Oh dear. 'Keteers, you know of the Clebster's special weakness for gay*, black, male teens. Well, dance phenom Brandon Bryant is just fiddling on my heartstrings:
*I'm going out on a limb to presume he is gay. It's a pretty short limb (see mohawk, scarf), but still a tad rude.
Such poise for one so young! His balletic technique wants for nothing, and he integrates elements from every corner of the dance world, diving into breaker moves with the grace of a modern dancer.
Bryant was the darling of So You Think You Can Dance's DC auditions. The guy's got charm you can't fake.
I loved how he was all humble/grateful/taken aback when the judges praised him, which is just what they want (You're the one to inform me of my brilliance!) and then got cocky during his backstage ticket-to-Vegas celebration. (Black people get to be cocky. It's a Muhammed Ali thing. Don't hate.)
It's come to this. I have to vote on a reality show. And Paulie has to send away for an autographed pec pic.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Why I Keep Up
I KNOW it's counterintuitive: Keeping Up With the Kardashians is good for my self-esteem.
The Kardashians bump is remarkably reliable. I watch the show, wondering how anyone could be so flagrantly incestuous, wondering what draws me to such trash, wondering when it will end already, and walk away thinking half an hour is squandered.
Not so! After a certain incubation period, generally between one and three hours, I feel better about myself. This is partly due to what I call the Girls Next Door Effect, the comforting realization that people living ostensibly glamorous lives are bigger losers than oneself.
But the other part has to do with a circuitous logic that seeps into my subconscious during the one- to three-hour incubation period. To wit: this is a show on television, actually a quite popular one, and there are various hazy reasons one could proffer for the show's existence--the family is vaguely famous, hot, rich, glamorous--but these are merely derivative. The kernel is the Kard.ass.ian badonkadonk. And, of course, specifically, that of Kim. This has to be the grandest celebration of the tuchus the world has yet seen.
Thank you, Kim's butt.
(Kim's butt: "You're welcome, Kleb Kardassian.")
Once this realization seeps in, I can expect to see myself in the mirror differently for up to a week. Why, I'm no chubalub, I'm Kim without the tatas and the nose job! Serious booty is always served with a side of cellulite, as Khloe helpfully explained to the camera in the calendar-for-Reggie ep.
It wasn't always this way. When I was wee, my mother warned that I stood to inherit the dread Miller butt. (Which only became farcical when I grew up to pack far more back than any Miller.) Mum came of age under the reign of Big Tits, Tiny Ass and has never had a Mixalot awakening.
THE RECENT Kardashians highlights special "Junk in the Trunk" really encapsulated the concept. The featured highlight? A how-is-this-on-tv shot of Kim trying to stuff her big back cheeks into little jeans, a muffin top of nekkid butt meat attesting to her failure. I have since been informed that this is a common porn trope.
Imagine my shock. Because, how many times have I faced just such a vision (albeit, with skivvies) in a dressing room mirror and fled the store drowning in a pool of shame?
Never again.
The Kardashians bump is remarkably reliable. I watch the show, wondering how anyone could be so flagrantly incestuous, wondering what draws me to such trash, wondering when it will end already, and walk away thinking half an hour is squandered.
Not so! After a certain incubation period, generally between one and three hours, I feel better about myself. This is partly due to what I call the Girls Next Door Effect, the comforting realization that people living ostensibly glamorous lives are bigger losers than oneself.
But the other part has to do with a circuitous logic that seeps into my subconscious during the one- to three-hour incubation period. To wit: this is a show on television, actually a quite popular one, and there are various hazy reasons one could proffer for the show's existence--the family is vaguely famous, hot, rich, glamorous--but these are merely derivative. The kernel is the Kard.ass.ian badonkadonk. And, of course, specifically, that of Kim. This has to be the grandest celebration of the tuchus the world has yet seen.
Thank you, Kim's butt.
(Kim's butt: "You're welcome, Kleb Kardassian.")
Once this realization seeps in, I can expect to see myself in the mirror differently for up to a week. Why, I'm no chubalub, I'm Kim without the tatas and the nose job! Serious booty is always served with a side of cellulite, as Khloe helpfully explained to the camera in the calendar-for-Reggie ep.
It wasn't always this way. When I was wee, my mother warned that I stood to inherit the dread Miller butt. (Which only became farcical when I grew up to pack far more back than any Miller.) Mum came of age under the reign of Big Tits, Tiny Ass and has never had a Mixalot awakening.
