Godammit, I’m Mad!

Today’s worthy Object of Hatred is New York photographer Ryan McGinley. He is famous for his photos of naked young people, frolicking in the woods or whatever he wants them to do.  His subjects are often his group of supercool friends, a la Nan Goldin, but more detached and pointless. He has gone from self-described skater kid to acclaimed bigtime Hipster.

It’s not just that I hate his work or that he’s a friend of Hipster Faux-Artist Dash Snow. It’s his clothes, which he eagerly describes in self-aggrandizing detail in Vice Magazine.

For example, in the photo above, McGinley notes that he’s wearing Robert Mapplethorpe’s leather pants. Oh my, that is cool, right? Or is it sickening? Later, when you learn that they were a “gift” from Jack Walls, an old black guy who was one of Mapplethorpe’s favorite models, one can assume that McGinley is quite the opportunist. And one is not any happier when McGinley says of a  t-shirt, “If you’re Japanese, you probably collect this shit.”

After you’ve seen and read about his wardrobe, Ryan McGinley leaves you with the bad taste of rotten Hipster in your mouth. You may even look at your own Converse shoes a little suspiciously.

I hate Ryan McGinley and now you can, too!

I am hereby launching an exciting new feature called “Why did I buy this?” The hope is that someone can suggest a way I can wear the item in question, rather than continue to avoid making eye-contact with it in my closet or under the bed (where the unworn shoes go.)

I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought this black overall thing, but I remember really wanting it. It’s made of very lightweight wool, and the top part is very slouchy.

I would never, ever wear it with a blouse like the model is wearing, since I am not a milk-maid. Remember, as I stated somewhere recently, “Sister Wolf takes her fashion cues from Patti Smith, Morticia Addams, Keith Richards, and a Jewish grandma circa 1975.”

How about a white tank top and lots of bangles? A black t-shirt? A fitted white shirt? Ugh, right? I’m stumped. I’m not afraid of looking too manly, but I am afraid of frilly and I hate anything that might be called boho.

Well, there it is. Help a Sister out! And if you think this was a wacky purchase, just you wait.

Everything I read about Grayson Perry just makes me love him more and more. When he accepted the Turner prize in 2003, wearing a fantastic lilac frock of his own creation, he said “It’s about time a transvestite potter won the Turner Prize!”

His views on art and society are refreshingly unpretentious. He is happily married to a psychotherapist with whom he has a 14 year old daughter. His wife Philippa has joked that his obsession with dressing in women’s clothes could be worse…”It could be football!”

Here is what he says in one interview:

“To have men in frocks is disturbing for people, but in fact most of them are straight, hetero people with marriages and kids,” says Perry.

He says he is horrified by the “spiritual bankruptcy” of modern society, and its focus on appearance. “There is more to attractiveness than who is looking in the mirror. Sexiness is a terrible tyranny.”

Grayson Perry seems like a funny, gifted, endearing, original thinker who I’d like to add to my list of People To Look Up To.

UPDATE:  Grayson Perry has curated a touring exhibit called Unpopular Culture.  Check it out!

The name ‘Starkeisha’ was what caught my eye while I was reading the Los Angeles Times tonight. I’m sorry that I read about her and her girlfriend, Kristal.

Even with those optomistic names, the two young women have been torturing Starkeisha Brown’s 5 year old son for around two years. They burned him with cigarettes, and starved him. They are in jail tonight, but that doesn’t solve anything.

Both of these women have fancy Myspace profiles, with slide shows no less. Even I don’t know how to make a Myspace slide-show. So no one can excuse these women on the basis of mental illness…at least, not in the usual sense of the term.

I can’t really bear thinking about this too much and I’m even sorry to bring it up. But I’m trying to turn it into something useful. Someone in their neighborhood must have known what was going on. Some neighbor or relative or friend of a friend. But no one wanted to get involved.

If you ever have a suspicion that a child is being neglected or abused, call 1-800-4-A-CHILD (in the US)

Let us pray for a better world.

Spidery things are on my radar today. I’m proud to say that I have no fear of spiders. I’m afraid of squirrels and rodents and midgets, but spiders are nothing. I enjoy killing them. I’ve even sprayed them with gold paint, just to make them ornamental for a moment.

Here is a spider web t-shirt from Urban Outfitters. If I were 20 years old, I would definitely want this shirt.

More problematic are these shoes by John Galliano. There are reduced from $850 to only $150, and they are available in my size, an enormous and crowd-pleasing size 40. The thing is, I would never wear them. I know from experience that I’d just add them to my Museum of Shoes I Can’t Walk In. On the other hand, wouldn’t they make a nice addition to the collection?

Isn’t it sad that I am mostly reacting to the original price? I want to save $700!

I read some thing at Time magazine online, about people who are trying to live with only 100 things. It’s a concept that I find very appealing and also terrifying. I probably have 100 hair products. Maybe I could throw some out, though. And then I could buy the shoes.

No matter how much time passes, The Manson Family endures as the epitome of depraved evil. It just never gets old. This week, a new documentary about Roman Polanski has been playing on TV every night. Now, Manson murderess Susan Atkins is seeking parole, with a request for a “compassionate release” from prison. Atkins, now 59, is terminally ill with brain cancer. She says she has 6 months to live, and she has been a model prisoner.

