A Wedding to Drug the Masses.

Wow, how times have changed. Yet, somehow they haven't. 

So today is the wedding day we have all supposedly been "waiting for". The Royal wedding of the New Millennium with our modernized figureheads: Baldy Wills and Waity Katie. 

A wedding hysteria that can be likened to a whispy fog with long seductive tendrils that seep into our collective consciousness, making us forget about the ongoing problems of increasing global economic instability and the general shittiness permeating the state of world affairs. Where we celebrate love and romance and the making of little girls' (all women's) princess dreams. It's supposed to feel like unicorns farting rainbows, and designed to opiate the masses.

I think it's a wonderful slight of hand, true smoke and mirrors from the upper echelons of society (the 1% of the population who now own the earth), to distract from the social turmoil and decay of everyday living. That is the cynical me. The one I like to call: The Realist. Actually the ONLY me. Rarely do I display optimism - I have a thesis argument in life: Only stupid people are happy. And sometimes, (rarely), I too can be caught up in the stupidity. 

I remember the last time I watched a royal thing on TV. I had just turned 18, just broken up with my first (like first real love) boyfriend, for the very last time (kind of). Anyways, the day I broke up with him, Diana died. And I cried. About a week later, I think on a Sunday, I watched 7 hours of the funeral with my best friend. And cried and cried and cried. He reminded me the other night. He sat next to me most of the day watching me cry, whilst doing his own running vommentary on the funeral procession. 

As a side note - We liked doing shit like this together. We knew we destined to be long term friends when Sonny died, and we both turned to each other in a moment of unison and voiced the same thought: "Well, Cher will be happy". But I digress (constantly). 

Diana's death created one of those moments frozen in time, where you will always remember what you were doing. Like "Dude, what were you doing when Diana croaked". I think it was like August 1997. Yeah I just googled, August 31st. "I was breaking up with my boyfriend, because I just could not bring myself, to do mercy sex, ONE.MORE.TIME". Awesome. 

We watched the funeral march, the boys, the ex, the brother (I always found the brother somewhat inappropriate), and the carriage pulling the casket, and then the extremely long, long, long drive taking her to her final resting place. The streets were filled with people overcome with grief. I am not sure what I was more upset over, the break up or Diana's death. I hazard a guess it probably being Diana's death. 

We watched it on a Cathode Ray Tube television. Does anyone remember CRT TV's? They weren't flat and they were fucking heavy. But you pushed one button, the 'on' switch, and they just worked. 

Well this time it's a little bit different. I am not reeling from the news that some person I have no relation to is dead. I probably wont remember where I was in 15 years time. And the means of viewing this shit has totally changed. 

I'm viewing it on a PC Hackintosh, which is streaming the Granada channel through the telephone line. Except, I can't figure out how to change the audio over from the computer to the Television output, so my girlfriend gave me the link to BBC1 audio commentary to download, so I could at least hear it on radio over the internet. Which I did on my laptop, whilst simultaneously youtubing Tina Fey's interview with Google. Of course I spent about 5 minutes freaking out as to why I still could not here Kate say "I will not Obey" etc, until I downloaded the low bandwidth option, so I missed most of the vows. But then, eventually, I too can hear them say "let us prey" and other assorted crap, while I listen to the boys who's voices haven't dropped yet, sing about some godly shit. Of course the visual and audio don't really synch up doing it this way. But I am momentarily technologically sated, so I don't really care. 

From previous experience, you so have to DO this kind of event with someone else, to share your bad taste and inappropriate, yet hilarity inducing, catty comments with - it's a collective and communal affair (ordeal). Me: "Poor William, so bald", Me: "Bad move doing her own makeup, too heavy on the blusher", Her: "Yeah, the ring nearly didn't fit", Me: "no shit, she should have lost more weight"… "Meh the dress is kind of meh", Her:  "Alexander Macqueen",  Me: "Really, hahahaha, awesome, he's dead. I thought it would have been nicer if it was Alexander Macqueen" …  Her: "Pray bitch, and obey me", Me: "her dress is so boring", Her: "yeah does the lace rip off for later?" Me: "I was wondering that too"….

