I didn't make any money for the station during our annual fundraising thing, due to being on so early and everyone in Cleveland who still listens to terrestrial radio being poor.
Well, you're on really early and it's when a lot of blue collar people go to work," says a professorial looking friend of the DJ after me. "Blue collar people usually don't listen to college radio anyway."
OH REALLY.
It's not like I haven't run across this attitude in other places, and it seems prevalent among the multiply college degreed that make up the fields of academia and technocracy. The people who listen to Springsteen and Billy Bragg and talk about solidarity "working people" when it's a convenient talking point involving unions that they're not even in, yet condescend and disparage those whose hands are cracked and dirty at the end of a ten-hour day as ignorant of the finer things in life because they don't sit around all day reading blogs at work. "Well they probably listen to Nickelback and drink beer and watch football and don't read books."
Well how the hell do you know? And so what if other people do? No one's making you conform to that. And I wonder if they have any friends outside of their profession or income demographic or political affiliation, honestly, because when things are painted with this broad of a generalized brush of cultural snobbery, my Inner Parmastani kid gets mad because it's so condescending and at least in my experience (which admittedly might be both biased and also lucky), not totally true.
And it's funny, because a good amount of my callers are warehouse workers and third shifters who want to hear King Sunny Ade or really liked that Siouxsie and the Banshees song or would have loved to have a pair of those tickets to see that band but they work second shift and can't go. I think of people like my dad and his friends, my friends who are also peons who can talk as smart as any PhD scholar who just never had the opportunities or ambition or the convenient accidents of birth.
There is so much more nuance than credit is given, so many brilliant minds without the letters after their names who don't even give themselves credit for their brilliance because they like what they like and have nothing to prove. The poets whose brilliance will blush unseen in desk drawers or shared by a handful of others, the musicians whose gifts never leave the living room, the artists whose canvases are stacked in a corner and given away to friends, the infinite basement rockers with day jobs and sometimes kids who get their catharsis out on the weekends and after dinner.
But I hold my peace, because I haven't had my morning coffee, I don't know this person and will probably never see them again, and there are some battles just not worth fighting. This is our noise too.
Showing posts with label how the other half lives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how the other half lives. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
so small
There are more dead souls residing in this city than the living, and even among the living sometimes that seems a bit debatable.
This does mean there's quite a few old-school cemeteries with huge trees and statues of angels and ornate family vaults. When I was little before the presence of subculture in my consciousness, me and my friend up the street would have her dad take us to old graveyards half-hidden in the woods where we'd go through looking at the stones marveling at the oldness and the quiet. And now, I always stop to wander through the rows of stones whenever I go anywhere, because each place is different, and I try to conjure up the stories so cryptic in the semantics of epitaphs, the size and intricacy of the sculpture, the mementos left saying that they have not been forgotten.
There's a distance that is comfortable, as I have no family members there, and the history is often distant enough that it becomes like a park, a neutral space to linger and be introverted. I wonder if I've turned into a cliche this weekend, as I drove from one to the other on my day off, listening to of all people Nick Cave, snapped photos of stone angels under golden trees framed by the light of the late autumnal sunset.
I told a friend of mine this as we turned the corner to the one on Riverside because I'd seen a sign for a place called Babyland. It's an old place, with an imposing red stone gatehouse with gothic accents galore, so I assumed that Babyland would be similarly archaic.
I was not expecting what we found instead.
Rows of wooden crosses with names and Our Beloveds. Stillbirths and kids that died a day old, granite-etched faces of bright eyes and big smiles and lives cut short. And who decorates a cemetery for Halloween? I'm disoriented by the teddy bears encased in cellophane hanging from hooks. I walk through snapping pictures and trying to glean some meaning, but I just don't understand.
In the old cemeteries, it was common to see the names of children who lived a few weeks or a couple years, and that was the way it was, for every ten kids, maybe five made it. We don't think about it that way now. What also got me was that all of these names were clearly kids from the neighborhood, black and Puerto Rican and the occasional Greek or Romanian.
What were the stories here as fresh as the newly unearthed dirt and the ungrimed silk flowers? Is this another way of grieving that I don't understand? When my grandma would take me to the cemetery with her I would collect rose petals from her garden and scatter them on my youngest sister's grave. My parents never did get a headstone. It was too hard to think about, I guess.
How many of these kids would be in kindergarten right now if they had been born in a place with less pollution and more favorable circumstances? I don't know, and I feel like I'm treading in a place where the grief is still raw. I'm no longer a tourist. I'm an interloper, and I'm glad there's no one here besides us.
This does mean there's quite a few old-school cemeteries with huge trees and statues of angels and ornate family vaults. When I was little before the presence of subculture in my consciousness, me and my friend up the street would have her dad take us to old graveyards half-hidden in the woods where we'd go through looking at the stones marveling at the oldness and the quiet. And now, I always stop to wander through the rows of stones whenever I go anywhere, because each place is different, and I try to conjure up the stories so cryptic in the semantics of epitaphs, the size and intricacy of the sculpture, the mementos left saying that they have not been forgotten.
There's a distance that is comfortable, as I have no family members there, and the history is often distant enough that it becomes like a park, a neutral space to linger and be introverted. I wonder if I've turned into a cliche this weekend, as I drove from one to the other on my day off, listening to of all people Nick Cave, snapped photos of stone angels under golden trees framed by the light of the late autumnal sunset.
I told a friend of mine this as we turned the corner to the one on Riverside because I'd seen a sign for a place called Babyland. It's an old place, with an imposing red stone gatehouse with gothic accents galore, so I assumed that Babyland would be similarly archaic.
I was not expecting what we found instead.
Rows of wooden crosses with names and Our Beloveds. Stillbirths and kids that died a day old, granite-etched faces of bright eyes and big smiles and lives cut short. And who decorates a cemetery for Halloween? I'm disoriented by the teddy bears encased in cellophane hanging from hooks. I walk through snapping pictures and trying to glean some meaning, but I just don't understand.
In the old cemeteries, it was common to see the names of children who lived a few weeks or a couple years, and that was the way it was, for every ten kids, maybe five made it. We don't think about it that way now. What also got me was that all of these names were clearly kids from the neighborhood, black and Puerto Rican and the occasional Greek or Romanian.
What were the stories here as fresh as the newly unearthed dirt and the ungrimed silk flowers? Is this another way of grieving that I don't understand? When my grandma would take me to the cemetery with her I would collect rose petals from her garden and scatter them on my youngest sister's grave. My parents never did get a headstone. It was too hard to think about, I guess.
How many of these kids would be in kindergarten right now if they had been born in a place with less pollution and more favorable circumstances? I don't know, and I feel like I'm treading in a place where the grief is still raw. I'm no longer a tourist. I'm an interloper, and I'm glad there's no one here besides us.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
welcome to the occupation
We the Peonage endeavored to traverse downtown to see Public Square, known officially but never called "Monumental Park," transformed into something quite Germanic. One of my friends jokes about us being a theme park for New Yorkers, and more or less we're the rust belt equivalent of Liechtenstein, though conceivably for budgetary purposes, it was cheaper to build a fake beer garden and append signage in front of Tower City Mall instead of jetting to a more scenic locale.
The transformation of the familiar into Destructed-Epcot-Lite was surreal to say the least, with the barricades keeping the masses from sullying the red carpet, and this must be how it feels to be invaded and colonized by another country. Life goes on, but it's different, and in this case, it's well dressed strangers and their hangers-on, who make business deals with our overlords while the masses have to rearrange, who doubtless mock the backwardness and provinciality of the natives.
Sadly, this doesn't look all that different from the everyday.
Articles agreed vppon by the lordes and other of the Quenes Maiesties pryuy counsayle, for a reformation of their seruauntes in certayne abuses of apparell thereby to gyue example to al other lordes, noble men and gentlemen.
Randal is more adept with the snarky commentary on the scenery, but as the female half of the Peonage, I was quite amused when a gaggle of Bright Young Things exited the hotel by Playhouse Square declared us "Fashion Disasters," because high school never really does end, it's just that the Brightest Young Things migrate to Happening Places leaving the lesser Bright Young Things to be big fish in small ponds joining the political machines or networking their way to some degree of power) and all of us lower in the pecking order who never expected much and are to some degree content.
