Oh my GOD

Thanks to a co-worker and friend of mine, I have find my new best friend on the web:

Library Thing

holy shit, I love this. I love this.

I'm a bibliophile at heart, an ex-library shelver and nothing can top this.

But anyway. Suharto died today. This seems to be the season of monumental bastards passing away. In someways when I read this article that was posted on bbc today I was reminded of Vladimir Putin. When Putin was named Time's person of the year, I initially almost shit my pants in disbelief. But once I read the introductory article explaining just why they named him person of the year, I began to understand, and now I agree. Putin has taken Russia from the dregs of global disarray and taken it to a whole new level. Suharto did that. Suharto was a dictator, and he was a bastard, but the economy thrived, and the country was stable. So maybe his firm hand did do some good. But that's not to equate Putin with Suharto. Putin is no dictator, and it's going to be interesting to see who can take Russia from the point that Putin is leaving it at. Here's to Russia, and here's to the death of a dictator.

In the tradition of posting LolCat pictures, here's my take on children:

I Roll!

Quick update.

Yes, that is a terrible picture of me and a great picture of Duane fucking Peters from U.S. Bombs. They played in some western saloon next to the Launchpad here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There were about thirty people at the show, give or take. I smuggled in a bottle of peppermint schnapps (so that's what boobs are for.....) and was therefore sufficiently drunk for U.S. Bombs. Orange and The Johns opened up for USB. I had heard the Oranges before, but frankly they're not my cup of tea. Good music, just not my style, and their set was somewhat lacking--it probably would have been better with a bigger crowd. The Johns put on a great show, I was definitely impressed. They were more rock n' roll in music and straight up punk in style.

U.S. Bombs made me lose my shit, to put it frankly. I honestly never thought I'd be able to see them live. I'd been listening to them since I was 13 years old, six years, SIX YEARS! and now victory is mine. It felt so good to be able to represent Bomb City at a U.S. Bombs show. The only problem I had was when I got pulled up on stage, then Duane called the other girls in the audience onto the stage. The guitarist then said "Boys, all you have to do is get a hard on." Excuse me? I was about to step off the stage when an asshole pulled on my skirt and nearly pulled it all down. I kicked him in the face and stage dived off in order to put in a few punches. At least I made my exit. But that display of blatant misogyny almost ruined the whole show for me.

That's the aspect about punk that pisses me off. The fact that girls are still not taken seriously at a punk show. You want to pull the girls on stage? Fine with me. It's when someone in the band says "all you have to do is get a hard on." This happens to me every single time I go to a good punk show. It's seriously got to change. And I will be throwing punches and elbows and kicking whatever misogynist bastard is there in the face (like I did at U.S. Bombs) until it does.

But all in all, it was a great show, and I got to meet Duane Peters. The man is awesome. A champion skater, a great frontman and just an overall good person to see up on stage. And I walked away with a killer shirt and a nice 7". The night was not wasted.

Vinyl hearts.

In a string of events that I will not elaborate on....I acquired another record player this summer and I love it. Especially since I've been hitting the thrift stores and getting a bunch of new vinyls. I nearly shit my pants yesterday when I found the ska gods, Catch-22's Keasbey Nights in the $1 bin. I love you America. Another man's trash truly is another woman's treasure (just ask me about my strange fetish concerning hubcaps on the side of the road).

Bring it on vinyl. Bring it.



....as long as nobody ridicules me for my love of Roberta Flack....fuck off.

So Bobby Fischer is dead.....

Boo-fucking hoo. I don't mean to harp on anyone's death, but you know what? What did this man really offer society? Sure, he put chess on the map, revolutionized it, etc., etc. I don't care. You can be a genius, but really, there's no point in it if you don't offer something positive to the world. I could look at Fischer in a more positive light but for one glaring thing: He was an anti-Semite.

Fischer positively lauded the incident of 9/11 and publicly proclaimed that he wished America to become a military state so that the synagogues would fall and the Jews would once again be swallowed up by a holocaust. Fuck you Fischer. Fuck you. If you didn't catch the New York Times feature they did on him, here's a link to a good 2002 article that highlights his genius and his depravity: click me bitch.

