It stays pretty quiet on the East Side. Okay, fine, there are a few idiots, such as my neighbors who are currently playing lite rock crap music just a little too loud for their stupid party which is annoying. But for the most part, each neighborhood exists peacefully, holding its semi-regular hippie block parties and everyone is happy.
Until the final week in June, when our peaceful lives are turned upside down and the East Side, downtown, and Third Ward neighborhoods are thrown into disarray. It's Summerfest time, and while the various government and business folk boast that it's the largest outdoor music festival in the country, they don't have to live with the crowds that flock into the city. Everyone's a culprit in this case: the suburbanites, who never come within the city line because there are reportedly black people who live there, and all black people carry guns and shoot them at cars; the rurals who come from towns over; the truly out-of-towners who come from out of state just to attend; and then the rest of the mix.
I don't think it's a coincidence, really, that on the day that Summerfest opened, I was almost run over twice in the span of eight hours while on my bike. That's really never happened before; one guy had no clue whatsoever that I was even there, and then a Dodge Neon full of trashy teenagers thinking they were bad-asses nearly rolled through a stop sign, only to cuss me out and call me a "bitch" because I deigned to be on the rode on a bike in the bike lane. Brady Street is backed up with traffic; even on a busy summer Saturday night, it's never that busy. People were looking for parking on the already cramped streets in order to take the bar shuttles down to the fairgrounds in order to drink our local beer, become belligerent, trash the area, and drive home.
Why am I so down on Summerfest? It's not so much that I'm down on the festival itself or think it should only allow Milwaukee residents in (because, let's face it: the likelihood that Milwaukeeans, let alone the East Siders, would pay $12 to go and hear a random smattering of bands only to have to pay $8 for beer is unlikely). The fact is, the outsiders come in, think they have fair run of the city since they're paying an exorbitant price to get wasted and listen to bands, and think they have a run of the place. They trash it, fill up the streets, and disrespect the locals, only to leave in a week and go back to their various dark caves. They don't have anything invested in being respectful, clean, and orderly; even if they act like a bunch of knuckle draggers, Summerfest will be on next year and they will be allowed to come back.
Ultimately, I don't like feeling as though I can't safely go out my door each day and bike safely around my city (yes, I called it "my city"). I don't care if you're an out-of-towner; it's when you start acting like an asshole that I put my foot down and say "Get the hell out, and stay out."
Let that be a warning to you outside agitators.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
I dream of Dan Savage
I had a dream where I was rebuked by a woman on the bus for piping a Savage Love podcast about anal sex over the speakers of the bus. She told me it was "blasphemous" to speak of such activities and that I shouldn't listen to such filth. I told her she shouldn't be so uptight, and maybe if she listened to Savage Love and got a good boning herself, she would relax. She told me I was going to burn in hell, I told her I looked forward to it, and then she got off the bus.
So, what's up with that? Today, I was on the bus listening to my Savage Love podcast, and there's always a suspicion that they can hear what I'm listening to; they're learning about polyamory and butt plugs and anal sex just like I am. Most people might freak out if they heard the things discussed. Perhaps that's too strong of a generalization; maybe there's a higher number of kinky people out there than I give them credit for.
But there's, unfortunately, the problem of abstinence-only education, and the general lack of proper sexual education overall. People don't really have any clue what their genitals really do, or what's going on inside them. For example, there was a caller on the podcast who referenced a college girlfriend who would not perform oral sex on him because she honestly believed oral sex would get her pregnant. I had to shake my head, but Dan said it best: "People really are that stupid."
So how do you figure out what is really going on? Well, Savage Love, number one, and number two, you discover by doing. Ah but here's the problem (at least for all those sex-starved puritans out there): you go to hell for having pre-marital sex! And you're a slut if you have more than one partner. Or if you enjoy sex. Or if you masturbate. Or or or or or. The list is a mile long.
It's unfortunate. Whatever happened to embracing one's sexuality? Did it ever happen? One could argue the sexual revolution during the 60's and 70's ushered in a more free-thinking approach, but where are we now?
Not that my dream necessarily has some sort of mind-expanding insight into sexuality today. There are crazy prudish zealots that still run rampant today, trying to clamp down on sexual activity any way they can: restricting access to birth control, abortions, gay marriage, etc. But Savage Love is important and refreshing; it's kind of a revelation to learn about gay crushes on a high school swim team as I'm hurtling through the city on the bus surrounded by people who are totally oblivious to what I'm learning about. Yet there is also solace in the fact that, on thousands of other city buses, trains, and cars across the world, there are other people listening and learning the same thing, opening up their minds and their sexual possibilities. Now that is something to broadcast on the bus speakers.
