There is now a generation of children from all over the world who will no longer say the following sentence: "I won't see a black person as president of the United States in my lifetime".
I don't believe that Obama has ended or even slowed down the practice of American exceptionalism. I feel as though we will continue to believe that in America there is no class difference, we will believe that in America we can have all those fancy things they advertise on TV, we will continue to believe that we are not an imperialist nation with every intent on maintaining our dominance over the world. We will continue to believe in the mythology that America has higher "ideals" and that we are an exception to the rule of colonialism and all that that entails: We don't kill innocent people every day, and we maintain high standards that transcend the need for power. We will continue to lie to ourselves and not admit that we control the majority of the world's resources and that we are not doing anything to stop that.
And I am not rationalizing. I am not justifying this reality. Nor am I contributing more to American exceptionalism.
We have witnessed a clear shift in consciousness this past month, and we will have an entire generation, and generations after that, who will never think that they won't see a black person in the office of the white house. That is powerful and I am holding onto that with my heart and soul. We haven't even begun to feel the amazing effects of this shift, we haven't even begun to fully grasp what it means for the next several generations that they will no longer have to believe such a terrible statement. We haven't even begun to witness the consequences of such a radical idea, and the fact that someday very soon I will look back on this post and think "wow, it really wasn't all that radical", and someone fifteen years from now will laugh at me in my old age and say "it's so hilarious what those old people think of as radical". That is why I can NOT wait to be at the inauguration on January 20, 2009 to sing this song:
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
This is (old, I know, but still) fucking AWESOME
I had an asthma attack so I used albuterol and I'm SOOOOOOOOO tired, but I can NOT go to sleep because I'm jacked up on crazy steroid shit. argh.
I stopped going to see D&B dj's years ago because I got so sick of how "sceney" it was, and how driven it was by ridiculous fashion and "cool" kid attitudes. But I've never stopped loving the music. Annie Mac from BBC 1 did a mash-up show last week of all D&B, and I've been obsessing over it again. I really love the internets because at 4 in the morning you can pretty much satisfy any music/pop culture obsession you are currently in the middle of. I like the really hard D&B, like that superman mix, I heard someone do a much more hardcore version of it. It was pretty fucking amazing the first time I heard it. The DJ opened with it. So the music was stopped and he walked up and you just heard those first few opening notes, and then BAM you were hit with this amazing bass and that beat. I'm no longer cool am I?
I never was cool, I don't know who I think I'm fooling.
I had an asthma attack so I used albuterol and I'm SOOOOOOOOO tired, but I can NOT go to sleep because I'm jacked up on crazy steroid shit. argh.
I stopped going to see D&B dj's years ago because I got so sick of how "sceney" it was, and how driven it was by ridiculous fashion and "cool" kid attitudes. But I've never stopped loving the music. Annie Mac from BBC 1 did a mash-up show last week of all D&B, and I've been obsessing over it again. I really love the internets because at 4 in the morning you can pretty much satisfy any music/pop culture obsession you are currently in the middle of. I like the really hard D&B, like that superman mix, I heard someone do a much more hardcore version of it. It was pretty fucking amazing the first time I heard it. The DJ opened with it. So the music was stopped and he walked up and you just heard those first few opening notes, and then BAM you were hit with this amazing bass and that beat. I'm no longer cool am I?
I never was cool, I don't know who I think I'm fooling.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
I wanted to write a blog about what I think the top ten most important rock and roll albums of all time are and why. I wanted to focus on entire albums rather than singles because I grew up in the late seventies and eighties, when album rock was at its peak. I am obsessed with albums.
But before I could do that, I decided to read everything I could get my hands on about rock and roll history. I started with a book called Flashbacks by Michael Lydon. It's a series of articles he wrote through his career as a music writer for a variety of magazines, and editor and part creator of Rolling Stone Magazine. It's pretty good, but focused on a few very well known acts like The Beattles, The Rolling Stones and so on. Then I started, and am working through it right now: Flowers in the Dustbin: the Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977 by James Miller. The writing is much better and it's much more complete. I have kept a journal of the various songs that are mentioned, and have been able to find many of them on youtube. By the time I started buying records, I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the rock and roll of the fifties/sixties and early seventies. I thought it was trite and ridiculous. While I had changed that view before I started reading these books, I have begun to feel some of that same mythic excitement of its fresh "new" sound that was felt back in the early fifties and forward because while I read I can see and hear these songs performed, and can understand too, now, the sound of jump blues, or boogie woogie blues that was the impetus for rock and roll. It's a surreal experience because if I read this book five years ago, I would not have gotten this same pleasurable experience of being able to type in a few key words onto my computer screen and listening to this stuff as I read about it. So I figured, in the spirit of the whole thing, I would write in here my journal notes and the youtube videos of this stuff. I realize that to most people this stuff is relatively common knowledge. What is fantastic about it, is the blending of cultural modes of production and knowledge. I'm hoping to convey at least some of that.
First, Wynonie Harris' pivotal song that was recorded in 1947 "Good Rockin' Tonight". This song is where a lot of people say the term rock and roll evolved from. That is sort of true, because after this song there were a series of songs with some variation of the term "rock" in it. Wynonie Harris was a blues musician playing in dance halls from coast to coast. A kid from New Orleans wrote the boogie woogie blues song on a paper bag at one of Harris' shows and brought it to him back stage. It was ignored for a while, but when Roy Brown recorded his own version of it, and it did well in the south. After that Harris recorded the song that went down in history*:
*Source
This next one is important because it was a technological break through for recording, and made possible some of the greats of rock and roll. This is the first time in history where a singer sang harmonies with herself. She recorded each of the four harmonies on separate tapes and then recorded a fifth version of her singing over the others. This technique had been fooled around with for a short while, but this is the first recording actually made this way. Its production credits include Jerry Wexler.
This next song was a popular novelty song that was produced by Herb Abramson the co-founder of Atlantic Records (along with Ahmet Ertegun)(sorry for the video in this, but it was the best recording I could find thus far):
The first number one hit single for Atlantic Records (1950/1951):
also, R&B charts were originally dubbed the Race Charts in Billboard's weekly magazine.
Kansas City was written by Leiber and Stoller two white kids who met in LA. They ended up writing many of the rock and roll songs that we are all too familiar with (IE the score for Jail House Rock). This was their first big 'un. (I love this song).
More Later
But before I could do that, I decided to read everything I could get my hands on about rock and roll history. I started with a book called Flashbacks by Michael Lydon. It's a series of articles he wrote through his career as a music writer for a variety of magazines, and editor and part creator of Rolling Stone Magazine. It's pretty good, but focused on a few very well known acts like The Beattles, The Rolling Stones and so on. Then I started, and am working through it right now: Flowers in the Dustbin: the Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977 by James Miller. The writing is much better and it's much more complete. I have kept a journal of the various songs that are mentioned, and have been able to find many of them on youtube. By the time I started buying records, I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the rock and roll of the fifties/sixties and early seventies. I thought it was trite and ridiculous. While I had changed that view before I started reading these books, I have begun to feel some of that same mythic excitement of its fresh "new" sound that was felt back in the early fifties and forward because while I read I can see and hear these songs performed, and can understand too, now, the sound of jump blues, or boogie woogie blues that was the impetus for rock and roll. It's a surreal experience because if I read this book five years ago, I would not have gotten this same pleasurable experience of being able to type in a few key words onto my computer screen and listening to this stuff as I read about it. So I figured, in the spirit of the whole thing, I would write in here my journal notes and the youtube videos of this stuff. I realize that to most people this stuff is relatively common knowledge. What is fantastic about it, is the blending of cultural modes of production and knowledge. I'm hoping to convey at least some of that.
First, Wynonie Harris' pivotal song that was recorded in 1947 "Good Rockin' Tonight". This song is where a lot of people say the term rock and roll evolved from. That is sort of true, because after this song there were a series of songs with some variation of the term "rock" in it. Wynonie Harris was a blues musician playing in dance halls from coast to coast. A kid from New Orleans wrote the boogie woogie blues song on a paper bag at one of Harris' shows and brought it to him back stage. It was ignored for a while, but when Roy Brown recorded his own version of it, and it did well in the south. After that Harris recorded the song that went down in history*:
*Source
This next one is important because it was a technological break through for recording, and made possible some of the greats of rock and roll. This is the first time in history where a singer sang harmonies with herself. She recorded each of the four harmonies on separate tapes and then recorded a fifth version of her singing over the others. This technique had been fooled around with for a short while, but this is the first recording actually made this way. Its production credits include Jerry Wexler.
This next song was a popular novelty song that was produced by Herb Abramson the co-founder of Atlantic Records (along with Ahmet Ertegun)(sorry for the video in this, but it was the best recording I could find thus far):
The first number one hit single for Atlantic Records (1950/1951):
also, R&B charts were originally dubbed the Race Charts in Billboard's weekly magazine.
Kansas City was written by Leiber and Stoller two white kids who met in LA. They ended up writing many of the rock and roll songs that we are all too familiar with (IE the score for Jail House Rock). This was their first big 'un. (I love this song).
More Later
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Thanks Roseanne
This is a copy of her blog slagging the jolie-pitts. SO glad about this! It may not be well written, but I love it none-the-less. Go roseanne!
jon voight
is a frightened little girl in a pink ballet tutu, who acts like Obama just wandered in from the rain forest with a bone thru his nose and a communist pamphlet in his loincloth. The neocons who own jon voight and make him dance on the chabad telethons are the worst most elitist people on earth. glen beck and jon voight are their bitches... both of them are used tampons who must be flushed down the toilet immediately! jon voight your evil spawn angelina jolie and her vacuous hubby brad pitt make about forty million dollars a year in violent psychopathic movies and give away three of it to starving children trying to look as if they give a crap about humanity as they spit out more dunces that will consume more than their fair share and wreck the earth even more. (just sayin').
Also miss jolie says she likes mccain too and hasn't decided who to endorse....huh? Aren't you supposed to be somewhat enlightened, or do you not know that the african daughter you hold in every picture had parents who suffered and died because of the republican party's worldwide economic assault on africa over the last few decades since reagan? whaaaa...??????!!!! (for that matter, the thai and cambodian sons you are photo'd with weekly too who's pictures you sell to raise money to help the poor? Their families are victims of America's right wing military incursions too. Mccain wants to continue with the idea of war for profit...the americans are over that thinking now! They have drugged our troops and lower classes into supporting their oil business atrocities for long enough. We want to save not lose our souls thank you. Now go back to making your movies about women who love to handle big guns that shoot hundreds of people to death. Ps....it might be good for your asian and african children's self esteem to know you support a brown man for the leader of the free world.)
jon voight
is a frightened little girl in a pink ballet tutu, who acts like Obama just wandered in from the rain forest with a bone thru his nose and a communist pamphlet in his loincloth. The neocons who own jon voight and make him dance on the chabad telethons are the worst most elitist people on earth. glen beck and jon voight are their bitches... both of them are used tampons who must be flushed down the toilet immediately! jon voight your evil spawn angelina jolie and her vacuous hubby brad pitt make about forty million dollars a year in violent psychopathic movies and give away three of it to starving children trying to look as if they give a crap about humanity as they spit out more dunces that will consume more than their fair share and wreck the earth even more. (just sayin').
Also miss jolie says she likes mccain too and hasn't decided who to endorse....huh? Aren't you supposed to be somewhat enlightened, or do you not know that the african daughter you hold in every picture had parents who suffered and died because of the republican party's worldwide economic assault on africa over the last few decades since reagan? whaaaa...??????!!!! (for that matter, the thai and cambodian sons you are photo'd with weekly too who's pictures you sell to raise money to help the poor? Their families are victims of America's right wing military incursions too. Mccain wants to continue with the idea of war for profit...the americans are over that thinking now! They have drugged our troops and lower classes into supporting their oil business atrocities for long enough. We want to save not lose our souls thank you. Now go back to making your movies about women who love to handle big guns that shoot hundreds of people to death. Ps....it might be good for your asian and african children's self esteem to know you support a brown man for the leader of the free world.)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Why I hate poetry
I have always insisted on the fact that I hate poetry. There is just so much bad poetry out there. A lot of it falls into two categories: 1)masturbation for the poet. Look at how I use words in ways they aren't really meant to be used. Look at how adept I am at manipulating language. LOOK AT ME. 2)Tragically embarrasing journal entry poetry. "I'm so sad, I miss my mommy, the water is blue and the sky carries the birds away, like it carried away you" crap. Argh. When I read it my skin crawls with shame. It's just unbelievably uncomfortable.
In spite of that, there are poets who are important. They make history, they claim history, their words infuse themselves into our consciousness whether we know it or not. That is what I really want to write about. I want to give examples here of poetry that is important. Poetry that exemplifies how literature and history work together, and how that ultimately changes the world. In its own quiet, but none-the-less important way.
