Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: May 2008 Archives

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: because of Dude Nation’s successful propaganda campaign, most women wouldn’t be feminists with a 10 foot pole, and the few who buck this trend are required to spend 83.7% of their time begging the citizenry to believe that they don’t hate men and aren’t crazy.

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On a different note, tittyshakers is the home of the sleazy sound. (via Miss Martini, who copped it off of the ubiquitous Tiffany Brown!)

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I pretty much disagree with everything she says, but I thought this was an interesting post nonetheless. I just can't wrap my head around the whole "elitist" argument when it comes to Obama. And to somehow make the claim that the Obama camp is nurturing the racial divide intentionally to cover up the fact that he's not in touch with working class voters kind of makes my head want to explode.

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I guess that's it for today. :)

Posted at 11:18 AM • Comments (0) • TrackBack

The first time I heard Chumbawamba...

May 2, 2008

It was the summer of 1988. Probably the turning point of my life...or one of them. I was 18 and sitting in the back seat of someone's car. It was probably my car, and I was probably being driven around Chicago by one of my friends, while the rest of the passengers joked and laughed and talked about various things. I had my nose in a book I had just bought at Powell's. I had pulled it at random from the shelves, saw illustrations by Sue Coe, and decided I had to read it. That book was _Narcissism and Death_ by Mariarosa Sclauzero, which is an experimental prose book about the human psyche, love, ethics, beauty, narcissism...and death. ha. It was fascinating to me, because it was written in a sort of ADD skipping from one topic to the next style that seemed to be a salvation in terms of setting an example for a type of novel I could actually write. I have never been very linear...and I am not good at envisioning and bringing to life meticulously accurate story lines from beginning to end with any amount of cohesion.

At any rate, I had my nose in that book when we turned on to Kenmore street. I remember the name of the street because people were talking about Kenmore appliances or something. Maybe the topic of washing machines came up. Maybe someone was talking about duds and suds, the new bar/laundromat that we always talked about going to, but always ended up dragging bags and bags of dirty clothes to my moms house in the suburbs, anyway...on those weekends we would go back for shows at Dirty Nellies and, later, mcGregor's.

So we parked somewhere on Kenmore to visit with my roommates boyfriend Erich "Fish" Blocher, and his roommate Warren "Fish" Fisher. They were two men who shared an apartment and a nickname. Warren was fish for obvious reason, and I believe he played bass for screeching weasel for awhile and was in a band called Ozzfish or The Ozzfish Experience...although I recently chatted with my other old roommate and we can't for the life of us figure out who the Ozz in Ozzfish was. Erich was nicknamed fish for reasons unknown. He was a tall, goofy, John Denvery looking guy with round glasses and a sort of hippie, laid back demeanor. He was living in the other Fish's closet at the time. I remember laying on the pillows on the floor and looking up at the chain that hung from the bare lightbulb in the closet. there was a long string tied to the end of the chain as a means of extension "Because I am too lazy to stand up to turn it off at night." said fish.

And as I lay there, with my nose still in Narcissism and Death, one of the fishes made me a tape of the Chumbawamba lp _Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records_ because I just HAD to listen to it over and over again. And I have. And I still do. It is kind of a masterpiece.

And when I hear Chumbawamba now, I think of that day. I think of being driven, nose in book, refrigerators, washing machines, lightbulbs and fish and fish and fish's closet. And I think of black and white ink drawings and songs about anarchy and I think about Pictures of Starving Children and Narcissism and Death. And the richness and clarity of these memories amazes me always.

Posted at 10:37 AM • Comments (1) • TrackBack