Am I glad he's dead? No. In fact I thought he died a long time ago. But come on, what's with the heaps of praise now when he's dead and gone when everyone else was busy raising eyebrows and scooting away from him when he was alive. It is a fear of mine that he will be remembered as a 'decent man' posthumously when in fact he was anything but. Bobby Fischer was a human tragedy in the matter that he was a genius. He could have given so much to the world in junction with chess. Instead he only spread the hatred and bias that fuels much of society's problems today.

Farewell Fischer.


This is for the ladies:

If your skin didn't already crawl at the thought of extra estrogen and testosterone pumped in you as birth control....it should be. Why? Then read.

I hated birth control with a passion. Hated hated hated hated hated it. And that article only makes me fume a bit more. Science vs. Mother Nature is always a tricky thing. There's so many methods of birth control, and none are infallible. But let me tell you something, I don't trust the patch. I didn't trust it when it came out, and I sure as hell don't trust it after reading that article. It's unnatural I tell you. UNNATURAL.

I was on oral contraceptives (organon mircette) for about 3 1/2 years and let me tell you, that level of hormones pumped into my teenage (read...teenage angst) body paired with the mental problems I inherited from my maternal side of the family (thank you and FUCK you genetics) led to a bumpy ride for 3 1/2 years. I'll never forget when I went in for my IUD consultation this past October, when the doctor looked over my medical record and history along with my oral contraceptives she looked at me and said: "who the hell gave you extra hormones?" This copper thing that's sitting in my uterus, which was made possible only thanks to my insurance's last dying gasp, has been a godsend. I am mentally sane AND I am absolutely sterile. Thank you thank you thank you Blue Cross.

My rant is pointless, except for the point that most birth control that women take only lead to even more problems. Why? Because science honestly hasn't tackled the problem of making a better pill AND the medical industry has not done its best to aid women in acquiring more effective and AFFORDABLE methods of birth control. Health wise, women can face so many potential dangers of oral contraceptives, Depro Provera and the patch. Oral contraceptives depend heavily on exact times for taking dosages and if not taken correctly can lead to pregnancy. I'm not even going to list the effect it has on weight, and an already mentally unstable person's mindset.

Come on science, quit trying to make rats and cats glow in the dark and try to give women a 100% safe method of birth control. AAAGH.

In a nutshell, this is how I felt the entire time I was taking oral contraceptives:


Argh. It makes me angry.

Democracy in the U.A.E. and Retail anger

I hope you sang the title of that blog to the tune of the Sex Pistol's 'Anarchy in the U.K.'



Har har har.

Anyway. Democracy in the U.A.E. has one thing in common with 'Anarchy in the U.K.':
It ain't never going to happen. Simple as that.



Yet check out this article that I boosted from cnn.com today.

How fitting that Bush makes his speech in a hotel that rents suites that have a nightly rate that is nearly three times the rent of my apartment. How fitting that he speaks of the values of Democracy in a monarchical society. Fitting that he says: ""You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government," Bush said. "And you cannot stand up a modern, confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms." while keeping a straight face. This is the man who values his alliance with Russia so highly.

Fuck you Bush. The only Bush I trust is my own. Ten more months with you then I can kiss the rights to my own body hello again.

But now to my rant.

You know what makes me angry?

Plastic bags and fast food.

A) Plastic bags. They're made of oil. The world is running out of oil. The world is vastly polluted by non-biodegradable objects. Plastic bags are not biodegradable. Wouldn't it therefore make sense to cut down our use on plastic bags.....just perhaps? I've been thinking about this for a quite a while now, and it was funny that I happened to come across Americablog.com's Chris in Paris' short snippet that you can read by clicking here.

It really is almost second nature these days to take the plastic bags that are given to us in retail. But as someone who works in retail, I can also say that some people get downright pissy if you do not serve them their plastic bags. I believe in personal activism. Proselytizing about saving the environment is not particularly the best way to go about actually making a difference--it only makes you look like the crazy tree hugger that nobody listens to. Action teamed with silence (unless asked) is a way to make a difference. So that's what I do. If an item can be easily carried out to a car with one hand, I usually hand it to the customer without a bag. Yet I am constantly shocked at the amount of people that, after I hand them their purchase, look at me with shocked eyed and say "can I have a bag, please?" and I swear to fucking god I hear a bit of indignant rage in their voice at times. Really? What's the difference between carrying a singular CD in your hand versus having it swing in a voluminous white plastic bag?

