The Danzig Book Club

Hey, Portland! Somebody Lied To You Part 1

It’s April and the sun is finally out. FINALLY.  When I was walking back from my radio show, it looked like 8 new bars had just sprouted from the ground.  I can only presume perpetual rain makes bars bloom more in the springtime.  Spring also makes people wear dumb shit and do dumb things … which brings me to my latest column, “Hey, Portland! Somebody Lied To You!”

Oh. Meh. Gawd.

1.  Portland, Portland, Portland. It’s Monday and not even noon yet.  Why are you so wasted?  Are bars open at 7am now? Why are you peeing in the street? What are you drinking? You smell terrible.  Are you hiring?

2. For the love of God, can you Burning Man clown people leave the park already?  It’s not fair that my dog can get a $200 ticket for frolicking in the grass  but you idiots get to roam around off leash in your stupid stilts.  Can we get a no clown zone in this city? I can’t look at your stupid bikes anymore. Seriously. Do I have to become mayor and kick you all out? I’ll do it. I’ll totally do it.  Go back to clown island or Black Rock Desert or whatever circle of hell you fire juggled in.

3. Gentlemen, I know your feet must be terribly hot but sandals are vagina repellent.  Trust me on this.

While I’m at it, please stop with the manpris or hepris or whatever the kids are calling ugly these days.

When in doubt, wear pants. It's not summer yet.

4. Ladies, well played. Your sundresses are adorable, your shoes make sense and I can’t see your tramp stamps. Don’t blow it.

5.  Everyone else, I can’t believe you got that tattoo. I already miss jacket season.

You’re welcome!

Market Research

Here are the ten most common search engine terms people use to get to my blog.

1. gwen paltrow naked

2. chuck bass drunk

3. naked gwyneth paltrow

4. john stossel

5. naked paltrow

6. naked grandma

7. fattest roller derby girl

8. smurfette tattoos

9. cynthia mcfadden ugly dress

10. bad moomin

Cheer up, my dears! I just know you’ll find those naked pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow some day!

Your Cake Could Be A Little Gayer.

When I was a little girl, my first fight with a friend was about religion.  We were both playing on the swing set and she told me that her religion was right and that mine was wrong.  Not understanding the differences (her family were Christian and mine were Catholic) I argued that they were the same.  Who was she kidding? We both had to go to church every Sunday. We both had to read the Bible.  We both had mangers in our living rooms during Christmas  and Jesus paraphernalia on the walls.  Both of us knew that you shouldn’t kill or steal or be a jerk.  They just had different names is all. Seriously.  Potato, potawto, tomato,   tomawto...  Ugh.  She wouldn’t hear of it.  I ended up running back home to ask my parents who was right.  After my mother carefully explained the differences, I was left feeling even more bewildered than before.  The differences didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Why was my friend so sure of herself? From what I understood, as long as you were a decent person,  it didn’t matter what you called yourself. What was my friend’s problem?  Why did she think that she was a better person than I because of her religion? That girl was a spoiled brat that never shared.  I was generous and polite.  Was religion really that important? Were mean people just using it because it was the only way they could get into heaven? This was a lot to mull over.  I had an existential meltdown. There were just too many cooks in Kitchen Jesus.  Just because their cake recipe had a little more vanilla in it didn’t change the taste that much.  It’s still cake.  Put some damn frosting on it and shut up already.  While you’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to try that yummy raspberry tart the Buddhists are whipping up next door.

Look at how well fed and hapy he is? That tart must taste AMAZING! YUM!

From that point on,  I had my doubts about religion. My mother tried her best to raise my brother and I as Catholics but I didn’t like the flavor of it.  Church was a joyless experience.  Confession was an even bigger deal breaker because I didn’t have a whole lot to confess about.  Umm, I was 8.  I found myself having to lie about sins I thought an 8 year old would commit.  Seriously, people. What kind of trouble do  8 year old’s get in? Why would a child go to hell? What does the rosary have to do with that? Who wrote this stuff? Maybe I want to try a different recipe.  This cakes sucks.  I keep getting grief chunks stuck in my teeth.

