Tragicomic

I think I've been warped a bit by steady dose of brilliant comedy. I find it most brilliant, of course, when it shows us for that asses we all are. That is to say, when the comedian takes the stage and spends an hour loathing, wondering at, celebrating himself, and he is large and contains multitudes.

Now everything that's real to me is comedy. The whole world is funny.

It's a family tradition

People of Walmart <-----click on this

What are we laughing at when we make fun of people shopping at Wal Mart?

Why do we hate them?

I don't think it's because they are perpetuating injustice and suffering by giving their money to an entity that destroys small business and towns, and abuses its employees to sell crappy, useless disposable shit to people to feed their cultural addiction to crappy, useless disposable shit. I don't think it's that because we clearly know that the people who shop at Walmart don't seem to have a lot of options. Because they are poor.

Which, it would seem, makes them great fodder for humor.

Poor people, especially southerners, are hiLARious because they dress funny and drive cars that are made of parts from other cars. They like Nascar, have mullets and wear too much make up. They are fat. They are stupid. They hate gay people. They're all high on Jesus. And meth and paint. (There's actually a picture of a huffer in here that is freaking hilarious! You have not seen funny until you've seen a guy who is addicted to huffing paint. In person. It's like looking at someone who wishes he was dead.) They are violent. They have very bad taste in clothing. They gravitate toward shiny, gawdy tawdry things that make them look cheap. They want "bling" so they can look rich. But they're not rich. They're poor. Which is funny.

The kind of behavior exhibited on this site is probably what conservative talkers call "liberal elitism." It's different from the right's blatant, unadorned contempt for the poor because it is a little more subtle, which makes people suspicious. The right hate the poor, even as they fight for the "working man." Because the right benefit from suggesting a distinction between those two things. The left love the poor and the working man, but they hate rednecks.

Rednecks are poor white southerners who insist on putting the rebel flag in their truck windows because they have no possessions to convey status on them, and they want some symbol of power and worth or superiority. They know two sides of the American dream of itself--the one is a dream that everyone has the opportunity to be rich and powerful, and the other is that we are a simple, hard-working, no bullshit people. We love our families, our churches and our flag. We proudly serve our country; we proudly work in mines and factories and farms. We are Ford tough. We ride horses and shit.

Rednecks know that the first dream is bullshit, so they latch on to the other even though they've never seen a horse. Or a mine. They work at Walmart, probably. They're not really southerners, either. They're just poor and white, and they know the difference between "poor" and "working class," is nearly purely rhetorical. To be the latter, you must despise the former. To the be the former you must utterly surrender the first dream of America--that in this country we get what we deserve for working our asses off. We get wealth, power and prestige.

They are proud. They listen to Toby Keith, and they listen to The Cable Guy, and they listen to comments like the ones written on this site, and they know they are despised, so they wrap their work ethic, their Christian and family values, their ingenuity, their racism, sexism, bigotry and alcoholism all up together in a red, white and blue banner of defiance.

They cannot escape the role our culture describes for them, so they embrace it. We can change this story. We can and they can. And by they I mean me.

I'm all right with this not making a whole lot of sense here at the end lol. Hope you are too.

A True Gentleman

I've never seen this movie, but I bet it's crap:

This guy I hang out with some times, I know he wants to be in a "romantic relationship" with me because he ... well, it's obvious anyway (he's lonely, is the deal) ... but I know for sure because he tried to kiss me once after a time when we went to eat dinner at this Mexican restaurant where he ordered a burger because he's just a regular guy who doesn't have a taste for things that are too exotic.

Usually we ride our bikes when we go out, but on this night I drove. Oh, I remember why. It's because we went to a haunted house. It was on Halloween and we went to a haunted house that was out on the edge of town, and it was kind of scary (I screamed and peed a little bit when some kid jumped out at me, and then they all knew I was a wimp so they fucked with me the rest of the time we were there and this gave dude an opportunity to put his arm around my waist all protecty like). Well, anyway, when I dropped him off he said this:

"May I give the professor a little kiss."

I'm not a professor. I'm an instructor. Professors make more money than I do and teach fewer classes.

Anyway, I said, "No," in some nice way. And he said he was cool with that. Totally cool. He's a grown up. Etc.

Which is good because I like having a friend who I can go ride my bike with even if it means that every damned time we stop riding our bikes and start eating dinner or whatever we're doing we have the same conversation.

For instance, picking up from last time, he'll say, "I was thinking about what you said about Romantic comedies..."

What I said was probably something along the lines of "I hate romantic comedies." They are always the same story, always based on the same stupid premise and the same idiotic stereotypes. I hate what they say about women, and I hate what they say about men. I hate that they are referred to as "chick flicks," and that men--men like said gentleman friend--believe that they are a sort of guide to winning a woman's heart or whatever fuck I hate them.

Is probably what I said.

"Don't you think it's possible that some women do need men?"

I know that people can need each other. I know that. I'm not really interested in it, but I can see it happening. But no, I do not think that women need men. We all need love, and we all have our own stupid ideas about what that is supposed to be and we are all always disappointed, and we deal with that disappointment in different ways.

"You've been hurt," says Hugh fucking Grant.

That's not really saying much, buddy. Everything hurts my feelings. I am very sensitive. Sometimes I spend sleepless nights obsessing over a less-than-loving look I fear a colleague gave me or a whispered rebuke I think I heard. Sometimes the smallest act of kindness from a stranger makes me cry like a lonely child. I'm always getting hurt.

