Public Celibacy

Note: I understand how ridiculous it is that I'm actually writing about something in the Post annoying me. Almost everything in the NY Post annoys me, I read it for the crossword puzzle more than anything else. Still, this who celibacy thing really hit a nerve.

I was reading yet another article in the NY Post today about NY women opting for celibacy. First of all, in it's digging for famous representatives of the "new celibacy" it handed us the misinformation that Courtney Love is currently celibate. Love stated on Howard Stern that she didn't have sex for four years while working on the new Hole record, but that she's back on the banging wagon since she finished recording (if you haven't watched the interview and you have access of Howard OnDemand you should, it's captivating as Love generally is when she's somewhat lucid.) So in typical Post fashion it tries to convince us this is a "trend" by smattering in a few famous gals with stories of "regular" New Yorkers. Too bad their regular New Yorkers consist of Julia Allison and a former Miss Teen Alabama.

Honestly, none of this bothered me as much as how tacky I really think going public with your vow of celibacy really is. Religiously motivated virginity is one thing, but a "sex break" is a whole other. It's no one business who you are having sex with so why is it anyone's business who you aren't? There was a time in my life when I wasn't really having sex. I was newly sober and figuring my shit out. I didn't write a book about it, I didn't feel the need to call it a lifestyle change. It was, simply, being responsible and taking care of myself. Sometimes sex is a good thing, sometimes it isn't. It depends on the individual and where she is at. But honestly, if you need to not have sex to be able to record an album, you probably don't have a healthy enough relationship with sex to be having it when that album is done.

Also, in the Post's reference to Gaga's celibacy, it takes her quote out of context. Her stance is pro-relationship and anti-promiscuity. No sex without commitment. That's hardly celibacy. And while I do appreciate the punny headline, "They're Havin' a Celibation" crowing over a ragged photo of Courtney Love, I'm so sick of this shit.

I have no problem with celibacy, your pussy and whatever you want to do with it is your perogative, but this isn't even celibacy. It's just not promiscuity. These women aren't in relationships and I can bet you if they were in committed relationships they would be having sex. If they were saying they were avoiding relationships for the sake of productivity they wouldn't be in a sexy pictorial in the Post.

Furthermore, I think this is bad for women in general. We're once again returning to this notion that we are the gatekeepers to sex. We are the ones who are the decision makers, the naysayers. Aside from Lenny Kravitz, men don't make the news by saying they are off sex. But again, celibacy is far different from just "not putting out." It's great to avoid hyper-sexualizing oneself but come on. There is nothing abnormal about not having promiscuous sex. And really Julia Allison? Is it worth a fucking press release because you decided not to have sex for a month?!?! I mean that's what humans do after a bad breakup, they take either dive in deep or take a breather.

I am having difficulty vocalizing what exactly is bothering me here. I guess it's partially this notion that women can't be productive creative individuals when they are involved with men, sexually or romantically. Instead of casting off the notion of relationships, sexual or not, maybe we should be more focused on casting off the roles we take in these relationships and the relationship we have with not just our sexuality but our partners. If you need to not have sex with people right away in order to find the proper partner, that makes sense, but don't call it celibacy for fuck's sake.

I met Boyd Rice

and he was very nice...

Life Equations

Dear blog, I did not forget about you. I've been in a bubble the past few weeks. Life has been too fun to pause to blog. Well, that and every time I sit in front of my computer I am magically drawn to YouTube where I watch episode after episode of Intervention but seriously, let's just blame it on romance.

Today I want to revisit my SHIT LIST!

Okay, here it goes. I think a basic math exam should be required for all those who work retail. I went to pick up a prescription at Walgreens today and like the super shopper (even while dead broke) that I am, I hit up the sale Christmas candy aisle. I couldn't resist the 75% off fruit flavored candy canes! I'm a weak woman. When I went to the cashier to have her ring me up they came up as full price. I informed her of the sale and she paged a manager. He verified they were 75% off and told her to she just had to figure out the new price, hit override, and enter in the new total manually.

Here is where it gets tricky. When she asked what the new price would be the manager told her $1. Problem was, the candy canes were originally priced at $2.99. Now, let's all break out our calculators for a simple math problem (one that we should be able to do in our heads already) what is 75% off of $3? It's $0.75, not $1!

Okay, so being the good Jew I am, I pointed out the mistake and the manager looked at me like I was an idiot. I took out my phone and showed him on the calculator the math equation that proved me correct and he told me I was wrong. He said, "Here is how you figure it out, what's half of $3?"
"$1.50"
"Okay, right, and then half of that is $1."
"No, it's really not."
"Yes. Yes it is."

The cashier looked confused and defeated and asked her manager if she should charge me $1 and he said, "No just ring it in as $0.75, I'm not going to worry about it, it's not worth it, even though that's not right, let her have her way."

And again, like the good Jew I am, I had to at least try to get the last word, "You aren't humoring me you know. It's basic math, I worked as a cashier for eleven years. Trust me, I know what 75% off is."

The cashier rolled her eyes and I got my fucking candy canes.

End of story.

Woman? Whoa man.

This is something that has been tempting me for a long while...

To all the men in my life who can:
Change a tire
Put up a shelf
Win a fight
Play a mean hand of poker
Stand up for a lady
Catch a fish
Sharpen a knife
Throw a punch
Start a fire
Grill
Stay loyal
Toss a football
Fight a bear

Etc, etc (okay, maybe not the bear part...)
Thank you.

To the rest of you, please take off your flannel shirts and retire your cowboy boots. Just because you can grow a beard and throw on some plaid doesn't make you a man.