What does your cake taste like?

When I was old enough to be given the choice about church, I chose not to go.  That was a no-brainer.  I’ll always love my mother for not forcing the issue on me.  In return, I’ve kept my mouth shut and tried my best to respect her beliefs. Generally we see eye to eye on most things.  She’s a liberal and a good person.  We do have one fight.  A big one. It’s a fight I’m very passionate about because it affects some of the people I love the most.  We fight about gay marriage. Every year. Almost always on Christmas.  Like Baileys and stomach ulcers, it’s a Christmas tradition.

Don’t get me wrong. My mother is not homophobic.  Like most older women, she thinks gay men are faaaaaaaaaabuloussssssssssss. She has no problem with people of the same sex having civil unions.  She just doesn’t want them using the term “marriage.”  She suggested the term “gayriage” as an alternative.  “Just not marriage.  Marriage is sacred. “

Sacred Marriage.

Rully? Are you kidding me? The concept of  marriage predates religion and political institutions. Catholics, Christians, Mormons, Muslims, WHATEVAH did not copyright marriage. Why are so many of them imposing their religious beliefs on everybody else? Atheists get married. Satanists get married. Scientologists get married. Agnostics get married.  Pagans and Wiccans get married. Lots of people with different belief systems do it every day – for various reasons – and they don’t have special names for it. Can we PULLEEEEEEZ leave chromosomes and your religion out of the debate?

Dear Supporters of Prop 8,

What legally makes straight people different from gay people? Was Prop 8  necessary? Are you that insecure? How did my gay friends and their gay friends’ big gay weddings in California harm any of your “sacred” heterosexual marriages? Seriously. What laws were being broken? Were you at those weddings? Did you see the love? The history? The joy? The chemistry?  Were you there when that joy was taken away from them? Are you going to explain to their kids why their love doesn’t count as much as your love? Why you think you’re a better parent? Are you going to explain to them why your definition of God is better?  Good luck with that.

Are you going to stop in California? It’s a big world, people. America didn’t copyright marriage. Does your God know that gays have been getting married in the Netherlands since 2001?  Has that harmed you? Did it make your marriage less valid?  Do you want to take the fight over there, too?  How about Canada? The Canadian Cabinet changed their definition of marriage in 2003.  It currently views marriage as a way to “publicly recognize a committed relationship between two adults. “

Two adults.

Very simple.  Is that definition too wild for you? Is it ruining the family dynamic? Does dinner taste different?  Is your life in danger?  Is your husband/wife going to divorce you?

What about transgender people? What about hermaphrodites? Will your God let them get married?

You know, gay people kiss each other. They kiss each other the exact same way you hetero folks kiss.  I would know.  Is that taking something away from your make-out sessions?  Is kissing less sacred now? Should it be called gay kissing?  You guys wanna whip up some Proposition to take that right away?

How about love? Do you have the copyright for that?

Mayor Newsom marries Lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin,
who have been together over 50 years. June 2008.

These ladies and I didn’t think so.

You can watch all of the California Supreme Court Proposition 8 Oral Arguments here.

And the winner is…

It was difficult figuring out who I should give my Dickhead of the Week award to.  There have been so many talented people in the running. Just when I thought the lady at the collection agency would be a shoe in for this honor, some weirdo interrupted my radio show and got her crazy all over the place.  Do I give it to that girl?  Should I give it to my bank… again?  After much deliberation, I decided to give it to this guy/girl/whatever.  This is what they had to say about my last blog.

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New comment on your post

#685 “Oh Say Can You See My Eyes If You Can Then My Hair’s Too Short”
Author : March 2009 (IP: 24.15.228.32 , c-24-15-228-32.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
E-mail : eventhudson@gmail.com
URL    :
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=24.15.228.32

Comment:
Nothing like hearing “Ecstasty in slow motion” played by people with no clue. Course, S3 never had a clue either, only Spiritualized got close.
“The nineties were ridiculous?” I’m sure what you’re doing now is no better. Borring.

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Hey Dickhead of the Week, be sure to give me your proper address to receive a complimentary dictionary.  The only thing shittier than your attitude would have to be your spelling errors.

