“YOU KNOW WHAT’S REALLY NOT ‘GREAT TV’ GUYS? 1989 GETTING ALBUM OF THE YEAR OVER TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY. HANDS DOWN ONE OF THE MOST 'FAULTY’ TV MOMENTS I’VE SEEN.”

Under my umbrella today, mildly irked at getting caught in the rain, I strode past the area where yesterday’s Women’s March had ended, where I had stood elbow-to-elbow with a bevy of protestors. As I was avoiding puddles, I saw abandoned signs scattered everywhere on the ground, some so drenched you can barely make out the pink letterings on them and some still mostly dry under cafe awnings. So amused in my attempts to decipher a few of these day-old signage that were still comprehensible - several so clever you couldn’t help but smile - that when I turned the corner I almost missed the homeless folks along the path collecting the sturdier poster boards left behind. It’s an unusual and jarring sight: an older man, soaked hair that fell to his shoulders, unwashed clothes, soiled nails, holding above him a simple drawing of a vagina with words that include “pussy” written below it to shield his body from rain. Others near him were building with gaudy glittered boards their homes for the day, and by the looks of it, its constructions they’ve gotten quite adept at, a skill to survive the streets of rainy San Francisco. Yesterday I patted myself on the back as I marched with the community through this city for all women. Today I marched right past these women and men who live their lives on these streets - I avoided meeting their eyes - to get to the BART station which will take me to a stop from where I will saunter into the warmth of my own home.

(I wanted to take a photo of these folks I saw but I thought against it as I didn’t want to photograph them without their permission and exploit their image. Although there were some things yesterday that left a bitter taste with me and my friends, all in all, it was a truly remarkable and beautiful day in which there was a stand against injustice. But we have to continue to be better for those most marginalized — such as those whose only benefit from our march seemed to be the trash we left behind. We need to be better. We still need to be better.)  

frankocean:

I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?

markruffalo:

A side of Bernie guy we haven’t seen before. Welcome to our Mainstream Media.

Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat 

Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho (I Don’t Want to Go Back Alone) (2010)

Take Me To Church - Sinéad O’Connor

Oh, Take me to church,
I’ve done so many bad things that hurts
yeah, Take me to church,
but not the ones that hurt

Julianne Moore in A Single Man (2009) - Tom Ford