The first is the most obvious. It is with a sense of bitter irony that I call the next two poets American icons. These poets are a part of us now and they continue to affect the world of literature and therefor history. Here goes:
[by the way, this is copywrited material. Do yourself a favor and go buy some books today.]
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
On the one hand I think this poem should be the National Anthem. On the other hand I think to do that would be to incorporate something that doesn't belong to the nation. Regardless, this poem is the perfect example of poetry and history being related to each other (sometimes by blood even). Incidentally, I once saw Maya Angelou live, and she read this poem. I cried like a baby. This poem...ah, heavy sigh at what this poem does.
And Maya's predecessor:
Langston Hughes lit the world on fire. His poetry is on the one hand critical of the historical moment in which it was written, and on the other hand it is history itself. I often fantasize about drinking with Langston Hughes. I would hold his hand (if he would let me). If I was a good writer at all, I would love to embark on a series of poems written with the premise of Langston Hughes comes to visit the 21st century. At any rate, here's a sample of this man's brilliance:
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Langston Hughes
This next one is long, but it's really important so I have to include it. It is an amazing fusion of deeply personal, historical and clearly political. It is an anthem, and it is a seduction. Here ya' go:
"You Bring Out The Mexican In Me"
by Sandra Cisneros
You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila l�ágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtacc�huatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustí�n Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch-in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in you light. Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazolt�otl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Pi��n. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Aarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.
I am going to go further back now. The Chinese poets, as far as I'm concerned, invented poetry. These poems are decptively simple, and translating these into English distorts that some. I'm specifically talking about the T'ang poets. These poems had several rules. First, the second and third couplets are parellel. This means that the actions in the third and forth lines match, and then the fifth and sixth lines match. That is near impossible to translate. Additonally there are rules of rhyme and intonation that simply can not be translated. What amazes me the most about this poetry is the implication through absence. For example if the poet writes that it is day and warm, this automatically means that there was a time and will be a time when it is night and cold. This makes the poem very subtle, and without knowing that the poet has reached into you and shaken you up-well you're feeling something that is not expressible. The first of these guys I will share is TU FU. His petry is considered to be the most historical of the T'ang dudes. well anyway, here:
Writes of what he feels, traveling by night
Slender grasses, breeze faint on the shore,
Here, the looming mast, the lone night boat.
Stars hang down on the breadth of the plain,
The moon gushes in the great river's current.
My name shall not be known from my writing;
Sick, growing old, I must yield up my post.
Wind-tossed, fluttering — what is my likeness?
In Heaven and Earth, a single gull of the sands.
This is translated by Stephen Owen who has written some great introductions into the world of the T'ang poets. This particular poem rocks my world. You can see through Tu Fu's eyes, and if you do that, the world around the poet becomes increasingly blurry. The continual temporal and spatial movement is astounding. Read it a couple of times,it will get under your skin.
The last poem I'm going to share is by Li Po. He didn't follow the rules of the T'ang poetry. He was a total deviant. And I love him for that. This particular poem is my all time favorite poem of all poems ever written ever ever ever. I don't need to say why because the poem itself sums up everything I've just said about the importance of history and literature:
Bringing in the Wine
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
... To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me br forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
... Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we'll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we'll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!
Li Po
On the off chance that I have indeed inspired you to go out today and buy some books, I will say this. Arthur Waley is by far the best translator of the T'ang poets. Ezra Pound did some good translations (he was a colleague of sorts to Arthur Waley), but because of his penchant for the Nazi's and his otherwise insanity, it is with caution that I recomend his translations. Also, if the Chinese stuff interests you, a novel from the Ming dynasty called Monkey is an amazing book. Also get the Arthur Waley translation. Although he didn't translate the entire book, his version is still the best one.
Finally, I just want to say again how much these poets and specifically the poems in this blog, embody what poetry should be, what it can be, and why we need to re-examine poetry which as I said has become increasingly bad.
I have always insisted on the fact that I hate poetry. There is just so much bad poetry out there. A lot of it falls into two categories: 1)masturbation for the poet. Look at how I use words in ways they aren't really meant to be used. Look at how adept I am at manipulating language. LOOK AT ME. 2)Tragically embarrasing journal entry poetry. "I'm so sad, I miss my mommy, the water is blue and the sky carries the birds away, like it carried away you" crap. Argh. When I read it my skin crawls with shame. It's just unbelievably uncomfortable.
In spite of that, there are poets who are important. They make history, they claim history, their words infuse themselves into our consciousness whether we know it or not. That is what I really want to write about. I want to give examples here of poetry that is important. Poetry that exemplifies how literature and history work together, and how that ultimately changes the world. In its own quiet, but none-the-less important way.
The first is the most obvious. It is with a sense of bitter irony that I call the next two poets American icons. These poets are a part of us now and they continue to affect the world of literature and therefor history. Here goes:
[by the way, this is copywrited material. Do yourself a favor and go buy some books today.]
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
On the one hand I think this poem should be the National Anthem. On the other hand I think to do that would be to incorporate something that doesn't belong to the nation. Regardless, this poem is the perfect example of poetry and history being related to each other (sometimes by blood even). Incidentally, I once saw Maya Angelou live, and she read this poem. I cried like a baby. This poem...ah, heavy sigh at what this poem does.
And Maya's predecessor:
Langston Hughes lit the world on fire. His poetry is on the one hand critical of the historical moment in which it was written, and on the other hand it is history itself. I often fantasize about drinking with Langston Hughes. I would hold his hand (if he would let me). If I was a good writer at all, I would love to embark on a series of poems written with the premise of Langston Hughes comes to visit the 21st century. At any rate, here's a sample of this man's brilliance:
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Langston Hughes
This next one is long, but it's really important so I have to include it. It is an amazing fusion of deeply personal, historical and clearly political. It is an anthem, and it is a seduction. Here ya' go:
"You Bring Out The Mexican In Me"
by Sandra Cisneros
You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila l�ágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtacc�huatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustí�n Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch-in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in you light. Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazolt�otl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Pi��n. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Aarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.
I am going to go further back now. The Chinese poets, as far as I'm concerned, invented poetry. These poems are decptively simple, and translating these into English distorts that some. I'm specifically talking about the T'ang poets. These poems had several rules. First, the second and third couplets are parellel. This means that the actions in the third and forth lines match, and then the fifth and sixth lines match. That is near impossible to translate. Additonally there are rules of rhyme and intonation that simply can not be translated. What amazes me the most about this poetry is the implication through absence. For example if the poet writes that it is day and warm, this automatically means that there was a time and will be a time when it is night and cold. This makes the poem very subtle, and without knowing that the poet has reached into you and shaken you up-well you're feeling something that is not expressible. The first of these guys I will share is TU FU. His petry is considered to be the most historical of the T'ang dudes. well anyway, here:
Writes of what he feels, traveling by night
Slender grasses, breeze faint on the shore,
Here, the looming mast, the lone night boat.
Stars hang down on the breadth of the plain,
The moon gushes in the great river's current.
My name shall not be known from my writing;
Sick, growing old, I must yield up my post.
Wind-tossed, fluttering — what is my likeness?
In Heaven and Earth, a single gull of the sands.
This is translated by Stephen Owen who has written some great introductions into the world of the T'ang poets. This particular poem rocks my world. You can see through Tu Fu's eyes, and if you do that, the world around the poet becomes increasingly blurry. The continual temporal and spatial movement is astounding. Read it a couple of times,it will get under your skin.
The last poem I'm going to share is by Li Po. He didn't follow the rules of the T'ang poetry. He was a total deviant. And I love him for that. This particular poem is my all time favorite poem of all poems ever written ever ever ever. I don't need to say why because the poem itself sums up everything I've just said about the importance of history and literature:
Bringing in the Wine
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
... To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me br forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
... Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we'll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we'll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!
Li Po
On the off chance that I have indeed inspired you to go out today and buy some books, I will say this. Arthur Waley is by far the best translator of the T'ang poets. Ezra Pound did some good translations (he was a colleague of sorts to Arthur Waley), but because of his penchant for the Nazi's and his otherwise insanity, it is with caution that I recomend his translations. Also, if the Chinese stuff interests you, a novel from the Ming dynasty called Monkey is an amazing book. Also get the Arthur Waley translation. Although he didn't translate the entire book, his version is still the best one.
Finally, I just want to say again how much these poets and specifically the poems in this blog, embody what poetry should be, what it can be, and why we need to re-examine poetry which as I said has become increasingly bad.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
I want to write something sentimental about Santa Cruz since I'm moving and all. Or on the other hand I'd like to write a letter to the town of Santa Cruz letting her know that she's really not nearly as great as she thinks she is. Maybe I'll dedicate a Streets song to her. Now wouldn't that be appropriately irreverent and yet perfectly childish? Maybe, since I'm drinking red bull, and I'm-well, quite frankly I'm avoiding the last part of the packing.
The final wrap up of the packing is the worst part. It's all the stuff that you might possibly need in the next few days. It's all the stuff that doesn't fit neatly into a little box (and believe me, I have a LOT of little boxes). I am not actually going to be moving into my house in Sacramento. I'll be taking my stuff there and then (unless I get a job, which I'm really hoping for) I will be living out of my back pack for a month doing sidework. Then, I'll be going to Japan because one of my amazing friends bought me a ticket out there to visit her.
Which brings me to another point. I have the most amazing friends a girl could ask for. I have no idea why they deal with me, but they do, and I consider myself an extremely lucky person. So I have amazing friends, I'm about to have a great summer with lots of adventure (the more the better, so if you have any ideas, please share), I'm about to hang out with and do some creative stuff with another really great friend, and I also have a degree from university now. So I guess now all I need is for Kristin Scott Thomas to stop denying our love for each other and move to Sacramento to make babies with me (Kristin, I'll gladly move to France with you if you're not up for the beauty of Sac).
So back to the sentiments about Santa Cruz. Let's see-where do I start? Well, Santa Cruz, I'm sure that you aren't worried about this, but just so you know-you have only one cab that works in the middle of the night. Making a plane sucks in your town. Also, I know you care about this: you have a LOT of seriously damaged people in your town, and you do a great job of being very kind to them. But quite frankly, I don't think catering to the damaged will make the world better. I am not saying that people are mean in Sac, because I don't think they are, but they aren't as oppressively nice as people in SC and that is why I can't wait to go where the damaged people aren't given voice in every arena of daily life. Besides, it's as though by giving the seriously damaged such a strong representative power, the other people who are better at hiding their broken-ness get to stay in hiding. I like the idea of everyone having to come out of that closet-but I won't cater to you if you do. Additionally, your bus system may be a decent system for such a small town, but I have to tell you right now: it stinks. For being such a "green" city, you make it awfully hard for people to avoid the use of cars in your town. Think about that.
Again, I doubt that Santa Cruz gives a shit about me, since quite frankly I don't really give a shit about Santa Cruz. It gladly took my money while I paid to live here and go to school, and it gladly jacked up prices during graduation week-end in order to get one last huge sum of money from us before we all move away from here to cities that we can afford to live in.
Additionally, I would like to discuss the topic of politics here in Santa Cruz. I was warned before I came here that it would be like living in a bubble of self-righteous radicalism. I was prepared for that, and thought to myself that for a couple of years it would be nice to live in that bubble. Unfortunately the only such radicalism I found here was in the "intellectuals" doing graduate work at the university-writing for the New Left Review (which is amazing, and I am quite aware that I will never write well enough for the New Left Review editors to even use my hard copy for recycled, reused toilet paper). I didn't find any radicalism outside of the city on the hill (the UC), and the radicalism there was minimal at best. So, Santa Cruz, you do live in a self-righteous bubble, but not one of radical politics. You live in the bubble of belief that you are radical, when for all intents and purposes you are nothing of the sort. I once saw a bunch of washed up hippies walking down pacific avenue burning little candles as a protest to the war. I was wondering who they were really protesting when it occurred to me that what they were really doing was marching down the street holding candles in order to congratulate themselves for being so forward thinking. Way to go Santa Cruz.
On the other hand, Santa Cruz offers some beautiful weather-and let me tell you I will miss desperately the morning fog, the smell of the ocean, the redwoods on my campus, the deer everywhere on my campus. I will miss the beauty here. Unfortunately, like everything beautiful in California, the people ruin it. Like Rufus says, "Life is the longest death in California".
I will also miss terribly going to school. I will miss having the context of a novel fed to me with an almost silver spoon (I mean, after all UCSC is a PUBLIC school). I will miss arguing about the context of a novel. I will miss learning about "intellectual history" which will always turn me on. I will miss reading Jameson, not understanding a word of it, and showing up to class to have it all explained to me. I will miss the gorgeous way a lot of my professors think and write. There is something magical and exciting to learn about the world in the thirteenth century from someone that has been extensively published on the subject, from an entirely new perspective-and this perspective is refreshingly holistic and just terribly exciting to hear someone lecture about. I will miss that luxury.