Okay, so this is the beginning of a long-standing rant about gender in my neck of the woods. We're at that age where we we aren't quite ready to be men and women yet but we can't be boys and girls anymore. We occupy that special middle-ground of chicks and dudes. It's functional, at least temporarily until we settle down. Lord knows I'm still trying to figure out what being a woman means after so many years hiding in bro-dom. So many city-dwelling ladies I know have the same end of raging days fantasy. Meet a fella, fall in love move outta town but still within reach of the city, get a house on a piece of land, get a big ole dog, and settle down with or without the eventual babies.

Surprisingly traditional, no? The older I get the more comfortable I become with traditional gender roles. When I was younger I would think my current behavior was selling out. I went seven years without shaving my legs or armpits, about four of those years not wearing deodorant (that's total, it went in phases.) Now I'm well groomed, my eyebrows are tweezed, my hair is long, and my nails finally painted and unbitten. The realities of aging have begun to set in. My body has started to change and so has my energy level. My wants and needs have metamorphosised and it's a scary prospect. Is this what growing up feels like?

Living here a lot of us fall into a prolonged state of adolescence. Thirties are the new twenties, so all the magazines say, but are we really just so youth oriented that we need to redefine what's young and what's old now? Are we lifting the standards for the age of accomplishment because we are afraid of not accomplishing things in time? Surely it's a good thing not to be expected to be married with kids before the age of thirty. Lord knows I doubt I will be, I'm 27 and don't have a boyfriend much less a prospective mate. But when do we start thinking of ourselves as men and women?

I told a friend the list I had in my head about the ideal man and he jokingly replied, "Who are you looking for, Tim Allen?" Home Improvement jokes aside, I sincerely hope the fact that I snuck in many an episode of Married with Children didn't somehow warp my brain into an attraction to the mythical men and their manly exploits. I doubt it. There is a distinction when gender is used as a tool to marginalize and when it is used as a form of expression. I would like to think I use my femininity as a mode of self-expression. My womanly ways are an essential part of my being and I don't want to be punished for them. I am not drawn to the No Ma'am mentality, where manhood is a boy's club, no girls allowed.

My parents raised me to be independent and to fend for myself, but at the same point, my mom did the cooking (except for taco night and grilling or smoking meats which was dad's role) and my dad did the eating. He watched sports and the History Channel while my mom played bridge and watched ER. He wrote academic articles and she painted Christmas ornaments. Had our family's financial situation been different she would have been a stay-at-home mom which was her dream when she first got married. That is not the life for me. However, growing up in Nebraska my childhood male friends became men who can re-tile a bathroom floor, rewire a light fixture, and drive trucks, they play in country or metal bands, are loyal to a fault drink hard, work harder, battle douchebags with MBAs on the weekends, and are artists at the same time. That's my model for manhood.

Here I feel like so many of us are floundering. The concept of drink hard, work harder has been switched. Or maybe it's just drink hard, work whenever. In a city where creativity is an industry it affords us the liberty of using our creative skills as a means to make a living but in the same manner it also enables us to spend most of the work day reading blogs or looking at videos on YouTube. And after 8 hours of semi-creative work too many of us come home and just want to drink instead of pursuing the passions that brought us here hopeful in the first place. We don't have the energy to be humans much less men and women. All we become are bodies on bar stools looking for other bodies with the desired set of holes or appendages.

People ask me why I don't try to write for fashion blogs or magazines and it's because, while I like clothing and dressing myself, ultimately I don't care about the magazines or the blogs. My heart wouldn't be in it and I don't want to compromise the one thing holy to me. And as a woman, is that what I'm supposed to have to write about? Fashion? I guess it has a broader appeal than just writing about myself, and I am sure you all are aware that this blog is primarily an exercise in self-indulgence. Thank you for reading by the way, I never thought anyone would.

I hate to think that adulthood is necessarily a negotiation of passion and reality. Maybe it is for some, but I hope that I can become an adult or rightfully call myself a woman (and I think I am almost there) without compromising my desires. Maybe that is what makes a woman and a man, not compromising desires. Reality isn't necessarily a buzz-kill. Sometimes reality can be everything you wanted it to be, or everything you needed without even realizing it. Or maybe I'm an optimist. Strangely I do have faith, something lacking around these parts. I can't think of the world as an entirely cold cruel place where you have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive. Maybe it's the Midwestern gal in me. Maybe I'm right and I'll get that house outside of the city with the big dog and a man who can do a few of the things on that list. Or maybe I'm wrong and life will give me a big old slap in the face. Do reality checks inherently have to be harsh?

Then again, I call this blog Reality No Show so who am I to talk.

Chinese Democracy

And...as my roommate Sam put it, "This is like the toughest Britney Spears album ever." I think Axl managed to put every genre of music on the record. Let's put this head to head with the new Metallica album.

Another Sam quote, "This part sounds like Iceburn." YESSSS!

But I am so gonna get my free Dr Pepper coupon even though I can't have caffiene or carbination. I still feel like I should participate in any food-related publicity stunt.

Warning: Carbs Ahead

I work in Midtown. The lunch choices are numerous, most of them either deli's or small regional chains. You know the places, Pax, Cafe Metro, Guy and Gallard, and the more prestigious Pret A Manger. Despite the propensity for dry underseasoned grilled chicken sandwiches, these places all have something in common: they are all subject to Bloomberg's calorie posting rules.

