(sh)It Girl.

Everyone is someone's _____ person. You've heard the term "It Girl", well, I'm someone's shIt Girl.  It's not as awful as it sounds.  It is, however, totally fucking cringetacular.

Years ago in the 90s, Auntie lived in New York City. Giuiliani had been working his magic for a number of years, crime was way down, you could walk around in Central Park and Times Square without being mugged, and that homeless guy with the frightening and perpetually oozing leg wound finally stopped shitting in a box in front of my Upper West Side apartment. NYC was absolutely fabulous in so many ways.

I worked a respectable day job at which I was blessed with my own office (this, in my early 20s!), a lovely Upper West Side location on clean, gentrified, up-and-coming Columbus Avenue.  By night, I worked at a nightclub up the block, owned by some of the real estate brokers I worked with.  I don't really remember all of the details around meeting Sol - (may or may not be his real name), but he was adorable, fresh-faced, and something like five years younger than I.  We made plans to hang out that weekend. 

Saturday came, and I did the usual furious cleaning, primping, etc. of my studio apartment and myself. Last on the list before taking a shower and getting all dolled up was cleaning out the cat box.  Living in the city, things are done a bit differently than in more rural areas.  Having old-school industrial toilets that you could likely flush a racoon down afforded me the luxury of disposing of the cat doodles in the toilet and simply flushing them away to the vast unknown world of the NYC sewer system.

I was showered, prettied up, ready for my date with the adorable young man.  The buzzer rang right on time and Sol came up, we exchanged the usual pleasantries and such and headed out for a movie, a walk in Central Park, perhaps some ice cream, I don't completely recall.  The chemistry between us became apparent during the movie, which was one of the typically-90s Rom-Coms with the usual cast of characters - I think Katie Holmes (pre-Cruise and Scientology) was in it and that other guy there - Freddie Prinz, I think? It was predictably adorable, and it set an appropriate mood for a first date.  How adorbs!!

After a lovely day of doing first-datey things, we returned to my apartment.  There were sparks, and was it getting warm in here or was it just me? Or him? If I had to guess, there might have been a glass of wine or two involved - I don't really remember.  At some point, Sol excused himself to use the loo.  I waited patiently, a bit of that first date pink blush glowing on my cheeks, demurely awaiting whatever was to come next.  He was so cute! And I knew he was interested; the signals were all there - the "I know this is our first date, but omg, I don't want it to end!!".  We had been excitedly discussing plans for the upcoming holiday (one of the Summer ones) weekend and things to come thereafter.  I heard the door open, and Sol emerged from the loo.  He had the strangest look on his face - as if he had seen a ghost, or witnessed a murder or...something.  He mumbled some barely audible stream of words and abruptly left my apartment.  The burn marks on the floor for how quickly he peeled the fuck out of the place are probably still there, some 20-something years later.

In the days following, I left a voice mail or two (no more than that - I certainly wasn't desperate in any way, and I found it odd how abruptly he had left, but was curious as to why). I kept going over the day in my head - had I said something, done something wrong? I know I definitely hadn't come on too strongly - I was at least more experienced at the game than to have done that. I wracked my brain trying to figure out just where things went wrong - where things went from that adrenaline and hormone-fueled early, mutual attraction to total and complete radio silence.

If you've ever lived in a major metropolis older than say 150 years or so, you're familiar with the peccadilloes of  old-timey plumbing inherent in buildings over a certain age.  You're also likely familiar with the negative consequences of flushing your toilet right before getting into the shower.  If you're in the market to have your skin slough off from 240 degree water, then sure - go ahead and flush.  If you, like me, enjoy living a life free from 2nd or 3rd degree burns, you wait until after you've showered to flush that toilet.  I waited.  Too long.

If Edvard Munch's "The Scream" could be anthropomorphized into a real life scenario, this was it. In a moment of absolute and complete horror, I realized what had happened to cause this boy to run - not walk - the fuck out of my place, at breakneck speed, never to be seen or heard from again.  I had put the contents of the cat box, the cat shit, in the fucking toilet before getting into the shower, and I had neglected to flush the contents down thereafter.

Sol never returned a phone call or a text or email (or whatever it might have been at the time). I never heard a word from him, nor ever saw him again.  But I knew that we'd always and forever have a special connection, if in no other place but his dreams (nightmares, honestly).  I would forever be known as the "Shit Girl".  I felt it deep in my soul; I knew.