I am totally able to live the lifestyle of a "graduate" right now, thanks to friends who take very good care of me. I get to hang out for a month with a friend in Marin (I will be working, but won't have to do that whole tedious paying of bills and such) then I get to go to Japan-I know I already said this, but I'm sofa king excited about this. I will get to Okinawa a day before she arrives (she's coming from a small town in Japan that isn't on Okinawa) so anyway, I will be able to spend an entire day by myself wandering through a foreign city (I can't remember what city I'll be in) where I don't know a lick of the language, and then stay at a hotel- and I can't think of a better way to spend a day.
That's all. I hope this was sufficiently sentimental, as that is what I originally was going for. If not, then I guess you can join the damaged multitudes here in SC. They'll be really nice to you!
The final wrap up of the packing is the worst part. It's all the stuff that you might possibly need in the next few days. It's all the stuff that doesn't fit neatly into a little box (and believe me, I have a LOT of little boxes). I am not actually going to be moving into my house in Sacramento. I'll be taking my stuff there and then (unless I get a job, which I'm really hoping for) I will be living out of my back pack for a month doing sidework. Then, I'll be going to Japan because one of my amazing friends bought me a ticket out there to visit her.
Which brings me to another point. I have the most amazing friends a girl could ask for. I have no idea why they deal with me, but they do, and I consider myself an extremely lucky person. So I have amazing friends, I'm about to have a great summer with lots of adventure (the more the better, so if you have any ideas, please share), I'm about to hang out with and do some creative stuff with another really great friend, and I also have a degree from university now. So I guess now all I need is for Kristin Scott Thomas to stop denying our love for each other and move to Sacramento to make babies with me (Kristin, I'll gladly move to France with you if you're not up for the beauty of Sac).
So back to the sentiments about Santa Cruz. Let's see-where do I start? Well, Santa Cruz, I'm sure that you aren't worried about this, but just so you know-you have only one cab that works in the middle of the night. Making a plane sucks in your town. Also, I know you care about this: you have a LOT of seriously damaged people in your town, and you do a great job of being very kind to them. But quite frankly, I don't think catering to the damaged will make the world better. I am not saying that people are mean in Sac, because I don't think they are, but they aren't as oppressively nice as people in SC and that is why I can't wait to go where the damaged people aren't given voice in every arena of daily life. Besides, it's as though by giving the seriously damaged such a strong representative power, the other people who are better at hiding their broken-ness get to stay in hiding. I like the idea of everyone having to come out of that closet-but I won't cater to you if you do. Additionally, your bus system may be a decent system for such a small town, but I have to tell you right now: it stinks. For being such a "green" city, you make it awfully hard for people to avoid the use of cars in your town. Think about that.
Again, I doubt that Santa Cruz gives a shit about me, since quite frankly I don't really give a shit about Santa Cruz. It gladly took my money while I paid to live here and go to school, and it gladly jacked up prices during graduation week-end in order to get one last huge sum of money from us before we all move away from here to cities that we can afford to live in.
Additionally, I would like to discuss the topic of politics here in Santa Cruz. I was warned before I came here that it would be like living in a bubble of self-righteous radicalism. I was prepared for that, and thought to myself that for a couple of years it would be nice to live in that bubble. Unfortunately the only such radicalism I found here was in the "intellectuals" doing graduate work at the university-writing for the New Left Review (which is amazing, and I am quite aware that I will never write well enough for the New Left Review editors to even use my hard copy for recycled, reused toilet paper). I didn't find any radicalism outside of the city on the hill (the UC), and the radicalism there was minimal at best. So, Santa Cruz, you do live in a self-righteous bubble, but not one of radical politics. You live in the bubble of belief that you are radical, when for all intents and purposes you are nothing of the sort. I once saw a bunch of washed up hippies walking down pacific avenue burning little candles as a protest to the war. I was wondering who they were really protesting when it occurred to me that what they were really doing was marching down the street holding candles in order to congratulate themselves for being so forward thinking. Way to go Santa Cruz.
On the other hand, Santa Cruz offers some beautiful weather-and let me tell you I will miss desperately the morning fog, the smell of the ocean, the redwoods on my campus, the deer everywhere on my campus. I will miss the beauty here. Unfortunately, like everything beautiful in California, the people ruin it. Like Rufus says, "Life is the longest death in California".
I will also miss terribly going to school. I will miss having the context of a novel fed to me with an almost silver spoon (I mean, after all UCSC is a PUBLIC school). I will miss arguing about the context of a novel. I will miss learning about "intellectual history" which will always turn me on. I will miss reading Jameson, not understanding a word of it, and showing up to class to have it all explained to me. I will miss the gorgeous way a lot of my professors think and write. There is something magical and exciting to learn about the world in the thirteenth century from someone that has been extensively published on the subject, from an entirely new perspective-and this perspective is refreshingly holistic and just terribly exciting to hear someone lecture about. I will miss that luxury.
I am totally able to live the lifestyle of a "graduate" right now, thanks to friends who take very good care of me. I get to hang out for a month with a friend in Marin (I will be working, but won't have to do that whole tedious paying of bills and such) then I get to go to Japan-I know I already said this, but I'm sofa king excited about this. I will get to Okinawa a day before she arrives (she's coming from a small town in Japan that isn't on Okinawa) so anyway, I will be able to spend an entire day by myself wandering through a foreign city (I can't remember what city I'll be in) where I don't know a lick of the language, and then stay at a hotel- and I can't think of a better way to spend a day.
That's all. I hope this was sufficiently sentimental, as that is what I originally was going for. If not, then I guess you can join the damaged multitudes here in SC. They'll be really nice to you!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Dear Angela Davis
I know that you most likely can't be bothered to read this, since the most you could be bothered with at my graduation commencement was a half-paragraph email. However, just in case you have recently googled your name and you come to this site, and in the weird case that you might actually take the time to read this, I have a lot to say to you.
I have marched with the workers of the UC. I support their cause. And in case you care, I am not a privileged student with parents that were paying for my education. I am thirty-six years old, returning to school because I wanted that education more than I wanted anything else. I sacrificed a great deal in order to earn that piece of paper that was handed to me this last Saturday. Again, I walked with the workers. I am a worker. I will continue to be a worker. Additionally, I come from a long line of union supporters. My father and mother worked minimum wage jobs in order to not cross the picket line at the mill that he was management at. My nephew is a union worker, and will always be. My sister-union. I am not currently union, but will support union ethics no matter what. I have also worked towards getting unions initiated at places I have worked in the past. However, as far as I know, the UC Workers' Strike has been rescinded. It has been indefinitely postponed. Thus, by giving the key-note speech at my graduation, you would not be crossing a picket-line.
It is not only a disappointment that you refused to speak, it is a disappointment that you had no words to share with me. This is not simply about me, and my accomplishments, there were approximately 300 fellow graduates there with me, who also deserved better than what you gave us. You wrote in your email that you would not cross a picket line. This I respect. However, like I've already said there was no official picket line that you would be crossing.
Even if there was a picket line, I and my fellow graduates deserved a lot more than you gave us. We have worked damn hard for our degrees, and nothing in your email to us mentioned US at all. I would have thought that you would take the opportunity to include us in this fight for workers' rights. I would have thought you would write to us about our future, and what we can do in order to fight for more workers' rights. I would like to have heard you congratulate me, and send me out into the world after my time at the UC with more than a few sentences. I am terribly disappointed in you, and not only did I and my fellow students deserve more, you are better than that. You are passionate, righteous, one of the world's intellectuals, and you didn't use your voice at all.
I end this address to you with these sincere words: Angela Davis you have disappointed me. I wish you well in your retirement, but I will not have great admiration for you any longer.
I have marched with the workers of the UC. I support their cause. And in case you care, I am not a privileged student with parents that were paying for my education. I am thirty-six years old, returning to school because I wanted that education more than I wanted anything else. I sacrificed a great deal in order to earn that piece of paper that was handed to me this last Saturday. Again, I walked with the workers. I am a worker. I will continue to be a worker. Additionally, I come from a long line of union supporters. My father and mother worked minimum wage jobs in order to not cross the picket line at the mill that he was management at. My nephew is a union worker, and will always be. My sister-union. I am not currently union, but will support union ethics no matter what. I have also worked towards getting unions initiated at places I have worked in the past. However, as far as I know, the UC Workers' Strike has been rescinded. It has been indefinitely postponed. Thus, by giving the key-note speech at my graduation, you would not be crossing a picket-line.
It is not only a disappointment that you refused to speak, it is a disappointment that you had no words to share with me. This is not simply about me, and my accomplishments, there were approximately 300 fellow graduates there with me, who also deserved better than what you gave us. You wrote in your email that you would not cross a picket line. This I respect. However, like I've already said there was no official picket line that you would be crossing.
Even if there was a picket line, I and my fellow graduates deserved a lot more than you gave us. We have worked damn hard for our degrees, and nothing in your email to us mentioned US at all. I would have thought that you would take the opportunity to include us in this fight for workers' rights. I would have thought you would write to us about our future, and what we can do in order to fight for more workers' rights. I would like to have heard you congratulate me, and send me out into the world after my time at the UC with more than a few sentences. I am terribly disappointed in you, and not only did I and my fellow students deserve more, you are better than that. You are passionate, righteous, one of the world's intellectuals, and you didn't use your voice at all.
I end this address to you with these sincere words: Angela Davis you have disappointed me. I wish you well in your retirement, but I will not have great admiration for you any longer.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I was looking for stuff on Marlon Riggs and found this:
part two (there are several parts):
It isn't cliche to still be concerned with identity and how it has evolved, is it?
part two (there are several parts):
It isn't cliche to still be concerned with identity and how it has evolved, is it?
Friday, June 6, 2008
Today
Was the last day of undergraduate class para me. I no longer have to sit through another undergrad class as long as I live (unless I get really really DUMB and decide to go for another BA).
Some things I liked about being an undergraduate:
1)You don't really need to know what the hell you're doing academically. You can just take some cool classes, sit back and have it almost spoon fed to you.
2)You don't really have to give a shit. I mean you do, and I did, but you can not show up and still manage to get a decent GPA. (believe me I've shown up for 2/3 of my undergraduate career).
3) The end is more finite and clear, and also it is unbelievably easy. The next phase in my education is going to be more difficult. Whether I go to law school or grad school, I will have massive examinations that require a LOT of my blood sweat tears heart soul. At the beginning, through the middle and at the end. (also you have to show up for big people school).
Things I will not miss about the undergraduate experience:
1)teenagers. (sorry kids, mama loves ya, but doesn't want to sees ya everyday... mama's got some vodka she needs and you kids kill mamas buzz)
2)The TA system-I'll like it better when I'm a TA. But as for being an undergrad and dealing with them, here are a few of my thoughts on it:
A)They are only a few (if that) steps higher than me in the educational process. I don't feel I need to treat them as though they are special. (I treat them with the respect that anyone deserves, no more and no less). I also don't have any need to believe that they know more than I do-although sometimes I have found some brilliant TA's who do in fact know a hell of a lot more than I do-I've also met plenty of people who don't even have associate's degrees who know a hell of a lot more than I do-so their place in grad school means little to me. Additionally I am not at all fond of the hierarchy at all, and I am glad that I never have to be scolded by a TA for not showing up to class. When/if I am a TA I vow never to scold my students. I will however give F's liberally to any undergrad student that resembles my undergrad performance-because more than likely they will deserve it.
3)I am currently disenchanted with school at all-so I am just glad that I know that all I have to do is go to work come home open beer go to sleep go to work come home open beer go to sleep go to work... and so on. Right now I can't think of a more luxurious lifestyle than that. I'm positive it will grow old, but until then... here's to beer sleep and work.
4)my house-mate. How does she tie into this? Well, if I weren't in school I would be living somewhere else. My housemate is not bad, nor is she evil, lazy, unclean... she isn't the usual things that bad housemates are accused of being. She is just dumb and thinks she's brilliant (there is nothing more annoying-except for maybe some ass-hole who just completed her BA thinking she's brilliant) and additionally she has the dumbest boyfriend.... Seriously I never in my life imagined that someone could be that stupid. I mean... ok think of the term Meat Head and multiply that by about one hundred. He doesn't watch the Daily Show-because he doesn't "get it"... but more than that-well, let's just say that if he grunts it's probably the most intelligent thing he has ever said in his entire life. So yeah, I'm NOT going to miss living here. Why didn't I move you ask? Have you checked out the housing situation in Santa Cruz? Believe me I tried to leave. Plus she isn't a BAD housemate, like I said. She's just... simple.
