Billy Squier "Rock Me Tonite".....Worst Video of all Time?

I'm reading a great book. I Want my MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music VIdeo Revolution by Craig Marks + Rob Tannenbaum.

I heard about it on a podcast I love, "How Was Your Week?" by Julie Klausner who is probably one of the few people who can make me laugh out loud, alone, while running.

Anyway it's a great book, from the inception of MTV, the back door deals, and just the gestalt of the thing, how it changed the industry etc etc. It's also an oral history, which I love. Oral histories are the best, from Edie by Jean Stein + George Plimpton, to Please Kill Me (Legs McNeil + Gillian McCain) and all Studs Terkels's work.

There is a whole chapter dedicated to the video that many call The Worst Ever, credited with jettisoning a singing career and disgracing everyone associated with it. I'd never heard of it although the song is familiar. I figured it would be funny-ish but it's fucking hilarious.

Feminism, Speciesism and my little Doom's "spay"

Bear with me I have to ruminate on my dog's spay. They call it a spay but if she were human we'd call it a 'total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral oophrectomy'. She had a general anaesthetic and I gather some pain relieve post procedure, but since then (Monday), nothing. I asked the staff about pain medication and they said they prefer them to feel some pain so they don't overextend themselves. I guess that makes sense. It didn't make me feel any better though when she screamed while trying to get up on a bench, or climb stairs, position herself on the sofa or really do anything, that first day. I do know that my 4 yo dog didn't have the same pain response, or didn't express it that way.
I guess dogs are like people, with a certain level of sedation they get either dopey and, well, sedate; or they get a little agitated. Poor Doom was the latter.

But getting this done reminded me of how sometimes when you ask people what gender their dog is they'll say something like "well he used to be a boy/girl"--the implication being that the spay/neuter procedure erased the gender. And I think that's fucked up!

I just finished reading a great book called 'Living Dolls' by a UK author Natasha Walter. It's sort of generally about a backlash of sexism as manifested partially in this kind of body fascism that encourages and rewards women for looking like dolls.
She goes into detail about this, plus other stuff about how the trend of de-gendered toys in the 1970s that was a legacy of second wave feminism is kind of done and over. Now it seems that gender roles are even more rigidly circumscribed.

The last part of the book she talks about how research into gender differences is one of the best-funded types of non-pharmaceutical type research (ie; research that a drug company isn't banking on to make them billions of $). And goes on to explore why, who's invested in scientific evidence to demonstrate that women and men are difference physiologically and psychologically. She talks about how studies demonstrating how women/girls prefer pink and men/boys prefer blue; or studies that attempt to show women's superior language skills, men's superior math aptitude etc etc are continually reported on whereas studies that disprove these differences (even if these studies are bigger, more scientifically sound/replicate-able etc) are more ignored. So when you see a headline that says "SCIENCE PROVES WOMEN PREFER PINK'--it's worthwhile to examine what the sample size was, whether the study is published in a peer reviewed journal, and if it's ever been replicated. Basically she's saying that science (and western culture) is very invested in perpetuating ideas of gender differences. It's a little like eugenics I guess.

But getting back to Doom, it made me think about how gender is completely ignored in animals! I mean I can't imagine me getting a hysterectomy etc and then claiming that I'm a neuter, or genderless, because my 'plumbing' is gone. But for animals not only do we think there is CLEARLY no difference between a female and a male dog, but the procedure of removing reproductive organs is coded as erasing that gender completely. It's so stupid. I mean, either it's important, or it's not. I guess part of it is that we live in a culture that devalues animals outright, and part of it is that we live in a patriarchy that has a great deal invested in maintaining the status quo.

Anyhoo, it made me think again about feminism and speciesism, and how both are fucked up and fucking wrong.

you won't have a nervous breakdown, but you just might feel a WHOOLE lot better!

http://www.xojane.com/issues/emotional-stuffing

Out damned spot

We have a house guest at the moment. It was such a relief for her to get here because it meant I could stop neurotically cleaning.

I kept thinking of every inevitability of what the visit might entail. I imagined her throwing something away in the kitchen and noticing the dirt under the sink, which necessitated me getting on all fours to clean the space under the kitchen sink. I thought of her walking into the basement to do laundry and wound up vacuuming the entire space. Suddenly I was acutely aware of the fact that we have NO matching drinking glasses, no matching mugs, and all the cutlery is different. I have cloth napkins, but no two the same. When I mentioned it to my sister she called me bourgeois. The old me, of two weeks ago, would agree.  She was a little taken aback, and actually said "that's not like you!" I think she means it's not like me to care what someone else thinks. This is usually true. Since when have I ever pretended to be Holly Homemaker? Worrying about the grime on the bottom of the blender can really suck the joy out of cooking!

