Fantastic!

Good morning, everyone! Did you know that 9 out of 10 doctors agree that "Faggots are Fantastic?" And the tenth one has shaky hands - I wouldn't let him operate on me!

Somebody's Mother

I have posted an ad in the rideshare section of Craigslist, because Courtney Love's Hole - her new, improved Hole - is playing Live 105's BFD at the Shoreline Amphitheatre this Sunday, and it would be shameful of me not to make an honest attempt to finally see this borderline psychotic, borderline genius, enduring freakshow of a woman - an icon in whom I have, for some highly questionable reason, invested so much emotion and significance for at least 15 years now - live and in concert, at last.

How would I describe Courtney to an alien from another planet who had never heard of her? Well, to me anyway, she's sort of a rock-and-roll (Bride-of-) Frankenstein combining the poetry of Patty Smith and Anne Sexton with the fiery scorn of Lydia Lunch, the punk-rock style of Siouxsie Sioux and Exene Cervenka (not so much the talentless Nancy Spungen), the sheer emotional intensity and towering cultural iconicity of Janis Joplin, the combatively controversial persona of Madonna and Yoko Ono and Sinead O'Connor, the fragility of Tori Amos and a dozen other vulnerable and more traditionally feminine singer-songwriter types, with...the glass-and-gravel vocals of PJ Harvey and Johnette Napolitano and Medusa and Medea, the on-stage spontaneity and unpredictability of Iggy Pop and Wendy O'Williams, the plastic surgery of Amanda Lepore, the trainwreck life-as-performance-trash-ness of Frances Farmer and the late Anna Nicole Smith, the smoky glamour of an old-school movie star like Clara Bow or the younger Bette Davis, the oversexed brashness of Blanche DuBois....shall I go on? What I'm saying is, girlfriend is COMPLEX. She's not just a walking study in demonology, she's....sort of a walking study of womanhood in the 21st Century. She's an enigma, and I love enigmas. For all her TMI and metaphorical nakedness, seeming to throw it all away and tell us all the truth, there is something central and secret that she never actually gives away. That must be what keeps me guessing, and paying attention.

I just received my copy of Hole's new album, Nobody's Daughter, today - the first real, solid, physical album I've purchased in...years? (I stopped buying music about a decade ago? Abandoning it, for some reason, in favor of other art forms like film and literature.) And it's pretty fucking good. Good enough that I'm sure after a few dozen more spins it'll permanently bond itself to my soul and psyche the way ALL of Love's four previous albums - including her not-entirely-terrible solo album, 2004's cheekily titled America's Sweetheart - have done.

For better or worse, she fills a space in (un)popular culture that would be naught but a gaping hole in her absence.

From the liner notes of Nobody's Daughter (quoted without permission, yet with respect):

Nobody’s Daughter is dedicated to all the motherless children and fatherless babies in this world. This record is dedicated to the light and to the eternal clonthian fire. This record is dedicated to numinosity and to vengeance and to sobriety. To the delusion of the ten world and to the endless cycle of birth life old age and death with enlightenment firmly in our sights.
We are dedicated to the deepest love, the truest love and the purest self love. We are dedicated to a rapacious greed for living and for Gods sake holding onto yourself in a hurricane knowing you are so loved.
This is dedicated to complete surrender. Just give in baby, just give in and you will find the light inside of yourself full of hate and fury, piss and vinegar, cracked mirrors and total self annihilation.
But the light, the light will overcome, just hang on. And in the end, Love and nothing but Love.

Feline Personality Disorder

This morning, after observing a couple of my new roommates engage in droll displays of loveydoveness, I had a little epiphany of the power and freedom that my “single” state affords me. Most people belong to or are attached to other people, or else in a pathetic state of wanting to be so attached – the relationship becomes both a strength and a hindrance, at least it appears so to me – but what do I know? Well, I have had some experience with dating, in the mists of the past. Maybe I’m codependent and so I color all relationships I see as codependent – it’s possible. But I don’t feel very dependent at all, in that emotional / physical way. I am not attached, and do not belong, to anyone but myself, and I find this to be the ideal state – the best fit for me.