So, what's up with that? Today, I was on the bus listening to my Savage Love podcast, and there's always a suspicion that they can hear what I'm listening to; they're learning about polyamory and butt plugs and anal sex just like I am. Most people might freak out if they heard the things discussed. Perhaps that's too strong of a generalization; maybe there's a higher number of kinky people out there than I give them credit for.
But there's, unfortunately, the problem of abstinence-only education, and the general lack of proper sexual education overall. People don't really have any clue what their genitals really do, or what's going on inside them. For example, there was a caller on the podcast who referenced a college girlfriend who would not perform oral sex on him because she honestly believed oral sex would get her pregnant. I had to shake my head, but Dan said it best: "People really are that stupid."
So how do you figure out what is really going on? Well, Savage Love, number one, and number two, you discover by doing. Ah but here's the problem (at least for all those sex-starved puritans out there): you go to hell for having pre-marital sex! And you're a slut if you have more than one partner. Or if you enjoy sex. Or if you masturbate. Or or or or or. The list is a mile long.
It's unfortunate. Whatever happened to embracing one's sexuality? Did it ever happen? One could argue the sexual revolution during the 60's and 70's ushered in a more free-thinking approach, but where are we now?
Not that my dream necessarily has some sort of mind-expanding insight into sexuality today. There are crazy prudish zealots that still run rampant today, trying to clamp down on sexual activity any way they can: restricting access to birth control, abortions, gay marriage, etc. But Savage Love is important and refreshing; it's kind of a revelation to learn about gay crushes on a high school swim team as I'm hurtling through the city on the bus surrounded by people who are totally oblivious to what I'm learning about. Yet there is also solace in the fact that, on thousands of other city buses, trains, and cars across the world, there are other people listening and learning the same thing, opening up their minds and their sexual possibilities. Now that is something to broadcast on the bus speakers.
a squeak
my father will not tell you that he has a weak eye
so he turns to the TV
to watch from his right side
and there is a piece of apple stuck between his teeth
so he pulls in the air and the spit
to make that high pitched squeaking sound
it is something absent-minded,
and I join in
a chorus of tooth-sucking family members
squeaking in the glow of the television
so he turns to the TV
to watch from his right side
and there is a piece of apple stuck between his teeth
so he pulls in the air and the spit
to make that high pitched squeaking sound
it is something absent-minded,
and I join in
a chorus of tooth-sucking family members
squeaking in the glow of the television
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Exes
I dated a guy once who threatened to kill himself via a blog post.
He had disappeared for weeks on end; no one knew where he was. He had deserted his apartment, left his roommate with no clue what was happening. I lived in a different city, so I was only aware of what was going on through emails.
When I finally managed to reach him, he was (supposedly) in Portland, Oregon and had no idea how he had got there. His car was nowhere to be found and he thought he had taken the train. I managed to persuade him to call his parents, to go home to them, to find help. He finally went back home to Indiana; whether he got the mental help he needed--well, that's another story.
He would call me up to complain about how awful his parents were, how cloying and unempathetic they were. When I asked whether he had gone to see a psychiatrist, he got quiet, and then brought up a list of excuses: how will he pay for it, there are no good doctors around, etc etc. It became frustrating to talk to him. I started avoiding his calls. On one hand, I thought he needed me, but on the other hand, he had to get there himself.
He's much better now; he takes medication for migraines and he seems to think he's beyond the point of needing mental health counseling despite his compulsive lying and strange way of making himself into the victim.
After the break-ups of both of our relationships, he came to visit. We messed around, it was weird, I came down with the flu, and he left early. He kept talking about coming to visit, and I kept stalling for one reason or another. Although I never told him, I came to realize that it was becoming a cycle; now, he was complaining about living with his parents, being trapped in Indiana, and wanting to move somewhere else but always managing to think up a litany of excuses for why he couldn't. He was very adept at forming plenty of obstacles in his path that would keep him from ever doing anything. We would chat online and talk about Harry Potter, and it was all very boring and mundane.