THE RECENT Kardashians highlights special "Junk in the Trunk" really encapsulated the concept. The featured highlight? A how-is-this-on-tv shot of Kim trying to stuff her big back cheeks into little jeans, a muffin top of nekkid butt meat attesting to her failure. I have since been informed that this is a common porn trope.
Imagine my shock. Because, how many times have I faced just such a vision (albeit, with skivvies) in a dressing room mirror and fled the store drowning in a pool of shame?
Never again.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Deep Thought for Wednesday
If you see two men
of different races
hanging out together
they're probably gay.
of different races
hanging out together
they're probably gay.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Truth About Pullets
There's something the hatchery industrial complex doesn't want you to know. Cute chicks become lovely hens, but in between: there are pullets.
Winona and Ximena are only three weeks out of the egg, so they're technically still chicks. But already they don't conform to the popular notion of chickdom, the idealized one-ounce ball of yellow fluff.
The culture bombards us with images of newly-hatched chicks, as it does with waifish models, in fervent denial about the broad range of chick appearance. Even in my venerable British chicken book, Keeping Chickens: The Essential Guide to Enjoying and Getting the Best from Chickens, chicks older than a few days are banished from view while the tiny babies are paraded across the page.
So these photos are very trangressive. Day by day down is giving way to little practice feathers. First the wings. Now some funky neck feathers. On their way to maturity, chickens are in kind of a permanent molt state, and molting is never pretty.
W and X are still damn cute, as shown. But as they gear up to move outside, they're also galumphing toward the awkward tween pullet stage.
I bear no prejudices against feathering. I just think of them as little chickens now. By that standard, they're still ridiculously small and adorable.
This morning they started using the twiggy little perch I'd set up in their brooder cage. Tonight may come their first stab at roosting.
Crim: What do I do with these?
Camilla: Whoa, holy shit.
Bonus video: First Encounters. Starring Camilla, Winona and Ximena with narration by Crim and special guest cameos.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Clinton Was Always a Bad Idea
OBAMA IS NOW extra inevitable, having snagged a majority of pledged delegates tonight. Of course, Hillary Clinton didn't mind sonning him in Kentucky for the hell of it, even if it meant palling around with some racists.
I'm not trying to get caught up in other people's narratives, all those feminist postmortems in the Sunday Times. Obama plays the charmed young prince stealing the job from a qualified older woman.
I'm not trying to get caught up in other people's narratives, all those feminist postmortems in the Sunday Times. Obama plays the charmed young prince stealing the job from a qualified older woman.
Maybe I have certain luxuries as a woman under thirty. I'm pretty confident that I'll see a woman become president. (I don't like "woman president." Sounds like some freakish hybrid--half woman! half president!--like the term itself is dubious about the concept.) I can understand that women of a certain age, like Nancy Franklin writing in the New Yorker, may fear they've missed their chance.
But ladies, think about it. This would have sucked. When I gather my granddaughter into my lap to reminisce on how a woman finally became president, do I really want to tell the sordid tale of Hillary Clinton? How'd she do it, Grandma? Well, munchkin, her husband got some brain from another lady and he gave her the presidency as make-up flowers!
NOT THAT I think Hillary Clinton is a terrible role model and should never be president because her husband is an asshole. There are plenty of better reasons why she's a terrible role model and should never be president.
Like: who is she? She's so reactive that it is impossible to locate her core. In college she was sixtiesed-out. In Arkansas and the White House she had shoulder pads with chips on them about having to play wifey. When the right wing was on her, she was a proud punching bag. When Bill cheated, she was the consummate victim. When she was contemplating a run for president, she turned hawkish for commander cred. This is not the leader women need.
Much of the talk emanating from heads these days is that she hit her stride late in the campaign when she went all woman-of-the-people. But this was just her finally figuring out what to react to, who to be in contrast with Obama.
Campaigning in Kentucky Monday, she said, "It's not, for me, the bright lights and the cameras." She does this for you, the little people!
He supposedly feeds off crowds and attention, so she's humble; he is beloved by latte liberals, so she stands with the common man; he's smooth and handsome, so she's dumpy and put-upon.
The only thing she knew how to be was a reaction. To a man. That's the least feminist thing ever.
