baking is painful

Ok, so not really the baking part is that painful. Trying to bake my odd little apple pie for Enid's annual apple pie baking contest tired and hung over from the ridiculousness of last night while morning the loss of my beloved cell phone is painful. So the cooking was slow going and now it is down to the wire and I am going to have to snatch my pie out of the oven and take the piping hot thing straight down to the contest. Mason was more focused (only slightly so) and has already finished his and isn't pulling his hair out stressing over whether or not his pie is going to come out alright. Anyway, just wasting a little time while it bakes.

My phone decided to leave me at some point last night at Jake Shears' halloween party. Fun party, but my competitive instinct took over and for some reason decided that I was in some kind of drinking race with no one and was unintenionally downing beers at a much faster clip than necessary so some elements of the night are hazy but I just know that I lost my cane (part of costume), my phone, and my metrocard (thankfully that one not until I got on the subway). Upon calling my number this morning I discovered that it had been found/stolen by someone who then proceeded to sell for 20 bucks to some schmuck in the Bronx. Who hung up on me and quit answering the phone. So I reported it stolen and morned the loss of all the damn phone numbers that I have never written down and the many which I have no idea how to replace. So if you are reading this and I should have your phone number, be a sweety and email it to me or call me in a couple of days when I get my new one.

Ok, I gotta go check on the pie.

Why go on?

This has to be short, because I have a long commute ahead of me and have to get back to brooklyn in time to catch America's Next Top Model. But really, why bother? I totally don't care anymore now that Coryn is gone. Now who is going to call Lisa an alcoholic bitch? Can we pause for a moment to note how stupid that little staged "let's talk about our vices" un-intervention was last week? Ok, so yeah, any excuse to get Tyra to talk about twinkies is worth it, but really the set up was so lame and staged that I made me want to avert my eyes.

I was suggesting I might not bother watching anymore since I really don't care what happens now that Stumbles, Coryn, and Don't-get-it-twisted! are all off the show and it is just going to be a long protracted farce til they give it to that annoying geena davis looking girl with pale skin, but C- quickly set me straight:

Me: "Why bother watching?"

C-: "There's still Lisa to hate."

thoughts on inside/outside: stay in your place boy...

I just read an article by Eugene Robinson about condoleeza rice over at Steve Gilliard and Jen'sNEWS BLOG which really struck me, both the article and Steve's commentary. From Robinson:

"As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, 'If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was.'"

What the fuck? In a very literal way perhaps that is true, but only if you are talking about our national institutions and the raceless egalitarian language found in them. Yes, they were calling for us all to live up to what are ostensibly our guiding principles, but that meant destroying and dismantling the institutions which were in opposition to that. Like slavery. Or jim crow.

Those were institutions in our nation once upon a time and the exclusion of blacks from public office was institutional throughout much of our country until not so long ago. It was aggressively opposing the institutional racism in this country, particularly in the south, that the civil rights movement in the 60's was about. That blacks were required to move to the back of the bus was not some quaint notion that folks had just fallen into. It was enforced by local government institutions.

But really this is nitpicking: what is her damn point? Douglass and King were both inextricably a part of their times and they didn't withdraw and take a circuitous route through it. They fought injustice head-on and pointed flat out what was wrong instead of accepting things as they were, but that didn't mean they joined up with the shit that was going wrong in the country. Did you see King or Parks (peace be with her today) applying to be bus drivers? No, the bus system was fucked up so they boycotted it, they didn't join it. The reason I say this is because, and perhaps I am drawing conclusions as there is not a whole lot of surrounding context with that quote, dr. rice seems to be defending herself for throwing her lot in with republicans.

Which sounds a lot like the damn log cabin republicans.

Or best little boy in the world syndrome.

Which brings me to Steve's point:

"But what I think Robinson misses and is clear is that Rice has always been the special girl. Her parents made her special, her mentors made her special. At no time was she obligated to help or assist anyone behind her. Because she was special. Everything is all about her. Rice also has benefitted from the approval of her elders. Why challenge those who help you along and praise your manners?

