So Evil, So

Young (1961) is the title. And it’s true, the young are evil. You can measure the corruption of a society by its romanticization of the young. In the Victorian era children were deified as pure, and fed graham crackers and cornflakes to keep them from masturbating. The play The Children’s Hour is based on an actual court case in Scotland (1811) — two little girls whispered that their teachers were lesbians; the teachers were assumed to be guilty because no child could possibly make up such an atrocity. Nowadays children are exalted again — we pretend they are not all watching porn on line (isn’t that what the internet was created for?) — especially now, during the sacred lock down, where children must find salvation in the ‘safety’ of their computers — we would rather they learn about sex from the warped world of porn (I’m an addict; but I don’t recommend it for children) than reach out and touch someone real. Anyone who has been bullied knows how evil children can be; and most bullies are enabled by their parents. Parents wish to get off scot free: ‘It’s not my fault — she was a Bad Seed.’ But they are guilty too. Those are the facts. (I said don’t trust me when I say ‘It’s a fact’; so don’t -- but, are you persuaded?). So Evil, So Young is a much better movie than its title; I thought it would be too lousy even for camp -- but outside of the pink reform school outfits, there’s nothing camp about it at all. It’s especially relevant to our lives now, we are all in prison, and likely will continue to be so for some time; it’s as if someone has nailed our hands to the floor and is slowly pulling out the nails one by one. Miss Smith (Joan Haythorne) is the matron, and Jill Ireland’s nemesis. Jan Haythorne is Theresa Tam, Dr. Fauci et al. For a minor misdeed a sensitive girl is sent into solitary by the formidable Miss Smith (who Jill Ireland calls a 'fat old witch' in a particularly enthralling moment). The girl commits suicide. Miss Smith says “You had your fun, we all have to pay for that.” Another girl, innocent of any crime -- but in reform school -- weeps: “Sometimes I think it’s all a dream and I’ll wake up! How can this happen when I didn’t do anything wrong?” This is the question we ask ourselves every day during lock down. There is a prison riot, in So Evil, So Young —like what’s happening in the The States right now. Why else do you think everyone is suddenly shooting everyone else? Because we have all been punished for more than a year -- told we are bad for simply wanting to live -- and sent to our computers for salvation -- where we find only capitalistic rot: the poison of wokeness and populism. And yet they continue to disinfect, and erect plastic berries in restaurants which won’t stop the dreaded ‘germs’ from flying up and over. Well here’s a taste of what real people have been doing while you meditate and watch Netflix — they’ve been screwing and doing drugs for months; they're too poor for this fake pandemic to make any difference in their desperate lives. I hang out on the poorest part of St. Catherine Street East, Montreal, swarming with crack and meth addicts, people lie on the pavement for hours, days, no one is sure if they are dead or just sleeping. At night they prowl about; so do I. Last night I displayed my wares in such a gross and blatant manner that even the beggars were shocked. I was leaning against a shuttered patio sipping a malt beer (“Teasy’); a  tiny angry human started screaming at me: “That pizza place is closed! I know what you’re up to hanging out there? If you leave and there’s any of that beer I’m taking it!” I left an empty can which he threw angrily on the ground. There are some ‘nice’ people on St. Catherine East, mostly fags in couples walking very quickly, with their dogs, chatting each other up wildly, trying not to see me-- but it’s hard to miss someone as large and tattooed as I, especially when I have managed a semi-erection that makes a huge bulge (for some reason) in my shorts — which I touch occasionally — when someone hot walks by. I almost got laid twice. A very cute guy came up to me: “Do you smoke?” “Only cigarettes…” I know that’s not good enough; he’s off again. Later on my way home, there is a look from someone, and then another, and we end up in an alley, But he keeps saying ‘People can see us…” We kinda do it — but he’s too skittish and then he’s gone. This is the chase;  an acknowledgement that I am a sexual being and that I exist -- which, strangely enough, I still need to know. Think of these blogs as an anthropological expedition of sorts — you learn here about a sordid life you will never participate in, thank God. That’s fine. They will rise up you know -- the poor, and they will kill us, and burn us, and eat us, if at all possible. That’s what the new movie New Order is all about. I saw that yesterday too. It's a sister film to So Evil, So Young — but while the earlier film is a preachy lesson on the need for prison reform, New Order is truly great, by Michel Franco — a Mexican filmmaker of prodigious talent. Roger Ebert doesn’t like the film because he’s not sure which side Michel Franco is on. Franco is clearly on the side of artist -- Roger Ebert --you dumb twit! Franco is presenting his own version of reality. That means New Order is a fantasy, a game, a lie, and a provocation. Franco does not tell you how to think, or what to think -- only priests and politicians do that. New Order is the story of a Mexican uprising in which the poor, Indigenous, working servants finally take on their oppressors — the arrogant, Spanish, oblivious, idle rich. It starts at a pampered daughter’s wedding — most everyone there is eventually killed and/or tortured. As in life, there are ultimately no good guys or bad guys — just people committing atrocities in the name of ‘the truth.' You must see it. Don’t forget, also, that the poor — that is the ones who have not died of their addictions or from lack of proper medical coverage during the fake pandemic — will rise up in anger everywhere in response to the ridiculous, needless finger wagging we call COVID-19. The poor know something we don’t — that life is nasty, brutish, short, and really only about pleasure --  and if you can get it, keep it —  and for that, there must be no punishment.