People of Earth: There’s nothing to fear from the WBC

This is not a blog entry for Kansans. This is for everyone else on the planet. Everyone who despises the Westboro Baptist Church.* Oddly enough, the WBC is currently trying to make headlines not for protesting someone or something, but by supporting Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, who has been suspended from his reality show for making anti-gay remarks in an interview with GQ Magazine.

The WBC makes its headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, about 20 minutes down the road from where my family and I live. (Lucky us!) The first time I remember seeing a WBC protest was in my home town of Lawrence, in the early 1990s. The WBC protested in Lawrence a lot back then, mostly because we’re the home of the University of Kansas, and they loved brandishing signs calling us “Fag Hawks” and “Gay U.” (Because, you know, people who go to college are likely to turn gay. Or bisexual. Or become drag queens. Or something. Never mind the fact that most of the members of the WBC also went to college, but whatever.)

My reaction the first time I saw a WBC protest was the same as most everyone else’s I guess: Shock. Dismay. Anger. Disbelief. Once, while driving by a WBC protest with a friend, I leaned out the car window and screamed “ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ARE GOING TO HELL!” Which made me feel a little better for a little while, but ultimately, after seeing several more of their so-called “protests,” I realized it didn’t do any good to scream like a maniac at a bunch of maniacs.

The WBC made for easy journalism fodder when they first started making waves with their protests. Newspapers and local televisions news stations had kind of a field day for a couple of years, because let’s face it, when it comes to the WBC, it’s hard to look away. At least at first. Then, around about the mid- to late 1990s, the Kansas media all came to the same conclusion: There was just no good reason to give these clowns any more coverage. It was always the same crap on a different day with these yayhoos. Nothing was ever new and nothing ever really changed. So the Kansas media—newspapers, television news, radio, everything—stopped giving voice to the Westboro Baptist Church. There wasn’t a meeting or an official agreement … it just sort of happened. (Having said that, the Pitch, an alternative newspaper in Kansas City, will occasionally do a thoughtful expose on WBC, and there’s a really hilarious DJ named Lazlo on KC station 96.5 the Buzz who once in a while will do a phone interview with one of the Phelps women, but Lazlo’s so funny, you have to give him a pass.)

When the Kansas media stopped covering the WBC, the WBC were forced to protest elsewhere. Places where their signs were still shocked people. Places they could get a reaction, because here in Kansas, we’ve learned to mostly ignore them.

Sorry world.

You see, the WBC depends on raw human reaction. The WBC is a small church, mostly made up of members of Founding member Fred Phelp’s own family. And most of the family, Fred included, is a lawyer. So their protests serve a two-fold purpose: The first is to spread their very real belief that homosexuality is a sin that’s destroying the United States of America. The second is to get people so worked up, so pissed off, that they’ll do something rash so that the WBC can sue them. And because the WBC has so many lawyers at its disposal, they often win. The winnings, while not the WBC’s sole source of income, still help to pad the coffers.

But seriously, people. While their brightly colored signs and mind-blowing slogans may seem scary at first, there’s no threat there. In fact, the WBC is so extreme that your garden variety bigot is turned off by them. Think of the WBC like a circus. A demented little circus designed to baffle and inflame public sensibility. They never actually touch anybody, because they know that would open them up to lawsuits. They’re just incredibly irritating.

Counter-protests to shield the families at funerals where the WBC is picketing is definitely appropriate. Other than that, the best way to combat the WBC is to ignore them. Like a plant in a closet, they die without light.

When I see the WBC now, which isn’t nearly as often as it used to be, I don’t even see them anymore. As soon as I catch a glimpse of their brightly colored bizzaro-world signs, my brain sort of shifts into neutral. My eyes glaze over. I might be aware of the fact that their big mouths are yelling highly offensive things at totally innocent people but I can’t even hear them anymore. I don’t get angry. I just look away.

I mean, take a minute to really look at a photo of some of these poor excuses for human beings and tell me how anybody could possibly take this hot mess seriously:

 You will eat your babies?! What does that even mean?

*If you’re unfamiliar with the Westboro Baptist Church, or you’d like more information about them, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a great resource.