And then he dropped the news that he was seeing someone. Some girl in Grand Rapids that he knew from a bar or his brother or something ridiculous and a combination of the two. When he said it, I was immediately irritated and affronted, even though there was no way that I wanted to be his girlfriend again. It wasn't jealousy; I certainly didn't want him. So what made me end the phone call so abruptly? Part of it is his ridiculous personality, this idea that he can so easily flit from one person to another, to focus his time on driving to see a girl but he can't drive out of Indiana to start a new life. The willingness to drop it into a conversation as though it's no big deal, whilst complaining about how awful his life is except for her. Maybe it's because he referred to her as his "lady-friend" (which I find so vomit-inducing). Maybe I'm partially jealous of the fact that someone who is mentally unhinged can easily find someone to date. Either way, it doesn't make sense to waste my time on this. It never makes sense to sit and stew over ex-boyfriends. While I'm on friendly terms with most of them, there are a few that, whatever stupid shit they say or do, will always make me grit my teeth. As G. says, "They're exes for a reason."
He had disappeared for weeks on end; no one knew where he was. He had deserted his apartment, left his roommate with no clue what was happening. I lived in a different city, so I was only aware of what was going on through emails.
When I finally managed to reach him, he was (supposedly) in Portland, Oregon and had no idea how he had got there. His car was nowhere to be found and he thought he had taken the train. I managed to persuade him to call his parents, to go home to them, to find help. He finally went back home to Indiana; whether he got the mental help he needed--well, that's another story.
He would call me up to complain about how awful his parents were, how cloying and unempathetic they were. When I asked whether he had gone to see a psychiatrist, he got quiet, and then brought up a list of excuses: how will he pay for it, there are no good doctors around, etc etc. It became frustrating to talk to him. I started avoiding his calls. On one hand, I thought he needed me, but on the other hand, he had to get there himself.
He's much better now; he takes medication for migraines and he seems to think he's beyond the point of needing mental health counseling despite his compulsive lying and strange way of making himself into the victim.
After the break-ups of both of our relationships, he came to visit. We messed around, it was weird, I came down with the flu, and he left early. He kept talking about coming to visit, and I kept stalling for one reason or another. Although I never told him, I came to realize that it was becoming a cycle; now, he was complaining about living with his parents, being trapped in Indiana, and wanting to move somewhere else but always managing to think up a litany of excuses for why he couldn't. He was very adept at forming plenty of obstacles in his path that would keep him from ever doing anything. We would chat online and talk about Harry Potter, and it was all very boring and mundane.
And then he dropped the news that he was seeing someone. Some girl in Grand Rapids that he knew from a bar or his brother or something ridiculous and a combination of the two. When he said it, I was immediately irritated and affronted, even though there was no way that I wanted to be his girlfriend again. It wasn't jealousy; I certainly didn't want him. So what made me end the phone call so abruptly? Part of it is his ridiculous personality, this idea that he can so easily flit from one person to another, to focus his time on driving to see a girl but he can't drive out of Indiana to start a new life. The willingness to drop it into a conversation as though it's no big deal, whilst complaining about how awful his life is except for her. Maybe it's because he referred to her as his "lady-friend" (which I find so vomit-inducing). Maybe I'm partially jealous of the fact that someone who is mentally unhinged can easily find someone to date. Either way, it doesn't make sense to waste my time on this. It never makes sense to sit and stew over ex-boyfriends. While I'm on friendly terms with most of them, there are a few that, whatever stupid shit they say or do, will always make me grit my teeth. As G. says, "They're exes for a reason."
pollen
we're exploding
over the street
surprised at being pulled from branches, sent over the river
so we swarm in groups:
large
light
against the sun
that will try to drown us out
over the street
surprised at being pulled from branches, sent over the river
so we swarm in groups:
large
light
against the sun
that will try to drown us out
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
"I love humanity, but hate people." Edna St. Vincent Millay
I was in sixth grade when a friend told me I was going to go to hell because I wasn't baptized. Thus began my long-standing distrust of organized religion.
I like to tell this story a lot because one, I'm still friends with that friend even though religion is a major divisive factor in our relationship, and two, I think it highlights the typical "us vs. them" mentality of many religious organizations: a person is bad because they are different. And the differences abound: sexual orientation, race, culture, political stance, you name it, someone probably hates it and is preaching against it in a pulpit somewhere.
Case in point: Dr. Tiller, a Kansas doctor, was killed a few days ago as he was entering his church, most likely shot because of the fact that he performed abortions. Apparently, he had been shot at several times before this. When I read this, I wanted to cry and grit my teeth at the same time. Okay, perhaps we're going out on a limb to say that the gunman was most likely a "pro-life" advocate who did not approve of the doctor's stance on abortion. But nonetheless, there have been plenty of instances of abortion clinics being bombed and other doctors killed because of how they sided on the issue of choice. And so we come to the other side of the coin, the "pro-lifers" who want so badly to protect the supposed lives of innocent fetuses that they will kill to do so. I don't have to point out the derailment of logic in this equation, but I feel compelled to ask how the Christians manage to rationalize this. If the supposed tenet of Christianity, or one of them at least, is "love thy neighbor" (oh, and how killing is a sin, too, supposedly) that they can stand by someone who goes to take their gun out of their chest, walk over to a house of worship (which is supposed to be sacred as well, right?), and then proceed to murder an innocent man.
