The One I Love

Firs things first. Parazitiiⁱ was the otherⁱⁱ great band of The Golden Ageⁱⁱⁱ. Here's one of theirs :

Baga berea-n frigider, scoate-l pe ala din sifonier
		Stick the beer in the fridge, get that schmuck out of the closet.iv
M-am intors acasa, pune-ti pe cap casca de fier!
		I'm back, baby, don your iron helmet!
Faci fata sper fa zdreanto. Du-te la baie
		I hope you're up to it, whore. Off to the bathroom
Ti-am spart fata c-ai avut tupeu sa-mi dai cu palma-n coaie.
		I broke your face for mishandling my ballsack.
Femeia in general are doi barbati 'odata
		Woman generally has two men at the same time
Unu' s-o futa, altu s-o bata.v
		One to fuck her, one to beat her
Ca si femeia asa-i barbatu'
		That's woman, that's man.
O fute pe-a lu altu' si tie acasa iti rupe capu'
		He fucks another's and then back home he breaks your head off
Sau va fute pe amandoua, ca disperatu'...
		Or fucks the both of you like the desperate.vi

Nu-i nici un mister, ca-l preferi pe altu', la dracu!
		It's not a mystery that you prefer another, for fucks sake
Da-mi coniacu' repede! Ca-ti rup capu'!
		Quickly, my brandy, before I break your head.vii
Acum dezbraca-te, usor, sexy papusa
		Now strip, easy, sexy doll.viii
Iesi afara pe sala si asculta ce-ti zic prin usa.
		Get out in the hallway and listen to me through the door.
Eram ranga atunci cand te-am cunoscut
		I was shitfaced when I met you
Vezi discutiile imi amintesc de trecut, ma f*!
		See, discussions remind me of the past. Fuck!
Maica-ta ma visa inginer pe santier, tu ofiter,
		Your mother was dreaming me a construction yard
		engineer, you an army officer
Nicidecum cu cazier in cartier.
		In no case a criminal record in the hood.
Erau vremuri grele, da nu credeam in ele,
		Hard times, but we didn't believe in them.ix
Nu visam pe atunci ca tu poti sa-mi aduci belele.
		I didn't dream at the time you'd be a source of trouble.
Acum tu plangi, Eu rad..
		Now you cry, I laugh...
Te cred pe cuvant cand te aud spunand ca
		I'll take your word when you say that
Nici eu nu sunt sfant!
		I'm no saint.
Asa e! Ce sa-i faci, yo?! Asta-i firea!
		That's it, what's to do ? It's the being.x
Doar nu credeai ca in viata te-nseala doar privirea?!?
		You didn't think in this life regard's the only liar.xi

Uita-te la mine, nu la mainile mele,
		Watch me, not my hands.xii
M-am imbatat, am chef de cearta,
		I'm drunk and I feel like a quarrel
Iti bag eu frica-n piele!
		I'll stick fear in your skin.xiii
Tacticile tale nu-mi plac,
		I don't care for your tacticsxiv
Nu-mi plac lacrimile tale care-mi fac tricoul praf.
		I don't like your tears ruining my t-shirt.
Viitorul ma sperie, mai rau decat te sperii tu de mine.
		Future scares me, way worse than I scare you
Nimeni nu poate sa ma domine! Retine!
		Nobody can dominate me! Take note!
Faci atatea planuri, nu ma include.
		You make so many plans, do not include me.
Cuvintele sunt surde, acel vechi EU nu te mai aude.
		Words are deaf, that old me is not hearing you anymore.
Bagane-am pula-n ele de sentimente,
		Let's stick our collective cock in feelings.
Am momente cand n-am argumente. Nu rade!
		I have moments when I'm without arguments. Don't laugh!
Te priveai cu ala-n ochi de parc-o luai deja in gura
		You were looking at that guy like you were sucking him off already
O sa te bat cu atata ura pana o sa faci temperatura.
		I will beat on you with such hatred you'll get a fever.
Tie iti trebuie un sclav, ti-l caut maine
		What you need is a slave, I'll seek him tomorrow.
Genul de barbat dresat ca un caine.
		The sort of man with dressage, like a dog.
Chiar daca nu-i rasul meu si nu ma pot abtine
		Even if it's not my laughxv and I can't hold it in,
Rad pentru ca e de ras, ma uit la tine..
		I laugh for it's to laughxvi, I look at you...

