Brownie-Wise

The People Divided...

2008-12-04T23:07:00.010-05:00

I was raised in a union household. Both my dad and my step-dad worked at the local Ford plant as electricians–they went through apprenticeship programs and earned journeyman’s cards, which I think is just about the coolest thing in the world. If I had been a boy in my family, I would have my card, now, too. Various aunts, uncles, and cousins also worked at Ford, as did my step-mother for a short while. My youngest brother worked there until drug addiction spun him out its doors. Though I failed the drug-test that would have led to my own job at Ford, I was, at one time, a Teamster, working at a factory that packaged service parts for Ford and GM. In addition to my own relationship with the Teamsters and to my familial link to the UAW, my great-grandpa was a miner in Tennessee, and he was one of the mountain-folk there who stood up to intimidation and violence in order to bring the union into the coal mines.

Though it’s been almost 10 years since I’ve worked in a factory myself, my connection to the auto industry, to factories, and to working-class issues remains strong. In the past several months I have seen both my dad and my step-dad forced into early retirement as the Ford/Visteon/ACH plant they had each worked at for more than 30 years closed its doors. They both believe that if they could have worked for just a few years more, retirement would have been a welcome respite from a long life of physical labor. Now, they’re each talking about getting new jobs—but where? They’re over 60-years-old. And they’re scared.

I am scared.

And I am angry.

I have studied labor history a bit, and I recognize that unions are often bastions of corruption, and I also understand that they have worked in conjunction with both government and industry to contract instead of expand workers’ rights. Still, as the talk of the nation, and even the world, centers on the Big Three Bailout, I am frequently hearing criticism of the union workers themselves—as if they are to blame for the crisis that government, industry, and union leaders have created with lack of regulation and oversight combined with perverse greed and shortsightedness.

Once again, when faced with incontrovertible evidence that corporate leaders are selfish, greedy, and incompetent, pundits, politicians, and citizens point their misguided fingers at the folks at the opposite end of where the true power—and, thus, responsibility—lies: the unionized workers. There’s a lot of talk right now about how Big Three laborers make $50, $60, $70 an hour, and people’s heads are exploding all over at the thought of it. While these figures may be close to the truth for the wage plus the full benefit package earned by a UAW worker, the average wage alone for Big Three workers is less than $30-an-hour. New workers earn half of that—about $15 an hour. But let’s say that factory workers did earn $70 an hour. How does this compare to the $10,000-an-hour that the CEO makes? How has this become an acceptable discrepancy—that some people’s labor is worth $5, $15, $30, or even (gasp!) $70 an hour, but other people can earn $10,000 an hour!?

I mean, we have people making $12 an hour who are angry at UAW workers who make twice as much as they do, but they accept that there are those who make 900 times more than they do! What is wrong with Americans—most of whom will never even make $20 an hour—that compels them to always place the blame for this country’s ills not on its leaders or on the people with wealth and power, but on the people who are shoulder-to-shoulder with them, struggling with them, bearing the heavy, crushing burden of the rich with them?

Here’s a novel idea: Slash executive salaries permanently, tie health care coverage to citizenship instead of employment, and invest in a new infrastructure for mass transit. I am obviously passionate about this issue, but I lack the command of knowledge and fact that folks like Mark Brenner and Jane Slaughter of Labor Notes possess—do yourself a favor and check out their article here at Common Dreams.

Some of the highlights:

Every Big Three worker could work for free, and it would still only knock 5% off the sticker price

Even including their benefits, labor costs in the Big Three's plants account for less than 10% of the sticker price

General Motors alone provides health coverage to a million people -- workers, retirees and families. The annual price tag is about $5 billion.

Blood in the Machine

2008-12-03T15:04:00.007-05:00

I have spent the past hour typing and deleting, typing and deleting, struggling like mad to find the right words to begin this entry.

We are lost, people. We are so very, very lost. We go further adrift with each passing day, and the ways to count how far we have strayed are countless.

Here is another:

In America, land of the free, home of the brave, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by rabid Black Friday shoppers.

Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old temporary employee at the store, was crushed underfoot as thousands of shoppers, chanting “push in the doors,” did just that—ripping the doors right off their hinges, these desperate-for-a-deal maniacs stampeded into the store, massacring Damour under their heavy, relentless feet, which I guess were so caught up in marching to the capitalistic tune of consumerism that they just couldn’t register the life they were squeezing out of the man beneath them.

There are no reports of any shopper attempting to help Damour. On the contrary, Damour’s co-workers, as well as paramedics and police officers at the scene, all tell of hostile shoppers who impeded assistance to Damour and who became angry when the announcement came over the PA that the store would be closing because of Damour’s death.

Since hearing about this horrific murder—and this is a murder—I have made myself nauseous imagining Damour terrified, gasping for air, the weight of all those shoppers grinding him into the floor. But, the truth is, I have also found myself unable to stop thinking about the connections between his murder, and capitalism, and consumerism. I cannot help but think that this horde’s behavior really isn’t all that far off from how consumers in a capitalistic society are programmed to behave. Think of this: if a corporation’s purpose is to maximize profit, isn’t a consumer’s purpose to minimize price-paid? That is, in order to be the very best consumer you can be, don’t you need to seek out the lowest-priced goods? Further, capitalism teaches us to celebrate those who achieve success and material wealth, even as we acknowledge that “getting to the top” often involves scrambling up over the backs of fellow human beings. Sure, driving your heel into the flesh of a man trapped beneath you is a bit more visceral than the sort of bloodless exploitation that corporate climbers employ, but the impulse—the drive for personal success or satisfaction; the ambition to meet one’s own needs at any cost—springs from the same notions of individualism that lay at the heart of a capitalistic system.

In the movie Dirty Pretty Things, a character, Okwe, makes a statement about the sorts of people with whom we share our world yet often do not acknowledge—he says:
“… we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your [hotel] rooms. And suck your cocks.”

I think about this whenever I think about one of this country’s most enduring mythologies: the American Dream. As the story goes, everyone is born equal in America, into a country with a level playing field, where, with hard work and perseverance, anyone can achieve economic stability and financial success. Integral to the idea of this American Dream is the notion that those who do not “make it” fail because they choose to fail. This is an important part of our mythology, and it is convenient for explaining the existence of the people Okwe mentions. How do we reconcile the poverty and desperation we see all around us? Or the knowledge that we share our world with people whose lives are miserable and hopeless and grim? By believing that they are responsible for their own wretched existences. Otherwise, we have to admit that the system is flawed. And if we admit that the system is flawed, then we will have to change it. For many people, this is not only a terrifying notion, but it also seems impossible. Further, tempering any impulse to demolish the capitalistic system is the fact that we are so seduced by the elusive promise of wealth and privilege that the falsehearted dogma of the American Dream is a stronger motivating force than is the reality that we see all around us.

We are complacent.

And gluttonous.

And divided.

And, in the words of the late poet Reetika Vazirani, from her poem "It's a Young Country",

We say America you are
magnificent and we mean
We are heartbroken

I will admit that this tragedy at Wal-Mart is an extreme occurrence and that my parallels are stretched. Still, I really do believe that within a capitalistic society, especially one that is teetering, seething, and grasping as desperately as ours is, this sort of brutal, every-man-for-himself mentality is likely to manifest in more and more every-day occurrences. Capitalism can behave in no other way—it exists for only as long as there is a class of people to exploit. As Ezra, the prophet of the documentary Zero Degrees of Separation, says: Without the cogs, there would be no machine.

We are all cogs in this plutocracy we call “America”. And we chew each other up to bloody bits while we keep this brutal machine running.

Jdimytai Damour, I am sorry beyond words. Sorry for your brutal, inexcusable murder and sorry that I used your tragedy as a springboard to other issues.

Whenever a loved one dies, there are words I say, and I say them now, softly, for you:

May the stars welcome you home.

Queers on Film, Part Two

2008-12-01T14:00:00.007-05:00

With Zero Degrees of Separation, filmmaker Elle Flanders offers a vision of the Palestinian Occupation that manages to be both devastating and dreamy. Flanders, whose grandparents were instrumental in the creation of Israel and who spent part of her childhood there, grew interested in returning after coming across her grandparents’ home movie archive. In Zero Degrees, footage of Flanders’s return to Israel and her interactions with two mixed (Israeli/Palestinian) queer couples is interspersed with footage from these home movies. To see these sepia-toned images of the first hopeful steps toward Jewish statehood juxtaposed against contemporary images of the devastating fallout of that march is both enthralling and unsettling, like the deepest, darkest fairy tale, where all has gone awry.

In addition to mixing old footage of an infant Israel with contemporary footage of the Occupied Territories, Flanders also peppers her film with numerous captioned facts—from population statistics and geography and history lessons to figures about the various sorts of barriers used to corral the Palestinians and to separate them from their land and resources. I guess it goes without saying that these barriers also work to keep Palestinians alienated from one another, and, thus, isolated, powerless, and fragmented. While this may be the optimum moment to talk of suicide bombings and other atrocities, my focus here is not on the response of an oppressed people to the violence done them, no matter how appaling I may find that behavior. I focus, instead, on a thoughtful, well-made film and its intimate depiction of four people who daily navigate a world that I only know through media.

Flanders’s subjects are a gay male couple, Ezra and Selim, an Israeli and a Palestinian who live together in West Jerusalem despite Selim’s constant harassment and numerous arrests, and a lesbian couple, Edit, an Israeli, and Samira, a Palestinian, who live together in Tel Aviv where, despite similar political temperaments, they struggle to navigate the psychic distance that divides them. Through the eyes of these four people we see the grim realities of the Occupation, and as they each negotiate their relationships with their lovers, their selves, their ethnic compatriots, and their ethnic enemies, the complex workings of power, ethnicity, humanity, nationalism, and identity politics are illuminated.

As I was watching this film, I began to think about how the checkpoints and other barriers that are intended to disrupt the natural flow of life while creating tangible, geographical borders and margins begin to inscribe metaphorical borders around bodies themselves, so that it becomes impossible to imagine Israeli and Palestinian as anything other than mutually exclusive categories with impassable boundaries. Flanders deftly handles this notion of impenetrable borders by focusing on four individuals whose daily existence flies in the face of it: these four are, indeed, border-crossers, and while their sexuality is never in question, that they are queer is almost incidental. That they are human, however, is everything. I think that’s really refreshing.

Still, it is one thing for me to spend time thinking of nice sentences to describe the ways that these particular four people forge relationships with their lovers—that is, it is one thing to note, in an attempt to be clever, that their relationships with one another “cross boundaries,” with this kind of casual nod to the geographical and tangible boundaries that the Israelis build throughout the Occupied Territories. It is quite another thing to see the Israelis’ handiwork—the trenches and earth mounds, the concrete barriers and armed checkpoints, the fences, the walls, the razor wire … I carry this image with me, now, of ragged Palestinians moving through a disintegrating world, and, in particular, of an older Palestinian woman scaling concrete rubble, navigating hazardous ruins, stumbling forward into her ever-shrinking existence.

I understand that the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories cannot be summed up in a clumsy review of a documentary, or, even, in the documentary itself. Still, I believe that there are certain truths that are self-evident, and this documentary presents them in a clear and unvarnished light. In her focus on four individuals negotiating various volatile landscapes—physical, emotional, political—Flanders shows us a dream of statehood buried deep under the wreckage of a dystopic reality.

Queers on Film, Part One

2008-11-26T23:16:00.004-05:00

So, the other night I watched the documentary Gender Rebel, and the following evening I watched Zero Degrees of Separation, which is also a documentary. Yes, yes, big fun here in the D. Both of these films are queer-focused, and though the issues covered in Gender Rebel are more familiar to me, Zero Degrees of Separation, which examines the Middle Eastern conflict through the eyes of two mixed queer couples (mixed = Arab + Jew), was by far the superior film. As I write that judgment, I feel a bit guilty—there really is no reason to compare these films beyond the fact that there is some overlap in their subject-matter, which crosses queer bodies, whether gender-rebellious, Israeli, or Palestinian. It seems fairly evident that Zero Degrees had a bigger budget and a more coherent vision for the story the filmmaker wanted to tell than did the lower-budgeted Gender Rebel, which stayed on the very surface of its subject instead of reaching for the depths plunged to in Zero Degrees.

