There's a baby across the aisle from me who starts shaking his bunny rattle until he gets so excited that he bangs himself right between the eyes with it.
After the first hit, he's startled. He tries again. After the second th-whack, he's startled and quite concerned. He shakes the rattle harder. His mother offers him another toy. He refuses.
The mother returns with a "then-don't-listen-to-me-and-we'll-see-what-happens-ya-
little-bastard" look, almost a smile.
The third time he whacks himself right upside the head. His face wrinkles with injustice as he cries. The mother tries again to get the rattle. No chance.
People on the bus show signs of annoyance. The mother rummages in her bag of tricks again, this time producing a set of keys. Oh no! He'll poke himself in the eye. Wait. He turned away as if mortally insulted by such a petty offer.
She reaches in the bag again. Ah, yes. She confidently hands him a cookie. As soon as he sees it, he drops the rattle. He immediately bangs himself in the head with the cookie, but instead of crying, he eats what's left in his fist. Funny bastard. I mean baby.
The bus breathes and the normal drone returns. I inadvertently look over to find the baby staring at me. Smiling as maternally as I can on a bus, I say "Hi, little baby."
He never blinks as he inhales enough air to let loose a scream that gets even the bus-driver's attention. Never before has a baby looked at me and seen something so wretched, so heinous, that it made him scream bloody murder. It's a real esteem booster for a weekly pass holder like myself.
Babies, dogs and cats (creatures in our lives with the least intelligence) are often seen in movies as portals of a higher intelligence, a pure intuition. I know what everybody on the bus is thinking: Whatever made the baby wail at the sight of me was something hideous in my very soul.
I think I smell garlic. The mother is bouncing the screaming baby roughly on her knee. All she has to do is give him another cookie but it's like she wants to prolong the effects of my evil to intensify it.
One minute I'm riding high, venerating motherhood, contemplating the violence that innocence succumbs to, then suddenly everyone's looking at me like I'm a blood-drooling whore carrying Satan's baby.
Ah, time to turn on headphones ... the opiate of the buses.
I look out the window and calm quickly. I know from experience that the mother will only hate me as long as the kid cries. I've never owned a car and have been on the bus with my son, Leo, since he was a baby. When he was three (he's now ten), I started going to Community College on the North Side. I felt like the heroine of some After School Special about the realities of single parenthood. We started on the Carrick bus at 6:30 a.m., me with my book bag, him with his Joe Cool lunch box.
We arrived in the North Side around 8:30 and I'd be completely spent. Leo used to try and slide down the poles like a fireman. He'd try to stand in the middle of the bus to see if he could keep his balance while it moved. He wanted to run up and down the center aisle. Sometimes I'd have to hold him while he kicked me with his Stride Right shoes. I still have dents in my shins.
I remember how people looked at me as I struggled with him. I could tell who had kids and who didn't by the way they reacted. People who are parents see little monsters on the bus and look grateful because theirs aren't with them. You can tell they've experienced a bus ride with a child if they look grateful and scared.
Non-parents smirk as they fold their arms over their chests and emit what is part sigh, part huff. They suffer from Pre-Parental Denial. This assures the propagation of our species. After seeing "little brats" throw "fits" on the bus or in the grocery store, they're convinced their children would never behave like that. Or they'd never have any.
Let them think it. Someday the fruit of their loins will peel and eat chewing gum off the black-rubber floor of a bus. Someday they'll understand. But not all of them. Some women on the bus with grown children suffer from Post-Parental Denial. Their children were perfect, just darling. These women were always telling me to put a hat on Leo, to fuss with him constantly, always suggesting something was wrong with him. These are the moms who wonder why their children never call.
Parenthood is an incredible test of character. Knowing that I'm the only person to take care of Leo gives me strength and keeps me grounded. I can't imagine not having him.
I lie. Having a child-free life is a re-occurring fantasy. My apartment would stay clean. I could go barefoot in the house, no more mud or crumbs on the kitchen floor. No more carrying bags of groceries home until I have shooting pains in my arms. I'd never buy or be tempted to eat another Twinkie. I also love thinking about being a kid again — people begging me to eat. Man.
And I contemplate the days when beating your children was encouraged and even admired.
