The little AU: Summer Dreams: False pride, and real anger
The little AU: Summer Dreams: False pride and real anger
slashfairy
G
~~
Viggo's just pissed, now.
He's been calling for impeachment for years, years, written off as a hippie poet, wanna-be beat, one of those damn Venice Beach radicals, an actor showing off for the camera, a splinter poet, a small-house publisher whose readers are mostly fat women in their fifties sitting in front of computers all day.
But he knows that's not true. He's met his fans, knows they're intelligent, active, reasonable people who have busy lives, families, who work, have educations either gotten on their own or through school. People who read because it pleases them, people who go to the movies for more than 'pretty faces' (of which, he's still pretty sure, his is not really one. Orlando's, maybe, but not his). He knows they follow the politics where they live, they vote, they explain things from television news to their children.
So why is there not a hue and cry for impeachment? Is his vanity getting the better of him? Does he really think, now, that his say-so is enough to get someone to put a sign on her lawn that might make her enemies in her neighborhood? Cause discomfort in her marriage? Bring suspicion on her children? Get her fired?
He finds his anger tiring. He understand Cindy Sheehan's tiredness, her need to step back, pick up her life and walk. He wants to do that, pick up his life and carry it easily again, but he's got work lined up, and this anger, this frustration, built up, and he's tired of the damn talk radio and the fucking news and the misuse of his country's resources, people, youth, history, in the service of greed and insanity. Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. -Katherine Mansfield He'd posted that himself on the website, mostly to remind himself to be gentle.
Walter comes by, brings a bin of mail with him from the Perceval post office box. "Gonna need to order more t-shirts, brother," he says, referring to the copies of Viggo's impromptu 'fashion line' of hand-printed/painted/inked white T-shirts that say 'No More Blood for Oil' and 'Impeach, Remove, Jail'.
"Why's that?" Viggo asks.
"Because they're all sold out," answers Walter, picking up the outgoing stuff to take back to the post office. "That run of Twilight of Empire we're offering for free 'while supplies last' is going, too."
Walter's practical- a scientist, trained in the Earth and its being, he's more pragmatic than Viggo, less impatient. He sees progress- when the first shirt showed up on Viggo at some press conference, in, where was it, Japan?- it'd gotten some stares, some amusement, and been aped by a few fans. Now? Now people come to Perceval's site every day to get their political news, their fresh view on things.
Walter's pissed, too, but he's not as concerned as Viggo by the seeming slowness of things. He knows from his study that it takes a while for momentum to build, for there to be a mass large enough to shift things, and he thinks its coming in Viggo's fandom- that his brother's work, his movies, his effort to say "'WAKE UP', pay attention, this is the life you're living, so pay attention to the world you're living it in!" is arousing more than quick glances at a leading man- it's arousing the political will of an overlooked people who will no longer overlook their own value.
"Ah," says Viggo. Calmer, now. More able to think. Less lonely, somehow. "We'll order more shirts, then, and I'll talk to Howard, see if he wants to do another run of give-aways or if we should try something else. More performances, perhaps."
In 1999 he took a part in a small movie in New Zealand because his son liked the books the movie was based on. 8 years later, he's explored so carefully every tendency in him to violence, to uncaring, to allowing himself to be lulled to sleep because it's convenient, because he's good and that 's enough. He's taken stands, he's made efforts, he's put himself on the line publicly more than once, this shy man with a vain streak who feel things so strongly he'll put aside his privacy for his ethics. He's proud of all that: most proud of not being able to lie, easily, to himself. And he's touched others, he knows he has. Just needs to allow those things to grow as they need to, and keep doing his own work. Not worry.
He thanks his brother for setting him straight, getting a typical Mortensen grin for it. Sees him out to the truck, closes the gate behind him, comes back into the house a new man.
The phone rings- Orli, from London. Viggo gets a glass of wine, plops into the huge leather chair, and settles in for an interesting conversation about the Green movement, and something Orli's got going into the new house in London, and whether it'd work at Bluff house with the different building codes. They move into talking about different offers Orli's had for films, for another play, for products. "I should be wearing your shirts, Vig," Orli says, knowing his face will get them seen whether he wants it or not.
"Well, we can talk about that," Viggo says, not willing to sacrifice, right now, Orlando's small precious privacy to his own political campaigning. Blair's gone in the UK-- so there is change, it is happening, and if he just looks, breathes, he can see it, feel it.
Later, when he's getting ready for bed, he talks with Karl who's down in New Orleans. The subject of Bush, of Cheney, of money spent unwisely in the US, comes up, but Viggo's calmer now, able to listen to his other lover's outsider's view and take it in, learn from it, not be so prickly and so down-hearted but more optimistic, kinder, the way he's worked to become.
After a late walk, he puts the dogs to sleep, himself to bed. It's Toronto soon, more talk, more photos. Another chance to wear another shirt, maybe. He'll know when the time comes, which it will soon enough, what to write, and when.
slashfairy
G
~~
Viggo's just pissed, now.
