I don’t know if I am (Je suis) totally Charlie

Maybe this is not the best way to begin an essay, but being politically correct is,  reached this point, nonsense. The truth is the truth, yes, but sometimes it is a polihedron with multiple faces not always as beautiful or ugly as we may think.

The reprehensible shooting of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters has been a truly jab into the heart of the most recognizable nation of freedom in old Europe, but no more than a sharp pain into the chest of a body little accustomed to severe injuries.

Again, opinions could be misunderstood, but statistics never lie. In the 11^th  September 2001 terrorist attacks on The Pentagon, The World Trade Center and other places in North America three thousand people died there. The 11^th March 2004 bombs in the Madrid train system cost a toll of almost 200 lives. In Paris 12 people passed away and four more are critical or seriously ill. The magnitude goes in decreasing numbers.

Now think about the tsunami of 2004 which drowned 230.000 second-class inhabitants, or the earthquake in Haiti where a hundred thousand natives –maybe more– stopped breathing in the name of poverty. And what about the innocents being killed every day in the African and Asian war conflicts? The figures are so big that it is risky not only to be born there, but also to state an approximate toll number.

The Western World has mobilized with the execrable crime of the satirical magazine, but we have been watching the Islamic State killing people day in, day out and nobody has ever cared about it. It seems that freedom of expresion is more important than third world’s lives.

When these horrible things happen, one can less than reflect critically on them. A teacher or mother brought her pupils/children to Charlie Hebdo house to show them that the artists had been killed for drawing. Well, I won’t say that is false, but I’m afraid this is a huge simplification of the facts.

Shooting somebody because they have shown an image of your undepicted God or prophet seems a bit overfanatic, I admit, but there is much more over the layer than it seems. I mean, we exert economic legal assassination. The developed nations have long helped poor countries to die of inner starvation. This has nothing to do with religion. It’s pure survival. And we first world citizens have forgotten about them long ago. We don’t push triggers. Not in the literal sense. We don’t need to. A good pack of measures and restrictions, greedy politics and interventionism have made the work for us (did I want to say “us” or “U.S.”? I’m not pretty sure).

Isn’t it cruel, insensitive, a total aberration to celebrate our Christmas traditions and compulsive consumerism habits while we turn our backs to those in need of basic help? Perhaps we deserve this kind of suicidal torments, maybe we are much more guilty than we think. Where did autocriticism go long ago? Oh, yes, we don’t need it. It’s all about maniacal followers of Allah and their Holy War. They are the baddies and we, pure saints that unfortunately passed by over there in the worst moment.

I think we are totally mistaken. And still we consider ourselves the paradigm of liberty, egalitarism and fraternity. The Islamic State may deserve a good nuclear bomb under their pants, but we didn’t care a damn until they touched our isolated happiness and remembered us that people are dying violently out there while we suffer depressions because there isn’t much more to undergo when all our basic necessities are covered. If bums are perishing of coldness, bad luck. But my family a new iphone each. 

The worst day of the year

For me, it is today! Maybe for others it was yesterday, their wedding date or the last day of summer holidays. Variety is the spice of life, they say. Well, Christmas holidays have melted like a snowman at the sun of August (in Spain) and we have nothing to hope for.

Yes, you will tell me that we are half in the middle of the academic year, that summer is half way, that there is a ray of light in the midst of January mist, but it is not enough.

People have a lot of good intentions when the year breaks: a good deal of gym torture, re-starting (one more time and it’s the twenty-second time) that rusty English of you –I’m doing it as well, I confess–, giving up horrible vices such as smoking, devouring cakes or criticizing your mother-in-law, taking life seriously, saving some money, avoiding those terrible drunk times with their corresponding hangovers... the list is almost infinite.

I don’t believe about this reset of life. Not now, at least. The commencement of a new year is only a mark in the calendar and a lot of nonsense celebrating that we have overpassed another change of digits –I meant figures, not amputation and reimplantation of fingers–. Things really happen when academic years start again. That is September, the month where everything is new. You come from a long –or short vacation–, even fed up of vegetative contemplation of non practical routines, waiting for something that may indeed change your future. Mankind expectations are made up of dreams and illusory constructions, being only a small part those that will actually come true, sometimes in a completely unexpected way, or to a diminished fulfilment from the predicted result.  

In Autumn you see clearer, the air is still warm, and the harshness of cruel winter is far. There’s time to prepare for its rawness. Now it’s high time for projects and daydreaming. This is more clearly seen in school life. For students, the starting point is always the beginning of a new challenge: brand new mates, teachers, subjects, decisions, habits... For workers, some of the most paramount modifications appear after the summer, although not always. In any case, more and more enterprises tend to big changes when June is over and not with the natural fall of the year –another hint of true conclusion of a whole period.

In January, few features have been altered. Experiments, with coca cola. If the company must swap posts, reorganize departments or reconsider further instructions, they will wait for six more months. For the time being, definite decisions may be reached depending on the final performance of the pieces on the chessboard, but only to be communicated on the edge of vacations. Thus, a forced retirement will be well assumed and new responsibilities, too. In the end, living is going up and down storeys of a big building in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by everything. Which floor are you going to?

