Godammit, I’m Mad!

Now that I’ve learned about cocoa harvesting, I can’t buy chocolate that isn’t Fair Trade Certified.  Knowing that everything we buy is tainted with injustice somewhere along the line is troubling. You can’t give up everything; but child slavery is a good place to draw the line.

The Ivory Coast provides 43% of the cocoa beans used to make the world’s chocolate. The US Department of State estimates that more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry work under “the worst forms of child labor,” and that some 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement.

In 2001, in an attempt to avoid government regulation and intense media scrutiny, major cocoa companies made a voluntary commitment (the Cocoa Industry Protocol) to certify their cocoa “child labor-free” by July 2005, but that deadline passed with little fanfare. The deadline was then extended to certify 50% of farms “child-labor free” by July 2008. The cocoa companies trumpeted a few pilot programs, but continue to purchase and reap profits from child labor cocoa.

Hershey has been the slow to implement changes and has been the subject of an email campaign. Now, they have issued a press release, announcing a $10 million investment in West Africa to improve cocoa farming but it’s not clear that this will help any actual people.

Fuckers!

“Americans alone spend $13 billion a year on chocolate.” Ha, at least half of that comes from me, personally.

I need chocolate to live. I am not exaggerating. Without chocolate and coffee, there would be no reason to get out of bed or even breathe. My favorite form of chocolate is Toblerone and it isn’t Fair Trade Certified. It’s owned by Kraft, which helps to diminish its appeal, somewhat. Maybe I’ll have to write to them and beg them to get on board.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Favorite chocolate?

If you’ve been following the Republican debates, you have been amused, nauseated, and enraged. You have probably shifted in your ranking of which candidate is the stupidest or most repugnant. It’s almost like watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: You think Camille is the biggest cunt but wait, it’s Kyle!

I hate Mitt Romney. I really fucking hate him. I can’t stand his repressed anger and his conman demeanor. The thought of Mitt Romney as President is horrifying.

Newt is a bastard, Perry’s a moron, Santorum is a douche, Ron Paul is nuts and Jon Huntsman is just clueless (or he wouldn’t keep reminding people that he speaks Chinese.)

I am asking because I genuinely want to know: Which contender do you hate the most, and why?

What is the point of this guy???

Why don’t the Republicans nominate Bishop Don instead?

He’s got the charisma, the likability thing, the business acumen, and possibly a better grasp of  foreign relations.

I’m sick of that stupid arrogant pizza salesman.  What a fucker. His function as comic relief has expired.

Bishop Don could even use personal motto as his campaign slogan!

“Green is for the money, gold is for the honeys.”

Last night I went to see Amanda Palmer, aware that I might feel emotional, since Max loved Amanda and introduced me to The Dresden Dolls in the fist place.

I couldn’t get as close to the stage as I’d hoped, but we managed to find a pretty good place to stand. Before the opening act started, a girl directly in front of me felt compelled to dance theatrically to the piped in music. I turned to my companion and said: “This is a test from god. He put her in front of me to see if I can take it.” I added that all I really wanted was to not get my nose broken by her flailing elbows.

We managed to move closer to the stage and away from the dancing girl. In a break between the two supporting acts, I got something in my eye and asked a big friendly girl to hold my drink for a minute. She was adorable, like an enormous puppy but I can’t remember her name. She works at Trader Joe. I felt happy about our camaraderie and excited about seeing Amanda.

Suddenly, I experienced the shock of being whacked in the face by a plastic bottle that some fucker had thrown in my direction. The people next to me had seen it coming and I turned to see them cringing in horror. I felt my nose to see if it was still there. I wanted to cry but decided not to. You can’t believe the force of a flying plastic bottle! When I got home, I saw that there was a small bloody cut on the bridge of my nose. (see above)

Why did I have a premonition about my nose? Did I manifest a blow to the nose by Putting Out a negative thought? Does everyone get hit in the nose if they go to enough concerts?

Amanda was terrific, as always. Her embodiment of both male and female energy is so mesmerizing, and luckily, marriage has done nothing to tame her.

One of Amanda’s rituals is to answer personal questions from fans, selecting them randomly from a basket. She started reading one that didn’t make sense. It was just a name, like Quinn Something. She threw it aside, but someone in the audience yelled that Quinn was asking for a middle name. She said “Oh, sorry, I guess I didn’t read the whole thing.” Then she paused for a moment and shouted: “MAX!”