Along with more poor taste comments about the wedding guests needing valium to make it through the ceremony (Her's) , and the choir boys being perved at by the pedos (Her's). Also it being a great opportunity for terrorists (again her's)… 

Unfortunately she is in Belfast, and I am in Singapore, so we do all this through the Chat Protocol Adium. 

I look at shit like this:

and I think: Holy fuck, look at the ocean of people, the crowds outside are huge. And those fuckers get a day off for this too, no wonder the traffic was so good. 

I wish I could have done it with Marcus as well. He would have been an awesome compatriot to bring on the bitch fest. But Cara on Adium, in Belfast, with her bleak comments and always needing another cigarette to make it through the ordeal, is just as good. 

There are couple of things I felt haven't really changed within the last 500 odd years or so. The highly choreographed and heavily planned Royal public spectacle, which to me, includes all the subtle population controlling techniques, that fervent servants are manipulated by. The commoners, if you will, who will be emotionally bought off, and blinded by the sparkly moment. The disparity between the High Class and the Peons, visually highlighted and marked out through images beamed across the world. The wealth, prosperity and luxury juxtaposed against a backdrop of what seems like the gross simplicity of poverty. 

I think it is best demonstrated with this reveler wearing the Burger King crown. "I here by dub thee Burger King Queen".

And since you can't do a red carpet royal wedding without ripping apart fashion choices, here is my totally over valued 2 cents worth: My favorite pimped out bitch of the day was Zara Phillips, but only from a distance. From the front view she looked like a sexy equestrian dominatix. From the back she looked like every other frumpy english slapper – the bow, it kills me.

I took my Wills and Kate photo straight off the computer screen using my Iphone. I'm sure everyone has seen everything by now as they have been over saturating all media outlets with replayed highlights for two days already. I always love how uncoordinatedly out of time I am when it comes to capturing moments. I should think about how this is a metaphor for my life really. 

My last thought was this "º-º" when I saw this status update on facebook: Cost of Royal wedding can feed 168,000,000 children for a day in Africa.

This plane costs 94 thousand pounds per hour to fly people. Suck up that aviation fuel and be happy.

Now VS Then.

So it's been a while. And as I look through my blogs pre 7 months ago now, for the last couple of years really, I am reminded by the sense of desolation permeating my life on a day to day basis. Due to no one's fault but my own really. 

So the last 6 months has been a trying time, a crying time, and praying to just get by time. Has my life improved… It's certainly changed. I think what has most improved is not my outside circumstances, because when I think about those… yeah they still kinda fucked, deservedly so really. But for the last 7 months I have really worked on finding some kind of internal (I want to say peace, but thats so fucking new age-y it makes me vom vom in my mouth)… satisfaction, equilibrium, serenity. SERENITY now SANITY later. Yeah. That would be it, serenity. Sanity definitely later. 

I have gone back to a life which abstains from intoxicating my body with depressants on a… well eventually what becomes a daily basis. I found that xanax washes down incredibly well on a stomach full of alcohol. Provided by my "special" chemist, hidden away in the dodgy water cooler. Benzos are no more legal here without a prescription than any other country, but easy enough to get. Bai Moto (go moto), "Ow Xanax, Hah sip" (want xanax 50) - "1000 baht? Sure no problem". I started to feel dirty and kind of ashamed when I seemed to be turning up on my friendly pharmacists doorstep on a much more frequent basis than what I thought might be deemed socially acceptable. While he knowingly smirked, counting out my increasing dosage. It's like an extended pharmaceutical holiday, except not really that fun, or restful. 

And booze. Asia is drinking culture, a paradigm steeped in sexpat behavior. The heat and the tropics and the seksi-ness, promotes full bacchanalian behavior which is accepted and rewarded. And the recovery is starting the next day and repeating the same thing, over and over again. 

