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By On August 17, 2010 · In Danse Macabre

Whenever a stranger on the street asks me for directions, I always, always stop and try to help.

Because I am a helpful person.

So yesterday morning, after semi-successfully vanquishing my lousy mood at the gym, I’m heading to work. And up ahead of me on the sidewalk I see this guy talking on his cellphone. And I’m thinking, this poor guy. He has all these freckles, and red hair, and poor eyesight, and obvious problems with his adenoids, and no grasp of flattering fashion. And also, he’s wearing a Yankees cap and jersey, which leads me to suspect that he might be retarded. (I know it’s not very zen of me to keep this running inner monologue that consists mostly of stranger-judging and Death Wish-style fantasies. If I could learn meditation I’m sure the voices would quiet a bit. I have a number of meditation albums on my iPod. I only listen to them on the subways to drown out everyone around me. But I’ve learned that it’s important to remember how strangers are dressed and what they look like because as a Hysterical Feminist®, I believe that all men are potential rapists. As an added bonus, this enables me to follow men’s fashion trends pretty closely.)

But I’m saying this because this guy is standing right in my way on the sidewalk, talking on his cellphone. And me, I’m listening to my Getting Psyched for Quietly Resigned to Work mix, which begins with “Can I Say.” And I’m looking at him because now I’m right in front of him. He’s pretty tall. And he takes his phone from his ear and starts saying something to me and because I AM A HELPFUL PERSON I pull my headphones out of my ears and I’m expecting him to ask for directions to one of the myriad neighborhood methadone clinics (because maybe he’s not retarded, just addled) and I say, “Pardon me?”

And he says, “I said how you doin’ this morning, mama?”

In terms of threat level, dickhead was more along the lines of Annoying Pinstripe Fedora Dude than Schrodinger’s Rapist. But you know what? Fuck that guy. I generally just shake my head and keep walking in situations such as these*, but yesterday? I was irritated. So I say to him, “Is this your strategy? Do you just interrupt women you don’t even know on the street to harass them?”

And he gets all exercised and hoots and says “YEAH!”

And over my shoulder I shout, “GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, DICKHEAD!” What can I say, why should I try, indeed.

But seriously: Fuck that guy, and fuck YOU if you’ve ever been that guy.

*And of course the one time I actually engaged in conversation in one of these situations it turned into some Herzog short. I was in Prospect Heights, running an errand, and this guy driving an ambulette van slowed down to talk to me. (It should be noted that the sole requirements to become an ambulette driver in NYC are that you be a) insane and b) completely unaware of driving rules and regulations.)

Him: “Hello there.”

Me, walking, pulling headphones off: “Hi.”

Him: “Did you know that you’re beautiful?”

Me: “Yes.”

Him: “Can I give you my number?”

Me: “I’m married.”

Him, cars honking behind him: “Does your husband tell you every day that you’re beautiful?”

Me, trying to get him off my case, though clearly the honking isn’t deterring his mission: “Yes.”

Him: “Because I think it’s real important that a woman gets told that she’s beautiful. Every day.”

Me, hitting the street corner and turning left: “That’s nice.”

Him: “Especially when they’re on their period.”

Me: [???]

Him, driving off: “You have a nice day, beautiful.”

Epilogue: I still can’t tell if that was serious street harassment or performance art. Naturally as soon as he was out of sight, I spun my skirt in a 360 in the middle of the sidewalk, just to check…well, you know.

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I wear my hairshirt on the inside

By On July 15, 2010 · In Danse Macabre

I had every intention of canceling my membership at my gym, which is located above a hellmouth of bedbug and cologne contamination, but when I went in there I was talked out of it by a sympathetic lady with a house in LI and a 4-year-old-son — so she understood, really, but why don’t I just go to the other gym locations if that’s the issue — and arms like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 [warning: sound]. How will I ever get those arms if I don’t stay at 24 Hour Infestation & Racquet Club?*