A story about this in the L.A. Times has generated 750 comments. People obviously still feel strongly about the the Manson murders. But maybe there is support for the idea of redemption through serving “God,” which Atkins has done with the same zealous commitment she once reserved for Charlie Manson.

Susan Atkins runs a ministry and donates her prosaic artwork to good causes. She has even found two men to marry her during her incarceration!

And just like everybody, she has her own website. I laughed out loud when I saw the heading “Accomplishments.” Her accomplishments are listed in minute detail. I’d love someone to make a similar list of my accomplishments, like “Sister Wolf participated in watching TV without stabbing anyone.”

Susan, I’m sorry about your brain cancer but shit happens. You should have read “The Secret” instead of stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach and drinking her blood.

Finally, I was shaken to the core by hearing a demo of Charles Manson singing one of his own compositions. He actually had a great voice! Isn’t that awful?!?

Arts & Letters led me to an essay titled “Are Men Boring?”, where I expected to find some breakthrough study that proved the obvious, beyond a doubt.

Instead, it was the usual anecdotal findings of irritated wives and girlfriends whose male companions had nothing to talk about. Not “nothing” exactly, just nothing that they cared to share in conversation with a woman. I did like this quote from neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine:

“Connecting through talking”, she wrote in her book The Female Brain (2006), “activates the pleasure centres in a girl’s brain. We’re not talking about a small amount of pleasure. This is huge. It’s a major dopamine and oxytocin rush, which is the biggest, fattest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm.”

Yes, Louann, DUH, we love to talk. We are starved for conversation if we live with men. We will make conversation with practically anyone after being home all week with kids who only know how to yell, “BUT WHY? JUST TELL ME WHY!” when you don’t cave in to some demand. We crave conversation so much that we’ll talk to anybody who’s wiling to venture an opinion or relate some experience, however mundane.

Are Men Boring? Is the Pope a former Nazi? Of course men are boring, because they talk only to achieve a goal. The process is just too girly for them and makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes you can put two obsessive men together and they’ll talk about drill bits or blues singers or even sports, but it’s not talk as females experience talking. It’s a dry exchange of information, or else a competition.

Lately, I see there’s a breed of men who talk endlessly about their game with women, but it has the same quality of men talking about business strategy, only more paranoid.

Men must know deep down how boring they are. And I guess they’re proud to be indifferent to conversation. They’re not pussies, dammit!

One thing men don’t like even more than talking is a woman with armpit hair. Every so often, I like to seperate the men from the boys by lifting up my arms. I’m not trying to be obnoxious! I’m just letting them know who they’re dealing with.

Here is a cell phone picture of my dresser tonight. Is there too much crap on it, do you think?

Some of the things I considered writing about today, include:

A really funny review of “the worst book ever written”

The obscenity trial underway in L.A., involving scat porn (and a guy who needs killing)

A blog about “piñata related violence”

Golconda diamonds, and why they are so valuable

But I was too lazy, so that’s why I took a picture of my dresser! Despite appearances, I am devoutly atheist.

Yesterday, I came across a delightful discussion about books at Salon.com . People were invited to recall a book they really hated.

It was a funny and interesting thread, which I would like to copy (since that’s the sincerest form of flattery, Salon.com!)  I was surprised that more people didn’t name Moby Dick. As I have already mentioned somewhere, Moby Dick is my own Moby Dick.

I loved that someone asked if he was allowed to hate a book he’d never read. He wanted to hate the work of Charles Bukowski, and I know what he means. I hate every book by Chuck Palahniuk, without having read them.  So hating a book Just Because is okay with me.

I will begin with “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin.  I hate that book. I can’t imagine anyone not hating it. And yet it is often assigned reading in high school. Is it because teachers want to make sure that guys grow up to hate “women writers?” I felt so sorry when my oldest son had to read it. I assured him that it was not representative of good fiction written by women. I probably said something like, “Oh god, what a fucking awful book! Ugh, they’re trying to torture you!”

I hated that book because its prose is so leaden and tedious. I can still recall the hideous yellow cover of the paperback after all these years.

I also hate Ulysses, and anyone who says how great it is. Not that I’ll ever read it.

Okay, does anyone have a book to revile?

Who gives a shit if Ed McMahon can’t make his mortgage payments?!? I can’t believe he’s getting so much press out of this. I’m even reading that Ed’s money problem is “giving a face” to the nationwide mortgage crisis.

Ed and his much-younger wife were on TV, blubbering about their tragic circumstances. People actually called in with offers of help.

If that stupid old bastard can’t sell his $6 million mansion, he might lose it to foreclosure! Maybe he shouldn’t have had so many wives. Maybe he blew all his money on those flashy dentures. All he ever did in life was sit on a couch and go “Ha ha ha” when Johnny Carson told a joke. Then he bothered everyone with that Publisher’s Clearing House scam.

Fuck Ed McMahon. Let him start worrying about how I’m going to get these new Vivienne Westwood shoes.