Now I understand that America has an agenda regarding the nation's diet and that obesity can rightfully be considered a matter of public health but in New York City having the caloric content of everything you could possibly want to eat for lunch blasted in your face can be a major source of anxiety. Women in this city succumb far more easily to the pressure to be thin. Looks count for a lot here, especially in the circles I (perhaps unfortunately) run in, be it socially or professionally. It comes with the territory somewhat, I work in fashion. Even though my job is blessedly curve-friendly my peers at their jobs are less lucky and even though nothing is ever explicitly said, there is the underlying pressure to look like one walked off an editorial shoot every single day, from the outfit to the body.

So as I pass by the Pret A Manger on the corner of the street I work on I stop to read the window advertisment, "Good food is good, bad food is bad, eat drink and be wary." It's like a battlecry for disordered eating to me. After all, what is a bad food? Most women (and some men) I know have their own version. For me it's highly processed food, white bread, pasta, anything deep-fried, anything sugar-filled, the list could go on. Foods that are a part of the normal cannon of what should be acceptable to eat become "bad" foods. How many people do you know order their sushi with brown rice? The "burrito bowl" to avoid the tortilla? Boneless skinless chicken breast? I am totally guilty of it. When subjected to McDonalds for breakfast on tour it was always an Egg McMuffin, no cheese.

Not that food avoidance is all bad. Some of it is healthy. When eating prepared foods from restaurants and fast food joints you have to negotiate a treacherous field of potential health risks. But we become so wrapped up in our concepts of what we should or shouldn't eat that we forget to enjoy food. Which brings me back to the calorie posting. It's just step deeper into a culture of food paranoia. Diets are worn like a badge of honor, and dietary restrictions and hang-ups are piled high enough to fill a Whole Foods shopping cart. Yes, calorie-posting encourages consciousness to those who may eat mindlessly but it it is another nail in the coffin for those of us all ready in over our heads in a culture of food anxiety.

As you can probably tell, calorie posting has definitely made my shit list.

FID

If I am good at anything it's fucking up. Seriously, it's a talent. To willfully make bad decisions and not give a fuck. I mean wow, I value my life but the caliber of my fuck up ability is extraordinary. I see my friends who have the strength to make responsible well thought-out decisions and I envy them. On many points I am quite judicious and clear-headed. I'll work through a case of the plague and I am very rarely late. I have a great concept of time and I always pay my rent, but when it comes to personal decisions I am a retard. I guess part of me just doesn't give a fuck, it's probably a miracle I quit drinking, maybe vanity outweighed my internal case of the FID ("Fuck it dude".) I can't help it. This extends to buying things I should because I think they are hilarious, going on massive trips I can't afford, and of course the inevitable sleeping around. If I want to do something I'll most likely do it, shouldn't isn't a good enough reason. I try to be good, try to resist temptations but then I just get horny and bored.

Speaking of being a fuck up, I came to a depressing realization the other day. I was talking to someone about how I primarily identify myself as a writer even though I am too gutless to pursue it as a career path. The freelancing world scares me and the idea of submitting things for publication terrifies me, I have no idea where to start and refuse to look into it. Maybe it's selective laziness. I'll go out of my way to do mundane things on a daily basis but when it's the stuff I care about I flake and avoid. It's part of the art of poor decision making. I was telling someone about my job and how I work in fashion. He currently interns for Harpers and I told him the publishing world seems scary to me. But then I backtracked saying that the fashion world seems equally as scary to most if not scarier and then mid-sentence I realized that fashion doesn't scare me because I don't care. If I fail in this industry I won't be crushed. I'll probably be happier to have it out of my system. And because I ultimately don't care, because my dreams aren't wrapped up in it, I probably won't fail. Essentially I've given up before I've even begun.

A job is something to me that I don't mind doing. I hope one day that will chance and it will be something I love. I used to think I couldn't be one of those people who was content pursuing my art on my own time. I didn't think that my income and artistic drive should have to be separate. In a dream world writing would be my job but I don't know if I'll ever have the guts to try and make that happen.

I told this all to my mother and she told me it was very depressing. Thanks mom.

Skulled

I do not like skulls. Wearing a symbol of the self in death. Mortality is just a t-shirt away. Silk screened onto silk scarves, littering the neckline or dangling from one's ears in a pewter head shop mess. They've lost their menace. They are a signifier of tough for those who do not know harshness. For those who do not know pain. Our own bones are pain, alarm when we see them, that sick flash of white when our insides become out, it can mean doom or at least partial physical damnation, yet the skulls of our imagination not sourced from our actual departed brethren still mark the smiling lipless grin of death.

Not that I am going to entirely beg off a fascination with morbidity. More and more the morose bores me. I am not troubled by it. It doesn't upset me and I understand it, but it does not intrigue me. It seems like an exercise of the sheltered. Those who do not know true terror like to imagine it and through such imagination they feel as though they do know it. That they will be prepared to meet it when it comes. Prolonged exposure to imaginations of terror make us falsely familiar. I cannot empathize with the raped and pillaged. I cannot know the sight of watching my loves slaughtered. I do not know the feeling of being torn limb from limb, but I can pay someone $200 to get a grinning death's head tattooed on my arm to show the world I think I know the meaning of pain.

Somewhere in art the wires get crossed and alienation becomes synonymous with death. the artist talks of suffocation, of a creative death with falsely suicidal malaise. Cut off from expression we say we feel dead, if we are emotionally lacking we say we are dead inside, but despite our boasts and dramatics we do not know death. We cannot feel death, have no claim on its finality. If our eternal mortality, the end of all ends becomes a ringer in a series of social cliches where does that leave us? "A fate worse than death?" Were you ever so embarrassed you could have just died? Really? Were you? Shame and death never the two shall meet.