So instead of leaving, and because I’m too lazy to go to one of the other locations, I followed the advice of a friend who’s dealt with Biblical-proportion bedbugs and when I get to the gym I put all my clothes and my entire gym bag inside of a giant Ziploc bag. I really like these bags. They speak to me as only a high-quality plastic bag can. I can see myself a few months down the line ditching my gym bag and using just the Ziploc to transport all my stuff. That will also be the day on which I have Entirely Given Up.

morgAs you know already, I am interested in Internet phenomena and memes [warning: lazy Wikipedia links], particularly when they involve bullshit medical conditions** such as Morgellons Disease. How has a condition that pretty much no one in meatspace believes exists (except biased researchers) gotten so much traction online? Precisely because IT’S A DISEASE NO ONE IN MEATSPACE BELIEVES EXISTS!*** Surely there is some sort of Internet Law that explains this principle: The more improbable your illness is in the real world, the more credulously received it will be online.

I went to the dermatologist a few weeks ago for my annual Maybe THIS Year It’s Cancerous consult. I like him even though his paper gowns are the flimsiest I’ve ever seen. Halfway through my full-body exam I’ve already ripped the gown in half as though I’ve mistaken it for a tearaway track suit. Anyhow, after we were done he asked me if I had any questions.

Me: Yeah, do you know what Morgellons is?

Him: No.

Me: It’s a medical condition that most doctors think is a form of delusional parasitosis and it’s characterized by colorful threads growing out of people’s skin.

Him: And why do you care about this?

I guess we don’t get fake diseases in NYC all that much because we already have real things to contend with….like BEDBUGS.

Anyhow, I have kinda weird feet that are always, always calloused and virtually impervious to things like sharp rocks and glass shards and hypodermic needles. Shortly after my trip to el dermo, I noticed the pad of my left foot was hurting when I put pressure on it. I sat down and looked at it really closely and saw that something dark appeared to be embedded a few layers of skin down. I love doing home surgery, so I started poking at it with a pair of tweezers, hoping it wasn’t a plantar’s wart.

After considerable digging, I extracted a half-inch-long black, wiry hair. Seriously. I weighed two possibilities: that God was punishing me for making fun of people with bullshit maladies all these years, and that a hair of foreign origin had somehow wormed its way into my foot. Both seemed equally implausible, but I settled for the second one.

And then, last week, I noticed the same pain, in the same part of my foot. And using the tweezers and a safety pin I pulled YET ANOTHER black, wiry hair, this one the length of an eyelash. And N witnessed it this time!

So great. I have contracted Internet Crazy Disease. I am building a website to support my cause as soon as I can find the right Celine Dion midis to embed.

*I see there was a bedbug scare at Kings County Hospital. I have been to KCH and I can assure you that a single bedbug is the least of its hygiene problems. By the way, the Linda Hamilton arms thing is a joke. I will never have those. Even at 115 lbs in high school I had Ethel Merman arms. It’s my genetic lot in life. I blame the Newfies.
**Many years back I got sick — really sick, like 100-blood-tests-and-still-no-diagnosis sick — and I had a passionate and vaguely creepy infectious diseases specialist who assured me that he believed I really was sick and he was determined to figure it out. I remember saying to him, “Please don’t tell me it’s Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, because I don’t believe that exists, OK?” Never did figure out what it was. It just went away on its own after two years.
***And that, my friends, actually is what is referred to as begging the question.
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Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead

By On June 7, 2010 · In Adipocere

I have this thing now, it’s called exerting the least possible effort in the fight to save publishing and support independent houses and bookstores. So at least once a month, I buy a book at a local indie shop. I know — I’m a visionary.

