watching paranoid park (imdb.com): first i thought its something from 70s, than i realized that skaters are dressed in today’s stuff and after few more mins i realized i should check this movie online and i then i realized its gus van sant.

i like gus van sant. he made some cool films. i always loved my private idaho, it is a perfect film.

i think paranoid park is a bit too stylish for me, i mean he did get lost in his own eye candy way too much in the last few years. he could be more modest and less stylish, but that is too hard. maybe a bit of larry clark rip off? but is it possible to make a true movie about teenage skaters without being a larry clark ripoff – he owns it!

i like the idea of the story (spoiler alert!): kid kills the security guard, than deals with it in his own way and processes it. he himself finds a way to render his own guilt and follow through with his daily life. police tries to get to him, his father is super useless, his mom is mega clueless, only his new girlfriend has a quite useful suggestion for him how to put an end to this event in his life: she suggests he writes her a letter and burns it after.

so the whole point of the story is that he fucks up, he did not want to fuck up but it happens anyway, so now he has to figure out what next. and he searches. knows the police is no good, parents – his first instinct is his blurred tattooed bullshit father, yet his mother’s face is not even shown in the movie – are no good, his girlfriend is lost in her own ambitions and at the end comes his semi-ugly girl and saves his soul, makes the rest of his life possible and even easy with a little piece of paper and a pen.

genius idea.

don’t know if gus (and some other writer) picked it up somewhere (i am not that well read) or they came up with it themselves – in any case it is good.

but also it is dangerous. it is very individualistic, maybe too much. and if someone like me, an extreme lover of individualism, says this is too dangerous, then it is quite dangerous. sometimes it is safer to make movies in which authorities like police and parents actually solve our problems.

but on second thought real world does not work that way. this kid is not weak and he found his own way with the help of a girl, his new girlfriend, so this makes him strong i guess, stronger to make a decision no other system can do for him.

gus van sant is big on stories about young finding their own way within the system, sort of like my private idaho or elephant or last days… but i find paranoid park maybe his most positive and complete message. i mean there is no competition between his movies, it just seems so now, today, at this moment, that it is a good message.

i was watching a weird ingmar bergman movie this morning, while having breakfast and coffee in bed. i wanted to check this movie on imdb.com but i could not find it. i did see a google ad for an official tom cruise website: tomcruise.com. i never knew he had an official website so i went to check it out… and there it was… the awesome showreal of tom cruise… few minutes long mix of his best scenes from most of his movies. it is so good. i learned so much.

for example it reminded me of jerry maguire: help me help you. i also got reminded of the a few good men film which inspires me so much today.

these two movies are so good and their messages are so important to me, especially today, now. maybe last ten days i had a lot of doubts about some ethical issues and suddenly it is all clear to me thanks to these two movies. especially a few good men.

that end speach in the courtroom is so good, i get goosebumps from it.

i mean, tom cruise is a dork, that is for sure, but no one is perfect. he is the filter that makes these messages stronger and it is helpful in certain moments.

this is why movies are so good! i do not have to read a book for a week and consume all the info i do not really need. it is easier to just watch a 90min movie and learn from it, as long as the most crucial narrative elements and moral statements are preserved.

this is why i like to write short texts, it is compact and efficient. books are too long.

if my texts were read by tom cruise they would be so much more efficient.

one such attempt is very simple, it took me ages to develop a method which is simple. text is most simple, ideas are simple, philosophy and morality is simple. here is a simple website through which i hope i can end all war in the world.

saynotomilitary.org

text is not finished nor polished up. i wrote it in about 3 minutes and uploaded it. that’s it. nothing fancy. army websites have flash animations and they are my main competitors. i just did one html page and have zero advertising budget. we will see who wins in the long run. they are full of crap and i am not. i should win.

let me know what you think. forward it around. thanks.

this website is research into ambition of a single individual, about megalomaniacal crazy attempts, about where is the limit to call something crazy or something super smart or weather something like this will deserve any attention at all. but besides all the bullshit fuss saynotomilitary.org has a correct message and a correct goal so that is what should count.

i made a snobbish escape from the world of business when i was still young and have stayed away from it for many years. i have found a nice secluded hide out in mediocre endurance sports, occasional freelance job for a small business or a friend, and unfunded unsellable art projects. however, thanks to my talent for figuring bad things out super quick, i have gotten close to business again and discovered again things i never liked – corruption.

as most people have the ability to truly ignore corruption which is right under their noses i just can not get to this level. i am aware i sound bitter and frustrated but i am not. i accept it as a fact but i also accept the fact that people who deal with corruption make me want to break their heads. i mean i am not only angry at people who lie and steal but i also think they are lost souls who need a good beating so they might be saved (i am a believer in eternity of the soul, i just like the metaphor).

so anyway, i keep meeting people nowadays or hearing about people close to me who do bad stuff: cheat their own companies and people who provide their salaries, make deals which are not about quality of the work but based on connections, manipulate public knowledge and fake prices… this is especially so concentrated always around web projects which have very little standards (remember the dot com crash – one of the biggest corruption bullshit tragedies in the history of man kind?).

i still have to figure out what to do…

although it is super clear to me what to do in order to get ahead in this atmosphere (i mean it takes half a brain to cash in on corruption) i am always restrained from doing it. instead of feeling ambition i feel pity and anger.

i basically think most of the world wrongs are caused by this kind of behaviour and i have see how this behaviour really ruins societies and opportunities beyond obvious. one little “bad deal” has much bigger consequences than just getting some extra cash out of a company – it is actually the building block of war, poverty, illness… anything bad feeds on this behaviour like a cancer and even the smallest “bad deal” feeds the monsters.

i do have to figure out what i can do which i think is a much bigger challenge: i do enjoy my sport as i am independent, i enjoy my events and projects which i was smart enough to organize without any funding, i enjoy my art as it costs me nothing yet i enjoy it so much, and finally my business goals have almost been perfected to the point in which i can stay far away from “bad deals”.

how long i can maintain this distance i will see. i do not know if all my plans will work out, if i can remain content by just staying away. i wish i saw a super hero. that would be great if i could just go out in the night and beat up people – like batman or something.

i do not know how many of you who read this can relate to what i am saying. many people do subconsciously ignore this reality because they profit from it. weather this pays of or not i an not wise to say, i know only that now i can not play that game.