untitled melodrama of 1989

[originally posted on myspace on June 1, 2010]

So, I had an oddly introspective weekend (odd in that I went out of town to a show, which you wouldn't expect to be an introspective sort of trip). I'm reading Kelly Cutrone's book (titled something like If You Have to Cry, Go Outside...I left it at work today by mistake) and damn, wow, it's crazy. It's pretty much saying, don't buy into things, know yourself. And it got me thinking, about lots, but mostly, for years, I thought I wanted to be the little rocker chick...but maybe that's not me anymore, if it was ever me. Hard to explain.

But, I will say this (in a long, roundabout way): my tire blew up leaving Melbourne Saturday morning. I think it was the tire that was previously patched. I left the motel earlier than planned (see above paragraph and after a whole introspective evening, and not much sleeping, I was ready to head home) and leaving the gas station, my car kind of started pulling to one side and then shaking. Me, I get onto 95 anyway, figure it's the gas or something and it'll stop. The car starts violently shaking and I think, ok, I'll get off at the next exit. No such luck. The tire just blew and I (after freaking out for a few second) pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. More panic for a few more seconds and then called Triple A...got out of my car (when it was clear) to check the damage. The tire was shredded. I waited around 20 minutes for the Triple A guy to show...andd standing there, with countless cars speeding by (and most of them not getting over to the other lane, like they should do and I now faithfully do) at over 70 miles an hour...it felt so very lonely. I don't know what I expected to happen...someone to pull over and ask if everything was ok, for a prince to come riding through...don't know. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted a nap.

But the whole thing (the waiting and the later going to find a replacement tire in a brand new town I knew nothing about and being rewarded with Starbucks...'cause there's always a Starbucks)...it reinforced stuff mentioned in Cutrone's book, in what I know already, what I've learned a million times. Things could be worse. It could ahve been raining and/or late at scary night. Bad things are (usually) temporary. I could have sat on the side of the road and cried...but I probably still would be now sitting on the side of the road, with red eyes and a still flat, shredded tire...so, with everything, with every uncertain moment, I just need to be my awesome, kick ass self, trust in that, dow what needs to be done, see the awesome, positive, experience/life lesson in things (or at least, get a latte) and move on to the next.

Also, Friday and Saturday, the number '89' (as in the number and the year 1989) kept coming up. Weird, huh?

stupid girl (chick lit)

[originally posted on myspace on August 20, 2008, Wednesday)]

I temporarily gave up on reading my beatnik women memoirs (because they were very analytic and depressing, save that for another post) and read two (two!) chick lit books loaned by N. Mostly out of boredom. So, let's bitch about books!

I started with Getting Warmer (by Carol Snow, 2007), which was kind of cute. It's about a pathological liar (but in a cute way) who has wacky misadventures at work, with friends and (of course) with a guy. I did skim the last couple chapters, because you knew despite all the "bad" events (wackiness unraveling) that happened would be neatly wrapped up by the end. But, it was light, easy to read and not hung up in names, which I suppose is chick lit (and how come brainless literature is associated with women?).

Then I read Everyone Worth Knowing (by Lauren Weisberger, 2006), mostly because the same author wrote the Devil Wears Prada (which I didn't read but I kind of liked the movie). It's a huge book and the author just throws characters at you left and right. I just didn't care enough to keep track of who was who. And then the name drops and label conscious paragraphs (which I've mentioned before)…

Long ago, when I was a child, I used to read all my dad's magazines (I was an odd child). I remember once he got some sort of business magazine and the article on the back page (for some reason, this has stuck with me through the years) was about how to properly reference product names in writing. For example, the article told a story about a housewife running around – one version with generics (such as "facial tissue") and one version with brand names ("Kleenex©" – yes, they had copyrights and trademarks after every name). I don't remember if the point was about copyright issues or how to make a story relatable by using brands the reader knows. Anyway…when I read it, I thought it was a cool concept (I was also probably 6 at the time), that real brands could exist in a fictional world.

