Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Yeah, What The Hell Is Wrong With Peta?
Animal Rights= Stupid and Sexist? Thanks, Peta!
Also, thanks for letting us know vegetarians are supposed to be extremely thin, attractive, and white!
But I guess anything goes for Peta.
Also, thanks for letting us know vegetarians are supposed to be extremely thin, attractive, and white!
But I guess anything goes for Peta.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Pictures Found
I found a few pictures in my dad's Vietnam album that were out of place in time. The farm. My childhood.
That's my brother and my Uncle Grant at a cabin we lived in in the mountains. The men would gather up their wives and children to live together in this off-the-grid cabin. The men would go hunting and the women and children would hang around, cooking, playing on the big tire swing in the back, talking, singing, drinking beer. We'd stay there for a few weeks every season. I remember fireworks, finding crayfish in the cricks, fireflies, sitting around fires listening to folk ghost stories. I remember the men drinking in the kitchen around the rickety table with peeling white paint, still in their camouflage and bright orange caps- throwing darts at a board that had a poster of a naked woman pinned to it, the bullseye was her nipple.
The goat in the lawn chair is Angel, she was our favorite. She died and it was a really hard time for us. It was a rainy night and my dad was with her for hours in the shed, trying to save her. He came down to the house, drenched and tired. He told us all and we cried together. She was really rambunctious and bad and would eat everything. This picture was taken while people were over for some kind of barbecue or hog roast. I know that because there are a few cars parked in the yard and, if you look closely, the dog you can hardly see in the center is chewing on a big bone.
That's our dirt and mud driveway. There are a couple of goats and one of our pigs in the background. If you could follow the road up and out through the photo you would find grapevines and blackberries, wild guinea chicken eggs. In the back there were sumac trees and we'd take the red berry cones to stain our shoes with and to use as ammo against my brother and his friends who rode past on four-wheelers and dirtbikes. The girls would hide behind the trees and wait for them to pass and then we would lodge the cones at them, smashing the sides of their bikes, smearing and staining them red. They were so mad. We had to run fast and hide good to avoid an ass-beating.
I was always fascinated with the slanted roofs and off-center architecture of my dad's sheds and coops, seeming to lean into each other or to be sinking into the mud after a hard rain. Their little, dusty and drafty rooms contained so many treasures to find- the fish and tackle box full of gummy, colorful little things I would play with, accidentally cutting myself on the hooks. There were old time tools, antique things my dad had had passed down to him and didn't use anymore, but didn't want to get rid of. There were boxes of old magazines, old anatomy books with the layered transparencies. Those were awesome. There were moths of many colors, hornets, bees, birds, gnats, so many living things swirling around you when you crept inside.
There were always animals coming in and out everywhere. There was always a pig to trip over or a cow to run into. We had a one-legged rooster that chased us. He was fast and angry, probably about the leg.
I've heard Carrot is good for your vision.
Everyone needs a little Carrot Quinn in their lives... Read her amazing poem about class and difference HERE.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Class and Inessential Weirdnesses
Read a great article on class difference here.
"Corny."
I can't tell you how many times I have heard the word "corny" coming from poor/working class friends and family to describe things that are understood as higher class activities/values. My family is extremely uncomfortable with corniness. It's hard to define.
I cannot imagine the reaction my friends and family from back home would have had to the Thirteen Grandmother's Meeting. The chanting, the forced happiness, the smiles from strangers. All of that would have felt very strange and alienating. I can hear my older sister saying, "Bitch- you don't know me- don't smile at me" to one of the organizers. You may think that sounds awfully crude and violent, but, believe me- it's very complicated. I can't tell you how insulting a mere smile can feel from people you feel are looking down at you, from people who think that since they are organizing and you are attending, everything is equal and everyone can be friends instantly without introduction or shared experience. People whose hands are always giving, never receiving. (An anarchist punk girl from Pittsburgh tells me proudly that she is studying to become a nurse because she wants to open up a clinic to help poor women. I ask her if she ever was a poor woman. If she ever had to go to a free clinic for help. She doesn't get the question. Why would that matter- she wants to help!)
Or they just feel sorry for you. Also, I personally experience the prevalence of smiles from strangers at these events to reflect a levity and privilege in their lives which makes them so happy and calm and open in their eco-friendly shoes and Tibetan turquoise earrings- a levity I don't have because when I walk in I feel noticeably poor and awkward and angry and jealous. All of these feelings inside of me and I can pass. I'm white and semi-college educated and I know the lingo and the dress-code, so I can pass easily, but my family and friends could never and so, they would have walked right out the door. I also think the presence of the 10,000 dollar spot on the donation form was insulting and insensitive. Why throw in my face that there are people present who can afford to donate that much to anything when I had to skip a meal just to give five dollars? Why throw that number in my face when I spent that morning in the Social Security Office with my mom watching her kiss ass and get mistreated so she could get an advance on her crazy check to buy milk and bread? Do these people ever consider that their world might include poor people and just seeing that number might have fucked with me and traumatized me?
