I'm back on facebook

Here's my latest status update:

Heard about the shooting in Oregon... just wanted to make sure all my Oregon friends are OK... of course in the media coverage, they're throwing around the term "mental illness" as though having a mental illness automatically makes you a killer... fact: much more people with mental illness are the VICTIMS of violent crimes than the perpetrators... I have schizo-affective disorder and I'm pretty much a pacifist

Forever Young and Silent

My life is not mine
I belong to fragments of a smashed mirror
I belong to a million broken images of myself watching me
seven years of bad luck

seven bad years of constant surveillance
I spy on myself
I won't let myself be
I don't hate myself because that would be too easy
I have an obsession with self-help and self-improvement
and restoring the parts of myself that died with my friends

One friend had killed himself while our kitchen was being redone
After I got the phone call, I told my family what had happened over microwave-cooked cheese omelettes

after the wake, after the funeral, after the burial, after I'd read the suicide note, after the kitchen was done, after winter turned into spring and then summer, I'd sit in that kitchen at 3 in the morning watching Cold Case Files
lovely young brunette women disappearing on warm summer nights in the early 1980s or late 1970s in California
their bodies found half naked on the side of the road
I was too hyped up on Abilify to eat
I weighed 100 lbs

That summer
the summer of Cold Case Files
is sticky in my memory
sticky, ephemeral and hot
like a mirage on new black pavement on the highway

I want to fix myself
I want so, so much to be
right, and correct, and beautiful, and true
and to have nothing wrong with me
I want to have that without taking pills
but if I don't take my pills, I might end up like my friend
beautiful, but disappearing into the warm, sticky summer night recesses of my darkest thoughts
and being forever frozen in time, that turns into the past, as a frozen gray memory, a faded photograph

forever young
and silent

soundtrack to the movie of my life

note: these are in no particular order

Schizophrenia-- Sonic Youth

Spark-- Tori Amos

Isobel-- Bjork

Pennyroyal Tea-- Nirvana

Keep On Livin'-- Le Tigre

Little Wonder-- David Bowie

Birdhouse In Your Soul-- They Might Be Giants

And She Was-- Talking Heads

Crush With Eyeliner-- REM

Tomorrow, Wendy-- Concrete Blonde

In God's Country-- U2

World Falls-- Indigo Girls

Buildings and Bridges-- Ani Difranco

Whatever Remains-- Rose Polenzani

Fast Car-- Tracy Chapman

Paint It, Black-- Rolling Stones

Possession-- Sarah McLachlan

Driving-- PJ Harvey

Imagine-- John Lennon

Over the Rainbow-- Judy Garland

Wayfaring Stranger-- Johnny Cash

Hurt-- Nine Inch Nails

Requiem Mass-- Mozart

Let My People Go-- Diamanda Galas

Bette Davis Eyes-- Kim Carnes

Kids In America-- Kim Wilde

Every Day Is a Winding Road-- Sheryl Crow

Sullen Girl-- Fiona Apple

Joan of Arc-- Leonard Cohen

Don't Lose Yourself-- Laura Veirs

Stars-- Lisa Germano

Soulus-- Loop Guru

Thru the Eyes of Ruby-- Smashing Pumpkins

These Are Days-- 10,000 Maniacs

Saturday Afternoon (Won't You Try)-- Jefferson Airplane

Pissing In a River-- Patti Smith

At Last-- Etta James

The Swimmer-- Sleater-Kinney

Mr. Gallos-- Cat Power

I Wanna Be Adored-- The Stone Roses

America-- Simon and Garfunkel

Pretty On the Inside/ Clouds-- Hole

Butterfly-- Verve

Last Days of Magic-- The Kills

Jesus-- Velvet Underground

Atom Heart Mother Suite-- Pink Floyd

The Way It Goes-- Gillian Welch

Good Morning, Captain-- Slint

Tomorrow Never Knows-- Beatles

Madonna of the Wasps-- Robyn Hitchcock

O-U-T Spells "Out"

on fake male feminism

Ever dated a hipster guy with greasy hair who's in a band and reads Bust and listens to Le Tigre but still mysteriously has the romantic-and-otherwise social skills toward you and women in general of a 15-year-old... but you don't realize it until after you can see through his "sensitive" posturing, and by then it's too late? Then maybe then you can relate to this...

These words may come back to bite me in the a**, but you can respect women without being a feminist. I had this one "feminist" boyfriend who was SOOOO disrespectful. He thought he shouldn't have to walk me to my car at night in his crappy neighborhood because we were feminists. Give me an old-fashioned, chivalrous gentleman who respects women and respects me any day over a pseudo-feminist (who more than likely just calls himself that to get laid) who uses his pseudo-feminism as a cloak for boorish behavior such as expecting women to screw on the first date and not walking them to their car!

Question: Which of today's modern artists do you think John Lennon would appreciate?

Yoko Ono has said in interviews that she really likes Courtney Love/Hole, Bjork, and the B-52s. So I'm sure that would influence John. Also, Sean was a fan of Nirvana back in the day and Julian likes U2. I think John might also like Sonic Youth, the Boredoms, and Radiohead, for being experimental, and perhaps Kathleen Hanna because she publicly pretty much worships Yoko Ono, and maybe John's feminist leanings would appreciate Hanna's being the poster girl for riot grrrl. He might also appreciate Ani Difranco's spitfire, take-no-prisoners feminist lyrics (can you tell yet I'm a child of the '90s?) His avant garde anti-art artsy side may appreciate Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galas. I would expect him to like punk in general, but it was having its hey-day with the likes of Patti Smith before he died and I haven't heard of him being very impressed. When this question was posed in a magazine to other famous musicians, Sinead O'Connor suggested he'd like the gritty rawness of rap. In terms of more recent music, Cibo Matto (and not just because Sean did an album with them), Pink, and Lady Gaga. that's what instantly comes to mind... I'm gonna go look at what other ppl wrote.

Crumpet

This is my Christmas Elf. His name is Crumpet. I named him after David Sedaris' elf name for himself in the short story "The Santaland Diaries," (in which Sedaris took a job as a Macy's Christmas elf) in his collection "Holidays On Ice." This collection of short stories is a must for anyone jaded, fed up with, or downright disgusted with the joy-as-commodity rat-race of consumerism ("Your moments of joy have the precision of military strategy" --Barbara Kruger) the USA has made of what should be a spiritual time of reflection a la SILENT night. But I think it's safe to say the global culture of the 21st century is not down with quiet reflection, let alone silence. But enough of that.

As you can see, Crumpet is addicted to Green Apple Mentos and he sleeps on a '50's pin-up mousepad. What you can't see is that when you squeeze his belly, he lets out a childlike yet demonic (or demonic in it's childlike-ness?) gleeful laugh that gives the impression that not only is he laughing AT you, not with you, he is overjoyed and delighted at the dark lunacy of not only our American Christmas season, but at the whole farce that is human existence. Indeed, Crumpet the Christmas Elf would be quite at home in a dark, smoky French cafe in the days of yore discussing the side of existentialism that leans towards being nihilistic with the likes of Sartre. Of course, Crumpet's only form of communication is his sinister baby laugh. But I think Sartre-- along with the early Dadaist performance artists of that era-- would get it.