Godammit, I’m Mad!

Actually, I believe it is known as antinatalism.  I had no idea there were so many people passionately opposed to procreation, on the grounds that it morally indefensible to bring a child into the world when we know without certainty that it will lead to suffering and death.

Do you feel this is a crock of shit? I do, and here’s why. I believe that if I invited every antinatalist to commit suicide, I would get no takers. Why? Because they fucking want to live, that’s why! Even though life means suffering, THEY WANT MORE OF IT. But they don’t want to subject this thing they want more of, to any future beings.

I believe these avowed antinatalists are acting in bad faith by refusing to kill themselves. Shit or get off the pot, know what I mean?

Life is certainly filled with tragedy but as Woody Allen complained about a restaurant with bad food, the portions are so small!

By the way, I came upon this topic via Chip Smith, a provocateur (and antinatalist) whose website wants to make you mad, or at least ruffle your feathers.

The other day, when I saw this picture in a magazine, I asked my husband, “What do you think of Madonna’s arms?” His reply was something like “I don’t think anything about her arms.”

In his defense, he was driving and I was looking at a magazine. But he refused to discuss Madonna’s arms, as though it was beneath him to even talk about it. I tried to explain that Madonna’s arms weren’t just arms; they were big muscular man-arms.

He starting getting really pissed off and shouted “Look, I don’t have an opinion oh her arms. I don’t hate her like you do, okay?”

Well, not okay, actually. Isn’t this so like a man?  My feeling is, If you don’t have an opinion, FORM ONE! The good lord gave you the faculties of eyesight and cognitive awareness, so it’s not too much to ask for you to have a fucking opinion!

My opinion is that those arms are not necessary unless she is going into professional bodybuilding or construction work. As a former weight-lifter I can tell you that those arms are no accident. You need to lift very heavy weights to develop such big arms, and you need to do it at least 3 times a week. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Madge was taking just a pinch of steroids, or maybe she’s just a High Testosterone Girl as well as a Material one.

Are Madonna’s arms bigger than your boyfriend’s? Do they make you mad? Let me know, unless you’re too manly to discuss it.

The results are in. I have learned that I am too old and cranky to model for a camera, not to mention changing outfits. Notice how these overalls make me look like I’m wearing jodhpurs. I look like a hippo. No matter how many times I am forced to whine that “I’m not fat in real life” god has decided to make me sound like a lying hippo.

Whosoever wants these overalls and wears a US 4 is welcome to them. They have little zips at the ankles, so being short might be a problem. Simply write a nice compliment about hippos and you win!

Here is what happened another time I tried to model.

Oh well. Next time I decide to model something, I will fucking well put on a girdle or truss or something.

On a brighter note, I just found out here that the FIT Museum is putting together an exhibit called “Dark Glamour”, devoted to the gothic in fashion. Thank you, Susan!  This is all the excuse I need to plan a trip to New York.

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.

I don’t know much about that Eckhart Tolle character beyond the facts that he writes best-sellers, Oprah likes him and his name is funny. But I feel a seething hatred brewing for The Power of Now.

I just landed on a blog called Evolving Beings, which purports to ’share wisdom and spiritual enlightenment.’ I patiently read a long post about someone deciding to rid herself of her jewelry collection. She goes on and on about how your “stuff” is really dead weight, just a product of materialism, not essential to Who You Really Are. So I’m reading and reading and then I get to the part where she takes the jewelry to a pawn shop and sells it for a fraction of what it’s worth.

What the fuck?!

Please join me in thinking, What a crock of shit!  Is selling your jewelry a way to rid yourself of the burden of materialism? And to a pawn shop! A business that profits off the misery of the desperate? Why didn’t this Spirituality Seeker just donate her jewelry to a charity? In my own neighborhood, there are thrift-shops that benefit AIDS, cancer research, drug rehabilitation and homeless shelters.

Godammit, I am enraged by this example of hypocrisy and stupidity. I hereby launch my own movement called The Power of Not Now™ . You heard it here first. You can join up today, or you can wait until I devise its 5 Sacred Tenets. The first will be (duh!) “Why do now what you can put off until later?”

The second will be “Hang on to Your Jewelry!”

I was intrigued by a review in the Los Angeles TImes of Matthew Barney’s latest performance piece, called REN.  The two hour event took place in a car lot, and featured the destruction of a 1967 Chrysler Imperial.

The car was dragged by “four dozen dirt-smeared laborers” into a showroom, where it was smashed by a backhoe. The shattered glass injured three people in the audience, but hey, they came to see Art and they got it!

After the paramedics left, the audience was ushered into a fake tomb where Lila Downs sang to a corpse and - this is my favorite part - “a menstrual shroud was extracted from the loins of a masked nude woman.”