Nina and I read the above article together and went on to laugh about all the "Inessential Weirdnesses" we have experienced in our travels through class. This article is great, but it overlooks some of the other things working class people find very alienating and strange- specifically, the "everything is great" and "we are all so happy" attitude that higher class people have when organizing events. Chanting at spiritual events where people hold hands? Corny. So corny and weird.
I have experienced touch at these events strangely because from my experience of upper middle class families- touch isn't a big thing. The upper middle class families I have experienced (and there haven't been a lot, honestly) have always seemed cold and empty to me. Families with one child and no cousins anywhere. No grandparents living in the house. That is something I always experienced as strange because where I am from, families are big and people are always together and family members touch each other- whether that's your grandmother hugging you or your mom slapping you in front of relatives who just shake their heads and say you should have listened the first time. So, the big touching of strangers thing always seemed to me to be as an over-compensation for a lack of it in their personal lives. I could be wrong about this.
Corniness is marked by a lack of sick, twisted humor we have in my family and my community. A community where, if a child falls into a mud puddle, we might all stand around laughing while he cries before we run to help him up. This may seem cruel and cold, but it comes from living in a place where life is hard and you better learn to laugh at it or you are never going to make it.
Once, a few working class people and I sat around a bar table laughing and reminiscing about childhood- specifically all the beatings we survived. Leather belts beatings particularly. We laughed so hard telling the stories of what we did wrong and how bad we got our asses beat when we got caught. A friend at the table who grew up with money was horrified. She couldn't believe we were laughing. She kept saying cliche things like "hitting children is wrong" and all I felt was irritation that she felt she needed to tell us that, that it never occured to her that we experienced it first-hand and maybe our laughter was more complicated and interesting than us merely being complicit in our abuse.
"And if you hear a parent negotiating with a child about when to leave the playground, look around for who's rolling their eyes, and listen for the class overtones in the comments, like "F**king yuppies!"
In Whole Foods, parents are always letting their kids rule the day and it enrages me every time. A friend of mine spends twenty minutes trying to convince his little daughter to put her shoes back on after she plays in the park. My childhood was worlds away in harshness and discipline and babying your spoiled kids just leads them to be spoiled brats who expect the world to baby them, and I guess this works well for rich kids.... They grow up to expect the world to cater to them and it usually does.
Enjoy the article and remember, the Food Not Bombs kids are in fact being snobby when the prepare all vegetarian meals for the homeless people downtown.
"Corny."
I can't tell you how many times I have heard the word "corny" coming from poor/working class friends and family to describe things that are understood as higher class activities/values. My family is extremely uncomfortable with corniness. It's hard to define.
I cannot imagine the reaction my friends and family from back home would have had to the Thirteen Grandmother's Meeting. The chanting, the forced happiness, the smiles from strangers. All of that would have felt very strange and alienating. I can hear my older sister saying, "Bitch- you don't know me- don't smile at me" to one of the organizers. You may think that sounds awfully crude and violent, but, believe me- it's very complicated. I can't tell you how insulting a mere smile can feel from people you feel are looking down at you, from people who think that since they are organizing and you are attending, everything is equal and everyone can be friends instantly without introduction or shared experience. People whose hands are always giving, never receiving. (An anarchist punk girl from Pittsburgh tells me proudly that she is studying to become a nurse because she wants to open up a clinic to help poor women. I ask her if she ever was a poor woman. If she ever had to go to a free clinic for help. She doesn't get the question. Why would that matter- she wants to help!)
Or they just feel sorry for you. Also, I personally experience the prevalence of smiles from strangers at these events to reflect a levity and privilege in their lives which makes them so happy and calm and open in their eco-friendly shoes and Tibetan turquoise earrings- a levity I don't have because when I walk in I feel noticeably poor and awkward and angry and jealous. All of these feelings inside of me and I can pass. I'm white and semi-college educated and I know the lingo and the dress-code, so I can pass easily, but my family and friends could never and so, they would have walked right out the door. I also think the presence of the 10,000 dollar spot on the donation form was insulting and insensitive. Why throw in my face that there are people present who can afford to donate that much to anything when I had to skip a meal just to give five dollars? Why throw that number in my face when I spent that morning in the Social Security Office with my mom watching her kiss ass and get mistreated so she could get an advance on her crazy check to buy milk and bread? Do these people ever consider that their world might include poor people and just seeing that number might have fucked with me and traumatized me?