I don't know whether he ever told another soul about this -- I suspect, at our ages at the time, and given the age difference between us, he likely would have mentioned something to one of his bros or frat brothers or whatever; he was of that ilk and of that socioeconomic echelon where it would have been out of character for him not to have at least told a buddy or two about his upcoming date.  I don't even actually have to wonder what the follow-up story was like when his friends asked how his date went.  I imagine the retelling was either something he reluctantly told one time, to one or two people, with the caveat that this never, ever be spoken of again, ever.  If he did in fact tell his friends, I'd hope they would have refrained from the low-hanging fruit of mocking him incessantly, forever and ever. Who knows though.  I can only speculate.

When I think of that day, I can only conjure the image of the moment it finally dawned on me what had happened, and in that moment, frozen in time in my mind, "IT WAS CAT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!" is always, always the scream that echoes across time and space.  It was cat shit.

Meh, today. (RIP, Prince)

It's just weird when famous people die. Prince died today. I mean, fucking PRINCE.  Like, "saw Purple Rain with my mom when I was like 13. Still remember the theater, and the discomfort of the sexy-time scenes, because, well, I was with my mom, so..." Prince! THAT guy!!

When I recall Prince, the person, there are so many odd little memories that come along with him. Summer camp, with the warm sun and smell of pine needles and the chemicals used to develop film. Little Red Corvette, that I listened to at Julie Briden's house. Purple Rain, that I saw with my mom, or that brought back somewhat unpleasant memories of my own childhood. Heather, the girl I used to work with who absolutely LOVED Prince, and was my absolute BFF, but to whom I'm no longer in contact with now. Raspberry Beret, playing on a radio or something at Dave Anderson's house one of the many times his parents were away, and we had the run of the house, Dave, my boyfriend, me and Dave's girlfriend at the time.

I was at LaGuardia, headed for my puddle-jumper to Providence, years ago. Straight off the tarmac and through a set of metal doors came this man, with his cane and high heels and gargantuan body guards. He was really, really short - like, shorter than me and I'm pretty short. But my god, the presence, the aura around him; it was palpable. I realized soon enough that this was Prince - the man, the myth, the absolute legend, in all of his bad-assed glory. I doubt many people around me knew it was him - the terminal was rather empty, and he wasn't doing anything to draw attention to himself.

But I knew.  And, as usual, because I just don't like Star-Fuckers(tm), I just watched and enjoyed that moment, versus running up to him, gushing, and risking a tangle with that MASSIVE man with him.  I will freely admit though that despite most certainly NOT being a fighter (physically, at least), I had this fleeting moment of, "Oh my god - that's PRINCE!  I could SO take him in a fight!!".  If you knew me, you'd know that's both a ridiculous thing for me to say (I don't fight with ANYTHING but words) and a completely "me" thing to say. I think strange thoughts, what can you do?
When I put together all of the legends who have died this year, I have to believe that somehow, somewhere, Prince has joined David Bowie, Lemmy, and all those other folks whose names I can't readily recall (and, in the interest of being genuine, I won't cheat by Googling) and they're all having quite a jam session.

It's hard to believe Prince is gone.  What an insanely talented, iconic, sexy motherfucker he was. Rest In Peace, Prince Rogers Nelson.  You magnificent bastard.

Big, Fat Liars: The Media

People across the board have their collective panties in a wad over this race for POTUS.  I'm not sure that I've ever seen this level of vitriol, disgust, straight up hate being flung around between the various factions.  Perhaps I never paid as much attention to this process as I am now.

This election, the actions of the media and the social and political implications of all of it have consumed my mind since Summer 2015. At first it was a bit of a lark. Donald Trump was running for POTUS? WTF? I'm almost positive that, despite being a fan of his (not a crazy super-fan, but, as someone who lived in NYC and has known the Trump persona for decades), I may well have laughed at first. I know that I could never have seen coming what has transpired since last summer.
This isn't an article about Trump though.  There are plenty of those, both pro and con. This is a rumination on lots of stuff (because my train of thought is strong and beautiful and don't need no rails), including what Trump now represents, to me, in the broad scheme of things.  He's a key - one of those big, old-timey iron keys with the ring on one end, and the metal flanges or whatever on the other end, the kind that you find in your yard when you buy a "This Old House" because you're fucking bored and you need something to do with yourself - which, in itself, is definitely a story for another time.