Gender Rebel focuses on three biological females at odds with their feminine form and its built-in cultural expectations and limitations. They use various words to describe themselves, including genderqueer and gender fluid, but not transsexual, transgender, or lesbian. Like a lot of gender/sexuality documentaries I’ve seen, I found the film’s description to be more compelling than most of the movie itself: Director Elaine Epstein's captivating documentary explores the lives of three biological females who reject the conventional concepts of gender and see themselves not as female or male, but as something in between. The camera follows these individuals as they encounter challenges at every turn -- from the strain on their relationships to confrontations with communities intolerant of their way of life -- and find a way to cope with social alienation.

Sounds good, right? And it was, I guess; it just wasn't great.

I think part of my indifference also springs from the subjects’ young ages—the oldest, Kim/Ryan, is 25, and Jill and Lauren are both 22. Jill’s burden throughout the film is to come out as genderqueer to her mom; she is already out and accepted as a lesbian. She’s so earnest, talking about her mom’s “right to know” that she’s genderqueer, yet, she herself states that she doesn’t mind being female; she just wants to be perceived as a guy, and to that end, she wears only guys’ clothes and she binds her breasts. So, this “coming out” truly is kind of redundant—her mother sees how she dresses, sees how she presents herself to the world, you know? I like her, and I end up thinking she’s sweet, but this quest just reeks of privilege, all this pathos over naming what her mother already sees and accepts and loves.

Lauren comes off a little bit like those young, passionate, political dykes who recognize the folly of a dichotomous system of gender and sexuality and battle this by choosing an identity, much as someone chooses a uniform for a job, consciously turning the system on its head as a political statement. Kim, on the other hand, seems to be responding to something that emanates from within her more than a desire to challenge cultural norms. I find her journey the most compelling.

I think I’m also a little put off by how inarticulate the two younger subjects are, especially Lauren, when discussing their “genderqueerness” with other people. Lauren’s partner Liz, also genderqueer, has an aunt who identifies as lesbian. The three of them are sitting at the aunt’s small kitchen table talking about the wonder that is genderqueerness when Lauren and Liz each declare that they feel neither male nor female; the aunt says in exasperation, “Well you only got two choices!” And boom, right there, our young genderqueers have a chance to open this woman’s mind to the idea that there are not just “two choices,” and they could then enter into a dialogue about culturally-constructed notions of gender and …

Anyway, that isn’t what happens, and the aunt is left just completely perplexed and kind of defensive, too. Further, she seems concerned as she wonders if she, a lesbian, doesn’t get what these young genderqueers are up to, then how will the rest of the world? There are lots of moments like this, where I, too, am exasperated with the two young rebels—Lauren moreso than our earnest young confessor, Jill.

On the other hand, Kim/Ryan gets top surgery and starts T-therapy, and I have to say that even though I typically believe that such radical body modification is ill-considered, this young (wo)man truly flourished after his surgery. I saw him relax into his own body, and it was so beautiful. And he was articulate about his emotions and perspective—the other two gender rebels just repeated a lot of catch-phrases and never really seemed capable of participating in the sort of dialogue that would lead to their being understood. To a certain degree, Lauren and Liz seemed to use their poor communication skills as evidence of other people’s closed-mindedness.

Ryan’s story is absorbing, particularly in how his transformation affects his relationship with his girlfriend, Michelle, who struggles with questions of her identity—is she still a lesbian? She does not want to be perceived as straight, and she is concerned about being alienated from the lesbian community. Ryan is 5’9” and looked a lot like a goofy-looking guy before surgery and T-therapy. Now, the T is lowering his voice and changing his musculature and he’s working out a lot and… Michelle sees him as a man. And rightly so, huh?

Is perception everything? Whose? Our own? Or that of those with whom we interact? Of those who have power over us, those from who we wish to gain something, those who we are loathe to disappoint?

Despite my initial misgivings, there are moments that do remind me of the ways that I am connected to each of these gender rebels. During Jill’s long-dreaded trip home to come out to her loving and adoring mother, photo albums come out, and the mother suggests, supposedly jokingly (though those of us who are bio females who present as masculine know better), that her daughter go put on the prom dress that the mother has held onto for six years, and as the camera cuts to Jill’s face, I saw it—and I really don’t know if I have ever seen it before—but I saw it: the anguished look of “I cannot believe you see me as something so completely foreign to how I actually am” coupled with the agony of “I cannot believe I am so alien.”

Still, my absolute favorite part of the film comes during this same trip home, as Jill struggles to confess her genderqueerness and decides to bring up the subject when talk of her discomfort and avoidance of going to the gynecologist comes up:

“It’s just … I look like a boy.”

“Noooo, you dooon’t. I don’t think so,” the mom answers, sweetly, as a mom will.

“Kind of,” Jill sort of passively insists.

“Not really,” the mom responds.

“Yeah, but I dress and act like a boy. That’s kind of the look I’m going for.”

“Oh, you’re going for a little boy look?”, the mom asks, gently puzzled.

Jill nods and says, softly, “Little boy charm…”

“Little boy charm,” the mom says, looking at her daughter, thinking it over. “Well, you still need a pap test, little boy. I don’t really see the thing that you’re uncomfortable about.”

“Does it bother you that I dress like a boy?”

“Does it bother me that you dress like a boy?,” the Mom ponders for just a moment, “Well, I just never thought of it as boyish,” she continus, “I just thought of it as bad fashion.”

Fucking awesome.

From Homohate to Homohop

2008-11-18T19:36:00.008-05:00

While writing this blog, I spent some time looking (1)here (2) here(3) here(4)and here. I’ve also been paying attention to the SOLGA (Society for Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists) listserv discussion regarding this issue.

As you can imagine, I have many thoughts regarding the passage of Proposition 8 and the demographics of that vote. While I am disappointed with any and every citizen who cast a vote for injustice, I certainly do not place the responsibility for this hateful deed squarely on the shoulders of black voters—and how could I? Contrary to the shrill, racist accusations of reactionary queers, I recognize that even the sturdy, slavery-toned backs of our fellow black citizens are not broad enough to carry this (black man's) burden. As soon as I became aware of the notion that black voters were somehow to blame for Proposition 8's success, I was immediately confused—"How many black voters are there in California?", I wondered. Followed pretty quickly by, "How on earth could any thinking person believe that black voters have enough political mass to have pushed this proposal through?"

I mean, these figures being thrown around about voter demographics are based on exit polls—talk about voodoo fucking science: folks positioned outside voting locations counting exiting voters and then surveying, say, every third or fifth or ninth one. The CNN poll that gave birth to the ridiculous 70% figure was based on just such “rigorous” polling of 224 black voters.

Did you catch that? No? Then allow me to shout it at the top of my fucking lungs:

This 70% figure that has everyone foaming at the mouth is based on the responses of 224 black voters.

Still, this contentious figure has gained intense national attention, and queers are spewing vitriolic accusations in response. Gay white men are especially bitchy, yo. Dan Savage declared that he’d eat his shorts if anyone could prove that queers voted for McCain in greater numbers than blacks voted against Proposition 8. I won’t even begin to dissect what a tortured parallel he draws with his ludicrous challenge (comparing a national election to a state-wide ballot measure?), but I’m happy to do some research on his query.

In California, where blacks are just over 6% of the population, the total number of eligible black voters is about 1,400,000. Assuming insanely high registration and turnout rates of 80% and assuming that each and every black voter voted in favor of Proposition 8 (both of these suppositions are absolutely ludicrous and patently untrue) this still means that blacks could have cast a maximum of 1.1 million votes that day. And guess what? About 1.3 million queers voted for McCain.

So, not only were blacks not the deciding factor in Proposition 8's passage, but more queers did, indeed, vote for McCain than did blacks for Proposition 8.

So, Dan Savage, get munching, ya sanctimonious prick.

As it turns out, though, queers do love them some McCain, who garnered a larger portion of the queer vote than any Republican candidate in history—27%, as compared to the 19% who supported Bush four years ago. Of course, and again, these numbers are based on CNN exit polling, though in this instance about 17,800 voters were polled, with 4% (about 700) being queer. So, if anything, this poll is a bit more robust than the one being used to scapegoat black voters. As I write this part, I am realizing, though, that Savage probably meant percentages, and not raw numbers, when he made his delightful reference to shorts-eating, in which case, relying on CNN science, anyway, blacks are more homophobic than queers are … Republican?

I don’t know.

I think Dan still needs to take a few nibbles of his shorts, anyway, even if he doesn’t consume them in their entirety. Shame on him for falling into the easy, predictable trap of scapegoating, when a nuanced analysis of race, sexuality, politics, and culture would reveal much richer, more useful results than simply declaring blacks a monolithic, homophobic, uppity mass of bigots.

The simplest truth is that homophobia is expressed with varying degrees of intensity, depending on a whole flood of factors, including, yes, race. I believe that beneath easy generalizations and ugly accusations there lurks a challenging and uncomfortable dialogue that, once undertaken, could ultimately be meaningful and unifying. I am much more interested in that sort of conversation than I am in the shallow, crude, brainless yowlings of thick-headed racists.

And, as I guess I previously mentioned, securing gay marriage is not as high on my list of sociopolitical necessities as are a score of other issues requiring immediate attention: poverty and homelessness; rampant imperialism and warmongering; the annihilation of the poor, middle-, and working- classes by the wealthy; healthcare and housing crises; prison and prisoner proliferation; a failing education system; loss of manufacturing jobs; loss of an agricultural base…

Racism. Homophobia. Misogyny. Classism. Xenophobia.

In the face of the profound distrust and loathing with which disparate groups of Americans have been taught to view one another and the rest of the world, and while millions struggle—to find work, to attend school, to eat, to stay warm, to live—fighting for the right to get married seems pathetically small-minded.

And yeah, it’s totally fucked up—queers pay full taxes and are denied full citizenship. It is completely unfair, and, as I have said for years, I really do not understand why every argument for queer civil rights does not go back to this simple fact: we are tax-payers, which earns us full access to all rights and privileges enjoyed by other Americans.

I think it’s a worthy fight—queer equality—but I am more interested in the bigger battle: unification of all poor-, working-, and middle-class Americans—queer or otherwise, black or otherwise; and if some would point to the success of Proposition 8 and similar measures as proof that this unification will never happen, I will argue that the battle has thus far been poorly fought.

And here, because I am exhausting even myself, I will end by briefly discussing some folks who I think are fighting the good fight—those crazy, wacky purveyors of homohop, which is the delightful moniker given to hip-hop made by queers. Awesome!

Watching the documentary “Pick Up the Mic” the other night, I got lost in the world of homohop, populated by rappers, DJs, and other hip hop artists who are challenging not just hip hop’s deeply entrenched homophobia, but also broader cultural notions of heteronormativity, sexuality, and gender. Homohop cuts across categories of race and class and gender, and in interviews with some of the main players—Dutchboy, Qboy, Katastrophe, Juba Kalamka, Tori Fixx—it became apparent that queer issues were important to these artists, but as part of a larger struggle to express and expose a common humanity. In interviews with these homohoppers, themes of class, identity, privilege, and alienation frequently surface, which I, too, believe are some of the issues at the root of our disconnection from one another.

It just isn't enough to fight for gay rights, or black rights, or women’s rights. We are hopelessly fragmented, we are brutal and single-minded. We spend countless millions to stop others from having the same rights that we do or to gain the right to do something that all the other kids are doing, and meanwhile, the space between us hardens; meanwhile, the world is afire.

