Early-voted in Texas today for...

 

 

The Texas primary is March 1; early voting through February 26.

 

A side-note: Back in the summer, a few weeks after Trump first announced his candidacy, I bought the above bumpersticker from eBay for a few dollars, kind of as a lark. Not being that serious about liking Trump as a candidate, remembering his first wife Ivana's calling him "The Donald" back in the '80s, etc.

 

Since then, though, this sticker has come to be a bit more representative of my ACTUAL feelings (plus an aspiration), not just a joke.

 

For one thing, I do agree with Trump that we should tighten our border to the south to prevent people from sneaking in. The way he said it at the time, I thought was a bit harsh (the "not giving us their best people" comment), but I agreed with him on principle. The aftermath of his statements re the border, though, was more shocking to me: Companies like Macy's cancelling their orders for his products; NBC and Univision cancelling his Miss Universe pageant. The man paid a great financial price for stating his opinion candidly. And he didn't back down, even in the face of losing millions.

 

Then came the "showdown" with the PC-beloved Univision host Jorge Ramos at a Trump press conference: Ramos stood up out of turn and asked his question over and over again, disrupting the conference. Trump told him he hadn't been called on. Ramos was escorted out, and later invited back in to ask his question -- when he'd been called on. Here, too, I admired Trump for standing his intellectual ground.

 

Then came silly things like "Rick Perry's wearing glasses just to try to look smart" and "Jeb is low energy." Well, I'd thought EXACTLY that that was the reason why Perry was suddenly wearing glasses. And I'd thought EXACTLY that "Jeb!" was the most enervated, believing-nothing of candidates. ("Low energy" was a mild way of putting what I felt about "Jeb!")

 

Then came my boss at work asking me why I liked Trump: "Do you really want someone like that representing our country?" After a bit of reflection... Why, yes, yes I do -- very much so! What part of standing up to Putin, making tough trade deals, re-building our infrastructure, and penalizing US companies for exporting jobs DOESN'T sound very good?

 

Still later, at the recent South Carolina debate, Trump went off on "Jeb!" for supporting brother George W. for his idiotic decision to invade Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11) on the false charge of harboring "weapons of mass destruction" -- and thus ensuring the destabilization of the entire region. Would ANY other Republican ever say this truth in public? Hell, no. (Even Hillary Clinton wouldn't admit as much.)

 

I admire the man's honesty and bravery completely.

 

p.s. Oh yeah, "the aspiration": Months ago, I said that if Trump got his party's nomination, I would finally buy a car again just so I could put this bumpersticker on it. I sold my car when I moved to NYC in 2007; even though I came back to Austin in 2010, I haven't had a car since. I now live on a bus line that takes me straight to work. I save a lot of money by not owning a car, etc. HOWEVER... You give up a lot of free will by not having your own car: idiotic bus drivers, idiotic passengers, idiotic Metro system not sticking to their stated schedules, etc. On the other hand, even when you have your own car, you're then stuck in idiotic traffic and have to deal with idiotic fellow drivers on the road. (But at least you can come and go when you want.) I'm still on the fence about getting a car again. I don't 100% NEED one. But I do think I WANT one on which to display my "THE DONALD" sticker in a city of what-will-be Hillary fans, 2016.

 

Plus, I think any adult should be as self-sufficient as possible. My bitching about bus drivers/passengers/system is easily avoidable if I get my own car. And, having my own car -- like having my degrees -- prohibits the easy judgment of shallow people... who judge people on whether they have cars or degrees. Reminds me of Hillary taking on the "Clinton" last name in the '90s, after being "Hillary Rodham" for so long, and of Obama finally wearing the flag pin on his lapel --- if it means so fucking much to you and so little to me... pffffft. Whatever. Here's my new name, here's my new pin, here's my new degree, here's my new car.

Trump vs. The Pope

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel." ---Pope Francis in Mexico today when asked about Donald Trump.