Frightened children are obedient. One night I thought Leo was playing with his Tinker Toys and instead found him cutting holes in the back of all of his shirts 'cause he didn't like tags. My thoughts turned back on the glory days of parenting: dads with belts, moms with wooden spoons or hairbrushes — and a cruel twist, when we'd get a paddle ball as a party favor, as soon as the rubber string broke, mom would add it to her panoply.
That night, Leo was around four, I started telling him how lucky he was that I didn't beat him. I wanted to tell him every gruesome story from my childhood but stopped when I realized that he shouldn't be made to feel grateful for being treated with respect. That's every child's birthright. It didn't seem right to ask him to thank me for it. Besides, I'm not always so good at it.
By the end of every August, the boy got whacked. I'd been with him all summer with no money and no car, day and night. Unless you have kids, you can't fathom the variety of ways they invent to make your life miserable. The problem is feeling that they do it deliberately. But after hitting Leo and seeing the how-could-you-? in his eyes, I knew it was wrong. So I don't abuse my son, I just fantasize about it.
I will miss him, though. Last week he was in the shower and I walked into the bathroom singing, turn around, you're a young man walking out of the door, thinking about how near the day is that I won't be able to hold him anymore, when he won't be my little boy, my angel.
He started singing, insane in the membrane, insane in the brain and showed me his hair, shampooed into a Mohawk. I smiled, picked up his muddy Major Damage jeans and quietly closed the door behind me....
Downtown already? I didn't even notice that the baby was gone. Okay. Maybe I got a little intense. It wasn't all that bad — never is once it's over. But everything seems so intense when strangers are watching, but the more intense things get, the more quickly they're forgotten.
No. They're not forgotten, they're actively ignored. I've learned the difference. The crossing guards at Leo's school were issued bullet-proof vests. He and one of his friends were jumped by a bunch of kids outside of his school. He got over it almost instantly. I started eating handfuls of Rolaids. How do you get over being attacked for no reason? And why would five older kids need to do that or even want to? Why don't people seem to understand that although frightened children are obedient, they grow-up to be terrifying teenagers?
Oh enough. Time to get off this bus.
The low, gray sky looks too tired to rain. How many times have I prayed for a bus; although, it's almost certain one will be coming? I guess that's the whole concept behind faith. That's why I have so little, especially when it concerns our children. No one seems to understand the "our" part.
And here's the 61A, right when I start to feel completely invisible. I get a window seat and take my headphones off. I listen to the engine of the bus rise and fall — just like everything.
Maybe it's a miracle that things aren't a lot worse. Or maybe that's the bullshit that justifies what is happening.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
My Welfare Lady
Graduation Speech, Carnegie Mellon University, May 15, 1994
Although a traditional student was selected to speak, the commencement committee produced a brochure for our speeches and distributed them with the graduation programs. Here's mine. I was 32 years old.
My life has a made-for-TV-movie quality about it. I began my education as a single welfare mother, high-school dropout and convicted felon. When I was 18, I had been arrested for passing illegal prescriptions and spent nearly six months in a Kansas jail for it. I was lucky to be in a small county jail. They even ordered pizza for us.
I plead guilty to one count of forgery, was released, went to a drug rehab and then lived with nuns for three months in Erie, PA. Seeing that not even Burger King would hire me, my probation officer let me come back to Pittsburgh. Upon returning in the fall of '80, I became gainfully employed as a mud-wrestler, joining two drunken male volunteers per night to roll around with in the mud.
It's only natural that I started hanging out with outlaw motorcycle types at this time. And even though they didn't approve of shooting dope, I continued. In the summer of '82, I spent a week in the hospital so doctors could drain an abscess on my arm that resulted from missing a vein. I was released and immediately hitchhiked all over the country with two of my friends.
When I returned, I went into another drug rehab where I found out I was pregnant. But when I decided to keep my baby, I knew that my life was no longer my own. For the first time, I actually cared what happened to me. And here I am, a welfare mother graduating with honors from one of the most expensive universities in the world.
I truly love this country, even though the government benefits that enabled my transformation are already gone. It will be my life's work to bring them back, to make sure every man, woman and child has the same chances to be free, even if it means you're free to make big mistakes, that I had. Without these programs, I'd never have been able to keep my baby. And with all my heart I thank the taxpayers.
My son, Leo, is about to turn 11. I've been in school, full time, since he was three, beginning at Community College of Allegheny County. I would have never imagined that I'd be here. I've had the incredible experience of having my life exceed my dreams. But there are far too many stories that start like mine and far too few that end here.