Trump's candidacy has evolved into a key that unlocks the door standing between perceptions of our electoral process and the reality of it. I've watched this election cycle more closely than any other election in my lifetime thus far and because I've been so singularly fixated on it, I've experienced the discomfort and frustration of having  many illusions and preconceived notions utterly shattered, which is a drag, but I've also watched some of the bullshit mud-huts that have been constructed over the last 15 years or so (pretty much the insanely oppressive, current version of "political correctness") start to crack, start to crumble; and that elicits a strangely hopeful feeling.  More on the mud huts some other time. You probably already know what they are - the "triggery" words that have become the molotov cocktails of the far left, when faced with facts or beliefs that don't match their own.

For me, the shattered illusions have been of the sort where, despite a belief that the "game is rigged", going into this, I suppose I still believed that somehow, some way, that the electoral process, the media, etc. couldn't be as bad some would have us believe it to be, right? I mean, those of us who can't contain our intellectual wanderlust in the "normie" box frequently contemplate what the reality behind the veil might actually look like.  We're pretty sure that shenanigans of some sort transpire behind the scenes (and honestly, how could they not - with big money, Super PACs, strategists, dirty deals done dirt cheap, etc. in the mix), but surely our elections - the sacred underpinnings of our nation, are not actually as bad as those wacky conspiracy theorists make it out to be, right?
Wrong. So, so wrong. I'm not going to lie, I feel as if I've been unwittingly strapped to a roller coaster throughout this election cycle; sometimes it's a wild, thrilling, adrenaline-eliciting ride, other times it is a frustrating, depressing, soulless, vitriolic shit pile dumpster-fire.

This is already too long, and for that I apologize. I find brevity to be something frequently beyond my grasp.  That being said, having my 1970s-vintage perception of the media completely and totally shattered recently has been a very difficult pill to swallow.  I didn't even start out with a blind faith in the media - I've always known that there are agendas, that it's all about ratings and money, and that if it's not cold, hard FACTUAL information, it is opinion and nothing more than that. But now the last vestiges of nostalgia that lingered, for me, for a journalistic era long since departed, have been demolished and I can't unsee what I've seen.  I wish I could.  I wish I didn't know that a handful of uber-rich folks control the entirety of the US media; that those same uber-rich folks also buy elections and candidates and fuck the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at rich folks at all! Money's awesome! Not being poor is fucking GREAT!  My issue lies with the corporate overlords who use their wealth, their influence, their power for EVIL instead of good.

The question that absolutely burns in my thoughts is, "Once you've destroyed everything and inculcated everyone to think the way you demand they think, do what you want them to do, what are you going to do with a planet full of broken, angry, frustrated, lost, controlled psuedo-humans?".

What is the end game here? What is the goal?  You've bought the politicians, the lobbyists, the policy makers; you've vilified the poor, the disabled, various races, religions - ALL of it - you've found insidious ways to turn us all against one another for any number of reasons. But what now? What's next?

Careful what you wish for, puppeteers. You probably don't give any kind of a fuck when it comes down to it, but as you gain more control, more say, more influence over the lives of all of us minions, you also become responsible for us.  Unless maybe you just wanted us all to hate each other - and in that case, yay you. I guess I'm just not quite diabolical enough to fathom why the fuck you want this kind of discord, division, hatred, vitriol across the globe.  What is your prize when you "win" this game?

Hillary and her server.

There's the emotional side (that probably 98% of the people rely upon as a foundation for their opinions and actions) - perhaps you didn't like Hillary to begin with, maybe because of the stains (ha ha) from the "Clinton Era", maybe because of more recent events. 