A few random things that bug me that just occured to me right this minute

This is just a quick, short list of some things that bug me. This list could be much longer, but I don’t feel like taking the time to think about things that irritate me right now.

People who think that they have red hair when they don’t

Look, we’d all love to have red hair. It is rare and gorgeous. But according to Wikipedia, only 2 to 6% of the U.S. population has red hair, so chances are, you don’t have it. Happily, red hair is sold in several shades at the box store and is relatively easy and cheap to achieve once you get the hang of it.

Or people who think someone else has red hair, which usually goes something like this:

“You know Judy?”
“Judy who?”
“Judy in accounting.”
“Is she the short one or the woman who always wears a cardigan?”
“She’s the one with auburn hair.”
“You mean the long brown hair or the short curly brown hair?”
“The long auburn hair.”
“No one in accounting has auburn hair.”
“It has sort of auburn highlights ...”
“No it doesn't.”

Mini vans, SUVs and stupid, stupid, big ass trucks

If you have more than two children, or you haul large amounts of things on a regular basis, then I have no objection to your stupid, big ass vehicle. But seriously, most people are just driving those big things around, sucking up gallons and gallons of gasoline, pulling out in front of people driving cars at intersections so we can’t see around you, or boxing in cars in parking lots so that when we go to back out, we have no idea if someone is going to hit us, even though when we parked there was no one next to us, but now there’s a Ford F150 on one side and a big ugly Dodge Caravan on the other. Having one or two kids is not a reason to run out and buy a gigantic vehicle. You can cart your kids around town in a car, and rent a big ass annoying piece of crap van or SUV when you go on vacation. This will save you tons of money in the long run! I can’t emphasize how much I hate your stupid, useless, big ass honkin’ vehicle. I really do. That doesn’t mean that I hate you. I have lots of friends who drive stupid big ass vehicles. (Or maybe now I don’t.)

People who tell you they are bad drivers, after you’ve belted yourself into the passenger seat of their car

This has happened to me a few times in my life. Each time it has been a woman who’s told me she’s a bad driver, because what dude thinks he can’t drive? Also in each case I’ve found that the woman is a perfectly average driver, but I imagine that at some point someone has told her that she’s a terrible driver and she’s internalized it forever. When it happens, I have so many questions:

1) If you really think you’re a bad driver, why are you driving? Are you seriously okay with putting yourself, and others, in mortal danger?

2) If you really think you’re a bad driver, how can you in good conscience DRIVE YOUR CHILDREN AROUND?

3)If you really think you’re a bad driver, how can you in good conscience DRIVE OTHER PEOPLES’ CHILDREN AROUND?

3) WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT WHEN I’VE JUST BELTED MYSELF INTO YOUR CAR? Why wouldn’t you say that before I get into your car so that we can discuss other driving options?

People who are bad drivers who think they’re fantastic drivers

This one just speaks for itself.

There's nothing ladylike about being a lady

A few days ago Variety magazine TV critic Brain Lowry wrote a piece about Sarah Silverman’s new HBO standup special. In his review, he laments that such a talented (and good-lookin’!) woman comic would limit her career by having such a dirty mouth:

There’s something simultaneously fascinating and maddening about Sarah Silverman – graced with genuine talent and a well-defined comedic persona on one hand, and a commitment to pushing past the edge in a way that blunts her appeal on the other. Despite all manner of career-friendly gifts – from her looks to solid acting chops – she’s limited herself by appearing determined to prove she can be as dirty and distasteful as the boys, an attribute very much on display in her HBO special “We Are Miracles,” which premieres on Nov. 23.

Frankly, it would be a shame if Sarah Silverman wound up confined to Comedy Central roasts and the occasional special, but that’s about as much mileage as can be expected from her act as presently constituted.

As for going much further with those self-inflicted restrictions, that would be the real miracle.

The whole idea of “being ladylike” or “acting ladylike” is something that has always pissed me off. There have been a couple of times in my life when I’ve considered giving up swearing, and then I thought Why the everliving fuck would I do that? I love to curse. But I’ll never understand why some people think that certain words and behaviors should be off-limits to women, and that “being ladylike” is the only acceptable way for women to behave.