"Her parents raised her with the idea that achievement was good enough. If she was cultured and smart enough, it would be a sign that she could compete with whites and that was important. The problem was that Rice is blind to the fact that her position was only possible by the sacrifice of others. So while Rice played her piano, other kids were being beaten by the local police. She has never thought she owed them anything, despite her success."

Again, "She has never thought she owed them anything, despite her success." Maybe with the republicans IS where she belongs. This idea of I-got-mine crap is what pisses me off about republicans in general, but gay republicans in particular. It seems to also be what gets Steve Gilliard and so many other black people pissed off at black republicans. The idea that making it yourself is enough. The idea that others aren't left behind, didn't help you get there, that you are where you are because you just chose to take care of things and if you did it, why didn't all those other miserable people do it? If some folks don't like getting targeted by the police, why aren't they just more careful? Why do they think they should get special treatment? If they want to go to college, why don't they get a job or a scholarship or something? I DID IT, WHY CAN'T YOU? And why should I care if you don't, as long as you stay in your place, boy?

Because that is what the republicans say to black people and it is what they say to gay people. Just do what you're supposed to and everything will be alright. There is a remarkable difference, in that (most) gay people can 'pass'. We can pretend to be something other what we are and pay that price internally. So sometimes we have an option to hide our otherness when confronted with bigotry. And when our families don't reject us, many of us who are white and gay have the backing of families which have been integrated into the local power structures for generations and come from well-educated backgrounds and are expected and encouraged to go to college (not to say that there aren't black families with all these things, but not the same percentage, which is exactly the disparity that affirmative action is meant to address). I come from a middle-class family that I could depend on protecting and sheltering me and that I could retreat into when my being different was dangerous for me during my developmental years. Which I guess is much like condoleeza. Her family provided her with that retreat and protection, which is what families are supposed to supply for their children, but what of her choice to stay in a bubble as an adult? Which is what she has done. She has hidden in the patronage of the neocons and bushes, and never looked out to those who didn't have the same shelter she did. She was friends with one of the girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church? How does this not haunt her?

Really, and perhaps I am getting too telling here, but I remember those who didn't make it out on the other side. I don't mean folks just getting killed, but getting crushed. Watching folks struggling to get the hell out of the mess they had been told was their place and not making it. I don't just mean gay folks, though I certainly do include some in this number, and I don't mean just a geographic escape though sometimes that is what it takes. How do you turn your back on those you could have been? I could have easily, very easily been a junkie or a hustler or beat the fuck up for being gay or have contracted HIV/syphilis/hepatitus before I knew how the hell to protect myself. Before I knew that I was worth protecting, because even though, thankfully I was blessed with a family that told me everyday that I was loved and that I mattered, the world out there was telling me that I didn't and that my family wouldn't think so either if they knew the truth about me. I was valuable, but not if I was gay. I would catch AIDS and die and I would DESERVE TO. Don't for a second tell me that wasn't the republican message in the eighties. I was young, I wasn't blind or stupid. And I dare you to say that isn't their message to gay kids now. It isn't accidental. It is on purpose and it is institutional. Bigotry and greedy self interest are the right's biggest selling points.

How do gay republicans not see themselves when they look back at highschool kids today? There are plenty of kids who are coming out and being more accepted today than ever, but high school is still a very dramatic and traumatic time and we have a president and his party who control both house's of congress passing laws prohibiting educators from teaching anything about condoms except to stress failure rates. That is tantamount to an attempt to kill kids, particularly gay kids, and I'm sorry, but if you are in your late twenties/early thirties and gay and not HIV+, you owe a hell of a debt to public education about safe sex. Democrats aren't perfect, but you will never see a democratic candidate trying to keep youth educators from teaching teens the importance of wearing condoms.

