Men Necessary, Alas

I'VE BEEN THINKING about men a lot lately. This is not unusual. I don't mean that any untoward way. Just that I try to understand them, as I try in general to understand people who are different from me. You know--like it's a good mind exercise.

I quite like men. Sometimes they make more sense to me than women. Men like to verbally joust, roughhouse and trade quips, whereas many women seem so delicate and polite that I can't relate. I often imagine there is some soft sisterhood out there to which my application is yet outstanding.

And men usually seem to like me back. So all is swell, right? Alas, no. Because it's always fraught. Probably something to do with sex. Specifically, the conjoined twindom of desire and derision.

Ladies, you probably already figured out, consciously or un, that being an object of desire is a form of power. Conversely, to desire is powerless. So when some guy harasses you in the street, maybe what he's really shouting is that he hates you because he wants you. Come to think of it, how much of sexism is just men trying to reassert power over those who rob them of it? (My research thus far indicates that power is very important to men.)

I often get the vague impression that older men in particular want to think I'm at least a little stupid. And I wonder if that isn't because if I'm cute and younger and smart it's just going to piss them off. I'm thinking, for example, of a co-worker with whom I share undeniable mutual fondness (and respect, or so I thought) who, in venting about his job stress, once remarked that it must be nice to, as receptionist, "just sit there and look pretty."


IT'S EASY FOR heteros of both genders to team up against one another. Like Frenchy telling Sandy that men are amoebas on fleas on rats, or Rowlf singing to Kermit that you can neither live with nor without 'em. The generalized group wielding the power to hurt you makes a ready target. (Man, I guess that's one more way it's a challenge to be gay. Who do you scapegoat?)

I'll say it plain: I've had a lot of men treat me like shit. Enough to make me wonder if there isn't something about me that turns otherwise decent guys into hole-in-wall-punching, insult-yelling, heart-breaking assholes. Not a pleasant thing to wonder.

Surely there are many reasons for this, many of those to do with my own many faults (not least among those many, the fact I think it's my fault [thanks, Dad!]) and just as surely I am one of many, many women to wonder approximately the same thing. (Just for the hell of it, here's that word one more time: many.)

But to unabashedly side with my own sex for a moment...All too often when men treat us this way, it is, once again, a bid for power in a situation in which they find themselves lacking it. When, in addition to a body and a mind that attract them, you possess various skills (kitchen, bedroom, couch, &tc.) that would make them want to stick around...Well, that is power indeed. And it may piss them off. And make them want to cut you down to size by hook or crook--by objectification, by possessiveness, by cultivating dependence, by infidelity, or simply by rejecting you before you ever get the chance.

But ladies, if we're being honest with ourselves we will admit it goes both ways. That a man who attracts us also scares us. And our fear may become self-fulfilling.

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Haters Never Prosper and Obama Totally Deserves the Nobel

You see the hate
That they servin on a platter
So what we gon have
Dessert
Or disaster
--KW

I KNOW WHAT you're thinking. This post is worthlessly untimely; no one cares about a stale opinion. But the blogosphere (what an icky word) gets its parasitic bad rap from all the half-baked, loudly-shrieked opinions that are its burden to publish.

A mind as nimble as inhabits the skull of Frank Rich can dash out brilliant analysis on cue. Paulie's pundit crush, Sully, for another example, had these wise words on the subject of Obama's Nobel immediately. But we can't all be that quick smart.

Better, perhaps, for the rest of us, to think well and then say. Which is something op-ed writers get irritated at Obama for doing. (Maybe because they are deadline-stalked op-ed writers who lack the luxury.) But those radass speeches don't birth themselves overnight; insight requires time and meditation. We could probably stand, as a nation, to slow down and think a little.

The way Obama models this behavior itself qualifies him for a Nobel. I'm not even old enough to know when we became such a fidgety society, always thumbing our electronics, greedy for new inputs. We're unaccustomed and uncomfortable having to wait for anything. But Heinz teaches that the best things come to those who do.

I'll collectively insult us further (I love you all, individually, rest assured) and say we Americans tend to be lazy and only want the sure thing. Obama inspires us to instead reach for greatness. He defies, and makes us want to defy, the pull to spare ourselves the potential pain and humiliation of the whole risk-taking thing.

Haters say he hasn't *done anything*.

Yeah. Except make the whole world believe anything is possible. Slacka-ass-slacka. How much you wanna bet those same weenies saying, What were you thinking, Nobel Committee? were partying hard on election night.


HOW QUICKLY WE forget the unprecedented number of--in Wire terms--plates of shit this guy was handed. Our nation was more royally fucked than it has been in generations and we're peeved he hasn't fixed it in a year.

Sure, there is all-important Policy (see Gene for that), but there is also something intangible and arguably larger. It's called leadership. And he's got it. I have great confidence in Obama's ability to solve the world's problems, because he knows how to wield soft power. His biracial talent for straddling worlds makes him a peacemaker on a grander, subtler scale. I know Obama has made missteps, and he is a politician. But I fully believe he can achieve greatness if we just give the guy some time and a chance.

I would add to Gene's list of rookie year accomplishments the shift Obama has engendered in our national mood. Damned if black people aren't on average cheerier, even if they won't admit it. (And I can't think of an American population more deserving of cheer.) Everyone I know who worked seriously on the campaign was subsequently inspired to aim their lives more toward what Zora Neale Hurston called "far horizon." And when I say Obama makes everyone believe anything is possible--well, I might be projecting. If you doubt this mood shift theory, just try the following exercise: Close your eyes and say to yourself, Bush isn't president. Obama is president. Did your shoulders ease down a bit from that tense position around your neck? I thought they might.


FAIRY TALES ARE a gas to watch, but substantially less fun to live. Political fairy tales are especially hard on the actors, seeing as how they must play out on a huge public stage. Just ask Howard Dean and George McGovern how they feel re: this. Presidential politics is ripe for life-ruining humiliation.

In Protestant work ethic-y America, there is perhaps no greater humiliation than to be exposed as a hopeless dreamer--which is of course ironic considering the whole "American Dream" thing. We love dreams, so we hate them; desire and derision as conjoined twins. (On this see also black people's initial mass rejection of Obama. Note that he is black now.)

But he did it. He had the Nobel balls. He put his own life on the line for us. You know, like Jesus.