Is Matthew Barney a fucking genius or what?!

If you’re not convinced, how about this: Just last month in New York, Barney used another Chrysler to fascinate a crowd of 200, wearing a dog on his head. A legless athlete in a silver ballgown and a marching band in terrorist masks were there to bring Barney’s vision to life, as were a pair of semi-nude girls who peed in an arc onto the floor. Then a bull was led over to the Chrysler but refused to mount it.

I’m not too good as symbolism, but I think it’s obvious that the bull was a witty reference to shit. Right?

Poor Bjork!

For a long time, I’ve been thinking about introducing some of my more obscure Objects of Hatred, for anyone interested in post-graduate Hating. I’m talking about raising the bar for those who seek more people to hate besides Chloe Sevigny or Selma Blair. That kind of hating is child’s play, after all. Everyone hates those two, it doesn’t take any brains or discernment.

My first Object of Hatred in this advanced curriculum is the one and only horror known as Liz Goldwyn. She is the granddaughter of film mogul Samuel Goldwyn and therefore has a huge trust-fund. She has used her buying power to divest eBay and the auction houses of all the best vintage gowns on the market.

So unrelenting is her hunger for more vintage finery that she courted some aging burlesque artists in order to get to their priceless spangled costumes. In her documentary about them, she pretends to have some kind of sociological interest in stripping. What she really wants is to get her hands on the clothes. The best part of the documentary is when a savvy old stripper tells her to forget about getting any of her outfits. She sees right through the horrible greed and manipulation.

I hated Liz Goldwyn before the documentary and I hate her each time I see her name. She recently “sourced” some crappy vintage sweater clips for the shop Opening Ceremony in Los Angeles. When I saw them, I sneered to the sales person, “Did you know you can get these at the VIntage Fashion Expo for around ten or fifteen dollars?” Liz has priced them at something outrageous but I’ve forgotten the figure.

Now to make matters worse, I’ve come across a video clip of Liz visiting the guest house of Tony Duquette, a brilliantly over-the-top designer whose close friend Hutton Wilkinson manages the Duquette estate. If you watch the video, you can see how much Liz wants to keep the jewelry Wilkinson shows her.

She has ‘designed’ her own jewelry for Barneys, and it looks like Duquette-on-a-budget. I fucking hate her. Too much money in the hands of an acquisitive narcissistic bitch like Liz Goldwyn makes the world a tiny bit worse for the rest of us. She has plundered the earth’s finite stores of Vintage treasures, and now she’s messing with Tony Duquette.

I hate Liz Goldwyn and now you can, too!

I don’t plan to see either of these movies but I have thoughtfully reviewed them for you anyway!

Indiana Jones 4:

This is a very loud exercise in nostalgia that you might enjoy if you’re over 50 or a tween who thinks Shia LaBeouf is a hottie. Harrison Ford does his best to prove he’s still an action star, and his nose is still tragically crooked. All the clothes are masterfully weathered, like Harrison’s face.  Lots of huge noisy things come hurling at the camera as if in 3D. There are many close-calls but the heroes prevail, in order to justify a sequel. If you still love the theme song, you won’t be disappointed, as it is blasted at every opportunity. A tiresome adventure film that nonetheless is a thousand times more palatable then Sex in the City. Bring earplugs.

Sex in the City:

What can one say about this movie?  SJP’s narration is incessant and irritating, like the toe pain she experiences from her celebrated shoes. The plot is rudimentary and predictable. The four actresses struggle to look young and vibrant, with Kim Cattrall vamping it up more than ever. Every character says the word “clit” at least 5 times. SJP’s face is beginning to resemble Abe Lincoln, but she’ll be damned if she gets plastic surgery just for you! If you love aging Cougars and the streets of Manhattan make you feel homesick or the word “masturbate” makes you feel sophisticated, then this is your movie!

Seeing this photo of her at the Met gala, I finally reached the tipping point with Tilda Swinton. Enough with the androgyny and ugliness! You’ve made your point, whatever it is!  Now it’s time to put on some make-up, grow out your hair and dress normally!

I know how important Tilda is to so many factions. If you’re gay, hip or arty in any way, you totally adore her. I know, I know. You think she’s the epitome of beauty, you LOVE her daring style! You love all her movies. You love the air she breathes.

But you need to get over it. If her Oscar look wasn’t horrible enough, get a load of this awful matronly dress she wore to the Met. I don’t care who designed it, it’s still awful. Her choice of Justin Long as an accessory is really repugnant, UNLESS they are best friends in real life and she doesn’t have a ‘partner.’ It seems to me that she’s just pandering to the GLBT vote.

Everybody can stop pretending that Ugly is Beautiful, and that Less is More. It’s only More if there’s Less of Tilda Swinton.