Pictured below: The wall surrounding the Vatican.

As soon as Pope Francis is willing to tear down the wall surrounding his own sanctuary, then I'll be willing to admit that a wall prohibiting economic marauders from coming into the US is a bad idea.

As Donald Trump has said: "Do we have a country, or don't we?"

The Pope is good in the abstract, but not so much when it comes to his own protective walls. I call BULLSHIT on the Pope.

 

 

Feeling Good (Julie London, 1965)

Nina Simone, Julie London, Audra Mae... All singers and interpreters of this song. Yet today a mere producer, Avicii, claims credit for Audra Mae's latest version -- it took me link after link to even find out who sang the latest version of this song featured in the current Volvo ad.

 I call BULLSHIT on Avicii.

 

Rod Stewart: "You Wear It Well" (1972)

 

"Madame Onassis got nothing on you."

 

Lucius - Turn It Around [Official Video]

I don't have a car; I can't hear new songs!

And so I must discover them via cable TV ads! This initially for Samsung Galaxy...

"She's looking through the wrong end of the telescope..."

 

She felt comatose waiting for this thing to grow
She's impatient 'cause she wants it now and so it shows
She can't be bothered by the ties that bind her
She's united when it strangles everything it holds

She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end of the telescope
 

Turn it around, turn it around

 

She closed the door with the intention of not looking back
But missed her step because she didn't have a steady track
She can't be bothered by the mistakes she has made
She's forgetting that's what guides you to the rightful path

She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end of the telescope

 Turn it around, turn it around

 

As suspected back at home it grew out of control
Well, that can happen when you leave things to a little girl
So now she's left without an option at hand
She better tend to it or she won't have another chance

She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end of the telescope

 Turn it around, turn it around

 

She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end
She's looking through the wrong end of the telescope

 Turn it around, turn it around

Joan Crawford candid, mid-1940s.

I am amazed at how long I've found this woman extremely cool, extremely cool-looking, and, as I've recently realized, extremely meaningful to my life. Since 1987, to be exact (when I was 22 -- I'm now 50). Crawford (because she was so hot when I first saw her in 1932's "Grand Hotel") started out as a gateway drug to figuring out I was gay. Once I figured that out, she, based on her childhood and professional history, morphed into a representative for SURVIVAL despite all odds. Her stunning looks masked all of the EFFORT going on behind the scenes. The woman, as a Hollywood contemporary (Cukor? I can't find the source now) once said, "worked like a Trojan." And I think it was Cukor who also said that Joan, despite all odds, "refused to be a loser."

 

I similarly refuse.

 

When I was a kid, my father tried to bully me into being a subservient female; my mother, a much more positive influence via her stability, tried to convince me that secretarial work was the key...

 

Nah. I always knew that I was better than that. (Ironically, most parents try to build up their kids --- mine, on the other hand, tried to keep me at, or below, their level. I didn't think that was odd until I grew up and met kids at college whose parents were actually rooting for them to succeed! And -- shocker! -- actually giving them both financial and emotional support... Wow! Parents actually supporting their kids!)

 

I'm now, at 50, doing what I like on a mid-level. I like my current editing job a lot, and I'm grateful for it. I'm alone and sometimes lonely, but I am not stifled in either my personal or my professional life.

 

 

9 years ago today...

On February 11, 2007, I picked up and left for New York City. My only connection there a lady on Craig's List who said she had a room to rent.

What an experience those 3 years spent in NYC were! I've been back in Austin for 6 years now (since 2010)... I barely remember anything from these 6 years other than emotional and financial pain and crawling back amid great bland surroundings.

The 3 years in NYC (from 2007 to 2010), on the other hand--while also obviously financially painful--were simultaneously greatly beautiful and INTERESTING. I was completely, of my own volition, thrown into an utterly different environment... One that I'd experienced vicariously via movies and magazines, but never known on my own...

