Martin Scorcese, Niggaz, Garbage Cans and Loyalty

Loyalty.

Recently I went to the movie theatre to see "The Departed" which is a movie about loyalty. A argument broke out in the theater between 2 females that had positions that they were both loyal to. One woman was loyal to the idea that she could talk on the telephone during the movie while the other woman was loyal to the idea that she deserved to watch the movie in peace.

The argument escalated and the woman who wanted to talk on the phone kept getting louder and louder (which I will assume was her idea of being loyal to acting ghetto). As she and her boyfriend walked down the stairs of the movie theater, her boyfriend, (in what I can only assume was a demonstration of loyalty to her,) picked up a garbage can and threw it into the middle of the movie theater at a group of people who had nothing to do with the initial confusion. The only thing these people had done was be "loyal" to the idea of sitting through all of the bullshit that was going on in an attempt to see this movie and what was their reward for that? A giant trash can to tha head.

Ahh, gotta love that Loyalty.

Loyalty will make you question who and what are you really loyal to. What do you believe, what do you stand for. Loyalty is an easy thing to hold as an idea, but not always an easy thing to practice. Too often I've seen loyalty come back and bite you in the ass. Either you were too loyal to someone and found yourself sacrificing what you want for them or you were not loyal enough to them and somehow caused them to be disappointed in your actions. Sometimes it's both.

In my strongest moments I've been both loyal and disloyal. Whether it was to an idea, belief or person, I've executed both with a certain level of ferocity that would be hard to explain. Sometimes I've regretted that and sometimes I've stood by my convictions. I've had people that were around me profess to be loyal only to do things that I viewed as deliberate acts of betrayal. In my heart I still haven't learned to forgive that, but fuck it, I'm a work in progress. I spoke to a dear friend tonight, he told me a tale of loyalty whereas he did a good deed for someone and they reciprocated to him totally unexpectedly. That story convinced me that loyalty exists, maybe I just don't get to experience it on that level. they say the creator has a master plan though, right?

Riiiiiiight.

Anyway, me being loyal to finding out how "The Departed" ends, I went back to the movie to see it this past weekend. I found the ending to be worth the trouble (and the last scene in the movie, I could soooo relate to). That being said, I've come to this conclusion.

Loyalty itself is an idea that can be just as elusive as any other dream. For now though, I gotta believe that it works better in the movies than it does in real life

Priest