Our power of choice is limited to the awareness we have of the world around us. Ignorance makes us vulnerable, powerless, which is the opposite of bliss. As the benefactors of our education, we have been given the power to understand the mechanisms necessary to reach our full potential. That power is a gift of great responsibility that demands we extend it to others.
We live in a time of incredible information that seems endless. Only by keeping our powers of reason guided by our hearts, will we synthesize the answers to the problems we face.
Many people still don't seem to understand how things like poverty, prejudice and the resulting abuse elicit undesirable behaviors. Obviously many people don't understand how bad it hurts to feel so worthless. And even with the success I've been afforded, my self-esteem is something I have to fight for daily.
These problems aren't excuses for bad behavior, these problems are the cause. Being constantly demeaned, for whatever reason, creates a desperation that drives self-destructiveness. It infects victims and everyone who tries to love them. Or tries to ignore them. Over time the hurt turns to hate. Which turns to violence or depression. Prevention is the only solution.
All anyone needs is a chance to try, to have the strength of heart that comes from being cared for. And that strength, that hope, is a gift that each of us can give to others. That's the simple magic of it. And please don't ever forget that we all deserve to be treated with the dignity that drives our best endeavors.
Thank you, America the beautiful.
Although a traditional student was selected to speak, the commencement committee produced a brochure for our speeches and distributed them with the graduation programs. Here's mine. I was 32 years old.
My life has a made-for-TV-movie quality about it. I began my education as a single welfare mother, high-school dropout and convicted felon. When I was 18, I had been arrested for passing illegal prescriptions and spent nearly six months in a Kansas jail for it. I was lucky to be in a small county jail. They even ordered pizza for us.
I plead guilty to one count of forgery, was released, went to a drug rehab and then lived with nuns for three months in Erie, PA. Seeing that not even Burger King would hire me, my probation officer let me come back to Pittsburgh. Upon returning in the fall of '80, I became gainfully employed as a mud-wrestler, joining two drunken male volunteers per night to roll around with in the mud.
It's only natural that I started hanging out with outlaw motorcycle types at this time. And even though they didn't approve of shooting dope, I continued. In the summer of '82, I spent a week in the hospital so doctors could drain an abscess on my arm that resulted from missing a vein. I was released and immediately hitchhiked all over the country with two of my friends.
When I returned, I went into another drug rehab where I found out I was pregnant. But when I decided to keep my baby, I knew that my life was no longer my own. For the first time, I actually cared what happened to me. And here I am, a welfare mother graduating with honors from one of the most expensive universities in the world.
I truly love this country, even though the government benefits that enabled my transformation are already gone. It will be my life's work to bring them back, to make sure every man, woman and child has the same chances to be free, even if it means you're free to make big mistakes, that I had. Without these programs, I'd never have been able to keep my baby. And with all my heart I thank the taxpayers.
My son, Leo, is about to turn 11. I've been in school, full time, since he was three, beginning at Community College of Allegheny County. I would have never imagined that I'd be here. I've had the incredible experience of having my life exceed my dreams. But there are far too many stories that start like mine and far too few that end here.
Our power of choice is limited to the awareness we have of the world around us. Ignorance makes us vulnerable, powerless, which is the opposite of bliss. As the benefactors of our education, we have been given the power to understand the mechanisms necessary to reach our full potential. That power is a gift of great responsibility that demands we extend it to others.
We live in a time of incredible information that seems endless. Only by keeping our powers of reason guided by our hearts, will we synthesize the answers to the problems we face.
Many people still don't seem to understand how things like poverty, prejudice and the resulting abuse elicit undesirable behaviors. Obviously many people don't understand how bad it hurts to feel so worthless. And even with the success I've been afforded, my self-esteem is something I have to fight for daily.
These problems aren't excuses for bad behavior, these problems are the cause. Being constantly demeaned, for whatever reason, creates a desperation that drives self-destructiveness. It infects victims and everyone who tries to love them. Or tries to ignore them. Over time the hurt turns to hate. Which turns to violence or depression. Prevention is the only solution.
All anyone needs is a chance to try, to have the strength of heart that comes from being cared for. And that strength, that hope, is a gift that each of us can give to others. That's the simple magic of it. And please don't ever forget that we all deserve to be treated with the dignity that drives our best endeavors.