The result was: NYC was nothing like the movies or magazines. In fact, I was greatly dismayed by magazines like "New York" that published issues like "Reasons to Love New York City," which seemed to me more like small-town boosterism. ("You're NEW YORK! What're you so defensive about??")

What I miss most about New York: Seeing Joan Crawford movies at the Chelsea Cinema and at other cinemas around town. Getting to see the Klimt exhibit at the Neue Gallerie on the East Side (during a brutally cold November day). The walk from Joan Crawford's apartment on the East Side straight across to John Lennon's Dakota on the West Side. Hanging out reading a book on a bench one sunny afternoon at Aaron Burr's mansion in Washington Heights. Hanging out at Union Square for lunch during my 8-month tenure at a publishing company a couple of blocks away; seeing a bluegrass band at Union Square on a weekend, with a subdued Gilbert Gottfried right next to me. While taking a smoke-break on the sidewalk, seeing Elvis Costello walk by with his twins in a carriage. The utterly stunning view of the NYC skyline once I'd moved to Weehawken across the Hudson (only a 2-minute walk away), and how inspiring the view was...

So much in only 3 years... The ugly struggles with the first 3 roommates that I had in New York, then the utter relief at finally being able to get my own place, the beautiful place in Weehawken, where my Gracie-cat died April 15, 2009... I remember it so distinctly because it was "Tax Day" and because Sandra was in town, visiting her Sugar Daddy at a Cancer Center and asking me to come visit her in her hotel; I, disgustingly, internally wished for Gracie to die before Sandra arrived, so I could spend time with her in town... I fought on the phone with Sandra on the night Gracie died. When I woke up the next day, Gracie, who'd been wasting away gradually since mid-January, was dead on my kitchen mat.

That was traumatic. My first 2 years in New York were interesting. After Gracie died in early 2009, though, and after I began contact with Sandra in late 2008, things deteriorated. My heart wasn't in it. I was grieving for Gracie, who had been with me since 2000 (and who had been a good-luck charm in my life as a whole since her arrival), and I was TIRED of struggling for EVERYTHING.

Funny, what started out as a search for a New Beginning and a New Horizon with truly earnest and honest goals based on true admiration for the city and its possibilities turned into grieving for an old crush from a poetry class in 1987.

February 11, 2007, was warm and foggy. The taxi driver was curious about why I was going to New York City. It was so warm, he drove with his windows open. At the Austin airport, Gracie escaped from her carrier when an airport employee opened it to check for contraband. The same employee then chased after her and brought her back, so the trauma was lessened.

Choices

A key to happiness is having CHOICES. I think you're happiest when you know you have OPTIONS.

The Young are obviously happier because the future lies before them. Even if they're dirt poor, they still THINK they have choices. And they actually DO. The most important: Whom they're going to marry, where they're going to work, where they're going to live, etc. All lies before them. Even in the misery of a low-paying job, they still think/know that the current situation won't last forever. If they have a shitty lover -- that, too, can be changed. And they can move if they have nothing to keep them where they are.

The crappy part of growing older is that the choices start to shrink, partially because of your own self: You get tired of flitting about and understand that it might just be time to PICK someone and something. So you make your choices. And you are decidedly NOT free after that. With choices come intense consequences, the result of intermingling your own psyche with another's. You won't ever be the same again. For the lucky people, this is a GOOD thing. (I haven't been at all so lucky and so I'm cynical; but I've caught glimpses of what connecting feels like spiritually -- of course, I miss what I think that closeness simply MUST be like.)

Here's something from Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar," published in 1963, when she was 31 years old. Based on her experiences in New York City during an internship for "Mademoiselle" magazine when she was 20, only a few months before she first tried to kill herself:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

I first read "The Bell Jar" when I was 15 or so. I didn't pick up on this passage at all. I didn't understand it until I re-read the book for perhaps the 6th time when I found it while doing laundry in the basement of my landlords' duplex in Weehawken, New Jersey, in 2008 after I'd moved to NYC a year earlier to make a new life, only later finding a haven in Jersey...