So that is my list for today. I have a paper I want to write this evening. A paper that I need to have written by Sunday evening, a final on Monday and a final on Wednesday. Wednesday is my actual END day.
at which time I will open a beer and stare at my TV for a multitude of hours and not speak at all. I will drool on myself I will be sofa king relaxed.
peace.
Some things I liked about being an undergraduate:
1)You don't really need to know what the hell you're doing academically. You can just take some cool classes, sit back and have it almost spoon fed to you.
2)You don't really have to give a shit. I mean you do, and I did, but you can not show up and still manage to get a decent GPA. (believe me I've shown up for 2/3 of my undergraduate career).
3) The end is more finite and clear, and also it is unbelievably easy. The next phase in my education is going to be more difficult. Whether I go to law school or grad school, I will have massive examinations that require a LOT of my blood sweat tears heart soul. At the beginning, through the middle and at the end. (also you have to show up for big people school).
Things I will not miss about the undergraduate experience:
1)teenagers. (sorry kids, mama loves ya, but doesn't want to sees ya everyday... mama's got some vodka she needs and you kids kill mamas buzz)
2)The TA system-I'll like it better when I'm a TA. But as for being an undergrad and dealing with them, here are a few of my thoughts on it:
A)They are only a few (if that) steps higher than me in the educational process. I don't feel I need to treat them as though they are special. (I treat them with the respect that anyone deserves, no more and no less). I also don't have any need to believe that they know more than I do-although sometimes I have found some brilliant TA's who do in fact know a hell of a lot more than I do-I've also met plenty of people who don't even have associate's degrees who know a hell of a lot more than I do-so their place in grad school means little to me. Additionally I am not at all fond of the hierarchy at all, and I am glad that I never have to be scolded by a TA for not showing up to class. When/if I am a TA I vow never to scold my students. I will however give F's liberally to any undergrad student that resembles my undergrad performance-because more than likely they will deserve it.
3)I am currently disenchanted with school at all-so I am just glad that I know that all I have to do is go to work come home open beer go to sleep go to work come home open beer go to sleep go to work... and so on. Right now I can't think of a more luxurious lifestyle than that. I'm positive it will grow old, but until then... here's to beer sleep and work.
4)my house-mate. How does she tie into this? Well, if I weren't in school I would be living somewhere else. My housemate is not bad, nor is she evil, lazy, unclean... she isn't the usual things that bad housemates are accused of being. She is just dumb and thinks she's brilliant (there is nothing more annoying-except for maybe some ass-hole who just completed her BA thinking she's brilliant) and additionally she has the dumbest boyfriend.... Seriously I never in my life imagined that someone could be that stupid. I mean... ok think of the term Meat Head and multiply that by about one hundred. He doesn't watch the Daily Show-because he doesn't "get it"... but more than that-well, let's just say that if he grunts it's probably the most intelligent thing he has ever said in his entire life. So yeah, I'm NOT going to miss living here. Why didn't I move you ask? Have you checked out the housing situation in Santa Cruz? Believe me I tried to leave. Plus she isn't a BAD housemate, like I said. She's just... simple.
So that is my list for today. I have a paper I want to write this evening. A paper that I need to have written by Sunday evening, a final on Monday and a final on Wednesday. Wednesday is my actual END day.
at which time I will open a beer and stare at my TV for a multitude of hours and not speak at all. I will drool on myself I will be sofa king relaxed.
peace.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The native language of most of the guys I work with is spanish. I need/want to learn spanish so that is awesome for me. They always come over when they have down time and help me practice. It's awesome because I'm picking it up quickly, and also they are very kind. They don't make fun of my HORRIBLE accent, they don't make fun of me not being good at rolling my 'R's, they don't make fun period. They are a bit sexist, but it's in a way that doesn't offend me at all. It's almost sweet in a way. I don't know how to explain it, but there is such a sweetness in it, that it doesn't feel degrading or uncomfortable in the least. So anyway, one of my coworkers was teaching me some espanol and a customer walked up. I turned to the customer and said, "oh, sorry I was getting a spanish lesson" and the fuck-all said, "I hope you're teaching him English"- and had the audacity to POINT at my co-worker. "Uh-he knows English. I'm the one who needs practice"- "why?" "well, because I like to learn new things. plus the more languages you know, the better the job you will get." the guy continued to challenge me for about a minute.
So basically this guy was offended that I was practicing another language. Because really a good american remains ignorant, never learns new things, and makes DAMN sure they don't learn any other language than English-because it's not just that ignorance is bliss, ignorance is patriotic. And only those who were born here are allowed.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
pero, mi espanol es mal, pero es improvimiento
(that is probably wrong)
tengo ojos azul.
peace.
So basically this guy was offended that I was practicing another language. Because really a good american remains ignorant, never learns new things, and makes DAMN sure they don't learn any other language than English-because it's not just that ignorance is bliss, ignorance is patriotic. And only those who were born here are allowed.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
pero, mi espanol es mal, pero es improvimiento
(that is probably wrong)
tengo ojos azul.
peace.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Some of the things I will do when I finally get to move back to Sacramento
First, let me say this: I hate the summer time in Sacramento. I left Sacramento gladly. I was very ready to get me some cool ocean air. (I'll always be ready for cool ocean air). I also hate that Sacramento has a large group of "hipsters". My love of Sacramento has always been that it's not a hip town and that in spite of that, there is an undercurrent of radicalism and creativity that is very much alive yet accessible. Unfortunately, there is also a large group of downtown kids who are "hip". I was working at a popular bar down there, so I was faced with these hipsters on a nightly basis. Listening to the right music, wearing the absolutely perfectly concocted T shirt that is ironic but not so ironic that it is no longer "funny", the perfect salvation army wear and tear women's jeans that are the perfect amount of tight, and since they spent a good portion of their time snorting coke being skinny was no problem at all for them. Yeah, being surrounded by those types makes you do several things. At first it's sort of attractive. Being part of a crowd that is exclusive is as irresistible to adults as it is to jr. high kids. Then of course you do the coke, because I assure you, these people are much more interesting to you if you're high. But it eventually becomes tedious and you lose interest. Then you just begin to be annoyed because these hipsters just start taking over-they're like roaches, if you see one you know damn well that a million are right behind her on their cruisers smoking the right cigarettes with hair that never seems to move but is messed up in just the right places and their perfect teeth too-you know they're coming, all million of them, and they will take over your town and before you know it all the old dive bars that were great to hang out in because they were dark, dank, and smokey and reminded you of the bars in the movies you watched, and made you feel all pretendy and movie like, and made you want to order things like slow-gin fizz even though you had no fucking clue that was-pretty soon that bar, the one with the bartender who is just as drunk as you are and also probably didn't actually make you a slow gin fizz, pretty soon that bar is going to be over run by hipsters. So the last resort is to never leave your house, stay in your back yard, drink your cheap beer back there in your T shirts that are SOOOO not ironic...
In spite of that I am sooooo happy to be returning. Or at least I think I am.
So. Here are some of the things I intend to do upon my return to midtown.
1) I will go to the Depot and have red headed sluts. I will get drunk in a gay ghetto again. I know that there are plenty of people who have no affinity whatsoever to gay ghetto's. Having lived in a town with no such thing, let me tell you how much I miss it. I've always loved the gay ghettos anyway. I don't care how aunt jemima it is-damn it I want to wander the several blocks that make up Sacramento's lively gay ghetto, with all the fabulousness and crystal meth alike. I will walk from the Depot over to the merc, and maybe even go into Faces, who knows.
2)I will subsequently leave the gay ghetto and revisit herpes triangle. I will have a pabst blue ribbon on tap at the O.T with all the washed up punkers- and listen to the butt-rock on the juke-box. I'll order some fries too. And I'll sit on the back patio and listen to the stupid-and I mean unbelievably stupid conversations. I'll pray for the (almost) inevitable fist fight. I will go back inside, put more money into that jukebox, and I will play pin ball for a while. I will leave the OT to go to the next stop in Herpes Triangle-Benny's. Now I know people there, so I can't really talk shit... oh fuck that, sure I can. At Benny's they don't have pabst on tap, but they have newcastle, and stella I think-or maybe it's harps. Either way, I'll go with lager thanks very much. I will go to the back patio where I will see some old friends and we will probably not have a lot to say-well, I will because then I will be loaded drunk. I'll see the dude who's wife I slept with (thinking that she had left him-not my fault) and he will smile like he is saying "I still want to kill you bitch" and I will think pretentiously "dude, I'm so much better than you. I left sacramento, I don't even need to be here" or something equally ridiculous and bitchy. I will sit on the back patio and watch the boys and girls grope each other-but mostly they are just playing and mostly, in spite of some of the meat heads who frequent Benny's, it is sweet and fun. Next on the final lap of the Triangle I will walk around the corner to The Press Club. Here's the thing-I fucking hate the press club. I have not set foot in that place in almost ten years. I think the last time I went there was with a few friends of mine after a River Cats game where we ran up and down the street screaming that the River Cats were going to the Fucking WORLD SERIES bitches...
3)Then it will be time for a drunken ride through midtown at night. I will try to remember to have a bike light this time-and won't let some dumbass borrow my bike and get my light ripped off-I seem to remember doing that. I will ride all over midtown. Summer evenings in midtown are the best evenings ever, anywhere, no doubt about it. It will finally have cooled off, and people in Sacramento are desperate to get outside when it cools down. They walk. They sit on porches. They ride their bikes. They sit on patios at restaurants. It's really amazing.
4)I will, if it kills me, make it to more then two Friday in the Park shows. I will buy at least one beer in the beer garden. I swear to god I will do this. The last summer that I was in Sacramento I worked at a bar, so every goddamn Friday night I got to serve the schmucks who were all out enjoying the concert in the park. Well damn it, this time around I will be one of those schmucks.
5)I will buy some books at Time Tested Books and say hi to Peter. I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about since I've done some more studying of Tolstoy and I know how much he loves the Tolstoy.
6)I will get bangers and mash at streets of london. it's just something that must be done. like it or not, it's gonna have to happen. This time though I'll take my lap top, sit out on the back patio and have bangers and mash and stella on tap (also like it or not streets of london takes really good care of their taps and their stella on tap is pretty good)-and I will love it out on that patio. There are some crazy but interesting cats that go to Streets in the heat of the afternoon, early evening, and something about it is just wonderful.
7)I will spend my 4th of July in Oakpark, because oakpark on the 4th is fucking great. Things explode and there is a lot of beer. Plus I have friends who live there that like to get drunk and tweak their store bought fireworks, making them go faster, higher and louder.
8)I will go to a River Rats game and will get field seats. I will fill up a cooler with beer and sandwiches and will totally make a night of it.
9)I will see a movie at the Tower theater, and at the Crest theater.
10)I will have breakfast at any of the following places: corner stone, lucky cafe, or tower cafe. oh and Fox and goose. can NOT forget Fox and GOose beer breakfast. I hear they have a full liquor license now too, so bloody marry's will be made completely at the bar instead of what we used to do (bring our own vodka and order the rest). All have their own charm and all deserve attention. So perhaps I will eat at all three places.
11)also of course I'll go to willy burger.
These are just a few of the things I will do when I get home. I don't think people realize what a great town Sacramento is. And that's fine for me. I hear that the really "hip" place to be is Portland Oregon, so head up that way folks, and leave the little town of Sacramento to us boring non-hip people who just want to ride our bikes around at night with beers in our hand. peace.
In spite of that I am sooooo happy to be returning. Or at least I think I am.
So. Here are some of the things I intend to do upon my return to midtown.
1) I will go to the Depot and have red headed sluts. I will get drunk in a gay ghetto again. I know that there are plenty of people who have no affinity whatsoever to gay ghetto's. Having lived in a town with no such thing, let me tell you how much I miss it. I've always loved the gay ghettos anyway. I don't care how aunt jemima it is-damn it I want to wander the several blocks that make up Sacramento's lively gay ghetto, with all the fabulousness and crystal meth alike. I will walk from the Depot over to the merc, and maybe even go into Faces, who knows.