I don't know what's acceptable for men these days, but I'm sure that my lack of brand name jewelry, clothing, handbag or shoes, didn't pass muster with people who have nothing else to do but their nails and hair. I might be a fashion disaster to those on either coast, but it's better than being a victim, maybe.
But being that I come from humble means in a humble city, having grown up in sartorially challenged Parmastan and eventually finding a style later in life than others, I find this amusing to the highest degree. All existential angst aside, my life is pretty awesome, I hang out and work with some pretty awesome people, and there's no pressure to be anything. We're the city of slackers and lovable losers, who love our tragic sports teams and grandparents' food. It's not a bad place to be.
The transformation of the familiar into Destructed-Epcot-Lite was surreal to say the least, with the barricades keeping the masses from sullying the red carpet, and this must be how it feels to be invaded and colonized by another country. Life goes on, but it's different, and in this case, it's well dressed strangers and their hangers-on, who make business deals with our overlords while the masses have to rearrange, who doubtless mock the backwardness and provinciality of the natives.
Sadly, this doesn't look all that different from the everyday.
Articles agreed vppon by the lordes and other of the Quenes Maiesties pryuy counsayle, for a reformation of their seruauntes in certayne abuses of apparell thereby to gyue example to al other lordes, noble men and gentlemen.
Randal is more adept with the snarky commentary on the scenery, but as the female half of the Peonage, I was quite amused when a gaggle of Bright Young Things exited the hotel by Playhouse Square declared us "Fashion Disasters," because high school never really does end, it's just that the Brightest Young Things migrate to Happening Places leaving the lesser Bright Young Things to be big fish in small ponds joining the political machines or networking their way to some degree of power) and all of us lower in the pecking order who never expected much and are to some degree content.
I don't know what's acceptable for men these days, but I'm sure that my lack of brand name jewelry, clothing, handbag or shoes, didn't pass muster with people who have nothing else to do but their nails and hair. I might be a fashion disaster to those on either coast, but it's better than being a victim, maybe.
But being that I come from humble means in a humble city, having grown up in sartorially challenged Parmastan and eventually finding a style later in life than others, I find this amusing to the highest degree. All existential angst aside, my life is pretty awesome, I hang out and work with some pretty awesome people, and there's no pressure to be anything. We're the city of slackers and lovable losers, who love our tragic sports teams and grandparents' food. It's not a bad place to be.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
isla de encanta
Drove up after work just in time for the sunset, walked to the parking lot at the tip of the island by the ferry to watch the red sun dive into the blue water, as a fellow photographer showed us supposed UFOs in the sunset on his iPhone and we gazed in wonder at the swirl of pink and grey clouds uncommonly curvy like Rembrandt models or Georgia O'Keefe paintings.
There was some terrible music coming from the bar up the street and so we decided to investigate and seeing that the Indians/White Sox game was on, my dad and I split a beer, watching the game, and observed the antics of our fellow tourist weekenders. The sound was so loud that we could hear it all the way across the island clearly and the revelers were yelling over the music about the last casinos they visited and talking about WHAT A REALLY GOOD TIME WE'RE ALL HAVING. Some really spacy girl told us she was totally glad that we showed up at this totally awesome party and we both looked confused, because it's just a bar patio full of total strangers with suntans drinking but decided that there would be amusement to be had here.
The singer had karaoke arrangements of 70's and 80's hits and was in the middle of a drunkenly synthesized rendition of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" complete with out of key keyboard lines over the prerecorded tinniness. It was like karaoke night with minimal musical accompaniment and enthusiasm that was no subsitute for the lack of real talent, though no one there seemed to mind and were dancing around to "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." He was unsurprisingly decked out in a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and seashell necklace jumping up and down and really getting into it in between talking about how awesome MTV used to be and who his favorite VJs were and his day job which somehow involves the IRS.
My hopes of sitting out on the breakwall under the stars listening to the waves were dashed by continued covers of Black Eyed Peas songs filtering through the trees, but eventually they stopped, and we built a fire and sat out there awhile talking about stuff until we all got tired.
It felt good to sleep in, spend the day in total relaxation, no phone calls, no email, no drama, just sleeping under the trees lulled by the water and the symphonic drone of summer insects, eating peaches, reading Christine de Pizan and Walker Percy, watching great blue herons glide past and clearing my head from all the clatter and chaos of the last few months.
My sister and her family unit came later, and I got to babytalk to the nephew and hang out before heading back debating whether or not I wanted to be introverted or see Jucifer play down the street and opted for the former. It was good to be away, and it's good to have returned. I needed the solitude, needed to contemplate, to cry out to God and try to listen for the intangible yet so real response that keeps my soul alive and from not slipping into total despair at what I see or total distraction to pretend that what I see isn't there. Part of the getaway, the escape, is trying to figure out how to return to the daily grind.
There was some terrible music coming from the bar up the street and so we decided to investigate and seeing that the Indians/White Sox game was on, my dad and I split a beer, watching the game, and observed the antics of our fellow tourist weekenders. The sound was so loud that we could hear it all the way across the island clearly and the revelers were yelling over the music about the last casinos they visited and talking about WHAT A REALLY GOOD TIME WE'RE ALL HAVING. Some really spacy girl told us she was totally glad that we showed up at this totally awesome party and we both looked confused, because it's just a bar patio full of total strangers with suntans drinking but decided that there would be amusement to be had here.
The singer had karaoke arrangements of 70's and 80's hits and was in the middle of a drunkenly synthesized rendition of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" complete with out of key keyboard lines over the prerecorded tinniness. It was like karaoke night with minimal musical accompaniment and enthusiasm that was no subsitute for the lack of real talent, though no one there seemed to mind and were dancing around to "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." He was unsurprisingly decked out in a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and seashell necklace jumping up and down and really getting into it in between talking about how awesome MTV used to be and who his favorite VJs were and his day job which somehow involves the IRS.
My hopes of sitting out on the breakwall under the stars listening to the waves were dashed by continued covers of Black Eyed Peas songs filtering through the trees, but eventually they stopped, and we built a fire and sat out there awhile talking about stuff until we all got tired.
It felt good to sleep in, spend the day in total relaxation, no phone calls, no email, no drama, just sleeping under the trees lulled by the water and the symphonic drone of summer insects, eating peaches, reading Christine de Pizan and Walker Percy, watching great blue herons glide past and clearing my head from all the clatter and chaos of the last few months.
My sister and her family unit came later, and I got to babytalk to the nephew and hang out before heading back debating whether or not I wanted to be introverted or see Jucifer play down the street and opted for the former. It was good to be away, and it's good to have returned. I needed the solitude, needed to contemplate, to cry out to God and try to listen for the intangible yet so real response that keeps my soul alive and from not slipping into total despair at what I see or total distraction to pretend that what I see isn't there. Part of the getaway, the escape, is trying to figure out how to return to the daily grind.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
carnivalesque
We the Female Peonage concluded yesterday that it would be a most excellent idea to attend the fair in our fair county, as neither of us had seen a demolition derby, admission was a dollar with a canned good, and the bright lights, fabulous people-watching, and aromatic greasy food was to be had.
As the Marquess is a better planner than yours truly, she had a bag of donated items that merited dollar bills from the rest of the masses in line with us and inevitably ran quite the hustle.
We covered quite a bit of ground, feeling bad for the ponies doomed to equestrian Dante-ish fates of walking in circles for hours carrying small children, watched a bemulleted cover band play hits from the 60's, wondered why people collect such random things and display them at the fair, and chortled at the promised exotic delectables that, according to the website, are straunge and unusual dishes not to be found easily in Clevelandia. Maybe it's that I grew up certain ethnic in Parmastan, but judge for yourself, denizens of the rust belt, if these sundry delights are as obscure as birds' nest stews and potions of dragon's tongue.
The livestock were many and while I went down on a frequent basis to the southern part of the state where my relatives have farms, in true city slicker fashion I'm a bit skittish around animals bigger than me or that smell. My parents took me to a pig farm in Indiana when I was probably six years old and I remember smelling like pig just from being there, and it took my mom hours to wash that smell out of my hair. That and being scared of the bulls at my great aunts. Those things were mean, and so were the chickens, understandable since their overlords would eventually eat them. It makes sense.