BOOMER FEMINISTS are often skeptical of us younger women. They see traitorousness in our support for Obama and accuse us of being naively post-feminist, which they have decided means that we think sexism is over. (Never mind that they have staked out and defined feminism for forty years and we might want our own turf.) Boomers have a congenital need to sigh over the failures of the younger generation to be like they were.
No question that sexism is alive and well in America, as Hillary Clinton a little too gleefully declared in response to the "Iron my shirt" hecklers. (Are we totally sure they weren't a campaign plant?) I've gotten uncomfortable sometimes, watching the cable boys' clubs dissect her. I'd rather Chris-n-Keith avoid excessive use of sports metaphors.
But real talk: Obama won because he is the better candidate. It's not even debatable.
And I don't think we younger women are less feminist. We just have our own brand, in which you can shave your legs and eschew pantsuits. Not in which you support any candidate for woman-president. The right woman will come along.
And I don't think we younger women are less feminist. We just have our own brand, in which you can shave your legs and eschew pantsuits. Not in which you support any candidate for woman-president. The right woman will come along.
Unrelatedly, I'm rooting for Kathleen Sebelius in the veepstakes.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Smallest Boss That You Seen Thus Far
They say a rapper is 90% voice. And I mean voice literally, not in some wussified writer way. Think of Biggie. All he has to say is "uh"; it's imbued with Notorious magic. Or Snoop. Who hasn't been lulled into submission when he uses those caramel-coated vocal chords to say he don't love you, ho and he's out the do'.
I think he must secretly know it, too, because he doesn't bother much with lyrics. He'll just say like one or two words and be sure his bass is turned up to eleven.
When Lil Wayne was busy penning his champion verse for "We Takin Over" (I am the beast/Feed me rappers or feed me beats/I'm untamed I need a leash/I ain't been sane I need a shrink), Rick Ross was just dawdling around. When it came time to record the track, he seems to have muttered whatever came to mind. Boss! Sort of free-associative. Moooove.
There is one genuine Rick Ross fan in the household: little Winona. Despite being vastly outgrown by Ximena, my scrappy Wyandotte chick remains atop the brooder pecking order. She wants to get "I'm the smallest boss that you seen thus far" tatted on her shank. I told her she has to at least wait til she feathers out.
And speaking of rapper voices, my favorite belongs to Keak da Sneak, king of the supa dupa hyphy hyphy hyphy. If Keak did books on tape, I could get through Ulysses. But he's so raspy already, I would just feel bad making him talk that much. He gets bonus points for being from the Funktown neighborhood (Hunnid Block) where I do my school garden program.
Keak da Sneak, "That Go"
I think he must secretly know it, too, because he doesn't bother much with lyrics. He'll just say like one or two words and be sure his bass is turned up to eleven.
When Lil Wayne was busy penning his champion verse for "We Takin Over" (I am the beast/Feed me rappers or feed me beats/I'm untamed I need a leash/I ain't been sane I need a shrink), Rick Ross was just dawdling around. When it came time to record the track, he seems to have muttered whatever came to mind. Boss! Sort of free-associative. Moooove.
There is one genuine Rick Ross fan in the household: little Winona. Despite being vastly outgrown by Ximena, my scrappy Wyandotte chick remains atop the brooder pecking order. She wants to get "I'm the smallest boss that you seen thus far" tatted on her shank. I told her she has to at least wait til she feathers out.
And speaking of rapper voices, my favorite belongs to Keak da Sneak, king of the supa dupa hyphy hyphy hyphy. If Keak did books on tape, I could get through Ulysses. But he's so raspy already, I would just feel bad making him talk that much. He gets bonus points for being from the Funktown neighborhood (Hunnid Block) where I do my school garden program.
Keak da Sneak, "That Go"
Monday, May 12, 2008
ESSAY: Cleb Hates America (And So Can You!)
MICHAEL REAGAN, who is to the Reagan family as Tom Hagen is to the Corleones (fair-haired adoptive son and standard-bearer), recently put out a manifesto to his radio listeners and blog readers. He urged them to call three environmental orgs to protest the orgs' resistance to drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. He explained that these environuts hate America and are causing--yes, causing--high gas prices. For utmost convenience, he even provided phone numbers.
Yours truly answers one of those phone numbers. Over the last couple weeks, my co-receptionist and I have had the unique pleasure of absorbing rants. Birds are fine. Trees are fine. But people are more important. Or, You're all communists trying to destroy this country from within. I kept thinking it was Stephen Colbert, just fuckin with me.