2)I will subsequently leave the gay ghetto and revisit herpes triangle. I will have a pabst blue ribbon on tap at the O.T with all the washed up punkers- and listen to the butt-rock on the juke-box. I'll order some fries too. And I'll sit on the back patio and listen to the stupid-and I mean unbelievably stupid conversations. I'll pray for the (almost) inevitable fist fight. I will go back inside, put more money into that jukebox, and I will play pin ball for a while. I will leave the OT to go to the next stop in Herpes Triangle-Benny's. Now I know people there, so I can't really talk shit... oh fuck that, sure I can. At Benny's they don't have pabst on tap, but they have newcastle, and stella I think-or maybe it's harps. Either way, I'll go with lager thanks very much. I will go to the back patio where I will see some old friends and we will probably not have a lot to say-well, I will because then I will be loaded drunk. I'll see the dude who's wife I slept with (thinking that she had left him-not my fault) and he will smile like he is saying "I still want to kill you bitch" and I will think pretentiously "dude, I'm so much better than you. I left sacramento, I don't even need to be here" or something equally ridiculous and bitchy. I will sit on the back patio and watch the boys and girls grope each other-but mostly they are just playing and mostly, in spite of some of the meat heads who frequent Benny's, it is sweet and fun. Next on the final lap of the Triangle I will walk around the corner to The Press Club. Here's the thing-I fucking hate the press club. I have not set foot in that place in almost ten years. I think the last time I went there was with a few friends of mine after a River Cats game where we ran up and down the street screaming that the River Cats were going to the Fucking WORLD SERIES bitches...
3)Then it will be time for a drunken ride through midtown at night. I will try to remember to have a bike light this time-and won't let some dumbass borrow my bike and get my light ripped off-I seem to remember doing that. I will ride all over midtown. Summer evenings in midtown are the best evenings ever, anywhere, no doubt about it. It will finally have cooled off, and people in Sacramento are desperate to get outside when it cools down. They walk. They sit on porches. They ride their bikes. They sit on patios at restaurants. It's really amazing.
4)I will, if it kills me, make it to more then two Friday in the Park shows. I will buy at least one beer in the beer garden. I swear to god I will do this. The last summer that I was in Sacramento I worked at a bar, so every goddamn Friday night I got to serve the schmucks who were all out enjoying the concert in the park. Well damn it, this time around I will be one of those schmucks.
5)I will buy some books at Time Tested Books and say hi to Peter. I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about since I've done some more studying of Tolstoy and I know how much he loves the Tolstoy.
6)I will get bangers and mash at streets of london. it's just something that must be done. like it or not, it's gonna have to happen. This time though I'll take my lap top, sit out on the back patio and have bangers and mash and stella on tap (also like it or not streets of london takes really good care of their taps and their stella on tap is pretty good)-and I will love it out on that patio. There are some crazy but interesting cats that go to Streets in the heat of the afternoon, early evening, and something about it is just wonderful.
7)I will spend my 4th of July in Oakpark, because oakpark on the 4th is fucking great. Things explode and there is a lot of beer. Plus I have friends who live there that like to get drunk and tweak their store bought fireworks, making them go faster, higher and louder.
8)I will go to a River Rats game and will get field seats. I will fill up a cooler with beer and sandwiches and will totally make a night of it.
9)I will see a movie at the Tower theater, and at the Crest theater.
10)I will have breakfast at any of the following places: corner stone, lucky cafe, or tower cafe. oh and Fox and goose. can NOT forget Fox and GOose beer breakfast. I hear they have a full liquor license now too, so bloody marry's will be made completely at the bar instead of what we used to do (bring our own vodka and order the rest). All have their own charm and all deserve attention. So perhaps I will eat at all three places.
11)also of course I'll go to willy burger.
These are just a few of the things I will do when I get home. I don't think people realize what a great town Sacramento is. And that's fine for me. I hear that the really "hip" place to be is Portland Oregon, so head up that way folks, and leave the little town of Sacramento to us boring non-hip people who just want to ride our bikes around at night with beers in our hand. peace.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
apatow, hip hop and misogyny
I do not have time to write a response to the following links, but they are both well written and would like to send people in these directions:
http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2008/05/judd-apatow-thinks-rap-music-is-really.html
http://modelminority.blogspot.com/2008/05/dysfunctional-ping-pong.html
I really like the way brandon soderberg writes about music. It's interesting, enthusiastic, and articulate, and not overly pretentious.
And m dot brings up some great arguments about soderberg's misogynistic language and I think that should always be pointed out. I think sometimes people get away with using language that is utterly sexist because otherwise their point is good, or well written. And I'm glad that she doesn't let him get away with it. There is SOOOOOOOO much of it.
And as for me, I like superbad and 40 year old virgin, but quite frankly I am just tired of more stories about straight white boys being straight white boys, no matter how sweet they may be. I have nothing against them, those straight white boys. They aren't bad people. But the fact is my story-the queer white girl who is ultimately sweet and socially awkward (which makes for better comedy believe me)-that story doesn't get told-unless it's in one of the following contexts: porn, or coming out. Also it's not that it's Apatow's responsibility to tell my story. That still doesn't make me any more interested in seeing his story over and over again because it's the only story that gets funding and mass distribution.
http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2008/05/judd-apatow-thinks-rap-music-is-really.html
http://modelminority.blogspot.com/2008/05/dysfunctional-ping-pong.html
I really like the way brandon soderberg writes about music. It's interesting, enthusiastic, and articulate, and not overly pretentious.
And m dot brings up some great arguments about soderberg's misogynistic language and I think that should always be pointed out. I think sometimes people get away with using language that is utterly sexist because otherwise their point is good, or well written. And I'm glad that she doesn't let him get away with it. There is SOOOOOOOO much of it.
And as for me, I like superbad and 40 year old virgin, but quite frankly I am just tired of more stories about straight white boys being straight white boys, no matter how sweet they may be. I have nothing against them, those straight white boys. They aren't bad people. But the fact is my story-the queer white girl who is ultimately sweet and socially awkward (which makes for better comedy believe me)-that story doesn't get told-unless it's in one of the following contexts: porn, or coming out. Also it's not that it's Apatow's responsibility to tell my story. That still doesn't make me any more interested in seeing his story over and over again because it's the only story that gets funding and mass distribution.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
DAMN RIGHT YOUR MOM EXPERIMENTED!
This is so fabulous that I am merely going to send you directly to the blog. Do not pass go, do not collect... well anyhow click here now
There is a line in the book Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas when the very macho but still sweet and sexy man (I can't remember his name in spite of him being a major character) tells Gwen that since they have both eaten asparagus their pee will smell the same that night.
I've been eating a lot of asparagus this week. I love it so I spent the huge amount of money to have it out of season (SOOOOOOOOO not green of me)- and tonight I decided to find out exactly why:
http://www.drdaveanddee.com/asparagus.html
Some say it's linked to higher intelligence. True or not, I am going to go with it. My pee stinks after I eat asparagus because I am intelligent. (which is relieving because I was thinking I was a mediocre hack).
YAY FOR STINKY URINE!
I've been eating a lot of asparagus this week. I love it so I spent the huge amount of money to have it out of season (SOOOOOOOOO not green of me)- and tonight I decided to find out exactly why:
http://www.drdaveanddee.com/asparagus.html
Some say it's linked to higher intelligence. True or not, I am going to go with it. My pee stinks after I eat asparagus because I am intelligent. (which is relieving because I was thinking I was a mediocre hack).
YAY FOR STINKY URINE!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_re_us/texas_ants
OK so I was looking for the blondie song about Giant Ants From Space. I couldn't find it but I found some other Blondie videos that I love so fuck it. I don't care about the ants destroying computers in Texas anymore:
I had this album and listened to it obsessively when I was fifteen. I had a huge crush on a girl named tanya that worked at a Chinese food place a few miles from my house. I rode my bike up there three or four times a week. I didn't have a lot of money so I would order boiled rice and coke from her. On my way to and from I listened to this album on my headphones. I findally got her number, and she even said yes to me! and then I got grounded or something equally perverse and stupid and so I couldn't go and couldn't even call her to tell her why I was flaking on her. Then I was just too ashamed to go and tell her all of this because she was like two years older or something and certainly would have thought I was a total fool.
This video and the way Debbie Harry looks reminds me of what a friend of mine once wrote about Jodie Foster. My friend wrote that after the revolution we are all going to be a bit more like Jodie Foster used to be. Jodie Foster has always been so tough, and beautiful and smart and dangerous, but also has had infinite amounts of class. Why, just take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OClsC17XRk
[embedding disabled fucking bastards]
but hey there IS this:
That is what the revolution looks like.
(psst: she finally came out. I don't know why, but it never once bothered me that Jodie hadn't come out publicly. For some reason I accepted her quiet queerness. Maybe it's because she's the face of the revolution, and the revolution, in addition to being all about love, is ambiguous, and thrives on ambiguity).
Also, just in case anyone is wondering, yes, I am in fact depending on the revolution to take care of my student loans.
OK so I was looking for the blondie song about Giant Ants From Space. I couldn't find it but I found some other Blondie videos that I love so fuck it. I don't care about the ants destroying computers in Texas anymore:
I had this album and listened to it obsessively when I was fifteen. I had a huge crush on a girl named tanya that worked at a Chinese food place a few miles from my house. I rode my bike up there three or four times a week. I didn't have a lot of money so I would order boiled rice and coke from her. On my way to and from I listened to this album on my headphones. I findally got her number, and she even said yes to me! and then I got grounded or something equally perverse and stupid and so I couldn't go and couldn't even call her to tell her why I was flaking on her. Then I was just too ashamed to go and tell her all of this because she was like two years older or something and certainly would have thought I was a total fool.
This video and the way Debbie Harry looks reminds me of what a friend of mine once wrote about Jodie Foster. My friend wrote that after the revolution we are all going to be a bit more like Jodie Foster used to be. Jodie Foster has always been so tough, and beautiful and smart and dangerous, but also has had infinite amounts of class. Why, just take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OClsC17XRk
[embedding disabled fucking bastards]
but hey there IS this:
That is what the revolution looks like.
(psst: she finally came out. I don't know why, but it never once bothered me that Jodie hadn't come out publicly. For some reason I accepted her quiet queerness. Maybe it's because she's the face of the revolution, and the revolution, in addition to being all about love, is ambiguous, and thrives on ambiguity).
Also, just in case anyone is wondering, yes, I am in fact depending on the revolution to take care of my student loans.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Thanks, but no I don't want to see another Dane Cook video
Every time I look at a new comedian, I am always nervous. I watch their set just waiting. I am waiting for the anti-woman joke, or the heterosexist joke (you know the kind I'm talking about "my wife does this...men, your wives do that too, huh?" audience laughs with recognition "why do women have to do that? I mean...men don't do that..." audience again laughs-women and men alike). It's boring humor, it's a cheap gag, and quite frankly it doesn't take a lot of thought to think about gender roles and state them in front of an audience..."why do women cry so much and why are men so into sports? Have you ever noticed that men don't like to show affection to each other? it's like whoa dude, don't put your hand on my shoulder" which leads inevitably to the next phase of horrific humor, the GAY... "dude, I'm straight," ha ha ha. Of course there is a more contemporary version of this joke that boils down to the same formula: the I'm gay routine. It's seen as "self-deprecating" and when faced with confrontation on this humor the response is "I called mySELF gay, so clearly it wasn't a homophobic joke. "
Comedy is my favorite thing in the world. It is the most important thing in my life, and I think it is the thing that will save humanity if humanity is to be saved. God? yeah, not so much. FEMA? obviously that didn't work out so well. The UN? well, as long as the inspectors don't take too long, and The League of Nations fell through with grace and dignity I'm sure. There is nothing that can stop war, hatred, bigotry, and all those things that plague this stupid species. Except for a really good laugh. That's it. So there is nothing that makes me angrier than when comedians are half-ass about their work. That is why it is always with caution that I explore new comedy. I hear people tell me all the time, "oh, you want to write about comedy? Oh, I totally know this great comedian. Yeah he did this great bit about how women cry all the time and black people dance really well-it was so funny". Sometimes I just get a reccomendation without the details, and that's even scarier.
So I wanted to take the time now to share some video experience of comedians that have been recommended to me.
So one of my adventures in intertubes comedy is this guy. His rhythm is awful. his subject matter is a bit cliche. Well, not cliche necessarily but I've already sat in front of the TV, stoned (eating oreos) and wrote this routine. Good comedian I am not. So while I like his attempt, I'm not terribly impressed with him. But I like that he hasn't made a chick, dick, or black, homo joke, so I'm going to give the dude a chance.
ALright, I think, I sure am glad I gave him a chance. He's improving. His rhythm still isn't exceptional, but his subject matter is still interesting. He still hasn't made "the" jokes. And the line "you're alive and you know you're dead" made me laugh. He is taking something and exagerating it, it is almost self-deprecating but done so with compassion (unlike ben stiller, but don't get me started on that douchebag). So I think he might be ok. This whole rhythm thing-I know he needs to work it out. But he's doing an ok job with the other stuff, so I decide to look at more of his stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOXqzZO8j8g
[embedding disabled by request: which is another complain of mine: why the fuck are you publishing something online if you don't want people to see it/ share it? if you wanted this to be private there are much easier ways to do that, GARGH!]
so he talks about how he has become like his mother. He talks here about how she was English and they are cold and unaffectionate, and how she was a "gargoyle with tits".
