Inglorious Bastards

Call this rant overdue but humor my bitterness and continue reading.  Sympathy arose as a common topic while discussing the last several chapters of The Great Gatsby last week.  Sympathy in the direction of Gatsby and Tom in particular began to aggravate me.  I did not warm up to these two characters (and sources of almost all of the story's conflict), so their veils of wealth and generosity do not phase me.  My explanation: they never earned my respect to receive sympathy.  Allow me to attack Gatsby's reputation first.  Jay Gatsby changes his name upon exposure to the life of wealth, obtains wealth via the illegal business of bootlegging alcohol, uses his money to impress the love of his life, and encourages infidelity.  Seems like a moral fellow right?  Wrong.  I am truly sorry Mr. Gatsby however the disregard you pay your family, the willingness to break the law for prosperity, the pretentiousness to flaunt your money, and the shallowness to challenge a marriage out of selfishness puts a little chink in your reputation's armor from my perspective.  Likewise, Tom's resume shows few positives.  His record includes: wealth by parents, cheating, domestic abuse, and assistance to murder.  Why another flawless gentleman--nope.  Party-goers indulged themselves at Gatsby's house where bootleg profits funded their carousals--kind of like investing in a black market business  Yet he still receives sympathy upon his death.  Similarly, Tom receives some sympathy when a car (driven by his wife nonetheless) hits and kills his mistress instantaneously.  These guys make a mockery of the American dream and stomp on the reputation of Americans as a whole all the while garnering the respect and sympathy from others.  I may not speak for all I guess.  Some may approve of separating oneself from ancestors, illegal sources of income, condescending views due to wealth, affairs, domestic violence, and murder--I do not.  Now, with a little taste of logos can one justify sympathy for these two devils?  I recall even some feelings of sympathy myself for these men during discussion.  After some more thinking however, throwing a bone to these two compares nicely to improving the living conditions of convicts on death row--something undeserved.  Save one's sensitive thoughts for people that need them, rich bastards like Gatsby and Tom can go out and buy sympathy anyway.  All in all, I encourage those with sensitivity to others' circumstances to determine if the potential recipients of their emotional and physical support truly deserve it first. 

I Ain't Saying She a Gold Digger

Contrary to the title of this blog post, I am most definitely calling Daisy and Myrtle of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby gold diggers.  A wise man (Kanye West) once wrote, "She take my money, when I'm in need."  With that in mind, Kanye, Jay Gatsby, and Tom Buchanan have quite a bit in common.  Like Kanye, Gatsby and Tom participate in relationships where money plays a significant role in the sustaining of love with Daisy and Myrtle respectively.  Kanye's girl "digs on" him for his money.  Gatsby makes it rain high thread-count button-downs to prove his worth to his lover.  And Tom buys alternate residences downtown to house his mistress.  In all three cases wealth appears to attract the opposite sex the most.  Mr. West recounts his bloodsucker's past relationships that include Busta Rhymes and Usher, two other successful recording artists.  Daisy, too, has a history of equating love and money in her selection of males.  And Myrtle appears to select her men-on-the-side according to the quality of dress they can provide her.  This pattern of materialism has begun to aggravate me.  Love stems from feelings towards another person, not their cars, house, or wardrobe.  Do people not know the true meaning of love?  In my opinion, if items or money play any role in a relationship one can call that relationship dysfunctional.  Money does not last forever, shiny cars rust, and expensive clothes fade out of style, however, emotions never die.  Invest feelings into relationships, not thousands of dollars.  Simply, I think Gatsby and Tom took the wrong approach to chivalry.  I bet they did not even hold the doors of their expensive cars for the women they try to impress.  Therefore, Gatsby and Tom provide a precedent--of what not to do.  Blindness to material things while developing a relationship results in true love.  Personally, I will find a significant other that likes me for my love letters (yes, I caved after last week's blog show and vow to give them a try), not the "shoes and cars."  "When I'm in need" of some love like Kanye, I will remember The Beatles' take on the subject: "Can't buy me love."

For your entertainment/reference:

Nudity in the Community

As my classmates verbally abused their obnoxious neighbors in discussion on Monday, I kept to myself and listened.  From unruly triplets to foreign, aspiring-trampoline gymnasts I found all of the anecdotes entertaining--until I realized I fell victim to fencing for privacy some years ago.  As an elementary school child I did not quite understand the construction of a wall and planting of "decorative" evergreens along the fence line that divided my property and the property of my new neighbors'.  They seemed friendly as they introduced themselves to the small community we have on my block of Bell Street, but their addition of this intentionally obstructive border of trees and a wall did not seem to match their first impression.  These people had barely taken the last box from the moving truck into the house before hiring a trio of Amish men to put up this wall.  Did I mention the presence of a fence dividing our properties prior to construction?  What inspired them to live in such isolation?  I cannot imagine I gave off the irritatingly obnoxious air the neighbors from all of my classmates' stories did.  I suppose I did break a few windows--windows on my own house.  I did kick a soccer ball through my opposite neighbors' screened-in porch more than once.  They never felt it necessary to build a barricade between my house and theirs though.  I played a lot of basketball in my driveway--alone--as the innocent, shy, only child that had maybe two play dates at his own house through the age of twelve.  The old neighbors never took offense to my playing.  Now that I think about it, the new ones moved in just at the beginning of my "dabble-around-the-house-in-underwear-despite-the-extremely-close-proximity-of-my-house-to-others phase" (still have not grown out of that one).  Maybe my pre-puberty, half-naked body got to the new neighbors within the first few days they moved in.  Seems like a reasonable explanation for  such fortifications.  Therefore, I would like to formally apologize, via this blog account, to my neighbors that could not handle the comfortable living style I chose to embrace.  To conclude this blog, I would like to encourage folks to interact with their neighbors to a level they feel appropriate, which may involve separation by a wall as it did in Robert Frost's "Mending Wall."  Additionally, I also would like to encourage those with neighbors to quit window-watching like Shia LaBeouf in Disturbia.