I tried to take it in stride, cause receptionists are cool like that. But one comment stuck in my craw:
Cut to Obama's "bitter" comments (which I steadfastly refuse to "-gate"). Clinton, like consigliere Reagan, is eager to stoke the notion of a ruling elite, oblivious to the struggles of Real Americans. In this construction, Obama-change and environmentalism are luxury goods. Real Americans can't bother with all that: gas tax holiday, please.
But I actually think of environmentalism as a heartland value, I suppose because my grandmother was a country Republican who composted everything from zucchini vines to rodent carcasses, who wanted to save forests and ban cars long before any of it was called environmentalism.
A CLINTON AIDE, speaking to Slate after last Tuesday's rout, insisted Obama is still failing. "The composition of his vote remains the same. He didn't resolve the issues that have dogged him, namely his ability to expand his base beyond African-American voters and liberal rich eggheads." Man, having more people vote for you just doesn't win elections like it used to.
The remark avoids blatant dismissal of black votes. (Clinton handled that herself with her creepy conflation of "white" and "hard-working.") But "liberal rich eggheads" is still okay.
Eggheads are Americans too. So are liberals, even rich ones. It would not be cool to demean Clinton's constituencies as just hicks, dames and fogies. But the Obama constituents--the white ones--are "elitists," not Real Americans, so writing them off is fair game. Clinton even remarked that the throng of economists who think the gas tax holiday is the worst idea ever are just a bunch of elitists.
This doesn't merely disrespect people with college degrees (who, you know, we might want to keep around). It's insulting to lower income- and education-level heartland Americans too. "Elites" aren't the only ones who care about the environment. And plenty of Real American Hoosiers saw through the gas tax holiday bullshit.
I think Michael Reagan underestimated his audience. Many of the callers who started out asking why I hated America came around to explaining their own views on the environment. "I think we should have solar panels on every roof in this country," said one, rather to my surprise. "You're an environmentalist," I replied. "Just like me."
Yours truly answers one of those phone numbers. Over the last couple weeks, my co-receptionist and I have had the unique pleasure of absorbing rants. Birds are fine. Trees are fine. But people are more important. Or, You're all communists trying to destroy this country from within. I kept thinking it was Stephen Colbert, just fuckin with me.
I tried to take it in stride, cause receptionists are cool like that. But one comment stuck in my craw:
This is our country. Not yours.
I stammered back, "Well hopefully it's both of our country," feeling dubious about both my grammar and his buying the sentiment.
I GET THAT there's a rift between me and the Missouri grain farmer who demanded to know why I hate America. Rural and working class skills are often underrespected by city-dwellers or the well-heeled. Those of us who labor in front of computers sometimes forget that working with your hands also means working with your mind. I could understand the resentment behind the eye-rolling when, on my first trip to the feed store, it came out that I didn't know hay from straw. City slicker.
Cut to Obama's "bitter" comments (which I steadfastly refuse to "-gate"). Clinton, like consigliere Reagan, is eager to stoke the notion of a ruling elite, oblivious to the struggles of Real Americans. In this construction, Obama-change and environmentalism are luxury goods. Real Americans can't bother with all that: gas tax holiday, please.
But I actually think of environmentalism as a heartland value, I suppose because my grandmother was a country Republican who composted everything from zucchini vines to rodent carcasses, who wanted to save forests and ban cars long before any of it was called environmentalism.
A CLINTON AIDE, speaking to Slate after last Tuesday's rout, insisted Obama is still failing. "The composition of his vote remains the same. He didn't resolve the issues that have dogged him, namely his ability to expand his base beyond African-American voters and liberal rich eggheads." Man, having more people vote for you just doesn't win elections like it used to.
The remark avoids blatant dismissal of black votes. (Clinton handled that herself with her creepy conflation of "white" and "hard-working.") But "liberal rich eggheads" is still okay.
Eggheads are Americans too. So are liberals, even rich ones. It would not be cool to demean Clinton's constituencies as just hicks, dames and fogies. But the Obama constituents--the white ones--are "elitists," not Real Americans, so writing them off is fair game. Clinton even remarked that the throng of economists who think the gas tax holiday is the worst idea ever are just a bunch of elitists.
This doesn't merely disrespect people with college degrees (who, you know, we might want to keep around). It's insulting to lower income- and education-level heartland Americans too. "Elites" aren't the only ones who care about the environment. And plenty of Real American Hoosiers saw through the gas tax holiday bullshit.