If we ever learn to move beyond the particularities that we allow to divide us, if we ever learn to recognize each other as kith and kin, we will recoil from the blasphemies we have done one another.

Keith Olbermann on Prop Hate

2008-11-11T17:46:00.004-05:00

Keith made me feel weepy and gooey.

Then I read the reader comments on various sites that hosted the video, and I felt all crushed and wounded and hopeless.

Then I listened to Keith again.

Warm and gooey, again, sans the faggy tears.

While I have always leaned more toward stripping marriage of any sort of privilege rather than linking it to privileges that can then be denied certain groups, I wouldn't be opposed, you know, in my secret little heart-of-hearts, to it truly being an open institution.

I got my eye on this little kitty cat that lives next door--sweet little thing with a deep, silky coat and a really great, rumbly purr.

Cha cha cha.

Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat

2008-11-01T02:02:00.007-04:00

Studs Terkel, a personal hero of many writers, died today the way most of us would like to: Home in bed, at the age of 96, with a copy of his latest forthcoming book on the nightstand.

The text of a 1995 Mother Jones interview with Terkel is below, and reading it is to be reminded why he'll be so deeply missed.

The MoJo Interview: Studs Terkel: We turn the microphone around on the king of the interview.

September 01, 1995

He's never left his day job, the five-decades-old radio show he hosts on Chicago's WFMT. But it was when he began compiling his interviews into books that Studs Terkel grabbed our undivided attention. Ranging in topic from the Depression (Hard Times), to American jobs (the million-selling Working), to racial divisions (Race), they may be the definitive oral histories of our time.

Now, at 83, Terkel gives us Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who Lived It (New Press). In it, he asks many of his past subjects, now in their 80s and 90s, perhaps his toughest question yet: "What has your life been like?"

Q: You still type out your interviews on your old Remington. Have you been on the Internet yet?

A: They had me on it at the American Booksellers Association convention. I didn't know what they were talking about. The trouble with me and the Internet is that it's about facts and figures and information. But without the flesh and blood and the breathing that goes on, who am I talking to? What do they look like? Is it a multitude? Are there 25 people there? Who is that scraggly kid? The old woman there with a cane? That part--the human touch, that's what's missing.

This is one of the aspects of Coming of Age, one of the complaints that many of these older people have. Technology--some of my heroes and heroines let me know--makes them a little unhappy because something personal is missing.

Q: And yet, in a sense, your books and interviews were a precursor to the Internet, providing generally unfiltered information and ideas to and from ordinary people.

A: If we're to have a future in the 21st century, we'll want to be able to say, "Now what was the 20th century like in the United States of America, the most powerful of all countries of that century? What was it like to be an ordinary person?"

Q: But you first need to get them to open up, which you've been able to do pretty well. How?

A: I don't know. It's open, how I come upon things. [He pauses.] So, I'm in a cab, it was raining. I was working on The Great Divide, heading out interviewing. I'm in this cab and this young white driver saw the tape recorder and says, "Did you see Lord Jim?"
He meant the movie. I says, "Well, no, but I read the book and it's about this guy who finds his courage."
"It's about me, you know."
"About you?"
"Yeah, me--a coward who finds a little courage. That's why I joined the John Birch Society." So I say to myself, I got to get this guy. Oh, Jesus, I need him. I say, "Anywhere, anytime, I want to hear your story. Why you joined the John Birch Society and what you think about things."

And then it comes out. He's a guy who's had bad luck, and he's been a loser all his life. He says he joined the John Birch Society and became pretty important. But he says, "Funny thing, I worked as a prison guard for awhile and I got in trouble. I was going around--see I like black people better than I like white people."

It's all mixed; it's not all one stereotype. He says, "Later on they gave me a rough time because I was fraternizing too much with the prisoners." Now this is the same guy! It's so mixed-up--weird, crazy. And I want to catch that crazy maelstrom in which you can't have stereotypes, you can't have a rule of thumb.

Q: What about you? Is there a question you try to avoid answering?

A: Maybe about my self-centeredness. The way I keep going on this thing. [During interviewing for Hard Times] I had to get a caseworker, a social worker. Well, my wife [Ida, of 56 years] was a social worker during the Depression. And I thought, hmm, she'd be good. I'll change her name, and I did.

She happened to be my wife, but she happened to be good or I would never have used her in a million years. She was telling about--and here's the part--this one white guy, an old-time railroad worker. She remembers him as a distinguished-looking guy, gray hair, he's on relief, and she was given orders--she's a young girl--given orders to look into the closets of these people. As she's telling me this, of course she starts to choke up. She says she looks in his closet and it was empty. And she says, "He was so humiliated, and I was too."

You see that's a very marvelous moment! Marvelous. It was a horrible moment--but I call it a marvelous moment for me, to capture what it was like being humiliated. But as she is choking up, I'm saying, "This is great! This is great!" And she's saying, "You bastard!"

Well, I don't care what she says. That's it, that's the way I work.

Q: Have you ever cut something out of an interview to save someone from being embarrassed?

A: Oh, yeah. No interview, no book is worth the hurt to a person that is irreparable. I'm a strong believer in protecting the privacy of a person. For one thing, I don't want gossip or stuff of that sort. What is it that is said by that person that is a revelation to those reading it? What is the commonality? Of course, that person says, that's me!

Q: Through the years, has there been one issue in this country that seems most neglected or ignored?

A: The big one is the gap between the haves and the have-nots--always. You see, the basic issues--we're always up on these issues of abortion and all the others, that are important of course--but the key issue is jobs. You can't get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket and feeling like somebody.
A guy I interviewed for Hard Times says, "What do I remember about the Great Depression? That I was hungry, that's all." Elemental things.

This came up recently when I was asked: "Will shame do it?" Meaning: Will welfare people be shamed into getting respectable work? And I said that shame plays the biggest role there is: The biggest shame is that there is so much abundance around but that so many have so little and so few have so much. That's the shame.

Q: But living in this amazing house on this incredible street, is it still possible to connect with those have-nots?

A: This street is a have street. This is Uptown, which I like. It is a have-street enclave in a sea of have-nots. Beware of that. Here I am, the romantic again, without feeling the pangs of it. I like Uptown for the United Nations aspect of it. Uptown has more people from different societies and cultures than any area in the country probably. However, only about 100 yards away, there are the have-nots. Am I aware of that? Yeah.
I suppose without consciously doing so, I call upon my background, my childhood--The Wells Grand Hotel [his mother's boardinghouse]--meaning the guys who were there, the journeyman locomotive engineers, the carpenters, who lived in that hotel, and I continuously remember them.

Q: Having interviewed for so many years, are you surprised anymore by what people tell you?

A: The people in Coming of Age were far less curmudgeonly than you would think. The greater percentage said that without the young we'd be lost. One woman, a former Southern belle, now 87, a philanthropist, says, "Well, these young, their history's been stolen from them. And what have we done to make them respect us?" Another old woman remarked how "they try to run me down with the roller skates and the bicycles, and yet when I want to cross the street, they never fail to help me."
People in the book recognize the ambivalence of their feelings, that there is something that's been lost. Their lives have been pretty full. But they grieve for the young--what will their lives be like?

Q: What do you think the future holds?

A: I wish I knew. It's so incredible; unless there's a grassroots movement of some sort, with TV and the media in general in the hands of fewer and fewer people--the Murdochians, you know--all we hear is the one point of view. There has to be something communal.

Remember, Coming of Age opens up with George Bernard Shaw being quoted: "I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community as long as I live." No matter what the issues are, it has to be handled at the grassroots. When you take part in something, even though that movement may lose, the juices start flowing and you feel you count. You count. Well, that's pretty important.

Q: The environmentalist David Brower, whom you interview in Coming of Age, wanted us to ask you: "When did you decide that you were never going to retire? Or do you see some end to your work in sight?"

A: I cannot even picture myself retiring. What would I do? I'll always be doing something, asking somebody questions, even if there weren't a book.
I suppose if I have an epitaph it would be: "Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat." I don't see retiring in the sense that we view it--I don't see how I could. Dying at the microphone or at the typewriter would not be bad.

Dale Eastman is senior editor at Chicago magazine.

Adrift in an Imaginary: America the Beautiful

2008-10-28T17:44:00.007-04:00

So, in one of the most colossal whoops-a-daisys of our time, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan has admitted to being wrong about government regulation being the big, bad enemy of the market.

I believe this is what’s known as a pyrrhic victory, no?

While being questioned during a hearing on the role of federal regulators in the current financial crisis, Greenspan declared: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms" (The Financial Crisis and the Role of Federal Regulators, preliminary transcript, pg 34, ln 768-772).

Well, stop the presses! Is Greenspan actually suggesting that the folks who work with money and finances—other peoples' money and finances—actually need to be monitored? Their SELF-INTEREST won't keep them honest?

Huh.

Ok, but still, maybe Greenspan and all the other "invisible hand" devotees are on to something; maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this notion of self-interest being a positive guiding force--

How about we get rid of all those pesky referees and other sports officials—just let the players, coaches, and trainers call all the games? Or the fans, should it be the fans? The owners? No? Or wait, jeebus, what am I thinking? "Call" the game? Hell, no! Let’s just toss out all the rules! Pure and simple deregulation folks—let the folks who play the game decide how to run the game. Maybe they’ll choose to honor the old rules, maybe they’ll make new rules and stick to them, maybe they won’t—but surely they know best; I mean, they have their self-interest to guide them.

A weak parallel that may be, but still, the shrill attacks on government regulation really do seem to me as ridiculous as the notion I present above. I mean, how many times and how badly does deregulation have to fail in order for it to quit being touted as a viable economic strategy?

I also cannot help but wonder just what it is about businessfolk in the first place that created the perception that they were capable of policing themselves. It’s not like this is a new notion, either; government has been sucking business’s cock for years. I mean, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, government frequently extends to businesses and corporations the sort of hand-outs and immunities that are seen as blasphemous when given to individual citizens in need. Of course, in turn, government uses business and corporations to spread American influence beyond our shores.

And so, yeah, I recognize how the incestuous relationship between capitalism, government, and business has coalesced into a blunt instrument that is used to manipulate and bludgeon most of the American citizenry into a flaccid, placid, docile mass of overworked, underpaid, underinsured, exhausted drones, just as this instrument has been used to “sell the American Dream” on a global scale. I mean—I see that reality, and I even understand why the people with money and power have made the decisions that they’ve made; what I cannot and will not ever understand is how the tiny minority of folks who benefit from that costly brand of United States democracy and capitalism have gotten the remaining, massive majority to be the protectors of a system that exploits and dehumanizes them.

Capitalism is brutal and vicious, with a vociferous appetite for flesh and blood. How else to describe a system that cannot exist without a class of people ripe for exploitation, a system that devours those who are used to perpetuate it?

In the article I read at Mother Jones, David Corn writes that Greenspan’s testimony sends "decades of Ayn Rand down the drain," and oh, my, the ire that this statement raises among the Randites who comment on the story.

What-the-fuck-ever.

Greenspan and Rand had a decades-long connection that began when Greenspan was a young man and joined Rand's salon, where he became a fierce believer in Rand's notion of Objectivism, a radical philosophy of individualism and self-interest built upon a framework of unfettered capitalism. I have never read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but I have read interviews with Rand, and I think she is vile—her ideas about feminism and homosexuality, her glorification of the individual over the collective, her notion of rational egoism …

No, thanks.

And see, I didn’t say a thing about the rape scene … Or about what a truly awful writer she is.

But this wasn't supposed to be about Ayn Rand or Alan Greenspan, even, beyond my using his confession as a springboard to something that I just can’t seem to get at here...

I wanted to write about … how lost we are, we Americans, we pilgrims, we beaten-down rebels, we dreamers of dreams …

But here’s the rub: we have always been adrift, fumbling toward a more perfect union, grasping for the promise of our greatest thinkers and of our most-exalted documents—we have never truly been the "America" that exists in patriotic imaginaries.