Here is a list of the regular purchases made by my customers:
1. Two rental movies.
2. One magazine and/or newspaper.
3. One CD and/or two used/new DVD.

These are items you can usually care out with your own hands. Or for women, tuck them in your purse and go. Putting one rental movie that's about 5"x5" in a bag of nearly a gallon's volume is ridiculous. It's common sense. The problem with prolific plastic bags is the OCD of Americans. They believe in compartmentalization, in dividing items up into places where they can be easily contained. And in other words, retail has given them so many plastic bags that--like a fat kid when his mother says 'no more cake, dear,'--they're shocked when they do not come with the package.

Here's a good website that can explain, better than I can, the benefits of using reusable bags in shopping and the havoc that plastic bags cause in the world today: Reusablebags.com

Phase two: Fast food

Fast food makes me want to vomit. I quit eating fast food and drinking soda when I was in 8th grade. I went from being a 200 pound 13-year-old girl to a run of the mill angry 14 year old of an average weight. That says a lot.

I was reminded today of how much I hate fast food when my co-worker brought Wendy's back to the break room. After auditing my drawer and stepping into the break room to put on my jacket and excavate my keys from my (admittedly) too big purse I heard a squeal from him. Yes. A squeal from a fully grown, plainly heterosexual male. I went over to the table and in front of him was his unwrapped Wendy's burger, and next to it was a fucking....red...lump...that most definitely was not ketchup. My co-worker is the kind of person who would--and has--picked up a sandwich off a floor and eaten it with out brushing the dirt off first. Yet this same man promptly dumped his entire hamburger into the trash and said "I wasted$1.50 on this!"

Right.

And I fully blame the cardboard taste and mass produced nature of fast food for the fat people in America. And fat people in turn gives us bad drivers. Yes, obese people make bad drivers. Why? Because they are obese and upset about it and they have heavy machinery to show it. Don't believe me? Then you ain't from the U.S.A. Think about it.


bowling ball? Nah. He got that hamburger that Bryan threw away.

He said WHAT?!

I know I promised a blog on focused consumerism, and that's coming. But I had to make a post about this: I love the balls of Pervez Musharraf. I don't know how he's going to do with Pakistan now that he's graduated from General to President, but you gotta love the man for flipping off America's pushy bully attitude and saying "stay the HELL out of my country man or I'm going to bitch slap you another one!"

If America gets all snit-faced and grumbles about how Pakistan is hiding something, I'll be sitting in the wings waiting to make a "well didn't we tell the British not to invade us back in the 1700s, or have you forgotten already? A country is a country is a sove-fucking-reign country!"

the link: 'Fuck you, this is my country' so sayeth Musharraf.

--Le Femme

Quotations

The other day I picked up a book at the library the other day, Horseradish by Lemony Snickett.

I'm not a fan of his 'Series of Unfortunate Events' books, but this slim volume of anecdotes and quotations--each one laced with wry humor--did not fail to satisfy me. I have dogeared the pages of my favorite quotes, showed one of them to my friends and they all managed to read the entire book in one fell gulp. Snicket's advice is poignant, bitterly funny and very very true in every sense of the word. Even the back of his book states:

'Life is a turbulent journey, fraught with confusion heartbreak and inconvenience. This book will not help.'

Not entirely true. With each quote, a singular memory of my life comes to mind, and the lesson I learned is parallel with Snicket's advice. And it reminds me that I'm not completely hopeless and insane in my line of thinking.

'Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the crimes, follies and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.'

This is one reason I've decided against bearing children. Why in God's name would I bring a child into all the suffering in this world? I had a great childhood, but as an adult....pfft. Adulthood is all about screwing up and horrible misfortunes, it's the single, tiny moments in which everything finally goes right that makes life minimally bearable.