Nina and I read the above article together and went on to laugh about all the "Inessential Weirdnesses" we have experienced in our travels through class. This article is great, but it overlooks some of the other things working class people find very alienating and strange- specifically, the "everything is great" and "we are all so happy" attitude that higher class people have when organizing events. Chanting at spiritual events where people hold hands? Corny. So corny and weird.
I have experienced touch at these events strangely because from my experience of upper middle class families- touch isn't a big thing. The upper middle class families I have experienced (and there haven't been a lot, honestly) have always seemed cold and empty to me. Families with one child and no cousins anywhere. No grandparents living in the house. That is something I always experienced as strange because where I am from, families are big and people are always together and family members touch each other- whether that's your grandmother hugging you or your mom slapping you in front of relatives who just shake their heads and say you should have listened the first time. So, the big touching of strangers thing always seemed to me to be as an over-compensation for a lack of it in their personal lives. I could be wrong about this.
Corniness is marked by a lack of sick, twisted humor we have in my family and my community. A community where, if a child falls into a mud puddle, we might all stand around laughing while he cries before we run to help him up. This may seem cruel and cold, but it comes from living in a place where life is hard and you better learn to laugh at it or you are never going to make it.
Once, a few working class people and I sat around a bar table laughing and reminiscing about childhood- specifically all the beatings we survived. Leather belts beatings particularly. We laughed so hard telling the stories of what we did wrong and how bad we got our asses beat when we got caught. A friend at the table who grew up with money was horrified. She couldn't believe we were laughing. She kept saying cliche things like "hitting children is wrong" and all I felt was irritation that she felt she needed to tell us that, that it never occured to her that we experienced it first-hand and maybe our laughter was more complicated and interesting than us merely being complicit in our abuse.
"And if you hear a parent negotiating with a child about when to leave the playground, look around for who's rolling their eyes, and listen for the class overtones in the comments, like "F**king yuppies!"
In Whole Foods, parents are always letting their kids rule the day and it enrages me every time. A friend of mine spends twenty minutes trying to convince his little daughter to put her shoes back on after she plays in the park. My childhood was worlds away in harshness and discipline and babying your spoiled kids just leads them to be spoiled brats who expect the world to baby them, and I guess this works well for rich kids.... They grow up to expect the world to cater to them and it usually does.
Enjoy the article and remember, the Food Not Bombs kids are in fact being snobby when the prepare all vegetarian meals for the homeless people downtown.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Read Me Here:
My profile essay about Victor has been published in The New Yinzer. Read it here under City Slang.
Also, in a few days the links to the following will be working under Invisible Cities:
-Three Prose Poems
A Bit About Inevitable, Baleen, and Letter to Gina
By: Nikki Allen
Thursday, January 8, 2009
pema chodron full of shit (summer journals)
upper middle class buddhist new agey people are the most annoying people in the world. i decided this a few months ago when i went to the thirteen grandmothers meeting. it was held at some fancy unitarian universalist church and the audience was full of white rich people wearing too many heavy gemstones. (you know you can literally see money dripping off of these people) there was a cheesy couple playing crystals and tibetan singing bowls and everyone was smiling at each other, trying to create this atmosphere of well-being, and when the "band" was finished, the man said "namaste" to the audience and the audience said "namaste" back and i wanted to yell a big "fuck you" just for kicks. I thought of Eileen Myles in one of her poems saying to a crowd of rich, "Am I the only one with bleeding gums here?"
this presentation was put on to collect funds to create some movie about the thirteen grandmothers. i made a five dollar donation to get in and was surprised to see a ten thousand dollar spot for someone to check if they were donating that much. i guess no one else but me was hit with the irony of rich white people gathered in east liberty, a poor black neighborhood of pittsburgh, collecting money to make a movie about people from other countries. don't get me wrong, i appreciate the grandmothers and their message, but why do rich people never give a shit about the poor people in their own cities?
the positivity in the room irritated me because i felt it was really disconnected from life. today someone quoted me pema chodron who writes something about the greatest challenges in life giving us the greatest opportunities. yeah, well, actually- that's not always true. actually, that's usually not true for poor people. not that pema chodron would know anything about it, being born white and upper middle class, spending most of her time in isolation meditating and/or whatever it is that buddhists do. i am so tired of rich people monopolizing the discourse and misleading the world with their disconnected positivity.