I think Michael Reagan underestimated his audience. Many of the callers who started out asking why I hated America came around to explaining their own views on the environment. "I think we should have solar panels on every roof in this country," said one, rather to my surprise. "You're an environmentalist," I replied. "Just like me."
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The New Babies Are Here!
We went to the feed store to shop for chicks. Out of many...
we chose two and took them home.
(The ride was kinda scary.)
Meet Winona, the Wyandotte
and Ximena, the Araucana. (Him-ena)
Interests include eating, preening, stretching, being held so that it feels like they're still in the egg, and cutin' around.
In the nomenclature of high school stoners, Ximena's the pothead and Winona the speedfreak. Ximena just wants to eat, sleep and chill and Winona keeps her up all night, peeping about frantically, working on her chick-size meth lab.
In a couple months, they'll join lonely Camilla in the coop. For now she's listening to Amy Winehouse, "Wake Up Alone":
If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
Second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm
Breathless
Cause this ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me and I can't run now
Sunrise, sunset.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The Harassment Chronicles
I WAS driving past Lake Merritt and heard a nearby carful of guys shouting. I followed their gazes to the prey: a woman of hearty build (like myself) walking around the lake in workout clothes.
GUY: Woo! Woo!
GUY: Nice booty! [Etc.]
We pull up to a red light and I shake my head at them in emphatic disgust.
GUY, to me: Did you see her? Right there!
More shouting from them. More attempted shaming from me. The light changes, we move along. But just before we pull up at the next light, one guy spits out the window. Just to eliminate any doubts about his cretinity.
GUY: Sorry.
For the loogie or the harassment is not clear.
ME: You guys are assholes.
GUY: We were talking to that girl...
ME: I hate when that happens to me.
GUYS, protesting: Wah? No! That's the best! We just made her day!
ME: Why don't you fuckin ask her if she felt that way.
GUY behind wheel: Okay, I'll go turn around...
Inches car forward like he's gonna turn around, to hilarious effect.
GUY, amid much pissed-off muttering: Mind your own business.
AND WERE I quicker witted, I'd have snapped back that they should mind theirs.
The silver lining? They were white! (You may have guessed from the, "Woo! Woo!" and "Nice booty!" Black guy harassment generally opens with, "DAmn girl.") I've never been harassed by a white guy. Novel idea! No weird racial component.
Those kinds of confrontations do shake me up. It ain't fun. But it seemed right. Another woman did that for me once ("Leave her alone!") and I appreciated it. So, points for sisterhood?
GUY: Woo! Woo!
GUY: Nice booty! [Etc.]
We pull up to a red light and I shake my head at them in emphatic disgust.
GUY, to me: Did you see her? Right there!
More shouting from them. More attempted shaming from me. The light changes, we move along. But just before we pull up at the next light, one guy spits out the window. Just to eliminate any doubts about his cretinity.
GUY: Sorry.
For the loogie or the harassment is not clear.
ME: You guys are assholes.
GUY: We were talking to that girl...
ME: I hate when that happens to me.
GUYS, protesting: Wah? No! That's the best! We just made her day!
ME: Why don't you fuckin ask her if she felt that way.
GUY behind wheel: Okay, I'll go turn around...
Inches car forward like he's gonna turn around, to hilarious effect.
GUY, amid much pissed-off muttering: Mind your own business.
AND WERE I quicker witted, I'd have snapped back that they should mind theirs.
The silver lining? They were white! (You may have guessed from the, "Woo! Woo!" and "Nice booty!" Black guy harassment generally opens with, "DAmn girl.") I've never been harassed by a white guy. Novel idea! No weird racial component.
Those kinds of confrontations do shake me up. It ain't fun. But it seemed right. Another woman did that for me once ("Leave her alone!") and I appreciated it. So, points for sisterhood?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Love It
I consulted the spirit of Hennessy before posting this, because I thought maybe the plog should sit shiva a few more days. But she insisted that the show go on. She wouldn't have it any other way.
Barack Obama wore the most adorably dorky outfit when he hooped it up with the UNC college team Tuesday. Shirt tucked into tapery jogging pants. He's supposedly played lots of pickup ball on the South Side, so one has to surmise he can dress cooler. But it's a brilliant move. Now that he is hovering precipitously near the Too Black side of the race-o-meter, the worst thing he could have done was don a big white tee, shiny basketball shorts and some cool kicks.
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