Your dislike of HRC does not equate to HRC being guilty of a felony or deserving of a lengthy prison sentence, no matter how strongly you might FEEL that they do.  What really matters here is the stark, dry, concrete letter of the law.  Did Hillary perpetrate actions that constitute violations of the national security protocols in place at the time by any of the following:

1. Setting up a personal, external server
2. Instructing a subordinate to remove, tamper with, subvert, circumvent or otherwise alter any classification-related markings, ratings, protocols?
3. Display a clear intent to circumvent FOIA regulations (w/r/t deletion, overwriting, otherwise obscuring any of the emails that crossed her server)
4. Unsecured IT, vulnerability to hackers / intrusion,
5. Obscuring or hiding any kind of communication, negotiations, dealings with inappropriate or anti-American agents, whether domestic or foreign

And that's really all that matters, at least from a legal standpoint.  The Court of Public Opinion, while incredibly effective as a tool ripe for manipulation, is still not (yet) the law of the land.  The COPO™ can malign you, smear your name publicly, hurl allegations at you, but (at least at this time) cannot convict and sentence you to actual jail time or civil penalization, etc.

THAT BEING SAID: My rudimentary knowledge of SCI (you young folks call it SAP now, whatever) leads me to believe that her actions ARE quite problematic.  I don't have a horse in the race, but people have been skewered for FAR less egregious violations of security protocols.  Just sayin'...

The JOOOOZE!!!!

The internet has an absolutely fanatical obsession with The Jews!(™).  Across every social media platform from the -chans to Facebook to Twitter to anything with a functioning comment section including news, politics, foreign relations, television, movie studios - everything - someone is mashing the “The Jews(™)” button.  Some use it as an accusation, most use it as a dog-whistle, others use it as a pejorative, but there is absolutely no shortage of “The Jews!"(™) being bandied about in cyberspace.

I have never understood the negative sentiment that exists out there where Jews are concerned.

Maybe it was the formative-years parental foray into being Born Again Christians and the accompanying teachings that the Jews were the chosen people and that the Abrahamic God totally, absolutely loved them, maybe just a tiny bit more than the Goyim?  That didn’t faze me at all, frankly and I’ve always been rather keen on Jews in general and have had nothing but positive experiences with every Jewish person I’ve met, associated with, worked for or with.  I’ve never, not once, had an unpleasant experience with a Jew, nor anything even remotely resembling any of the seriously offensive, disgusting stereotypes so frequently and seemingly easily lobbed at Jews.

Okay, maybe there was that one time when my straight-outta-Cedarhurst (Lawng Eyeland, natch), very Jewish roommate and I, living in Boston at the time, went to a deli for a bite to eat and to my more reserved, Bostonian horror, she quite brazenly and loudly made a request for service or something along those lines.  I looked at her, wide-eyed, with a countenance of the sort one might have towards someone who just cut the line or belched loudly in church or something.  We just didn’t do that sort of thing in Boston!  At the time, I had not yet truly experienced the singularly amazing and truly life-changing experience of life in New York City, having only been there once when I was 12.  My most vivid memory of New York, oddly enough, was of the Bowery (which, at the time of my visit in the early 1980s, was a run-down fucking mess bordering on the sort you’d find in many third-world countries), and of that super bitchen polka-dotted, New Wave-y dress my mom let me get.

It was very “early MTV / Cyndi Lauper”, but then again, in 1982, what wasn’t?  But I digress.
Back to the lecture at hand, The Jews!(™) and all the things Jewy, Jewish, Jewtacular, Jewlicious and so forth.  My go-to narrator voice is a strange amalgamation of the Jewish Bubby I never had, but felt like I did, and the chain-smoking, whisky-drinking, raspy voiced Aunt I did have (God rest her soul).

There is a strange familiarity, nee a comfort for me in the Jews, and particularly of the New York variety.  I have had almost no exposure to Israeli Jews, as far as I know.  While I’m sure I’ve met some, I can’t recall ever having a particularly close nor lengthy relationship with someone actually from Israel.  Maybe there are different kinds of Jews? Who knew? (Read that in Mel Brooks’ voice, it plays better).

Stupor Tuesday II: Apoplectic Boogaloo

(3/15/16)
At last, the sequel to 'Super Tuesday I' has come, and I feel like a bookie on Superbowl day.  The press has been doing a round-robin of seizure-like apoplexy, circle-jerking, pandering and painfully transparent narrative-weaving (the intensity of which has gone supercritical).  I can’t even begin to fathom what the next 8 or 10 hours will be like, as poll results start rolling in and things either go the way most of us expect them to go, or spiral even further out of control  Who even knows anymore?