I must say emphatically I was not raised this way. My mom was a second wave feminist who got the message loud and clear that unpaid domestic labour was no way to spend your time. It was kind of a joke in our family. As soon as we were old enough we did our own laundry, cleaned our own rooms, did dishes, washed floors--everything. Part of the point of having kids, right? And my mom had 4 of us. That's a lot of mess, a lot of thankless work. I still remember she had a screed against homemaking taped to a cabinet, something like “I will not spend hours doing what a toddler with a plate of crackers can undo in 3 seconds”.  The house was never spic and span, and nobody cared.

Another horrible side of cleaning for guests is anxiety about which home decor choices might be cause for visitor alarm--the innumerable artistic odes to black metal? The black dahlia 'living dead doll' in her place of honour in the kitchen? The handmade Manson family that I created for my partner's birthday years ago? The poster of a knife slashing through a bible with the quote 'This is the enemy'? The watercolour of me and my partner drawn as Chucky and Tiffany from the Child's Play films with the quote "Friends to the End" written in 'blood'? It's a cornucopia for the eyes. The problem is trying to figure out what would offend a visitor. Maybe nothing, maybe all of it. My sister once told me she had her own concerns trying to edit her apartment for a visiting date--"I tried getting rid of the books I thought made me look weird, then I gave up. I realized I didn't know what was weird anymore, and was probably getting rid of the wrong things".

Cleaning for family is a similar anxiety. The avalanche of mailing envelopes that occupy the back room, the hundreds of beer bottles we're saving for homebrew, everything starts to look insane. And what impression am I trying to give? Sanity, above all; possibly hygiene, good taste will be impossible under the circumstances.

I was reminded of a passage in the book 'The Philosophy of Andy Warhol' where he records a conversation with Brigid Berlin that's basically a long monologue about her cleaning routine, on speed. It’s a 25 page ramble about the minutiae of cleaning.  I read the book first as a teenager and the passage always stuck with me for some reason. I could totally relate. I find cleaning a little overwhelming because even when you try to just do a little, it because impossibly complex. You clean a smudge on the wall and then you have a clean patch that necessitates doing the entire wall. Or you go to dust the bookshelves and then get waylaid for 4 hours alphabetizing everything, or organizing by subject, then realize the records and DVDs need the same treatment. Where does it all end?  It’s totally relatable—you start with the counter and realize the cupboards now look gross. You open the cupboards and enter another circle of hell as the inside of those is now a problem. On it goes, until you’re vacuuming pencil shavings out of the junk drawer. Except I'm not on speed! Which explains why it takes me so damn long and why I find it so tedious and soul depleting.

But when a guest is coming, particularly a female relative of your partner, it all becomes more fraught. It’s not just about hygiene, it’s about an image of hygiene. I don’t think anyone would assume I’m the cleanest person alive, with my friends and family the cat is out of the bag. Not so for my partner’s mom or aunt—they have no idea that brown scum is the norm in our shower—and they must never find out the truth. Why? I don’t know why. I’m sure a good therapist could help tease it out for me. I don’t have time now though, I need to go vacuum the crawlspace in the basement.

adultolescents + snowplow parenting

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert

I read this piece in the last New Yorker and was so relieved someone has articulated what I'm observing!
Another article on xojane about being an "adultolescent" isn't nearly as good, and I think insofar as the author was responding to the New Yorker piece, it didn't really succeed on that level. But then I've been saying for years that I live like an adolescent, and I don't really see the problem with it. I guess the difference is I have resources and I'm not sponging off my parents. And actually I've earned my own money since I was 12 and my own living since I was 22 (ie; completely supporting myself); so I guess there isn't really any shame in this prolonged adolescence.
I'm not holding myself up as an example but the family I was raised in definitely valued EARNING A LIVING, and it was pretty clear to me that without the skills to do so, I was going to be fucked.

Getting back to the New Yorker piece, I really liked it, she kind of reviews 3 books at once that all pertain to changing patterns of parenting and implications for kids growing up. Which are huge. I can't imagine having a grown kid living with me, I think that would have to be really difficult for everyone. I lived with my parents for about a month when I first returned from the US to work in Toronto, and in that one month I nearly lost my mind. I remember there were low flying helicopters shining lights into the backyards in suburban north Scarborough, looking for some fucking night crawling rapist. And I had just returned to Toronto from NY where I felt completely safe walking around alone at 3am, because there are just always PEOPLE everywhere, to this crazy klieg lights in the yard and rapist on the loose stuff, and truly felt unsafe walking from the busstop to my parents' house, because it was always so DARK and desolate, and I have an active imagination....

