styles, it’s called “atmospheric black metal” and other variants like “atmospheric folk black metal” and the names can go on forever but they’re like, similar.
This is beautiful music, which is also sad and gloomy typically, so this is not a recommendation if you’re depressed and not used to listening to the heavy stuff. But even as I’m writing this article I’m listening to a band named Agalloch which was one of my first discoveries from that time.
Now having said that, if you would ever browse my Spotify library, you wouldn’t believe the blend; from Cuban salsa, choral renaissance music, and alternative, to dream pop, indie, country and so on. So yeah, I ended up exploring a lot more than metal, this was like baby steps for me though. I sound like in a support group for metal addicts, LOL.
So that’s it for today, that’s the introduction, the upcoming articles about music are really the detail of my adventures listening to new music and my thoughts on it.
So today’s post is going to be mainly about fatherhood, so for you who don’t like kids, see you tomorrow, LOL. I don’t judge, I hate kids but my own xD
But seriously, today was awfully tiring, a very tough work day with a lot of time-sensitive deliverables, an angry boss, and not a lot of motivation. Now my wife and I had an appointment to visit a new school for my kid since he’s really having a bad time in the current one, getting bored and not being challenged enough; man that place made me want to go back to school! It has it all; all sorts of clubs, sports spaces, a large pool, cool technology, and the works.
Of course, painfully expensive as fuck, obviously.
But not outside our possibilities, I’m very careful not to step into financial distress willingly, still committing to almost double the current fee makes you really consider it. And there’s where I found my motivation for this shitty day and more to come, honestly. I’ve never been like a super fatherly guy, actually, I struggle with this because of my own childhood and father figure issues related to it; but today, I felt what I do really does count, for this kid it could mean a huge difference in his life opportunities. We chose to take the challenge next year.
It’s funny though, I oppose the idea of fatherhood being a constant denial of one’s own goals and projects in favor of a kid or kids; to me, that’s a fucking pathetic excuse (exceptions exist) to stop growing personally and have a “morally acceptable” excuse for it: change my mind. So this is not what it means to me, I remember when he was born I took a really scary step in my life, I quit a perfectly stable and well-paid cybersecurity job and started my consultancy business, and left for Africa for several months without knowing anything at all about what was coming for me. Doing this took me places in my life I never thought I would reach, so knowing I’m someone’s example actually has made me bold, and way more interested in unleashing my full potential, rather than the opposite.
OK, so that’s that; also Father’s Day is coming and I got a very nice present from my kid (my wife really, I’m sure you get it) and it’s… (drums please…) 1984 by George Orwell!
I was really looking forward to engaging in this read, I read “Animal Farm” earlier this year and well, I do like dystopian stories because they prepare me psychologically for the future, LMAO xD [actually crying inside].
So heeeeey, it’s night again and not only that but a Sunday night! Seriously, are you reading me at this ungodly hour? xD
Big day today for blogging, it was my second day since I published this blog and for a Sunday there were a lot of reads and even some likes, thanks so very much! And it was kind of an important day because today I did not publish poetry but movie analysis! Yeah, that’s right! I’m starting a 4-part series on Fight Club and I’m thrilled since this is hands down one of my favorite movies from my teenage years (yeah I know, I know I’m kinda old).
On another topic, I returned to the gym after a month of absence and it felt great! I’ve dropped a lot of weight and I’m slowly but surely transitioning to a much healthier lifestyle which I feel very proud of given I used to be quite self-destructive not so long ago. So yeah, feeling good but super tired!
I got to spend some very nice time with my son today, he’s 7 and quite a little genius (no, for real teachers don’t know what to do about it ). So since he gets so bored and is always getting A’s, I came up with the “Science Club” so on Sundays I spend some time together learning more advanced subjects and he loves it, so I teach him math from upper grades and today we started learning Middle School Biology and Physics, he was so thrilled! Now having said that, he did have the creepiest idea: I told him I would get him a microscope and he says he wants to see an E-Coli bacteria so he’s gonna put some poop on a slide for us to view it 😦 . Can anyone put in the comments a nice way to deny this initiative? LOL.
Alright, this is enough for a Sunday night and I hope you have an amazing week!
It’s quite a challenge to begin this post, so fuck it, I’ll just go with the flow.
I’ve been watching this movie repeatedly for the past month or so, I mean really watching it, studying it. I’ve been doing this partly because I’d like to understand how to build a story that’s so engaging and intense, I’ve been a fan of this movie since it premiered, and I was 13 years old at that time. But then as I analyzed the timelines, transitions, winks, and omens throughout the movie, I also started to assimilate the philosophical, psychological, political, and anthropological aspects that it communicates, which makes it so content-rich and provides so many layers of analysis.
I know this may sound like a lot and it is.
The Big Picture
Probably it’s easier to just start with more general aspects and then zoom into the specifics; now having said that, this is going to be full of spoilers so if you have not viewed this picture before, please do (it’s pretty old now so my conscience is clean when it comes to spoilers 🙂 ).