Thanks for playing,

xoxo

Automne

Oh Say Can You See My Eyes If You Can Then My Hair’s Too Short

You guys, I’m super excited! One of my oldest and closest friends is visiting me tomorrow.  To know her is to love her.

Sasha and Automne. Sweet Seventeen.

Okay, she’s probably going to kill me for posting this pictorial montage but I can’t help myself.  I never grow tired of looking at our old hair pictures.  Seriously, people. SERIOUSLY! Only two of these photos were taken on Halloween. The rest of them were probably from a lazy Tuesday afternoon. Take notes.  The nineties were ridiculous.

In no particular order…

Wow.

WOW!

It was actually quite difficult to find any pictures where we didn’t have tiaras, antennas, bows, balls, halos, fake fur, flowers, hair dye, birds or plastic farm animals in our hair. I don’t even know if such photos exist.  (Do they, Sa?) I did find this one.

Ahhhhh, so normal. We practically look like business ladies.

Anyway, my hair can’t wait for Sasha’s hair to get here already.

I’m going to start putting shit in it asap!

Dear Lucky Dress,

It was weird folding you up one final time and sending you off to your new home in Singapore.  I almost couldn’t do it.  We’ve been together for over ten years and you’ve seen so much — so many night clubs, dinner parties, bedroom floors and spin-the-bottle games.  You were there the night my friends and I ate magic mushrooms in the Tenderloin. You were there when that cute boy kissed me at the Whitechapel Tube Station.  I remember wearing you when I sang Clash songs with a complete stranger in Brixton. I also remember picking you out for a job interview in San Francisco.  You were there the night I said goodbye to all my friends and for the night I met new ones.  You’ve been to happy hours,  slumber parties, art openings, photo shoots and in a lot of different suitcases.  We danced together the  first time I ever saw Pulp play and I got sick with you the night I drank too much tequila with Karen O.  Recently you’ve just been hanging out in my closet and it made me sad.  You’ve served me so well over the years and I thought it was time that you went on to have even bigger adventures.

Godspeed, lucky dress!

You will be missed.

Love,

Automne

Hot Lava

You guys, I’m in love, love, LOVE with Hot Lava.  They make the kind of music that’s in my brain 24/7.  They make me forget about how sad I was when my favorite band Electrelane broke up.  They make me dance. They make me excited for Spring.  They make me want to buy all of their merchandise and make them rich.

Hot Lava forever!!!!!

Do Mormons Get Their Period?

Much like malt liquor, hallucinogenics and Gossip Girl, I had to see what all the fuss was about.  I needed to know why the story of  a 108 year-old Vampire virgin (riiiiiiiiiiiight) hunk that falls in love with a teenage dullard has captivated the interest of so many people.  Like I’ve said before, I’m obsessed with normal America.   I’m not above popular culture. I’m not above running across the street to borrow Twilight from my friend. Not me.

Ummm, I’m shocked that a grown women wrote these books and not a twelve year old that uses the word “chagrin” too much.  I’m also shocked that I’m already on book three.  All of the stories are poorly written, a tad racist  and infuriating to every feminist thought in my head.  I hate them and I can’t put them down.  It must be my obsession with the weirdness of normal America.  Maybe it’s more than that.  I don’t have to think about anything when I read these dumb stories.  It’s like a vacation from my brain.  I also wonder how hard it would be for me to write my own teenage romance.  I’m pretty sure I could do a better job than this undersexed Mormon lady.  Seriously, does the main character ever get her period??  If Judy Blume wrote these books, you better believe there would be at least two chapters devoted to menstruating around a bunch of vampires.

Maybe it’s a Mormon thing.

Make It Fancy.

xoxo

Exactly 22 Years Ago.

Nice sunglasses at night, bitch. Nice Swatch, freak.

Friday, February the 13th.

1987 Junior High School Dance.

I wore black jeans and one of those  t-shirts with a tuxedo painted on it.

The other girls wore formal dresses and pumps.

The 1986 hit,  “Word Up” played twice that night.

Kari Clark and Heather McClanahan went behind my back and asked Randy McCoy to dance with me.