But, I hate that (most) chick lit is lugged down with luxury brands, crap most people can't afford (or really, shouldn't want or aspire to afford…I mean shoes for a few thousand?), a kind of brand name porn for women. Blame Sex in the City. This book was just bogged down with names and (I guess) "hip" places in New York City. Ugh. The sad thing was that it was a decent story line (lady quits boring job to work in PR firm, has to pretend to date this guy for the favorable PR, falls for a club bouncer…then it gets into she realizes who her true friends are preachiness, blah). Overall, the book aggravated me. And poor N, she spent $24.99 on it.

So, I decided to try (what I thought would be) an "anti-chick lit" book, Veronica (by Mary Gaitskill, 2005). The book came highly recommended (from real fiction readers, not chick lit fans) and it sounded good. Two friends, 1980s modeling scene, drugs, partying, etc. I was so disappointed by this book. It was incredibly difficult to settle into and even then, if you could get a few chapters in, things didn't make sense. The narrator (who apparently has some drug residue on the brain) reminisces yet springs forward to the now, sometimes mid-paragraph and while it sounds like a good writing technique, the execution failed miserably. In the end, you get a story that is hard to follow (filled with disease, blugh) about characters you don't even care about, hell, that you start to hate after awhile because they can't be followed. I'm up for a challenging read, but this storyline didn't even reward you for the attempt. The narrator was supposed to be poetic and stream of consciousness, but it just came off clunky and unapproachable. I gave up on it half way through and try as I might, I don't care to continue reading it. I haven't even skipped to the last chapter to see how things turn out (because I don't care and because, judging by the odd pacing of the book, the last chapter will probably provide no wrap up).

I have All We Wanted Was Everything (by Janelle Brown, 2008) on my to read next pile (but I am worried the book won't live up to the hype), but, first, to make up for all this fluff reading, I am currently plodding through The Working Poor: Invisible in America (by David Shipler, 2005), which essentially features case studies of different low income workers, ranging from Wal-Mart employees to sweatshop workers (and some economic and government analysis). So far, so good (but the author really likes to harp on the fact that spoiled American consumers need to understand how their goods get made). I mostly bought it because I was so disappointed by Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (by Barbara Ehrenreich, 2008).

Did I mention that yet? I don't think so. I heard so much praise over Nickel and Dimed that I couldn't wait to read it. Essentially, it is a true story about a newspaper columnist/writer who went "undercover" to work minimum wage jobs. Again, fantastic concept, horrible execution.

My biggest problem is (I know, I was surprised at myself) that the author seemed to really pick on Wal-Mart. Everywhere else she worked got a generic name (I swear this one place she worked sounded like a Denny's but she called it Bobby's –something like that – I read this book six months or more ago, so little details are out of my brain), but Wal-Mart was flat out called Wal-Mart. I mean, be consistent. If you are going to use false names, use false names. Anyway, the other thing that bothered me is that the author was clueless. I suppose she lived a sheltered, cocooned life, but, I mean, she was surprised to learn minimum wage jobs were hard (duh), surprised to learn such jobs do drug testing (duuuh). She had an elitist attitude during the book and always seemed to keep herself separate from the jobs and the co-workers, which, I suppose (to some) it just proves you can never truly assimilate. But I think her attitude just encourages the stereotype that the "poor" (aka the working lower to lower-middle class on minimum wage, or not academic level, jobs) are different from you and I. No, they aren't. And in this economy, a sheltered professional could easily find herself out on her ass and having to take any job that would take her.

jen reviews a romance novel

[originally posted on myspace on August 7, 2008, Thursday]

Can't sleep. Let's complain about a book instead.

This post is rated "R."

So, I gave up on reading that one romance novel (the Spanish trillionare or something) via dailylit because, well, it was boring.

Someone donated a bunch of romance paperbacks to Mumbles (imagine my surprise! to Christiany, morally upright, still trying to marry me off Mumbles and she accepted them!). I took one today to read at lunch time, mostly out of boredom (and hoping to find funny passages to read out loud to the kitchen group). So, I picked: Dangerously in Love by Allison Hobbs.

It's essentially the story of a woman (a whiny woman), her husband (a sex freak) and a stripper (that the husband is kinda obsessed with, more on that in a sec).