Thank you, America the beautiful.
The Placebo Effect: back in cyan, yellow, magenta and black!
The CYMK thing - that's all the colors they use to print magazines. Please don't make me talk about it. But this is an article about my anticipated return to print and my waiting public! But no one noticed. And come to think about it, I didn't care.But they made an editorial change to a title without asking me and the end. So yes my long awaited return to print! I guess everyone's sick of my shit or something. Or maybe the paper wouldn't put me on the cover like the other one did. Maybe the paper wouldn't let me run wild through the pages and make the paper something people actually talked about. I can rile 'em up! But they make me play nice AND I WON'T. Because I am nice! Anyway.
I'm still doing the same job, two years later, except for a new company - so I hate my job much less. Bye! I love you! Oh no one's here ... okay bye!
A Bittersweet Pill
Did you really think you’d never have to hear my shit again? Maybe “hope” is a better verb. One day I’m one of Pittsburgh’s favorite columnists – a literary bad-ass doing Spoken Word with Lydia Lunch and Cynthia Plaster Caster; getting phone calls from the Tragically Hip’s frontman, Gordon Downie, who said it’d be an honor to write a blurb for my first book, Once Upon Some Welfare, and within four days the book deal fell through and the "name of alternative newsweekly here" booted my ass. Six months later I was telemarketing.
But naturally, it’s deliciously self-satisfying to see some whippersnappin’ smart arse like myself get the ol’ slap-down from the local media, ain’t it?
Well I’ve come back to return the favor.
When the new owners of the "name of alternative newsweekly here" were firing me, they said they still wanted me to write for them. I go, “You want me to wait tables and write for you?” No … no way. It was somewhat complementary to be fired by the Neo Alternative Press in their suits and expensive eye-wear. But they wouldn’t shut up about synergies and “taking the paper to the next level.” And they sure did! Right out o’ business.
A local daily offered me work but wanted that “powerful” writing I was known for but did I have to be so dramatic? I thought about the Tribune Review – there was talk that they’d let me keep my bus column – but I couldn’t write for Citizen Scaife.
The editor a new alternative newsweekly never responded to my email. I think I said something like, “I’ll never again allow a writer put his hands all over my prose without my approval just because he’s the editor.” That’s a bad pitch, I reckon.
This was years after my comrades from the "name of alternative newsweekly here" who had moved to the other alternative newsweekly (after dogging it for years) had stopped responding to my emails – even the complementary one. WHA’D I EVER DO?
I was offered a chance to write, unedited, for zmag.org with the Semiotic Funky Bunch including Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. But they said I had to write political articles. I’m a lowly Confessionalist Journalist which is just too personal. But the editor was really cool and said, “Every writer here would agree the writing you do is the most difficult.” So there!
After I realized my writing local career was over, it hurt, yo. It felt like saying good-bye to the whole city - to the rare and reverent chance to try and remind the poor souls we call losers, that they deserve better.
BUT I NEVER STOPPED WRITING YOU BASTARDS – just publishing – and once you do, you can say whatever the fuck you want, how ever you want, for as many pages, hours, days or years as you want. And what is the point of writing without that freedom? A paycheck? Eating Mimosa’s and drinking Chai with the East-Enders?
I spent the last seven years spewing about 25,000 pages of my shit somewhere that is archived but not widely read. Perfect. I should be proud that I refused to change how I write in order to stay in print but I became the dreaded has-been. So now if someone says, “I was a fan of yours,” I feel kind of embarrassed. I cringe hearing complements about my how good my writing I was. What was so special about it?
I POURED MY HEART OUT TO YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS! Luckily my life has been a hit parade of bad luck providing constant material about how bad “the less-than-common man” is treated in this country and through-out history. But these things aren’t issues to me, they’re about people with lives I barely escaped or about the times I didn’t.
I know how it feels to be belittled and abused for being poor, or what it’s like to be the hyperactive fat girl in third grade. I’ll never be ashamed of being sub-perfect and I’ll never shut up about how brutal “the good people” were to me when I was down, and how they’ve gotten worse. I’ll never forget how lucky I was to have access to social programs that no longer exist, to get out of the loser gutter by graduating with honors from Carnegie Mellon.
You all know how cruel the world is to a loser. I think you look the other way in an act of preserving your shiny, happy world. You think Everyone gets what they deserve when you see the imperfect suffering. Until it’s you. Then it’s universal injustice.