Forays into the unknown's stewpot

The other evening, my mother and I were discussing the ways we pass the time. In between work, lakeside walks, and her photography class, my mom has gotten really into researching things on the internet. If she were more savvy I could imagine her as a Wikipedia queen writing articles here and there. She told me there was a debate about the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual and she had to look it up to be sure. I told her next time something like that comes up she can just call me.

I told her I had been reading the messageboards at Stormfront.org because I was curious as to the lifestyle choices of White Nationalists. Specifically I was wondering about their diet, what their attitudes on ethnic foods were. Do WN's eat falafel or sushi? The answer was what I figured it to be, it varies, but more on that later.

This weird odyssey began because I was looking to see if RAHOWA was still active in Columbia, Missouri. I first became aware of RAHOWA, the skinhead extension of the World Church of the Creator, when I was in high school. My best friend at the time was a year older and had just graduated. She was going through a skinbyrd phase and wanted to check out the scene in the town where she was going away to school in the fall. She frequented some traditional skinhead (aka skinheads polarized around class identity not racial identity) messageboards trying to see if there was a scene in Columbia. She got in touch with a few guys who said they'd show her around town and give her a place to crash if need be when she came to visit. I was coming along with her and we decided that we should plan on sleeping in her car unless they seemed totally cool after meeting them.

Bringing her correspondence off the messageboard, she got the email address of one of them, Tim, and started writing him. She showed me his emails and they struck me as a little off. He kept making veiled lewd comments and references to our looks. He wanted pics and I wanted nothing to do with this. Besides, I was never into skinheads, and she'd already gotten me in a mess with them before when she had me help set up a show for The Authority, a touring skinhead band from California who had ended up tagging a local venue and had basically temporarily ruined a portion of our scene (cops were involved, we were basically blacklisted, it was hell) but since this wasn't our turf we had nothing to lose. But I was curious as to what his email addresses weas about, tim@rahowa.net. The host site was unfamiliar to me so I typed in the address...umm...holy shit.

And that's how I was introduced to RaHoWa aka Racial Holy War, the skinhead battle-cry of the World Church of the Creator. This was about a year before one of the Church of the Creator members went on a shooting spree in the midwest so they were still fairly unknown. The site at rahowa.net has since been taken down and now has links directing one to Russian Brides, Black Dating, and the Sisterhood of the WCOTC, how diverse. The World Church of the Creator has since been repackaged as the Creativity Movement. Essential it packages it's rhetoric as a religion with this as it's primary blurb:
The Creativity Movement: Mobilizing Nature's Finest since 1973
Dedicated to the Survival, Expansion and Advancement of the
White Race
Based on the Laws of Nature, on the Experience of History, on Logic and Common Sense
A Four-Dimensional Religion: A Sound Mind in a Sound Body in a Sound Society in a Sound Environment
Our Goal: Building a Whiter and Brighter World

Obviously a Jew and a half-Jew were not going to be spending our time in Missouri with these dudes. Holy hell. Thinking back on it, we were young and very very stupid. If I hadn't typed in that email address I wonder what would have happened? There was no way they would have known we were Jewish, but even still, that's a situation far too scary for me.

A little while later, after I graduated from high school, I ended up moving to Columbia myself. I befriended a few of the local punk rocks and there were a couple of SHARPS amongst them who always were doing battle with the RaHoWa skins. We'd drink boxed wine and cheap beer and listen to Super Black Market Clash and talk shit on the front porch of the skin's house all day long. I told them my story and they told me I was lucky to have found out beforehand who I was dealing with. Tim, the one we'd been in contact with, was apparently the big deal Neo-Nazi skin in town with a rep for lady-beating and all around scum-baggery. He was big and scary and I was told I'd know him if I saw him.

And then I saw him. I spent a month working at Texaco, this was a college town in the purest sense. When school was out for summer the population was cut in half, businesses shut down, and work outside of the service industry was nonexistent for kids my age. One day the most gigantic dude came in. Boots, braces, bomber, totally ripped and well over 6 feet tall. Hell, if I were that gigantic and mighty I'd probably be proud of my genetic stock too. He turned to go to the beer cooler and on the side of his shaved head I saw a tattoo of crossed hammers. Hammerskin. Very major. Very scary.

To read more about these frightening motherfuckers check out this article on Hammerskins about the regional warring skinhead crews.

Compared to the Creativity Movement and the Hammerskins, the WN identity at Stormfront.org is decidedly low-key. It's basically just a bunch of white folks stoked to be white who are disgusted with race mixing and obsessed with racial purity. It's far less violent in it's preaching but that's probably because it's a public messageboard and it's contents are accessible to everyone. Many of you have pointed out that it's also on the government's watch list, so it's pretty obviously not a place where people will be preaching outright violence or expressing their support of hate crimes. But the general banality of Stormfront is also what is so intriguing about it. It's a window in to the daily lives of White Nationalists all over the world. There are forums about everything from diet and exercise to homemaking to film reviews. Many of the users have a strong survivalist bent and there is a lot of talk about food rationing and gun care. Stormfront is a window into the anxieties and fears of white working class America and the ways in which those fears can be manifested as hate. I've already included links in past entries to threads I found humorous or strangely enlightening as to their mindset.