The “power” this confers on me is that, being unattached, I can attach myself or belong temporarily, in the moment, to anyone I choose, at any given time, then withdraw back into myself before any serious loss of independence occurs. I can share moments of closeness, laughter, intimacy with people, but it’s not a commitment, there is no contract – I refuse to sign a contract. I like the feeling of being completely unfettered and able to do anything I want at any moment without consulting anyone else or compromising my actions because of how they may affect other people. Of course, I still have to compromise in many ways, especially now that I’ve moved back into a cooperative living arrangement – but not to the extent that people in serious, long-term relationships have to. Being single is not loneliness to me – it is freedom.

Now, does this not describe the personality of a cat - many cats, anyway - to a tee?

Speaking of cats...I wore my kittycat T-shirt out on the town last night (you can see it in the photo above! although that's from Halloween 2008), and a woman on the train complimented me for it. I've heard SF described as "a dog-lover's city if ever there was one." If that's the case, I'll be going against the grain as usual...

Obama Called Indian Slur By South Carolina Senator

Now this is just plain sloppy racism. At least get your racial slurs right, people! If you're going to be part of the proud tradition of offensive racial prejudice in this country, RESPECT it. Obama's not Indian!

Last Bitch Standing!

With all due respect to the recently departed Rue McClanahan, and her immortally hilarious portrayal of slutty old Blanche on The Golden Girls, Betty White is officially the Last Bitch Standing! Well, her and Cloris Leachman - who I hear will be reunited with Betty, her old Mary Tyler Moore show co-star, in a new TV series!

In Praise of Cheese

I wrote this poem today.

In Praise of Cheese

Because of you I will never be vegan
The ne plus ultra of dairy deliciousness
you’re part mold but you never get old

Cows and goats and sheep and yaks
Casein and vinegar and lemon juice
Rennett and wood smoke and protein galore
Calcium and phosphorous and curdled milk
But please, no head cheese for me!

Where you came from we may never know
Pliny the Elder attests to your antediluvian sophistication
Egyptian hierogylphs record your youth in pictures
One-eyed Polyphemus kept sheep and goats with you in mind
John Heywood claimed the Moon was made up of you

Fresh, or whey, or pasta filata
Soft or firm or hard or curd
Sharp or mild or medium
Soft-ripened or blue-veined or rind-encased
Salty or stinky or herb-enhanced
Creamy or crumbly or craggy

All of the above!

Spread on bread or bagels or crackers
with peppered salami and piquant red wine
everything goes better
with a little bit of you

Penicillium candida
Almond-encrusted Kaukauna cheeseballs
(a perennial holiday pleasure)
rock-hard as Gruyere, milk-soft as Brie
even sprayed out of an aerosol can

Some people claim that you cause autism or nightmares
while others insist you help them sleep

It ain’t easy bein’ cheesy
But life without it would make me queasy

Tyrosemiophilia: my new hobby
Let’s call roll!

American, Baby Swiss, Camembert
Danablu, Emlett, Feta, Gammelost
Havarti, Iberico, Jarlsberg, Kikorangi
Lairobell, Mascarpone, Neufchatel
Olivet, Parmigiano, Queso Fresco
O Romano, where forth art thou?
Stinking Bishop take a bath!
Taleggio, Ulloa, Valencay, Wigmore
Xynotyro, Yorkshire Blue, and Zanetti

Like gems rain down your lovely names
More cheese, please!

G. K. Chesterton claimed that poets have neglected you
So, you see I’ve done my best to make sure that’s not true

Eccentrics-only Dinner Party

"Our nation was founded by intellectuals."

This quote comes from an interesting little Wordpress essay I just found called The War on Intellectualism, by Julian Edney. I have known since junior high that appearing to be too smart or intellectual was, in our backward culture, a liability rather than an asset. I have been reading the autobiography of Leonard Woolf (husband of Virginia Woolf) and early on, speaking of his childhood, he asserts, “Then as now, intellectuals were despised.”

That's why my favorite TV character right now is Sheldon (played by Jim Parsons) on The Big Bang Theory. (Watching TV doesn't HAVE to make you stupider...you just have to moderate and be careful what you watch. For instance, stay away from Paris Hilton's New BFF.)

You might say, "You read too many books." And I might reply, "You should read more books." (US Magazine doesn't count!)

I want to help create a wave of "intellectual chic" to get people back to the critical-thinking, revolutionary, enlightened, intellectual roots from which this country grew. Whether that's still possible or not, I don't know...but I have to try. I don't want to settle for a dumbed-down world.

"Doing the research for this essay," Edney writes, "Has turned me into an appreciator of eccentrics, the difficult people not invited to dinner."

I would like to invite those people to dinner.