One of the reasons I love watching old Richard Pryor stuff is because he takes some seriously heavy shit and makes his entire audience piss their pants laughing. He is on that stage exorcising demons in front of us, and making us laugh at those damn demons. It's powerful. Sometimes when I watch it, I'm not sure whether to cry or laugh, but I can't help the physical, sublime reaction of "BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA" it's like vomiting, only really really good. I never would think of Richard Pryor and think, "I wish he wouldn't use the word tits". It just wouldn't occur to me, because he is making magic up there, and I literally mean magic. He creates this spirit between him and the audience, this monster, that looms there, almost fucking visible, and it takes my breath away.
This dude, this Drew Hastings isn't quite doing that. Of course, it's not fair at all to compare someone to a genius. It's not fair because if everyone were geniuses, we would no longer be able to breathe.
So back to Drew's routine about his mother. I'm still liking him, but still trying to figure out why he isn't working. Again, I really think it's his rhythm, he just doesn't have it. Also, there is something contrived about it. Like he really isn't exposing himself up there at all. He isn't letting himself go. He wrote the material and he's sticking to it. Which is fine, a lot of great comedians do that. However, they don't look as though they're doing that. I know I'm expecting a lot out of the poor guy when all he wanted to do was come out and have a few laughs. Still, I like his stuff ok, and I can NOT stress enough how glad I am that he is straying from the usual round of crap jokes. Here's the next one I watch:
It's not the use of the word "cunt" that I don't like about this. I don't take issue with that word. I don't have a problem with that word being used as in insult, I don't have a problem with that word being used to describe our girls, a part of our anatomy. I have a problem with this because first and foremost it's not funny. Why isn't it funny?
I have a friend who tries to pull the "it's all subjective" card on me all the time. Whenever I start to talk about why I don't like a certain band, or artist, or comedian, that is his response. First of all, it's a dismissal of my discussion. "oh it's all subjective, so don't talk about it." I take issue with that. Even if something is subjective doesn't mean it shouldn't be argued. In fact, the idea of subjectivity v. objectivity is ridiculous anyway. Everything is subjective. Let's pause a moment and look at basic grammar.
John kicked the ball.
the ball is the object. Kicked is the verb-the action.
Now change the subject:
Sarah kicked the ball. A whole new set of ideas has entered our mind now. A GIRL kicked the ball.
OK I'll try a different set of subjects to make this more obvious, and less about gender, for those of you who get annoyed at my insistance that the world we live in is a terribly sexist arena. Try this:
Queen Elizabeth kicked the ball.
Bill Clinton kicked the ball.
Chingis Kahn kicked the ball.
Louis XIV kicked the ball.
All of these various subjects change the nature of this sentence. I'll complicate it some more.
Bill Clinton wrote a story about human history.
Chinggis Kahn wrote a story about human history.
Human history doesn't change. The writer of human history has changed.
Don't tell me that subjectivity isn't important, or that it should mean that we dismiss telling the story of human history because it's all subjective. OF FUCKING COURSE IT IS. Stating the obvious doesn't change the fact that we should argue about this.
So back to comedy damn it! SO why isn't dude's PSA about women being cunts funny? I think the attempt was to do something different with it. Taking a Public Service Announcement and tweaking it. That is a recipe for comedy. People have been tweaking PSA's since PSA's came about. The use of the word cunt is supposed to be shocking and daring. Because very few people, particularly women, can stand that word. This can be a recipe for comedy. However, he falls very short on two accounts. One he doesn't tweak the word. He doesn't use it in a way that has not been used before. If it was about dogs being cunts, and how we need to stop dog cuntery or something (I'm not a comedian, so piss off if you expect *me* to be funny. I'm a critic, it's what I do). Next, not only does he use the word in the same tired fashion that we've already heard a million times, it's totally directed at women-also tired, and cliche. Finally, when you put all of this together, it becomes either lazy or trite. I'll give Drew Hastings the benefit of the doubt and say it's trite. He attempted to do something really clever and fell completely short.
And so it's back to the drawing board. Let's see how Dane Cook is doing. He's really popular. I have a tendency to think that comedy needs to come from the bowels of suffering. I know how trite that is, so I try to avoid that. The problem with avoiding that is that the best comedy comes from people laughing at how fucked up we are. And the only way to make that truly funny is to be fucked up too. Because if you're just standing on stage pointing your finger at all the fucked up people out there, you are essentially making fun of your audience. And no one wants to be made fun of. (again, someone out there is thinking Ben Stiller, and I will get to his epic douchebaggery in a minute, give me a break man). So let's check in on Dane Cook and see how he holds water. Let's test him out on the woman thing first, since we're already there:
His timing is really good in this. I really like how he uses the space around him in this, he uses the entire stage, he totally fills it up. He does a really good job of making it appear to be the first time he's ever told this story. That's a combination of the timing and his use of the stage (that was redundant, shit. I need more coffee). I also like that when he's talking about the woman who's giving him head she's not a bitch or a whore. And I like that it's sexuality without degradation. When he says the most beautiful sound is "uh-huh" that's great. I'm all for it. However, having given him that, I now intend to take it allllll back. Note his impression of the woman trying to get out of the car. Now watch this clip:
So in spite of the ending of this, where he almost redeems himself of the ridiculous posturing of this partial person who can't complete a sentence at all... in spite of that, his women and his fags are the same thing. At least his women are allowed to complete their sentences. So this boils down to one of two things: laziness, or lack of bothering to come up with better material, OR he thinks it's funny and OK to portray women and fags this way. I don't think he's lazy. He's the MYSPACE comedian, for god's sake. That wasn't laziness that made that happen.
Then there's this classic argument, with which I agree (for the most part) in spite of my above comments:
Not that I'm a huge fan of Eddie Murphy, but I think he makes some good points in this clip.
The next argument is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY&feature=related
[embedding not allowed-the stinking bastards]
George Carlin here discusses language and how it has evolved. It's pretty funny. Some of the words he uses are not accurate.
OK so if the above two clips are faves of mine, doesn't that make my criticism of Dane Cook and Drew Hastings null and void because I've now seemingly contradicted myself? Well, actually I have not contradicted myself at all.
I'm not arguing that the words Cook and Hastings use are bad. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be heard. I'm merely saying that they aren't funny, and I'm stating why. I think there is a fine line, and a good comedian walks that fine line. A bad comedian stomps all over that line jumping up and down shouting and throwing their arms around:
exactly. He has no actual material.
I feel as though I should include in this discourse at least one example of sublime comedy. OK so I'll try:
Comedy is my favorite thing in the world. It is the most important thing in my life, and I think it is the thing that will save humanity if humanity is to be saved. God? yeah, not so much. FEMA? obviously that didn't work out so well. The UN? well, as long as the inspectors don't take too long, and The League of Nations fell through with grace and dignity I'm sure. There is nothing that can stop war, hatred, bigotry, and all those things that plague this stupid species. Except for a really good laugh. That's it. So there is nothing that makes me angrier than when comedians are half-ass about their work. That is why it is always with caution that I explore new comedy. I hear people tell me all the time, "oh, you want to write about comedy? Oh, I totally know this great comedian. Yeah he did this great bit about how women cry all the time and black people dance really well-it was so funny". Sometimes I just get a reccomendation without the details, and that's even scarier.
So I wanted to take the time now to share some video experience of comedians that have been recommended to me.
So one of my adventures in intertubes comedy is this guy. His rhythm is awful. his subject matter is a bit cliche. Well, not cliche necessarily but I've already sat in front of the TV, stoned (eating oreos) and wrote this routine. Good comedian I am not. So while I like his attempt, I'm not terribly impressed with him. But I like that he hasn't made a chick, dick, or black, homo joke, so I'm going to give the dude a chance.
ALright, I think, I sure am glad I gave him a chance. He's improving. His rhythm still isn't exceptional, but his subject matter is still interesting. He still hasn't made "the" jokes. And the line "you're alive and you know you're dead" made me laugh. He is taking something and exagerating it, it is almost self-deprecating but done so with compassion (unlike ben stiller, but don't get me started on that douchebag). So I think he might be ok. This whole rhythm thing-I know he needs to work it out. But he's doing an ok job with the other stuff, so I decide to look at more of his stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOXqzZO8j8g
[embedding disabled by request: which is another complain of mine: why the fuck are you publishing something online if you don't want people to see it/ share it? if you wanted this to be private there are much easier ways to do that, GARGH!]
so he talks about how he has become like his mother. He talks here about how she was English and they are cold and unaffectionate, and how she was a "gargoyle with tits".
One of the reasons I love watching old Richard Pryor stuff is because he takes some seriously heavy shit and makes his entire audience piss their pants laughing. He is on that stage exorcising demons in front of us, and making us laugh at those damn demons. It's powerful. Sometimes when I watch it, I'm not sure whether to cry or laugh, but I can't help the physical, sublime reaction of "BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA" it's like vomiting, only really really good. I never would think of Richard Pryor and think, "I wish he wouldn't use the word tits". It just wouldn't occur to me, because he is making magic up there, and I literally mean magic. He creates this spirit between him and the audience, this monster, that looms there, almost fucking visible, and it takes my breath away.
This dude, this Drew Hastings isn't quite doing that. Of course, it's not fair at all to compare someone to a genius. It's not fair because if everyone were geniuses, we would no longer be able to breathe.
So back to Drew's routine about his mother. I'm still liking him, but still trying to figure out why he isn't working. Again, I really think it's his rhythm, he just doesn't have it. Also, there is something contrived about it. Like he really isn't exposing himself up there at all. He isn't letting himself go. He wrote the material and he's sticking to it. Which is fine, a lot of great comedians do that. However, they don't look as though they're doing that. I know I'm expecting a lot out of the poor guy when all he wanted to do was come out and have a few laughs. Still, I like his stuff ok, and I can NOT stress enough how glad I am that he is straying from the usual round of crap jokes. Here's the next one I watch:
It's not the use of the word "cunt" that I don't like about this. I don't take issue with that word. I don't have a problem with that word being used as in insult, I don't have a problem with that word being used to describe our girls, a part of our anatomy. I have a problem with this because first and foremost it's not funny. Why isn't it funny?
I have a friend who tries to pull the "it's all subjective" card on me all the time. Whenever I start to talk about why I don't like a certain band, or artist, or comedian, that is his response. First of all, it's a dismissal of my discussion. "oh it's all subjective, so don't talk about it." I take issue with that. Even if something is subjective doesn't mean it shouldn't be argued. In fact, the idea of subjectivity v. objectivity is ridiculous anyway. Everything is subjective. Let's pause a moment and look at basic grammar.
John kicked the ball.
the ball is the object. Kicked is the verb-the action.
Now change the subject:
Sarah kicked the ball. A whole new set of ideas has entered our mind now. A GIRL kicked the ball.
OK I'll try a different set of subjects to make this more obvious, and less about gender, for those of you who get annoyed at my insistance that the world we live in is a terribly sexist arena. Try this:
Queen Elizabeth kicked the ball.
Bill Clinton kicked the ball.
Chingis Kahn kicked the ball.
Louis XIV kicked the ball.
All of these various subjects change the nature of this sentence. I'll complicate it some more.
Bill Clinton wrote a story about human history.
Chinggis Kahn wrote a story about human history.
Human history doesn't change. The writer of human history has changed.
Don't tell me that subjectivity isn't important, or that it should mean that we dismiss telling the story of human history because it's all subjective. OF FUCKING COURSE IT IS. Stating the obvious doesn't change the fact that we should argue about this.
So back to comedy damn it! SO why isn't dude's PSA about women being cunts funny? I think the attempt was to do something different with it. Taking a Public Service Announcement and tweaking it. That is a recipe for comedy. People have been tweaking PSA's since PSA's came about. The use of the word cunt is supposed to be shocking and daring. Because very few people, particularly women, can stand that word. This can be a recipe for comedy. However, he falls very short on two accounts. One he doesn't tweak the word. He doesn't use it in a way that has not been used before. If it was about dogs being cunts, and how we need to stop dog cuntery or something (I'm not a comedian, so piss off if you expect *me* to be funny. I'm a critic, it's what I do). Next, not only does he use the word in the same tired fashion that we've already heard a million times, it's totally directed at women-also tired, and cliche. Finally, when you put all of this together, it becomes either lazy or trite. I'll give Drew Hastings the benefit of the doubt and say it's trite. He attempted to do something really clever and fell completely short.