As a cultural studies major in college I focused a lot of subcultural theory and I noticed that hate culture is extremely neglected in that field. A lot of the existing theory assumes that subcultures are necessarily progressive in their defiance of current hegemony but this is obviously not true. For every radical subculture there is a reactionary one that views itself equally at odds with the status quo. I first became aware of hate culture when I was in high school. I bought the collected first three issues of Answer Me! at the distro table at a punk rock show. That was my first exposure to Jim Goad who would take me on a voyage through The Redneck Manifesto and introduce me to Boyd Rice and get me better acquainted with David Duke as well as Al Sharpton. From there I found other Feral House publications and learned a lot about fringe groups. When you think about it, the militant Right to Life movement is just as much of a subculture as riot grrrls. They have their own websites, community meetings, picnics, fundraisers, educational forums, music, and cultural references. Same with the White Nationalists. Many of their choices from food to entertainment are calculated with their feelings about racial identity and their paranoia about the Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG).

After so many years of living in New York I've become distanced from these groups. They are not an active reality here, in this mecca of diversity and lip-serviced liberalism. Why the hell would a WN want to live here? Immigrants are essential to running this city and to WNs they are the biggest threat to their racial purity and cultural dream. But they are here, many of the posters are from upstate or the surrounding suburbs. Still, living in New York, it's out of sight out of mind most of the time with the WN movement. It's easy to forget what being an American means to a lot of people outside of the city, and those people change the meaning of what it is to be an American for all of us.

I am slowly losing my mind...

All this heat plus all this hate...WN folk sure are creative...this is sort of genius but maybe that's because my ear is sunburnt and I haven't slept. My brain hurts from sopping up all this hate.

(Found here)




New theme eateries to open across U.S.


Hitler's Road House Grille


A restaurant where you orders are filled promptly and our orders are
obeyed without question.


Five theme dining rooms in each location. Here are just two:


LEATHER ROOM
Walls and ceilings covered completely with "official" shoes from the
"Good old Days." Lampshades made from tattooed human skin and plush
carpeting woven from captured human hair.


REMINESENCE ROOM (light eaters only)
For old time and young [in training] survivors. Decor will vary
depending on location. Featuring favorite recipes from the camps,
like sawdust soup and Himmler ham hocks w/mustard GRYNSpan.


An example of burgers, appetizers, sides and entrees:


BrisBurger - a favorite of Rabbis worldwide.


Illya Ehrenburger - over 2,496 versions to choose from.


Sara Salzman Burger -3.5 kg ground meat w/1 kg slab of cheese
[eat like there's no tomorrow. Its so big, the bun is lovingly bound
to the burger with ropes.]


Sonderkommando hand sandwich - served with one cigarette and limburger
cheese. [must be eaten with gas mask on]


Einsatzgrouper sandwich.


Hitler's BBQ Ribs - Diesel Smoked(tm).
[Heaping plate of rib bones w/gristle (meatless)]


Der Fuhrer's Frankfurter w/Yehuda Bauerkraut.


Bucket-o-frog legs served w/ Filip Muller's dipping sauce.
[So fresh the bucket will hop around your table]


IMT-Bone [where's the beef?]


The Chef gives Special Treatment to these Favorites:


Fettuccini Adolpho
Turkey Terezini
Blackened Gefilte Fish
Westerbork Trout
Pressac Duck w/Irma Grese Glaze
Janowski Jambalaya
Dr. Gassen Burnham's Famous Bergen-Belsen (No Gas) Beans
Pork LoMein Kampf w/fried lice
Lobster Nuremberg
Duck w/Oranienburg sauce


Deserts:


Strurhof Strudel
Sobibor Sorbet
Treblinka Truffles
Bimko Blintz (stuffed full of _ _ it)


Appetizers:
Oysters on the mach schnell
Eva Prawn cocktail
French Fried foreskins
Mengele's surgeon sturgeon caviar (twin size order)


All salads made with iced Hilberg lettuce and 1,000 yr Reichland
Dressing


Soup Nazi(tm) take out favorites:


Gestapo Gazpacho
Crema Mushroom Soup
Goebels Goober Soup (nuts crushed)
Bischoff's Broccoli
---------------------------

Note: All steaks and chops are grilled over our deep pit BBQ and are
basted with their own flaming juices dipped from the pit. Due to this
cooking method, 'well done' is not available. All orders will be black
on the outside and red on the inside.

So stoked to be so shitty

I just want to let the world know how happy I am to know that there is a record label out there that combines my hatred of yoga and my love of extreme music.

It's such a great feeling when someone comes along and combines your loves with your hates. Kind of like the For Stormfront Ladies Only Messageboard I am Jewish, I am not pro-white power, but holy shit, these ladies are entertaining as hell. I think it's hilarious when while people feel so threatened and embattled. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if what they are saying is true, WHERE'S MY PART OF THE CONSPIRACY damnit! Seriously.

Maybe I should do a series, White Nationalists: They're just like us

Here is some of my favorite light reading:

Aryan babes posting pictures of their hot Aryan dudes

The age old question, "How do I cope with my nephew wanting to date a Jewish girl?

Klans women sharing robe laundering advice

White power ladies cry during Little House on the Prairie and like to get drunk and glue quarters to the sidewalk in front of Synagogues

To tan or not to tan...what's a poor white woman to do?

And my personal favorite:

Pete Steele is the ultimate vision of white male perfection?

Wait...Hootie & The Blowfish and The Meatpuppets earned spots on the sexiest rockers list? 1995 must have been a bummer year.

Also, are white power chicks allowed to get wet for Robert Smith and Darby Crash? That just don't seem right. Nothing is funnier than when WN chicks unwittingly are hot for gays, jews, and gay jews.