The America that real people move through, each and every day, has always been harsh, uncompromising, and unjust, and though we have had both the blueprints and the wise words of brilliant thinkers to guide us, for more than two centuries, now, still we fail, as citizens and leaders, as comrades, as humans.

America's sun has never shone evenly on all her citizens, and a great many toil daily even while staying faithful to this dream that has more than likely left them out of the fold. Looking nostalgically toward a mythological America that fulfilled the promise of its framers is naïve and wrongheaded—that America has never existed. From the very beginnings of this project we call "these United States," this land has been populated by both the free and the chained. Think of it—if we were to revert to our exalted founding fathers' earliest vision, only white, land-owning men would have the right to vote—and no Catholics, Jews, or Quakers, either, white and propertied or not. I mean, this country has not even existed for 100 years with full suffrage for its citizens. And, with dirty polling tricks still in existence, I really don’t even feel comfortable using the phrase "full suffrage" to define the United States in its current incarnation.

Can our government do better for its citizens? Can we move closer toward the ideal that thus far has existed only on paper and in our collective yearnings?

Absolutely.

But not without our urging, our demanding, our clamoring.

And still, even with a government that functions in a just, even-handed manner, there will be those who stumble, there will be those who fall, out of sight, and without hope. This, where even good government fails, is where we must step in ourselves and lift up our brothers and sisters.

Because this is America, and we are kindred.

Aren’t we?

Crimson and Clover

2008-10-23T10:56:00.004-04:00

Many moons ago, I was "tagged" on myspace to compose one of those "Ten Things You May Not Know About Me" blog posts. One of the things I shared was a story from my past about passing as a boy when I was a wee queer. Recalling that story seems to have opened the proverbial flood gates for me, because since then, I have been working, off-and-on, on a writing project focusing on my life as a sentient little queer.

The story below is an expanded version of the one that first appeared on my myspace page. Out of all the personal stuff I have posted here, making this public leaves me feeling very fragile and exposed--treat me gently, but feel free to comment, criticize, or just shake your head at what a little freak I was.

Was?

Whatever.

Crimson and Clover

The days of my purposely trying to pass as a dude are far behind me, but, up until about 60 pounds ago, it happened quite often that I was seen and addressed as a guy. I guess I was about 10 or 11 years old the first time I successfully "passed." Up until then, when I was mistaken for a boy, my mother would quickly declare that I was a girl. In fact, I found out quite young that the people around me—family, friends, even strangers who recognized my inherent girliness—would "jump to my defense" when my sex was in question and quickly proclaim, all defensive-like, "She's a girl!" I always felt such a rush of emotions when that happened—pleased, of course, that someone had recognized the inescapable fact of my boyishness, and ashamed, of course, for failing so completely at being what I was supposed to be—a girl. It made me feel bad for my parents, too, when it happened in their presence, because it seemed to make everyone involved feel so incredibly uncomfortable—I hated, so much, being such a constant source of embarrassment.

So, anyway, I wasn't trying to pass on this particular day in 1978 or '79—when I was 10 or 11 and all skin-and-bones and (mostly) heavy-hearted because I knew I was queer, and I was pretty sure that it would someday crush me or get me killed. It was the weekend, it was sunny and hot, and my friend Shelly and I were at the elementary school on our skateboards, daring each other into more and more ridiculous stunts. Shelly lived in the house behind ours—in less than a minute I could walk out my back door, across our small backyard, hop the fence into her yard, and then be knocking at her door. Her house was pretty similar to ours in layout and size, except it had a basement with a pool table and, best of all, a full-sized, honest-to-goodness, genuine pinball machine. We just had a crawl space filled with bugs and mice.

Shelly lived with her mom and two brothers, who were the short, compact, amazingly-athletic kind of boys who seemed capable of any physical feat. They were track and field superstars at school and rode BMX bikes and skateboards the rest of the time—all the time. They built a half-pipe in their backyard, and Shelly and I would lay in the grass watching them and their friends kick, push, grind, fly … Whenever their energy took them out of the backyard and onto the sidewalks and streets, Shelly and I would immediately attack the half-pipe, mimicking their moves and earning bruises and scrapes that we wore like badges. Shelly was also compact and athletic like her brothers, and though I think I may have possessed more natural athleticism than she did, she made up for it with her total fearlessness. We pushed each other physically but got along effortlessly; Shelly had a peacefulness about her, and she was as kind and decent as she was courageous. We never talked about being queer, though I guess I thought somewhere inside that she was like me; we both wore our brothers’ old clothes, had short hair, played sports, didn’t have crushes on boys.

We spent our time together on skateboards or bikes, or playing some sort of sport or catch, or in Shelly’s basement listening to music and playing pinball or video games or with the racetrack or maybe just drawing. Once in a while another girl would join us—one of our cousins or the daughter of one of our mom’s friends or just someone from school, or from around the corner, or from wherever, and it would always be the most awkward scene: Shelly and I suggesting we play with the racetrack or ride skateboards or play spy or something, and the visitor looking totally dumbfounded and asking if we had Barbies or if we could play school or store…

The only time Shelly and I ever fought, it was when smoky-voiced Samantha came home after school with us. Samantha had dark, shoulder-length hair and possibly the first really green eyes I had ever seen, and she had that voice. I couldn’t have been more than 10 or 11, but even then I recognized that her voice was sexy. I loved to hear her talk, god. I think Shelly felt all the same things that I felt, because at some point, a pool game devolved into an actual, physical fight between the two of us. We had already had a strange three-way tussle, borne of some sort of cop/chase game that Samantha had actually suggested we play, though she was the first to disengage herself from the tangle, and she certainly seemed edgy afterwards. It was then that we tried to play a game of pool, but Samantha just sort of coolly watched while Shelly and I played, and I guess we just could not handle the tension of it all, because soon, Shelly and I were brawling. Samantha left while we were rolling around on the pool table, flushed and angry with each other in a way that we never had been before. Once we heard the door slam and came to our senses, we were both pretty embarrassed and ashamed. We made up and bonded over finding ways to blame Samantha for what had happened, though we never talked about any of it again.

At school, Samantha did a strange thing—she called me weird and giggled with her friends whenever I was around, but she asked the boy who sat across from me to swap seats with her, and he did. Shelly and I never fought or argued again, though we spent nearly every waking minute together, and though we encountered more girls together.

So, one impossibly sunny Saturday afternoon, Shelly and I were using the elementary school’s entrance ramp and its steel guard-rails to practice ollies and grinds. As usual, Shelly was quietly and determinedly pushing herself harder and faster and higher, though I’m the one who still has a quarter-sized scar on the outside of my left knee from spilling onto the ramp that day and dragging my knee along the cement for a few feet. I remember being pleased with the way the blood streaked down my leg and turned the top of my sock crimson. After crashing, I rode a little harder, emboldened by having crashed badly and lived, enjoying the way the wind stung my torn skin.

After a while, some girls rode their bikes into the schoolyard and spotted us. At first they just straddled their bikes and watched and talked amongst themselves, but soon enough they were sitting on the ground laughing and eating snacks from the nearby party store. There were three of them, all long-haired and honey-skinned from the sun.

Foxes.

Stone foxes.

Shelly and I didn’t say a word, but we each upped our games, flying higher and higher and slapping palms and laughing as we landed crazier and crazier tricks. Soon, the unimaginable happened, and the girls were flirting with us—hooting and hollering as we rode, calling out their names and asking ours (Shelly answered “Shane” and I went with "Mac," though, thankfully, it was misheard as "Max"), doing little cheers as we performed.

I still remember the look that passed between Shelly and me as we realized what was happening, and I still remember how it felt to catch air that day, the sun hot on my back, my board impossibly light, landing everything. I remember, too, walking toward these stone foxes once Shelly and I had completely exhausted ourselves. How my heart lodged in my throat. How the sun shone. How my legs shook. I had just pulled off some pretty sweet tricks on my board, but rolling across those ten feet of flat concrete seemed too risky on legs that suddenly felt like silly string, and so I picked up my board and walked, carefully.

Shelly, normally so quiet, was bold and talkative, and she let one of the girls try to stand on her board. They laughed together as the girl wobbled and Shelly steadied her. I absolutely could not believe what was happening. I stared at the clover-covered patch of earth, feeling light-as-a-feather, and then the girl with the darkest eyes and softest laugh offered me a pull off her bottle of Coke. Sharonda. Our fingers brushed and then held for a few beats longer than necessary, and when she smiled at me, I got dizzy and stared at my feet. She dropped down onto the ground and gently traced a circle around my wound, asking, “Why don’t you sit down?” I really had no choice, since her touch had taken the last bit of strength out of my ridiculous legs. I sat. She crossed her legs Indian-style, allowing her knee to rest against my thigh. It was one of the first moments in my life that I never wanted to end. I kept stealing glances at her knee on my thigh, her skin against mine, the clover beneath us. Too soon, one of the other girls said it was time for them to go, and so Shelly and I skated away, pumping hard, not saying a word, but in my head: Sha-ron-da, Sha-ron-da, Sha-ron-da...

Spreading the Wealth Around? Why Not?

2008-10-21T15:14:00.004-04:00

Hey folks. I lifted the excellent article below from Common Dreams. Buzzanco, in addition to having an awesome name, has written a passionate, compelling, timely essay addressing the gaping, yawning, staggering divide that exists between the rich and the rest of us, in regards to income, wealth, and power, in these United States.

Spreading the Wealth Around? Why Not?
by Robert Buzzanco

According to the Republican candidate for U.S. president, John McCain, whose family wealth exceeds $120 million, and who owns eight houses and thirteen cars, Democrat Barack Obama poses a grave threat to our democracy and economy because he will, as he told a voter in Ohio, "spread the wealth around."

Though socialism has been essentially dead for decades, and there is no viable left in the United States, the McCain campaign is resurrecting claims of "class warfare" and calling Obama a radical. On one point, McCain is right: there is class warfare in the United States, and for the past three decades, it has been waged from the top down, by the wealthiest class, the likes of John and Cindy McCain, against the middle- and working-classes of America.

Since the 1970s, middle- and working-class Americans have seen a fairly steady decline in real income, with brief spurts of recovery in the 1990s. Overall, however, the trend has been downward. By the year 2000, average net worth for Americans, adjusted for inflation, was less than it had been in 1983.

Subsequently, propelled by tax cuts for America's wealthiest and deregulation of financial markets and corporations, between 2001 and 2006 the average income of the top tenth of Americans increased about 15 percent a year, to about $250,000, while the average income of the lower 90 percent decreased, the first time since such data was first collected in 1917 that those conditions of increased wealth at the top and decline for everyone else had occurred. More to the point, the average income of the top tenth of wage earners is about 8 times greater than the bottom 90 percent, a wealth gap greater than that under Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression.

Since the mid-1970s the top 1 percent of households have doubled their share of national wealth and now have more wealth, 60 percent or more, than the bottom 95 percent. Meantime, in the late 1980s and 1990s, inflation-adjusted net worth for a median household fell, from about $55 to $50 thousand dollars, and about 20 percent of households had zero or negative net worth [more debt than assets]. Those numbers are growing rapidly, especially as home foreclosures reach record heights.

Again adjusting for inflation, weekly wages for workers were down over 12 percent from the early 1970s, when that notable liberal Richard Nixon, who instituted wage and price controls to combat the recession of 1973, was president. Indeed, the Nixon years may have marked the heyday for American workers, as family incomes today are about the same as they were in the early 1970s and far more families have two wage-earners than they did thirty-five years ago.

Today, about two-thirds of Americans make less than $50,000 per year. The bottom 40 percent of Americans controls just 0.2 percent of wealth; the next 40 percent has about 15 percent of national wealth; the next 10 percent owns about 13 percent of wealth; and the top tenth has the rest.