Insert obligatory Alice in Chains reference here
The county fair makes you remember that yes you are in Ohio and no it's not like your almost-hood in Clevelandia or your concrete-towered place of peonage. The music is country and classic rock, not reggaeton, the t-shirts are emblazoned with Pantera and patriotism, not Tupac, though bad tattoos transcend all age, ethnicity, and culture. The tchotchkes sold are of the American Flag/Stars and Bars/"Native American"/Harley Davidson/Military/etc kind.
I get tired of and a bit creeped out by the hagiography and personality cult of the current president that I see around me but I was equally disconcerted by the number of stands and t-shirts selling bumper stickers about the president being a commie and how much illegals and people on welfare suck, and don't take away my guns. These were not really differences of policy issues, but a cultural againstness that I recognize yet don't quite understand.
I tend to get overanalytical even as I'm entertained, wondering what the the stories of the carnies are, wondering what the freak show girl twirling the snake thinks of the gawkers, wondering what the stories are, what people's lives are like when they're not on stage or trying to get you to throw darts at balloons.
Still, this made me laugh:
Punk rock birds
The obligatory Freemasons
Mechanical cows
Pop culture ephemerals
Lots of the carnie kids had tip jars for their college funds.
Gonna smash it up til there's nothing left...
Is the demolition derby the blue-collar equivalent to the the games played in Roman arenas, with the masses in the stands, the anticipation of chaos, the adrenaline surge of watching collisions, and the quasi-bloodlust exhibited when the tires have blown out and the engine is smoking and the crowd yells "hit him again!"
Pectorally exaggerated Robert Plant
People are strange when you're a stranger.
Rides of Spinny Doom
Pretty lights
But I had a great time, devoured a delicious flurry, savored the atmosphere of the fleeting, and was glad to get out on a weeknight to do something different for a change.
As the Marquess is a better planner than yours truly, she had a bag of donated items that merited dollar bills from the rest of the masses in line with us and inevitably ran quite the hustle.
We covered quite a bit of ground, feeling bad for the ponies doomed to equestrian Dante-ish fates of walking in circles for hours carrying small children, watched a bemulleted cover band play hits from the 60's, wondered why people collect such random things and display them at the fair, and chortled at the promised exotic delectables that, according to the website, are straunge and unusual dishes not to be found easily in Clevelandia. Maybe it's that I grew up certain ethnic in Parmastan, but judge for yourself, denizens of the rust belt, if these sundry delights are as obscure as birds' nest stews and potions of dragon's tongue.
The livestock were many and while I went down on a frequent basis to the southern part of the state where my relatives have farms, in true city slicker fashion I'm a bit skittish around animals bigger than me or that smell. My parents took me to a pig farm in Indiana when I was probably six years old and I remember smelling like pig just from being there, and it took my mom hours to wash that smell out of my hair. That and being scared of the bulls at my great aunts. Those things were mean, and so were the chickens, understandable since their overlords would eventually eat them. It makes sense.
Insert obligatory Alice in Chains reference here
The county fair makes you remember that yes you are in Ohio and no it's not like your almost-hood in Clevelandia or your concrete-towered place of peonage. The music is country and classic rock, not reggaeton, the t-shirts are emblazoned with Pantera and patriotism, not Tupac, though bad tattoos transcend all age, ethnicity, and culture. The tchotchkes sold are of the American Flag/Stars and Bars/"Native American"/Harley Davidson/Military/etc kind.
I get tired of and a bit creeped out by the hagiography and personality cult of the current president that I see around me but I was equally disconcerted by the number of stands and t-shirts selling bumper stickers about the president being a commie and how much illegals and people on welfare suck, and don't take away my guns. These were not really differences of policy issues, but a cultural againstness that I recognize yet don't quite understand.
I tend to get overanalytical even as I'm entertained, wondering what the the stories of the carnies are, wondering what the freak show girl twirling the snake thinks of the gawkers, wondering what the stories are, what people's lives are like when they're not on stage or trying to get you to throw darts at balloons.
Still, this made me laugh:
Punk rock birds
The obligatory Freemasons
Mechanical cows
Pop culture ephemerals
Lots of the carnie kids had tip jars for their college funds.
Gonna smash it up til there's nothing left...
Is the demolition derby the blue-collar equivalent to the the games played in Roman arenas, with the masses in the stands, the anticipation of chaos, the adrenaline surge of watching collisions, and the quasi-bloodlust exhibited when the tires have blown out and the engine is smoking and the crowd yells "hit him again!"
Pectorally exaggerated Robert Plant
People are strange when you're a stranger.
Rides of Spinny Doom
Pretty lights
But I had a great time, devoured a delicious flurry, savored the atmosphere of the fleeting, and was glad to get out on a weeknight to do something different for a change.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
gatecrashers anonymous
At the beginning of this weekend, I never expected to be in the backyard of a lakefront mansion, learning how to merengue from someone I'd never met whose name I never learned, as a DJ played Brazilian baile funk, salsa, and dancehall before segueing into more wedding-reception-style fare.
For being as introverted and averse to large groups of people as I am, I've crashed more parties than one would think, though this one seemed very open-ended. I went with a married couple, people that I enjoy, but one feels very very single when it comes time to socialize and everyone is older and with their significant others, partnerless on the dance floor even if I wanted to and unable to join into any conversation. I thrive on the spark of dialogue about ideas and places and stories and if I don't have it in a social gathering, I really don't know what to do, wondering if I've made myself look out of place wearing all black in a sea of Hawaiian shirts and red white and blue.
Usually I run into someone I know because like my dad, I've somehow ended up acquainted with all sorts of characters, but these people were all strangers and not so much unfriendly as uninterested and if they were interesting, they didn't let on. If I got a hi what's your name, it was brief and any small talk involved the weather or the lovely view or maybe someone's new car.
At this point, I probably would have bailed out, walked back to my car parked in front of my friends' house around the block, to return home and watch the pyrotechnics from my balcony while drinking tea, but in the interest of literary inspiration and anthropological observation decided to stick it out because as the sun set, I was able to sit back and be amused by the flirtations of the affluent putting each others' numbers in their iPhones, and normally reserved Asian grad students channeling their inner disco divas to "Get Down Tonight." The fireworks were beautiful and I could be anonymous, taking in the scenery and seeing a world that I simply don't exist in.
For being as introverted and averse to large groups of people as I am, I've crashed more parties than one would think, though this one seemed very open-ended. I went with a married couple, people that I enjoy, but one feels very very single when it comes time to socialize and everyone is older and with their significant others, partnerless on the dance floor even if I wanted to and unable to join into any conversation. I thrive on the spark of dialogue about ideas and places and stories and if I don't have it in a social gathering, I really don't know what to do, wondering if I've made myself look out of place wearing all black in a sea of Hawaiian shirts and red white and blue.
Usually I run into someone I know because like my dad, I've somehow ended up acquainted with all sorts of characters, but these people were all strangers and not so much unfriendly as uninterested and if they were interesting, they didn't let on. If I got a hi what's your name, it was brief and any small talk involved the weather or the lovely view or maybe someone's new car.
At this point, I probably would have bailed out, walked back to my car parked in front of my friends' house around the block, to return home and watch the pyrotechnics from my balcony while drinking tea, but in the interest of literary inspiration and anthropological observation decided to stick it out because as the sun set, I was able to sit back and be amused by the flirtations of the affluent putting each others' numbers in their iPhones, and normally reserved Asian grad students channeling their inner disco divas to "Get Down Tonight." The fireworks were beautiful and I could be anonymous, taking in the scenery and seeing a world that I simply don't exist in.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
bottom feeders
"You know you've lived in Cleveland a long time when..."
So we're sitting on the front porch eating dinner as the sun sets as Bright Young Things move in down the street and discard their stash of Ikea furniture on the curb. We're trying to figure out if it really is on the curb for the taking or if they don't know that you should put your stuff inside the fence or on the porch, but it looks like there's some nice bookshelves there and we can always use bookshelves.
We try to look nonchalant, premature old women on the porch peering down the street over glasses of lemonade and plates of pasta, trying to figure out what sets off the next-door neighbor's uber-sensitive car alarm and waiting for the new neighbors to go to sleep. We take the dog out to appear more nonchalant even though we've been sitting there looking across the street for the last twenty minutes and we decide to scope it out to see if there's anything worthy to scavenge, with her boyfriend on call in case we need some extra arms.
