Soviet Union, whatnots, and Hollywood bs

Marilyn Diptych, 1962 by Andy Warhol

I’ve been such a lazy bug lately. Ever since I moved into my Airbnb, my weekends consist of me lounging in bed all day, binge-watching random Soviet cartoons that Albina, Vikki, and Zava recommended. I get up only when I need to piss or eat. My laundry is piling up like a mountain but I don't give af.

Hibernation to pass winter is real strategy. Funny part is, Mediterranean winter is not even winter winter, Canadian winter. I just use the winter season as an excuse to laze around and hole up under my giant comforter. Although, a couple of days back, I found some stupid motivation to get outta the Airbnb...

The random Kyrgyzstan dude who enjoys rolling joints invited me over to his place to smoke hash. His place is roughly 20 minutes away from mine so I decided why not. Plus, I was super curious about Kyrgyzstan since all I knew about the Stan countries was from that movie Borat.

The movie is not even close to being culturally accurate. People from the Stans look nothing like Sacha Baron Cohen. Many of them actually have more East Asian features than European or Jewish. Anyway, back to the story. I was way more interested in learning about Kyrgyzstan than the dude. Swear to god. Something's wrong with me, C. The dude is not even bad looking. His features even look fairly handsome save for his pimply forehead. I don't know why pimply foreheads turn me off. It probably reminds me of those teenage boys spurting tons of hormones until it starts showing on their skins. Gross. Teenage boys are gross. And this particular Kyrgyz dawg—fuck, I didn't even catch his name—screamed teenage snotty behavior...

But I don't blame him, C. The poor boy’s probably in his late teens or early 20s. Regardless. All in all, his personality made me bored stiff. I wanted to know why the Soviet Republic split and how the split from the USSR affected the Kyrgyz although, maybe he was the wrong person to ask, being young and stupid and all but I thought he had some idea about the pre-Soviet Union break-up from his history class or from his grandparents or something but nada. He was completely clueless. The only interesting thing he said was that Skriptonit—some big shot Kazakh musician—is the Kendrick Lamar of Kazakhstan. The other stuff he talked about bored me to death especially when he kept going on and on about the Spider-Man movie. He kept asking if I liked it. Wow. What a dope. Well, to be fair, I did enjoy the Spider-Man movie, not because I was all hyped up about it. I enjoyed it because I watched the movie before it got aired in the Philippines. I know. I know. I sound childish as hell. I guess watching movies, even the really lame ones, ahead of everybody else and then spoiling it to folks who haven't seen them yet is sortufa silly guilty pleasure of mine…

Take the Spider-Man movie. Everyone who's watched it said it was a feel-good, nostalgic flick and seeing Tobey Maguire and that other spider actor dude play Spider-Man again was a real treat. But overall I honestly felt blasé about it and thought the plot was simple. Ned Leeds was the only character I enjoyed watching although they fucked up his character too when, all of a sudden, his non-native Filipina-speaking Lola started acting like a typical Filipina Lola. God. It's not funny. It's just not. But there'll always be that one Filipino dawg in the cinema who'd laugh out loud like there's no tomorrow to show off to the world that he gets the inside joke and that he is a proud Filipino.

Sitting next to Albina was the highlight of that cinematic venture. Every time the crowd went oooh and aaah like when some random popular Hollywood actor like Tom Hardy pops outta nowhere on screen, she'd turn to me and ask why the crowd would overreact like that. She's not a Marvel nor a DC nor a superhero movie fan. She has no clue who the characters are. She doesn't even have a clue who Tom Hardy is. To be fair, neither did I. I don't even know why I sat through the movie…

But one thing's for sure: Hollywood fried humanity most especially that poor Kyrgyz boy's brain cells.