Because there is nothing, I repeat, nothing ladylike about being a lady.

Being a lady means you start bleeding from your hoo-haw sometime between the age of 9 and 15 and try to hide the stains every month for the next 30 to 50 years. Being a lady means always being aware of your surroundings, glancing over your shoulder to make sure no one is following you, especially when you’re walking back to your car by yourself at night. Being a lady means being naked from the waist down spread eagle in stirrups while 15 people you’ve never met in your life wander in and out of the hospital room where you’re giving birth. I could go on, but you get the idea. There’s a whole shit-ton of things that ladies have to deal with that are light years from “ladylike.”

You know how old I was the first time a grown-ass man tried to pick me up? Twelve. I was at a music festival with my mom and brother. I didn’t even understand that this asshat was coming on to me until my mother, to her credit, marched straight over to him and said, “That’s my daughter. Leave her alone.” This is not an unusual experience. When you’re born female, that’s just par for the course. So forgive me if I think that we've earned the right as a gender to let a few colorful four-letter words fly. The idea that women are somehow soft and delicate and must behave as such, while men are tough and hard and have therefore earned some arbitrary right to be course and vulgar, is laughable. I am not saying that being a woman is more difficult than being a man. I’m not saying that women are better than men. I’m saying that we’re equal, and holding women to a different standard of behavior is bullshit.

This is Brain Lowry’s description of himself on Twitter:

Brian Lowry is a critic and columnist for the entertainment trade Variety. He also knows a George Carlin quote for any situation.

So Brian’s a Carlin fan. Huh. Me too. In Brian’s mind, it’s okay for George Carlin to be dirty (and really, has there ever been anyone dirtier than George Carlin?) but not Sarah Silverman, because she’s “limiting herself.” Despite their foul language, George Carlin and Richard Pryor are widely considered to be masters of the spoken language. You know what I think they’d have to say about Brian’s dumb ass review?

Fuck that double standard. Fuck it hard. Fuck it long. Fuck it until it dies.

Merry f*cking Christmas

 

It’s that time of year again. That time of year when my mother begins to wind herself up into a holidays induced frenzy. It’s like she she’s smoking more than turkey. Maybe mistletoe joints while downing cup after cup of holly tea with a candy cane shoved up her ass.

Anyone who knows me more than a little knows that my mother and I do not get along. She is difficult and childlike, a barely functioning adult with a serious personality disorder. I know to some people it might sound cruel to talk this way about someone who’s mentally ill, but you know what else is cruel? Having two kids when you’re mentally ill and then expecting them to take care of you.

No matter how much we’re not getting along, my mother always makes sure that we’ve “made up” before the holidays, because she can’t stand the thought of not “celebrating” with family, and god forbid she doesn’t score any loot. I always go along with it, forcing my husband and daughter to participate, because I guess in some dark corner of my brain that I haven’t managed to completely wall off, I still feel sorry for her.

She started pestering me with phone calls about two weeks ago, because she is already planning for Christmas. That means that she started thinking about Christmas before Halloween was over.

“I want to do something really wild for Christmas dinner this year,” she said. “I’m tired of the traditional meals. So start thinking about what we might have.”

This is annoying to me because I seriously don’t give a shit. All I want to do is get in and get out, hopefully with my sanity in tact. But each year my mother builds Christmas up into this impossible ideal that no one can live up to, and every year she tries to force the rest of us into sharing in her mountainous delusion. No one can possibly be cheery enough. The presents can’t be plentiful or large enough. The food is never quite as satisfying as she thinks it should be, and each year she lays out a spread that could feed a large extended family, even though it’s just the five of us. No one is ever as grateful or surprised as they should be, no matter how emphatic his or her appreciation. In order for her to be satisfied, our smiles must split our very faces. We must practically soil ourselves with excitement. She is over 70 now, but she views the holiday through the eyes of a four year old, and not in a good way. It is exhausting.