Someone's beaten us there already. A family driving a Jetta, the son on his phone talking in Spanish standing over what turns out not to be a bookshelf but a giant desk that we couldn't've used anyway. By the time we walk to the next corner and back, a pickup truck containing more family members and the most of the contents of the curb is rolling down the street and we laugh, wondering how we got to be this way.
So we're sitting on the front porch eating dinner as the sun sets as Bright Young Things move in down the street and discard their stash of Ikea furniture on the curb. We're trying to figure out if it really is on the curb for the taking or if they don't know that you should put your stuff inside the fence or on the porch, but it looks like there's some nice bookshelves there and we can always use bookshelves.
We try to look nonchalant, premature old women on the porch peering down the street over glasses of lemonade and plates of pasta, trying to figure out what sets off the next-door neighbor's uber-sensitive car alarm and waiting for the new neighbors to go to sleep. We take the dog out to appear more nonchalant even though we've been sitting there looking across the street for the last twenty minutes and we decide to scope it out to see if there's anything worthy to scavenge, with her boyfriend on call in case we need some extra arms.
Someone's beaten us there already. A family driving a Jetta, the son on his phone talking in Spanish standing over what turns out not to be a bookshelf but a giant desk that we couldn't've used anyway. By the time we walk to the next corner and back, a pickup truck containing more family members and the most of the contents of the curb is rolling down the street and we laugh, wondering how we got to be this way.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
the cycle
As much as I enjoy history and old things, the one perk of living in the 21st century in an industrialized country is that people don't die in childbirth like they once did or still do. And as much as I complain about the frequent absurdity of male-female dynamics, at least I can kind of make my own life decisions and not have to worry about being married off before I've hit puberty or considered fair game if I'm not in the company of a male relative.
My sister is going to get the care she needs and she has the support of a wonderful husband who values her education and was willing to move so she could go to grad school. There's a lot of girls that aren't so lucky. I read this article in a waiting room the day before my nephew was born and re-read it today. I almost cried looking at these photos.
And the on the other side of the world, my sister called me this morning to tell me that my nephew was born. She said it was rougher than she thought it'd be and that she was really tired, but she wanted to see me so before work I drove out to the hospital to hang out with her and her husband.
So I'm holding this kid who has my eyes and bro-in-law's nose, this little wrinkled pink squirmer in a blanket, only a few hours old, whose chin quivers when he cries. I remember my sister being born, and now she's got a son who's going to perceive me as a Responsible Adult. This is so weird but incredibly awesome at the same time.
I've got some friends around my age who are really into wanting babies and while I've never paid attention to the biological clock, I guess I kind of get it when I'm holding him and feeling this little heartbeat, but I don't think people always realize how messy the whole being born thing is, all the blood and the ick and the pain. But it is so beautiful and it'll be cool to watch him grow up surrounded by so much love.
My sister is going to get the care she needs and she has the support of a wonderful husband who values her education and was willing to move so she could go to grad school. There's a lot of girls that aren't so lucky. I read this article in a waiting room the day before my nephew was born and re-read it today. I almost cried looking at these photos.
And the on the other side of the world, my sister called me this morning to tell me that my nephew was born. She said it was rougher than she thought it'd be and that she was really tired, but she wanted to see me so before work I drove out to the hospital to hang out with her and her husband.
So I'm holding this kid who has my eyes and bro-in-law's nose, this little wrinkled pink squirmer in a blanket, only a few hours old, whose chin quivers when he cries. I remember my sister being born, and now she's got a son who's going to perceive me as a Responsible Adult. This is so weird but incredibly awesome at the same time.
I've got some friends around my age who are really into wanting babies and while I've never paid attention to the biological clock, I guess I kind of get it when I'm holding him and feeling this little heartbeat, but I don't think people always realize how messy the whole being born thing is, all the blood and the ick and the pain. But it is so beautiful and it'll be cool to watch him grow up surrounded by so much love.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
grease and grit
So I understand that we're an unhealthy city that drinks too much, eats too much, and in some cases, smokes too much. I get that this isn't good, and that it contributes to higher health care costs and whatnot.
But who would I be to tell someone what they can or cannot do especially when it's not a moral issue? Even then, my life is mine and yours is yours and so long as you're not hurting someone with what you do, we're cool even if we might disagree.
I don't expect others to make the same life choices as me. I love going to a coffeeshop or watching a band play and coming home not reeking of cigarette smoke, but I voted against the ban on my half-assed and totally inconsistent libertarian principles. Smokers outside don't bother me. They have their vice and I have mine, though coffee does smell better than cigarettes.
I don't eat a whole lot of greasy food as I prefer dirty hippie fare with generous amounts of spices, but I don't like the idea of being told what to eat. When carnival season hits, me and Tangerine love our elephant ears and scary-because-it-might-fall-apart-rides. Yes, it's not as healthy as going jogging and drinking smoothies, but it's fun and doesn't hurt anyone and we know full well what we're doing. It's a part of living here that we love.
It's hard enough to sustain a small business in this city as it is, and this just makes it harder for places like Sokolowski's and small bakeries. Cimperman may want to change the culture, but this place isn't California, where people are super thin and their teeth are perfectly white. We don't mind our schlubbiness. Even skinny chicks like me will end up looking like babushka women someday due to our genetics.
It's a winter town full of people who grew up on meat-and-potatoes peasant fare and soul food. We don't exercise much because the weather sucks and we can't always walk in our neighborhoods after dark, we like our comfort food like our grandparents made it, and we drink because life here gets depressing. Of course we're unhealthy. A love of grease is in our rusty blood.
While the Powers That Be seem obsessed with catering to the uber-rich who own sports teams and corporations, and turning this city into a playground for the bright young things, there are other people in this city who aren't into trendy neighborhoods, art openings, and vegan food. I would even venture to say that they might be a majority, a little more worried about employment, paying rent, and hoping cars don't get stolen because the police care more about graffiti than they do about people with no power who get beat up.
Something's wrong here. It really is.
But who would I be to tell someone what they can or cannot do especially when it's not a moral issue? Even then, my life is mine and yours is yours and so long as you're not hurting someone with what you do, we're cool even if we might disagree.
I don't expect others to make the same life choices as me. I love going to a coffeeshop or watching a band play and coming home not reeking of cigarette smoke, but I voted against the ban on my half-assed and totally inconsistent libertarian principles. Smokers outside don't bother me. They have their vice and I have mine, though coffee does smell better than cigarettes.
I don't eat a whole lot of greasy food as I prefer dirty hippie fare with generous amounts of spices, but I don't like the idea of being told what to eat. When carnival season hits, me and Tangerine love our elephant ears and scary-because-it-might-fall-apart-rides. Yes, it's not as healthy as going jogging and drinking smoothies, but it's fun and doesn't hurt anyone and we know full well what we're doing. It's a part of living here that we love.
It's hard enough to sustain a small business in this city as it is, and this just makes it harder for places like Sokolowski's and small bakeries. Cimperman may want to change the culture, but this place isn't California, where people are super thin and their teeth are perfectly white. We don't mind our schlubbiness. Even skinny chicks like me will end up looking like babushka women someday due to our genetics.
It's a winter town full of people who grew up on meat-and-potatoes peasant fare and soul food. We don't exercise much because the weather sucks and we can't always walk in our neighborhoods after dark, we like our comfort food like our grandparents made it, and we drink because life here gets depressing. Of course we're unhealthy. A love of grease is in our rusty blood.
While the Powers That Be seem obsessed with catering to the uber-rich who own sports teams and corporations, and turning this city into a playground for the bright young things, there are other people in this city who aren't into trendy neighborhoods, art openings, and vegan food. I would even venture to say that they might be a majority, a little more worried about employment, paying rent, and hoping cars don't get stolen because the police care more about graffiti than they do about people with no power who get beat up.
Something's wrong here. It really is.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
the couple next to you think you look strange...
When I worked at the zoo, people thought it was really funny to prank the receptionist with calls for "Miss Ellie Phant" and "Mr. Lion," and while no one pulled any Calvin and Hobbes style prank calls at my place of employment, I found myself trying to maintain sanity in dealing with a series of generally disagreeable people, and was so glad I cut class to go outside, wander up marble staircases to far more aesthetically pleasing biblioteca halls and marvel at the wonders of Norton Furniture as grown and sexy R&B played in the background. Surrealism of the rust belt at its finest.
