"We are the eggmen! Woooo"

Last night I and a bunch of friends played the Beatles: Rock Band.
Which is possibly the best game ever!

I'm not a huge X-Box or Play Station person, I'm not a huge computer game person in general - although I'm quite a addicted to Plants vs Zombies, play it! You won't be able to stop until you've finished all the Adventures! - any way... I'd never played before and I immedaitly sat in front of the drum set and my BFF and I (as zie picked me up from home and the whole evening (night! we played until 3 am!) played while we waited for the others to arrive.

Zie and I are huge Beatles fans and we have songs that we love to, ahem, harmonise (I cannot sing, but I love karaoke... not fun for the audience, alas) so we sang Getting Better, I am the Walrus (personal fave!) Hard Day's Night, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Revolution and then other people arrived (you know who you are) and we sang some of the same songs again (I relinquished the drums... now my regular instrument I can tell) for the guitar/bass (there's only one at the moment) and for solo singing.

Imagine a bunch of Grrls Belting out Beatles!

We also played the regular Rock Band, but it was so tame and lacked any kind of emotional pull compared to the Beatles: Rock Band.

It was awesome and I'm now so hoarse I can barely talk.
I'm also listening to my Beatles on loop.

"What's your deal with the Beatles?"
"My deal? You mean the WORLD'S!"

I leave you to be amazed by the quality of this cinematic trailer:

My Persona Will Eat You!

I don't think my internet persona is that different from my RL persona.

The one-sidedness of blogging and not having to be considerate of interrupting someone or someone interrupting me makes me more eloquent online, it also stops me from being repetitive in the same paragraph - at times, during conversation, my mind can go blank and I struggle for a word which will either be in the other language I speak (the danger of bilingualism) or I'll lose both words because I'm trying to figure out which is more appropriate.

It's frustrating, and quite obviously I'm the only one who takes it badly because hiccups in conversation happen all the time! I'm not giving a presentation or reading a speech.
I'm not an orator.
Stuff happens.

That's not where I was going with this post.

Backing up. Ah, yes.
My persona.

People behave differently depending on the context and people in which they find themselves.

I can be very shy at times, which surprises people with whom I'm very gregarious.

I've been told my internet persona belies my niceness and charm. Because, yeah, I do try to be nice and pleasant and friendly. Even with people that I don't particularly like or get along with, if I'm in the vicinity I do my best so that everyone gets along.
Until I don't.
And as I know and been told:
"Mel, when you're mean, you're scary"
I am assertive and my voice can pitch in a way that can be grating and strident and makes people tell me to "tone it down" which makes me even more irritable and thus... well, you get the picture.

I suppose because the social niceties that I pull off so well and easily IRL aren't required for online interaction. I try to be respectful to any one I communicate with, there are exceptions of course, because when I people don't bother to keep their prejudices to themselves, I don't see why I should keep my opinions on said prejudices to myself as well.

I can be rude. I often am online. Assertion is read as aggression and you have to be clear in your writing because ambiguity is so easy to write unintentionally. Intentional writing will always carry a harder punch and more often than not, I don't pull the punches I write.

If you've met me IRL, you know I'm quite bubbly and babbly. That I'm bouncy and *squeeish* (something I manage to convey online at times, for sure) and that I'm loud and have no poker face.

I'm quite sure my online persona is just waaaaay more eloquent when it comes to talking about things that make me go *ARRRRGH* seeing as IRL, I tend to go *splurterscoughshriekBWUH!Eff-U Man!I-got-something-to-say!NO-I-WONT-BE-QUIET...* - this can also be what goes on in my head, because like many a family & friends gathering, many people say things that they believe are appropriate - like racial slurs (which I try smack down when I'm within earshot), sexist remarks (which are so pervasive in interaction as well) and homophobia laden comments (har har, oh yeah, you thought she was a man, that's fucking precious, har har) - and the situation calls for decorum, niceness and charm.

That bubble was bust a long time ago, but behaviour dies hard.

I come off strong.
I'm cool with that.

It makes me memorable.

"Israelis will never be free unless Palestinians are also free"

Below are the videos of what is now possibly considered the most controversial Daily Show interview to date (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd seen them on my f-list over the past few days and hadn't had the time to watch or comment on them.
Today as I was going through my RSS Reader, someone shared the Mondoweiss post, the author of the post was actually in the audience that day.

I watched them and I found myself nodding a whole lot.
( Videos under the cut )

There isn't much to add to Barghouti and Baltzer, I always find it encouraging when Jon Stewart pushes the non-mainstream News agenda on his show.
I've read in a few places that people were irritated by his own Hasbarah bias, that he brought in Iran and tried to equalise the Occupation into being just a Conflict.
I think by voicing the "average" opinion, Stewart exposes the propaganda pumped into our heads and both Barghouti and Baltzer really stayed on message - that of non-violence and finding peace on the grass roots level, which where the true power comes from (damn I need to get back to my Arabic!).

I find Baltzer very interesting, as I had not heard of her before, Barghouti is a "known entity" and I've had a lot of respect for him and his activism for a while now - I hope I manage to actually hear him speak in person someday soon. But her background, coming from an American-Jewish Zionist household... I can relate, as y'all know.

Last week I was speaking to a fellow student and friend, she told me her partner was studying German and that as soon as they had their finances straightened out she and he were out of here.
I nodded in understanding and pangs, because so many of my friends speak like this (I speak like this a lot as well).
And she asked me if I also plan on leaving.
I said I'd like to live in a different country for a while, to have perspective, experience, do what my sisters did.
She persisted: "But you'd come back here?"
"Yeah, most likely"
"I wouldn't" she said.
And I said, like someone commented a few months ago when I was ready to pretty much pack and leave (if I could) then and there: "But what's to become of here if all us Bleeding Hearts leave?"
"I don't have a false sense of patriotism" she said.
"It's not about patriotism... it's about humanity".

I considered that I was very well indoctrinated in the Zionist ethos. I still am. I'm quite sure that the reason I see myself living elsewhere, missing this hell-hole and coming back, is because I was taught that "there is no where else that is Home for us".
As I've mentioned, ideologically speaking, I'm no Zionist, I'm a Lefty-Humanist. But I was taught and lived Zionism and very likely I learned to love my country, land and people because I was immersed in that ideology since I was a baby.
Cracks in that ideal began when I was in high school and went to Poland with my class mates and mother to see where we were exterminated... the Nationalist zeal so many came back with seemed utterly strange to me.
My apathetic teenaged angst prevented me from making the logical leap, it would be years before I could unpack the what that trip to Poland did to me, my classmates and all the other classes that went on that trip.

I suppose it's fitting that I'm writing this the week of Yitzhak Rabin's anniversary of his assassination. I had forgotten all about it, until I saw the signs for memorial ceremonies... to me it'll always be November 4th and not the Hebrew date I never follow anyway.

Where was I? Oh yes, I learned Zionism and I'm unlearning it as well. Jews and Palestinians co-operate all the time, talking on the level with each other, person to person.
Governments...
Well... not to sound all Libertarian (seeing as I like having a modicum of a safety net under me as I meander aimlessly through life), but when it comes to treating people like human beings, they're pretty fucking redundant.

But what Barghouti said was very true, it resonated.
I made it the title of this entry.