A month or so back I bought Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, a memoir by Frank Meeink, a former racist skinhead and recovering addict from Philadelphia, “as told to” Jody Roy, PhD. I chose it for a couple of reasons:

  • I am somewhat fascinated by the white power/patriot movement/far-right-crazies
  • I lived in Philly for awhile and I was always running into those fucking assholes
  • I like French flaps

I will now reveal my own bigotry: I hate the City of Brotherly Love. In 1995, taking some time to “reflect” on what I wanted to do with my life (i.e., trying to pull my shit together after what had been an unexpectedly bad year of college), I lived in Philly with two friends of mine, on a cute little dead-end street in Center City. And I hated it. I hated its bizarrely parochial and stupid citizens, its attitude toward cyclists, its cops, its crustpunks, its Krishnas, its lame music scene, and its seemingly uniform, deep-rooted racism. (And yeah, I do recognize the fact that this was fully 15 years ago and things have <facetious>almost certainly</facetious> improved since then. But my memories of Philly are like a prehistoric creature encased in amber. And I would fully endorse that as an urban initiative.) I had jobs in a couple shops on South Street, selling band t-shirts and rings with dolphins on them and Manic Panic and clove cigarettes to 13-year-olds. And, most annoyingly, I regularly dealt with the skinheads who trolled South Street. They would invite me to come “hang out.” (Blond hair, blue eyes…I guess it was enough to overlook the other, quite obvious signs that I was not an ideal candidate for the white power movement.) And what did I do every single time? I’m embarrassed to admit that I merely politely declined. Because I am the biggest wimp in the world, and these dudes — whom I’d have laughed or snarled at if they’d only been a bunch of your standard Philly inbreds — were indeed kinda scary.

So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way: the book. You know what? If it helps just one person realize that Racism is Bad, then that’s great. I wish Meeink well; I hope he stays sober and keeps doing what he’s doing and running his youth hockey program. But this memoir left a lot to be desired. It plodded, it meandered, it repeated itself. And in trying to capture Meeink’s voice, Roy manages to fill page after page with some seriously hokey metaphors and language (I mean, c’mon: “ain’t”? Listen to the Fresh Air interview linked below and tell me how many times he uses “ain’t.” ). And it simultaneously offers too few compelling details and too many unnecessary details. There are dozens of instances in which he recalls the picayune — the precise number of pills he took or how much something cost or an entire headcount at some meeting, for example — yet neglects to recount the important details, like what people looked like or the conversations he had. This book would have benefited from more guidance (and a hell of a lot more editing). What should be a compelling look inside the mind of a legendarily violent skinhead and how he ultimately came to question everything he believed is, instead, an endless saga lacking the elements of passion or introspection the story deserves.

You can hear his Fresh Air interview here. I found listening to him talk about his life far more interesting than reading his memoir. He says something interesting, that as an angry teenager, he could’ve easily fallen in with any group; the skinheads just happened to be the first to get to him. In high school, I often wondered about some of my friends in the hardcore scene — clambering for the mic at shows to sing anti-homophobic anthems, they seemed like they’d have been just as comfortable if the lyrics had been about putting gays on an island and blowing it up.

Speaking of: I know I mentioned this already, but I’m fascinated (though unsurprised) by the recent murders of white power movement leaders. And I think both stories are entirely plausible. Have you ever seen a skinhead rally? It’s basically a codpiece and a full set of teeth away from a goddamned Pride march. And there actually are gay “racialists” out there. I had an issue of MaximumRockNRoll that had an article on the topic of gay skins and the MRR archives are pointing me to an article from 2002 but I’m pretty sure I read it in the early 90s–if anyone has a scan of it, feel free to email me at genius@derasso.com.

Weak ending, I know. I had a whole ‘nother section about the hardcore movement and its thuggishness and misogyny (what a treat!), but that’s just going to have to wait until later. I started this post a month and a half ago and I don’t feel like waiting another month and a half to publish.

[edited to add: In thinking about it some more, I feel like I've been a little mean to this book. It has messages that will resound with some people -- one being that fucked-up parents beget fucked-up kids, a very popular memoir theme these days -- but the (unintentional) volleying between the banal and the ultraviolence and the prodigal-son-returns stuff just didn't appeal to me. But you know what? I hated Soul On Ice too. I think I just must have a problem with men!

Oh! And! Another thing that creases me is that Meeink speaks about racism on behalf of the ADL, a group I am not particularly fond of, because I also have a problem with assholes.]