My husband, daughter, brother and I spend Christmas Eve as opposed to Christmas proper with Mother, because she refuses to be in the same room with my dad, even though they’ve been divorced since 1980. So several years ago she surrendered Christmas day and has completely taken over Christmas Eve as her own, insisting that we have it at her house, where she can have total control over the decorations and the food. Her decorations, while beautiful and Martha Stewart-like, completely engulf her small house, looking like the Hobby Lobby vomited up several aisles in her living room. I’m fine with celebrating at her house, though, because that means we can leave when we want.

I told a close friend of mine that my mother was insisting that I come up with an idea for Christmas dinner. She’s a witty, sarcastic woman, much like me.

“You should tell her you want fondue,” she said, and we shared a good laugh.

It was so funny to me that when my mom called today to ask if I’d been thinking about Christmas dinner I said, “What about fondue?”

“Oh,” she said, clearly surprised. I could hear the cogs clicking in her head. She was intrigued. “Have you had that recently at a friend’s house?”

“No,” I said, instantly realizing my blunder.

“Well, I used to have fondue pots ...” she said, which is true. They were olive green and she bought them in the 1970s, the last time that fondue was hip.

“It’s fine,” I said. “We don’t have to have fondue. Don’t go out and buy fondue pots. Let’s just have pizza or something.” Because my mother has no money. She never does. But no matter how much my husband and I try to insist that she save her money and not buy us gifts, she refuses to listen. And now, I thought, she’s going to go out and buy a bunch of goddamned fondue pots that she can’t afford.

Shit.

She said that maybe we would just have pizza, but I kinda doubt it. I have a feeling that come Christmas Eve, there will be a little forest of fondue pots dotting her dining room table, simmering over sterno cans, glistening with various cheeses, broths and chocolates, because though my mother is irritating, she is a damned good cook.

And who knows. Maybe this year, the fondue will be so fucking exciting Christmas will finally live up to her expectations.

State-sanctioned rape

There’s a case blowing up in the news lately that’s getting a lot of media attention, both traditional and social. Apparently two cops in New Mexico making a routine traffic stop decided that the man they pulled over was “clenching his buttocks” which made them think he might be hiding drugs in his colon.

The police took the man into custody and had his abdomen x-rayed. No drugs. Allegedly, the police then had the man's anus searched by a doctor for drugs, twice. When they couldn’t find drugs that way, the man was forcibly given three enemas. Finally, he was sedated and given a colonoscopy.

In all of the probing, exactly zero drugs were ever found.

The general outrage, from both men and women, has been palpable.

Not that he’s a lighthouse of justice, but here’s the headline of an editorial about the matter from Glenn Beck’s website, written by Beck himself:

This actually happened in America: New Mexico man forced to undergo anal cavity search after routine traffic stop

Following the editorial is a string of comments full of fury, with not one person, that I’ve been able to find, on the side of the cops. Here’s just a sampling of folks’ indignation:

Everyone involved in this absolutely horrendous ordeal deserves to be fired and barred from holding any type of job where they have to deal with the public. They then need to be prosecuted for assault and battery. I hope Mr. Eckert sues the crap out of the police department and the "care" facility. Wake up people - your government is out of control. Time to hold feet to the fire and refuse to put up with this kind of abuse.

Assault and battery? They need to be prosecuted for rape.

That's right. They penetrated his body.

He was legally molested.

WTF LEGALLY MOLESTED. There is no such thing a legal molestation. He was Totally and by any law ILLEGALLY MOLESTED and anyone involved needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Yet in eight states in these Great United--Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas--legislation has been proposed by state senators and representatives--people voted into office--to require that women undergo transvaginal ultrasounds before they can obtain an abortion.

Has there been outrage? Sure. But not the across-the-board outrage that there should be. Nobody thinks it’s okay for the cops to search a man’s anus, but stick a wand in a pregnant woman’s vagina? Well, that’s kind of different, isn’t it? I mean, if she’s pregnant, somebody’s obviously already been in there once. What’s the big deal if a doctor roots around in there a little more?

This shit has got to stop.