maybe people need to recognize that there are a lot of people who are being totally destroyed by "challenges." this week i met a beautiful, insanely wise and brilliant woman who can't get out of bed because her spine is collapsing due to thirty years of hard labor and she is addicted to pain medication and every hospital she visits rejects her because she has no insurance and because they write her off as a drug addict. she spends her days laying in bed, smoking, slipping further and further into schizophrenia.
this week she took care of me and gave me stripper clothes and guided me from her bed while i practiced moves on her bedroom floor. i am so heartbroken for her and for so many people.
it's like you want to grab pema chodron and drag her out of the monastery and toss her into a hotel room where some young runaway girl is sucking richdick for cash to pay for her drugs. just to wisen the old lady up. just to give her a big dose of reality because why shouldn't everyone have to witness this shit? it's real. it's real. if it isn't real to you then shut the fuck up and let some other people write their stories and share their own methods of positivity- methods which don't start with disconnected fairy tales of how every challenge is an opportunity.
blah. i'm just overwhelmed.
after the thirteen grandmothers thing, i walked out and in the intersection there was some crazy homeless dude marching (literally, marching) in circles, carrying some huge pole with a rainbow flag attached to it that i guess he unearthed from the front of the church. he was waving it around like mad, blocking the crosswalk from some of the rich white women who were leaving the meeting. they were so scared and i started laughing because whatever middle class new agey positivity high they had from the meditation inside was now shocked away by the reality of the poor mentally ill man from the ghetto they were having their meeting in. they stood huddled in the corner scared as mice and looking to me to maybe take them acoss the lethe of the street to get them to their expensive cars. I diverted eye contact, put my hoodie on and walked right past the guy- scared, but not showing it because he wouldn't bother me then and i did not want to be on that side of the street with them.
this presentation was put on to collect funds to create some movie about the thirteen grandmothers. i made a five dollar donation to get in and was surprised to see a ten thousand dollar spot for someone to check if they were donating that much. i guess no one else but me was hit with the irony of rich white people gathered in east liberty, a poor black neighborhood of pittsburgh, collecting money to make a movie about people from other countries. don't get me wrong, i appreciate the grandmothers and their message, but why do rich people never give a shit about the poor people in their own cities?
the positivity in the room irritated me because i felt it was really disconnected from life. today someone quoted me pema chodron who writes something about the greatest challenges in life giving us the greatest opportunities. yeah, well, actually- that's not always true. actually, that's usually not true for poor people. not that pema chodron would know anything about it, being born white and upper middle class, spending most of her time in isolation meditating and/or whatever it is that buddhists do. i am so tired of rich people monopolizing the discourse and misleading the world with their disconnected positivity.
maybe people need to recognize that there are a lot of people who are being totally destroyed by "challenges." this week i met a beautiful, insanely wise and brilliant woman who can't get out of bed because her spine is collapsing due to thirty years of hard labor and she is addicted to pain medication and every hospital she visits rejects her because she has no insurance and because they write her off as a drug addict. she spends her days laying in bed, smoking, slipping further and further into schizophrenia.
this week she took care of me and gave me stripper clothes and guided me from her bed while i practiced moves on her bedroom floor. i am so heartbroken for her and for so many people.
it's like you want to grab pema chodron and drag her out of the monastery and toss her into a hotel room where some young runaway girl is sucking richdick for cash to pay for her drugs. just to wisen the old lady up. just to give her a big dose of reality because why shouldn't everyone have to witness this shit? it's real. it's real. if it isn't real to you then shut the fuck up and let some other people write their stories and share their own methods of positivity- methods which don't start with disconnected fairy tales of how every challenge is an opportunity.
blah. i'm just overwhelmed.
after the thirteen grandmothers thing, i walked out and in the intersection there was some crazy homeless dude marching (literally, marching) in circles, carrying some huge pole with a rainbow flag attached to it that i guess he unearthed from the front of the church. he was waving it around like mad, blocking the crosswalk from some of the rich white women who were leaving the meeting. they were so scared and i started laughing because whatever middle class new agey positivity high they had from the meditation inside was now shocked away by the reality of the poor mentally ill man from the ghetto they were having their meeting in. they stood huddled in the corner scared as mice and looking to me to maybe take them acoss the lethe of the street to get them to their expensive cars. I diverted eye contact, put my hoodie on and walked right past the guy- scared, but not showing it because he wouldn't bother me then and i did not want to be on that side of the street with them.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
fear
two steps forward one step back.
this is the most intense thing i have ever experienced. the shock of seeing your face afraid, your eyes blank- when i am so used to seeing them smiling, magical, radiant. the trauma. the flipped switch.
