Alan-the-leopard

Last week I got this message in my email inbox (the underlined sentences are those which have striken me the most- for their audacity, of course):

Indeed, the level of imagination (and audacity) of some to see if by any chance they fish an unaware fish is amazing. 😎

As far as I can remember now, the only ways they might have found about my interest on Keaton was via Facebook or YouTube, where I have posted a few comments justifying why is Keaton my favorite Batman actor. That was all I did to make any kind of 'influence' on Keaton's career; nothing special that millions of other people have not done over the years. Therefore, I would not be surprised if other people got this same fake (kind of) note as well, implying that, if that was true, Keaton's career depended on a great deal on what people just said about him; as if he did not work hard to earn his own reputation.

Time ago I joined a Facebook group on Keaton Batman fans, where they recently confirmed to me that this was indeed a note better and safer to ignore and delete, because some of them got similar notes too on people pretending to have access to celebrities who are actually not that accessible to anybody. Besides, as they explained to me in that group, Keaton only uses Instagram, which I do not have, nor I have any interest to have it (just like Twitter or WhatsApp, or whatever is it written- I do not give a s*** for such things).

Pretending that I can believe that my comments can make any kind of influence on a celebrity of the calibre of Keaton made me laugh for real 😁 It reminded me of one of those pathetic recurrent situations in Hollywood movies (both cartoons and with real people, and with serious movies and comedies): that "a single man can do a lot if he wants" and blahblahblahblah- those melodramatic things that Hollywood movie directors and plot writers seem to love so much.

And if that sounds funny, not to say about the part on Keaton wishing to keep in touch with me 😂🤣 Yeah, sure. Michael Keaton in person, the one and only Michael Keaton... What else? Maybe Luke Skywalker needs to come to confirm the veracity of this mail?... 😝

By pretending that I will believe them, they have flipped the situation upside down and now it's the the naïve ones.😏

Maybe some of you are already familiar with this kind of jokes, but to me it has been the first time, so probably worth-sharing.

Have you ever got a note like this?

This current paranoia-schizophrenia called 'woke' spread worldwide for a few years now in the shape of a "fight against racism and male chauvinism and defending other cultures" and blahblahblah made me consider more than once the need to clarify that I do not want to have anything to do with it, nor relate my human OCs with it; characters who, as some of you already know, are black-skinned native Africans. It was just a damn coincidence that my characters are the kind of characters whom such people say they defend.

In fact, I began to design my own human characters before this worldwide trend exploded: Kwabena for example, the first human cartoon character of mine whom I made

public, made her debut here by 2014 (and the character as such was born even a bit earlier before been made public), and if I am not wrong, this "against-racism" paranoia was non-existent by that year. At least back then it didn't have the strength that it has now.

In addition, over time I also designed one or two white-skinned characters, but left them aside because I found them rather unappealing, unoriginal or "average". Africa, its landscapes, fauna, smells and its native inhabitants have always been of great interest for me ever since my childhood, so if I created my own native African characters it was because of that, not because of this woke s***.

This is something that I have been meaning to do for ages, and such a delay is mostly down to the fact that I always found it way more complex to do than it seems at first, and that lately I am rather busy too.

In any case, after careful thought, my personal list would be (more or less) the following. The thing here is to select just one song per movie or saga. I tried adding a link to each song, but while keeping the draft in stash and revising it, I don't know why all links took to the same song (different links to the same song), so I had to remove them.

Be welcome to share your mind.

1-) Lebo M.'s "He lives in you", from Disney´s The Lion King.

I mean the original version, not any subsequent adaptation.

2-) Sir Elton John's "Friends never say goodbye", from DreamWork´s The Road to El Dorado.

The movie shorter version, not the studio longer, repetitive version; a song which still today gets deep into me.

3-) "All I ever wanted", from DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt.

A bit hard for me to choose between this and "Playing with the big boys". Anyway, one of the deepest and most intense animated movie songs that I have ever known.

4-) Shakira´s "Try everything", from Disney´s Zoomania.

5-) "A pox on the phoney King of England", from Disney´s animated Robin Hood.

I always had a good laugh with it, specially when I see the little children splitting their sides laughing with the puppet show. The "Not in Nottingham" sad ballad and the love theme from the movie are not bad at all either.

6-) Randy Newman´s "Strange things", from Disney´s Toy Story 1.

The Spanish version ("No sé qué va a ser de mí") much better to my personal taste I have only watched the first two from the Toy Story saga, and the second one disappointed me so bad that I didn't bother to watch the others.

7-) "Everybody wants to be a cat", from Disney´s The Aristocats.

8-)Brian Adam´s "You can't take me", from DreamWork´s Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron.

This could have been a real hit were it not that stupid habit of singing with that kid of soar voice. And I say 'habit' because I saw and heard other singers sing with that same kind of voice, as you will see next... I ignore if it´s because they shout their lungs out as they sing and thus they wreck their voices, or else because they modify them to sound like that. Just ridiculous, in any case. Were it not for that, this song could have been higher up in the list.

9-) John Rzeznik's "I'm still here", from Disney´s The Treasure Planet.

The same as above when it comes to kind of voice. You see what I mean when I say that this is a 'habit', and that some singers actually modify their voices to sound like that?... Is this kind of "soar singing" a kind of singing?

10-) "Let it go", from Disney´s Frozen.

The movie as such and as a whole is a real unbearable fart of a musical that I just cannot stomach; not even with baking soda (and of course I didn't even bother to watch the second movie). No way. This scene and song are the only worth-watching thing about it.

Strange tastes the ones I have, or maybe not so much?

Two WWII warbirds (a Bell P-63 Kingcobra, and a bomber Boeing B-17) collide mid-air. No survivor. My prayers to the pilots, crew, their families and friends. The footage may be hard to watch: https://youtu.be/3zuiDpBhCvw