Fight Club is not for the faint of heart, let’s just cut the crap: it’s a violent film, pretty violent for being on the mainstream side. Now, this last statement could provide for an interesting debate: do we consider Fight Club to be indie or mainstream? LOL; I’d say it’s conceptually a very indie movie, with a cast and budget of a mainstream Hollywood movie, and while this could easily be a recipe for disaster, I believe David Fincher made a gem out of it.
Like many awesome stories, this one comes from a novel of the same name written by Chuck Palahniuk. Reading it is definitely on my TODO list, but I haven’t and I’m analyzing the story based on what’s communicated by the movie, sorry to disappoint you if you’re a hardcore fan of the author.
The movie centers around the psychology of the narrator and a series of events triggered in his life, so a lot of first-person interactions are used freely throughout the movie, this will make it easy for you as a spectator to get sucked right into the intensity of the events very easily. Notice how I wrote “the narrator”, and there’s a reason to it, if you’ve paid attention Edward Norton’s character is never, ever named. There are even certain moments in the movie where the director seems to mock us by deliberately avoiding the subject in situations that require the character to identify himself:
Marla Singer: ‘It doesn’t have your name, who are you? Cornelius? Rupert? Travis? Any of the stupid names you give each night?”???: “Tyler Durden” Tyler Durden: “Did you know if you mixed equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate you can make napalm?”
In the first scene, he avoids providing his name directly by not giving importance to Marla’s comment and we kind of understand it because they seem to dislike each other and are also into that whole “careless, nihilistic” attitude towards life, so no need for social pleasantries here. In the second scene, Tyler gives the narrator his business card and this calls for a similar reply from the narrator, but immediately Tyler just starts being Tyler and speaking on how to create home-made explosives so that pulls our attention away from the fact that at this point we know a lot about the narrator, but his name. Now I believe there’s a deeper reason for this than mere eccentricity but I will keep that for another article (please subscribe to my blog, LOL).
Besides the starring character and eye of the storm, Mr. ???, the movie introduces us to other three delightful characters and I need to say that even Jared Leto and Holt McCallany have amazing secondary participation, but the other three core characters in Fight Club are in order of appearance:
Narrator: “Bob had bitch tits”
Robert Paulson a.k.a “Bob”: Sweetest-guy-ever-Bob, is introduced early in the movie as part of a support group for men with testicular cancer. Throughout the movie, Bob undergoes quite a transformation yet I do believe his essence remains untouched until the very end, he provides a degree of humor to the overall dark humor that permeates the whole movie (think of how he’s introduced: “This is Bob. Bob had bitch tits”) and also a degree of tenderness and human empathy, as he’s one of the few people Mr. ??? seems to genuinely care about.
Marla Singer: “Slide”
Marla Singer: Marla is probably one of the most deceiving, ambiguous, and complex characters I’ve ever come across with. I wrote that I’ve been a fan of this movie since I was 13 years old, well I’m 35 now and it’s until the year of this post (2022) that I’ve come to understand how important this girl is in the whole balance of crazy events happening in this movie. Marla is (I’ll try to keep this short), the infamous, despicable antagonist that triggers the chaotic events in this story, and the beloved-actually-deep-adult-woman and decadent-punkish version of the “damsel-in-distress” that brings closure and resolution to the madness of Mr. ???, the most fucked up Prince Charming you could ever imagine. The narrator says it in the introduction to the movie when he’s been threatened with a gun:
Narrator: “And suddenly, I realize that all of this, the gun, the bombs, the revolution has got something to do with a girl named Marla Singer”Tyler Durden: “Hit me as hard as you can…”
Tyler Durden: There’s no Fight Club without Tyler Durden, there’s no hero without a villain, and there’s no mayhem and delightful madness in this movie without the psychotic yet weirdly philosophical architect of chaos, personified by Brad Pitt. Tyler is the ultimate anti-hero, a firm believer in anarchy who’s not only an ideological zealot but also a very dangerous executor of his ideas to bring forth the destruction of our current system. Having said that, Tyler is hypnotically appealing, a strong man who’s a magnet for the outcasts of this world with a charisma that makes him the life and soul of this dark party called “Fight Club”.
Fight Club in 3-D
I don’t think it would be of any benefit to narrate here or summarize the succession of events that involve these characters, I’d say: go ahead and watch the movie, and then come back for the next three articles which is what I’m calling “Fight Club in 3-D”, as I will do my best to analyze 3 dimensions or layers in the narrative of this amazing story and I’m not saying they’re the only ones but they’re the dimensions I’m compelled to write about at this point in time:
The mental health dimension: There’s an undeniable mental health topic and conflict surrounding Fight Club that’s absolutely interesting and even productive to analyze and understand.
The sociological and political dimension: There’s discomfort and a more globally-significant element in this movie that leads progressively to the manifestation and justification of criminal behavior, behavior that starts becoming terrorism as we understand it. While I don’t think the story is an apology to terrorism, it definitely provides solid elements to analyze the phenomenon from a more human perspective, not necessarily from what propaganda would have us think.