I understood the tragedy of "The Bell Jar" completely once I was in my 40s.

"Seven Bridges Road" The Eagles

 

 

EAGLES ~ "LYIN' EYES" 1977

God, I hated the Eagles as a kid. They were all I heard on FM radio growing up, and their studied "mellow" meant NOTHING to me whatsoever. (In '77, I was 12 and all hyped up for the Bay City Rollers and then KISS; a couple of years later, punk and New Wave hit, for which I was so grateful.)

 

Last weekend, though, CNN had a 2-hour special on the band, and I watched, just in honor of the air-waves of my youth. (Ended up ordering their Greatest Hits from Amazon! God, what a sucker I am! But I really did feel nostalgic...and for a time that wasn't even psychologically mine!)

 

I liked this story from the CNN program. Glenn Frey said that when he and the guys were out playing in LA clubs, they'd often see beautiful young women at tables with old rich guys. The old guys would go home, the beautiful women would stay to hang out with the rockers for a while...and then would "have to" go home because they were "kept." Frey described looking over at the interaction at such tables and judging a woman's eyes as "lying" as she talked to her Sugar Daddy.

 

Frey was boo-hooing, but I actually felt, for a second, his pain! :)  You'd think that Glenn Frey, of all people in the '70s, could have gotten any woman he wanted, but... according to the song, maybe he couldn't. I understood. And I like the Eagles better after hearing this story. I especially liked this line from the song: "I guess every form of refuge has its price."

Here's the song:

 

 

Rod Stewart - You're in My Heart

"You're the warmest thing I ever found..."

 

Cotillion Photo

These young women will last forever, posed like greyhounds,

trapped in the silver crust of the frame.

You can’t tell one from another, the breed is so pure.

They will never run. Each one aloft

on a frozen wave of white cotillion lace

to resemble marriage, to resemble fate.

I remember July sun pouring down

in a prickly meadow, and a garter-snake skin

laid out like fairy lingerie on a stone wall.

This was Connecticut, there would be a stone wall.

Crickets were scraping marrow from the day.

I was young; I’d been alone for weeks.

I painted the meadow morning and afternoon

trying to capture the crackling sound with my brush.

I was reading “Oedipus Rex.”

I understood neither the snake skin nor the play.

"Your life is one long night," said Oedipus

to the prophet, Oedipus, who saw nothing.

Oak trees rustled in drought. In saffron grass

small creatures skittered. There came a day

when I said to myself, “I should prefer to sleep.”

Small planets tasted dry and bitter on my tongue.

And two days later I woke. Alone in the creaking barn

at dusk, not knowing what day, what month, what year,

but feeling the haul of earth rolling on its way.

“It is not your fate that I should be your ruin,”

the prophet said. I moved my arms,

my legs, I unclenched my hands,

and stood up dizzy from the cot. What was to come

would come in its own good time

outside the frame. The moon was rising

above the hill, a shy wind gathered force,

and trees, in their black silhouettes, linked arms.

 

---Rosanna Warren (from the New Yorker, 2/1/16)

 

Shopping

I usually don't shop at the supermarket on Saturday evenings; in fact, I don't think I've ever, since the late '80s, when out goofing with friends. Tonight, though, stopped off on my way home from working overtime...

The crowd was different. Usually I go on Sunday mid-mornings, when there have been hosts of families and middle-aged women.

This time, Saturday eve, there were a vast number of clearly single people, mainly 30-something bearded (being Austin) guys.

I'm usually an uptight bitch wherever I go (this take on me mainly according to others), but this evening, I felt cool and relaxed, having just gotten off work, where I'd accomplished a lot...

Springlike in Austin, 70-ish, obviously people feeling their oats.