This is what conservativism is about: keeping people in their places and reinforcing consequences to punish those who step outside of those bounds. That is what the abstenance ed is about: making kids who don't wait until marriage more likely to contract a disease or get pregnant. It isn't about protecting kids, it is about making them stay in the societal bounds that some assholes want them to and making them pay if they don't. Be the best little boy/girl in the world or else you deserve what you get. Fags and whores get what they deserve.

This is what racial profiling is about: making visibility more precarious for black people. If a black person gets pulled over by a cop in this country, more often than not his car is going to be searched. Even if he is polite, even if he has registration, liscense, no record, so if (s)he is breaking even a minor law, they are more likely to be caught. Adding consequence to black people stepping out of line. Be the best little boy/girl in the world or else you deserve what you get. N****rs that don't stay in their place get what they deserve.

I guess that is the same purpose of the new bankrupcy/credit guidlines. Best little or else. Po folks get what they deserve.

Keep them faggots/n****rs/po folks running. I deserved what I got, they deserve what they'll get.

I come from AL, too. My dad saw dr. rice's motorcade go rolling by last week. I could have easily been Scotty Joe Weaver or Billy Jack Gaither and she could have been Denise McNair, but circumstance and chance and family protected us both from that. The difference is that I don't work for people who play to the people who wouldn't have cared if either of us had ended up that way. I didn't spend the day shoe shopping while a whole hell of a lot of the people I could have been (and was in a position to help) were left to die.

Rotnee, your leash is too long...

So I decided to wander over to a Magnetic Fields cover website:

:..:::.:: Our Love is Meaningless::.:::..:

I needed some new music and I love covers (even bad ones) and the Mag Fields, so why not see what new stuff they have (even if Stephin did make a frowny face instead of answering the question when I asked him if he knew about the site)? So I bop on over and who happens to have sent an mp3 for our enjoyment?

Yakuza Dance Mob!!!

Who just so happened to be the band that headlined at my annual New Year's extravaganza down in the Southland home base (awareness is painful: Hit it til it breaks!!!!). The Dance Mobbing Yakuzatrons are a lovely and insane bunch who are fun to have around, on stage or off, and who in some form or another have helped me start my year for as long as I care to think back. Perhaps one of the best stage performances I have ever seen in my life was one of the Mob's members, Rotnee went with a crew of us to a local coffee shop/bar and performed a set at an open mike night. I can't begin to describe that performance and probably shouldn't, but a mixture of unintentional slap stick with absolute sincerity and lack of self-consciousness in front of a crowd of middle-aged local drunks who just want to hear classic rock covers is a pleasure to watch.

He makes it sound so fun, don't he?

Via Pandagon, I found myself reading this nauseating pile of shit.

"Is motherhood instinctive or learned behavior? Both religion and science tell us that it is instinctive, much to the distaste of the feminist ideologists, who have never been overburdened by a solid grasp on either. But one need only watch the way in which a young girl mothers her stuffed animals to see the maternal instinct at work."

Really, the first paragraph tells you enough to stop right there. The snide, queeny tone delivering a patronizing dismissal of assumed objections is enough to make you laugh, but religitards wielding science to bolster their bigoted-ass claims always raise my ire. Dude, keep your grimey hands off my science and honestly, keep it off my Bible too. If you want to base your opinion of women on dirty jokes told in middle school, sci-fi novel sex scenes, and crude anecdotes told by drunk men at the bar or hunting lodge; do that, but don't try to dress it up as religion and science. You put down and carefully back away from your agenda of framing women as servile bitches that need a big strong stud to swoop them away and help them fulfill their baby factory potential, and we'll discuss instincts and human behavior in relation to evolutionary theory and studies in animal behavior and how that reinforces or contradicts the presentation of gender roles in religious texts. Til then, back away from the religion/science and just say "this is what I think" instead of using the higher power/post-Enlightenment scholarship schtick to try and dress up your dumb ideas.