SOMETIMES YOU have to keep your own time. Which I think our president understands. He is wise enough to know that when you brood quietly and wait to speak, people listen when you finally do. And that when you stand your own firm ground, rather than swaying reedlike with the winds of polls and pundits, people believe in your leadership.* As well they should.

The truth behind the heaping criticism may be that we are so scarred--not only from the raw gash wounds of the Bush years, but from the thousand cuts inflicted by politicians who perennially abused our trust--that we would be suspicious of next man, good as he looks, no matter what.


*Triple mixed-metaphor word score.

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Who I'm Worshiping Now--THE FICKLE REVERSALS EDITION

I've oft been accused of fickle hero worship. Of course that's hogwash. Anyway, here's


WHO I'M NOT WORSHIPING ANYMORE

Ah, Boomers. Break my heart every time. I only wanted to admire you; is that so much to ask?





...and, to show I'm an optimist, with heart, here's

WHO I'M ONCE AGAIN WORSHIPING




Her freshly book-published essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God makes me say, "She is my sister, and I love her."

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Oh man. Beautiful song.

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Most Popular Post of All Time

OVER A YEAR AGO, I tossed off a little rant about Keith Olbermann, to whose narcissism I am severely allergic. I never expected it to be my most popular post of all time. But so it is.

Every few months some crazed Olbermann-loather (like myself) pops out of the woodwork, googles "Keith Olbermann sucks," finds my post (it is currently the eighth-ranking Google result for that search) and, if I am especially lucky, leaves a rant in the comments section that far outshines my original.

Many of these commenters are rightist lunatics who would hate me in real life. But our Olberloathing brings us together--in this ephemeral place, in this one magical moment. Thank you, Keith.

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Quotation for Election Tuesday

Tell him I'm doin fine
Obama for mankind
We ready for damn change
So y'all let the man shine

--Young Jeezy, "My President"


Can't believe the election was a year ago. In his mutterings at the end of this song, Jeezy also says to Barack, "You motivate us; you motivate thugs," which I find very sweet.

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In Which I Go Back to Black, Yet Again

WHAT KIND OF fuckery is this? Why do I keep showing up as Amy Winehouse each October, when she is long since discredited as a human being?

I don't care what anybody thinks. Amy is my favorite singer. I've said why before, so I shan't repeat myself. But I've been thinking about Amy a lot lately.

When she says, infamously: "No, no, no"...

I'll go out on a rather shaky limb and say she has a point. If you are a complicated, sensitive, artistic sort like Amy, Twelve Step paint-by-numbers may not do the trick.

Which is not to say she doesn't need rehab; addiction is serious and requires serious care. In fact I'm sure she has gained from rehab, having now made various trips there. Just that her objections are legitimate. To be ham-fistedly analyzed or plied with Help is fine, but to be loved and understood is infinitely better. I've always called Blake an asshole, but maybe she thought she was--or actually was--getting those things from him. And if I'm blaming all the bloody mutual destruction on him, I might be missing the point. And fans are nice, but they are not friends.

(Ame, if you're looking for a man--and I don't know whether you are, as explained below--I still think you should give Weezy a call. You guys would understand each other.)


WHEN AMY is feeling blue (black), she'd rather hang out "with Ray [Charles]" or "Mr. [Donny] Hathaway." Which I totally get, because when I'm miserable, I'd rather hang out with Amy. (Or Lauryn, who is just as brilliant and screwed-up. Or Erykah, who has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and keeps it together, and therefore can be artistically prolific and also offer the most trustworthy advice.) Maybe in future I should explore the notion of real-life 'girlfriends.'

Eh. Maybe not.


GOOD ART works hard to tell the particular truth. Therapy is lazier, generic. When those record execs were telling her to go to rehab, that's a variation on You should really get some help. Which is an unkind thing people say when they are too pre-occupied, lazy, selfish, confused or scared to try to give you any portion of said help themselves.

I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend

She doesn't want to let them off the hook. Doesn't want to be hauled off to get-better-quick-so-we-can-make-money-off-you camp. She would rather feel her pain in her own honest way. Amy goes black well. She makes the ugly beautiful, which a smart person taught me is the artist's cardinal skill.


AMY SAYS WE should just listen to her music, because that is the best of her. And from now on, I'm respecting her request. No more Google News searches. Just Back to Black. Her art is the only part of her we ever had any right to consume. We should listen to her sing and not gawk in sordid curiosity at her trainwreckiness. Because rubbernecking hurts if you are a sensitive soul like Amy; all that toughness and sarcasm is just an exoskeleton protecting her tender insides. Tattoos connote invincibility, but don't be fooled.

I bet she doesn't enjoy putting her biz in the streets, either. She probably covets privacy as much as the next person. I'd venture to guess that her personal life became public because her music and her drug-addled lunacy were the only adequate outlets she had for what was tearing her up inside.

Poor Amy. She just needs a friend. The hutch offer stands, girl. []







~BONUS~
FAVE QUOTES FROM MS. WINEHOUSE:

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet

--"Back to Black"

I played myself again
Should just be my own best friend
Not fuck myself
In the head with
Stupid men

--"Tears Dry on Their Own"

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 cannot run now

--"Wake Up Alone"

What kind of fuckery is this
You made me miss the Slick Rick gig
And thought I didn't love you when I did
Can't believe you played me out like that

--"Me and Mr. Jones"*

* That one's about Nas. I've had imaginary rapper lovers too, Amy.

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Cocooning

COCOONING looks like a bad idea. General wisdom holds that if you're going through a lot you should be surrounded by advice-mongering people. But pupae are fragile and easily crushed underfoot by accident. It can be hard to hear yourself when other people are talking; hard to see yourself when other people are looking.

There's not much to do in the cocoon, so I mostly just listen to New Amerykah Part I and file my nails and write weird stuff like this here. The cocoon is a bit stuffy, but the acoustics are superb.

Chrysalization is not often fun. But hopefully I earn some wings.

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Walnuts Copes By Becoming Even Bigger Asshole

WHEN CRIM MOVED OUT, little Paulie Walnuts--light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul--coped by becoming an even bigger asshole. So if you're wondering why I have bruisey scratch/bite marks all over my calves: that's why.

The majority of his evening hours are spent at tomcatsluts.com, and he doesn't feel guilty about it anymore. That's if he gets stuck inside; he prefers to stay out all night prowling for the real thing.