I guess I was putting off a good vibe, because I got picked up on a couple of times! The first among the frozen vegetables: I was standing there trying to pick out the best kind of frozen corn when a guy suddenly recommended the "Tuscan Broccoli." He said he didn't usually like broccoli, but he liked THIS broccoli!

Me (sneaking a look at him: 30-ish, trendily bearded, cute): "What makes broccoli TUSCAN?"

We both examined the package together: Turned out the answer was "parmesan cheese" and "peppers."

That's just cute. Thank you, cute bearded young man.

A few minutes later, I was on the frozen dinner aisle when a woman about my age approached me: "What generic dinner do you recommend?" (!!!!)

I was puzzled by this. Apparently she'd just seen a generic cheese-enchilada dinner that I'd just placed in my cart, but I couldn't recommend it because this was the first time I'd ever bought it. I felt pressed to recommend other frozen dinners, none of which I saw her put in her cart.

But thank you for asking.

Trump: Adele and Stones fade-out

 

Watching Trump's alternative "for the vets" appearance tonight on C-SPAN in lieu of his appearance at the 7th Republican debate, I was struck by the (albeit aggressively) wistful songs that accompanied the fade-out of the event, after the speeches were over: Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" ("We could have had it all...") and the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

I've paid attention to Trump via interviews for the past 30 years of his American Life. He's actually a thoughtful person. His favorite film is "Citizen Kane" -- I fear that this may be his outcome; I HOPE that it will NOT be, but I nonetheless fear it (though I suppose his Marla Maples/ingénue days are over).

 

 

1954. Joan Crawford in "Johnny Guitar."

Public Enemy - Fight The Power (1989)

Elvis was a hero to most

But he never meant shit to me you see

Straight up racist that sucker was

Simple and plain

Motherfuck him and John Wayne

Cause I'm Black and I'm proud...

1989, from Public Enemy.

Back in '89, I and my white 20-something cohorts guffawed and thought NWA was so cool. Look and listen today, though, to this idiocy and see how it precluded the dumb racial politics going on today in 2016.

Quit allowing your young men to shoot each other and yourselves without consequences (other than the consequences of police reacting); quit having babies out of wedlock at a 75% rate (actually fine if you choose to do it--just don't subsequently expect the government to pay for your welfare and Medicaid); quit allowing your "representatives" to complain that you're not allowed to vote (if you're too dumb to figure out how to vote, then you don't deserve to vote). And I've had enough state jobs now to see how OVER-represented minorities are in comparison to their actual percentage of the population.

I'm sick to death of this "victim" culture, especially when the so-called "victims" are so obviously, in 2016, now responsible for the vast majority of their own sociopathy. Seems they're (and their liberal white supporters) are stuck mentally in the '50s, when blacks weren't allowed to ride at the front of buses or drink out of white water-fountains or inter-marry, etc. THAT was a worthy battle.

Today, though, "Trayvon Martin" and "Michael Brown" and "Sandra Bland" are decidedly NOT worthy battles. (Thank god for the Internet: Look up the actual FACTS about all of these cases.) I'm sick of the Crying Wolf syndrome. I'm sick of being told to feel guilty when there's nothing to feel guilty for. I'm sick of the bullshit. Fight the Power.

p.s. Elvis Presley and John Wayne were COOL, assholes. Unto themselves. Don't try to place your PC political bullshit onto them. Who gives a fuck if Elvis was racist, or if Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, for that matter. They're still of major importance to United States history and culture. Their relations to blacks were a decidedly minor part of their overall historical import, only talked about now because all of their major contributions have already been scoured over.
 

 

Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Shoes 1956 (COLOR and STEREO)

Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock (1957)

 

Are You Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley

"Do you gaze at your forehead and wish you had hair?"
Elvis sloppily fucking around in concert. His minions sticking up for him, claiming he's being somehow clever. (He's not being clever, he's being fucked up. I do, though, understand how ludicrous the whole "selling yourself" syndrome must have been to Elvis at this point.)
 

Downtown Train-Rod Stewart

You leave me lonely.