He's been calling for impeachment for years, years, written off as a hippie poet, wanna-be beat, one of those damn Venice Beach radicals, an actor showing off for the camera, a splinter poet, a small-house publisher whose readers are mostly fat women in their fifties sitting in front of computers all day.
But he knows that's not true. He's met his fans, knows they're intelligent, active, reasonable people who have busy lives, families, who work, have educations either gotten on their own or through school. People who read because it pleases them, people who go to the movies for more than 'pretty faces' (of which, he's still pretty sure, his is not really one. Orlando's, maybe, but not his). He knows they follow the politics where they live, they vote, they explain things from television news to their children.
So why is there not a hue and cry for impeachment? Is his vanity getting the better of him? Does he really think, now, that his say-so is enough to get someone to put a sign on her lawn that might make her enemies in her neighborhood? Cause discomfort in her marriage? Bring suspicion on her children? Get her fired?
He finds his anger tiring. He understand Cindy Sheehan's tiredness, her need to step back, pick up her life and walk. He wants to do that, pick up his life and carry it easily again, but he's got work lined up, and this anger, this frustration, built up, and he's tired of the damn talk radio and the fucking news and the misuse of his country's resources, people, youth, history, in the service of greed and insanity. Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. -Katherine Mansfield He'd posted that himself on the website, mostly to remind himself to be gentle.
Walter comes by, brings a bin of mail with him from the Perceval post office box. "Gonna need to order more t-shirts, brother," he says, referring to the copies of Viggo's impromptu 'fashion line' of hand-printed/painted/inked white T-shirts that say 'No More Blood for Oil' and 'Impeach, Remove, Jail'.
"Why's that?" Viggo asks.
"Because they're all sold out," answers Walter, picking up the outgoing stuff to take back to the post office. "That run of Twilight of Empire we're offering for free 'while supplies last' is going, too."
Walter's practical- a scientist, trained in the Earth and its being, he's more pragmatic than Viggo, less impatient. He sees progress- when the first shirt showed up on Viggo at some press conference, in, where was it, Japan?- it'd gotten some stares, some amusement, and been aped by a few fans. Now? Now people come to Perceval's site every day to get their political news, their fresh view on things.
Walter's pissed, too, but he's not as concerned as Viggo by the seeming slowness of things. He knows from his study that it takes a while for momentum to build, for there to be a mass large enough to shift things, and he thinks its coming in Viggo's fandom- that his brother's work, his movies, his effort to say "'WAKE UP', pay attention, this is the life you're living, so pay attention to the world you're living it in!" is arousing more than quick glances at a leading man- it's arousing the political will of an overlooked people who will no longer overlook their own value.
"Ah," says Viggo. Calmer, now. More able to think. Less lonely, somehow. "We'll order more shirts, then, and I'll talk to Howard, see if he wants to do another run of give-aways or if we should try something else. More performances, perhaps."
In 1999 he took a part in a small movie in New Zealand because his son liked the books the movie was based on. 8 years later, he's explored so carefully every tendency in him to violence, to uncaring, to allowing himself to be lulled to sleep because it's convenient, because he's good and that 's enough. He's taken stands, he's made efforts, he's put himself on the line publicly more than once, this shy man with a vain streak who feel things so strongly he'll put aside his privacy for his ethics. He's proud of all that: most proud of not being able to lie, easily, to himself. And he's touched others, he knows he has. Just needs to allow those things to grow as they need to, and keep doing his own work. Not worry.
He thanks his brother for setting him straight, getting a typical Mortensen grin for it. Sees him out to the truck, closes the gate behind him, comes back into the house a new man.
The phone rings- Orli, from London. Viggo gets a glass of wine, plops into the huge leather chair, and settles in for an interesting conversation about the Green movement, and something Orli's got going into the new house in London, and whether it'd work at Bluff house with the different building codes. They move into talking about different offers Orli's had for films, for another play, for products. "I should be wearing your shirts, Vig," Orli says, knowing his face will get them seen whether he wants it or not.
"Well, we can talk about that," Viggo says, not willing to sacrifice, right now, Orlando's small precious privacy to his own political campaigning. Blair's gone in the UK-- so there is change, it is happening, and if he just looks, breathes, he can see it, feel it.
Later, when he's getting ready for bed, he talks with Karl who's down in New Orleans. The subject of Bush, of Cheney, of money spent unwisely in the US, comes up, but Viggo's calmer now, able to listen to his other lover's outsider's view and take it in, learn from it, not be so prickly and so down-hearted but more optimistic, kinder, the way he's worked to become.
After a late walk, he puts the dogs to sleep, himself to bed. It's Toronto soon, more talk, more photos. Another chance to wear another shirt, maybe. He'll know when the time comes, which it will soon enough, what to write, and when.