And speaking of freedom from guilt, he's been hanging out by the coop taunting the hens about how much chicken The Other One eats these days.

But I told the girls not to peck back, because he's going through a lot. He misses his pops. He misses flirting with the rappers who used to rehearse for shows in the living room and smoke blunts with him on the porch. Matter of fact he misses having any of the human species around to flirt with, since appearances suggest to him that I am a loser with no friends.

He moans that Daddy always had on such good music, whereas my listening habits are so low-brow and repetitive. He says if he hears that "Doorbell" song one more time he'll blow his brains out. And I still fall for:

W: Who sings that?
C: The Chiffons! they're like a sixties girl gr--
W: Let's keep it that way.

He came back from his sleepover at the Musiquarium with so much attitude talking about he'd totally go live there if he thought Carmela and I could survive without a man in the house. He said he spent hours fishing and the tank looks so awesome and sucks to be me that I don't get to see it.

In the past he's been a good listener--what are gaycat besties for, after all--but by now I'm trying his patience. He's quite sure the Temescallion Stallion is imaginary. Seeing is believing, Mummy (dripping with condescension).

But he's a good friend in that he'll say to me straightup, Why are you so weird? All that pacing at four am is disturbing his beauty sleep. (But as long as I'm up, His Highness could do with some nourishment and access to the great outdoors.) And he ribs me about the inverse proportionality of journal pages covered : coolness. (For the record, in three months ≈ 600 pages. I am not cool.)

He bites my calves and like a sucker I spoil him with a new Scratch Lounge and high-grade Canadian catnip, because I can be nurturing to a fault when it comes to those I love. Even when he is being an A1 dick, I understand the delicate feelings behind the dickish behavior. And I want to cheer him up. I know he really just misses getting shiatsu from four human hands.

So, he may be a dictator. But he's my dictator.

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Keyshia vs. Goapele: A Hens' Debate

IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that hens love their soul music. And Bay hens take special pride in their rich Bay soul legacy. Visit any local coop at the right time of day and you might hear a flock cackling as they re-enact the backstage opener skit off Funky Divas. (Note to self: future flock members to be named Dawn, Maxine, Terry, Cindy.)

Nothing soothes nervous pullets on their first night out in the coop quite like Bay soul lullabies. There may be peeping without ceasing, but with those first softly-sung strains of "I used to think that I wasn't fine enough" or "As summer was ending, you were walking in" all will be well.


FOR WEEKS NOW Ximena has been losing neck feathers. And I scoured my poultry library for answers, to no avail. Then it hit me. Betsy's been plucking her. They are fighting again about who is queen of Bay soul.

In Betsy's corner, we find Keyshia Cole. Betsy says Keyshia may not have a lot of fancy lyrics or expensive beats, but she's hella fine, and girl knows how to sang. Pure Oakland-grown ghetto fab flavor. Which describes Betsy as well; you don't know the meaning of funky chicken until you hear her belt out "Love." Granted: no one belts it out like Keyshia. Bets and I watched this incredible interview Keyshia did with Sway for an MTV special on Oakland, and they were out in her old neighborhood in like the 60s or 70s in East Oakland and she hit the chorus right there on the street.


IT SHOULD surprise no one that Ximena is all about Goapele. They both have that odd beauty, and foreign pedigrees. One Araucana, one Israeli-South African. But both came up Oaklandish.





Of course Ximena in her Goapele sophistication finds "First Love" played out. Her top jams are "Closer," "Love Me Right" and "Crushed Out." She loves the intelligent sensitivity and tender voice that are Goapele's signatures, but clucks disdainfully about the poor production value on both her old albums. We haven't dug into the new album yet, but aren't crazy about the first single; only Michelle Bachmann should be Auto-Tuned.

When I saw Goapele live a couple months back, she announced she'd do one song that wasn't her own--and broke out "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I sang along and sounded terrible and tingled to my toes. I rushed home to tell Ximena, and she laid a fucking egg right there on the roost we were both so excited. (Chickens never get to go to shows.) Now I just need to hear Aretha do "Heavy Cross" and I'll be straight. Rock & soul => emergent property.

I also once saw Goapele strolling at the Grand Lake Farmer's Market, because it is so goddamn great. (Sorry, Temescallions.)


FORTUNATELY, I HAVE an odd-numbered flock, so it was on Marianne to break the tie. She's at the bottom of the pecking order (read: was gonna get her ass beat either way). Ever the squawking contrarian, she says, no, actually the reigning soul queen doesn't come from the Bay at all. (This ruffles some feathers.) She contends the throne-holder is an LA chick, one whose version of "Don't Speak" Gwen should be embarrassed to know is out there. The other two hens are stumped, but I smile, because I know she means Leela James:

Sip me up like lemonade
From a mason jar
Make it good like [some chicken]*
Fried in a pan of lard
I'm gettin spoiled like old beans
And I can't lose my head
Cause when you're not around
I'm crumblin like cornbread

*This part is mumbled.


And once you hear Leela slay "A Change Is Gonna Come," you'll surely agree.

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On Hotness

I WAS running the other day, wearing a wifebeater and Old Navy knockoffs of Lululemon capris, soaked in unearned perspiration. And this Orthodox Jewgirl is walking toward me. (Her Orthodox Jewgirl status was made conveniently evident by both her attire and the fact that she was heading right for a synagogue.) As she got closer, I realized that not only was she averting her gaze from the impurity that was sweaty, meagerly-clothed Me, she was actually shielding her eyes with her hand! Lest the sin corrupt her holy soul.
It didn't help my case in the courtroom of my self-loathing mind that I was, at that moment, listening to Pitbull, he who says things like:

I party like a rockstar
Look like a movie star
Play like an all-star
Fuck like a porn star


IN RECENT YEARS I have tried to trod a path of embracing whatever personal hotness I may possess, having prior pursued a path of sweats and misery. And shouldn't it be thus? For surely the world is better when we're all doing our best selves. In looks, and all things.

The danger of course is that hotness suggests a dearth of other qualities. It somehow signals that one cannot be, for example, serious or tender-hearted. This is true for women, especially. I'd venture to say, too, that to look good in a certain way--non-dainty, and without Tina Fey glasses--is particularly damning. Genetic fate decreed the variety of attractiveness available to me to be (in Mad Men terms) less pretty Peggy, more jiggly Joan. With implications.