Once could continue with such statistics ad infinitum but the point is obvious. Unless one lives in the rarified air of the top ten percent, she or he has experienced an economic downturn over the past decades, and a particularly acute decline in wealth in the past 8 years. That, of course, does not even take account of the current economic disasters in housing, credit and in the stock market, as jobs are lost and pensions are disappearing. Most families now survive by going deeper into debt and household debt as a percentage of personal income has risen from about 60 percent in the early 1970s to about 90 percent, and is increasing, today.

Given such stark data, and the drastic decline in income and wealth for nine-tenths of Americans, the idea of having state policies and a tax system to "spread the wealth around" is simply a recognition that our current economy has collapsed, as if the housing bubble and stock market eruptions haven't shown us that yet anyway. Too few people hold the overwhelming share of our national wealth, and the vast majority of Americans have to survive by using a credit card, not simply for "luxuries," as the conservative canard goes, but to pay for food, rent, and medical care.

Rather than complain about "class warfare," John McCain should recognize his privilege and promote policies that would make his family, his class cronies, and American corporations, especially those who ship jobs overseas, pay their fair share -- not seek more tax cuts for those who have already gotten rich at the government trough. And if that involves "spreading the wealth around," then it's long overdue.

Robert Buzzanco is a professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Houston.

Music and Politics

2008-10-20T19:59:00.006-04:00

So, I’ve gotten all sorts of feedback in response to my "Joe the Plumber" post, and some of it was actually positive and supportive (thanks, Carrie : ).

I’m not surprised by the anger and hostility; mostly, it just leaves me disheartened.

Though, I guess I was ridiculously provocative myself, calling Joe a “prick” and a “dumbfuck” and…

Huh.

Well, I have never pretended to be adept at using reason and logic to prove a point, especially since barbed-wire wrapped exasperation and sarcasm drip so easily from my tongue. In fact, I fear I am a little bit like McCain—huffing, puffing, impatient. Wow, I really cannot believe that I just drew a comparison between me and that ruddy little troll, but it sort of gets at something that has been nagging at me, especially since the first presidential debate—McCain’s supposed connection to the floundering American populace. Here is an excerpt from a writing project I was working on with my awesome friend Ryan, a smarty-pants who’s doing some really great thinking and writing regarding this year’s election. The passage here was written by me as part of an email conversation Ryan and I had following the first presidential debate:

My overall, shallow interpretation is that both candidates mostly seemed to merely repeat their already well-known policy positions as well as their criticisms of the other’s former decisions and future plans; I felt that anyone on the fence would not have been impressed enough with Obama to jump to his side; I have this idea that he lacks the sort of pugilistic, angry nature that Americans have come to expect and respect in their politicians. I worry that McCain, somehow, and so PERVERSELY, actually seems more populist than does Obama, because McCain seems angry for the citizenry in a way that Obama does not. It’s that damned cool, rational, intellectual nature of Obama’s—even if it’s a superior framework for leading nations and solving problems, it just seems detached, in some way, from the desperation of the truly fearful, even as it connects so solidly with most middle-and upper-class progressives …

While I feel infinitely more comfortable with Obama’s chances since last week’s debate, I am still wary and anxious, too, and sort of braced for a lashing. At my weakest moments, I wonder what makes me believe that this election will even take place (what will be our Reichstag, I wonder?) or that our votes will be tallied as they are cast. And I am still uneasy about the very same issues I mentioned above—if you spend any time reading news articles and subsequent reader comments, then you know there really does exist a significant portion of the American population who believe any number of unfortunate untruths: that Obama is a terrorist; that he is the anti-christ; that he is responsible for the housing crisis; that he wants to kill and eat tiny babies; and, of course, just as mind-boggling but more sinister, really, that McCain is better-qualified than Obama to lead this country…

You know, I started this post to talk about my use of the term “culture wars” in my “Joe the Plumber” post, but I have gone so far off-track that I’m just going to wrap this up by posting Ryan’s take on the first debate—“old news”, I know, but the message here is still current and vital. I referred to this earlier as a writing project of mine and Ryan’s, but I merely edited this a tiny bit; this is Ryan’s work, and the credit goes to him. Oh, and Ryan's objective was to strike that reasonable, logical tone that is so elusive to me--he lives in Texas and was writing this in order for it to be published in his local newspaper; his strategy was to avoid alienating Republicans while still providing ample reasons for supporting Obama over McCain.

And jesus, while you're reading, listen to Nina Simone’s “Funkier than a Mosquito’s Tweeter”. Absolute aural ecstacy. And then some Balkan Beat Box, and definitely do not miss "Damn", by Kinny and TM Juke.

It's all there, on my awesome jukebox, and I do it for you, for all of you, because, you know, I love you.

And stuff.

Be good.

And here, as promised, more reasons to vote for Obama:

Last night I nerded out with some colleagues over drinks while taking in the first debate between presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama. The polls are showing that Obama won this first bout, but I saw things differently. True, as the candidates spoke about the economic crisis, I felt bad for Johnny McSame—he looked out of his element and, frankly, like he was about to cry. If I had played the role he has played in deregulating the banking industry and stock market, I'd probably cry, too. But it was foreign policy discussion that took center stage this evening, and when all was said-and-done, I shocked my fellow Democrats by doffing my cap to the old hawk.

What I saw in McCain was the coolness of a guy who has been on the most important foreign policy committees since the war with the Barbary Pirates. The depth and breadth of his knowledge and experience are stunning, and for the most part, he presented that knowledge with remarkable clarity and force. A one-term senator, even one with Obama's foreign policy experience, just can't compete with that level of understanding and competence.

Still, McCain’s show of strength didn't make me waver in my vote one iota.

Why?

The easy answer is, of course, judgment, and McCain’s lack of even a shred of it. And though Obama drove that point home again and again last night, my support for him is rooted not just in McCain’s dearth of good sense, but also in the very fundamentals of the commander-in-chief role and Obama’s understanding of those fundamentals.

For example, McCain's depth and breadth of foreign policy knowledge, as impressive as it is, is easily matched by other senators and lifelong government folks, including, of course, Joe Biden. Recognizing Biden’s experience and skill, Obama chose him as his running mate, beefing up the Democratic ticket’s foreign policy muscle. Obama recognizes that you need that sort of deep knowledge among all of your advisors—the National Security Administration, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense—and his well-reasoned choice of Biden suggests that he will stock those posts with equally knowledgeable folks.

Still, knowledge, as we all know, isn't enough. Not many people knew more about the international arena than did Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. How well did that turn out? Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, entered office with not much more than the idea that Communism is Bad, and Democracy and Capitalism are Good. Still, even my fellow liberals have to admit that in the foreign policy arena, Reagan was pretty successful.

Now, it's dangerous to compare a relatively inexperienced politician with Ronald Reagan, but let's remember that upon taking office, Reagan actually had less foreign policy experience than Obama has now. What Reagan did have, and in spades, was the ability to inspire hope and confidence in scores of American people and in our allies during fairly difficult and scary times. Sound familiar? Because unless you flat out hate him, you just cannot look at Obama's travels through the Middle East, Africa, and Europe and not be impressed, nor can you deny the significance of his positive international image.

It is evident that foreign leaders, particularly in Europe—where our allies are alienated but much needed—love Obama and are willing to work with him. Like Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan before him, Obama has inspired hundreds of thousands of Europeans to wave American flags, and—and this is significant—pro-American populations elect pro-American governments. This is no small thing; recall that after Bush invaded Iraq and gave Europe the finger, those Europeans elected leaders who were unwilling to work with America on a whole host of issues, particularly in the foreign policy arena.

Further, people and leaders in Africa, of course, adore Obama. Why does that matter? Because those impoverished African nations are prime breeding grounds for both anti-Americanism and terrorist recruitment.

Regrettably, neither of our presidential candidates is really able to scare any Middle Eastern terrorist groups. People who are willing to strap bombs to themselves and slaughter innocent men, women, and children are not cowed by angry posturing in the United States. If anything, they seem to get a sick jolt from it.

"Bring it on," taunted Bush.

And so they did.

It seems evident, too, that the leaders of any Middle Eastern country willing to work rationally with us would respond more positively to diplomacy than to additional angry posturing. And frankly, though probably not very importantly, that middle name of Obama's just might be a bit of an advantage in bending their ears…

Beyond everything else, Obama does what Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan did best: he inspires. Now that Reagan is dead and gone, conservatives easily dismiss hope and inspiration as misplaced sentimentalism, as if they never anointed Reagan "the great communicator" or waxed poetic about his visions of a shining city on a hill. In sharp contrast, John McCain scares the bejeezus out of people, here at home and abroad. His hawkishness is resented in nearly every corner of the globe, and he is seen in foreign policy terms as the second coming of Bush, albeit a smarter version. Even if McCain's military strategy is superior to Obama’s—I certainly do not believe it is, and apparently more retired generals agree with Obama than with McCain, if that counts for anything—what is needed most desperately right now is successful diplomacy. If Iraq has taught us anything, I hope it's the bloody, costly, reputation-tarnishing lesson that we don't have the manpower or money to go it alone again.

Finally, there is the Palin factor. Not to be crass, but McCain is three years short of the average life expectancy, and his body has been brutalized by torture, 20 years of smoking, various surgeries, and every type of skin cancer known to science. The odds of Palin taking office are ominously high compared to other vice presidents across history, and after watching the three interviews that her campaign allowed her, it is clear why her advisors are so desperate to shield her from public scrutiny. The Couric interview alone was chilling, and that was Katie Couric—not exactly like staring down Putin, whose head, Palin seems to think, might any day soon come flying over Alaska…

In summary, while McCain most certainly does have foreign policy gravitas, he falls short in nearly every other measure of fitness for becoming commander-in-chief, and in Palin he has made a truly appalling and terrifying vice-presidential selection. Obama, on the other hand, has consistently shown himself to be a fully rounded candidate, ready to lead the United States into a safer, more prosperous future, with Biden a tested and talented counterpart.

Joe the Plumber: Lost in the House of Dreams

2008-10-17T12:30:00.007-04:00

You never can tell what sort of thing may inspire a “comeback” (but don’t call it a…).

Some of you know I have been unraveling for a while now—those who know me really well probably can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like this was happening. So, in that sense, I guess, yadayadayada, huh? As the yadayadayada has been happening, my writing (blogging, emailing, journaling), for the most part, has come to a stand-still, though up until about three weeks ago, I was putting a lot of time and energy into a personal writing project focused on my experience growing up as a sentient queerchild ; ) But now, even my work on that project has ceased, though I am thinking of posting parts of that endeavor here.

Anyway.

I compose blogs in my head all the time, but I have lost the ability to translate my musings to the screen. I was just doing this—composing a blog in my head—after reading an article about that stupid prick, Joe the Plumber, when I decided to give making my thoughts public another try.

Though I am now so disturbed by my own characterization of what I am doing—“making my thoughts public”—that I feel stymied all over again.

OK. Whatever.

Joe the Plumber.

Watching the final presidential debate, I learned that Joe the Plumber, McCain’s “everyman”, was considering purchasing the quarter-of-a-million dollar plumbing company that employed him (that is not like any man or woman I know, let alone everyman), but Obama’s proposed tax plan, should he be elected, was somehow going to keep Joe from fulfilling that dream. In between grunts, grimaces, and eye-rolls, McCain worked in as many “Joe the Plumber” references as he could, until I wasn’t even sure that this plumber was a real guy—I thought maybe McCain had resorted to some sort of biblical parable-speak.

But, no, turns out Joe the Plumber is, indeed, a real guy. Funny thing, though—he’s not a licensed or registered plumber.