¿Are you kidding?

Recently I have heard of Cristiano Ronaldo supporting the narcissistic idea that he is an idol for youth, or better, an example for youngsters. Well, this doesn’t exceed those unforgettable words about being criticised because he was handsome –arguably–, rich –indisputable– and a good player –one of the best, actually, if not the best right now–, but this epitaph renews old flaws in egotistic CR7.

And the blame isn’t his. Not totally, at least. He has been remembered once and again of his almost godlike qualities, much over the reasonable, until the point in which one doesn’t know if he is a demigod or a whole one. A good deal of euros per minute complete the spell and convince the most self-critical one. If a pornographic current account and the vacuous and neverending cheers and raw admiration of mindless fans hungry –if not starving– for epic don’t convert the humblest person on earth into a stupid brat nothing will.

Ronaldo will be another victim of football. A millionaire one, yes, but have a look at him five years from his retirement. There is no other field of failure and collapse like that of former sports men, being idolized and workshipped with interminable inconditional admiration and money just to end up alone, forgotten and bankrupt after a host of bad decisions closely related to luxury, glamour, compulsivity, vice and everything that money and fame can buy.

The twilight of the Gods must be something that no one can bear, that’s true. It makes you blind and deaf, if not completely dumb. And the worst is when you lose perspective, when you really believe that you are an example for others. I won’t deny that the Portuguese striker has got plenty of qualities, that he is one of the best in soccer history, that his pectorals are to be envied and desired, but from that to consider him a referent there is a huge stretch. I admit that his obsessive love for vigorexia, fitting and good shape make him a superhuman athlete, that those virtues can be extrapolated as effort, working hard and insist in life, but no more. The way he handles his fame is selfish, arrogant and childish. He is more a divo and a celebrity than a footballer. In spite of that, he is still a superb one, which makes it clear to what extent Ronaldo has been alienated by a massive overdose of idolatry.

It’s a pity that the youth don’t use common people as referents, but these are the market rules. Take it or leave it. The world will not change in a sigh. Well, maybe, if it is the phenomenon from Madeira who emits it.

Black is better

We could be talking about garments, wall colours or chess pieces, but actually this article is about the physical supremacy of black people over the white ones.

We have to admit it, negroes do better in a bunch of significant roles related to sports and are highly esteemed in terms of penis dimensions. Maybe size is not important. That is what we white people tend to say, but it is. At least, for males. Otherwise we won’t be all the time making comparisons in which, by the way, we always lose for an inch –or even far more. In porn, for example, black actors are continuously hired for their monster dicks. It doesn’t matter if only well-endowed guys appear on films moving foward and backwards and short-sized negroes are not allowed to fuck for film purposes. The fact is that I have never seen a black man without a long attribute.

As far as physique is concerned, they are again much better gifted than the average bloke in other races. Therefore it’s not strange if they do better at basketball or athletics, where is unthinkable that an Aryan could ever overcome them.

Nevertheless, things always have another side, and usually far more ugly than the previous one. Negroes are certainly the best in some aspects, but not necessarily in all. Coming back to sexuality, for instance, their elephant-size members have the same problem as that of the pachyderms: their penises are so huge that they usually can’t guarantee a complete erection. A flabby cock, no matter how big it is, is worse that a hard tiny willy. Flaccidity has always become a real battlehorse for Africans in action, as if skin colour paleness were strongly connected to hard-ons. At the end, no matter if prick size is good for its long proportion or the desire it awakes on women –and homosexual men, I guess– but functionality is even more important.

As for sports, black people are very good at them, but not at all. Have you ever seen a negro swimming like a mermaid in any major competition or skiing down a snowy mountain in any Winter Olympic Games edition? Maybe you guys can fuck deeper and jump higher, run faster and play better, but you won’t screw first in the Hymalayas or across the Amazon. You can’t win always, dudes.

Positive discrimination

I am totally fed up with this new custom of awarding the underpriviledged more than the reasonable. I mean, of course we all have the serious responsibility of eliminating all kind of barriers –physical, psychological, academic, labour–; in short, to guarantee equal opportunities for the handicapped.

By extension, we tend to include here all kind of groups susceptible of suffering any sort of abuse, either concious or unconciously. I am talking not only about disabled, but also children, the poor, the young, foreigners, especially from Third World countries, women, the elderly and so on.

I absolutely agree and support the need to protect people in severe risk of exclusion in any situation, but to reach a real even level. The problem is... what if the undertaken measures become so powerful and convincing that instead of securing equality of rights they provide the underpriviledged with more than the rest?

Theorizing is easy and not very down-to-earth. Let’s try to present some clarifying examples. Think of criminals. Here in Spain they’ve got a chance to rehabilitate. If they show cooperative skills and collaboration, they are offered a assembly-line kind of post, inside the prison. Inmates are not paid much –no more than 400 euros– but taking into account that they don’t pay for the “accommodation”or the “meals, and that there are around 6 million unemployed out there all over the country, maybe their reinsertion is a luxury we can’t afford.