As the art show was this weekend and the studio was closed, I came home and took a nap, planning to do some art later, but got a call from my creative partner in literal crime who said he was up for hanging out but not doing a whole lot and as I'm a slacker and it's the weekend, that sounded perfect. Besides, it had been awhile.
The last time we went out somewhere together, we ended up at a soul food restaurant in East Cleveland, where my general crackerness generated quite a few side-eyes of the what's she doing here stealing our men kind, and it turns out that he ran into the server at the club a few months ago and she remembered him because he came in with "that weird white girl "that one time (what gives Youtube? No Soul Coughing except in relation to cute puppies?). What can I say? I'm memorable and that's why I'm always "That Girl."
We got Lazizas at Holy Land Market and dinner at Latitude, which I've never been to before, and judging by some of the well-dressed clientele in fur coats and neo-Dynasty couture and hair, I was slightly underdressed for this scene with my black hoodie and Bad Brains t-shirt.
Everyone else seemed to be out on the town to see and be seen, looked and acted like extras out of tv shows I never watch, but we were so busy devouring perfectly herbed pizza with portobello mushrooms and basil pasta bake catching up on the last six months or so, talking art, music, life while observing our fellow diners from our perfect vantage point of a booth in the back with a view of the door.
The mating rituals of the upwardly mobile are fascinating. I'm not the most fashionable to be sure, but zebra print doesn't seem to look good on anyone. But the people watching highlight came courtesy of this one woman came in near the end of the night, making a dramatic appearance, throwing off her coat revealing an incredible electric blue cocktail dress with lots of feathers on it around the neck and bordering the hem, crazy high silver heels, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of my sister's Barbie dolls, but with a very loud and projecting voice like the cheerleader character in Daria. There were all these cameras set up around the table where she and her friends were eating and I couldn't tell if this was some kind of filming or if they were famous or what but it felt like being on the set of Friends or something. Priceless nonetheless.
We came back to my place and spaced out on the couch, drinking fruity Lebanese malts until we both felt tired, he went home, and I slept in super-late this morning, waking up only when I got a text about the Indians game downtown, wondering how I own no home team regalia but somehow have a Detroit Tigers shirt in my closet. I'm going to be a good public transportationista and walk to the Rapid station, get a cup of coffee and maybe some food at the market, see how the day takes me.
As the art show was this weekend and the studio was closed, I came home and took a nap, planning to do some art later, but got a call from my creative partner in literal crime who said he was up for hanging out but not doing a whole lot and as I'm a slacker and it's the weekend, that sounded perfect. Besides, it had been awhile.
The last time we went out somewhere together, we ended up at a soul food restaurant in East Cleveland, where my general crackerness generated quite a few side-eyes of the what's she doing here stealing our men kind, and it turns out that he ran into the server at the club a few months ago and she remembered him because he came in with "that weird white girl "that one time (what gives Youtube? No Soul Coughing except in relation to cute puppies?). What can I say? I'm memorable and that's why I'm always "That Girl."
We got Lazizas at Holy Land Market and dinner at Latitude, which I've never been to before, and judging by some of the well-dressed clientele in fur coats and neo-Dynasty couture and hair, I was slightly underdressed for this scene with my black hoodie and Bad Brains t-shirt.
Everyone else seemed to be out on the town to see and be seen, looked and acted like extras out of tv shows I never watch, but we were so busy devouring perfectly herbed pizza with portobello mushrooms and basil pasta bake catching up on the last six months or so, talking art, music, life while observing our fellow diners from our perfect vantage point of a booth in the back with a view of the door.
The mating rituals of the upwardly mobile are fascinating. I'm not the most fashionable to be sure, but zebra print doesn't seem to look good on anyone. But the people watching highlight came courtesy of this one woman came in near the end of the night, making a dramatic appearance, throwing off her coat revealing an incredible electric blue cocktail dress with lots of feathers on it around the neck and bordering the hem, crazy high silver heels, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of my sister's Barbie dolls, but with a very loud and projecting voice like the cheerleader character in Daria. There were all these cameras set up around the table where she and her friends were eating and I couldn't tell if this was some kind of filming or if they were famous or what but it felt like being on the set of Friends or something. Priceless nonetheless.
We came back to my place and spaced out on the couch, drinking fruity Lebanese malts until we both felt tired, he went home, and I slept in super-late this morning, waking up only when I got a text about the Indians game downtown, wondering how I own no home team regalia but somehow have a Detroit Tigers shirt in my closet. I'm going to be a good public transportationista and walk to the Rapid station, get a cup of coffee and maybe some food at the market, see how the day takes me.
Monday, March 28, 2011
tiki gods
And in more regional matters, the dumbassery of the Minor Powers That Were continues to be revealed and while some among the Peonage still maintain that the local Dems are like omg totally awesome the best ever, I doubt that any of us makes sufficient scratch to be bribing our favorite party bosses with tiki huts and fake palm trees.
And since Sony sucks, I couldn't post 'Tiki God' from everyone's favorite comedic Seattle band so you're all stuck with this.
Stay classy, dudes. Glad to know that my tax dollars are promoting good taste and general elegance in the Mistake By the Lake. Check out the Don King action on that tie! It's too bad I don't have swanky connections so I could see what kind of tackiness goes down in those wild eastern suburbs. At least the robber barons a century before you left us with some nice parks and some epic cemetery monuments.
At least his smirking mug is being removed from every gas pump and cash register in the kingdom of Cuyahoga, though we humble peons will no longer be able to draw devil horns with ballpoint pen or scratch his eyes out while our check goes through in a totally passive-aggressive manner anymore.
With my neighbors in hot water, shootings on the east side, stabbings in that wild country of Parmastan, it's going to be an interesting year. Here's hoping I can avoid the municipal courthouse this time around.
And since Sony sucks, I couldn't post 'Tiki God' from everyone's favorite comedic Seattle band so you're all stuck with this.
Stay classy, dudes. Glad to know that my tax dollars are promoting good taste and general elegance in the Mistake By the Lake. Check out the Don King action on that tie! It's too bad I don't have swanky connections so I could see what kind of tackiness goes down in those wild eastern suburbs. At least the robber barons a century before you left us with some nice parks and some epic cemetery monuments.
At least his smirking mug is being removed from every gas pump and cash register in the kingdom of Cuyahoga, though we humble peons will no longer be able to draw devil horns with ballpoint pen or scratch his eyes out while our check goes through in a totally passive-aggressive manner anymore.
With my neighbors in hot water, shootings on the east side, stabbings in that wild country of Parmastan, it's going to be an interesting year. Here's hoping I can avoid the municipal courthouse this time around.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I got a call at random from a friend of a former friend last night. I don't really know her all that well, as I know her through my most recent roommate who's no longer speaking to me, and so there's a dynamic of awkwardness there because I don't know what she knows about everything that went down in the past year. Since I'm not a fan of drama, I figure that what she doesn't know can't hurt her.
Every so often, she finds me at work or calls me and asks for life advice, most of which I know is not what she wants to hear and that she'll never take. I don't believe in sugarcoating but I try to be nice, yet the truth usually seems to possess this uncanny ability to hit nerves and make people mad.
We come from very different frames of reference in relation to absolutely everything, in part because of the difference of socioeconomic status and the values with which we were raised.
My upbringing was fairly conservative (though by no means as conservative as others I was around), and lower middle-class, while her parents are progressive, very well-off and live in a very affluent part of town, and currently bankroll her rent and college education in hopes that she'll get a master's degree because those are the kind of things that matter.
I tell her that maybe if you don't like school you should do something else until you decide what you want to do, get some life experience, because life isn't about how many degrees you get or what they're in.
Or instead of being on the Internet all the time looking for love, you should get out and get interested in stuff, volunteer or something if your parents aren't crazy about you working minimum wage, because that opens up your world and usually gives you more common ground with other people, and that usually guys get a little creeped out if you text them all the time and tell them their exotic ethnicity is sexy.
So she's asking me for love advice in regards to her roommate that she's enamored with even though everything about him even through her rose-colored gaze screams bad news to the point where I actually fear a bit for her safety and general well-being because said guy sounds sociopathic.