But I’m not back in print just to lay the superior out. It’s not because of the War or Wal-Mart, but simply: The editor of "another alternativish newsbiweekly that went out of business" responded to my email. He promised me the freedom that I need (they all do). So I can say things that would get “real” journalists fired. It’s f’n great! It took getting fired and rejected to get this freedom. I guess it always does.
This column will be a continuing examination of how our world views are formed and their effects. I’m taking poetic license with the strictest definition of the Placebo Effect but it’s a fascinating dynamic that will turn a sugar pill into a cure based on your belief that it will work – and a Placebo can be anything idea/belief based. Which is everything.
So much depends on who delivers it. And when I look around, I think half the country is mistaking lies for love and turning it into loyalty for an entity that sends their children into war like plastic toy soldiers on cardboard countries.
People think they understand the issues when really they’ve taken the path of least thinking. I’ve always wanted to give the reader a good slap across the face and say LOOK AROUND YOU.
I might sound like the grimmest bitch alive but only because I know we can do better, but not unless we’re willing to accept the fact that the Truth is not always Beautiful.
I just want to tell the stories of my life and other ordinary people who got screwed even though they followed all the rules – or maybe broke some – but we’re all sinners in the eyes of the Lord, eh? Everyone deserves another chance.
The Placebo Effect is about receiving something you’re told will make you feel better, and you’ll actually feel better. The more you invest in it, the harder you’ll have to pretend. Especially if it’s religious.
You may not really feel better but you’ll have to act like you are or you’ll look like you’re been duped and you can’t have that! You don’t have the spine or heart to admit that you were wrong. You’re so f’n weak. On the other hand, you have no one to really believe so I pity ya.
Look I know I won’t be right about everything, but I figure I can’t be more wrong that any one else out there. No one gets it right every time. It doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my own interpretation of the world. It doesn't mean I'm not right about everything, either. I wrote that in the most confusing way on purpose just to fuck with you because i can whew hew!
I meant to say PROVE ME WRONG if you think you can. I'd love you for it. Show me the world is some beautiful subatomic paradise and that we're all loving honorable beings. If you could do that, I'd blow you in perpituity.
But if you like me too much to tell me pretty lies, if you can't preach positivity to the darkest ones, then sing me a little song about how the world blows but you still love me anyway even though everyone hates me and calls me a freak and stuff.
But please don't try singing me a song about freedom knowing why they insult me they way they do. Because I'm "different." I am tragically hip agh! How the fuck did that happen?
Born ready, baby. But we're not all equally free - I don't care what anyone says. BUT I AM FREE TO DO THIS, AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME.
The ultimate human liberty is having complete authority over your own ideas. Without the freedom to think, the Freedom of Speech is mute. I’m just offering another way, my way, of looking at things.
And if you want to argue with me, don’t ignore points I already made that refute your point. I abhor redundancies and will kick your ass either way. But I’m just like you. Just trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I think the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and war is nature’s way of keeping the population count down. But when you see the pain – you know something is so wrong. Even so, I can’t help feeling that we’re one idea from freeing history from its bloody legacy. From its contradictory capacity for love and craving for killing – all coming from how we see things and why.
Sometimes I don’t care or know if we can do better. Ultimately I write so I can live with myself. And I just want to thank The Front for giving me the chance. I don’t know if anyone will care about what I have to say. We can argue endlessly about anything but there are some things just are just wrong. I can’t just watch. I can’t just do nothing.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy tries to pull a marble sink from its pipes to throw through a window and escape the nut house. He wrapped himself around that sink and tried to lift it, every vein bulging – but he couldn’t do it. His best wasn’t good enough.
As he left the room, defeated, he turned to the others who were so smug or sad, and he said, “But at least I tried. At least I can say I did that.” He never did escape. But because he tried, someone else did.
When the Chief lists that sink, you can hear the pipes wailing as they're separated, water spilling everywhere, slowly at first. He runs and he throws it through the window which explodes, every shard capturing the sunrise.
I write because to be able to say, ”At least I tried," when I meet my maker, ya bastards. Thanks for blowing me in advance!
I'm still doing the same job, two years later, except for a new company - so I hate my job much less. Bye! I love you! Oh no one's here ... okay bye!
