These two tattooed ghetto youth are fighting about the dna of children.
The girl stands in front of the judge and says she was on the beer run to steal beer, in that flat, latin-accented small word, agressive stance of gangs dialect. Her persona said “this is me” and “I don’t give a shit” and “I’ve been in front of judges and you simply tell them the truth.”
“I fell in love with a gangster who was doin what I like, drugs and he, he wants to be a christian! I don’t want no christian!”
The man, with facial tattoos, elongated triangles/arrows above and below the eyes, to symbolize being a clown and not being able to show his face for the things he has done, who was driven out of drugs due to the fact that people around him were dying from bullets meant for him, when he heard the result ran to this girl and hugged her tight and cried the tears of joy.
And Judge Hatchett treated them both with matter of fact respect and honesty.
Divorce Court is my new favorite judge show!
Written on April 28, 2009 | Posted in
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NYC is a place of running and waiting, extremes and boredom.
Sometimes simply flitting through the maze of buildings and cabs flashes movies scenes in front of you in rapid succession.
I was on the train a lot today, running to drop thigns off, heading to appointment, running to next thing, it is my life and usually i simply close my eyes an snooze or do character development or write poetry in my head I never get out.
Today was a more interesting ride.
I was already seated when this short, widehipped woman moved through the train looking for a seat and something about her head swing, puffy slitted eyes and hustle said, “not normal.” She shoved her way next to the window of a two seat area and took off her shoes. Then started banging her head into the window, three times then a gutteral “Fuckyou”"bitch.” Muttered with swollen tongue and seemingly held down in volume. I know she just wanted to yell. This was repeated often, more severe just after a stop, sometimes with arm gestures of grabbing or worshiping, couldn’t tell, and seemingly an internal dialoge that made me think maaaybe not Tourettes. Clothing to clean, bags too nice to be homeless.
All of the people seated around her started the new york stare and flicker. It’s where you wait for the head swing then your eyes stop looking trying to assess the danger and damage and instead find people’s shoes very interesting.
Her seat mate soon moved. A young “urban” (black) couple got on and after you hear her saying, “that lady hittin her head!” You also hear her say, “Stop staring, it’s rude.”
Doors open, people get on and off and she has both seats. Her purse gets put on the one next to her. A young man, tall and thin with a long face and not much jaw but square chin squares his glasses on his face and perches his rearend on the sea. She picks up the purse and sets it down with a gutteral exhalation I could not decipher. His eye pop open as his spin jerks upward. He wonders at his seat mate, trying to decide if he should stay. He turns out and looks at all the people sitting around him, half of us gently shaking our heads, “Nooo, don’t stay there.” He stands up and she immedately hits her head again, Thunk, Thunk, Thunk, “FUCK you.”
The woman standing in front of me where I sat looked down and I looked up and we laughed silently.
My stop arrived, no blood had shown on the window and no one seem inclined to disturb the woman, neither did I, and I walked off, thinking I had a great story for the day. Only to walk with the crowd through a narrow path way, with cops making us watch our steps, there being blood droplets on teh ground and a man with a cloth held to his head on the edge of the bench that happened to be there, just before the first escalator out of the depths.
I didn’t try to figure out what had happened or what was going on. One more time it was a situation of not my problem, can’t help, simply file it away as atmosphere for whatever creative endeavor you plug it into. This is my daily movie. Living in NYC.
Written on April 27, 2009 | Posted in
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From Shakesville: Rank (and File) Bigotry ”
The Republican Party has traded again and again on the conjured idea of an American golden era, circa 1945 to 1960, after boys who were ripped from the arms of their virginal sweethearts and sent to another continent to fight a great war against tyranny and despair, had returned home as men, as heroes, and set to work, every last one of them, making babies with doting wives and grabbing the American Dream with both hands in the dawn of suburbia. Scientists in white lab coats and square, black-framed glasses toiled away to make American astronauts the first on the moon, and to fill all the pretty new homes behind perfect white picket fences with fancy, new-fangled household gadgets to make life easier and more fun. Teenagers hung out at sock hops and neon-lit diners, girls longing for lavaliers and boys wondering how to get laid. Elvis’ pelvis was considered a scandal, and Marilyn Monroe a bombshell. Dad had a pension and the promise of a gold watch at the end of a long career with a single firm, and Mom had a Frigidaire. And everyone was happy.
Vote for us—and we’ll give you that.”
Shakesville: Rank (and File) Bigotry.
I never feel i have anything to add to posts like these, they are simply sublime. But I like to share.
Written on April 27, 2009 | Posted in
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You would think a person would get sick of talking about herself all the time. Move into a more general type of conversation, start looking at the world around her and make with the commentary already.
Nope!
I am a new york narcissist now. Everyone is inherently narcissistic, it is spose to be dealt with in our raising, as we are taught to share and think of others, but now I cultivate it and call it art. It is a satisfying way to live. I get to choose my own shell around me. I get to make people talk to me about my art, and what I did on stage, and not apologize for anything. (Although I do keep saying I’m sorry too much.)
Statistically I’m screwed. The majority of people who try to do anything with their life end up miserable and having mid-life crisis things. As well as no retirement.
This leads us directly to the take care of myself column. First thing I’m trying is giving up caffeine. My sleep is not deep and restful. It may never be but I am at the point where I would like to try things to make it better. Wear myself out a little more. Stop Coffee.
I’ve slowed down with coffee over the past few years already, though there are some days, but I do about 2 cups a day. Gonna try to ditch even that as well as back to vodka-soda for a drink and drop the Coke. Remove the artificial things that stimulate.