Anyway, if you want to read volxwagon puppy's how-to-list for ladies to not ruin their life by becoming indepentant strong-willed tramps, you will have to follow the link. I will share this one last little chunk which is just unrivalled for its what-the-fuck factor:

"As for the likelihood that the technological future will eventually solve such problems, it is worth noting that no society that possesses artificial wombs, robot sex dolls, multiplayer video games and 24-hour sports networks is one in which men are likely to show a tremendous amount of interest in relationships or the opposite sex."

Uhmmm... yeah, this is definitely someone who has a strong and clear grasp of interpersonal relationships. This is the fellow I am going to from now on to help me figure out quandries about the kind of future I want and how to get there. Really now, we have 24 sports networks and multiplayer video games and some pretty realistic sex dolls, but do you see most fellows choosing those things over getting laid or thinking of them as substitutes for a relationship? Maybe there are a few fellows that do, just like there are some guys who choose the bottle or a hit over a girl, but technology is hardly leading to this mass exodus of guys from the arms of women into the loving embrace of a PS2 and a silicone vagina.

I went to his blog and read around for a while, but the dude basically just seems kind of crazy, like he doesn't have a whole lot of real interaction with adults. I don't know how old he is, but there is something pretty adolescent pervy about the way he talks about women. Hints in his blog suggest that he isn't in middle school, but his brain still seems to be.

(Amanda, I don't link to Pandagon near often enough, but a general thanks to you for the excellent writing. Keep fighting the good fight.)

Thanks a lot, Spongedob Stickypants.

now look at how people are finding there way here:

dads taking a shower with there son - Google Search

It should say something that THAT search leads you to commentary on the fundy dummies and their retarded parenting advice. And this is the first google search that I have seen that turns me up as the top link that doesn't actually include "awareness is painful" in the search. Just my luck. You write angry missives about the bush administration, radical religious idiots, and the stupidity of gay republicans for a year or so and suddenly you are the top online stop for either sheepish yuppie parents trying to figure out if they are going to scar their toddlers by letting their kids shower with them or incest fetishists. I guess that always has been my target audience.

Not if you do it right, honey.

I don't have all that much traffic on this blog, but it is amusing looking through and seeing how folks find their way here. The Altercation link was the biggest spike in traffic followed by the fights with homo republicans (thanks, malcontent/prismwarden) and then maybe friendster and a few from the couple of folks who link to me, but the most fun are the completely random searches that lead people here. People who I am fairly certain were not looking for an angry twenty-something bitching about politics. Having used the words "gay" and "sex" and "porn", amongst a few other choice words that my mother would disapprove of, I get the smut seekers on occasion. I have trouble imagining someone sitting at their computer, planning on whacking off and then seeing and choosing "Awareness is painful" from the list of choices in Google from their search for "hot men cock porn fucking" or whatever. But hey, everybody's welcome here. I'll take the hornballs over the gay republicans anyday.

My favorite are the ones where you can tell someone is looking for the answer to a question, although they often involve the word "painful" and kind of make me cringe. Here's the most recent example:

MSN Search: painful after using cock ring

Another truth-seeker asked "Is gay sex painful?" Maybe I should start treating this like an accidental advice column, answering these random quandries for these folks who likely will never stumble back across my site again. I guess I shouldn't start sharing my volunteered expertise with a quandry about cock rings, since I've never used one, but I'm guessing that if it hurts, you might want to try a different size.

I guess that sort of goes for the other question too.

"the best of America"

condi is going on a photo-op hunt with a diplomat down to Alabama? Give me a fucking break.

But hey, Alabama is synonymous internationally with racism and so is the bush administration, so what the hell?