His real name is Joe Wurzelbacher, and he’s been the focus of some major media attention ever since Obama visited his Toledo, Ohio neighborhood in order to greet voters and seek support. As Obama made his way through the neighborhood, Wurzelbacher challenged him about his tax plan and said that he wanted to buy the plumbing company that he worked for, but that Obama’s tax plan would make it prohibitive. Obama responded by explaining that he wanted to be able to give tax breaks to 95% of working Americans and that he wanted to help all the folks who were hoping to get a start in a small business (read: businesses with annual earnings of less than $250,000), and he mentioned something about “spreading the wealth around” (oh no he di’n’t)(oh yes he did).

So this Wurzelbacher fellow, our Joe the Plumber, in addition to not being an actual plumber, also seems in a poor position to purchase the plumbing and heating company for which he works, as his divorce papers show that he earned about $40,000 in 2006. Then, in 2007, there was a lien placed against him for about $1200 in personal property taxes that he hadn’t paid. So, although Obama’s tax plan would actually benefit this dumbfuck far, FAR more than McCain’s proposal would, he insists that he would not want Obama’s promised tax cut, should Obama be elected. It seems his delicate, working-man sensibilities were injured by this talk of “spreading the wealth around,” because Joe the Dumber buttresses his blustery claims with vague comments about socialism and about how it’s wrong to “take someone’s money because they work a little harder.”

Beyond how utterly pathetic it is, all these poor slobs who vote as if protecting some future wealth that they have not yet accumulated—and never will under the policies of the leaders they support—it nearly makes my head explode, this feeble-minded buffoon’s grasp of socioeconomics, not to mention his empty-headed parroting of the ridiculous notion that folks who make a lot of money work harder than those who make a little money. If hard work increased earnings, my grandpa—who worked sunup to sundown from the time he was a boy, until multiple strokes and bouts with cancer whittled him down to a whisper; who finally succumbed to death while digging up a weeping cheery tree just as stubborn and rebellious as he was: its branches refused to “weep,” thus my grandpa’s fight to uproot it that quiet April day—should have died with more money than Warren Buffet.

Another hard-work vignette: The people across the street from me struggle to keep their lights on, to heat their home, to eat. They earn a portion of their living from junking and scrapping—they scavenge dumpsters and trash cans, abandoned houses and empty lots, hauling, carrying, and dragging hundreds and hundreds of pounds of metal to their yard almost daily, where they disassemble it with brute force—smashing big things with sledgehammers and little things with claw hammers. They then separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and haul the prized metals to the scrap-yards. I have seen them disassemble an entire car in a matter of hours. They do this work every day, sometimes until late into the evening. I often drift off to sleep and awaken to the same repetitive sound of hammer on metal, a ringing thunk thunk thunk in the air. This is hard work. It is heavy, dirty work. It tears skin and bruises knuckles and breaks backs.

These people are also pretty fucking scandalous, which I mention lest I have unintentionally painted too sensitive a portrayal or romanticized their scrappin’ ways. For example, soon after Elizabeth moved into the neighborhood, the oldest son in the scrappin’ house set her up to be robbed, as he had done for nearly every house on the block, including his own. So.

Back to Obama’s “spreading the wealth” comment … I am completely flabbergasted by the negative response this comment generated—all this wild-eyed talk of socialism and wealth redistribution, all this swooning and calling for the vapors. I got news for you motherfuckers: wealth is redistributed, it just moves from the bottom up, you know?

Same old fucking thing—as soon as there’s talk of moving wealth from the top down, it’s class warfare—just like William Sloane Coffin said:

When the rich take from the poor, it’s called an economic plan.
When the poor take from the rich, it’s called class warfare.

In a short email exchange with a friend recently, I lamented about all these folks who have been so negatively affected by the culture wars that they align themselves with the cruelest, coldest, most terrifying leaders. All this brainwashing, all this polarizing and factionalizing, all this effort to ensure that Americans somehow have less solidarity, as a people, than they have nationalism—you know what I mean? All this “proud to be an American” bullshit, all this “they hate us for our freedom” bullshit, all this “America is the best” bullshit, but then, somehow, Americans just hate the fuck out of each other, you know?

Worse, we don’t even hate the right people. The "American Dream" has been so deeply implanted in our psyches that poor and working-class folks most often recognize each other as competitors for an ever-diminishing slice of the money pie, when we should be recognizing each other as comrades (oh no she di’n’t) (oh yes she did). I mean, what level of delusion does it take for a loser like Joe the Plumber to think that *he* can join the ranks of the folks who slice the pie and, with it dripping from their soft, smooth hands, smear it all over their greedy faces?

Someone should tell Joe that around 20% of the American population owns 85% of America’s privately held wealth. And yes, this means that the rest of us—80% of the population—share the remaining 15% of American wealth. I mean, I don’t even know how to add commentary to those figures, because they make such a powerful statement all on their own.

Here’s another stunner: The richest 10% of the American population hold 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. So, as the site I lifted these numbers from points out, that means that about 10% of our population owns this country.

The last set of statistics I will throw at you concerns the gap in annual pay between a CEO and an average American factory worker: this ratio rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000. It was at 411:1 in 2005. You are, indeed, reading that correctly. So, for example, if a factory worker makes $25 an hour, the corresponding CEO rate would be $10,275 an hour. We live in a country where people can't afford health care, where people live on the streets, where people go to bed hungry, while other people are making $10,000 an hour.

Again, I have no words that could make those statistics any more meaningful or powerful than they are on their own.

And I am totaly bumming myself out, anyway.

My friend "the injector" invoked Bruce Springsteen in her last blog and talked about “The Rising.” I think that may be a nice way for me to wrap this up, as well—posting the text of this absolutely beautiful speech the Boss has been giving at voter registration events.

Peace.

I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real: opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project.

In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps.

Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again.

But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

sex, lies, and gendertape

2008-08-05T16:10:00.014-04:00

So, I've been sent a few news articles regarding the murder of Angie Zapata, a transwoman whose age I haven't been able to determine (a quick Google search reveals a range of cited ages, from 18- to 21-years-old. Honestly, I guess there's just not a whole lot of difference between 18 and 21, if you're talking about the endpoint to someones life. Zapata was young). For anyone who hasn't heard about this murder, here is a shamefully brief summary: Zapata was born male but had been identifying as a girl/woman for the past six years or so; she had not yet had any reconstructive surgeries (I do not know if she planned on ever doing so); she met a 32-year-old man online, and they arranged a meeting; they met and shared some sort of intimate experience; she lied to him about her sex; he found out and beat her to death with a fire extinguisher.

While being questioned by the police, the murderer, Allen Ray Andrade, explained that he thought he had "killed it," referring to Zapata. It hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer, this cold, casual, statement, and transfolks and allies have jumped all over this dehumanizing language. Rightfully so.

The thing is, my brief survey of the commentary out there regarding this case reveals that very few people seem to be troubled by Zapata's behavior. A (possibly) 18-year-old dating a 32-year-old? A biological male passing himself off as female--and not just for a night out dancing, but while inviting and engaging in sexual encounters? Reckless and dangerous and unethical and absolutely unacceptable.

So, for the record, I am totally against the death penalty as it exists, but in my world, this Andrade fuck gets got. What he did is heinous, inexcusable, unforgivable. This world has no place or use for him. This is where my own temper and problems with anger get the best of me--I imagine a thousand excruciating tortures for Andrade, a slow, harrowing, agonizing death, when I know the simple snuffing of his life is the more honorable thought. I have a code for fuck's sake, ok? It's just the darker parts of my psyche that have a hard time honoring it...

I need to say here that I also think that what Zapata was doing was a crime. In my world, if Andrade had been able to hold his weak, pathetic shit together, he could have sued Zapata for false representation or something. Honestly. It is not acceptable to lie to people about your fucking sex. Period.

I guess I should also say here that my relationship with trans issues is really thorny. From the moment I heard about "sex-change operations," when I was about six-years-old, I dreamed of the day when I would have mine. Up until that time, I had gone to bed every night praying to wake up as a boy. After a few years of this, a TV show about Christine Jorgensen totally blew my little mind and made me decide to put my faith in science, not god, to help me become what I knew I was supposed to be--a real, live boy.

I was in my 20s before I fully accepted that a sex-change was not what I wanted. This realization was watershed, and it was tied to my slow recognition of all the glue and tape and thread that it takes to patch together the myths that form our cultural fabric. That's a whole 'nother story and a lifetime of blogs, but suffice it to say that I think there is something heartbreakingly misguided about carving up a body in order to meet society's expectations for sex and gender performance. Yes, I feel at odds with my body, yes, I present as masculine, yes, I have passed as a dude--accidentally and purposely. Still, my decision to forgo body modification is because, after much rumination and writing, I realized that I don't locate "the problem" within myself; I locate it within the collective ignorance, fear, and complacency that forms the bedrock of our culture.

What I'd love to see is a forced recasting of our cultural notions regarding this thing we call "gender" and the way it relates to our genitalia; we must divorce privilege, expectation, and opportunity from our sexual organs. In fact, I will be so bold as to argue that the form and function of one's junk should only be important to said junk's owner and to any potential sexual partners:

"So, your penis is fully functional, then?"
"Why yes it is, m'lady, fully functional. And may I inquire as to your own genitalia?" "Oh, but of course! Both my vulva and my vagina are in fine working order, I can assure you!"

Or:

"My, but your clitoris is lovely in the morning light."
"Why, thank you, sugar. I was just thinking of how very much I adore the shape of your ass"

And so on.

Anyway, here's the thing that I think about a lot lately: I suspect that if I had been born into a world that had allowed me to do all of the things that came naturally to me--play sports, climb trees, sit with my legs "like a boy," ride dirtbikes and skateboards, shun baby dolls for GI Joes, wear tennis shoes and jeans and neverever a dress, learn a trade like carpentry or masonry, and, you know, most importantly, love girls like I love breathing--without overloading me with all those cultural messages that made me know that my behavior was suspect, then maybe I wouldn't have spent this lifetime so dreadfully uncomfortable in my own skin, sure that I have been born the wrong sex.

Usually this sort of talk from me invites a little bit of thoughtful dialogue and a whole lot of angry responses from transfolk who want to get into pissing matches with me about which of us "feels" the most male, about which of us has the bigger imaginary cock.

Mine is huge, trust me, but not so much that it scares the ladies.

Anyway, I won't engage in that sort of "look-inside-my-soul-for-the-penis" discourse. It's OK with me if you've decided to modify your body; it just isn't my path.

Obviously my mind is everywhere--whenever I start thinking about trans issues and the world around me and my own identity, my thoughts turn quicksilver--but one place it keeps returning is to Angie Zapata's picture. Young, beautiful, brash in that way only teenagers can manage... I know I called Zapata to task posthumously for what I think was reckless and unethical behavior, but she and I are kindred, and I am outraged by her murder. I understand, so acutely, her desire to match what she felt under her skin with what she presented to the world. I understand, too, that what is sometimes perceived as disguise is actually just a fumbling attempt to build a bridge between our self-perception and the myopic eyes of the world.

Mostly, I understand that we lost another beautiful creature to a senseless, monstrous crime.

Stay safe, people. The world is scary and confusing, and it is so easy to get lost, fall into harm's way, and never make it back again.

Rest in Peace, Angie; may the stars welcome you home.

I'm a Kitty Cat

2008-08-01T12:07:00.000-04:00

I don't know why.

Pretty (Bad Ass) in Pink

2008-07-30T19:32:00.003-04:00

Have you seen Current TV or checked out current.com? I saw the video below while watching the channel a few nights ago, and I thought it was an incredibly compelling story. The focus of the piece is on organizer Sampat Dal and the revolutionary group known as the "Gulabi Gang," which is a women-led, grass-roots organization in northern India that is willing to get physical while battling for women's rights. I've done a little research since then on Sampat Dal, and I've read some things that I find troubling--hints that her desire for women's empowerment has led her to embrace a role-reversal of sorts (young men who jump when she snaps her fingers, for example)--but mostly I think this is incredibly inspiring and all-around fanfuckingtastic. Hope you do, too.