Suddenly everything became surreal. I expected Max to appear, summoned by Amanda Palmer. My jaw dropped in wonder. It was only a second but it was amazing. I was thrilled, freaked out, then tearful.  She added. “It’s one of my favorite names.”

Was it a sign? Say yes.

And what about my nose?

My key impression of the Hermes Fall 2011 photos was : This shit is for rich people who want you to know it. The outfits scream. “Fuck you! I have money!”

Other designers also reek of big money but at least it’s money with creativity or daring of some kind. The Hermes woman must be determined to remind us that she is upper class and super-wealthy.

I was pleased to find my impression supported by an article about Hermes and its dread of being available to the masses like that crass Louis Vuitton.

The Hermes family is militantly opposed to being controlled by LVMH, which now owns 17% of the company.

“There is a part of our world that is playing on abundance, on glitz and glamour,” Patrick Thomas, the Hermès’s chief executive, said during an interview the week before Mr. Galliano was fired. “And there is another part that is concentrated on refinement, and basically making beautiful objects.”

God forbid that Hermes ever make an affordable line of handbags. It would be the end of Hermes, Mr. Thomas declares. “It’s not a financial fight, because we would lose that. It’s a cultural fight.”

It seems particularly obnoxious, given the state of the world today, for this kind of class conflict among luxury brands. I’m beginning to hate the rich more than I used to. They don’t want to be taxed, they don’t want anyone to afford their stupid handbags, but they have nothing to offer us as a culture or society.

Fuckers. I hope Berhard Arnault takes over Hermes. “Refinement” is just elitism in their definition, and it’s time for the super rich to be ashamed of their extravagance.  Let them not eat cake.

A long time ago, I wrote a story about my dad called “Smell the Leather.”  My parents divorced when I was 3, and my dad fulfilled his fatherly obligations by taking me and my sister out on Saturday afternoons. He bought a new car every year, and on these occasions, he would drive us around, commanding in a loud voice: “Smell the leather!” He was a happy, narcissistic man who fancied himself a Rat Pack kind of guy. It was a poignant story, as I recall.

Now, I have a different story but it’s still kind of the same.

My dad became seriously ill in June, and in my state of traumatized shock, I went to the city where he lives and helped out. In fact, I got the hospital to admit him after they refused all appeals to do so. Anyway, I joined my 6 siblings, from three marriages, in caring for our dad, who was shockingly frail and had to have a permanent feeding tube in his stomach.

Even though he’d been a terrible father, I wanted to help take care of him and make him feel surrounded by love. The doctors seemed to think he was close to dying. I slept on his couch a few times, listening to him cough all night through a baby monitor. He finally met my 17 year old son.

Now, miraculously, he has improved so much that his feeding tube was removed and he can eat again. He still needs care though, so I made plans to stay with him for a few days, thinking it would be nice to escape my life at home.

Then he called me. He started out complaining about this and that and then got to the point. He didn’t want me to stay with him because I “have too many problems.” He explained that it upsets him, as a father, to see one of his children so unhappy. It especially upset him to see me cry.

It was a surreal conversation but there was no way out. I said, “I can try not to cry, then.” He was skeptical. I reminded him that I had experienced the worst thing that can happen to anyone. He said he understood but asked pointedly, “How long are you going to be like this? Twenty years?!” I thought about it and said, “Yes.”

Trying to keep my voice even, I asked, “Well, how about if I just come visit for a few hours?” He replied: “We’ll talk.” and hung up.

Hahahahahaha! People don’t change! My father was always a fucker and he still is! The fantasy of a loving father was nice for a while, but I’m over it.

A rejecting father is forever, like a diamond.

On a rare night out with my husband, we drove to an independent bookshop where a guy we like was reading an excerpt from his new book. I felt tentatively hopeful. I almost never go out in the evening.  I was pleased to be doing something arty for a change.

We sat in the front row of chairs, since there weren’t many set up in the aisle at the back of the store. An affable guy read from his book about encounters on the bus.  Then, the guy we came to see introduced himself and read a short chapter of a charming, offbeat memoir of his childhood in New York.

Another guy quickly replaced him and introduced himself. His name was Chris D. I should have been warned by that D.