Official posts are another field of great controversy. Exams to get a permanent job are hard, especially because the rate of applicants per post is considerably high. In these cases, some vacants are reserved for people with a certain physical disability. This is all very nice, but a lame person has mucho more chances to become a civil servant than the average guy. Preserving park spaces for reduced-mobility people is one thing, and offering them access to a post with over-exaggerated assets in proportion to the rest of mortals is a very different one.  

We must tend to equality of rights and opportunities, not to over-award those with less possibilities, because at the end becoming a handicapped –if the disability is not very accused– seems better than having nothing to declare and benefit from. Solidarity sometimes turns into counter-abusing from the part of the weak. Be aware of that, and try not to be harm by the rules.

Devoured by the pumpkin celebration

One of the most increasingly-observed festival in Spanish lands has to do with the straightforward anglosaxonization of former religious traditions. Thus, the highly respected All Saints’ Day has been biased towards the western party of All Hallows’ Eve, where children and not-so-young people hang around from house to house trick-or-treating, wearing (not very) creepy costumes and having fun playing frights or collecting a huge amount of calories and sugar.

The celebration has gone far here, since Halloween is followed by several age groups one way or another. From the very little children going not beyond their own neighbourhood, even block, frequently acompanied or distantly watched by their protective parents, to the adolescent parties including lots of make up and overwhelmingly low necklines.

Horror sells well. Everybody loves it, especially when, as if it were a Disney animated film, you can enjoy yourself in different levels of macabreness, from the very innocent disguises of small children to the creepy creatures sourrounding adult fun. People love fear, especially the youngsters, because it pops up their adrenaline when they really need new thrills. If you can also wear fancy dresses, sometimes to look like a whore, better still. Nobody is going to condemn you for that, particularly in a night where everything is allowed, either tributing Mary Shelley’s Fankenstein’s monster or imitating Count Dracula’s vampiress daughter. Notwithstanding the proximity of the sacred feast, this night is here to give free rein to terrific excesses; something similar to the Carnival spirit, swapping flesh vices for overhorrifying. Dawn will bring peace to souls and to the bodies of the wild participants. Continence will rule again on earth... and under it.

Lone Ranger or the rebirth of Jack Sparrow

One of the most dangerous things that may happen to a consummate film star is that the actor persona devours the movie character. Thus, never expect Humphrey Bogart to behave weakly or Clint Eastwood to solve trouble by means of accurate, convincing words. The same occurs with Johnny Depp. You may like him or not, but he never deceives anybody. Either directed by Tim Burton or by any other director, Johnny will always be the same funny guy on the verge of madness, taking himself not very seriously –actually, not seriously at all–, showing a huge range of soft, mild, even affectionate good manners and a pinch of idle extravagance.

 For this reason it was not surprising that Tonto, the loyal and supporting native American who finds a more dead-than-alive John Reid and save his life as the ranger had previously preserved his –according to the 80’s film, from which this movie is clearly a sort of remake–, from the very beginning overlaps and overshadows the title character who, by the way, is much duller and softer.

But we were highly warned. A production coming from Disney couldn’t be prone to the free exaltation of violence or the unreasoned revenge of the reflexive distric attorney, reconverted for the occasion in The Lone Ranger, the only survivor of a massacre of lawmen by the ruthless Butch Cavendish. Instead of highlighting the heroic abilities of the outlawed ranger, the studio prefers not to take the film very seriously, and gives Depp carte blanche to repeat all the tics and eccentricities of Jack Sparrow, including a pervading inofensive insanity, a relaxed sense of absurd humour and neverending remarks for every rough situation. Armie Hammer does his best as the ranger, and he’s not bad on his role, but audience and script are on Johnny’s side.

Apart from that naive comical tone that spoils more than improves the film, the length is excessive and the rhythm uneven. Often, accelerated action takes us from one place to another without much sense and other times the movie hungs around interminable reports about the extermination of ethnic tribes, the coming of the railroad to the West or the exploitation of Chinese slaves in the construction of the necessary network.

Nevertheless, the movie has good points, as well. Action scenes are devilishly fun, especially those that occur around the trains, the plot is rarely consistent but works and the general feeling that remains after the final credits is one of high optimism and faith in mankind. Once more, Rossini’s William Tell Overture fills the critical stills with adventure and nostalgic heroism.

Finally, the film doesn’t forget to pay a straightforward homage to some of the great themes, directors and movies of the genre: John Ford, the railroad, Anthony Mann, the confrontation of indians vs colonists, the all-American noble cowboy, as opposed to the crepuscular spaghetti antihero... even to Lucky Luke through the weird occurrencies of Silver, the white horse, which resembles clearly to Jolly Jumper at his best. Another scene is directly inherited from Once Upon a Time in the West, when silence fills the air and something is going to happen while the character is drinking from the well and startled birds flutter around.

The film deserves to be watched, but without too many pretentions. Just to have a good time and remember the old good times of westerns. To expect something else from this product would be an unforgivable error and an exercise of avoidable disappointment. Next try leave Disney and Depp at home and harden the tone. Maybe it flops the same but at least it will have cost much less bucks.