Hotness also connotes invincibility. Which can be a useful trick.





I HOPE I sound smart, and that if I sound smart you won't suppose I look bad. And I further hope that if you believe I look good, after a jiggly fashion, you won't disbelieve me a decent person.

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IM, You Little Miracle

I never knew why I didn't have access to interoffice IM (everybody else did) and now I don't know why I do. My work chum Miss SHao speculates that the IT guy likes to play God. Steve giveth and Steve taketh away.

Miss SHao and I were talking, like literal in-person style. But when I told her I (finally) had Messenger, she scurried back to her desk so we could IM. And it was SO MUCH MORE FUN

When I need to talk to the homies Back East, I don't want to *call* them. I prefer to schedule a heart-to-heart G-chat date. And sometimes, if I log on Gmail at just the right time, there is a little green dot next to the name of my sister in Tel Aviv. And when words from her pop up on the screen--about everyday things, her husband walking in the door--I flip out.

Why is that so amazing to me? The technology has existed for ages that would allow me to hear her voice.

Does the charm lie in the comfortably casual nature of the instant message? The fact that it employs written words, which are my favorite kind? The balance it strikes between intimacy and remove? Because talking on the phone can make me nervous. (Why do you work as a receptionist then? Huh. Good question.)

Maybe it's just an extra-fun medium, combining speech-like rapidity and use of the written word; it rewards cleverness (and I like to think that I'm clev-aaah, like Badu.) And you can abruptly say a link, like, http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Day-Old-Baby-Chicks/Wyandotte-Standard-Silver-Laced-p235.aspx. Which you can't do in talking life.

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Oh Yeah: Obama

Why am I so weird that I stopped thinking about Mr. Forty-Fourth President Barack Obama for like eight months? Why do I do that?

The election was so overwhelming that truly I had to return to my own life once it was over. And then too the country was such a mess. I wanted to let him clean up whilst I took the liberty of looking away from the icky scrubdown process. Now things are tidied enough that I can stand to pay attention.

I expected that after the inauguration I would wake up each morning with a song in my heart and continuous CSPAN on my TV. But I never did watch CSPAN, not until recently, when I flipped to what turned out to be that town hall about health care, the unfortunate one in Colorado, when he started hedging on the public option.

This ought to have been a particularly painful viewing experience for me, because when it comes to this shit, I am finally one of what Chris Matthews calls 'people with needs.' As in, I need health care. I work part time and don't get health insurance. (Plog ≠ work.) So, you know, I actually personally need a public option.

And yet: I can't stay mad at him. No, scratch that. I can't even so much as get mad at him for one second. I'm not one of those practical lefty people who get all *disappointed* when he lets the climate change bill get watered down. Because he is so much a personal hero, and I am such a dork. All I can do is listen in rapt admiration when he speaks, savoring that favorite debunking construction of his: the notion that somehow. When he breaks that out, you know it's time to gleefully tear down some criticism or other.

As:

"The notion that somehow just by having a public option you have the entire private marketplace destroyed is just not borne out by the facts."

Or the oldie but favoritie:

"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous."

Lord knows there need to be people riding his ass about everything he's doing wrong. It's just not gonna be me. I'm about the unconditional presidential love.

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Emmer (Part II)

I'm reading Austen again, with predictable results. Here I was at the day job:

Miss Thompson called on her early that afternoon to indicate she would henceforth be out and the development caused Emma some not undue agitation. It was always mildly distressing for Miss Thompson to be indisposed, as the duties of that lady included corresponding with the many impertinent individuals on whose contributions of modest sums the financial solvency of the organisation relied, and in her absence Emma might be forced to handle such correspondence, simultaneously dull and delicate, herself. But Miss Thompson was reassuring, 'Her compatriot would handle majority of correspondence, &c.' and smiled sweetly as she took her leave.

A quiet hour followed and Emma indulged the pleasures of an easy afternoon, the sun streaming through the tall windows as she read a novel and attended the peripheral duties the place of employ required. After an interval, Mr. Leonard visited her station and she enquired after the plans for his coming nuptials. He responded that they were advancing according to schedule, and that both families were equally eager for such an advantageous connexion to be finalised.

'You have heard, of course, the regrettable business about Miss Fassluke?' Emma proceeded to ask.

'Ah! she is to remove to Michigan. An atrocious development indeed for we have so cherished her companionship here.'

'So we have.'

At that moment, as if summoned, Miss Fassluke herself entered. Her hair was fixed according to the latest fashion, presenting her youthful face in an especially pleasing manner, and she appeared in excellent spirits--surely, Emma remarked, not as affected by her own impending removal as were her friends. Miss Fassluke called herself flattered to find them put so out of sorts by her planned departure and Emma bore the teazing admirably.

'You will be attending, then, the ball in Miss Fassluke's honor?' she asked Mr. Leonard.

'I shan't be, regrettably. But you have my best wishes nonetheless, Miss Fassluke.'

'And am I to believe your cordial wishes sincere, Mr. Leonard, when you prove unwilling to upend prior engagements in order to attend my ball?' Laughter accompanied this remark.

'Ah but you remain ignorant, Miss Fassluke, of my excuse! It is excellent, and once you give it audience, I assure you my decision to absent myself will become quite easily understood. You see, on the very day of the ball, I turn two and thirty, and therefore have celebrations to attend at which my presence would be yet more sorely missed!'

The two ladies laughed in complete understanding and the party then disbanded, each member returning, with a degree of reluctance, to their respective tasks. Unfortunately, the previous quiet was not to be replicated and soon Emma found herself in a most grievous communication with one of the individuals contributing modest sums, who explained at length her previous ardent support for the organisation, being a person who cared a great deal for animals, and wolves especially, and who had, over the course of many years, contributed sums to a great number of organisations whose missions reflected her earnest values, &c. She further explained that she had received a recent communication explicitly requesting additional financial tidings and that, due to the misery of the current economic situation, both in the country as a whole and in her own home, she was unable to abide the request and that in fact she wished to receive no such communications whatsoever in future. Emma sighed. This, then, was the object, and could have been reached without the preceding speech.

The afternoon waned without further event, save for the welcome return of Miss Thompson at half past three, and it was soon time to board a carriage bound for home.