'Business cards, of course, are not proof of anything. Anyone can go to a print shop and have cards made that say anything they like. The king of Denmark can order business cards that say he sells golf balls. Your dentist can order business cards that say she is your grandmother. In order to escape from the castle of an enemy of mine, I once had cards printed that said I was an admiral in the French navy. Just because something is typed--whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book--this does not mean it is true.'


I think the moral of this is clear: question authority. Just because someone is your manager does not always make him right. Just because someone is your president, does not make him the most qualified person (hellooooooo George Bush). Just because it is written in the newspaper does not make it the most reliable and most honest account. Always always always question what is set before you.

"Love can change a person
the way a parent
can change a baby--
awkwardly, and often
with a great deal of mess."

how very very violently true. What I think of in the past five years is how love has changed me. Romantic love, platonic love, and love of people in general. I think of the first boy I loved, and then the man with whom I spent two and a half turbulent years full of wild love and constant tribulations. I think of that beautiful Mexican boy whom I couldn't understand--except for the language of his skin and kiss. I think of all the boys in between, and how they sapped out of me, true emotion that I could have saved for another. I think of the blind trust I put in someone who never returned it. I think of the beautiful blonde haired boy that does a frenetic little dance in and out of my life: so full of love for me--but ruled by his indecisiveness and other obligations. I think of all the plays of human psychology and how the minds of all my lovers worked. I think about how I left each one different-- for better or for worse. It is never the failure or the pain I remember, but rather the sweet rapturous moments that have altered me forever. And there is no power on earth that can change it.

I think of all of my friends past and present. I remember the ones I haven't spoken to in years, and how I would still drop anything and take them under my arm with just one phone call, text message, myspace email, anything. I think of all the resilient bonds that I have created over the years. I think of the best friend I have now, and how our lives are consistently parallel but rarely cross paths--yet how innately connected I feel to her. I think of the long haired girl that was so different from me--so far detached even when she was close and yet I would go to the ends of the earth to soothe her pains. I think of the curly haired Jewish girl I met in North Carolina and how I haven't been in the same state as her for coming three years now, but yet her laugh, wit and intellect is fresh in my mind as daylight. Those kindred threads of friendship have stretched throughout my life-tiny spiderwebs that can be easily torn, or kept whole with careful mending.

But what's worse is the bad blood. The friends I have lost due to my mistakes or theirs. I hold no regrets, except that my love was wasted on them. But it still changed me. Changed me for the better, the stronger, never the worse. To quote Adam Sandler's brilliant character from 'Punch Drunk Love': 'The love I have makes me stronger than you can ever imagine.'

'Fate is like a strange,
unpopular restaurant,
filled with odd waiters who
bring you things you never
asked for and don't always like.'

That's life in a nutshell. Quite possibly the best allegory concerning the unpleasantness of life that I've ever heard. When you get lemons, you better pelt those damn lemons at someone else who's caused you shit, THEN make lemonade.

Now for the best quote of the book.

"If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right handed or left handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of 'AHHHH! My arm! My arm!"

the moral? Sometimes it's okay to throw a fit about something. Especially if it's about your chewed off arm. People who are constantly cheerful are most likely hiding something. They are the ones who end up blowing up the elementary school or killing the mailman. It's true, I promise. At least with angry people, you know what's coming.

Next blog: focused consumerism.

Till then

--Le Violent Femme

Excuse me?

Does anybody else throw up a little bit in their mouth when they watch the presidential primaries and the media circus that's going along with it? If the last election gave me a headache (thank you Ohio...and fuck you), this one is a full out migraine.

Look at it this way: we have a biracial candidate, a female and two other stock white male candidates.

Honestly? If I was taken to the poll and had a gun held to my head, I would vote Hillary. Why? Because she's a stone cold bitch. Come on, her last teary eyed episode aside, she's a rock. AND she has eight years experience in the white house.




Until earlier last month, I did think that Obama could be a likely candidate until I saw an interview on a news channel where he blasted Hillary. He blasted Hillary on her experience in the white house. To sum up his words best as I can remember, he said: "I'm sure Hillary has experience in the white house as I'm sure she consulted Bill on some affairs of the state. But she's just as qualified as my wife to be president."