She considers me a "nice person" and a bit of a prude, which isn't terribly far from the truth. Any Victorian-ness on my part comes from an uncanny instinct for self-preservation coupled with the memory of several unpleasant incidents in my teens and seeing lots of instances of date rape aftermath in a college town. Moral code aside, it's a man's world and I tread there knowing that I have fought back and don't intend to be in those situations again if I can help it.
She always apologizes for swearing around me. She's surprised to find out that I have lived with male roommates, though it was for about three months in a college housing sublease situation and nothing "happened," considering that one was a fratboy who had his sorority girl friend with benefits upstairs and the guy I shared space with weighed 90 pounds and had muscular dystrophy.
So after she goes into way more detail about the relationship than I really wish I knew, she gasps a little bit when I tell her this guy is a total asshole who is constantly denigrating her, sees this as an economic arrangement plus the sex he'll never get to have in his own country, and that if I was her, I wouldn't date him ever and would probably move out also because he sounds like a terrible person to live with, let alone date.
"But I want a relationship!"
Don't we all. Sometimes.
But there's a reason why we don't give our phone numbers out to random dudes on the bus who ask for them because unlike humans, all relationships are not created equal. Sometimes it's heaven on earth like it is for my sister and her husband, and sometimes you end up with someone dead. There's Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, but there's also Sid and Nancy.
The conversation ends quickly after that, and I paint for awhile and go to sleep on my couch in my cold little half a house wishing that I knew her parents' phone number so I could tell them that their daughter is living with a scary dude and that if they're going to pay her rent they should maybe pay it somewhere else where she'll be safer, but also knowing that she's a consenting adult and will probably continue to make mistakes like these so maybe I should let her? I don't want to feel responsible for someone's stupidity but I wish I didn't know.
Every so often, she finds me at work or calls me and asks for life advice, most of which I know is not what she wants to hear and that she'll never take. I don't believe in sugarcoating but I try to be nice, yet the truth usually seems to possess this uncanny ability to hit nerves and make people mad.
We come from very different frames of reference in relation to absolutely everything, in part because of the difference of socioeconomic status and the values with which we were raised.
My upbringing was fairly conservative (though by no means as conservative as others I was around), and lower middle-class, while her parents are progressive, very well-off and live in a very affluent part of town, and currently bankroll her rent and college education in hopes that she'll get a master's degree because those are the kind of things that matter.
I tell her that maybe if you don't like school you should do something else until you decide what you want to do, get some life experience, because life isn't about how many degrees you get or what they're in.
Or instead of being on the Internet all the time looking for love, you should get out and get interested in stuff, volunteer or something if your parents aren't crazy about you working minimum wage, because that opens up your world and usually gives you more common ground with other people, and that usually guys get a little creeped out if you text them all the time and tell them their exotic ethnicity is sexy.
So she's asking me for love advice in regards to her roommate that she's enamored with even though everything about him even through her rose-colored gaze screams bad news to the point where I actually fear a bit for her safety and general well-being because said guy sounds sociopathic.
She considers me a "nice person" and a bit of a prude, which isn't terribly far from the truth. Any Victorian-ness on my part comes from an uncanny instinct for self-preservation coupled with the memory of several unpleasant incidents in my teens and seeing lots of instances of date rape aftermath in a college town. Moral code aside, it's a man's world and I tread there knowing that I have fought back and don't intend to be in those situations again if I can help it.
She always apologizes for swearing around me. She's surprised to find out that I have lived with male roommates, though it was for about three months in a college housing sublease situation and nothing "happened," considering that one was a fratboy who had his sorority girl friend with benefits upstairs and the guy I shared space with weighed 90 pounds and had muscular dystrophy.
So after she goes into way more detail about the relationship than I really wish I knew, she gasps a little bit when I tell her this guy is a total asshole who is constantly denigrating her, sees this as an economic arrangement plus the sex he'll never get to have in his own country, and that if I was her, I wouldn't date him ever and would probably move out also because he sounds like a terrible person to live with, let alone date.
"But I want a relationship!"
Don't we all. Sometimes.
But there's a reason why we don't give our phone numbers out to random dudes on the bus who ask for them because unlike humans, all relationships are not created equal. Sometimes it's heaven on earth like it is for my sister and her husband, and sometimes you end up with someone dead. There's Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, but there's also Sid and Nancy.
The conversation ends quickly after that, and I paint for awhile and go to sleep on my couch in my cold little half a house wishing that I knew her parents' phone number so I could tell them that their daughter is living with a scary dude and that if they're going to pay her rent they should maybe pay it somewhere else where she'll be safer, but also knowing that she's a consenting adult and will probably continue to make mistakes like these so maybe I should let her? I don't want to feel responsible for someone's stupidity but I wish I didn't know.
Friday, January 21, 2011
a surprising masterwork of total mediocrity
After the onslaught of Creepy Old Men last night, I'm thankful that the new student worker shares a similar sense of humor in regards to matters of the geopolitical. I also began working longhand on some sections of what will probably be my very own literary work with the timetable of Chinese Democracy, since at the very least Kevin Shields created a masterpiece of a record before eternally shelving that lost My Bloody Valentine followup and I have not done so.
I've got notebooks dug out from the parents' house last weekend full of jottings of conversations and stories from my senior year onward, that I might dig back into. Much of it was terrible writing of the quick documentation variety, capturing trivial conversations and awkward social dynamics for posterity that I would have forgotten otherwise.
There's some splice and dice action so far, mixing fresh prose with reworked other writings that have seemed to work decently upon reading. It's not great literature but it's not total trash. I'm just hoping that it can be something solid and believable. I'm trying to render details and not waste words, piling on layers of description and emotion, calling to mind the smallest details like album track listenings and coffee mug sayings and the patterns of 1970s linoleum.
Few writers have tackled this territory, with its strange culture of its own, and I want to do it justice in a way that's neither sentimental nor cruel. Too much fiction does that already, and I don't want to do it too.
I've got notebooks dug out from the parents' house last weekend full of jottings of conversations and stories from my senior year onward, that I might dig back into. Much of it was terrible writing of the quick documentation variety, capturing trivial conversations and awkward social dynamics for posterity that I would have forgotten otherwise.
There's some splice and dice action so far, mixing fresh prose with reworked other writings that have seemed to work decently upon reading. It's not great literature but it's not total trash. I'm just hoping that it can be something solid and believable. I'm trying to render details and not waste words, piling on layers of description and emotion, calling to mind the smallest details like album track listenings and coffee mug sayings and the patterns of 1970s linoleum.
Few writers have tackled this territory, with its strange culture of its own, and I want to do it justice in a way that's neither sentimental nor cruel. Too much fiction does that already, and I don't want to do it too.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
can I be stupid for a minute... I was looking in that half-empty glass...
I was running through downtown to catch the train, trying to figure out why there's so many people in TSA and DHS uniforms around, not so much because of terrorists because who gives a damn about blowing up Cleveland but because every day I feel more and more like my world is turning into some creepy Orwell Meets Huxley superfuture.
It doesn't personally affect my way of life because my skin is pale, my ethnicity is neither Latino or Semitic, my gender is the weaker sex, and the only real political action I've ever been a part of was a March for Life in high school and a road trip to a demonstration about the genocide in Darfur in college, both of which were relatively uneventful. But I know that the lives of others are constantly getting messed up and that's just not ok.
The governor of my state wants to privatize the prisons, the prison system being so messed up to begin with but to add profit margins even more than there already is, is just downright scary, while my city pins its hopes on slimy businessmen with big mouths and unrealistic promises. It says it can't keep all these schools open but is building another juvenile detention center, and my country is still doing shady things all over the world and here too. Maybe I'm just reading too much Balko, but the precedent for tyranny is unnerving.
Meanwhile, I keep on keeping on, trying to make sense of things and keep them in perspective. My friend around the corner and I did our art therapy as she sculpted pots that look like Dr. Seuss landscapes and I dripped glazes down the sides of bowls trying to get a color scheme that reminds me of Venetian glass and the luminous medieval enameling that I saw at the art museum.
My art teachers have always said I work too fast, and looking at these works of art that were created over years has made me want to slow down and execute even more detail, to create something beautiful.
We make dinner afterwards, stay up late drinking pots of tea and pondering God, man, woman, and the universe, and all the sea changes that occurred in the past year. It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone, to remember that there's a lot of us just trying to make it through.