And so it's back to the drawing board. Let's see how Dane Cook is doing. He's really popular. I have a tendency to think that comedy needs to come from the bowels of suffering. I know how trite that is, so I try to avoid that. The problem with avoiding that is that the best comedy comes from people laughing at how fucked up we are. And the only way to make that truly funny is to be fucked up too. Because if you're just standing on stage pointing your finger at all the fucked up people out there, you are essentially making fun of your audience. And no one wants to be made fun of. (again, someone out there is thinking Ben Stiller, and I will get to his epic douchebaggery in a minute, give me a break man). So let's check in on Dane Cook and see how he holds water. Let's test him out on the woman thing first, since we're already there:
His timing is really good in this. I really like how he uses the space around him in this, he uses the entire stage, he totally fills it up. He does a really good job of making it appear to be the first time he's ever told this story. That's a combination of the timing and his use of the stage (that was redundant, shit. I need more coffee). I also like that when he's talking about the woman who's giving him head she's not a bitch or a whore. And I like that it's sexuality without degradation. When he says the most beautiful sound is "uh-huh" that's great. I'm all for it. However, having given him that, I now intend to take it allllll back. Note his impression of the woman trying to get out of the car. Now watch this clip:
So in spite of the ending of this, where he almost redeems himself of the ridiculous posturing of this partial person who can't complete a sentence at all... in spite of that, his women and his fags are the same thing. At least his women are allowed to complete their sentences. So this boils down to one of two things: laziness, or lack of bothering to come up with better material, OR he thinks it's funny and OK to portray women and fags this way. I don't think he's lazy. He's the MYSPACE comedian, for god's sake. That wasn't laziness that made that happen.
Then there's this classic argument, with which I agree (for the most part) in spite of my above comments:
Not that I'm a huge fan of Eddie Murphy, but I think he makes some good points in this clip.
The next argument is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY&feature=related
[embedding not allowed-the stinking bastards]
George Carlin here discusses language and how it has evolved. It's pretty funny. Some of the words he uses are not accurate.
OK so if the above two clips are faves of mine, doesn't that make my criticism of Dane Cook and Drew Hastings null and void because I've now seemingly contradicted myself? Well, actually I have not contradicted myself at all.
I'm not arguing that the words Cook and Hastings use are bad. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be heard. I'm merely saying that they aren't funny, and I'm stating why. I think there is a fine line, and a good comedian walks that fine line. A bad comedian stomps all over that line jumping up and down shouting and throwing their arms around:
exactly. He has no actual material.
I feel as though I should include in this discourse at least one example of sublime comedy. OK so I'll try:
Monday, May 5, 2008
I've been watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show on Hulu.Com and it is helping me to imagine getting a real job. Totally. I am going to go shopping and buy fabulous clothes just like her:
ok this is nothing like her, but it's so mesmerizing, how could I NOT get hired. One look at me and the person doing the interviewing will be thinking: A) She is fabulous, B)my eyes are all watery and I'm confused or C) HIRE her so that she'll leave now!
And I'll get a boss like Lou Grant who is rough but sweet, and I'll have a cute bald guy who is mostly gay who works next to me... and so on. All I need is the dress. and a beret. I can totally do this. If mary can do it, so can i.
ok this is nothing like her, but it's so mesmerizing, how could I NOT get hired. One look at me and the person doing the interviewing will be thinking: A) She is fabulous, B)my eyes are all watery and I'm confused or C) HIRE her so that she'll leave now!
And I'll get a boss like Lou Grant who is rough but sweet, and I'll have a cute bald guy who is mostly gay who works next to me... and so on. All I need is the dress. and a beret. I can totally do this. If mary can do it, so can i.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mary Kate or Ashley or something olsen
This is really bizarre. Read down a few comments to the "I'd still do her though"...
this is today's WHOA.
this is today's WHOA.
Tattoos, Miley Cyrus, Disney, and Vanity Fair
I got the tattoo. I am proud of it. It hurt maybe a gazillionth of what it must feel like to have your city destroyed by bombs, and it hurt a gaillionth of what it must feel like to die too young because of a war that has nothing to do with you, other than your dumb luck of being born in a place, or living in a place, that is being pummeled by a stupid government which is in control of this place that i had the dumb luck to be born into. It hurt a gazillionth of what it must feel like for this woman's family every time they think of her and every time they wish she were still around.
OK I'll stop with the maudlin.
I will say that I will have a picture of it soon. Very soon if that jack-ass friend of mine finds the cord to his damn camera.
I swear to god. For my graduation I am asking for two things cameras and... well OK in the words of Grace when speaking to Karen (only changed to suit my specific needs of a digital camera/camcorder): I want the labels to read either SONY or MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS!
So I got the tattoo. It is great to be a part of this project. I have not yet had time to start a blog for her, but I will as soon as she says go.
And now I would like to take this moment to chime in on the whole Miley Cyrus controversy:
I don't see sex when I see this photo. I see a child. And it's an interesting photo as well, but it's not sexual in the least. And if you think it's sexual, then you are projecting sexuality onto it, and you ought to think about why you as an adult feel ok with putting sexuality onto a child.
This picture could say a lot about her being a child star, first of all. Look at the way her posture is, and how vulnerable she looks. The kid is attacked from all sides, and her AGENCY is taken away from her, which brings me to my next point:
Stop acting like poor little Miley didn't have any say in it. DAMN IT she DID. She chose those pictures as did everyone around her-including daddy cyrus, disney cyrus, and so on cyrus... they *all* saw those photos before they were released to the press.
photographic proof that daddy was in fact there at the shoot:
So I don't want to hear another damn ass-hole who just *has* to have her say in the matter-that poor miley and what is this world coming to and so on...
Perhaps the only interesting writing I've seen about this whole thing.
well, and this is also interesting.
and finally-Miley if you are going to apologize for anything it should be these:
and Disney can suck it-acting all outraged:
[not that this picture is sexual either because it isn't necesarily sexual at all... but still, they're outraged that Vanity Fair manipulated Miley to sell copy?]
PUHLEAZE- like Disney doesn't exploit children in anyway they can any time they can (the implied clause there is "get away with it"). So Disney: SUCK IT!
OK I'll stop with the maudlin.
I will say that I will have a picture of it soon. Very soon if that jack-ass friend of mine finds the cord to his damn camera.
I swear to god. For my graduation I am asking for two things cameras and... well OK in the words of Grace when speaking to Karen (only changed to suit my specific needs of a digital camera/camcorder): I want the labels to read either SONY or MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS!
So I got the tattoo. It is great to be a part of this project. I have not yet had time to start a blog for her, but I will as soon as she says go.
And now I would like to take this moment to chime in on the whole Miley Cyrus controversy:
I don't see sex when I see this photo. I see a child. And it's an interesting photo as well, but it's not sexual in the least. And if you think it's sexual, then you are projecting sexuality onto it, and you ought to think about why you as an adult feel ok with putting sexuality onto a child.
This picture could say a lot about her being a child star, first of all. Look at the way her posture is, and how vulnerable she looks. The kid is attacked from all sides, and her AGENCY is taken away from her, which brings me to my next point:
Stop acting like poor little Miley didn't have any say in it. DAMN IT she DID. She chose those pictures as did everyone around her-including daddy cyrus, disney cyrus, and so on cyrus... they *all* saw those photos before they were released to the press.
photographic proof that daddy was in fact there at the shoot:
So I don't want to hear another damn ass-hole who just *has* to have her say in the matter-that poor miley and what is this world coming to and so on...
Perhaps the only interesting writing I've seen about this whole thing.
well, and this is also interesting.
and finally-Miley if you are going to apologize for anything it should be these:
and Disney can suck it-acting all outraged:
[not that this picture is sexual either because it isn't necesarily sexual at all... but still, they're outraged that Vanity Fair manipulated Miley to sell copy?]
PUHLEAZE- like Disney doesn't exploit children in anyway they can any time they can (the implied clause there is "get away with it"). So Disney: SUCK IT!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Living Memorials Tattoos
Everyday in Iraq a civilian dies. Someone who was someone's mom, dad, brother, sister, child-someone who was a teacher, a cab driver, a lawyer, a doctor, someone who had dreams, who fucked up sometimes, who hurt the people they loved, who was hurt by the people they loved, someone who loved music, or books, or movies, someone who wanted to be a better person than they were, someone who tried every day to be that better person, and someone who probably fell short of their own expectations, someone who had a best friend to whom they told everything, and someone who is now dead, and someone who's name I will never know, you will never know, we all will never know. Every day this happens in Iraq as a result of a war that was instigated by America, like it or not, and support it or no, we Americans are all (some directly, many of us) indirectly responsible for.
I have never had a tattoo. There were brief moments throughout my twenties when I thought I wanted to get one, but never followed through. One reason is that I want to make sure that whatever tattoo I get is one that I would want on me forever, one with the type of spiritual energy that I want to have with me at all times. I found one once
I could have that on my lower back. But I've never found an artist that I was all that impressed by, nor have I ever had the amount of money it would cost to have that, so I never did it. Other than Hermaphrodite sleeping, I can't imagine anything else I want to carry around with me at all times.
Until I found Hana Lafta Mohsen I will have her name tattooed on my ankle this Friday as part of the Living Memorials Tattoos. If you don't want to read that entire article I'll break it down for you here. The idea is that you go on Iraq Body Count dot org, and you find their list of civilians that have died in the Iraq war. You find a name that speaks to you. Whatever your reason. I chose Hana for many reasons. First of all, she has the same name as someone who is really important in my life. Second, she is near my age, so while we probably didn't grow up watching the same TV shows, we did grow up through the same world events. There was a moment back when she was 6 when perhaps she asked her dad, like I did, about the Palestinians who hijacked the plane. I chose her also because she was a teacher. And teachers are the people who will save us from ourselves and our ignorance. Teachers are sexy. And also someday I'll probably be one . And in all honesty I also chose her because her name had fewer letters than the other names I was contemplating (I imagine this is going to hurt since I am having her name tattooed on my ankle)!
If you are interested in this, you should look the artist up that is doing this project. Camille Krilanovich is awesome. I'm going to set up a blog for her, and when I do I'll make sure to post the link here.
Until then, I encourage you all to spread the word. Her site in progress is:
http://www.clktattoo.com/
If you are a tattoo artist and want to join her you should call her. I'm spreading the word, I hope you all do too.
PEACE.
soundtrack:
I have never had a tattoo. There were brief moments throughout my twenties when I thought I wanted to get one, but never followed through. One reason is that I want to make sure that whatever tattoo I get is one that I would want on me forever, one with the type of spiritual energy that I want to have with me at all times. I found one once
I could have that on my lower back. But I've never found an artist that I was all that impressed by, nor have I ever had the amount of money it would cost to have that, so I never did it. Other than Hermaphrodite sleeping, I can't imagine anything else I want to carry around with me at all times.
Until I found Hana Lafta Mohsen I will have her name tattooed on my ankle this Friday as part of the Living Memorials Tattoos. If you don't want to read that entire article I'll break it down for you here. The idea is that you go on Iraq Body Count dot org, and you find their list of civilians that have died in the Iraq war. You find a name that speaks to you. Whatever your reason. I chose Hana for many reasons. First of all, she has the same name as someone who is really important in my life. Second, she is near my age, so while we probably didn't grow up watching the same TV shows, we did grow up through the same world events. There was a moment back when she was 6 when perhaps she asked her dad, like I did, about the Palestinians who hijacked the plane. I chose her also because she was a teacher. And teachers are the people who will save us from ourselves and our ignorance. Teachers are sexy. And also someday I'll probably be one . And in all honesty I also chose her because her name had fewer letters than the other names I was contemplating (I imagine this is going to hurt since I am having her name tattooed on my ankle)!
If you are interested in this, you should look the artist up that is doing this project. Camille Krilanovich is awesome. I'm going to set up a blog for her, and when I do I'll make sure to post the link here.
Until then, I encourage you all to spread the word. Her site in progress is:
http://www.clktattoo.com/
If you are a tattoo artist and want to join her you should call her. I'm spreading the word, I hope you all do too.
PEACE.
soundtrack:
Creepy Megan Mulally fan
found this video, and I am scared:
I hope this person hasn't seen Taxi Driver
At any rate, the internet is a cesspool of scary stalkers. I am glad no one gives a shit about me, because I don't *ever* want to see a video like this about me. OMG I would go into hiding quicker than you can say Sondheim.
I hope this person hasn't seen Taxi Driver
At any rate, the internet is a cesspool of scary stalkers. I am glad no one gives a shit about me, because I don't *ever* want to see a video like this about me. OMG I would go into hiding quicker than you can say Sondheim.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Gender Rules
I've had a lot of friends come out as transgender in the past five years. It has confused me for several reasons. And I recently went online to find some information out. There are sites for "transkids" and their parents and how to support them. There are a multitude of resources. Here's what I've decided.