Right now I’m trying to teach my son some homework habits. We’re doing rather well. It’s difficult. Trying to get him to understand that it matters if you do the work, hoping he won’t be in 8th grade again. But once we’re on a roll he can cook. Right now I’m almost optimistic. Don’t tell the gods.
I managed to make it till the afternoon, when I bought a BIG cup of coffee, and drank it, and am now going to try and make it til tomorrow again without another hit. Make it THROUGH tomorrow, I mean.
I have managed to clean my kitchen a bit this weekend. Spent most of it combing through hair, looking for cooties. Nitpicking with a fine tooth comb we done did.
Have been piling contaminated laundry on the floor, away from hair, taking comfort in the fact that all the critters should die 2 days away from your head.
Hanging with the boy has been a good spring break, considering. We went to see the guys in brooklyn and he got appropriately picked on.
I have this gang of men I’ve hung out with for 10 to 15 years now (depending on the member we’re talking about.) It’s my own little seinfeld show. I helped one move in with the other back in 99? And there’s been a rotating door of roommate rearrangement ever since.
So I go and hang. And have surreal conversations. Like the one who is obsessed with small breasts. He really doesn’t care who a woman is as long as the breasts are what he wants. For the rights size tits he would make a commitment.
He gives me his endorsement, “You are amazing, I hate women and I love you to pieces.”
“Maybe if you stopped worrying so much about boobsize you would meet some more women you like.” “It’s an obsession.”
“It’s a problem.”
“It’s normal.”
“I’ve known hundreds of men, it’s not.”
He will never listen to me, I’m just the one female he likes. And he wonders why they don’t call back after a date or two. Who wants to deal with that? Who wants to be wanted simply for one bodily characteristic?
I want to be wanted for all of them. For my boobs and belly and ass. For my mind and my emotions. For my grouchy and my spoil you rotten. For my bad choices and my brilliant rightness. I want someone who wants all of me. I bet most people do. Why does it seem so hard to find?
Why do I see so many couples struggling with anger at how the other isn’t all they wanted them to be?
We simply can’t see the reality as we fall in love with the best image we are given? Or the one we project, thinking it will save us, though the person behind it can’t quite make it up on that pedestal?
I’ve had the rare moment in life where my largest pain is made visible again and I get to cope with that. And it obviously has everything to do with all my relationships. And the skill set needed to stick in something, or to find the right thing to stick in, or to know what to do with it once your stuck there.
But I think it’s come too late. I find myself rubbing up against these men in my life and loving them as friends and wondering how they ever came to survive this long they seem so oblivious to actual reality around them.
I said to that guy, (you know, the one I’m not dating,) the other day, that he had changed me. He wanted to know what I mean by that but I couldn’t explain. I left it dangling in a simply assumed explanation, finding that being too open about the truth of my definitions was a suddenly very scary thing with him. I grow close and warm, ready to give it all, as I open up and while we are close already, well we aren’t, and there has not been enough time to know what to trust between us now.
Spending today with my child, tottering about and randomly taking care of the daily life necessities I know that this I am ok with. The Boy and me, our routine, our understandings, our jokes, our work and our partnership. He believes me when I say, “you are ready to do this.” And I am grateful when he puts the clothes away and sits with much patience while I separate, investigate and comb through every follicle of hair.
Something has changed. I’m not sure it’s for the better but it feels for the solid. Knowing I have no energy to try and fit someone else into this life. No longer have the resources for the risk. Probably never did, which would be why I took so many shitty ones in my life.
Talking to friends about internet dating and being exhausted simply reading profiles, annoyed at every attempt made by humanity to connect. It’s all so retarded, go, talk, drink, kiss, like, don’t like, hurt, rejoice, infatuate, crush.
Do that?
Pickups and take homes, friendly flirting, and empty mornings.
Do That?
Search for “true love” and that “one person for everyone out there” because it’s been crammed down my throat by every religion, book, movie, tv show, culture bearing item.
DO THAT?
Wait for another NYC jewel to turn up in my circle of attraction and pretend it will be different this time?
OH GOD NO I CAN’T DO THAT AGAIN!
So that means I’m done I guess. Single forever! I should make a superhero costume. Dash about the city trying to save other amazing women who seem to be woefully unappreciated due to an inability to fit into whatever physical fetish the current crop of single guys won’t let go.
Let them know that however much you would like to be able to come home to someone who will rub your feet and back, tell you you’re amazing with your patience with your son, your willingness to make hour and a half treks to take him home, the way you also make a business float, and work on your art, and blog on a semi-regular basis, the way you seem to be able to do anything you want to try, the way you glow on stage, the way you help others, well, let them know that the guy who can handle all that, appreciate, and give the same back probably doesn’t exist. And if he does is probably trying to date a supermodel. Not an aging single mom with BabyDaddy issues, among others.
Is that a superhero we need? Only if she can explain how to live otherwise. Only if her magical lasso of power instantly makes you lose all interest in coupling up and allows a sense of self that knows how to prioritize to kick butt and take names in whatever the lady adores to do.
Written on April 20, 2009 | Posted in
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ok, so that bug from a week ago? That wasn’t a bedbug? Well, it might be more of a problem. Head Lice. Possibly over the counter insecticidal shampoo resistant.
I know, I seem like a really gross filthy person, and I sorta am. but I’m blaming my lice on the emergency room. I’ve never had them before, neither has The Boy. He may have had them for months even. He has eczema and doesn’t notice the itching. I know that was the day I had my head rubbing up against his for hours as I hugged and comforted him.
Yep, I’m blaming The Boy.
Written on April 19, 2009 | Posted in
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