Anyway, I do worry when I see peers parenting in this overly solicitous manner where kids get to make choices about everything they do, wear, make, eat, when to go to bed etc; and there don't seem to be any consequences (are consequences just too fucking TIRING?) I don't know. I was in a clothing store today and there was a mom with a 4 or so year old, who was lying on the floor, kicking garments on a rack and screaming like a banshee, and this woman was calmly trying to explain to him that "When you're older, you'll realize that it's pretty silly to lie on the floor....." etc etc. Eventually the kid jumped up and began tearing around the store, looking absolutely enraged, before getting tangled in something and falling down. All I could think was I would DIE of embarrassment if that were my kid. Easy for me to say. Whatever, maybe it's not time for shopping when your 4 year old is gearing up for meltdown.

The NY article has a funny thing about 'helicopter parenting' where the parent I guess hovers around to ensure the child is coping etc etc, and then coined the term 'snowplow parenting' for a newer style where the parent tries to shove any and all obstacles out of their kids way.

Well, I'm not a breeder so I guess I can't say anything (because not having kids makes your powers of observation weaker I guess).

Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time [Official Music Video] [HQ]

i have always really loved cher. my sister saw her shopping in galerie lafayette in paris the year before last and said she looked rad. FUCK YEAH! oh cher. i feel like all these pop music cupcakes should watch this video on repeat and learn how to strut around like a queen.

The sanctity of queer spaces, or, how many lesbians does it take to neutralize straight privilege?

The recent piece I had in xojane turned out to be a huge learning experience for me. The commenters online were split positive and negative (maybe not evenly, I tend to remember the negative comments a bit better). I had to stop myself from trying to respond to all the comments because I do feel really invested in being understood on the issue. And I don’t like to think I had offended anyone. I had taken the precaution of sending the piece to the friends in question, and their feedback was really kind.

Far from being angry or feeling betrayed in any way, two of them actually pre-emptively apologized for their role in any unpleasant feelings on my end. I told them both the same thing, the piece I had submitted was a bit lighter in tone than what got published. The message and meaning weren’t changed in any way (the editor there is amazing, and an amazing writer), but there was a subtle difference. There were more details about context but also the ending was quite different, I confessed my desire to be a ‘Golden Girl’ (not a euphemism, I’m referring to Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia), and kind of said, if that’s gay, so be it. Regardless, these two friends both expressed that they didn’t mean to disrespect my sexuality but rather to express their acceptance of me.

I do think that in our culture, any affinity or preference for things labelled ‘feminist’ or womanist are often coded gay. I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be an inconvenient or annoying thing.

Yet another friend reflected that living in Toronto is such a unique experience in terms of ‘gay acceptance’ that we really can’t put ourselves into another context adequately. Meaning that the comments the article got regarding ‘queer spaces’ were largely not applicable to this circumstance.

But it did get me thinking a lot about queer spaces. In one comment a woman said that queer spaces may not be obvious, and mentioned hanging out with 3 dykes in someone’s home. It did make me think of a really well attended craft night I had last year where about 20 women showed up, at least a third of them were gay. But it kind of begs the question of how a queer space would evolve organically, and how a straight woman is supposed to navigate that space. Are we advocating segregation? How many queer people are needed to drive out one straight person? It just seems a bit ludicrous.

There was a really good article in the latest Bitch magazine **** about queer spaces. The point was made that the sanctity of the spaces needs to be preserved so that queer people have safe spaces to go to. Which I agree with completely. Everyone needs safe spaces to be themselves, whatever that looks like. Again, I feel I’ve always been aware of this stuff, even when I couldn’t articulate it. Many years ago, on the rare occasion I would go to a gay club, I would purposely NOT go to a lesbian club, because I’m not a lesbian, and I would not want to mislead anyone. There is no question of me creating ambiguity in order to embarrass anyone.

It was Pride last weekend in Toronto. I haven’t gone to pride in many years. On occasion, in the past I would go with friends. Since the xojane piece came out, I’ve been assured that Pride is not considered a safe space, or even a queer space. It seems to be more of a celebration of diversity. But I went out for a beer with a straight female friend last week, and in discussing the article, the fallout, and then Pride, she told me she was volunteering in the beer garden at the 519 as a bartender. Now, I will confess, even I find that a little odd. This woman has a male partner, and to my knowledge does not identify as queer in any sense. She said a lesbian friend had recruited her. Surely the job of bartending in the beer garden would be an amazing one for a lesbian who wanted to be flirted with all day, not for a straight girl. In a way I think it’s funny that I got myself into ANY hot water about queer spaces when I haven’t even done anything as ludicrous as this volunteer bartender gig. I mean, come on!

Further to the foolishness last week , another lesbian friend had invited me to a feminist reading group being held at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. We looked at the attendee list together on facebook, the majority were lesbian as per my knowledge or my friend’s. And given the negative reaction from the piece in xojane, I decided not to participate. It strikes me as exactly what I was talking about, that I’m now feeling like I would be an outsider if I were to join a reading group labelled ‘Feminist’.

I did learn that you really can’t, ever, comment on a subculture from outside that subculture. It just doesn’t fly. And I guess that will have to be okay for me.