Fundamentally, we understand that a man’s body is his own, to be done with as he pleases, to be penetrated only when he says it’s okay. We don’t have that same understanding of women’s bodies.

Women’s bodies are vessels. Vessels for babies, vessels for pleasure. Vessels to be filled. Vessels to be invaded. Parents--and I mean parents of both genders--have got to start teaching their daughters that their bodies belong to them. That they are their own. That they belong to themselves. Not a boyfriend, or a girlfriend or a husband or even a doctor. Not for reasons of shame or virginity, but for reasons of dignity and worth. And parents need to teach that concept to their boys as well.

And kids need sex education. Proper, real, sex education that teaches them how to avoid pregnancy. Boys need to be taught not just not to rape, but to respect a woman’s boundaries. That he can have access to that vagina only when birth control has been discussed and decided upon and she has given her explicit, well-thought-out permission. Not an “I guess so,” or some sort of half-assed consent because she’s afraid he’ll leave her if she doesn’t. Women have got to be taught that "I guess so" isn't a phrase that should come out of her mouth, and men need to be taught that "I guess so" doesn't mean "Yes." Because it benefits both men and women when women have control of their own bodies.

Finally, more women have got to run for office. We need more women politicians, judges and police officers. That’s how public policy will become more women-friendly and women-centric. Women must come out in great numbers to vote, and we have got to start voting the right people into office.

That’s how we’re going to finally gain ownership of our bodies.

The wrong side of the tracks

Here in the quirky, liberal, wonderful town of Lawrence, Kansas, we live on the wrong side of the tracks.

The wrong side of the tracks in Lawrence is the west side, west of Iowa Street. It’s where the “new” high school (opened in 1997) is, and even though the dividing line in Lawrence that demarks where kids will attend was drawn from east to west to equalize the socio-economic statuses of the kids attending, Free State High School--the new one--is perceived as the “rich” high school while Lawrence High School is perceived to be the high school of “real,” down-to-earth Lawrencians.

Recently, in anticipation of a rivalry football game, some kids at Free State wore t-shirts referring to Lawrence High kids as “peasants.”

Some people on Facebook and on the Lawrence Journal World website are putting it down to “kids will be kids,” and not letting it bother them that much. Other people are pissed. I’m just … Ugh. Really?

I’ve lived and worked all over this town. My parents owned the house at 24th & Ridge Court in the 1970s, long before Redbud Lane became the supposed hotbed of drugs and dangerous it is now. (I say *the* house because there are apartment buildings on every other corner.) I’ve lived near Burcham Park on Mississippi Street. I worked at Roger’s Food Center in North Lawrence for almost two years. It would take about a year before the Sand Rats would accept one of us college kids from over the bridge, but once they decided we were okay, they’d beg us to come party with them after work. That’s how I and my fellow Roger’s coworkers ended up at the Congo bar more than once, a place with a legendary reputation in the rest of town as a bar one simply didn’t set foot in if one valued one’s life. We found the Congo to be relatively uneventful, populated mostly by the same good-natured alcoholics we waited on at Rogers. Eventually, the Congo burned down; I’m not sure of the circumstances. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with friends in Central- and East Lawrence. There’s not a single part of this town that I’m afraid to drive through or visit.

Now, though, my husband and kid and I live on the west side. There’s this perception amongst many Lawrencians that westsiders are all rich assholes living in McMansions. Here’s the reality: my kid goes to Deerfield School, a school built in the 1960s, the most crowded school in town. I have lots of friends on this side of town, very cool folks who like to eat and buy local, frequent the farmer’s market and downtown, and not one of whom lives in a McMansion. Most of us are either two-parent working families, or a one-parent working family that pinches pennies and cuts coupons so that the other parent can stay home with the kids. Some of us are even same-gender families, families who, I’m told, feel supported by their neighbors and school communities. Most of us live in modest homes. Some of us live in duplexes or apartments.