PS: I broke some bones in my left foot. I am on Darvocet. It's not so bad.

Triple Scoop: Contemporary Blues

2008-07-09T17:35:00.028-04:00

Hope it's ok if I don't attempt to explain or detail the past six weeks or so... There were days and there were nights, and they mostly seemed to follow one another in a pattern of sorts, though you couldn't always prove that by me or by my behavior.

There was also lots and lots of music, though there always is, you know?

Lots and lots.

While listening to the aforementioned lots and lots of music, I decided to give in to my compulsion to group and listen to music in sets of threes. Further, I have decided today to use this convention to grease my reappearance here--I can just about always talk about music, no matter the noise in my head or the heavy in my heart. So, today's Triple Scoop is comprised of Here Comes That Weird Chill [EP] by the Mark Lanegan Band, Dislocation Blues by Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang, and Magic Potion by The Black Keys.

Mark Lanegan used to play with The Screaming Trees, of Seattle grunge fame, though he has been releasing solo albums since 1990. He's a master of collaboration and has played with folks including Josh Homme, PJ Harvey, and The Twilight Singers, and the album he recorded with Isobel Campbell in 2005, Ballad of the Broken Seas, is startlingly beautiful and eclectic, and I digress...

So, anyway, Lanegan's ...Weird Chill EP is a "preview" of his 2004 release Bubblegum, which I have somehow never acquired. Strange that I never picked it up, because this "preview" of it is just mesmerizing. The music drones and burbles with bluesy, rocksy, gospely sound while Lanegan wraps his gorgeous baritone around guilt and longing and hope and fear and heartache. There is something industrial here, mixed with something ancient, and it moans and it groans and I feel it in my stomach and in my chest.

[Take nice, long licks here: (1) Methamphetamine Blues; (4) Message to Mine; (9) Sleep With Me]

I had heard the names "Jeff Lang" and "Chris Whitley" before, and I knew that they were both blues guitarists--Lang by way of Australia--and I knew that Whitley had a fervent cult following and that he had recently died, but that was all I knew until I stumbled upon Dislocation Blues. Lucky stumble, that, because this album--a mix of traditionals, originals, and covers (Dylan, Prince-!)--with its lap steel beauty and haunting, ethereal vocals, with its mix of jaunts and romps and dusty, old slow-motion blues, was totally worth a fall. And fall, I did, people. Barely a minute into the menacing, hypnotic "Stagger Lee," and I was flat out on the floor. The album mostly feels raw and primal, but there's this fragility, there, too--maybe it's in the falsetto vocals, maybe it's in knowing that Whitley didn't know he was dying when he recorded this (he was dead within months of completing this work).

Anyway, like Lanegan's ...Weird Chill, Dislocation Blues hits me deep, and it, too, seems to meld the old and the new, yet in different measures than Lanegan's work, with much more focus on the keeningrural than the fuzzyindustrial. I find that I am liking this form of blues very much; I aim to track down other stuff by Whitley for sure, and possibly Lang.

[Lick and lick and lick: (1) Stagger Lee; (10) Underground; (12) Motion Bride]

So, the Black Keys and their Magic Potion. I know everyone's talking about Attack & Release, but I picked up both albums at the same time, about a month ago, and I listened to Magic Potion first, and so I've been giving it more of my aural attention. Besides, I kind of have this need to progress chronologically through a discography, so... Anyway, wow, man. I know I'm a little late to the game and that I need to pick up their first few releases, but with Magic Potion, these two monstrously talented dudes (guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney) totally win my bluesy, greasy, garage-y heart. Thing is, their music also moves my dark, horny, achin' heart. So, you know, that's almost all of me ; ) This album was recorded in the drummer's basement, in Akron, Ohio, and everything about it feels close, dangerous, intense. The sound is lo-fi and humongous, it thuds and it rumbles, and it is exquisite in its controlled chaos. And if I hear something industrial in ...Weird Chill, I hear it, too, in Magic Potion; yet, there is also something here that feels, somehow, post-industrial.

As I write this, I am realizing that there are actual musical genres called "industrial" and "post-industrial," and I'm not really sure where those categories and my own notions of these terms meet and overlap, if at all. When I use "industrial" in reference to Lanegan and to the Black Keys, I mean that there is this sound in the music that is fuzzed-out and makes me think of the noise of factories; there is also something in the rhythms--vocal as well as instrumental--that makes me think of the rhythm of factory machinery. Beyond those observations, I hear something in this music that, for me, evokes the soullessness and disconnectedness of the industrial-age.

So, I hear all of that in Magic Potion, but--and maybe it's just because I know these guys grew up and continue to live in Akron, Ohio, maybe it's because I know they recorded one of their albums in an abandoned tire factory, maybe it's because I have an affinity for cities that have been butchered and left to rot by industrialism--I also hear something that sounds like alienation and desperation and that makes me think of crumbling factories, boarded up houses, and burned-out cars, empty lots, waist-high weeds, and broken glass ... the mood and decay of the post-industrial age.

[Lick well here: (2) Your Touch; (3) You're the One; (8) The Flame]

So. I guess that's it--today's Triple Scoop of Contemporary Bluesberry. Lean back, settle in, and, you know, don't be worried about getting some on you...

(Ba)rack and a Hard Case

2008-05-20T12:14:00.015-04:00

So, I just read this article by Zillah Eisenstein on Common Dreams, and, to be honest,I found it so infuriating that I ended up just skimming it. I really don't even know how to articulate my own response or rebuttal to Eisenstein's "theory," and while there is much here that is intriguing and perhaps even rooted in truth, I think, on the whole, this particular piece of her writing is riddled with holes and fallacies. Here's an excerpt:

"Hillary’s preoccupation with white voters is a dead give-a-way of how she thinks about gender, and being a woman. Gender is white to her, like race is black. Bill and Hillary Clinton have thrown African-Americans to the wind because they thought they could play the gender card with its history of whiteness and win."

Uh...

I'm not so sure anyone can say that Clinton has "thrown African-Americans" to the wind. I mean, Blacks make up less than 13% of the population, and, depending on which poll you consult, anywhere from 85 - 93% of the Black vote is going to Obama. Is anyone taking Black voters to task for voting based solely on skin color? Or Obama, for courting the Black vote by relying on his "Blackness"? Who's raising that issue? I mean, Clinton's and Obama's voting records and political stances are way too similar to account for Obama getting 90% of the Black vote--there is no way to explain this except to say that many Blacks are voting for Obama simply because he's Black. Clinton is not getting 90% of the white votes or of women's votes anywhere.

Now, I do not mean to imply that Clinton should forgo courting the Black vote simply because she doesn't have a chance of getting it--though I actually think that's mostly true--I just think when talking about these issues, the way the voters are perceiving the candidates is just as important as the way the politicians are (supposedly) campaigning. I mean, the other huge elephant in the room, for me, is the fact that Obama is just as White as he is Black. I mean, jesus, people, his mother is fucking White! And he was raised, except for that four-year-stint in Jakarta, by his white grandparents in a mostly white town and attended a mostly white high school and then eventually landed at (mostly white) Harvard...

You know, there used to be this thing in the United States called the "rule of hypodescent," which was also known as the "one-drop rule." This rule is rooted in our illustrious colonial past and was used to determine the lineage of a mixed-race child. It states that even one drop of Black blood in your veins is enough to make you Black. 'Cause, you know, it's so potent and stuff. So, even if you looked white, even if you had to reach all the way back to your great-great-great grandpappy to find some Black blood in your ancestry, that "one drop" would be enough to make you Black. And, of course, being Black severely restricted your freedoms and limited your opportunities. So, naturally, any fair-minded, thinking person recognized this rule as the control mechanism that it was intended to be (control of Black people is inextricably linked to control of White women's sexuality, though that's another blog...).

Flash-forward to the 21st-fucking century, where people are gleefully clinging to this supposedly offensive and antiquated notion--Obama is touted as the "Black candidate" and everyone is talking about the possibility of the first "Black president" and ...

What the fuck?

Dude is Black AND White. Period.

Anyway.

So, you know, I was actually a Kucinich supporter, and then I leaned toward Edwards, before being forced to choose between Clinton and Obama. I took the tests at http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm, and Clinton's voting record is more progressive and more in line with my own views than is Obama's. Also, my mom and grandma and I were all pretty stoked after Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I bought my grandma "The Audacity of Hope" as soon as I could get my hands on a copy.

Grandma read it, and then I read it, too.

Neither my grandma nor I were impressed. In fact, we found much of what Obama had to say very troubling. Paul Street's review pretty much reflects my own thoughts, and here are some excerpts:

"... Obama relates youthful discomfort with his college roommates' 'irresponsible' criticism of 'capitalism' and then confesses respect for Ronald Reagan's supposed success in embodying what Obama calls 'American's longing for order' (p. 31)."

"... Obama commends 'the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections' for 'prevent[ing] Democrats...from straying too far from the center' and for marginalizing 'those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry' (p. 38) and 'radical ideas' (like peace and justice)."

"Obama contends that defense of New Deal and Great Society programs is contrary to 'the changing circumstances of globalization' (p.38)."

"The American people, Obama argues, harbor only modest expectation of their government (p.7), reflecting little concern (by Obama's account) with traditional left goals of social justice and equality. There's no room in Obama's downsized image of popular 'hopes' for the citizenry's widespread disgust at savage socioeconomic inequity in the United States."

"... Obama praises the United States' founders for 'recognize[ing] that there were seeds of anarchy in the idea of individual freedom, an intoxicating danger in the idea of equality.' If 'everybody is truly free, without the constraints of birth or rank and an inherited social order,' Obama asks, then 'how can we ever hope to form a society that coheres?' (pp. 86-87).

I find that last quote particularly chilling, and it brings to mind a classroom debate at EMU that arose when the professor asked the class which they considered most important--freedom or equality... I guess that's another blog, too, though you can check out Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom for a particularly rich account of how the idea of freedom in the United States has changed with the socio-economic times...

So yeah, Street is obviously no fan of Clinton, and, honestly, she has done and said things that make me cringe. But, again--I support her mostly because her voting record is more reflective of my own views than is Obama's--barely so, but still, enough to matter to me (it's on social issues where I diverge from Obama and am a bit closer to Clinton; economically, they're about the same for me). Still, I will admit right here, that if their voting records were the same and if I found them both just as likable and competent, then I would still vote for Clinton.

And yes--because she's a woman. Why the fuck not?

I just wouldn't vote for her only because she's a woman. But I am not above letting that fact tip the scale in her favor if all else were equal. But, all things are not equal, and, compared to Obama, I think Clinton's smarter and tougher and, honestly, I also think she's warmer and more real. I am sure that I will get lambasted for that statement. Whatever.

Also, I am one of those crazy people who actually think that Clinton's stint as First Lady actually does give her an edge--she was in the White House for eight fucking year as a very interested observer and sometimes-participant in political machinations, domestic and foreign. I cannot comprehend the self-delusion it takes to negate the importance of that experience. Finally, and this is a big one for me, I like Clinton's chances against McCain much better than I like Obama's chances.

I am cranky.

I think Clinton has been treated pretty viciously--by the media, by pundits, and by regular-joe citizens who just seem to boil with hatred for her. Still, the truth is, this election is incredibly disappointing, and though I claim a distinction can be made between Obama and Clinton, it really is fairly slim. So, I guess I am relying a lot on my gut, like I think a lot of voters are doing. And something in my guts is turned off by Obama's rhetoric, which seems either naive or coldly calculating--neither of which work for me. Also, there is something messianic about his campaign and his followers--all this "I am asking you to believe" and "join the movement" stuff--that makes me shudder. Finally, it seems as if Obama's campaign is rooted in symbolism and the idea of change more than in a concrete plan for leading the country.

I gotta go.

