Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, it's Valentine's Day and I'm Sad (hbu?)

Before and after many a relationship, you might find yourself muttering the words "Baby, don't hurt me" to signify the vast vulnerability you may feel for a particular person or persons (we don't judge.) And after or before that, like a bad Jeopardy game, the world answers "What is love?" and expects you to deal with it. Hello, I'm Justice Seymour and this is my "Fuck Valentine's Day" blog that I've been meaning to write since the first fucking Valentine's Day. To quote Philly D (hopefully the first and last time I name drop DeFranco (look, I like his news, it's less than 20 minutes from my day.)) let's just jump into it.

I can listen to oodles of love songs. I love Moulin Rouge. I love love (and the Netflix series Love, its a good show despite being very inside basebally at times with it's California setting). Correction, I like love? I enjoy the idea that a person will do irrational things for no clearer reason than they just can't quit another person. Now, I'm not trying to delve into like weird 50 Shades of Grey or You (I haven't seen either, but I need to stay hip. See You on Netflix) sorta stuff, I'm just talking about good ol' positive relationshippy thingys.

I don't mean to be the one against Valentine's Day for the sake of love. I do appreciate the positive emotions that come out of a bunch of people trying to spread that sort of affection but....Ah, fuck it. Yeah I'm single! I've been single 5ever with a capital 5. And it's sad alright!? It's just sad! I mean damn! 

Look, I'm just going to rant. Firstly, Winter happens. It's cold. People aren't going out as much. In college, people spend the entire Fall trying to find someone to latch onto so when Winter comes around they have infinite supply of company (and cumpany). It's cold cuddly season. Then, during the coldest, darkest, saddest time of year everyone is trying and usually failing to do their big changes and whatnot and then Valentine's Day comes around and if you're in a relationship then, ayee, you've been going on for about 3 or 4 monthsish now. So everyone is going around doing the Lovey Dovey thing. Awesome. Good for you and them. HOWEVER, listen if I'm alone, its my fault. Either lack of confidence, effort, or anything of actual value. 

I'm not saying don't have a Valentine's Day, what I'm saying is maybe move it to the Spring or Summer time when people are more likely to be "spreading the love." I'm thinking for the single people! When you're single (and sad about it) the holidays don't do you any favors. You go home, visit your family. It's fun but stressful in a lot of ways. Then you come back and its the coldest and darkest time of year. You're already feeling kinda sad, and it's only getting worse because of the cold dark weather. Then Valentine's Day comes around and you're thinking "Omg, why am I so alone?" "Do I have any value? Why does nobody want me the way everyone seems to want everyone else?"  And you don't wanna talk to your pals about it because fuck off with your lonely feelings you needy puppy! At least in the summer, you can take a walk, reflect, be active. Go be your own person! Plus everyone else is around so statistically you'd be more likely to meet people which means you'd be more likely to, ya know, put the wang in the thang and bang. That sounds more fun than sitting in your room being lazy, feeling lonely, smoking weed and feeling more lonely and suddenly notice how terribly pudgy you are and then you feel lonely and high being lazy and now hungry but also you don't want to eat because you just thought about the pudge, but then you're like "Eff it! Nobody's gonna love me anyways!" and go on the endless cycle. 

Last paragraph I swear. Love is great. Valentine's Day can be great. I've spent every single Valentine's Day of my life single, so when I try to feel bad about it I more get mad at myself for feeling like I should be expecting different in a sense. Or at least think "You've done it before, you  can do it again." I've been grateful in the past for PornHub allowing a free day of Premium on Valentine's Day as well. Am I proud? Tbh, a little. I asked my roommate to leave the room for a total of 5 hours on Valentine's Day my Sophomore year. Did it 5 times. It was a good day. I don't know! If you're in a relationship, good for you! But also I hate you a little. But also isn't it my job to hate you? Where's my motivation? I don't know. I'm bored. I'm tired. I'm sad, but slightly less sad. Did I say anything? Maybe not. But thanks for reading. Sorry I've wasted your time! Or if you're reading this in the bathroom, ;) hey how's it goin? I'm Justice. I'm straight, but I'm flattered. Annnnnnd, yeah. The End.

2) Fright Night and the Evils of Masculinity

I don't know what it is but I have a personal affinity for 80's vampire movies. It was almost like what Twilight was in our era,  but slightly more sexually ambiguous. I think what 80's vampire movies do so well, that today's vampire flicks maybe don't, is use vampirism as a means to explore sexuality. Today's vampire movies tend to be more "hot guy with slick hair and deep dark eyes" which, I admit is just a general vampire trait in itself, but they can be MORE than that! Once Bitten is about losing your virginity. The Lost Boys is about being gay. And my favorite of the early 80's horrors, and equally the 2011 remake, Fright Night is about embracing your masculinity, or lack thereof, because being a hot douche isn't that cool.

For those who are unaware (turn away now if you want no spoilers I'm about to rip all the spoiler holes), Fright Night is a film about a teen named Charlie who finds out that his new neighbor, Jerry, is a vampire. That's the general basis. I'm going to reference more the remake than the original film. While both cover the same overall plot points, the remake does it more subtlety and leans into it a little harder as an overall theme.  In the film, Charlie is having difficulties consummating his relationship with his girlfriend, Amy. You see throughout the film little hits of what Charlie felt like he had to do to win over Amy's affection. He wears fancy shoes that he feels like he has to point out is puce color (I don't even know wtf puce is) and he has become distant to his longtime friend "Evil" Ed because he represents a nerdier side to his life. 