Tu plangi, mie-mi vine sa rad.. E neplacut..
		You cry, I feel like laughing... It's unpleasant
Si te simt cand ma-njuri in gand.
		And I can feel you cursing me in your mind
Tu plangi, mie-mi vine sa rad.. E neplacut..
		You cry, I feel like laughing... It's unpleasant
M-am tirat definitiv, sa nu ma dai disparut.
		I'm off forever, don't report me missing.

Now then... so equipped, we can proceed to discuss The One I Love^xvii, which roughly speaking is the following concoction : a worthless male and an average Jane have "marriage issues" because he apparently fucked some other broad, but really because she just can't stand him anymore - which is very understandable. So they go to this retreat, which is a strange place where they meet a couple of their exact dopplegangers, she fucks the better version of him, doesn't want to leave anymore, he notably never fucks the better version of her - notwithstanding that the alt-Jane is, indisputably, the better version of Jane, whereas the alt-douche is really just a more aggressive, jerkier version. Exchange OCD for narcissism and you've "improved" exactly in this degree. I will note that while I'm aware [uneducated, worthless] males are sexually shy, I hold the inability to explore the world with your cock a very serious character flaw. By the time the woman's more sexually adventurous than you are it's time for the biogas chamber, seriously.^xviii

The story is I suppose decent, all the handwaving^xix very in line with theatrical convention and as such easily tolerable through entrenched practice. The weakest spot is the encounter between the two women, which in the original reads as follows :

"This is quite the situation."
"You can say that again."
"Has Ethan... I mean your Ethan... have you guys talked about anything or has he said anything to you at all?"
"Like what?"
"Well, Ethan... my Ethan and I, we know we've discussed it. Like he knew when I was going to go in the house
and I knew when he was going to and..."
"You shared your experiences."
"Yeah, for the most part."^xx
"And you want to know if we shared our experiences also."
"Guess I'm just curious."
"I can see that. You know what I'm curious about? Are you more concerned with the experiences that me and your Ethan shared or are you more concerned with what I know about the experiences that you and my Ethan shared? Seems to me you care a lot more about one of those scenarios than the other. Are you going to give that back? I say for the sake of the super fun evening we're about to have, let's keep it simple and keep our cheery dispositions and I'll keep complimenting your shoes and you can keep pretending that you like the way I pin my hair back, and we'll just have a good time and see what happens. On second thought, do you mind taking care of those dishes?"

In sanity it should have read something like :

"Hey, who's got the bigger tits ?"
"D'oh ? Obviously you."
[starting to unbutton pensively] "O, really ? Let's see!"
"Hang a second... I have some icecream here somewhere."

Yes, really. Other women are not your enemies, you only think that because dullards and assorted failed males need you to think that so they have a shot at reproducing their third rate genetics. There's really no need for all the elaborate woman-on-woman psychopathy and assorted perisexual crazy behaviour as displayed in monogamous societies other than this - ensuring the perpetuation of mediocre to outright dubious males. It's a huge cost to bear, yo, seriously - you're missing out on icecream on some chick's tits because you're stuck paying some guy's mental mortgage with your very flesh ? Cmon. One pound is too much, but your whole damned life ? The life of the spirit too ? Insanitit.

The actors are very bad, and nigh on ruin the movie multiple places. For instance, "why does the good Ethan sound gay ?" girlie wishes to know. Well... because the actor is a little closeted, and honestly thinks that's the pinnacle of male achievement : finally being a faggot! Moreover they break into "documentary" style all the damned time. It's "easier", but it also has nothing to do with acting. It's a mode strictly reserved for amateurs being filmed, as a barebones survival technique. The powerpoint presentation allows illiterate adults with socialisation issues to speak before a group, provided that group is disinterested, small and the topic is technical. "Documentary acting" allows ivideolate adults with body, speech and movement issues appear on camera, provided no communication of any sort whatsoever is required.^xxi

Altogether the sort of film that's worth seeing for the commentary, so make sure you watch it with people worth the time. (There's also a very faint "worth watching to make you feel better about your own, not nearly as shitty life" whiff in there, like anything about economic life in Africa to USians and anything about amorous life in the US for me.)