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Hillary spent eight years right up there with Bill. And I think every American knows that she was involved, if not just as involved as Bill. Fuck you Obama, my vote is NOT for you. I don't want a misogynist president, thanks. Also, what's to stop anyone from shooting you? Hmm? It's great to have an avant garde election: a black man and a female as president. I should be shitting my liberal pants right now. But this is not an election, it's the media circus from hell. Society is not at a point where we can honestly and sincerely elect a woman OR a biracial candidate and take them seriously. It's an image to put on an ideal that we give lip service to. If you think that we can put a female president in cabinet while the pay rate is fucked; while the choice of abortion is taken out of the hands of the women it belongs to; while the rights of women to their bodies is a joke--you're dead wrong. A female president will not fix these problems. Small steps first. If we corner absolute equality without lip service or second thoughts, THEN we are ready to elect a female president.

Obama does not convince me. I do not trust him. While I think the problem with Hillary is that she can get the job done, the public won't take her seriously--I think Obama is a gimmick. I honestly do not think he will be able to manage a strong and united cabinet. I've listened to his campaign speeches, I have heard his platform, and to me it all rings with an air of canniness. I don't believe in him. And for me, as someone who is genuinely concerned about the state of America and its government--I can't possibly support a candidate who can't grasp me and seems to even thrive off of the gimmick of biracial. I do not think he cares about the youth of America. And the youth is what is important.

His Oprah factor makes me vomit. I hate Oprah. Well, hate is a strong word. Let me refine my statement. I respect her as a woman who came from nothing. She built an empire, my hands up atcha for that, big O.

BUT. This does not excuse her from being a corporate whore. There is such a thing as wanting to change the infrastructure, to assuage and improve the glitches of society and its caste. And then there is absolute exploitation. There's a difference between selling out and buying in. Oprah began by buying in, but in the end: she sold out. Her book club is a joke. Her talk show is no better than exploitation and yellow journalism. I'm sorry, but you cannot convince me otherwise on that. If I want to see a strong black woman who I know has something incredible to offer, I'll hit up Queen Latifah.

What am I looking for in today's elections? Someone who appeals to the youth. See, Bill and his sax went for it a few elections ago, and look what happened. The youth just poured right out of their family living rooms and into the poll booths. What I'm about to say may sound like the echoes of a dead horse being beaten, but it's true: The youth are the future of today.

We may be young, we may be angry, we may even be politically apathetic and insensitive. But that's because the majority of us have not been woken up. Most 18-year-olds that are registered to vote, vote in the tradition of their parents, which is how republicans and conservatives win the day. Another large percentage of us don't care enough to vote. We're focused on MTV, People magazine, looking beautiful and squandering our youth. But there's another valuable percentage of us for which the youth bestowed on us has not been wasted--I hope I can be considered part of this percentage. We are young, we are angry and constantly dissatisfied. We are punks, we are intellectuals, college students, high school dropouts, college dropouts, yuppies, retail bums, so on. But we've got an idea of how things should be run. We suffer from the pitfalls of having a part-time job with minimum wage
along with having health care rates taken out of our paychecks--health care we do not even have! We want college, but the tuition rates, lack of financial aid, and cutthroat competition with yuppie children of alumni thwart us. We feel the brunt of the middle class in the retail check-out lanes and coffee shops, and even in the street. We are considered wasteful, idle: not true. We were taken in by the generation that runs America today and thrown out on the streets like dogs. The baby boomers made us what we are. And now we are stuck in the dire straits of
wanting change.

There will always be dissatisfaction with the government among the youth. There will always be idealistic, angry twenty-somethings sitting in coffee shops and living rooms, drinking lattes and smoking pot (respectively) and arguing about change. But what all of the presidential candidates that I have seen in this election have done is ignore the amazing potential they could have by tapping into this industrious swell of youth. The youth are still angry enough to voice what they want in the world today, and we are loud enough to be heard. If we can get the baby boomer presidential candidates to turn towards us and hear us: we could change America into a better place.

All we have to do is disregard the media circus, and find candidates that are truly all inclusive to all demographics of America. Not biracial. Not Female. Not Democratic. Not Republican. A Presidential Candidate.

--Le Femme.