What he means is that I must be afraid of being hurt. Because that's always part of the story, right? Hugh and/or Julia Roberts is afraid to "open up" or "let him in" or whatever stupid phrase they use to describe it. God I hate that one most of all. It's ridiculous. It teaches us to lie to save our feelings. I don't think I ever do that. I don't lie to hide my feelings or to save them.

I lie like a bitch to save others' feelings, and that's for sure. But my feelings can take care of themselves. And one thing I mean by that is that no man has been or will ever be responsible for hurting my feelings. Not because I'm scared, but because I should never saddle anyone with the burden of making me happy or making me feel like I'm worth a shit.

And I will not allow anyone burden me in that way either.

This guy, he's like a lot of guys I have met, and I think I am especially prone to meeting this type being a single mother. He has already written the movie of us in his head. I am the strong, independent woman who is...missing something in her life. Who can be a little stand-offish because she doesn't want to be hurt. And he is the oddball loner who is finally beginning to think there is someone out there. Someone who understands him and will accept him and love him just the way he is. And all that shit. He's only half right. I am missing nothing. There is nothing he has that I need. But I do accept and love and understand him (better than he knows, I imagine).

For instance, one thing I understand about him is that he will never understand me.

And I'm okay with that. But I'm not going to make out with it.

It's a new day!

Which is why I've gone through and re-posted a bunch of old posts, and I've also posted drafts.

Because I figure what the fuck.

I need a place to vent. This could get boring. You've been warned.

My deep stubborn hatred of men

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Okay, I'm being a little overly dramatic here. I don't think I hate men, but of late I've....[the end]

***

I started to write this entry in July. I think I was listening to Pet Sounds at the time--and I realized how suspicious I was of "love songs." I always think they're just some kind of trickery. It's a stupid thing to think, but I still have it in me. It kind of pisses me off. I can't better articulate it now because I guess I couldn't clearly articulate it then either, but I loved the title of this post so much, I decided to post it anyway.

I love men.

It's crazy how much I worry about my son.

It may actually be crazy; I don't know. I don't know if other people feel the way I do when the boy's out very late, being 17 and stupid and reckless and sweet. I think I probably feel like one of those TV mother's who tells her child she's been worried sick. I once told him, like a TV mother, that all I could do was imagine what terrible things could have happened. And I meant it. And I knew while I was saying it that there is no way he can understand, until he's here, too.

This one's a little more upbeat

I got my job at the liquor store back today.  My plan, originally, was to take the whole summer off and do nothing but read and write.  And the last two posts I've made are an indication of my ability to function when left to my own devices.  I must have somewhere to go.  

I feel better, now, knowing that I will have somewhere to go, and that the place I have to go is just filled with alchohol!  And also that I'll make a little extra money because I have a lot of bills coming up that I can't pay.

 Tomorrow, not only will I work, but I'm going out drinking afterwards.  With real people! So maybe I'll have a story when I get home.

Now it is nighty nighty times. 

One of the ways in which I am an asshole

I get angry at people who seem to be friends. For instance, I've just spotted my neighbor, who is polite to me whenever we talk, entering her house, giggling with her friend. Her little blonde, trollopy friend. I thought, "Well, it's nice that those two have each other. I bet there'll be more friends, too. I bet they'll have a party or something and listen to Beck and drink some Bud Lite."

I should say that I watched them through the drapes I have hanging in my livingroom.  

I haven't left the house for several days.

"Is there a game on tonight?" I thought.  "Maybe they'll watch a game, and neighbor lady's asshole husband will spark up the barbecue and make some burgers.  They'll all drink and laugh and talk about sports. And burgers."

"Fuck 'em," I thought.

 

Sad things are stupid

Everything that is sad is so fucking cliche.  I'm lonely, and that's stupid.  People die--there's a fucking news flash.  Even giant, wide-scale tragedies mix everybody's pain in together like a big stew of fuck it all anyway.

It's embarassing.

It's not that I want to whine.  I do, of course, but it's not just that.  There is definitely a beauty in the soft constant sadness we all feel.  I guess because it is the genesis of all of our stupid, simple joys.  Sex.  Cookies.  Jesus Christ.

That's what I want to say or show or whatever, but I cannot do it as well as, for instance, a little boy walking home from school holding his sister's hand, or a woman, freshly beauty-shopped, and well-heeled, strolling through Wal-Mart.  Endlessly strolling through the aisles at Wal-Mart. Looking for something.  A horrifyingly, horrendously old man in a "cunt-cap" with medals pinned all over it. reaching his sorry, shaking, wasted hand out to touch his son's name on the memorial wall.  

Ludicrous.

It's memorial day, and the enormity of what we are meant to be honoring today is peanuts compared to the goddamned, unbelievable fucking stupidity of it. All,

 

Summertime

I went to a funeral for the mother of friend of mine. She was beautiful. I learned a lot from the funeral, the trip out there with a woman I'd never met before, and my reunion with a man I love.

There's a story in all of it.

Why the hell not?

I'm a little drunk, so I might as well update my blog, hadn't I?

A lot has happened since I've been round here. For instance, one thing that, I can safely say now, I sincerely did not expect to happen did. That is to say, of course, that Barack Obama was really and truly made the president of our United States, and I still can't believe it. Nor am I really prepared to deal with this love I have for him and for the country that elected him. It is a nearly absolute good, but it does make me a little uncomfortable at times.

For instance, the other day in class, I used Obama as an example of a person who had been accused of elitism because he was eloquent and intelligent, and I heard some students wispering to each other about him (this was, I think, on the day that he was sworn in) and I knew that what they were saying was not nice or positive or supportive, and it made me angry. My first impulse was to silence those people. How dare they....[end]