We ended up where we are because we had become one of those households that needed to be near one of the turnpike entrances/exits. Oh. I can hear some of my fellow Lawrencians saying. You’re those people. Those people who live in Lawrence but commute to Kansas City or Topeka. Yeah, well, we didn’t start out that way. Jim’s job was in Lawrence, but once it outgrew Lawrence, much to his (and my) great annoyance, the job moved to Kansas City. I had a great job in Lawrence that I loved, until that business failed. The next job I found in my field was in Topeka. When we were looking for a new house to buy, we had it narrowed down to North Lawrence or where we are now, based solely on being close to turnpike access. The decision to move where we are now cut a full half hour off of Jim’s commute, saving us, and the environment, lots of fuel and emissions.

What I find amusing about the perception that all the money in town is on the west side is that it’s getting to be very expensive to live in the older, more desirable parts of town. Neither of us is handy, and there’s no way we could afford the TLC that a house built before the 1940s needs. And some of those grand Victorians in Old West Lawrence? They cost as much, if not more than, some of the McMansions on the far west side.

There’s a perception that all westsiders are stuck up, conservative bastards. (A couple of my westside girlfriends and I also learned courtesy the final Victor Continental Show that we’re being shunned from the shittons of swingers parties that are rampant over here.) The truth is that I know several people who live on the west side who play in local bands. The truth is that the west side has come out en masse for recent local elections to vote for things like the T and the refurbished library.

Now, truth be told, there’s also a perception amongst certain westsiders that East and North Lawrence are “dangerous,” and schools like Central Junior High are full of low-class thugs.

I always take time out of my busy, busy day to reassure those folks that that perception is pure-D horse shit, and that they’re behaving like the pompous assholes some people think we all are over here.

The truth, in my opinion, is far more nuanced than the typical perceptions. I love this town. I love all parts of it. Are there assholes on my side of town? Sure. But there are assholes all over town. There are also cool people all over town. I know. I’ve met them.

I sincerely hope those kids were joking. I hope the Free State kids were joking and the LHS kids know that. Only the kids know for sure. It’s also my hope that someday, all Lawrencians will open their minds, and their eyes, and let go of some of their preconceived notions.

Liar, liar, plants for hire

 

A friend of mine thought that since I wrote about the huge pile of dirt that was plunked behind our house, I should do a follow-up now that the situation has changed.

The dirt pile appeared the first week of July. It was there through July, August and September. Sometime about the middle of September I flipped out a little and wrote a pretty heated email to the road building company that had shoved it there—and I CC’ed a couple of city commissioners in on the message as well. I told them that what bothered me most was the bald-faced rudeness of what they’d done—as if no one had put any thought into how their actions might affect someone else.

I received a couple of sympathetic emails in return with the promise that something would happen as soon as possible.

HA! I thought. That dirt pile will sit there all winter.

Another month went by. Then, about a week and a half ago—mid October—trucks and loaders started hauling the dirt pile away. It disappeared, chunk by chunk, and was gone in two days.

Did my complaint make it go away faster? I don’t know. What I do know is that the removal of said dirt pile has honestly improved our collective dispositions in the house. It’s just more pleasant to look out in that direction, even though they’re still working out there. They’re putting in a new neighborhood behind us, which leads me to the larger issue of development and sprawl, something maybe I’ll address in a future entry.

But I digress. The point is, I made a stink, I called some people some choice names, and the situation has been rectified. So I’m here to say that maybe I was wrong and reacted a little strongly.

(Or maybe not.)

Last week I wrote an entry about beauty and social media and how social media makes us feel about ourselves. I wrote that I can post a “selfie” on Facebook and “rarely” get the reaction that I’m pretty. That was a lie. Up until a couple of days ago, I’d never been told I was pretty when I’d posted a selfie on Facebook. I’ve also noticed that some of my very good friends, women who are smart and witty, never get that reaction either, while some women are told that they’re pretty quite predictably. (If you read the original entry, I swear it’s a little more complicated than the self-involved pile of drivel it sounds like here.)

Well, it happened. I posted a photo of me on Halloween, and unexpectedly got the “hubba, hubba” reaction I’d never received before.

AND I WAS THRILLED.