A Bittersweet Pill
Did you really think you’d never have to hear my shit again? Maybe “hope” is a better verb. One day I’m one of Pittsburgh’s favorite columnists – a literary bad-ass doing Spoken Word with Lydia Lunch and Cynthia Plaster Caster; getting phone calls from the Tragically Hip’s frontman, Gordon Downie, who said it’d be an honor to write a blurb for my first book, Once Upon Some Welfare, and within four days the book deal fell through and the "name of alternative newsweekly here" booted my ass. Six months later I was telemarketing.
But naturally, it’s deliciously self-satisfying to see some whippersnappin’ smart arse like myself get the ol’ slap-down from the local media, ain’t it?
Well I’ve come back to return the favor.
When the new owners of the "name of alternative newsweekly here" were firing me, they said they still wanted me to write for them. I go, “You want me to wait tables and write for you?” No … no way. It was somewhat complementary to be fired by the Neo Alternative Press in their suits and expensive eye-wear. But they wouldn’t shut up about synergies and “taking the paper to the next level.” And they sure did! Right out o’ business.
A local daily offered me work but wanted that “powerful” writing I was known for but did I have to be so dramatic? I thought about the Tribune Review – there was talk that they’d let me keep my bus column – but I couldn’t write for Citizen Scaife.
The editor a new alternative newsweekly never responded to my email. I think I said something like, “I’ll never again allow a writer put his hands all over my prose without my approval just because he’s the editor.” That’s a bad pitch, I reckon.
This was years after my comrades from the "name of alternative newsweekly here" who had moved to the other alternative newsweekly (after dogging it for years) had stopped responding to my emails – even the complementary one. WHA’D I EVER DO?
I was offered a chance to write, unedited, for zmag.org with the Semiotic Funky Bunch including Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. But they said I had to write political articles. I’m a lowly Confessionalist Journalist which is just too personal. But the editor was really cool and said, “Every writer here would agree the writing you do is the most difficult.” So there!
After I realized my writing local career was over, it hurt, yo. It felt like saying good-bye to the whole city - to the rare and reverent chance to try and remind the poor souls we call losers, that they deserve better.
BUT I NEVER STOPPED WRITING YOU BASTARDS – just publishing – and once you do, you can say whatever the fuck you want, how ever you want, for as many pages, hours, days or years as you want. And what is the point of writing without that freedom? A paycheck? Eating Mimosa’s and drinking Chai with the East-Enders?
I spent the last seven years spewing about 25,000 pages of my shit somewhere that is archived but not widely read. Perfect. I should be proud that I refused to change how I write in order to stay in print but I became the dreaded has-been. So now if someone says, “I was a fan of yours,” I feel kind of embarrassed. I cringe hearing complements about my how good my writing I was. What was so special about it?
I POURED MY HEART OUT TO YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS! Luckily my life has been a hit parade of bad luck providing constant material about how bad “the less-than-common man” is treated in this country and through-out history. But these things aren’t issues to me, they’re about people with lives I barely escaped or about the times I didn’t.
I know how it feels to be belittled and abused for being poor, or what it’s like to be the hyperactive fat girl in third grade. I’ll never be ashamed of being sub-perfect and I’ll never shut up about how brutal “the good people” were to me when I was down, and how they’ve gotten worse. I’ll never forget how lucky I was to have access to social programs that no longer exist, to get out of the loser gutter by graduating with honors from Carnegie Mellon.
You all know how cruel the world is to a loser. I think you look the other way in an act of preserving your shiny, happy world. You think Everyone gets what they deserve when you see the imperfect suffering. Until it’s you. Then it’s universal injustice.
But I’m not back in print just to lay the superior out. It’s not because of the War or Wal-Mart, but simply: The editor of "another alternativish newsbiweekly that went out of business" responded to my email. He promised me the freedom that I need (they all do). So I can say things that would get “real” journalists fired. It’s f’n great! It took getting fired and rejected to get this freedom. I guess it always does.
This column will be a continuing examination of how our world views are formed and their effects. I’m taking poetic license with the strictest definition of the Placebo Effect but it’s a fascinating dynamic that will turn a sugar pill into a cure based on your belief that it will work – and a Placebo can be anything idea/belief based. Which is everything.
So much depends on who delivers it. And when I look around, I think half the country is mistaking lies for love and turning it into loyalty for an entity that sends their children into war like plastic toy soldiers on cardboard countries.