Funnily enough, when taking depressants, I seem to get really fucking depressed. Then my brain does weird shit, while I isolate in the 'security' of my own bedroom, slowly becoming agoraphobic, misanthropic and filled with a sense of never ending dread… "what have I done with my life, what am I going to do with my life, what the fuck happens to me now I have hit 30+, will I ever make anything of myself, why am I such a piece of shit… yadda yadda yadda"… It's an inevitable fucking house of horrors up there in the dark recess that is known as my brain. 

My level of self esteem lowers to about -100 to the power of ten, and I end up in a fetal ball of self loathing which is a never ending cycle of self torture. Yeah, it's boring, and takes up a lot of energy. Actually, all of my energy really. 

*whistles*… yep, that silence was deafening. 

So yeah, my husband left me. And really props to him for putting up with my shit for so long. There was a lot of shit to deal with. Aaaand Yep, it's fucking painful. Still really fucking painful actually. And I'm still in asia with my 3 dogs, that I can't afford to take anywhere, and wouldn't dream of giving away.  I still live in a really big, relatively empty house, which I cant move out of because of the amount of shit that's in it, and the amount of dogs I have. 

My maid watched me cry for 3 months, as I tried to pull myself together, and probably totally freaked out at my displays of unadulterated emotion. Poor thing. I don't think I would have got by without her actually. She was a rock of strength weathering through my proverbial storm. When I wouldn't go downstairs or eat for days on end, she would bring up some weird concoction of food and make me eat. She looked after the dogs while I could barely feed myself, or shower, or give a shit about anything. Yeah… good times. 

Hahaha. I would like to say everything is fixed and I'm all better. But it's a slow process. The inner emotional turmoil started rectifying itself by me getting a job on an indie pilot here –  in production... finally (I wish I had never listened to the douche who told me I wouldn't work here in production because I didn't know enough Thai - asshat) . Funnily enough the director was good friends with one of my surrogate family members in Australia. So the world grew more interconnected, and I somehow felt cared for by proxy I guess. It was good to push myself doing a project which lacked so much organization when I got there. To make it work in a such a short amount of time is like a challenge unto myself. It got done. Note to self, nothing is ever perfect. 

The day that project wrapped, I started another job on a feature film literally the next day. I have been navigating through the political minefield, and self motivated agendas of film making in Thailand ever since. It's been an interesting ride. Fascinating to see how people work here. And I don't mean how they perform their duties in the workplace. I mean their motivations. How they go about manipulating shit in their favor. Sometimes I am astounded, other times disgusted, on a shitty day disheartened. 

Being on production is kind of like being in high school again. There are cliques, and niches, social stratification and a clear demarcation drawn between the upper and lower people of worth, with a price tag attached, and sometimes a colour of skin chucked into the bargain. Often I think, "are we not all human, do we not all bleed, do we not all deserve the same basic rights". But no. 

We have unicorns, horses, cattle and sheep. That's the way it is, and will always be. 

At high school I was never in with the "hiparistos"… I couldn't bear their self indulgence, vanity, lack of self awareness, and general exclusion policies. I hung out first with roolly roolly uncool people, then nerds, then people about 2-4 years older than me. Film sets aren't much different. To find the truly genuine people one can connect with on some deeper level than subjects of the weather, what iphone you own, or where you're going to go on your day off to appropriate "coolness", is hard. I realize, I will never be one of the "cool kids". And I'm ok with that - I think. 

I'm a lot, dare I say happier, working again. Happier is probably not the right word. Functional, appeased, possibly? It totally ties into a level of self worth which is unobtainable any other way. The other thing is, I am good at what I do, even though, thats a fucking hard thing to say. I apply myself and learn quickly, and adapt. I like solving puzzles and working in organized chaos. Chaos is something I am totally familiar with.

This job ends soon, and I will have to start looking for work again, and I know I will probably be a bit down and miss it after I stop working 6 days a week, "12 hour" days (which are really 15-17 hours). But I think I have done a job I can at least be happy with. 

As for my husband. I still love him. And I don't really know what the future holds. I try not to dwell on it either, as it's something I have no control over. The dogs however love me… and the maid (the maid probably more). They sleep with me though, because I have the aircon.