Shit List Continued

Thought of a few more:

- I hate people who post blogs or update profiles with funny things they've said via IM or text message to their friends. It's so self-indulgent. Congratulations - you and your friends rule! Wow, you really got the point across. In fact in case I ever doubted how cool you were here are your personal IM conversations you had with one another plastered across the public spectrum of the internet because that funny thing you said to Ronnie about cats isn't really funny until you been congratulated for it by innumerable blog comments or MySpace accolades. Wow. Great. Okay, so blogging in inherently self-indulgent and any personal blog is a plea for acceptance from the greater population, but at least try to be creative and just slightly humble.

- I hate when people pronounce foreign words with the accent of the country of origin. Do French people say "McDonalds" with an American accent? No.

- I hate how trendy it is to be a cat person right now. Who the fuck decided cats were amazing? Jesse Pearson? Max Wowch? I am not sure. Yeah, cats have the potential to be hilarious but so does the rest of the animal kingdom. When are ducks going to get their due? Seriously, I could look at ducks and laugh for hours.

-I hate anything that can be described as "quirky".

-I hate yoga pants and those who wear them as real pants.

-I hate it when people confuse exercise fads with lifestyles.

-I hate half-assed veganism...that's like saying you are straightedge if you only drink once a week.

-I hate the public's obsession with Amy Winehouse. Junkie's are boring and scabby. Next!

-I hate it when comedians are unfunny aka Jimmy Fallon and Dane Cook. Just because you are semi-good-looking and yell a lot doesn't mean I should laugh. Unless I am making fun of you.

You've made my shit list

Often I've bemoaned the culture of negation we've developed. One where shared hatreds are equally as important as shared experiences. I can't complain too much because when I signed on to be a punk rocker in junior high I signed on to a celebration of negation. An identity where who you aren't is equally as important as who you are. From that young age I made many a friend based on mutual dislikes. "We hate the same people!" was the realization that led to friendship. Always at odds we found safety in our relatively small numbers by developing a sturdy "us vs them" mentality.

Fast forward several years. Now, living in New York City, all those punk rock kids of yore are all grown up and still make connections with each other with that same battlecry. But now shared experiences come a bit more into play. We assume that we all went through the same shit in high school and junior high. That we were all rejects of some calliber. That we had a common "them" to battle and now we rise triumphant, at least in our own minds, over "them". They who still live in our hometowns. They who are married with a couple of kids. They who took the straight track from high school to state college where they majored in business or communications or business communications and got a job relevant to their degree directly out of college where they will remain until retirement unless they get laid off or transferred. Guess what. They probably don't give a fuck whether or not you think you are better than them now. They probably don't even remember you or if they do would most likely be extremely nice if they ran into you again, probably even offering to buy you a beer. That happens to me just about ever time I end up at a bar back in my hometown.

Still, we remain battletorn (heh), the remnants of old wounds never healed. We gain our revenge by creating our own exclusive version of cool. The true cool, the trendsetting cool, been there done that moved on before anyone even catches on cool. The fleeting bouncing version of life, totally schizophrenic and so heavily self-referential it makes meta media theory look like child's play. We relish our ability to be the new snobs, not realizing that we've significantly closed the gaps between us and those bonehead jocks with serious inferiority complexes. Everybody's got something to prove.

But we get so much enjoyment out of it! Bitching is my birthright, or so I like to say because I'm a Jew, but maybe it's because I was one of the rejected, a freak, a drape, so much animosity was directed at me when I was younger that I deserve the opportunity to target others for a chance. I don't really believe that, but it does help explain why less tainted individuals look at me and my contemporaries and mutter the word "hipster" under their breath with disdain. They call us snobs, say we are intimidating, that we think we are too cool for others. Our reply, "Who me? But I'm a total nerd!" What a defense. It's true but that doesn't mean that nerds can't be assholes or that nerds are incapable of making others feel terrible.

One evening a few friends and I went out to dinner at Diner. The conversation turned to the creation of lists of things we hate. How they once spent an afternoon going back and forth amongst friends listing their hatreds, the things that really drove them nuts, and comparing notes. They mentioned that some were better at it than others and that some had hatreds that were pretty lame. They got the idea from John Waters who is probably the ultimate example of a reject creating his own exclusive world of cool built on recyclable references that are obscure to many but familiar to other rejects. It's laughable to think that someone would be bad at hating things. Perhaps it's just symptomatic of them being a better person than the rest of us.

We started discussing our hatreds at dinner and it made me think of the time, inspired by L7, I made a Shit List in 7th grade. I remember my friend's brother finding out he'd made my Shit List and him being really terrified of me after that, even though he'd previously tormented and bullied me. I threw out some hatreds at dinner and they were all received quite well. My ability to hate was legitimized by these observations:

-I hate people who clip their nails on the subway or in other public places, but specifically the subway. I find it utterly repulsive.
-I hate it when people scrape silverware against their teeth.
-I hate adults who can't spell.
-I hate embellished denim.
-I hate the master cleanse.
-I hate fag hags.
-I hate men who think they can insult me just because they are gay. Being a homosexual does not automatically qualify you to give fashion advice.
-I hate excessive exclamation points, especially in emails from women who work in fashion. It makes the recipient think less of you. Trust me.
-I hate Conde Nast and all it's endeavors.
-I hate NPR.
-I hate the theatre. Going to plays that aren't good makes me so uncomfortable I can't stand it and frankly I feel that most plays aren't good.
-I hate it when people quote tv shows as part of regular conversation.
-I hate Sex in the City and women who worship it.
-I hate the idea of going to the gym.
-I hate sex toys, body oil, costumes and our entire culture of contrived sexiness. If you need tools in the bedroom that means you just aren't very good at having sex.
-I hate New York street fairs. They are just plain shitty.
-I hate tourists who point. I also hate having my picture taken by strangers. I am not an attraction, I am a resident.