The Apprentice: Hillbilly Edition

So I have allowed myself two guilty tv pleasures which I count as only one because they are watched in rapid succession: America's Next Top Model and Martha Stewart's Apprentice. I never really liked the normal trumpified Apprentice, but originally I thought that was because I have always, ALWAYS found Donald Trump to be insanely annoying. I was wrong; it is because the contestants are insanely annoying. Sure, some of them aren't, and they aren't on the screen as much. The keep the retards front and center and you have to watch these freaks go on and on and on about whatever the hell stupid idea they came up with. L- was watching the show while I was eating dinner last night so I go sucked into most of last night's episode where I learned that they seemingly recruited everyone at shopping malls in the suburban south. The ladies' team was terrorized by a gaggle of those horrible medium sized perky blonde 'popular' harpy bitches that make everyone look back at highschool with horror. I don't mind a good southern accent; I have something of a drawl myself, but there is this certain kind of trailer park bark that perky evil sorority girls get that makes me wish someone were scraping their nails across a blackboard instead. Don't get me wrong, there are good perky southern girls and evil ones. There are four or five (they are hard to tell apart) of the evil ones on this season's apprentice. They spent last night ganging up on the brown girl to try and shove her in a costume that they knew she hated while they kind of tolerated/ignored the brunette, the black girl, and the much taller and reasonbly sane blonde former pageant queen. Those weird little clicks from hell are one of the things that I am happiest to not have to interact with in NYC. The hipsters can get annoying, but they don't quite have the same herd instict and appetite for blood and destruction that the southern deb squads do. If you want to see what is wrong with America, watch last night's episode and know that we are currently treating those people like they are anything other than selfish manipulative monsters.

On the boys team, there seemed to be a couple of sane people, who didn't get to say much and instead we were treated to a despotic southern closet case with another horrible trailer park accent and a napoleon complex. We get him going on and on to the camera about how he is regulating and making everything work, while they come up with a lame ass idea for some stupid genie thing which is just a thinly veiled excuse for him to talk about women and suggest that the character (to be used to convince children to eat icecream) have big breasts so he can pretend he ain't a 'mo. Yeah, fooled us there, killer. The other conspicuous southerner on the team was a somewhat cute but vapid Kentucky good ol' boy. Seemed nice enough, his accent wasn't as caustic as the other southtards, but why they let him talk into the camera about how wild it was for him to put on a costume that made him into a she. And gotta love how they managed to show as many shots as possible of him in just the skin suit that he put on beneath the costume with him teenie peenie poking out as the closet boy points out his bulge and suggest ducktape. Course country boy don't mind doing drag so long as he can let his pokey little puppy prove its really a man beneath the "big boobs", so he wants none of the duct tape extravaganza.

I was getting ready to go out and try to drink away all memory of this episode, so I missed some in the middle where basically the boys won, the girls lost hard core with their stupid ideas and super clique act. The boys went to play baseball and the girls preened in the suite getting ready to go to the boardroom and leader of this project (and the evil blonde clique) suddenly begins to realize that she was supposed to do something in this assignment besides try and humiliate and boss around the 'deeefrint' girls and that the other girls realized that they lost because the costume sucked and they basically spent the whole episode trying to put the uppity colored girl in her place.

I had all I could take and left so I don't know if the evil minions of hell prevailed and managed to get rid of the little brown thorn in their blond sides or if there is a God in the apprentice and one of them was sent home as a lesson to the other idiots that this is a business challenge, not middle school.

Make a joyful noise...

My computer has been troubled and is getting fixed by an insanely kind and wonderful friend and our internet is kind of fucked up at home right now anyway, so I am not able to write as often as I would like these days. That said, we had an amazing weekend in our lovely greenpoint mansion.

There is something cathartic about the weather finally breaking and giving us a little cool and wet. Sunday felt like Christmas, waking up with the "family" and cooking a big meal together (for which one of my roommates made the nastiest smelling cheese grits ever) and watching movies and having friends over and just relaxing. Monday, Mason and I had a few friends over to have a little hootenanny. Our normal music making buddy C came over, but we also added a lovely new addition in A who brought with him an autoharp and a bass voice. It took a little while to get us all going and sometime figuring out songs which everyone knew, but it was nice.