He gazed at his shoes and began a rambling account of his various artistic endeavors:  He was involved in music for 20 years, he had written several unproduced screenplays, poems, and short stories. He noted that some of his stories were based on dreams. He introduced a story about a couple of  war veterans from Vietnam, describing their convoluted situation.

He began to read the worst piece of writing I have ever heard in my entire life. He read in a deep-voiced monotone. Some GI was shooting dope with a Vietnamese prostitute named “Lucky.” The dope-shooting was described in lurid, over-the-top detail.  Veins, blood, abscesses, verbs, more blood, adjectives, then sex. “They fell to the floor and fucked each others brains out.”

I stared at my hands and played with my hair. I wanted to kill that fucker. I imagined a question and answer period after the reading, where I would confront him with the question: “Are you a junkie or just a fucking idiot?”

He read for close to 30 minutes. No cliche escaped him: It was hackneyed melodrama, both dismal and pointless.

We left the second he stopped reading. Outside as we walked to the car, I exclaimed, “What a fucking motherfucker!” My husband agreed. He added that the guy had once been in a band called The Flesh Eaters.

Back home, I googled Chris D and saw how important he was to the L.A. punk scene.

Nothing is sacred, not even old punkers.

I am left with these two thoughts:

1. I am fucking Tolstoy compared to that bastard Chris D.
2. I can’t even enjoy a simple night out.

Despite all my talk about being a samurai, I fell off my horse yesterday. It was bound to happen sometime, but it left me shaken and badly bruised.

Among my family troubles are Other family troubles. Things spun out of control, meaning I lost control. It really did feel like a damn bursting. All the careful containment of my grief and fear has allowed me to forget that I am a fucking wreck.

However! I picked myself up and got back on the horse. I got a ride to Chinatown, where Max has been transferred to a wonderful rehabilitation facility. Now he can learn to walk again and get ready to come home.

Everything about the new place is great, even the food. We are all still traumatized by the pretend “hospital,” which I can now divulge is a subsidiary of Kindred Healthcare, a corporation that made $4 billion in 2008. Why did they make $4 billion? Because their “hospitals” charge the insurance company $4,000 a day and then DON’T DO ANYTHING FOR THE PATIENT!

Ah well. I haven’t even begun with those fuckers. First things first. Here is Max having his dinner tonight and looking like Elvis.  If you send him your blessings, I will pass them on.

I have hated this fat pig for so long that it’s hard to believe his stupid sneering face will no longer blight my life when I’m stretched out on my couch like a beached whale, waiting for some Anderson Cooper on CNN.

I used to find him amusing, but that ended a long time ago. Watching him gain traction or whatever they call it over the last year has been too infuriating to stomach. I hate this fucker more than anyone on TV, and that is truly saying something.

I didn’t even know he graduated from Harvard until today. I will never again assume that a Harvard graduate has a high IQ.  Read about some of his most egregious bullshit here, if you’re not already a card-carrying Lou Dobbs Hater.

Lou, here is a memo: Take your fat dimpled pigface far, far away and have your nervous breakdown in private where it belongs, you racist moron. Andale!

I am still only barely aware of who DJ AM was, but I’m very sorry to hear about his death.  I can’t understand why a man with 11 years of sobriety could throw it all away. Listen to him talking about his commitment to helping other addicts in their recovery.

He seems like a lovely guy. He was in a band that tortured me with one of the worst songs ever written but that was all in the past. It seems like he knew everything he needed to know about where drugs would lead him. And yet apparently he forgot all of it, the endless pointless misery of it, in one bleak evening alone.

No one should die with a crack pipe in their lap or a needle in their arm! In the last week or so, two people I care about came close. Fuckers.

See the necklace up there? I’ll bet some people who stumble across this picture will be going, “Um that is so rad, where can I buy that?” instead of thinking, “Why the fuck would anyone think a syringe would look cool as jewelry?”  I wish the designer had made a little dead guy with a syringe sticking out of an abscessed foot.

A whole year ago I wrote about addiction and intervention. I still urge everyone to fight hard against romanticising drug use, and to hold on to your loved ones who are struggling to stay sober. Beg them to stick around. Threaten to kill them if they use again.  If you hear someone glorifying dope addicts, punch them in the face.