i am a feather in a cyclone. i lay next to nina in bed after the hospital and i keep touching her face. should be familiar. hold me here. hold me here. here. here. who am i? what is a friend, a family, a sister? a face, a body, a brain?
everything, everyone out of focus. that "i can never go home again" feeling.
tomorrow take me to a cracked shell, a smooth stone. lift it and let me look under. let magic be there. let peace be there.
i don't think i like this place anymore.
this is the most intense thing i have ever experienced. the shock of seeing your face afraid, your eyes blank- when i am so used to seeing them smiling, magical, radiant. the trauma. the flipped switch.
i am a feather in a cyclone. i lay next to nina in bed after the hospital and i keep touching her face. should be familiar. hold me here. hold me here. here. here. who am i? what is a friend, a family, a sister? a face, a body, a brain?
everything, everyone out of focus. that "i can never go home again" feeling.
tomorrow take me to a cracked shell, a smooth stone. lift it and let me look under. let magic be there. let peace be there.
i don't think i like this place anymore.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Rick Fuckin Majors
Ok, so I was a little angry when the kids from the Sandwich Shop named the benefit show for Rick "A Benefit for Rick Fuckin Majors." I felt it was insensitive to his Christian family, a little bit too slaphappy for such a serious affair, and altogether offputting. But after this week, I guess I don't know what else to say, but "Rick Fuckin Majors." The boy took on death and won and is now recovering so much every single day. He is smiling, laughing, communicating his needs with signals- wrinkling his nose if he needs something, nodding his head and lifting his eyebrows for yes, shaking his head from side to side for no. He can move everything on his body, albeit discongruently and with difficulty, but the potential for motor skill re-learning is amazing. He is making us laugh and swoon with his handsome smile. He doesn't smile randomly, he smiles when a good joke is made or when we remind him of funny memories. He is being very funny, too. I was asking him yes or no questions to try to discern his ability to hear us and understand. I couldn't think of a no question, so I asked him, "Do you like George Bush?" His face went immediately into a crinkled, disgusted "what the hell" face and we all started laughing. Rick laughed with us and we all knew he was trying to be funny. The boy has been through hell and is still able to smile, joke, and make us laugh. To top it off, one of his first functions to come back was, believe it- blowing kisses. K was blowing kisses at him and when he heard her lips he blew one back. When I came into the hospital after three days not seeing him, K said, "Look! Davka is here! Blow her a kiss!" And he did. I melted.
He is also blowing kisses at the nurses. I guess some of them were lining up to get their kisses.
Last night he was wrinkling his nose and in pain. He was making the pain face, which we are all so familiar with. It was the only face he made for like two weeks, a total grimace of agony. We were trying to figure out what he needed so Nina was asking, "Rick. Is it something with your legs?" He shook his head no. "Rick, is it something in your stomach?" Again, no. Again, the pain face. She asked, "Rick, is it something in your head?" Before he had a chance to respond, I said, "Rick- do you want some head?" It took him one second of delay and then he was smiling hugely, leaning his head back with laughter. He raised his eyebrows in a big "Yes!" Nina looked to make sure his mother didn't hear me. I was still laughing. Rick was laughing. I whispered into his ear, "Don't worry! Nina will take care of that for you." Nina slapped my arm. Rick is beaming.
It feels so good to be able to tease him and flirt with him. Everyone left and the nurses gave him some valium to relax him for sleep. Rick and I have an ongoing joke about benzodiazapines. Everyone we know gets them or has them and our whole generation is addicted to them, so we try to make light of it. Rick likes to exaggerate their weird names in a funny yinzer accent. He always says, "hey Davka do you want some Kalanzapans? Some lorazapams?" He makes them sound like candy. You kind of have to be there, but last night after the nurse gave him his valium I told him I hope he likes his kolanzapans and he smiled big. Then Nina and I sang him to sleep. We waited til his heartbeat dropped to a nice relaxed number and we prayed and left. We were crying. We discussed it later and we both agreed it wasn't sadness- it was amazement and humility- an awe in the face of spirit. What makes a person who they are? How amazing that even after brain injury and coma and all of this, Rick is still this shining spirit that fights and laughs and blows kisses. That is the unquantifiable part of each of us that will never be able to be named, discussed, or consoled in the language of science. The doctors who wanted us to give up just never counted on Rick. Fuckin. Majors. and his huge, beautiful spirit.
Spirit. Love. I am just amazed these days. Someone hands me a fortune from their cookie at dinner:
Every moment only once.
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