Instead of being a self-hating Jew, I'm a self-hating hater. I have a feeling that's probably not the best way to be, but at least I've got the remnants of a conscience and as haters go, I can be pretty damn pleasant. In fact I'm sure in a few hours I'll feel so shitty about my extended shit list that I'll try and be a good girl and counter it with a love list. It won't be nearly as interesting I'm sure.

In Keeping with the Recent themes

Seriously, my entire life doesn't revolve around bongs and partying. It just looks that way.

There is something so serene about the image of a lady bonging with one hand while holding a bottle of Diet Coke in the other. Something so undeniably New York. A lot of the women I've taken pictures of hitting the beer bong look comically serene. It's not a sorority girls gone wild scenario but more of a "what the hell, I'll do this" sort of attitude. Girl looks like a serious pro.




For all who did not attend, Saturday was bonkers...bangin...bananas...it had everything a house party could ask for except very little dancing. And unfortunately a lot of piss...on the roof...all over...and a lot of people making out in corners on the roof...where a lot of people had pissed...all over. There were gays and gals and bros and babes and dudes and plaids and vests and haircuts. There was a bong and a keg and hundreds of cups and empties and bottles and cans. And these guys aka the Party Doctors:



Most importantly there was a lot of fun.

But what is a party without a fight? And what is a party without enemies? My neighbors in the basement had a show the same night. A competing party which confused a lot of early arrivers at my building. No...I would never throw a party in which "Faux Punk" a Daft Punk cover band performed. Never in a million years. Nor was I particularly amped on the fans of a Daft Punk cover band drinking from the keg we'd purchases to make Lauren's birthday party all the more fun (although I think the beer bongs distracted people from keg stands.) So when one man came across douche fans smoking weed in the hallway after eight too many beer bongs...let's just say it was gnarly.

I have a weird track record with fights at parties I throw, at least in the city. The first one, at 55 Delancey, broke out on the rooftop. It was between some SVA kids and some Parsons dudes...so college, so good. The SVA kids were tagging the halls and the roof and the Parsons dudes stood up for our household's honor and someone got knocked out cold in the process. Girls were screaming everywhere on the roof and suddenly a fellow Eugene Lang student yelled, "FUCK THIS PATRIARCHAL BULLSHIT!" and then did what anyone who wants to smash patriarchy would do...called the cops.

The second fight occurred in the apartment I still live in. It was our first party which I think my apartment's reputation in the building (specifically with our landlord) never fully recovered. My roommates built a teepee on the roof and were given liquid acid by this dude:



Seriously, it was really that dude. I recognized him immediately because I always thought this was one of the funniest Don'ts. My roommate recognized him too and told him so and he kept saying, "I'm not a Don't, I'm a model." Yeah dude, you may be a model but we'll always know you as the ultimate Don't. Also, while on acid my roommate took video footage of Neon voguing on the roof as he asked her if her glasses were "Cour-raj-aye" aka Courreges. After she filmed him she took a boy she met at the party to Sunday services with a Spanish-speaking Jehovah's Witness concregation. That boy ended up becoming her (now ex) boyfriend. Whoa.

Anyway, at that party there was a fight in the kitchen. Two blondes fighting about a mutual ex and expressing their general mutual hatred. The escalation was amazing. One accusing the other of having the world's most common STD (really is HPV even an insult when like half of the fucking population has it?) and the other shouting, "Whatever, at least I didn't play NOFX at my last DJ night, go ride your BMX bike you fucking poser." And those, funnily enough, were the words that brought it to blows.

This most recent fight ended with my buddy trying to throw a full paintcan down several flights of stairs after being temporarily laid out in the hallway. His girlfriend got punched and flipped on her back and it was at that point in which I intervened, hitting the dude in the back with a plastic bag full of empty beer bottles I'd gathered while cleaning up the stairwell. I felt like the crotchety old lady shooing pesky children away with her broom...aka not that scary or effective.

I'm not a fighter. I've only been in one fist fight. It was with a dude. I was borderline blacked out. It was about how I thought Mastadon was "fucking boring." I started it. And it ended with a concussion. It's a long story. A scary dirty crazy story. And I got pretty fucked up but so did the dude. At least from what I can remember and truthfully it's not much. Lesson learned, just because someone is wearing a Mastadon shirt doesn't mean you should fight them. Or maybe it does...because fuck...I still think that band is fucking boring.

I "Hate" NPR

Okay, so maybe "hate" is a strong word, but I generally react with extremes when I am universally supposed to like something and just, well, don't. It's kind of like my never ending battle with the Pixies. I don't hate the Pixies, but I sure don't like them. And because I don't like them and have been subjected to them time and time again, I've grown to hate them. It's entirely reactionary. I have no underlying objection to them, but I just would never chose to listen to them, yet am consistently forced to. I once tried to go a month without listening to the Pixies, Doolittle in particular, and after three days I realized I wouldn't be able to leave my house if I really wanted to be successful in my avoidance of the band.

I feel that same way about NPR. I don't mind it, in fact I'm quite the champion of oral history, a HUGE fan of Studs Terkel and his work, and even studied audio documentary in college and genuinely enjoyed it and my work was well received by my professor, National Public Radio producer, Sarah Montague.

Sarah was a calm and mild mannered professor with a voice like warm cup of tea, all honey no lemon. I'd sit back in class just listening to her speak, she could be telling a story about her cat and it didn't matter, everything she said was immediately engaging. Classic NPR voice. She was deeply passionate about her craft and her dedication made me want to respect her craft. I wanted to love the pieces she played for us in class, wanted to badly to hold my interested long enough to actively seek out the other programs she encouraged us to listen to. I tried to love the radio, but like theory, I only liked what I produced and couldn't jive with the work of others. I'd already been a writer who never reads, a cultural theorist with no one to site, and now was transitioning into an audio documentarian who wasn't a fan of the form.