1. Literally, The Parasites [↩]
2. The actual great band of said Golden Age, BUG Mafia, being a lot more... literal. Parazitii is meta. [↩]
3. That splendid time including the end of socialist-II Romania and the first coupla decades of the life of socialist-III Romania, even if at the time people imagined the baby is going to grow up to be "freedom", and said so, quite plainly and quite universally. Turns out freedom isn't as easy as all that.

   Yet even its mere possibility, read perhaps too optimistically in the indistinct forms of a newborn world, was enough to make the time golden. I mean this literally, dust suspended in the air of the time stands glazed in precious metal. Yes, freedom is that valuable. [↩]

4. Specifially not a dulap, which is smaller. A sifonier, literally chiffon-holder, is a large piece of furniture aspiring to emulate the walk-in closet. Twenty square feet is not uncommon. [↩]
5. Yes. There's a lot of literary convention you're not privy to, in part through not living in a language with a literature, in part through being uncurious. For instance. [↩]
6. Disperatu, with or without the tick indicating the missing proper end of the masculine definite article (l) is not in Romanian merely the singular male form of desperation. It's a word in its own right, denoting the marginally berserk adult male that used to be a supernumerary child who then failed to find his childhood grave, and now finds itself not really fit for a life as an adult beta. A certain sort of a lurch. I think you call these "red pillers" in your culture, or at least that's the intent. [↩]
7. This recurring literalism, "head breaking" is merely the localised superlative of a magnificent beating - that's how they say it where he's from. I suppose a safe English version would be "beat the shit out of you" or something like that. [↩]
8. You thought sex is optional ? What, for women ?! [↩]
9. Need he say more ? Need I ? Okay. Nobody in Romania believed the baby's gonna turn up malformed. It is the one true bond uniting Romanians alive today : we have all had this shared experience - the baby turned out retarded. It's not as little a thing as you might imagine, without it. [↩]
10. Firea, the nature of things and the implicit phenomena of existence. The being. [↩]
11. It's a pun. [↩]
12. You probably don't know, not having the (or any) experience, but the one thing competent slavegirls, average women in abusive relationships and aware players in crooked poker games have in common is this : watching the man's hands. The slaves because their master's cues, the abused women because early warning can be the difference between a ruptured spleen and a cracked rib (ie, six weeks in the hospital and major surgery vs a coupla days in bed) and the spotters for very similar reasons to either category. [↩]
13. An apt expression. Fear's principally a perspiratory scent. [↩]
14. I don't either, for that matter. I can appreciate women have been historically squeezed, I can appreciate that as the weaker player they have no practical option other than drumming up "community support", but it is a stupid solution that's antithetical to either performance or identity. How about instead of "all standing up as one" the better women join the stupid men in crushing underfoot those women stupid enough to have picked them ? Personal responsibility, bitch : you don't want to live with an idiot, learn to suck cunt. And like it, and be good at it. Oh, you don't like it ? Pune-ti pe cap casca de fier. [↩]
15. Romanian has this expression, "rizi tu rizi Harap Alb, da' nu-i risul tau". Harap Alb, literally White Nigger is a folk story hero. The expression denotes yellow laughter. [↩]
16. Whether something is "de ris", ie, to laugh at, or actually to be taken seriously is perhaps the most important distinction Romanian-ethics-as-implemented-by-the-everyman ever makes. [↩]
17. 2014, by Charlie McDowell, with Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass. [↩]
18. There is a reason for this - specifically that the risks and costs on the part of the male are one if not two degrees of magnitude smaller. You don't catch anything for fucking a sick woman, yo! It's in the range of 1%. If she fucks a sick guy she's got even odds. EVEN ODDS! You don't get pregnant, you're by nature bigger and stronger than her! What the fuck!

    By the time the man with a baseball bat can't keep up with the barefisted old guy we have a serious problem - and every dude out there with the complaint that his wom[a,e]n were more sexually adventurous than him is essentially making this statement. Off to gaol with you, yo! This isn't what you've a life for! [↩]

19. Cosmic anomaly, really ? [↩]
20. Obviously. [↩]
21. The difference between an actor and a video blogger being that for the latter the script is an asymptote, whereas for the former it's a starting point. [↩]