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Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" As Performed By My Chickens

Just hoppin down off the roost, gotta thank God
I don't know but today seems kinda odd
Hit the feeder hard
Ate chard
And got let out into the full yard
Found grubs to grub on
But didn't pig out
Finally flew up in this flower bed I wanna dig out
Crop fulla greens and I'm peckin more
Thinkin will I live another twenty-fo
I gotta hide cause I got me a wormpop
And if I bite the head
I can make that wrigglin stop
Do a little preening in the sunlight
Checkin out my feathers, not a single red mite
And everything is alright
The Lady's comin out the house, and she gives treats on sight
Squawked to the coopmates and I'm askin em
Which box, are y'all layin eggies in?
Get me in the nest and I'm trouble
Last week fucked around and laid a triple double
Sonnin all these lazy layers like Hennessy
I can't believe
Today was a good day

Headed out front, walked straight into the kitties
They ran the other way, left me sittin pretty
Cause just yesterday them fools tried to scratch me
Saw a mean dog and it strolled right past me
No flexin, didn't even look in a henny's direction
and I just kept on peckin
Found a perfect dusting spot, and the dirt felt wet just right
Get my feathers lookin tight
Shake em up, shake em up, shake em up, shake em
Roll those parasites in a bath of dirt and watch me break em
And it's heaven heaven for hens and heaven for hens
Heaven with with my back in the cool soil
My dusting hole's dug low
Eye on the bugs, found me a poli roll
Plus no poultry I know got slaughtered in Oakland, CA
Today was a good day

CBT came out again late
With some oyster shell, replace calcium from the eggs I laid
Did our bit, my crop was full, she had the grit
Now I can really grind this shit
She reached under Betsy's big fat fanny
Pulled out the eggies, fixed em with toast and jammy
And my eggs taste sweet, so sweet
So sweet make the humans peep
Cased a bed border
Ain't no doubt I'm on top the pecking order
Snuck into that raised bed and I'm coastin
Took a sip of water-garden potion, hit the two-leg motion
I was glad everything had worked out
Jumped in CBT's lap and then chirped out
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn't even see a possum stalkin those high beams
No raccoon lookin for a murder
Eight in the evening got the Scratchburger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read 'Three Hens is pimps'
Crop fulla scratch but no throwing up
Almost to the roost and my clucker still blowing up
Didn't hear anybody call straw 'hay'
I got to say it was a good day

© 2009 Three Hens
Polwick Farms Productions

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The Truth About Facebook

THE TRUTH is this title is a sham. But you wouldn't have clicked on 'Some Mild Observations About Facebook.' And you probably wouldn't be here at all if I hadn't posted this on Facebook. So that's my first observation:

1) It's not totally worthless. I admit I kind of wanted it to be. But then protests in Iran were organized with online social networks. Sonnafabitch. And (more importantly) without Facebook, no one would read Clebilicious. With it, two do. (Thanks, you two!) Also it reminds me about birthdays.

2) People have different personalities on Facebook than they do in real life. In real life I'm a ceaseless chatterbox. But on Facebook I am sly and morose. And I can think of at least one individual who, while subdued in real life, is a yammering Yenta on Facebook.

3) Facebook interaction is less daunting than real life interaction, with implications. Which of course is true of online interaction in general. This could be good, when, for example, it allows a shy person to venture out of her shell. Or it could be bad.

4) People like to have little rules with Facebook. Like they only will be friends with people they don't often see in real life. Or they never do status updates. Or they only do status updates. The rules seem intended to grant the illusion of control.

5) Facebook usership passes through three distinct phases: Thrill, Thrill-seeking and Practical Resignation. First you get a genuine kick out of it. (Person A! I haven't thought of her in years! And Person B! I knew he had a crush on me in high school! And Person C I hardly recognized! They all like me! What wealth! what extensive connection! all gathered here in this shining, ephemeral place!) As the kick fades, you try and fail to recapture it. Finally, you accept that Facebook is boring, abandon hope and try to make some mundane use of the thing.

6) You can learn fascinating facts about people from Facebook, but it's unclear how much you are supposed to acknowledge the possession of these facts in real life. If a Ffriend writes in her status update that her new nickname is 'Sexy Legs,' would one be remiss in referring to her thusly at work? And if the answer be clearly yes, then: what? What strange world do we live in if we walk about knowing things and not acknowledging them?

7) It might be more pathetic to have too many Facebook friends than not enough.

8) Facebook can be an effective way of entering other people's worlds. (Especially those with a tendency to overshare.) I can better imagine now what it's like to be a lunatic-distance runner, or a nurse hankering for a drink at the end of a long hospital shift, or a former pro football player launching a tentative new career. (Yeah I'm Ffriends with a former pro football player. Maybe he had a crush on me in high school; are you so surprised?) Because seeing people's little daily updates gives you the nosehair view of their lives. Even when trying to uphold grandiosity, the more people update, the more they unintentionally reveal. Whether we should know so much about every acquaintance is debatable, but the debate never quite happened and the reality has arrived. This will have big implications for human interaction in the 21st century--unless we all just get bored and stop updating.

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I Am Photosynthetic

I shrink and languish when the days are short. Unfurl before the sun's rays like a large-leafed plant extra open on a hot day. I thrive in the desert. When I lived under dim Northeastern light I was miserable. I figured it out: I'm photosynthetic.

Think about it. You might be too.

I totally fall for the notion of a healthy tan. I don't want to be a leathery old broad, but I find it hard to fear the *sun's damaging rays* of the Coppertone propaganda. Maybe the stereotypes linking darker skin to the possession of more soul predate James Brown. Maybe the soul is photosynthetic.

Good then that the longest days are here and I'm set for a beach week some four hundred miles closer to the equator. Photovoltaic cells ready. Chik-chik-chik-aaah.

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Born-Again Baduizt

IF only this post could fade in with sparkly sounds like "Back in the Day." Writing is just not cool like that.

I had always heard her, but only recently have I come to accept Erykah Badu as my personal savior. As for many born-agains, my Baduizt epiphany came when she performed on Chappelle's Show. She swayed her small hips, she rocked her big afro wig. I fell into a trance.