Am I proud of that? Hells no. What the fuck is wrong with me? What does it matter? Why is it so goddamn important for women to be pretty? (I was going to say why is it so goddamn important for women to be pretty in this culture, but let’s face it, isn’t beauty important for women all over this whole planet?) What kind of values can I possibly pass on to my daughter when I can’t even get my own self esteem under control?

GAH!

Oh well. I figure I’ll never get that reaction again. I’ll just put this one in the bank and look back on it fondly when I’m having a weak moment. From here on, I’ll try to move forward positively and not give a shit what anyone thinks.

Because that’s what’s important. At least to me.

Pretty plain

There have been some discussions and studies in the media lately about how social networking sites make us feel, about ourselves, and each other. The ones that claim that social networking sites make us feel worse about ourselves make me skeptical. For the most part, I enjoy checking my Facebook account.

Truth be told, there are days I feel like an addict. I’m on Facebook way too much, and the impetus to take a few seconds to see if I have any updates is a strong one, making me feel ashamed, like an out-of-control junkie.

But then there are those wonderful Facebook connections, those times when you have that meaningful interaction with someone you barely know, or don’t know at all, or maybe someone you haven’t talked to in years, and you realize that but for Facebook, the encounter probably wouldn’t have happened at all. It’s that feeling of clicking, that someone gets you—and you get them in return. Maybe someone swoops in to you lift you up right at that moment when you feel as though you couldn’t possibly lift yourself. Maybe you find that someone shares a deeply held belief that you thought might be yours alone. Sometimes a hilariously spontaneous thread knits itself together right in front of your eyes like magic.

The invention of social media has also brought to light a phenomenon that I find both fascinating and somewhat troubling, and again, it’s one of those things that I don’t think we would’ve discovered about ourselves if not for social media: Facebook acts as a sort of living high school yearbook. Instead of being a quaint bit of memorabilia stuck back in our teen years, though, it never ends. It just goes on and on, forever.

There are those women on Facebook—we all know who they are—who can post of photo of themselves and immediately get a string of responses like this: “Pretty! Beautiful! You are so gorgeous!” etc., etc., etc. I have myself reacted this way to photos of my attractive female friends on Facebook. The collective human response to a beautiful woman is, after all, a powerful one: Like moths to the proverbial flame.

Then there are the rest of us. I have never seen a similar response to any male friend of mine who posts a photo of himself, even the dudes who are considered good looking. I mean, sure, if a guy is deliberately mugging for the camera, flexing his bicep, or wearing a tux for a formal event, people might say things like, “Looking good, buddy!” or something else vaguely complimentary, but there’s not the stop-dead-in-your-tracks reaction that occurs when we’re looking at an attractive woman.

When I post a photo of myself, I rarely get the “Pretty!” reaction. I might get, “You look so happy!” or “Nice earrings!” or “You look tired. Are you okay?” But never the cascade of compliments that an attractive woman gets. I would like to say that this doesn’t matter to me. That I have grown up and matured and come to be so comfortable in my own skin that not being pretty doesn’t hurt.

It still does. Just like it did in high school. And I catch myself wondering what it would be like to be one of those women who has the power to render others speechless just by walking into a room.

Don’t be like that. I tell myself. You have no idea what it’s like to be pretty. Maybe it kind of sucks.

Maybe it gets tiring to have people concentrate more on your looks than your abilities. Or your brains. That’s one thing I never have to worry about. I’m no genius, but I don’t normally worry about someone thinking I’m stupid. And if someone does think I’m stupid, I don’t give a shit because I know, deep within me, that he or she is dead fucking wrong. So screw that asshole. End of story.

But maybe when you’re pretty once in awhile you’d like to post a photo of yourself and have people say things like, “You look so happy!” or “Nice earrings!” or even, “You look tired. Are you okay?” Instead of “Hubba, hubba!” or “Hot stuff!” Maybe that sort of reaction starts to feel superficial after awhile. Maybe it starts to wear on your soul.

And it makes me wonder what this fixation on women’s looks does to all of us women, the plain and the pretty.

A treatise on breastaurants

 

From the very first moment I heard about Hooters—and I think I was in high school—I was outraged. Now you can simply put my outrage down to some bitchy feminist ideal, but I assure you that my outrage goes much further than that. Still, it’s an outrage that, over the last twenty years or so, I’ve had a little trouble defining.

