the black lullaby

Hey everybody… a lot of stuff has been going on lately and instead of dealing with it the way I should have, I decided to be angry and immature about it. This in turn resulted in me saying and doing things that I shouldn’t have said and done.

Someone once told me that I was my biggest enemy and as much as I may have laughed at that moment, he was right. I am. For all my talk, I never stopped to realize that I was using my talent of writing as a means of avenging myself when clearly, no one is worth that effort.

People read blogs because of their interesting content and their out-of-the-box points of view on normal situations that in the everyday man’s eye would seem bland. I abused that right when I chose to air my anger and frustration for the world to see.

To err is human they say but I’ve done a little more than err… A friend pointed out to me that the person who was writing all this gibberish was not me… it was the person I had become because of my bitterness. When we’re angry we do so many things in haste that we sometimes forget that when that anger passes, we still have to move on with life.

Please don’t judge me based on my previous post (which I have removed, for those of you who are looking for it), but there’s only so much crap someone can take before they break. But I am indeed a fool for letting myself be broken and as a writer I feel as though I’ve let my readers down and for that I am truly sorry.

My heart is heavy right now and until I can ease the burden that has been self-brought on, I won’t be putting up anymore posts on the black lullaby. It could take a day, a week, a month or a year, more than that or less but I’m sure that I’ll find myself again and when I do, I’ll be singing this lullaby again. Only then it won’t be sorry-ass whines but hard hitting topics like I used to write about.

I’ll be back… hopefully soon…

Till next and next, lullaby out.

Ok so it’s time for the second edition of our horror stories, which have been disguised as bedtime tales for children throughout the ages… We’re going to talk about some lovely step mothers today… and here they are.

Part 2 - Step Mothers

Hansel & Gretel

Ok, leave aside the wicked witch who makes a guest appearance at the end of the drama with her candy and bone fetish, the reason these two kids get caught up in this entire mess is because of their step-mother! I can understand giving up your children for adoption or sending them away to boarding school. But sending them into a dark deadly forest in the hopes that some wicked beast might devour them is just wrong!!! And where’s the father in all of this is what I would like to know. I mean they’re telling kids that the minute their father marries a new woman, she’s going to come into their lives as the devil incarnate! I’m telling you, this is true, because when I heard my father was married a second time and my aunt suggested that I go meet my new step-mother, I was bloody freaked out! I kept seeing this image of myself dressed as a beggar boy cleaning the house or being sent away to be eaten by some wicked witch down the road. Fact is that fortunately, I got an all in one package, meaning, the step-mother and the wicked witch were one in the same for me so it reduced the trauma. Anyway, back to H & G. They do the whole bread crumbs thing and the birds eat those up and they get lost and then they end up outside a gingerbread house, which belongs to the witch! Right, so evil-child eating-hags live in gingerbread houses in the middle of the forest because? a) Children get lost all the time. b) Every child has a tendency to eat up the first house they see. c) Who the fuck knows? Back to the show… Who can answer why the witch wanted to eat only Hansel? (and what sort of name is that anyway? German?) Children are then taught that it’s alright to commit murder against worn out hags who happen to be witches when our two innocent children (who wouldn’t have got into this mess had they not tried to eat the witch’s house) throw the witch into furnace thus incinerating her. The ending has to be loved by one and all… It’s only after all this drama is over that the father realizes that he should rescue his children (my guess is, the step-mother was really bad in bed), so he rushes to gingerbread house and instead of yelling at them for trying to eat up strange houses, he takes them back home. I’m telling you, it doesn’t get more twisted than this, or does it?

Cinderella

Happy little Ella lives a cushy life. Then the daddy gets married again and he dies (please note, no where does it mention how he dies). Enter step-mommy and what is her first form of action? Change the child’s name! It’s not enough that she has to keep Ella from everything that is rightfully hers in terms of money and property, but she also ads this stupid ‘Cinder’ piece in front of her name. Had no one implemented child labour laws at this time, I mean wasn’t there a hotline that could have been dialed? Cindy mops, cleans, arranges and takes care of everything in the house because she’s a good girl. What I like about this story the best is its honesty. The step-sisters are referred to as “Ugly” everywhere they are mentioned. So we’re telling our children that it’s alright to call other people ugly, because even though we’re all supposed to be beautiful in our own special way, ugly people have to be called ugly. I asked myself, is it a depiction of who they were on the inside? Were they ugly because they were wicked? Tell that to the Queen in Snow White (which will be in the next edition by the way) who had a mirror telling her she was drop dead gorgeous every two minutes. Moving on. The Prince decides that he needs a wife and who better to choose from than the entire land? So he invites every woman to the palace for a Ball (I’ve always thought of this particular scene as a twisted way of saying he had an orgy). Now, Cindy is torn because step-mommy and the ugly bitches don’t allow her to go. So once they leave, in pops Fairy Godmommy. Question: where the hell was this wand-twirling-pagan all the years when Cinderella was being battered and bruised and burdened with housework? Did she decide to come to her rescue then? No! But you mention a Ball and there she is!!! So she does a few cheap tricks, turns a pumpkin into a carriage some mice into horses, etc. and gives Cindy a beautiful dress and glass slippers. Break time! The girl is going to a ball to dance with the prince and what does she have for footwear? Glass Slippers??? Godmommy issues a curfew with the be back by midnight rule and off runs Cindy (probably the only good thing that happens in the book, teaching kids not to stay out too late). Cindy and Princy meet, they dance, they fall in love (the bastards make it seem so easy), and then the clock strikes twelve. Off runs Cindy and very conveniently drops one of her slippers along the way. So she gets back home in time, everything changes back to normal but the glass slipper that she’s wearing stays on, I’m guessing Godmommy bought this at Wallmart! When the Prince comes along to find Cindy, Step-mommy gets with the program and breaks the slipper (the one left with the prince) and then tries to palm off one of her ugly-ducklings to the prince, he refuses for obvious reasons. Step-mommy almost wins the game when Cindy finally finds the balls to admit that she has the other slipper. Cindy and Princy are married and Step-mommy loses her servant! Personally, I thought it was a rather flat ending… Which is why Disney made part 2 and 3 subsequently.