People think they understand the issues when really they’ve taken the path of least thinking. I’ve always wanted to give the reader a good slap across the face and say LOOK AROUND YOU.
I might sound like the grimmest bitch alive but only because I know we can do better, but not unless we’re willing to accept the fact that the Truth is not always Beautiful.
I just want to tell the stories of my life and other ordinary people who got screwed even though they followed all the rules – or maybe broke some – but we’re all sinners in the eyes of the Lord, eh? Everyone deserves another chance.
The Placebo Effect is about receiving something you’re told will make you feel better, and you’ll actually feel better. The more you invest in it, the harder you’ll have to pretend. Especially if it’s religious.
You may not really feel better but you’ll have to act like you are or you’ll look like you’re been duped and you can’t have that! You don’t have the spine or heart to admit that you were wrong. You’re so f’n weak. On the other hand, you have no one to really believe so I pity ya.
Look I know I won’t be right about everything, but I figure I can’t be more wrong that any one else out there. No one gets it right every time. It doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my own interpretation of the world. It doesn't mean I'm not right about everything, either. I wrote that in the most confusing way on purpose just to fuck with you because i can whew hew!
I meant to say PROVE ME WRONG if you think you can. I'd love you for it. Show me the world is some beautiful subatomic paradise and that we're all loving honorable beings. If you could do that, I'd blow you in perpituity.
But if you like me too much to tell me pretty lies, if you can't preach positivity to the darkest ones, then sing me a little song about how the world blows but you still love me anyway even though everyone hates me and calls me a freak and stuff.
But please don't try singing me a song about freedom knowing why they insult me they way they do. Because I'm "different." I am tragically hip agh! How the fuck did that happen?
Born ready, baby. But we're not all equally free - I don't care what anyone says. BUT I AM FREE TO DO THIS, AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME.
The ultimate human liberty is having complete authority over your own ideas. Without the freedom to think, the Freedom of Speech is mute. I’m just offering another way, my way, of looking at things.
And if you want to argue with me, don’t ignore points I already made that refute your point. I abhor redundancies and will kick your ass either way. But I’m just like you. Just trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I think the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and war is nature’s way of keeping the population count down. But when you see the pain – you know something is so wrong. Even so, I can’t help feeling that we’re one idea from freeing history from its bloody legacy. From its contradictory capacity for love and craving for killing – all coming from how we see things and why.
Sometimes I don’t care or know if we can do better. Ultimately I write so I can live with myself. And I just want to thank The Front for giving me the chance. I don’t know if anyone will care about what I have to say. We can argue endlessly about anything but there are some things just are just wrong. I can’t just watch. I can’t just do nothing.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy tries to pull a marble sink from its pipes to throw through a window and escape the nut house. He wrapped himself around that sink and tried to lift it, every vein bulging – but he couldn’t do it. His best wasn’t good enough.
As he left the room, defeated, he turned to the others who were so smug or sad, and he said, “But at least I tried. At least I can say I did that.” He never did escape. But because he tried, someone else did.
When the Chief lists that sink, you can hear the pipes wailing as they're separated, water spilling everywhere, slowly at first. He runs and he throws it through the window which explodes, every shard capturing the sunrise.
I write because to be able to say, ”At least I tried," when I meet my maker, ya bastards. Thanks for blowing me in advance!
Monday, August 09, 2004
i feel dirty
nothing like trying to strike up a conversation on some hip writing medium to make my head go quiet ... no.
wait. i'm not trying to strike up a conversation. i just want to talk.
i guess i just realized ... how much i do not want to be read.
i love gordon downie anyway.
well ... i'm all creeped out ... i want to write but ... ew. i feel like ... so gross. so like a 'zine. so like a poetry slam. so like an episode of simplemindedness to make us feel like our thoughts are important.
well i've taken a lot of shit just for wanting to write the shit down. people get all like "what makes you think we care about what you think?" and then you have to go "what makes you think that i give a fuck what you think?" and beg them not to read my shit but they can't help it. but i kept it all somewhere that i knew most normal people would never find. and i just realized maybe more people can see it than i thought but to hell with it. this is what i think regardless of what anyone else wants or likes or agrees with and i'm not letting anyone take it away from me.
it is the freedom to think ... that is the only thing i need more than love. well ... sometimes when you're in love, the pressure people put on you ... suddenly just thinking something means you don't fit so neatly in the place they've carved for you in their imaginations and ... it's hard.