It doesn't personally affect my way of life because my skin is pale, my ethnicity is neither Latino or Semitic, my gender is the weaker sex, and the only real political action I've ever been a part of was a March for Life in high school and a road trip to a demonstration about the genocide in Darfur in college, both of which were relatively uneventful. But I know that the lives of others are constantly getting messed up and that's just not ok.
The governor of my state wants to privatize the prisons, the prison system being so messed up to begin with but to add profit margins even more than there already is, is just downright scary, while my city pins its hopes on slimy businessmen with big mouths and unrealistic promises. It says it can't keep all these schools open but is building another juvenile detention center, and my country is still doing shady things all over the world and here too. Maybe I'm just reading too much Balko, but the precedent for tyranny is unnerving.
Meanwhile, I keep on keeping on, trying to make sense of things and keep them in perspective. My friend around the corner and I did our art therapy as she sculpted pots that look like Dr. Seuss landscapes and I dripped glazes down the sides of bowls trying to get a color scheme that reminds me of Venetian glass and the luminous medieval enameling that I saw at the art museum.
My art teachers have always said I work too fast, and looking at these works of art that were created over years has made me want to slow down and execute even more detail, to create something beautiful.
We make dinner afterwards, stay up late drinking pots of tea and pondering God, man, woman, and the universe, and all the sea changes that occurred in the past year. It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone, to remember that there's a lot of us just trying to make it through.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
branding iron
Seriously people, this year on my corner of the world won't all be about Alice in Chains, generational conflict, and the travails of life in the Rust Belt.
Randal is way more entertaining than myself about a book that came through here about personal branding and I honestly don't know what planet some of these people live on. It had to do with shampoo and a trademarked "YOU" or something and talked about how the reason women are sexually harassed is because they don't wear proper business attire and that men are judged by what shoes they wear.
Because women are "totally asking for it" and we should judge a man by the pattern on his tie. Right.
It's bad enough to be judging someone by what brands they wear, but when we start talking about what brand a person IS and that some are more desirable than others, well, what the heck? And we do judge if we're honest. I don't tend to trust people who wear expensive suits who want me to vote for them or who try to sell me something, and I can't take someone's ideas seriously if they can't spell.
I guess we call this labeling and typecasting by any other name which I thought was a bad thing and there's this strange cultural social Orwellianism of all of us theoretically being equal but some of us still being much more equal than others.
I like to give my boomer compadres a hard time, but my fellow millenial spawn appear to be taking the narcissism to a whole new level and we don't even get some good music or something resembling the civil rights movement out of the deal. Just a lot of tweets and likes.
I really wonder about my generation when I see these other people who are my age who have bought into this whole idea of not just marketing as something you do to pay your bills, but as something you make a life out of because you're just so damn special and so damn interesting in a calculated kind of way.
And I know I don't work in an environment or culture with such individuals, and they probably don't attend the esteemed academic institution I work for because they consider state schools beneath them. I wonder where these people live, where they party, how they sleep at night, what kind of relationships do they have? Clearly they don't live here, I think, having blown this popsicle stand for places like Chicago and either coast. Their parents probably live in a nice house and wouldn't talk to mine because we don't have any social capital.
But then I remember that there was this guy when I was at Kent who was my age but throughout undergrad wore suits every day and was one of those people who everyone knew and all that. I think he's probably gone on to be successful and I guess people like him are the kind of people that get things done but that's just not how I roll I guess.
And the subbacultcha is all about the personal brand just in a collective tribal sense... having the right haircut, the right band t-shirts and accessories, the right attitude, and it can be just as catty as any celebutante reality show, only with a heavy dose of sour grapes and "at least I'm not like THAT" thrown in.
So I look at these nebulous questions like "What is YOUR personal brand?" or "How does your appearance enhance your brand?" or people promoting a "personal brand toolkit." It's already a soul-sucking enterprise to sell things, but to sell yourself often at the expense of others...
I don't even have words and it sounds childish and immaturely punk rock to say corporate whore but what kind of other real description is there? Not that I'm advocating the absurdity that is Adbusters, and it's true that people do still judge, but to wholeheartedly embrace it seems so profoundly wrong.
Speaking of branding, this one was big among my old crew back when Sub Pop was awesome.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? I look pretty good but I'm just back-dated as it is.
Randal is way more entertaining than myself about a book that came through here about personal branding and I honestly don't know what planet some of these people live on. It had to do with shampoo and a trademarked "YOU" or something and talked about how the reason women are sexually harassed is because they don't wear proper business attire and that men are judged by what shoes they wear.
Because women are "totally asking for it" and we should judge a man by the pattern on his tie. Right.
It's bad enough to be judging someone by what brands they wear, but when we start talking about what brand a person IS and that some are more desirable than others, well, what the heck? And we do judge if we're honest. I don't tend to trust people who wear expensive suits who want me to vote for them or who try to sell me something, and I can't take someone's ideas seriously if they can't spell.
I guess we call this labeling and typecasting by any other name which I thought was a bad thing and there's this strange cultural social Orwellianism of all of us theoretically being equal but some of us still being much more equal than others.
I like to give my boomer compadres a hard time, but my fellow millenial spawn appear to be taking the narcissism to a whole new level and we don't even get some good music or something resembling the civil rights movement out of the deal. Just a lot of tweets and likes.
I really wonder about my generation when I see these other people who are my age who have bought into this whole idea of not just marketing as something you do to pay your bills, but as something you make a life out of because you're just so damn special and so damn interesting in a calculated kind of way.
And I know I don't work in an environment or culture with such individuals, and they probably don't attend the esteemed academic institution I work for because they consider state schools beneath them. I wonder where these people live, where they party, how they sleep at night, what kind of relationships do they have? Clearly they don't live here, I think, having blown this popsicle stand for places like Chicago and either coast. Their parents probably live in a nice house and wouldn't talk to mine because we don't have any social capital.
But then I remember that there was this guy when I was at Kent who was my age but throughout undergrad wore suits every day and was one of those people who everyone knew and all that. I think he's probably gone on to be successful and I guess people like him are the kind of people that get things done but that's just not how I roll I guess.
And the subbacultcha is all about the personal brand just in a collective tribal sense... having the right haircut, the right band t-shirts and accessories, the right attitude, and it can be just as catty as any celebutante reality show, only with a heavy dose of sour grapes and "at least I'm not like THAT" thrown in.
So I look at these nebulous questions like "What is YOUR personal brand?" or "How does your appearance enhance your brand?" or people promoting a "personal brand toolkit." It's already a soul-sucking enterprise to sell things, but to sell yourself often at the expense of others...
I don't even have words and it sounds childish and immaturely punk rock to say corporate whore but what kind of other real description is there? Not that I'm advocating the absurdity that is Adbusters, and it's true that people do still judge, but to wholeheartedly embrace it seems so profoundly wrong.
Speaking of branding, this one was big among my old crew back when Sub Pop was awesome.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? I look pretty good but I'm just back-dated as it is.
Friday, December 10, 2010
movers and shakers
F. Scott Fitzgerald once described the very rich as "not like you and me." Hemingway disagreed, saying the only difference is that they have more money than the rest of us. I'm sure there's an element of truth in both of these statements, but sometimes I'm reminded just how differently they live.
This guy is retiring and is going to be an "executive in residence" and make $75,000 a year for 24 hours of work because "His BlackBerry contains 1,300 names of movers and shakers in Northeast Ohio."
I wonder what kind of work this involves, or if they're simply hiring his Blackberry. I also wonder how you end up with over a thousand phone numbers and what happens if said device gets stolen. I wonder if these people were such movers and shakers why nothing seems to be moving or shaking unless they've been raking in graft like the rest of the upper echelons have been, but my guess is they live in the suburbs or the really exclusive parts of the city in a world far removed from my own.
One of my great-uncles told me that when I went to school I should figure out who the rich and connected kids were and hang out with them because then I would go far in life and be successful. One of my uncles dropped out but his fraternity connections have taken him everywhere and he's pretty well off. I hear other people talk like this, and it's not like they're bad people, it's just such a different mentality than what I was raised with and how I see things.