Coming up next… Needles and Kisses with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

They are packaged as Fairy Tales and Bedtime Stories for children… and then we wonder why more than half the world is screwed up. A friend and I were discussing the vulgar and grotesque nature of some so called “Fairy Tales” and we realized that they’re the reason we all came up so wrong. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Part 1 – Three Day Conspiracies

The Little Mermaid

Now Disney may have given Ariel a happy ending but in the original Little Mermaid, that ain’t how the story wound up. After the mermaid falls in love with the prince she gives up her beautiful, Sea God given voice for a pair of legs. Then she has the impossible task of making this Prince fellow fall in love with her within three days. Now what’s wrong with this picture? They’re telling us that in order to accomplish what we want, we have to sacrifice what we have? Or rather, give up the best part of ourselves to attain something we don’t know that we can have!!! Moving on, Mermi Girl becomes human and the Princy, notices how “cute” she is. Unfortunately, she can’t talk and so the Prince decides to marry someone else. Now here, we are being told that people who are vocally challenged will be disregarded, despite their inner beauty, obviously sign language hadn’t been thought of yet. On with the story – Mermi’s sisters then approach her and tell her that if she wants her voice and fins and soul back from the Sea Witch, she has to kill the Prince, but… being as much in love as she is, she commits suicide instead. Wow… here’s one my kids would love to hear every night before bed.

Rumplestiltskin

A father wants to get rich overnight and proposes his daughter to the king (because he really couldn’t find any other rich noblemen). So he lies about his daughter’s wonderful talent of being able to spin wool into gold. Locked in a dungeon with only a spinning wheel and more wool than you can find at the winter collection at any retail store, the girl starts crying – giving the message to little girls that that’s the first thing they should do when they get into a problem. Anyway, who comes to the rescue? A vertically challenged man who is physically unappealing!!! He promises that all the wool will be spun into gold in a matter of minutes, but as always, there’s a price. “What do you want in return?” Asks the soon to be Queen. “Your baby!” Replies the little creature. Now pause. First… WHAT THE HELL DOES HE WANT THE BABY FOR? Second, who in their right mind offers their unborn child to non-handsome weird people who can spin wool into gold? So the deal is done, the wool is spun, the gold is in and the damsel becomes Queen! Here’s the kicker, she’s immediately with child and the gold-spinning-pedophile is back for the baby! Now she refuses and he makes another deal with her majesty. “I’ll give you three days to tell me what my name is!” He says (what’s with this three days business anyway?) Now the Queen, who was not formally introduced to her savior turned child-molester, is in peril! So she does what all Queens do and hires one of her henchmen to follow the old goblin. The henchmen hides behind a tree and watches the little person dance around a fire singing “The Queen is going to lose the game for Rumplestiltskin is my name!” (Uh, can you say dumb?) Henchy Boy runs all the way back to the palace and informs the Queen of this development but just for dramatic effect, she forgets the name when Rumpy comes by the next day. However, she finally does remember and the green man vanishes into thin air! (Who made that silly rule? Like his mother never called him by name!) 

Coming up next… Some lovely Step Mothers in Hansel & Gretel and Cinderella

When your life is defined by the clothes you wear and the people you hang out with and the places you eat at… it’s kind of difficult to figure out who you really are isn’t it? That’s why I gave all that up last year. Now that Pride is over I can only look back on the time that has gone by within this year and the last and think of how liberating a period it has been.

I had the best weekend of my life and as I stepped into this new week I just see the road ahead of me and I see that Adidas got it right when they said “impossible is nothing”. I used to feel so restricted because I believed that no one could understand how I believed I should live my life. But since the beginning of Pride last year to the end of it this year, I see how far I’ve come and how much it has changed me. 

I’m proud that I don’t judge people for what they are on the outside and I’m proud of the fact that I can be friends with anyone, regardless of their sexuality, their social background or their salary scale. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve got a mother who will support any decision I make in life with the simple words “If it doesn’t work out, you’ve still got my shoulder to cry on.”

These are things that I could never look at in depth and be proud of before but in the past few days I’ve seen all forms of unbiased love between individuals who don’t let anything stop them from living their lives to the fullest and it made me think… shit, there’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t live in a video game where you get to come back over and over again to complete unfinished business. We’ve got only one of these things and we should make the maximum out of it.

I’m proud of being able to see beyond what people have between their legs. I’m proud of not defining myself by sexuality. I’m proud of the friends I have, may they always be happy. I’m proud of the way I live my life because no matter what anyone says or does, my deeds, be they great, small, cheap or dirty, are all between my God and me.

I do have to say, I’m irritated at a few people, one individual in particular, who on the pretext of celebrating diversity with the rest of us, chose to attend all the functions and make fun of the people around him. If you ever read this and if you figure out I’m talking about you, it’s not cool dude. If you don’t agree with something then stay away from it because no one is forcing you to feign support over something you’re not comfortable with. 

To everyone out there who celebrated their Pride last week… You are special, you are dynamic and you are loved.

B.