I do know that the concept of hiring women—and only women—for a certain position within a business is by definition discriminatory. How is it possible that a so-called legitimate “family” business—not a strip club mind you—can get away with hiring only women, and not men, as servers? Further, how is it legal, in this day and age, to practice single-gender hiring based on a woman’s looks?

And what does it say about us as a society that we’ve taken the forward strides brought to us by so many brilliant, equal-rights-fighting, capable women like Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem, and Anita Hill and pretty much flushed them down a big fucking toilet? What started with Hooters has now lead to several national chains that have taken the hiring process to a place so degrading that it’s about reducing women to one (okay two) body parts: their breasts. These businesses are literally hiring a good pair of tits to wait on their customers. (I’m sure that they would argue that it’s not just about the boobs. They have to hire a pair of boobs with the ability to wait tables, a feat that I am positive is not easy for anyone, boobs or not, which is why I always tip at least 20 percent, even when the service is less than stellar.)

And these businesses don’t even have the common decency to sugar-coat what they’re doing. They put their boobishness on big-ass signs right out front: Hooters, Twin Peaks, Mugs N Jugs.

Yet another part of me argues that women who are good looking and have been blessed with a nice rack have every right to use their genetic advantages to make money if they so choose. After all, if guys are going to continue to be so easily manipulated as to drop a few bucks when they see a pair of tits, then who am I to deny those women their right to collect their piece of the American pie?

Of course, that argument goes the other way too. What about all us plane-Jane types who have to rely on brains and hard work to make money? That kind of sucks.

In a burst of injustice-induced frustration, one day on Facebook I announced that I would be opening a string of restaurants called Sausage Fest. The menu would be sausage-based and we would be hiring only good-looking young men in their twenties who would sport uniforms that show off their “packages.” I said that we’d only hire young men of a certain length and girth, if you know what I mean. “Who wants to invest?” I asked, and about 20 of my female friends “liked” the status, which at this juncture of our culture is of course the only vote of the people that seems to really count for anything.

A male friend of mine pointed out that such a venture would never work. First off, heterosexual women don’t tend to patronize that kind of establishment in droves. You could cite the popularity of an enterprise such as Chippendales, but the fact of the matter is that its popularity is limited. There are strip clubs for men in virtually every town in America, but only a small smattering of Chippendales-type shows for women. Secondly, my friend pointed out that sexually explicit material that may start out aimed at heterosexual women is often usurped by gay men. Take the publication Playgirl, as an example. And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing—I’ve enjoyed a couple of really good strip shows in gay clubs alongside my gay brethren—it still changes the basic intent of my brilliant idea.

And that made me madder than ever. It also made me come to a realization: I’m not mad at Hooters for exploiting women nearly so much as I am for the fact that straight women aren’t able to exploit hot young dudes in the same fashion. ‘Cause if Sausage Fest was real? I’d be eating there breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And that, I realized, after twenty long years, may be the real reason I despise breastaurants.

A big pile of … dirt

 

See this pile of dirt? This pile of dirt represents what it’s like to be part of the 1% in the U.S. today. Because when you’re part of the 1%, you can do this. You can shit all over your neighbors, your community members, your fellow Americans. You can plan a housing development, and pile up a big ol’ mass of refuse, blocking some sap average homeowner’s view. A sap homeowner like me, who’s had to look at this pile of injustice for over three months and counting. If you’re like me, just some regular shmuck, there’s nothing you can do about it, unless you can afford a lawyer, and even if you do that, the 1% guy who’s shitting on you can afford a better lawyer. Also, the rules are different for you, Sap: if you were to pile up a mountain of dirt on your property like this, do you think it would go unpunished? Oh hell no! You’d be fined or ticketed—maybe even taken to jail—and maybe your neighbors would take you to court, and you’d be shunned and shamed, and society would deal with you appropriately. But a one-percenter? He’ll just bitch to his 1% friends about how some loud cunt is making trouble in his bid for “progress.”

Gawd bless America!