I leave you with this:

Home Alone

2008-05-18T17:07:00.012-04:00

So, I am home alone today, sick, and in bed. I’ve got the popping-ears, sore-throat, persistent-cough, cranky-pants kind-of-sickness that is probably best endured alone.

So, I’m in bed and have gathered some distractions: Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet; Kevin Sessums’s Mississippi Sissy; Cynthia Enloe’s The Curious Feminist; and, of course, my journal. I have also watched a few minutes of game motherfucking seven between the Celtics and the Cavaliers, though I have decided to DVR it because I am so grouchy and impatient that I cannot bear the commercials. While I was setting up the DVR, I noticed that I had not yet deleted Where Do the Children Play?, a documentary PBS showed a few weeks back. I’ve already watched it, and I thought it was really fascinating.

So, I’m watching it again.

And damn, it is fascinating.

It examines the decline of outdoor, unstructured play in the United States and compares the play-styles of urban, suburban, and rural kids. As the film opens, the camera follows two young kids--probably between 10 and 12-years-old--as they walk through a woods and comment on the flora and the fauna. As the girl shows the boy some flower or insect or something, the boy responds, "Oh, wow. Isn't that just beautiful?" And he says it all filled with wonder and delight. He then takes out his journal and draws, on the right side of the page, a picture of what he's seen; he next writes about the discovery on the left side of the page. While this is going on, a narrator shares some facts about children and their worlds; we learn that playspaces are on the decline in the United States and that the use of prescription meds in children is rising. The narrator also talks about how children are increasingly separated from nature, though the two kids we've been watching have obviously escaped that fate.

The narrator also provides a very quick, very brief history lesson about how the United States has morphed from a mostly rural nation to an almost entirely urban/suburban nation; I think I recall from my own history education that it was in 1920 that the urban population in the US first exceeded its rural population. Yes, yes, I know--history and history majors are devastatingly cool.

So, anyway, this documentary says a lot of stuff that we've all heard before about how electronic media saps kids' imaginations. The film doesn't play it quite that simplistically, though, and notes, for example, that kids who spend a lot of time using computers and playing video games tend to have better vocabularies and more knowledge about the world than do their less "tuned-in" counterparts. Still, the finer point about how kids no longer seem to have a "private relationship" with nature is certainly the heart of the film, and the filmmakers use a lot of interesting data and vignettes to illustrate this notion. The film focuses on several Michigan cities/communities, which is also pretty sweet. They include Beaver Island, Flint, Southwest Detroit, and Ann Arbor.

Penny Wilson, who is some sort of expert on play (an awesome gig!), makes forts with some Flint kids who have their little minds blown by the fact that they're actually being allowed some unstructured time in the classroom. Wilson talks about a lot of cool stuff, including the concept of "deep play," which is apparently the kind of play that helps children learn to take risks and contemplate their own mortality--like hanging upside down from monkey bars and trees and jumping off swings and stuff.

The piece about southwest Detroit was really cool--it focused on Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School and its surrounding neighborhood. The narrator compares this school, where 85% of the students walk to school each day, with Ann Arbor public schools, where a $200,000 grant was still not enough to get little Ann Arborites to walk to school ... Some of the reasons? The parents didn't think the kids would like it; one mom actually said that she feared walking to school would be boring for her daughter (I am not fucking kidding). Sara Aeschbach, Director of Community Education and Recreation in Ann Arbor, is interviewed, and you can see that she is just in utter dismay and disbelief as she talks about how they were only able to get one kid at Mitchell Elementary to walk to school and four or five kids from Bach.

The filmmakers make the point that urban settings, when poverty is not a factor, are actually "better for kids" than are suburbs. And in the piece on southwest Detroit, we see kids playing in parks and on sidewalks and porches, walking to corner stores, and, yes, walking to school. There is some talk of how suburban kids are probably shuttled to more structured activities--sports teams, music lessons, and civic/community participation events--than are urban kids, and there is this truly fascinating segment on an experiment carried out at Carnegie Melon, where suburban and urban kids were asked to construct, from cardboard and such, a replica of their neighborhoods and environments.

The kids were all given the same materials and instructions, yet the differences in method and outcome were starkly different. For example, the suburban kids worked alone, while the urban kids negotiated with each other and worked together. And the suburban kids buildings didn't have doors, interiors, or occupants, while the urban kids added doors that opened, windows, interiors, occupants, flower pots ... And their models featured schools and hospitals and public transportation. The suburban kids' models had no public spaces, except for a mall, and no pedestrians.

Author Richard Louv blames journalism and news media for helping to condition people to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, which probably contributes to parents not letting their kids play outside and also to their efforts to structure every moment of their kid's lives. There seems to exist in the United States this unquestioned belief in an increasingly violent, dangerous outside world populated by bloodthirsty stangers. Louv challenges this notion by noting that, at least according to FBI statistics, stranger danger is, for the most part, a fucking myth. He notes that kidnapping and sex offences against children are ten-times more likely to be carried out by a relative or an acquaintance than by a stranger and also points out that children are at the highest risk for physical violence while at home. So, not only are children actually safer outside their homes than in them, but crimes against children of all ages have plunged in the last fifteen years.

Geez, suddenly I feel like I'm ranting. Just in time, I look up to see 15-year-old Ted Eyster, at home in Chelsea, Michigan, sitting cross-legged under a tree, near a pond, serene, still. Ted has been home-schooled up until now and has just recently entered public school. He talks about being dumbfounded by his classmates' shock at his ability to recognize an oak tree, and he is just so sweetly bewildered by their ignorance. He then talks about the spot where he's sitting, and he says, "... it’s one of those trees that you just see and fall in love with…"

And so, the documentary ends with this rather sweet, kind of hokey image of our young Ted, knower and lover of trees, and I am now off to choose between kung pao tofu or sesame tofu, because my girl is bringing me home nummies.

Awesome.

Far from Home

2008-04-16T13:35:00.003-04:00

I moved to Detroit a little over a year ago. The move was sort of drawn out, spreading itself out over almost two months of packing and organizing and trips to the dumpster and trips to various goodwill sites to drop off things that I no longer needed or was no longer willing to move. All of this activity culminated with the final move, on Valentine's Day, 2007—a day that saw six or seven inches of snow fall, from morning to night; a wet, heavy, relentless snow.

What I mean is that there was no respite. The weather was so fucking awful—snowy and windy and bitter cold—that as I was unloading the truck, a stray dog jumped into its cab and refused to get out. She just sat there shaking, in the passenger seat, a soft whine coming from somewhere high in her throat. She looked at me with these maniacally bright eyes, terror and desperation leaping from her sockets. There was ice hanging from her fur, and the pads of her paws were cut up from the frozen ground she had been trudging across, alone and far from home.

What I mean is that as I look back on it now, that day was filled with the sort of blatant symbolism that makes me groan when I see it in movies: “Smack us in the fucking face,” I usually mumble, or sometimes I just wave my hand in front of my face, in a slapping notion.

Slap, slap.

Still, it’s not like I can really sort the symbolism out, even now, with hindsight, and it’s not like I was wearing blinders or anything then, metaphorical or other(brownie)wise.

What I mean is that the months leading up to that snowy Valentine’s Day were marked by much rumination and many late-night panics. I questioned my motives, my ability to make healthy decisions, the commitment of my lover (into whose home I would be moving), and her ability to make healthy decisions.

What I mean is that I had not undertaken this move lightly. Still, much of my trepidation centered on thoughts of my relationship and the possibility of it not working and what I would do if that happened (having moved to Detroit and away from my friends and all that was familiar).

What I mean is that I assumed that if my relationship stayed healthy and blossomed in all of the ways that I expected it to, then I would settle comfortably into Detroit while my lover and I settled into each other.

So, you know, fourteen months later, here I am: forced by a cruelly comic universe into remembering the vast landscape that lies between a relationship working well and not working at all; forced, too, into acknowledging that even if it had been all sunshine and somersaults for me and my girl, I would still find myself agonizingly far from home.

Type and delete type and delete

I cannot find the words to describe how lost and unmoored I feel, how deeply alienated, how sharply marked: by the poverty that surrounds me, by the bleak and desolate landscapes that are everywhere, by the limping dogs and feral cats … by the desperation, by the gnawing lack of everything that is everywhere, by the level of want, of need, of disquiet.

I feel a crushing heaviness in my chest, not just whenever I venture out into the city, but when I look out my windows, when I sit on my porch, when I walk in my backyard. I feel guilt and shame for wanting, so desperately, to escape this place.

I hate that I hate it here. I hate that all those things that charm me about this city are just not enough to offset all those things that drain me. But I have no community here, no friends who are five minutes away, no familiar stores and restaurants and parks, and no sense of home.

Speaking of things that need homes, we let the dog stay in the basement for a few nights while we located a shelter that we knew would not euthanize her. Elizabeth and I had four cats between us, and we were already dealing with the fact that we had to keep *them* segregated, and with all the chaos of my just having moved in, the basement was the only option for shelter for the dog. She was so grateful, at first, to be inside and out of the elements, that she barely made a peep. As days went by, however, I think it started to grate on her—the unfamiliar place, the cement floor and concrete-block walls, the loneliness (we visited her and took her outside, of course, but, for the most part, I guess she was forced into listening to life going on above her, and, I suppose, missing whatever life she used to have).

So, you know, I am *not* trying to say that Tani:Dog as Detroit:Basement or whatever.

Not really.

But, looking back, I feel a connection with her that I didn't at first recognize. And now I do see that I have gone astray, that I am lost, adrift. I feel as if life is happening somewhere else, as if it is muted, as if I am on the fringes of everything.

What I mean is that I don’t think I can make it work here, and I want to come home to Ypsilanti. And rest assured that I am under no illusions about Ypsilanti: almost everything that grates against me here in Detroit is present in Ypsi--poverty, burned out houses, crime, desperation. But somehow, perhaps simply because of the smaller scale, there is a warmth in Ypsilanti that I cannot locate here in the D.

This city has cast an icy spell over me, and I need thawing. A nice cuppa hot chocolate from Bombadill's would do the trick...

Many Rivers to Cross

2008-04-11T11:22:00.002-04:00

So, yeah, I watch American Idol. And yes, I even watched the two-and-a-half hour special, Idol Gives Back, which was on two nights ago and raised millions of dollars for various relief efforts and projects in Africa and here in the United States.

Yes, I watched, and yes, I was shaken by the heartbreaking stories that filled up my television screen, and yes, most definitely yes, I sat, quietly stunned, while Annie Lennox sat at a piano, alone on stage, and played and sang Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross."

Browniewise

2008-04-10T15:26:00.002-04:00

Well, this is tough--coming up with my first blog. For no good reason, I have decided to revisit the infamous "911" call made by an off-duty police officer who consumed marijuana brownies with his wife and then freaked the fuck out.

Here is the actual audio of the 911 call:

And here is an unbelievably funny video made using the actual audio. These people are fucking geniuses, and these are some of the funniest three or four minutes I have ever witnessed:

There is so much to love here, so much to just laugh uproariously at, but, for some reason, what really sticks in my head is the part of the actual call where the 911 operator is trying to determine how much weed these idiots ingested--after being told that the dude and his wife had made brownies with the weed, and after asking many times how much weed was used, the 911 operator finally says, "I mean browniewise--how many brownies did you have?"

I love this new way of measuring things--lengthwise, timewise, heightwise, weightwise, and, yes, browniewise.

I'll tell you something else--Brownie Wise is also the name of the woman who, in the 1950s, transformed Tupperware into the huge success that it became, by insisting that it be sold exclusively at home parties. This woman had a total handle on the possibilities of social networking decades ago, people. Earl Tupper made her a vice-president, and she made him millions of dollars. He soon fired her, for no good reason, and with little compensation. I learned all of this while watching the PBS American Experience documentary, "Tupperware!" which was freakin' awesome.

So, there it is. My first ever blog.

Treat me gently. And, if needbe, please send rescue...