And then there is Jerry. In the original film he is played by Chris Sarandon, and in the remake by Colin Ferrell.  Jerry represents beyond coolness. He's literally too cool for school as in he is beyond the fake cool that Charlie's new cool friends, and Charlie himself, try to emulate. In both films, Charlie catches Jerry going on a date with an especially attractive woman. Jerry just seemed to hypnotize them effortlessly. If he was pulling a facade, it was surely over Charlie's eyes. In the remake Charlie's mother takes notice of Charlie constantly stressing over maintaining an image to Amy. She says to him," You know, sometimes getting what you want isn't always what it's cracked up to be."  Charlie thinks his girlfriend is too hot for him. Too cool for him. And he really likes her, so if he somehow let's it slip that he is actually a major nerd, he's scared he'll lose her. More on this later

 Back to Ed! So Ed tells Charlie that his super hot sexy dude neighbor is actually a vampire. This where we have to skirt around a bit but essentially Charlie never believes Ed and that proves none to great for him later on. When Charlie notice's Ed's absence, he does get suspicious so he decides to see if his old friend was right. Surely enough, he was. Charlie, being none too knowledgeable about killing vampires, goes after magician and occult enthusiast, Peter Vincent played by David Tennant. (In the original he's a late night horror host played brilliantly by Roddy McDowall ) Peter Vincent, in the remake, is also very symbolic of false masculinity, but in a different way. Like Charlie, he puts on an act to appear one way on stage but, back stage, turns out just to be a drunken rockstar wannabe. Peter Vincent originally turns Charlie away, calls him crazy, but eventually has a sprawl with good ol' Jerry and believes Charlie, but still declines to help due to the realization that the same vampire Charlie is dealing with is the one that killed his parents.

Now I don't exactly know if this is symbolic in some way of like Peter chasing the dreams of being a douche and isolating himself from his parents or if a vampire just real deal murdered and ate them, but I'll leave the thought there to chew on. 

At a certain point, Ed is turned into a vampire and tries to kill Charlie. Charlie has no choice but to stake him with Ed explaining, in his last couple moments, that there were no hard feelings. It is here where Charlie talks to Amy and grieves his old friend's death. He mentions having turned away from him when he started trying to court Amy. She asks if he thinks it's somehow her fault he died, Charlie jokingly nods and then immediately shakes his head. Amy explains to him that she's known all along that he was a nerdy nerd. She explains to him that it was his nerdyness that drew her to him in the first place because douches aren't cool.

• That being said, Amy is soon hypnotized by douche Jerry and is promptly kidnapped. Charlie goes back to Peter Vincent asking, not for his help, but for some of his badass vampire killing weapons. Charlie now embraces that he is going to have to go full Blade if he is going to save his girlfriend. (He can save Amy, who is now a vampire, if he manages to kill the alpha, Jerry (alpha male?), before she feeds (I'm not touching the symbolism there.)) So! After showing how big his balls are to Peter Vincent, Vincent agrees to help him on his rescue mission.

During the climactic battle, Charlie and Peter are caught surrounded by vampires with Jerry hypnotizing Amy to kiss and lick all up on his super stud vampire body so much so that we know it had to have hurt our hero in the emotion pits. Charlie asks Peter to light him on fire (it's a whole thing) and Charlie hugs Jerry and kills him with his own hot body. 

Another thing to point out is any time Jerry is hit with some weakness, be it a too close for comfort stab by a For Sale sign or a hug from a hot nerd, Jerry spazzes out worse than a meth head at a convenience store at 2am. I know. I've worked at convenience stores at 2am  The point is, I wonder if that is symbolism for hurting the douchey male ego. If you attack their weaknesses, maybe they spazz out like a meth-- you get the idea. 

So yeah. I think I'm gonna end it there. Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the film. But also watch it if you haven't! I left out some key parts and stuff and it really is a wild ride. So yeah. The end. Thanks for reading. Poo Poo Kachoo. 

1) I'm Justice. This is my Blog.

Look, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't want to be the type of person who "blogs." 

"Oh, look at me! Read about my feelings!" 

This is more or less an experiment. It's to see how well I can write a bunch of stuff with my name being prominently attached. Also, I don't know, I write about a lot of different stuff! I use this same blog hosting site in a lot of my classes, so I know the format and maybe I can track my own growth? As a human? Nah, probably a lot of me ranting about movies and nerdy things and poorly attempting to discuss complicated ideas I have in the middle of the night. But! By golly, I'm going to try and do it in as entertainingly a way as possible. 

You might notice a number of links attached to every few words every once and again. The links generally either further explain what I'm talking about or what I like to call "joke links." Maybe they add to what I'm talking about as a sort of extra punchline, maybe you can't quite see why it connects at all, the point is, I very much enjoy adding those and, if you click them, you might enjoy following them! Not while driving though, sometimes they're video clips (don't read a blog while driving either!)

I'm going to talk about things that matter to me and stuff I think deserves to be discussed at length. Maybe you won't care if I whine about The Leftovers or Guardians of the Galaxy, that's fine. You might get a hoot out of me caring so much about them! That's also fine! Nobody could be reading this right this very second. I guess that's fine too! I just need an outlet I guess! And this is how I do it. 

SO, if you're interested in reading what I have to say, check it out! I could literally post anywhere from every day to once a week to maybe even once every month or two, I don't really know so I won't make any promises. What I DO know is that I'm going to try to make them fun to read (This is an introductory blog so probably less fun?)  Thank you for your time! And I'm sorry I spam my written works on all my social media (you gotta get folks reading things somehow!)