For Chappelle she performed "I Want You," which proceeded to become my favorite song. It's Badu at her extended-jam finest; the album version runs to ten minutes and fifty-three seconds. The song is so simple and she's just chanting I I I I I I I want you you you you you you you half the time, but it totally works. The lyrics suggest the following archetypically Baduizt prescriptions for the ailment of being sprung on some dude:

1) pray til early May
2) fast for thirty days
3) get a good book and get all in it
4) try a little yoga for a minute
5) turn the sauna up to hotter
and 6) drink a whole jar of holy water (an entire jar!)

I can start the "Back in the Day" glitter intro when I hop on the bus downtown and jam through the city of Oakland on a Badu ride, wrapping up the flight-of-fancy riff at the end of "I Want You" just in time to walk through the gate to my backyard and let the chickens out of the coop. If life gets better, I don't know about it yet.

And I have learned to let Erykah go on her flights of fancy. She has won my trust; I'm willing to take the ride. These days I earnestly and willfully choose to march through all the dense "Bump It" yodeling in order to earn the clear awakening "Back in the Day" intro (about which I won't shut up).


WHEN New Amerykah Part One came out last year I was naturally keen with anticipation. But that album is like *advanced* and, not being a music nerd, it took me a while to break into it. Because the rest is not like "Honey." The rest is some bombastic blaxploitation soundtrack that this whitegirl was not initially prepared to get with. Plus, the vibe struck me at first as ickily political and I don't like music trying to be political (although I have to give it to Erykah that she can pull off even that without much departure into lameness).

But I found a road in, eventually, with the song "Me," which falls on the tender, self-reflective side of the bombastic blaxploitation spectrum. My only problem with it is the part when she says "my ass and legs have gotten thick." If you have seen any recent pictures of stick figure Badu, you'll understand why this is offensive to those of us in the thick community.

My next single was to be "That Hump," a song which promotes my theory that there is an Erykah Badu song for any mood that might befall one. "That Hump" works on feelings of depression or discouragement: If I could get over that hump/Then maybe I wiiiiill feel be-etter. But my latest fave off New Amerykah Part One is "Soldier," which is actually a gentle groove track despite the name. It includes classic Baduing around à la: Break it down say mhm whooooaho hey hey (repeat). Turns out "Twinkle" is the dark, disturbing song. (Oh, Erykah, how you love to thwart my easy expectations!) It has the hoped-for sparkle sounds, but they come off spooky somehow.


WOULD that this post could blast out on a Hendrixy riff like "I Want You." But writing is just not cool like that.

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Farewell, Best Little Garden Crew

I taught garden class for two years before this one, and I'll teach it again. But there was something about the group of gardeners I had this year. I know I'm gonna miss them.



This one, especially. Graduating. It's funny: last year, garden class was basically black girls plus Dylan. This year, it was basically Mexican boys plus Dylan.

Holding it down every Monday was the fabulous brother team of Uriel and Jose. Uriel is one of those eleven year-olds who seem thirty-five. There are a lot of them at the school. I had seen him on the bus once, before he joined garden class. For reasons unknown he had somewhere to go, alone, on a school day afternoon, and he sat crumpled in his seat looking weighted by the world. Only his feet swinging well above the bus floor gave away the fact that he was a kid.

Jose is lighter of heart, as younger brothers will be. Here he is being Bugs Bunny, with Uri's support. Ever the comedian, his favorite joke was to sneak up on me when I was inspecting cabbage leaves or checking seedbeds before class. I caught him every time, but he could never be deterred from trying again. One day he did this hilarious bit he called watering "like a model". He made his eyes all smoldering and did suave hose maneuvers with one hand while rubbing his head mock-sensuously with the other. And he loved weeding competitions, because he ended up with the biggest weed pile and won the prize every time.




There was Oscar: quiet, eager to please, and best known for his starring role in the game "Who's Taller: Oscar or the Pea Plant?" (which successively became "Who's Taller: Uriel or the Pea Plant?" and then "Who's Taller: Miss Emma or the Pea Plant?" and finally "Who's Taller: Kobe or the Pea Plant?")



And there was Shauntenai, who was surly and difficult ninety percent of the time. But that other ten percent--oh man, how sweet it was. You had to toil for it. She only ever showed up for half an hour at a time, but she planted the most successful tomato seedling, and took a lot of pride in that fact.



We dug potatoes on the last day, and pulled our garlic. And watered, as always. And as always, the kids wanted to put the hose head on the cherished "mist" setting, which creates a beautiful, cooling cloud of water, almost none of which reaches the soil. (Probably my most frequently-yelled admonition this year was "Put it back on 'shower'!") One very hot afternoon this spring, I announced that there would be a special treat. At the end of class, I gathered all the kids in front of me, held the hose over their heads, and put it on "mist."




Here's the thing about Dylan. Yeah, he's bright. Yeah, he's sweet (often enough to cancel out when he isn't). Yeah, he's got gardening in his blood. But the quality that won me over most completely was his weirdness. Witness the photo above. Oh, it's cute, sure. Sweet kid, sweet smile. But look a little closer. Those green things aren't part of his "Water Strider" shirt, which looked like a brand-new freebie. No: he picked Scarlet Runner beans (from the vine just to the right of his head in the picture) and discovered what he called their "velcro" capacity and stuck them to his shirt. See what I mean? He also ate a carrot and turned the tops into a lash--even had the audacity to give me lashings with it, and I had the audacity to let him get away with it, on the Last Day principle.

After all the kids had been picked up, I finished watering the vegetable beds and found myself getting teary. When I got in the car that Keri Hilson "Knock You Down" song burst on the radio, way too loud. You know: Sometimes love comes around/And it knocks you down...I had denounced the song as cheesy. But as I drove homeward dewy-eyed, tender images of Dylan digging potatoes still playing in my mind, it sounded pretty right.

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Sonia from the Block

This morning President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her acceptance speech follows.


Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

Projects to Princeton
So yeah I do it well
No wonder Barack loves me
I'm like brown Michelle
Second circuit New York City
Court of Appeals
And saved baseball for my public
Cause I keep it on the reals

Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

I'll be up in the Senate
Judiciary hearings
Pink tracksuit, low bun
And the fat hoop earrings
Singing tracks from West Side Story
Every stereotype
Boricua from the Bronx
That's what Supreme looks like

Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

President Obama's verse:
You want to block her confirmation, Jon Kyl from Arizona?
All the Mexicans in your Senate district
Think they'll still be votin for ya? (Na-ah)
Picked the first Latino, yeah you didn't think of that
Whip is playin checkers
Ha-haa! I'm playin chess

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La Crise Plogxistentielle

The plog asks, Why do I exist? And I don't quite have an answer, although I suspect there is one out there somewhere. It's nothing new. Plogicide ideation is a weekly Clebilicious routine when not a daily one. The Statcounter numbers come in, enthusiasm flags, the "Delete This Blog" button beckons. I have to give it to the ploggie blunt: the world may not care, but the plog must go on! Why? I don't know! I just make unexplained demands like some banana republic dictator. Occasionally I am encouraging, too. There, there. Carry on, little plog. Carry on.

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Beyoncé and the Impersonal Pronoun

No one can self-objectify quite like Beyoncé. (And when I use her name, please hear the Stephen Colbert pronunciation, fully engaging that accent aigu on the terminal "e": Bay-on-SAY.)

Let's begin, shall we, by attempting to unpack the nut graf of "Single Ladies":

Don't be mad when you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Wuh-ho-ho, &tc

Begin at the beginning. What is "it"? In its latter use, we might might expect the referent to be "finger." As, That poor girl. He should have put a ring on her finger. But this theory crumbles the moment we consider the pronoun's other roles, standing for the thing wanted (by another), and conditionally liked (by the narrator's former flame).
Is the finger metonymous, then, for the body? In such case, the full meaning becomes, If you liked this body, you should have put a ring on this finger, which stands for this body. The logic holds, but the implications are troubling. Is appreciation of a woman's physical assets adequate basis for marriage? Surely not. And yet, how much more dismaying if we suppose the word "it" in fact stands for the woman in her entirety--body, soul, mind, spirit.

For, what woman thinks of herself as "it"? Aha! you say, glimpsing the path down which I appear to intend to lead you, Perhaps a man could think of a woman as "it"!
The "it" in question.

And indeed, "Single Ladies" was created not by some jilted woman, but by R&B mastermind The Dream. (Perhaps tellingly, he co-wrote Mariah's "Touch My Body" as well). Like most Beyoncé lyrics, these were written by a stable of male songwriters, Beyoncé credited among them.

Men writing objectification tracks for women leads to strange distortions. For example, in Beyoncé's "Check On It," written, per usual, by a stable, the word "it," used as described above, appears 49 times. Here is the construction I find most bizarre:

You can look at it
Long as you don't grab it
If you don't go braggin
I'ma let you have it

Does any woman think of her body as a removed Other like that? Wares to consciously ply? Here the direct referent appears to be the badonkadonk, metonymous again for the body whole.

While the lyrics evoke the body as a removed Other, they simultaneously conflate the body with the total woman. In one instance in the earwormish "Check On It," the word "me" is substituted for "it" (i.e. having said "check on it" eighteen thousand times, she throws in a "check on me"). Confirmation then, if any were needed, that Beyoncé herself--one supposes, body and soul--is "it".

When a man writes a song and a woman sings it, there is a certain synergistic fucked-up-edness. He can slip in offensive notions (woman="it") without voicing them himself. She voices these notions without giving the implied ownership thereof much thought. (See the related "ho cosigner" phenomenon.)

Beyoncé always strikes me as a childlike star, a sexpot never quite in possession of her sexuality. Hence she vixens it up throughout the "Single Ladies" video, but gigglingly disowns the whole bit at the end.

Feminist carping to the contrary, there is one way I don't mind: at least her work promotes the stubby-legged, long-waisted, back-stacked body type in which I share a stake. And hell yeah I can do the "Single Ladies" dance.

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Paul Krugman Is Driving Me Insane

We get it, Krugman. You, with all your pre-recession Chicken Littling, were right. Must feel pre-tty fri-ckin sweet.

Oh, and thanks a lot, Nobel Committee. You've created a monster. Now everything he says, he says with the arrogance and the imprimatur of a *Nobel-prize winning* economist.

Ever since his ultimate vindication--the sky, and the Dow, have indeed fallen--Krug feels justified, if not downright giddy, shitting all over everything for all time. He has particular contempt for Bernanke's 'green shoots' comment, on which he rained disdain in two columns plus a blog post.

Green shoots? The phrase itself sickens Scroogeman, with its overtones of fresh hope and delicate vernal regrowth. Blech! Don't you just want to rip those shoots right out?

He has become the world's most cantankerous groundhog, scrambling back into his underground lair with joyous contempt. Winter will be here forEVAH HAhahaHA!

"Even in the Great Depression," he taunts in another post, "things didn't [Montgomery Burns fingers-tapping gesture] head down [moohoohahaha] all the time." Naturally this was on a week when things were looking up, and any buzz needed to be promptly smited.

If we do have Depression II, imagine what it will do for Krugman. On the one hand, the devastation of 25% unemployment. But on the other, he called it!

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When Food Scraps Dream

I did not know an ad campaign could be endearing. One does not expect to gaze up at a billboard, enchanted. And the kinds of ads that purport to serve the public with positive messages are usually the most loathsome. So I can really appreciate the triumph that is:



This was the first ad I saw of the Alameda County Waste Management's Food Scrap Recycling campaign, and, as we say on Passover, it would have been enough. It came out around the time when a compost fairy visited every house in the land and left little green pails at the curb. (Free green pails! Eee! Talon hands!) In the early days, they were just warming us up to the idea of "recycling" food scraps. The scraps go in the pail, that they may someday become joyous sunflowers.



The old artichoke goes back to the farm. (Technically, I think its re-ordered molecules--sorry, I don't understand science--go to local gardens via the Davis Street Dump, but I quibble.) They went seasonal in October, which was more than awesome:

I regret that I never saw this versión en español in action: (If it wasn't on a bus shelter on Fruitvale or International Blvd, where was it?)

Aren't you glad to live, or don't you wish you lived, somewhere with ads for composting spent jack-o-lanterns that say "Qué te pasa, calabaza?"

The shitty economy is a boon to PSAs. No one can afford to rent that billboard space any more. So Waste Management can just churn out the quippy food scrap recycling ads with abandon. I do wonder why they don't call it composting. Does the word carry some stigma I'm unaware of? Sound too dirt-nasty? Or did they use the word "recycling" to make a quick link in the public brain from the gray bin to the green one?