I am a college graduate who is liberal-leaning and consider myself a fan of the finer arts, yet I have no desire to listen to "This American Life". Is that so wrong? Maybe I am just not a joiner. When something is universally adulated I tend to think it stinks. When I listen to the carefully studied self-effacing tone adopted by Dan Savage or David Sedaris, I cringe. The topics ranging from how you thought you were cool and realized you weren't or...even worse, how having kids made you realize you weren't as cool as you thought you were, don't hold my interest. Yes, your perfomance art piece in 1997 was embarassing and you should feel embarassed about it, but to listen to you speak about it in a carefully rehearsed "casual" tone makes me want to puke. Blog about it and I'll read it, tell me the story and I'll listen, but when you script it and read it aloud and pause for laughter (if it's live) or provide your own half-chuckle that reeks of self-loathing it becomes too close to "performance" for me to handle.

This attitude doesn't apply to comedians necessarily, but is often extended to them. Maybe that's because so few comedians are actually funny. But that's a whole other rant (and really, enough people have bitched about Dane Cook and Jimmy Fallon already.) My roommate listens to "This American Life" in the living room. I hate it. It makes me want to hit something or someone. I try to shut my door and play music as loud as is reasonably polite so I can shut out those voices. That smug bastard tone that seems to be a requirement of a radio essayist is like murder to my ears. It's the self-satisfied tenor of the finally validated nerd. It says, "I'm on NPR. That means I'm smarter than you." It's the ultimate "making it" for brainiac rejects who always had their hands raised in class. I should know, I was one of those, maybe that's why I liked working in audio but never listening to it. You see, I was also brainiac asshole...I liked to speak up, but never listened. (Come on, what would a rant about NPR be if I didn't put in some self-effacing commentary of my own?)

I'll never get over it

Sorry, but I just think bongs are hilarious.



















On a related note:

The only good thing about the old rave is that they never called it art

I came home last night after an epic 8-hour nerdfest with Brendan and Dave to find a fucking rave in my apartment building. For those of you not familiar with my homestead, I live in a loft building on Broadway. Nearly everyone I know in Brooklyn has been to a party in it's walls at some point in time. It has one of the best rooftops in the hood and is quickly becoming the Southside equivalent of the McKibbin dorms. I'm basically like the grumpy ass RA of the building.

About 6 months ago the loft below mine was occupied by a couple with an unfortunate fondness for electronica and an equally unfortunate selective hearing malady; the word "bass" and the phrase "too loud" do not compute when added together in the same sentence. I'm a pro at the weekly 3 am door-pound and actually find it strangely satisfying. My roommates also find it satisfying, mainly because they are too pussy to complain and would rather be kept awake all night than face the electronica duo downstairs.

I fucking hate techno. I hate everything about it. I think that any music that requires the ground to shake for it to be properly enjoyed isn't music. I only dance to rock 'n' roll and the occassional Jonathan Toubin Soul Clap getdown. The thought of a bunch of sweaty fucking apes pumping away to drum and bass makes me want to relive disco bloodbath fantasies of yore. The nu-rave is just the old rave with tight pants. When is ecstasy going to make a comeback? Let's quicken natural selection, turning all those greasy retards into e-tards. Can't wait! I've been saying it since I first heard the whispers from across the pond. FUCK THE NU?NEU?NEW?RAVE!

Anyway, last night, I am not sure what it was. I don't think it was nu-rave. I think it was a bunch of East Village holdovers from the first rave. Serious office job nerds with blogs even worse than this one letting loose in a wild and crazy Brooklyn loft! Yeah, I think everyone there was named Chad and was wearing cargo shorts. Yes...after three hours of trying to wait it out, I finally infiltrated the rave. I live on the 4th floor. I don't give a fuck if it's Saturday night or not. It's totally unacceptable for me to be able to hear and feel (my bed was vibrating) a party in the basement.

I walked down the stairs and was horrified at what I saw. A small yellow sign with bubble letters proclaiming "Raeve! $5" and another one with just the word "RAVE" and an arrow pointing the way to apartment 108. Okay...wait, am I not getting something? Is a "raeve" different than a "rave" Is that the new-nu rave? Next lev rave? I rounded the corner, passed through the doorway half blind as I had taken out my contacts hours ago in preparation for sleep that still hadn't come (despite two sleeping pills and a pair of earplugs) in my gigantic Shred Bundy shirt and made a beeline for the back patio for there was the open door that was leaking all the music outside of the basement where it ricocheted against the brick outer walls of the buildings directly into my window. Before I reached my goal I had two beers spilled on me and some bitch almost knocked me over. Still I perservered and managed to convince the dude who lived there to spend the rest of the party manning the patio door making sure that it stayed closed. Ha, I didn't even have to threaten to call the cops like I did when I busted up the rave on the 3rd floor at 7 am, which is pretty funny because seriously, like I would really call the cops? Give me a break, that's the most empty fucking threat in the world. I did consider threatening to call our Hassid landlord on Passover because I thought that would be funny but I doubt anyone would get the joke.

But seriously, what is happening to my life? How the hell are raves and epidemic in my universe? Something is seriously out of whack.

Maybe I should be scared...

But if Jews have all this power and influence then why the hell am I struggling all the time? I want a piece of the conspiracy.

Things are getting creepy