He said, “no.”

My life, was… like, totally ruined.

“Dear Diary,

Bitchface  Kari Clark has ruined my life AGAIN!!! I’m never speaking to her ever! Totally going to transfer schools!”

I also got my period and ruined my mother’s couch.

Word up.

A Night With The Normals

You guys, I did something last night that I’ve never done before.

*long pause*

Ummm, Graham and I went to a NBA game.

Seriously! For those that don’t know us, that’s completely CRAZY! We don’t go to sporting events. We don’t even go to big concerts.  The only things we go to are punk shows and $3 movies.  Well, we did go to the Roller Derby once but I’m not sure if that counts.  Anyway, NBA games are crazy expensive but Graham’s boss gave him two free tickets.  We had to go. Besides, I’m obsessed with how normal America lives.  Really, is there anything more fascinating than normal America? There have been a few instances where I tried to go undercover to see what it was like.

Halloween circa 2007. "Taylor don't like it when I rest my fanny pack on the baby."

Alas, it left me feeling even more confused. It doesn’t matter how many bottles of body glitter or fake Smurfette tattoos I get.

My totem Smurf.

Try as I might, I just can’t get inside normal America.  My little subculture bubble is all I know.  Clearly I need to get out more so I won’t be so perplexed by things like Sarah Palin, Tila Tequila and Taco Bell commercials.

Why hellooooooo, normal America. Is this seat taken?

So how was the NBA game?

Ummmm, so overwhelmingly awesome/ridiculous/fun that I’ll never forgive myself for not bringing a camera. We had really great seats and could see everything. Basketball players look crazy in person.

the trailblazers.

Know what else is crazy? Money. Money and what it buys is totally crazy.  Sports arenas are so over the top fancy. Domestic beer was $6. I felt like I was in Tokyo again. I might as well have been because I clearly had no idea what was going on. The music would change every ten seconds and the TV monitors would change more than that. Even weirder, the monitors would tell people what to say and everyone obeyed.  At one point, the people were chanting “Chalupa.”

Chalupa?????? That doesn’t have anything to do with basketball.

It think it's Spanish for diarrhea.

There were also these other totally random things like breakdancers and degrading games where people had to scoop money off the floor.  It was like I took a trip into normal America’s brain.

Normal America's Brain

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all was the fact that Graham and I were the only indie rock/punk/hipster/whatevahhhh people there.  For Portland (a city where hipsters drives cabs and everyone is 24 and in a band) that’s absolutely maddening.

Ohhhh, normal America.  We have fun.

Enjoy your Chalupas.

Next stop, Monster Truck Rally!

The Lost Years

I just found an old journal/sketch book. These are some of the highlights.

You’re So Fat, You Broke Your Family Tree.

Last summer I was at a friend’s bachelorette party and we all went to a bar to have drinks. Like most female gatherings, the subject of body image came up and one of the thinner girls started complaining about her weight. The usual game of “What are you talking about? You’re skinny. I’m fat” took place.  By the way, NOBODY at this table could be considered fat.  Some of the girls at the table could easily be part time models. Things got weird when the girl that started the conversation motioned to the part time model girls and said, “OMG! You two have nothing to talk about, now me and….” (motions to the rest of us) “….. we can talk.” I was shocked.  I wasn’t even participating in this ridiculous conversation and now I was being told that I should be talking about my supposed freakish weight.  Say, what?  In the girl’s defense, she was very drunk.  In my defense, my BMI is very normal.  I’m not a pinup girl or a super model. I’m just average.  Cut me some slack. It’s taken me years to achieve “average.”

I was a fat baby.  I’m not just saying that so people will look at my baby pictures and say, “OMG! You weren’t  fat. You were skinny. OMG! “ Seriously, guys. I was a FAT baby. You have no idea. I attribute this to being a month (are you friggen kidding me, mom?) late. They couldn’t even fit those baby bracelet things on my fat, baby leg. I think I weighed in at 10 pounds or something.  Maybe it was 12 pounds?  I don’t remember.  It must be all the fat in my brain.  Anyway, I could have been twins.  My poor mother.  It’s like she gave birth to a toddler. She has these great baby book journals that I periodically read when I go home for Christmas. Judging from her archives, I slept a lot and the nurses loooooooved me because I was so sturdy and agreeable.  I even laughed and rolled my baby eyes at a much smaller baby that was being fussy. My first life lesson – if you’re fat, you better be charming and have a good sense of humor… especially around skinny bitches.  What can I say? I’m a quick learner.