Okay. Here's where they go advanced. So we get it about the banana peels and the corn husks. They go in the green pail, which then gets dumped into the green bin at the curb and gets turned into compost--or, to be coy, "goes to the farm." Now we are ready for some next-level ish: bring on the food-soiled paper products. Used paper coffee cups, for instance.

Or pizza boxes. For the coup de grace, Waste Management has even put out a custom pizza box, instructing its holder to place it in the green bin when the fun pizza times are through. I only know about the boxes because yesterday one such was stuffed, ironically, into my gray recycling bin. (Ooh: so close.)

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In the Healing Waters of Nodrambama

Obama was like the jeans we tried on at the store in a skinnifying mirror and thought, wow, these jeans are perfect and will make me whole. Thus the inevitable flood of buyer's remorse when they were but jeans. The very finest, perhaps, but still: jeans. Working with what they've got. Incapable of miracles.

But perhaps now we are settling in. Obama has been through the wash a couple times and we are beginning to think he wears quite well after all. We still have our fat little gams and entrenched casino capitalism, but he is trying to show us our best national self--as we are now and as we could be.

Compare it to the Bush era and you'll realize what a warm bath this new political atmosphere is. We've been through quite an ordeal, and are not at all well, but we finally get to soak in Epsom salts and essential oils and begin the healing. It's that turning point in a cold when you know you're starting to get better and all you have to do is tend yourself, enjoy the hot soup and let healing proceed apace.

Our shoulders can finally fall from that tense position we had been holding them in since circa 2001, because, really: we are in good hands. We can be children dozing in the back seat as Barack and Michelle drive us home, soothed by the murmurs of their voices talking about grown-up things.

How's this for soothing:

Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity. And he would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy.

We are still keyed up from Bush times, adapted to all the fussing and fighting. It can be hard to recognize the progress we've already made toward the promised land of No Drama: the stable good intentions, the reasoned decision-making. The economy has not gotten worse in a while. The White House lawn has a food garden. Gay marriage laws are quietly passing and in the current climate no one quite wants to be the bigot to object. The president does a bro handshake with Hugo Chavez and Fox wants to whip up a froth, but those days are done. Obama smiles with his big teeth, lets it blow over.

And the dangerous metaphor-mixing experiment is now complete.

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Ode to the Bitchy British Songbirds

Now I know you feel betrayed But it's been weeks since I got laid
This doesn't mean
I don't think you're a fool
-"Never Gonna Happen"

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
-"Back to Black"

Wrap it up cause I ain't
Carrying your embryo
-"Wait a Minute (Just a Touch)"

If you can imbue caustic, obscene lyrics like those above with easy charm, you must be a Bitchy British Songbird. These ladies can don fabulous earrings, deball a man, and write a fetching song about it on any given afternoon. They can also do the vulnerable vocal equivalent of languishing on the couch with an ice cream pint. That's range.

No matter how much of a laughingstock she becomes, I keep loving Amy Winehouse. When someone is willing to rip open her soul for my listening pleasure, I forgive just about anything. Hence I still want to set Amy up in a little hutch in the backyard with some fresh straw and clean water and care for her until she gets better. Sure it's irrational. But if you were off listening to Mary Wells and the Shangri-Las when the other little girls were on Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, hearing that Motowny girl group sound coming from a sassy, contemporary London Jewgirl is too much to resist. In interviews about her hypothetical next album, Winehouse has said it will be like Back to Black, "but with more ska." Which makes me want to cry, because I would like to hear that so very, very much, and its future existence is dubious.

Not that I mind listening to Back to Black even yet more. The title track manages to chop and screw chipper Motown into the darkest of lamentations on love lost: We only said goodbye with words/I died a hundred times. (Of course she's talking about that fuckup Blake guy, but never you mind.) And "Wake Up Alone" is a slow jam straight out of the secret Kellerman's staff party in Dirty Dancing. She really croons on that one:

If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
Second I stop the sleep catches up
And I'm--breathless
This ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me
And I cannot run now

The sensational Estelle also harkens back to all my favorite old soul. But if Amy is widely known as cracked-out "Rehab" chick, the general listening public knows Estelle as just the popstar of "American Boy." Only marginally less of an underestimation. Her Shine album reminds me so much of Aretha's Sparkle that I have to wonder if the one-shimmery-word title thing is coincidental. The splendiferous "More Than Friends" samples the Queen of Soul version of "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," so it had me at hello. Then it overclosed with tender lyrics and Estelle's sultrily earthy rapping:

Don't play me like a extra
I got speaking roles
I am not that ho
I am so much more

And the "American Boy" thing is no joke. Seems every big man on the American music campus wants to musically date Estelle. Her "(feat...)" stable includes John Legend, Kanye West, Wyclef and Sean Paul. And the latter sounds especially excited to introduce the two of them (Sean-a-Paul and ESTELLE!) at the beginning of the "Come Over" remix.
Lily Allen's offerings remind me not of my old Motown tapes, but of driving out to Orange County for ska shows in high school. Her first hit "Smile" does, anyway. And come to think of it, I wish her new album, It's Not Me, It's You sounded more like "Smile" and less like microwave popcorn with fake butter. (You can say something mean like that to her, because she can dish it out, hence she can take it.) She may be lightweight, but she is just the perfect confection. A vanilla meringue, spiked with vodka.
Brits are always better at using the language, and Londoners seem to specialize in rich, cussy slang. Why say "lots of diamonds" when you can say "fuckloads" like Lily? (Amy also enjoys nouns that employ the "fuck-" stem, as in, What kind of fuckery is this?) The BBS's use those dirty mouths to dress down men, which is a healthy tonic if you listen to fuckloads of misogynistic rap, as I do. There's nothing quite like Estelle's final blow at the end of "No Substitute Love": You need to grow a couple boy/You ain't bout nothin boy.

It's Not Me, It's You goes ahead and takes it there by having a song entitled "Fuck You." It's about a bigoted individual to whose racism and homophobia Lily Allen is saying "fuck you very much"--but you know that theme was an afterthought. The girl wanted to have a song called "Fuck You." And then she was like, well it would be too obvious if it was another of my deballing tracks, so I'll go in this unexpected political direction. She never tires of using her cherubic voice to say something demonic, and I haven't tired of it yet either. If and when I do tire, I'll write her a saccharine-toned grenade of self-esteem demolition. Because she can dish it out.

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