but i think in some way, i'm so basically nice, that i can speak freely and ... trust myself even though i'm pissed a lot of the time, too.
in the other places i write, i can't keep the canadians from reading my shit (oh it's a long story i mean 9 years long since i angered canada and MAKE MY DAY YEAH SHOOT ME WITH A DONUT YA DRUNKEN BASTARDS!! ... only kidding i love canada ... the trailer park boys ... i went to prince edward island and everyone was cool in nova scotia but what the fuck happens to people when they move to toronto? i don't know but it makes them dog people in vancouver i mean even the GD canadians can't get along.)
WHY AM I HERE? why did i do this? partially i guess i knew a lot of the stuff out here had to be so f'n boring you'd want to scream bloody blogger. and that my shit ... might "stand out."
well i have a list of people, places and things that can blow me.
"God" is at the top of the list followed by bob dylan and germs. and yet all three can collectively blow me in the wind. hey i just made that up! well part of it. bob dylan blowin' me in the wind isn't new. just combining the items of the list according to some common aspect. like the wind.
i don't have a problem with bob dylan or whatever his real name is - i mean isn't that the first bad sign? your name suddenly isn't good enough.
but okay he tried ... he fought the power ... until the victoria's secret people approached him. and you get the feeling he didn't really need the money he made from doing that heinous commercial - which was the only thing that ever made me pity some victoria's secret model.
but mainly ... my rockstar boyfriend loved bob dylan and i knew that since i didn't, he was going to be just *that* much more of a dick to me, for being so f'n stupid, so utterly female, that i did not love bob dylan. he makes love just like a woman but he blows me like a little girl.
beg me to blog again
wait. i'm not trying to strike up a conversation. i just want to talk.
i guess i just realized ... how much i do not want to be read.
i love gordon downie anyway.
well ... i'm all creeped out ... i want to write but ... ew. i feel like ... so gross. so like a 'zine. so like a poetry slam. so like an episode of simplemindedness to make us feel like our thoughts are important.
well i've taken a lot of shit just for wanting to write the shit down. people get all like "what makes you think we care about what you think?" and then you have to go "what makes you think that i give a fuck what you think?" and beg them not to read my shit but they can't help it. but i kept it all somewhere that i knew most normal people would never find. and i just realized maybe more people can see it than i thought but to hell with it. this is what i think regardless of what anyone else wants or likes or agrees with and i'm not letting anyone take it away from me.
it is the freedom to think ... that is the only thing i need more than love. well ... sometimes when you're in love, the pressure people put on you ... suddenly just thinking something means you don't fit so neatly in the place they've carved for you in their imaginations and ... it's hard.
but i think in some way, i'm so basically nice, that i can speak freely and ... trust myself even though i'm pissed a lot of the time, too.
in the other places i write, i can't keep the canadians from reading my shit (oh it's a long story i mean 9 years long since i angered canada and MAKE MY DAY YEAH SHOOT ME WITH A DONUT YA DRUNKEN BASTARDS!! ... only kidding i love canada ... the trailer park boys ... i went to prince edward island and everyone was cool in nova scotia but what the fuck happens to people when they move to toronto? i don't know but it makes them dog people in vancouver i mean even the GD canadians can't get along.)
WHY AM I HERE? why did i do this? partially i guess i knew a lot of the stuff out here had to be so f'n boring you'd want to scream bloody blogger. and that my shit ... might "stand out."
well i have a list of people, places and things that can blow me.
"God" is at the top of the list followed by bob dylan and germs. and yet all three can collectively blow me in the wind. hey i just made that up! well part of it. bob dylan blowin' me in the wind isn't new. just combining the items of the list according to some common aspect. like the wind.
i don't have a problem with bob dylan or whatever his real name is - i mean isn't that the first bad sign? your name suddenly isn't good enough.
but okay he tried ... he fought the power ... until the victoria's secret people approached him. and you get the feeling he didn't really need the money he made from doing that heinous commercial - which was the only thing that ever made me pity some victoria's secret model.
but mainly ... my rockstar boyfriend loved bob dylan and i knew that since i didn't, he was going to be just *that* much more of a dick to me, for being so f'n stupid, so utterly female, that i did not love bob dylan. he makes love just like a woman but he blows me like a little girl.
beg me to blog again
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