Up is down, left is right, Fox is sometimes too fucking LIBERAL for me to stomach - you get all that?  FOX, a network only a few months ago I could hardly stand to look at, let alone actually watch for any length of time, has become my shameful go-to network at this point, because with a few exceptions (including the Silver Fox himself, A-Coops), CNN has marked its territory squarely in the Hillary camp, with the occasional smattering of “oh yeah, and that Bernie whatever-his-face is guy, yeah, him too, I guess he’s running for something too, right?”  Now, increasingly, “That madman MUST be stopped!!" is emerging as well.  If I had a fucking dollar for every mention of Trump and every utterance of “How do we / they stop Trump?”, I would be rich like a mother-fucker.  Trump rich, if you will.

Watching debates and elections requires imbibing alcohol, and lots of it.  I keep trying to concoct some sort of awesome drinking game (for my super cool, imaginary, internet-based friends and fans) to play during one of these political WWE matches - I mean- primary voting days.  I contemplate the words, phrases, ideas and sentiments that have come into being and that have gone viral across the zeitgeist.  Each time I think I’ve come up with a winning combination of words, speaker, sentiment, frequency or deployment, I quickly realize that were I to actually base a drinking game on any one of the aforementioned things, I would be fucking dead in about an hour, and so would you, and that would be bad.  Bad!

Perhaps a list of the words one shouldn’t use in alcohol-fueled politically-minded antics would be more sensible.  Right off the bat, “win”, “stop”, “establishment” and “Trump” are out of the running, as downing shots of booze at the frequency these words are being used is a recipe for certain death, or at very least, an instant and scorching case of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.

Scorching Case of VD (Feb 14th)

Ah, yes, Valentine’s Day - the day women everywhere remind their menfolk how incredibly lucky they are to have such strong, beautiful princesses, and what awful, ungrateful, Neanderthal monsters (read: ATMs) they are.  Viewed through the distorting lens of post-modern, “third wave feminism”, V-Day is the Special Olympics of relationships; it is a treacherous mine-field through which menfolk are commanded to run, the ultimate goal being the tangible and public declaration or reaffirmation of their love and commitment to their “Goddesses”.

For men, theirs is the Herculean task of attempting to triumph over years of social conditioning, subliminal manipulation and inculcation spoon-fed to and internalized by their Goddesses.  The Goddesses have been fed a steady diet of “Disney Princess” fantasies since early childhood, a diet hand-crafted by those with an almost always financial interest in the Message.  All of the elements of the message - consistency, efficacy, ubiquity - have been thoughtfully selected by the creators and purveyors of visual, literary, electronic and entertainment-related consumables, for the singular purposes of control and manipulation.

Behavioral modification and conditioning are not novel concepts.  Feed children a steady stream of “you’re a perfect, special snowflake”, treat them as if they were geese being tube-fed and fattened for their unctuous, future foie gras livers, and you create a consumer for life.  More importantly, perhaps, you have elicited a desired pattern of thought or behavior or both, patterns that will invariably serve to fulfill your desired agenda or objectives.  “You’re a special, perfect princess and you don’t have to anything at all but be a pretty, pretty princess!  And someday, your dreamy, dashingly 9.5, tailored suit-wearing, 7-figure earning, respectable job-having, only slightly-but-not-irretrievably damaged prince will come for you!"

Yes, ladies, that handsome prince, man of your dreams, when not working his lucrative yet still flexible and respectable job, will lavish you with all of the love and attention and (squee!!) gifts you’ve always been told you not only want, but deserve!!  The Message™ woven through the fabric of just about everything tailored and broadcast to little girls repeatedly reminded you that “You are a Goddess!  A Princess!”, and that you absolutely, unquestionably, simply because you’re a girl, definitely deserve all of that, and more!  Together you and your Prince Charming will live happily ever after!  That is, at least until the divorce, brought about when that terrible, awful man cheated on you with his younger, more attractive secretary.  Men are such pigs, am I right?!!

Fear not, Goddess or Princess, or whatever moniker of faux-empowerment you’ve assigned yourself. You totally are a strong, beautiful, curvy woman who don’t need no man!  Know why?  Because you’ve been told that’s how you should parse your failures, your insecurities, your foibles in order to remain comfortably ensconced in childish immaturity.  You’ve been programmed to buy into the fucked-up, multiple personality disorder-riddled Message, sold a bill of goods so fucking hollow and insidious that you’ve likely never imagined for a moment it could all be a lie.