I didn't do so well at this, majoring in English and an unfinished art minor, and the rich kids I knew were all pretending that they weren't from Shaker, Solon or Hudson, dumpster-diving and sleeping on mats and being fake Buddhists, talking about anarchy and consumerism while spending loads of money on concert tickets, drugs, surround sound systems, Apple products, and eternal grad school.
It was so weird to be eating at vegan potlucks as kids whose dads made six figures talked about "workers of the world" and how that world was far removed from my own, where you either did community college or got lucky and went to a state school if your grades were good and you got some scholarships or financial aid, where your "ethnic" last name shows where you are in the social strata especially when you get outside your city.
I could theoretically move and shake at my place of employment but I enjoy my fellow peons far more than most of those who have letters after their names who only associate with others on their level.
I don't tend to trust most people in suits as it is, since it seems like most of the evil in the world is perpetrated by the well-dressed. The men that I grew up admiring are people like my dad, coming home after working 12 hour days, with cracked hands covered in dirt and salt, wearing old hoodies and thermals and work boots, who listen to the Rolling Stones and NPR and reading all sorts of books, with a lack of interest in affluence and a preference for good music and maybe a baseball game or two.
My dad once told me he couldn't work behind a desk and dress up for work every day. It's something I do but I don't have to bother with power suits or trying to sell things. I've gotten to know a lot of people between where I live and work and worship, and so does he. It's just that the people he knows are Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Vietnamese families who run the corner stores, the Puerto Rican kids who stock the shelves at Marc's, and the people he plays music with and goes to church with.
That's what I know best and am attracted to most, and I'm sure that sometimes I judge those outside that circle a bit unfairly if I'm honest. It's a world that is both closed and uninteresting to me that seems so calculating and ungenuine.
And in the wake of more major political shenanigans and shadiness on a large scale, I'm more and more convinced that C.S. Lewis had it so right here:
"The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
This guy is retiring and is going to be an "executive in residence" and make $75,000 a year for 24 hours of work because "His BlackBerry contains 1,300 names of movers and shakers in Northeast Ohio."
I wonder what kind of work this involves, or if they're simply hiring his Blackberry. I also wonder how you end up with over a thousand phone numbers and what happens if said device gets stolen. I wonder if these people were such movers and shakers why nothing seems to be moving or shaking unless they've been raking in graft like the rest of the upper echelons have been, but my guess is they live in the suburbs or the really exclusive parts of the city in a world far removed from my own.
One of my great-uncles told me that when I went to school I should figure out who the rich and connected kids were and hang out with them because then I would go far in life and be successful. One of my uncles dropped out but his fraternity connections have taken him everywhere and he's pretty well off. I hear other people talk like this, and it's not like they're bad people, it's just such a different mentality than what I was raised with and how I see things.
I didn't do so well at this, majoring in English and an unfinished art minor, and the rich kids I knew were all pretending that they weren't from Shaker, Solon or Hudson, dumpster-diving and sleeping on mats and being fake Buddhists, talking about anarchy and consumerism while spending loads of money on concert tickets, drugs, surround sound systems, Apple products, and eternal grad school.
It was so weird to be eating at vegan potlucks as kids whose dads made six figures talked about "workers of the world" and how that world was far removed from my own, where you either did community college or got lucky and went to a state school if your grades were good and you got some scholarships or financial aid, where your "ethnic" last name shows where you are in the social strata especially when you get outside your city.
I could theoretically move and shake at my place of employment but I enjoy my fellow peons far more than most of those who have letters after their names who only associate with others on their level.
I don't tend to trust most people in suits as it is, since it seems like most of the evil in the world is perpetrated by the well-dressed. The men that I grew up admiring are people like my dad, coming home after working 12 hour days, with cracked hands covered in dirt and salt, wearing old hoodies and thermals and work boots, who listen to the Rolling Stones and NPR and reading all sorts of books, with a lack of interest in affluence and a preference for good music and maybe a baseball game or two.
My dad once told me he couldn't work behind a desk and dress up for work every day. It's something I do but I don't have to bother with power suits or trying to sell things. I've gotten to know a lot of people between where I live and work and worship, and so does he. It's just that the people he knows are Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Vietnamese families who run the corner stores, the Puerto Rican kids who stock the shelves at Marc's, and the people he plays music with and goes to church with.
That's what I know best and am attracted to most, and I'm sure that sometimes I judge those outside that circle a bit unfairly if I'm honest. It's a world that is both closed and uninteresting to me that seems so calculating and ungenuine.
And in the wake of more major political shenanigans and shadiness on a large scale, I'm more and more convinced that C.S. Lewis had it so right here:
"The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
Sunday, September 19, 2010
if I could, you know I would...
It's 2 in the morning and I've been sleeping since 8, waking up knowing I have to be up in another 6 hours and wondering how I messed up my sleep cycle so completely and wondering if that has to do with all the craziness around me hitting home.
The sirens are everywhere and I don't even want to know what's happening outside. I just want to fall back asleep and not be so congested.
Today was so beautiful and we drove out to Chagrin Falls where a strange convergence of bikers hanging out in front of Starbucks drinking macchiatos and people getting married occurred. And I realized I've never driven through 'where the other half lives,' this strange and beautiful land south and east where it feels like I'm in some BBC movie with these endless acres and big country houses, polo grounds, English nanny schools, and so many trees I realize that I've been profoundly nature-deprived. I don't know people who live in Gates Mills or Hunting Valley or whatever. I'm sure there's nice people there like there is anywhere. It just feels so far removed from my land of cheap apartments, gang graffiti, and loud car stereos.
It's not that things are so bad, it's just been hard to see all the stress around me and be unable to really do anything to help, feeling if anything like a nonentity or an impediment, that I always say the wrong thing, though I know most of this whole life thing isn't my fault. I think I'm going to come away from all this stronger and more sure despite all the shifts and transitions.
It's helped to retreat into art, and I've discovered the wonders of the Cudell Art Center where you can go and work with clay, make pottery, sculpt stuff, and glaze it and hang out with really chill people and it's free, which is amazing. And when I'm not there, I come home and splice together the leftovers in the kitchen and then get out the paints, finding catharsis in the way the colors run together and listening to all my old music.
Thankful for the friends who've stuck with me through this season of struggle, who've let me cry and vent, helped me jump through the hoops of the legal system, encouraged me in making art, made dinner with me, been wonderful companions for adventures. It's meant so much to have that in my life to balance out the hurts.
And I'm wide awake now, listening to this song over and over again, grieving some losses and some current losing, knowing that this is only the beginning, that this is part of continuing to live and be human and that there's a long trail of it ahead...
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day
To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...
This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
The sirens are everywhere and I don't even want to know what's happening outside. I just want to fall back asleep and not be so congested.
Today was so beautiful and we drove out to Chagrin Falls where a strange convergence of bikers hanging out in front of Starbucks drinking macchiatos and people getting married occurred. And I realized I've never driven through 'where the other half lives,' this strange and beautiful land south and east where it feels like I'm in some BBC movie with these endless acres and big country houses, polo grounds, English nanny schools, and so many trees I realize that I've been profoundly nature-deprived. I don't know people who live in Gates Mills or Hunting Valley or whatever. I'm sure there's nice people there like there is anywhere. It just feels so far removed from my land of cheap apartments, gang graffiti, and loud car stereos.
It's not that things are so bad, it's just been hard to see all the stress around me and be unable to really do anything to help, feeling if anything like a nonentity or an impediment, that I always say the wrong thing, though I know most of this whole life thing isn't my fault. I think I'm going to come away from all this stronger and more sure despite all the shifts and transitions.
It's helped to retreat into art, and I've discovered the wonders of the Cudell Art Center where you can go and work with clay, make pottery, sculpt stuff, and glaze it and hang out with really chill people and it's free, which is amazing. And when I'm not there, I come home and splice together the leftovers in the kitchen and then get out the paints, finding catharsis in the way the colors run together and listening to all my old music.
Thankful for the friends who've stuck with me through this season of struggle, who've let me cry and vent, helped me jump through the hoops of the legal system, encouraged me in making art, made dinner with me, been wonderful companions for adventures. It's meant so much to have that in my life to balance out the hurts.
And I'm wide awake now, listening to this song over and over again, grieving some losses and some current losing, knowing that this is only the beginning, that this is part of continuing to live and be human and that there's a long trail of it ahead...
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day
To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...
This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
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