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Real estate is the porn of your 30s*

By On April 7, 2010 · In As I Am Now

Oh my god you guys, I *want* to have things to share, because you all know how much I like to talk about myself, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m going through my late-winter/early-spring my-brain-has-atrophied/I-was-never-that-great-a-writer-anyhow thing. And, like I mentioned last week, I’d rather spend my evening on the couch, or at the dining room table, with N…watching HGTV (or NCAA stuff)(and yes, I’d rather watch basketball than write; that’s how hard I’ve been avoiding it).

HGTV has become, without question, my new favorite channel (DIY is good too, but I always forget where it’s located on the cable box). It has usurped my former TV-watching routine, which could be summed up as “Freaks-n-Food.”** I love the sassy Canadian-Italian woman on Property Virgins, who manages to chide people politely (most common: “It’s just wallpaper; you can fix that”….”I can’t believe you guys don’t like this place; it has everything on your checklist!”) and Mike Holmes from Holmes on Homes and his North Dakota Gay Disco getup and his “bad-construction-as-personal-affront” persona. Curb Appeal, with its adorable crew. And it’s all G-rated.

I love Househunters especially. There’s something so calming about watching pleasant people with strange ideas about fashion (I thought that Kate Gosselin hairdo was roundly mocked everywhere? Guess not) in towns I’ll never visit look at houses I’d never buy in a million years. Every show is the same: Two reasonably attractive people — sometimes a couple, sometimes “friends” — are shown three houses, and they buy one. There’s always some drama with the offer-counteroffer. And you can tell they’ve been fed vocab words, and that paying bland compliments to each house is an enforced rule. “I like the tile here in the bathroom, how it’s on the floor and the walls.” “I like this two-car garage. I bet our two cars would drive up in here real nice.” “It’s nice that there’s no trees in the way at all, for when you mow and such.”

N and I have devised a Househunters Vocab Game. You get a certain amount of points when each of the following phrases is used:

One point:
-Finished garage
-”Mancave”
-Cathedral ceiling [and there is always a cathedral ceiling, because the houses are almost always contemporary architectural abortions set in developments]
-Kitchen island
-Finished basement

Bonus points:
-Scrapbooking
-Soaker tub

Triple bonus points:
-Home theater
-Trampoline

A lot of people on this show have dogs, and they always want a big yard for the dogs to run around in. Now, I can understand that dogs need exercise, but really, doesn’t this pretty much mean that these “homebuyers” are basically just looking for a property that they can surround with yellowed grass and piles of dog shit? Is this really acceptable?

scottMy *absolute favorite* show, however, is Income Property, hosted by an impossibly wholesome guy named Scott McGillivray, who has teeth like Chiclets and bulging muscles and hair so thick and manicured it has to be glued on. He goes to people’s houses and builds rental apartments where there were formerly only boilers and rats and torture chambers. He is superimposed on his proposed design using green screen technology, and then he and his attractive crew start tearing shit apart and putting in Ikea cabinets. They always find something distressing, and the camera fades to commercial with Scott looking flummoxed, patting his perfect hair. And then when we come back from the break, they’ve managed to resolve the problem, and we flash forward to the finished product, with West Elm furniture (for staging purposes) and wainscoting in the “washroom” (is that a Canadian thing too?) and dove-gray walls and slate floors everywhere. And he’s just so excited to help people move TOTAL STRANGERS into their house.

I love that guy. I hope he’s not a douche in real life.

*A friend put it that way to me many years ago, before I even turned 30. He was right.

**Speaking of which: This morning at the gime I watched I’m 16 & Pregnant while I did the elliptical thing. Conservatives can bemoan the tragic state of inner cities all they want — the result of decades of Welfare Queens and “jewels in the crown” and crack babies and community organizers &c. — but they should really be looking in the fucking mirror and acknowledging their own fucking voter base, because those people are the ones whose chain-smoking, high-school-dropout, unemployed, no-prenatal-care dimwit progeny are creating an entire generation of Fucked-Up Kids. And to the parents? You’re the generation who banned sex ed, and you get what you deserve. Time for me to donate more money to Planned Parenthood.

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