What I am about to say please know that I do not at all say this to devalue or belittle the very real feelings that my trans family feel. It is not my intention to say that what they are going through is arbitrary. That is my disclaimer. I respect them, honor them, and know that as with sexual orientation, they haven't chosen to feel the way they do, it is something inherent and deep, and therefore I take it very seriously.
Having said that, I have to say that if we abolished the very arbitrary idea of gender at all, I don't think people would be transgender. Because gender would no longer exist.
What I'm saying is that all that "boy/girl" "butch/femme" crap-it's NOT REAL.
BIOLOGY! I hear you screaming BIOLOGY! Biology has absolutely nothing to do with the idea that someone with or without a Y chromosome will like dresses and play with dolls. Biology gives you a penis or a vagina, a womb or a hairy chest. That is the beginning of it, and that is the end of it. Biology does not now, nor has it ever determined your behavior, your gender identity, your sexual orientation, or your sexuality.
While I would not suggest that we completely ignore science, I would like to point out that science has become the locus of 'reality', and I believe that is not only deceptive, but it is wrong. Science has many limitations, and I don't believe in it as though it is a new god. I don't think it is logical, reasonable, or real. I don't believe that science is not arbitrary, nor do I believe that science is not immediately influenced by its culture, nor by who is funding its research. I trust science the same way I trust a priest: I don't. Sometimes a priest will say something that is true. That does not mean that priest is who I am going to refer to for everything.
I want to define some things really quickly:
1)gender identity: that is how you behave. Historically there have been tests done to suggest that there is a specific set of codes that determine male behavior v. female behavior. One of the studies said that a woman, or a feminine person, will sit with their lower back closer in to their seat back. The more masculine a person, the more space there will be between their lower back, and their seat back. I'm hoping that you the reader can infer the multitude of things wrong with a "scientific" study that comes to that conclusion. Gender identity is NOT biological. It is arbitrarily determined by our culture.
2)sexuality: this is exactly what it says. How you behave sexually.
3)sexual orientation: the type of person/people that you find yourself attracted to. This has NOTHING to do with your gender identity, and the sooner we get over this one, the sooner we will be on the road to recovery from the whole gender identity theft of our culture.
Fausto-Sterling among other things, has suggested that there were ... oh say 5 various genders in humanity. Later she said that she had used that number arbitrarily and that her actual argument is that there is no gender, or rather there are a whole LOT of genders in human behavior and that male v. female is actually a myth- or a collective lie that our culture continues to believe. Check out her work, and what she is suggesting now.
Phyllis Burke wrote a book called Gender Shock which argues a lot of what I am arguing. She picks the "science" apart. She suggests that a lot of the findings are skewed to fit into what the scientists want to prove about gender. Because let's face it, there is a lot at stake here. And science is not exempt from this. Our gender is something that for whatever reason, we hold near and dear to our hearts. For example, the gay movement from the get-go has struggled with a leadership that has wanted to make sure that our gender identity matches our sex, and what the world wants to see, we have given to them. Take for example the pre-stonewall movement. The men all wear suits, the women dresses. It was as if to say, "well, ok so we deviate slightly from what you people call the 'norm' in the fact that we tend to love people of the same 'gender' but look, we aren't total 'freaks'. We're not deviating from the gender norms, that should help you relate to us". This hasn't stopped in the queer rights movement. It has lessened slightly but really not all that much.
So I would like to propose that while our trans family does what they need to do to escape the awful chains that arbitrary gender roles wrap around us, we do whatever we can whenever we can to abolish gender all together.
But what does that do to my sexual orientation, you ask? you might say something like, "I'm a lesbian. Say what you like about how gender doesn't exist, I don't like men. I've tried, and really its primal, I don't like the way they smell, taste or feel."
I don't think the primacy of our humanity needs to be taken away from us in order to abolish the concept of gender, seeing as gender is as a result of cultural invention anyway.
I'll write more as the inspiration inspires me.
What I am about to say please know that I do not at all say this to devalue or belittle the very real feelings that my trans family feel. It is not my intention to say that what they are going through is arbitrary. That is my disclaimer. I respect them, honor them, and know that as with sexual orientation, they haven't chosen to feel the way they do, it is something inherent and deep, and therefore I take it very seriously.
Having said that, I have to say that if we abolished the very arbitrary idea of gender at all, I don't think people would be transgender. Because gender would no longer exist.
What I'm saying is that all that "boy/girl" "butch/femme" crap-it's NOT REAL.
BIOLOGY! I hear you screaming BIOLOGY! Biology has absolutely nothing to do with the idea that someone with or without a Y chromosome will like dresses and play with dolls. Biology gives you a penis or a vagina, a womb or a hairy chest. That is the beginning of it, and that is the end of it. Biology does not now, nor has it ever determined your behavior, your gender identity, your sexual orientation, or your sexuality.
While I would not suggest that we completely ignore science, I would like to point out that science has become the locus of 'reality', and I believe that is not only deceptive, but it is wrong. Science has many limitations, and I don't believe in it as though it is a new god. I don't think it is logical, reasonable, or real. I don't believe that science is not arbitrary, nor do I believe that science is not immediately influenced by its culture, nor by who is funding its research. I trust science the same way I trust a priest: I don't. Sometimes a priest will say something that is true. That does not mean that priest is who I am going to refer to for everything.
I want to define some things really quickly:
1)gender identity: that is how you behave. Historically there have been tests done to suggest that there is a specific set of codes that determine male behavior v. female behavior. One of the studies said that a woman, or a feminine person, will sit with their lower back closer in to their seat back. The more masculine a person, the more space there will be between their lower back, and their seat back. I'm hoping that you the reader can infer the multitude of things wrong with a "scientific" study that comes to that conclusion. Gender identity is NOT biological. It is arbitrarily determined by our culture.
2)sexuality: this is exactly what it says. How you behave sexually.
3)sexual orientation: the type of person/people that you find yourself attracted to. This has NOTHING to do with your gender identity, and the sooner we get over this one, the sooner we will be on the road to recovery from the whole gender identity theft of our culture.
Fausto-Sterling among other things, has suggested that there were ... oh say 5 various genders in humanity. Later she said that she had used that number arbitrarily and that her actual argument is that there is no gender, or rather there are a whole LOT of genders in human behavior and that male v. female is actually a myth- or a collective lie that our culture continues to believe. Check out her work, and what she is suggesting now.
Phyllis Burke wrote a book called Gender Shock which argues a lot of what I am arguing. She picks the "science" apart. She suggests that a lot of the findings are skewed to fit into what the scientists want to prove about gender. Because let's face it, there is a lot at stake here. And science is not exempt from this. Our gender is something that for whatever reason, we hold near and dear to our hearts. For example, the gay movement from the get-go has struggled with a leadership that has wanted to make sure that our gender identity matches our sex, and what the world wants to see, we have given to them. Take for example the pre-stonewall movement. The men all wear suits, the women dresses. It was as if to say, "well, ok so we deviate slightly from what you people call the 'norm' in the fact that we tend to love people of the same 'gender' but look, we aren't total 'freaks'. We're not deviating from the gender norms, that should help you relate to us". This hasn't stopped in the queer rights movement. It has lessened slightly but really not all that much.
So I would like to propose that while our trans family does what they need to do to escape the awful chains that arbitrary gender roles wrap around us, we do whatever we can whenever we can to abolish gender all together.
But what does that do to my sexual orientation, you ask? you might say something like, "I'm a lesbian. Say what you like about how gender doesn't exist, I don't like men. I've tried, and really its primal, I don't like the way they smell, taste or feel."
I don't think the primacy of our humanity needs to be taken away from us in order to abolish the concept of gender, seeing as gender is as a result of cultural invention anyway.
I'll write more as the inspiration inspires me.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Another bicyclist was killed yesterday on the corner of Mission and Bay. THIS is unacceptable. Apparently Santa Cruz doesn't have jurisdiction over this stretch of road because it connects highway 1 with highway 1, so it's Cal Trans.
The news yesterday reported that Cal Trans' response to this was to buy up some signs that say "share the road" with little bike designs on them.
Fucking great. Thanks a LOT Cal Trans. unbelievable.
The news yesterday reported that Cal Trans' response to this was to buy up some signs that say "share the road" with little bike designs on them.
Fucking great. Thanks a LOT Cal Trans. unbelievable.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Simon Cowell's hair
I am not a fan of American Idol. When the first season premiered I lived next door to a man named Norm. He was an old cantankerous guy who was one of the funniest people I've ever known. I loved spending time with him. We would chain-smoke and drink black coffee and he would tell me all the crazy things he had done in his life. We would joke about the pranks we were going to pull off. For example, a lady who lived in our apartment complex had two dogs that she adored. She even had a personalized license plate that read in blue letters: "Mutt Lover". He and I got blue paint tape and added a line on each of the 't's so that it read, "Muff lover". Norm liked American Idol. So I watched it with Norm. Since then I haven't watched it. Tonight I am writing a paper, and I wanted distraction. I turned the TV on, and this is what I saw:
That hair is ...uh...
WTF?!
Maybe since he's not getting his paycheck this week, he couldn't afford a hairstylist. (rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright)
Seriously. Red phones and American Idol. So you can buy into this whole idea that capitalist charity exists. PUHLEAZE.
ah but what great inspirational songs they had to sing tonight. one of them was really radical, he wrote "give back" on the palm of his hand, and at the end of his horrible song the camera at a low angle shot, he put his hand up and cocked his head just so, making himself look really sincere while wearing a white jacket that he stole from Curt Smith. I know what I'm writing on my palm tomorrow. I'll change the fucking world, especially if it's combined with a really "sincere" look.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
ok but if I ever do watch it again, here are some songs that I would love to see performed:
Joy Division: No Love Lost
Nina Hagen: Universal Radio (whoever sings it, can say something before they go on stage about how their radio is universal and that idea is what music means to them)
I could go on, but I'm bored now.
Well, actually I'm not bored at all. You see, my papers are still not done. I have some black sambuca maybe it's time to go to my bar with some matches and some shot glasses and coffee beans. If three flaming sambucas don't inspire me, then fuck it, at least I'll sleep well.
And also I will recover from seeing Simon Cowell's hair.
That hair is ...uh...
WTF?!
Maybe since he's not getting his paycheck this week, he couldn't afford a hairstylist. (rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright)
Seriously. Red phones and American Idol. So you can buy into this whole idea that capitalist charity exists. PUHLEAZE.
ah but what great inspirational songs they had to sing tonight. one of them was really radical, he wrote "give back" on the palm of his hand, and at the end of his horrible song the camera at a low angle shot, he put his hand up and cocked his head just so, making himself look really sincere while wearing a white jacket that he stole from Curt Smith. I know what I'm writing on my palm tomorrow. I'll change the fucking world, especially if it's combined with a really "sincere" look.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
I promise never to watch American Idol again.
ok but if I ever do watch it again, here are some songs that I would love to see performed:
Joy Division: No Love Lost
Nina Hagen: Universal Radio (whoever sings it, can say something before they go on stage about how their radio is universal and that idea is what music means to them)
I could go on, but I'm bored now.
Well, actually I'm not bored at all. You see, my papers are still not done. I have some black sambuca maybe it's time to go to my bar with some matches and some shot glasses and coffee beans. If three flaming sambucas don't inspire me, then fuck it, at least I'll sleep well.
And also I will recover from seeing Simon Cowell's hair.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
McCain Responds
"I'm honored to have Heidi's support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of The Hills, especially since the new season started."
– Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, on getting The Hills' Heidi Montag's youth vote, to Time
People
– Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, on getting The Hills' Heidi Montag's youth vote, to Time
People
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Another reason to be a lesbian!
According to Yahoo a new study proves that men make more work for their wives. Apparently, at least according to these experts, "having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for women".
Did anyone read Backlash? I know I shouldn't be surprised. I KNOW! I KNOW!
At any rate, I will gladly marry someone and let them clean up after me and do my laundry. Not a problem. And give me a martini when I get home from the mill and make sweet lovin to me later... sounds grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat. I needs me a wife.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
More than anything in the world right now this is what I want:
1.)an 18 pack of Pabst
2.)a Back yard that is mostly dirt
3.)a Best of Led Zeplin cassette tape
also. 4.)pack of lucky strikes yeah I knowI don't smoke but this is my strange deisre I will revisit those demons with a visceral appreciation. Like Matt Le Blanc looking for a job.
5.) T shirt that fits
6.)flip flops, but I'll call them thongs
7.)sunshine
8.)a BBQ and five pounds of ground beef and some chicken wings
9.)a fly swatter
10)a dog and shoeless children running around the back yard (none of these will be mine-somebody else can make the babies. For me, it's all about getting just the right ambiance... and children, unfortunately, are a necessary element)
and finally...
I want this to be given to me free of charge:
additionally, this is why I will always love him (thank GOD he drinks)-uh, and also is David aging?
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