Chapter 0 - What Flamenco Means (To Me, At Least)
To me, flamenco doesn't just mean a music genre, or a fashion style, or a way of personality, or even the culture in and of itself. As a whole, as a one, singular thing, a concept with only its haecceity as something to help justify its own existence.
To me, flamenco means all of the above. It is a language ever-expanding; a bird singing to signify the night has turned to day; it is whatever a moon has always meant to the sun children, as Wolff had said to me about his lovely love, Rose; it is what a fire meant to the late music journalist and good friend, Wolfgang Hœsst; it is, in all honesty, to me, what love speaks.
Chapter 0.5 - My Response to the Whole Chain of Events
In light of "recent" events, the whole city of New York City is in deep, troubled waters.
I say "recent" in quotation marks, considering that the passing of my friend Wolfgang had happened a few months earlier. Alas, it seemed that the flamenco in his heart had been a strong fire once, that suffered winters as cold as they come. That fire has long been extinguished, yet not by anyone else, but by himself. His own hand had been the watering can.
However, while the fiery flamenco in his heart died, another one had been lit shortly afterwards. Considering that the assumed perpetrators were my friends Sep and Arborio.
I say "assumed," because I heard that it was them who "drove Wolfgang to kill himself" by Kevin Suriname, the current New York City Mayor.
The backlash was so severe that Sep and Arborio were driven out of their home by supporters of Suriname, both leftward and rightward.
Homophobia has caused some "major disagreements" in New York City and other places, where there were people who listened and tuned in to "Get It With Hesst and Friedman" as well as read Hesst and Friedman's works.
They were up in arms when they heard the news of his suicide as well as Suriname's speech. The whole affair set New York City, and some parts of America, on fire. Literally in some places. And the smoke and soot aren't even close to clearing up.
People were protesting out into the streets, and still are to this day, declaring Wolfgang as "the next George Floyd;" the people who supported Sep and Arborio's situation and their viewpoint regarding this very overt political situation they, I'll state my opinion, they helped come to fruition gloriously and with little labor, as well as charged. It's a very politically-charged situation they helped concoct.
I tried to contact Giles Friedman, another friend and the other, now-only part of the podcast - though these days, he admitted to me that he has guests on frequently, to prevent the podcast from becoming "liminal" or "lonely;" as well as "prevent the show from becoming discredited as a biased show," he joked - regarding the situation surrounding Wolfgang's death.
He said that - regarding what Suriname did to the story he submitted to him only in order to promote mental health awareness, considering the fact that Suriname basically did not that, and instead instigated a propaganda campaign against homosexuals, framing them as part of a conspiracy to undermine straight people because "to gay people, the gays are the only ones straight-minded," which he published to the gullible public with the help of his big-tent co-conspirators from his party "The Mountain" - his efforts and the efforts of his party propagandizing a human tragedy was "a disgrace." He also said that "while I believe that Sep and Arborio should share at least a part of blame or guilt," that "what Suriname did was cunning, Machiavellian, and otherwise opportunistic. Moreover, it was taking advantage of other people, and monstrously and disgustingly so, with no remorse, nor shame, nor morals."