Perhaps here's the hang-up: they don't view him as innocent. To them, he's a killer of innocent people since there is a belief in certain religious sects that life begins at conception so fetuses are human beings, not just blobs of chromosomes beginning to form. And so, somehow, they can justify murder because "an eye for an eye" is absolutely in the Bible!
I don't know if that is discussed in the Bible. I'm sure that if someone wanted to, they could find a passage to support whatever they want to do. It's a subjective analysis.
Whenever I began to rail on religion as a whole, my mother often counters with something along the lines of "Well, not all religion everywhere does awful things." Usually I scoff and go into something about the Crusades and genocides waged in the name of religion and the Pope telling the world not to use condoms because it "won't stop the spread of HIV." But maybe she's correct, and it's more of a matter of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. It's like the Millay quote that I love and think of often: "I love humanity but hate people." People are the ones who are jerks and mess everything up.
Really, though, one needs the whole in order to get anything done. It's the whole that brings together like-minded individuals with similar ideas about killing people who deviate from their moral compass which they believe is the only correct compass in the world. And they will keep believing it, even when this little thing called the legal system comes a-calling.
Never fear though, because they were only doing J.C.'s work so they'll get into heaven anyways. Meanwhile, my unbaptized self will be toiling away in the underworld with the rest of the deviants. Considering all of the intellectuals, atheists, homosexuals, and others that will be joining me, it's sure to be one hell of a party.
I like to tell this story a lot because one, I'm still friends with that friend even though religion is a major divisive factor in our relationship, and two, I think it highlights the typical "us vs. them" mentality of many religious organizations: a person is bad because they are different. And the differences abound: sexual orientation, race, culture, political stance, you name it, someone probably hates it and is preaching against it in a pulpit somewhere.
Case in point: Dr. Tiller, a Kansas doctor, was killed a few days ago as he was entering his church, most likely shot because of the fact that he performed abortions. Apparently, he had been shot at several times before this. When I read this, I wanted to cry and grit my teeth at the same time. Okay, perhaps we're going out on a limb to say that the gunman was most likely a "pro-life" advocate who did not approve of the doctor's stance on abortion. But nonetheless, there have been plenty of instances of abortion clinics being bombed and other doctors killed because of how they sided on the issue of choice. And so we come to the other side of the coin, the "pro-lifers" who want so badly to protect the supposed lives of innocent fetuses that they will kill to do so. I don't have to point out the derailment of logic in this equation, but I feel compelled to ask how the Christians manage to rationalize this. If the supposed tenet of Christianity, or one of them at least, is "love thy neighbor" (oh, and how killing is a sin, too, supposedly) that they can stand by someone who goes to take their gun out of their chest, walk over to a house of worship (which is supposed to be sacred as well, right?), and then proceed to murder an innocent man.
Perhaps here's the hang-up: they don't view him as innocent. To them, he's a killer of innocent people since there is a belief in certain religious sects that life begins at conception so fetuses are human beings, not just blobs of chromosomes beginning to form. And so, somehow, they can justify murder because "an eye for an eye" is absolutely in the Bible!
I don't know if that is discussed in the Bible. I'm sure that if someone wanted to, they could find a passage to support whatever they want to do. It's a subjective analysis.
Whenever I began to rail on religion as a whole, my mother often counters with something along the lines of "Well, not all religion everywhere does awful things." Usually I scoff and go into something about the Crusades and genocides waged in the name of religion and the Pope telling the world not to use condoms because it "won't stop the spread of HIV." But maybe she's correct, and it's more of a matter of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. It's like the Millay quote that I love and think of often: "I love humanity but hate people." People are the ones who are jerks and mess everything up.
Really, though, one needs the whole in order to get anything done. It's the whole that brings together like-minded individuals with similar ideas about killing people who deviate from their moral compass which they believe is the only correct compass in the world. And they will keep believing it, even when this little thing called the legal system comes a-calling.
Never fear though, because they were only doing J.C.'s work so they'll get into heaven anyways. Meanwhile, my unbaptized self will be toiling away in the underworld with the rest of the deviants. Considering all of the intellectuals, atheists, homosexuals, and others that will be joining me, it's sure to be one hell of a party.
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