That was followed up with heading off to the secret Kiki and Herb show at Joe's Pub. The show was amazing and I really can't do a proper review of it at the moment, so I will refrain from further comment, except to comment that turning the Scissor Sister's "Take Your Momma Out Tonight" into an emotively explosive, biting protest song is no small accomplishment.

I have to escape the computer now and hurry off to watch America's Next Top Model and Martha's Apprentice. You should too.

Suddenly Riley seems progressive.

That idiot roy moore wants to run for governor of AL now.

Just fucking great. He won't win, but do the morons always have to find their way into the spotlight to further reinforce the idea that Alabama is the most backwards-ass place on the planet? He can't beat Riley, who to his credit could have been a really good governor if he hadn't let the national republicans advise him to make a racist veto right out of the gate. Some of his ideas seemed good and how he handled Katrina and the surge of evacuees to the state impressed me. He obviously thinks and cares about the job and the state. moore just wants attention. If he could get as many tv cameras pointed at him and as much congradulation from his moron neighbors by doing the pee-pee dance in his underwear with a bullfrog on his head, he would.

I don't know anything about the Lt. Gov. who is running for the democratic nomination, but siegelman is a fucking joke. He had plenty of people who were against him before he went into office and managed to piss off most of his supporter too. He needs to just go hide somewhere and leave the state the hell alone. Maybe he could just go hang out with moore.

(thanks Steve)

Anonymous friendster viewing is for pussies

So friendster quietly snuck in its fun new little feature where it shows you who has looked at your profile in the last month. Some folks seem to be annoyed by this new little feature, but I totally love it. It is kind of fun to have some idea of who has looked at you and try to figure out how and why. Unlike everyone else that I have seen blogging about this so far, I don't instantly assume that everyone who looks at my friendster profile does so because they want to bone me. I don't have crushes on all the people I look at on friendster; why assume everyone who looks at me does? Half the time I look at someone on friendster it is because I want an email from them and haven't gotten one in a few days and looking at friendster tells me when they were last on and I can either say to myself "oh, they haven't had time to check friendster; they must be pretty busy and will write when they get the chance," or "Sure, they have time to piddle around on friendster but writing me a little letter is such a huge chore. Asshole, I didn't want a letter anyway."

Anyway, so maybe the anonymous viewing thing might have its occasional applications, like when you are interviewing prospective new roommates who you found on craigslist and don't want them to realize that your decision not to let them move in might have something to do with their 1000 word 'about me' description or the fact that they only have three friends who all seem like dorks. Really though, can't we all just let folks know that we looked at them and not assume that they are suddenly going to think we are in love with them or stalking them. Isn't the whole point of friendster that we can get these little glimpses of folks connected to us and the folks around us with really having to dive in too deep?

And maybe this makes for a subtle way for someone to gets the elusive someone's attention. My roommate has in the past used the 'bookmark' feature to great effect in that respect, but I didn't even know what the hell 'bookmarks' were until he started talking about it and it could never really be that useful for getting people's attention if people didn't really pay attention to it.

Anyway, at least they aren't showing how many times or when we look at folks profiles. That would really call out the stalkers amongst us.

Push coming to shove...

Since we have been talking about political outings lately, I can't help but link to this post
questioning the sexuality of vehemently anti-gay black ministers.

Funny the way the self-loathing pricks who are trying to deny their sexuality are always the meanest bastards to other homos. Men who are truly comfortable in their sexuality really just don't give a damn what another man does in bed so long as nobody is being forced. It is the uptight, guilt-fetishizers who get so worked up and are so repressed that the only way they can imagine connecting to their desires is to condemn it. It is the only way they can think to get near the subject without exposing themselves.

Well, if they feel so compelled to get near the subject, they better find a less vindictive way about it or folks are going to expose them. Keith Boykin and Jasmyne Cannick, go get 'em.