The relational dimension: Although it may be a bit hidden from the viewer the first time, studying this movie will start revealing interesting relational dynamics: love-hate-love (narrator and Marla / Tyler and Marla), power and dependence (narrator and Tyler), and more which I believe justify dedicating an article to them.
I hope you enjoy this analysis and the articles to come! I will be posting a lot about Fight Club on my Instagram account jjosu_minded so follow me there for more daily content!
Alright! So this is really really exciting, you’re witnessing a historical moment, the first entry in the jjosuminded.com Late Night Journal, heeey!!!
In this site you’ll see a lot of what’s on my mind: poetry, opinion on arts and music, cultural commentary and so on.
But this is none of that, so I dare saying this section is for fans only 😉 Not serious at all, but as intimate as I can allow it to be, again, for fans…
This is a freely written journal I’ll keep writing at night, because there’s a special magic late at night, like a daring electricity that excites the imagination! Some of the craziest and most exciting ideas I’ve had, happened at night, most of them are stupid AF but well, there’s a magic to it.
I have to confess I’m a bit tipsy right now, I know I’m not exactly a cowboy when it comes to drinking, it’s odd I can drink 6-8 straight scotches in a row and still behave decently, but there’s something to wine (and specially Sangría) that kicks me so hard!
In any case, here are the random thoughts for the night!
This past Thursday I had an appointment to renew my passport, long story short, I’m applying for a possibility to obtain European residency so it was pretty important for me. Because eveything government-related is fucking clumpsy in this country, I had to drive 200+ KM to have my fucking passport renewed. Annoying as it was, it gave me the opportunity of visit a coastal province that’s very close to my heart. Man I was so depressed, this place is to poor and backwards in time, it seems like a completely different reality than my everyday life which I feel is very blessed; this province is important to me because I lived there for a short time as a kid and because my dear uncle died there this year, having loved this place and built a family there during his lifetime. I’m decided that when I achieve to amass a good capital I’ll go back and explore ways to develop this area, which is in terrible neglect.
On the good news (this should have been point 1), today I’m launching this web site! And I’m SO THRILLED! I mean I’ve set up websites in the past for businesses I had but this is different, because this is a portal into my mind and my whole life plan transtitioning to an active career as a writer, which has been a struggle for many years (I’ll tell you more details later). In any case, besides publishing my first modest posts, I’ve received almost immediate support by other bloggers and readers and I’m so thankful!!! Thanks for liking my poetry, it means the world to me!
Just visited a small restaurant, grill style, and ate a true feast for a very affordable price so I’m super satisfied. There was live music and I thought on how I’d love to play at a bar in the near future (I’m a bit of a music enthusiast), and it’s certainly among my plans to have my own restaurant/bar/theatre to present my own shows and the ones of crazy, talented artists doing things worth witnessing.
Also, I’ve been thinking about NFTs. Man, it’s so hard to control emotions when it comes to collectibles! I’ve got my eye on Tripsters (already own 2) and Cets on Creck (but, fuck they’re expensive 😦 ) . And it’s bear market now so prices are loooow. But then again, I’m also “adulting” lately and realizing this is a hobbie for people with a lot more money and/or less responsibilities than I do; honestly it’s a high-risk gamble and it’s expensive. So, I decided once I achieve my savings/invesment goals (working two jobs rn, so I’m fucking serious about my goals) , I’ll give myself a break and purchase some nice NFTs and hopefully some of them turn out to be a good investment.
Final one: I’m watching a series called “Severance” in Apple TV+. It’s produced by Ben Stiller and it’s just amazing. I won’t spoil, but they really manage to portray the psychological dynamics of population control by adoctrination/ideology quite well, while preserving a somewhat dystopian but relatively grounded reality of people whose memory has been split in two in order to have two “personas”: one with a personal life, and one exclusively with a work life. It gets creepy very fast and if you read into it, it also provides some good criticism concerning power dynamics, personal freedom and corporate/political tensions in society. Definitely worth watching, compelling visuals and strong characters which are carefully and well developed.
In silence, the waves have stopped, the voices of the crowd fade and the ones who would listen, are behind thick walls.
As the bud sprouted before the smile of the heavens, there it found me, ripping apart my enclosure traveling further than my wings could ever endure.
Then it resonated boldly inside of me:
“This is the time, this child that has been growing in my mouth, it’s screaming and asphyxiating me with its feathers. I must release it before it kills me.”
So I did.
And I saw it, in awe, filling up the skies with a haunting melody, this melody was colorless and yet, soaked in blue.
My heart fainted and my eyes, my eyes were mist, at the beauty trapped in me for so long, in the cruelest captivity.
And then, In silence, the waves have stopped, the voices of the crowd fade and the thick walls mock at my dismay.
Unaware of my resolve, to put colors in that song and console that free child, now in the open world, now unrestrained, yet all alone.
a rather annoying recurring phenomenon that on the positive side, pushes me to expand my musical horizons. 
jjosuminded 