My cousin and I.

My baby fat remained with me for years. When the Sears catalogs would come, I’d have to get my stuff from the Pretty Plus section. Totally mortifying. Those clothes sucked.

This is what "fat" looked like in the seventies.

Skinnier friend's blue dress is waaaaaaaay better. Lucky bitch.

When I was 9, my mom put me on a diet. It was hard juggling my busy 4th grade schedule with a diet/fitness routine.  As a result, my Duran Duran scrap-booking suffered.  My second life lesson was that you can’t possibly do it all unless you cut out sleep.  I became a night owl.  I know more about late night television in the 80’s than Youtube ever will. I can still remember some of the Johnny Carson monologues.

Age ten. Popped collar. Haven't been sleeping much.

My baby fat was stubborn and continued on during my awkward preteen years. Junior High was particularly brutal.  Junior High is when the masochistic nurses do those check ups and announce your weight to a gym class full of bitchy girls.  Do they still do that? If they do, I’m going to make it my mission to get them to stop.  It’s terrible.  Clearly, all of this body image stuff was making me angry and rebellious so I got into punk and wore a lot of unflattering band shirts.  As if I didn’t have enough going against me, I was also tall for my age and towered over every single boy I came in contact with. Turns out, guys HATE amazons in over-sized Cure shirts.  They just hate them.

Like all fatties, I decided to get a crush on some pint sized child named Randy McCoy. He probably came up to my chin. He was in love with a very plain and skinny blonde with no sense of humor. My third life lesson was that being clever doesn’t compete with being thin, blonde and conventionally attractive.  That’s the only way I can explain Gwyneth Paltrow’s career.

Hi, I haven't had a carbohydrate since 1998. Do you like my face?

I’d like to say that it all changed in High School but I was still rocking that baby fat… not as much, though. It wasn’t debilitating or anything.  Honestly, when I look at old pictures, it’s hardly as bad as I thought it was. I looked like Lydia Lunch. I had friends. I had dates.  I did well in school.  People liked me. I had a boyfriend.  My fourth life lesson was that the right kind of people will always love you for who you are.  Friends don’t care about your cellulite — and if they do, they’re not your friends.  Still, I had no idea what it was like to not think about my weight every second of the day… especially when all my friends were stick thin. In their defense, they hated their bodies and constantly complained about not having boobs.  Whatever. I would have traded in my double D rack for their legs any day. I just wanted to wear mini-skirts.  Just one mini-skirt.  Just once.

This was all 80 feminist theory classes, thirteen hair colors,  two countries, seven cities, eight lovers, dozens of adventures and thousands of kisses ago. My identification as being “the fat girl” is ancient history.  I closed that page,  tore the photos out of all the albums and blocked it out years ago.

Until now.

Lately I’ve been revisiting it.  All of these fashion blogs and Etsy pages have me thinking about girls’ unhealthy obsession with weight.  It has me thinking about my old unhealthy obsessions with weight and all the fun I missed out on. The reason I don’t know how to swim is because I was too scared to wear a bathing suit when I was younger.  Seriously, guys.  That’s f*cked up.  Even now that I’m older and wiser, I find it hard to listen to friends casually suggest that skinny is better.  I think smarter is better. I think funny is better.  Man, if I didn’t work so hard at being funny and smart all of the time, maybe I’d have some extra hours to work on being skinny but it just doesn’t interest me.  I don’t care how much better my clothes would hang. I don’t care how many more Etsy sales I’d make. I’d rather make you laugh than make you look.

Besides, my dog uses my less than perfect thighs as a comfy pillow. If I were bonier, I’d hurt his puppy face.

Text Messages From My Mom Part 2