The wife, Dayna or something, married her husband Reed and really wants to have his baby, even though he's a complete ass during the entire book and seems to never have been remotely nice to her. For some reason (I skipped her sections as she was so annoying), she realizes she needs to divorce his dumb ass, which really ticks him off.

The husband, Reed, likes to go to strip clubs and have sex with other women (preferably dirty, stanky women, which his wife is not). So, yeah, there's lots of talk about variations on him describing his hard ons. Fun. Anyway, he really likes this one stripper but she's not available and he has a crack-head back up that he turns to for cheap sex...but he also has sex with some old lady stripper (with a "reputation" and having sex with her is like making history) and (get this!) in a moment of desparation, the crack-head's great-grandma (ewwwwwwh). When the wife he hates asks for a divorce, he gets pissed (wouldn't he want to be rid of her?) and essentially goes down hill, turning crazeeeeeh.

Then there is the stripper, who is young and stupid and plays out all the stereotypical movie/book stripper mistakes. She loses her job at the club when a co-worker spreads lies about her and ultimately, she becomes an escort (apparently, it's an easy transition) and has all the stereotypical escort run ins (creepy weird guy not into sex, creepy weird guy into dressing as a woman, creepy weird guy who likes it rough, snore). Anyway, somehow she decides to give up that line of work and becomes a waitress. Quickly, she chats up a regular patron, a "nice looking," normal call who calls himself Greg (you see where this is going?). Greg offers to drive her home one night but turns out, Greg is actually crazy ass Reed! He kidnaps her and tortures her (because now he's beyond sex and is all into the power struggle) and, hey, turns out he also kidnapped the crack-head. Who knew? The crack-head somehow escapes and goes to the police.

Stripper gets put into the hospital and decides to get out of stripping/escorting (saying she prayed for a miracle to escape and that crack-head delivered it). Crack-head sells her story to the tabloids for lots of money (seriously). Reed gets arrested or something (who cares at this point?) but whiny wife Dayna? She finds true love! She meets this guy and they eventually have sex...only he goes down on her, he does not (to use proper romance novel lingo) have his own natural, manly release. She worries about this and he tells not to, that this is SACRED LOVE. Um, ok. And again, at the end, he talks some b.s. about sacred love.

Huh?

This book is so confused. It wants to be a thriller, it wants to be preachy. Some of the graphic stuff sneakily borders on American Psycho territory. I just don't picture the stereotypical romance novel reader digging on this (but according to the reviews on Amazon, they did), but props to the author for trying something kind of different.

And I kind of like the pacing. Each chapter is in the voice of a different character but it can be a bit confusing. You are in a scene with one person and she cuts it, akwardly, to another person, in an unrelated scene, but then cuts back to the first person, still resolving his scene. It was a little too back and forth. Overall, it felt like three separate stories smushed into one book...three predictable stories (unloved wife finds real love, stripper with heart of gold repents, and crazy man gets his in the end) that wouldn't have been strong on their own, I suppose...so let's cram them all together.

But my real problem with it is that basically, it teaches that if you enjoy sex, there must be something wrong with you and you will be punished (Reed, the stripper). But somehow, Dayna, who is prudish and just wants to make babies with a husband, any husband, gets rewarded with Mr. Sacred Love and some weight loss induced boost of confidence.

And, just for the record, this is an "African-American" oriented book ["urban romance']...which really meant nothing to me. All it really resulted in was variations of (obnoxious) descriptions of skin colors ("color of coffee with a touch of cream," ugh), some "street" language thrown in for "realness," and some racial slurs towards Italians and Asians. Oh, and the title is referring to a Beyonce song title. I think she'd be proud...

Go Ask Alice, a commentary and distraction from insufferable work conditions

[originally posted on myspace on July 29, 2008 - Tuesday]

And oh, the torture…the water is out (or something) here which means no bathrooms and NO COFFEE. Ugh.

Foreword:

This post sparked my reminiscing about the book. If you never read Go Ask Alice, then I seriously doubt you were ever a pre-teen/teenage girl, as it seems all of them have read it at some point in time. It's essentially the diary of a teenager (apparently, not a real person, but more on that later) who goes through a predictable (now) path of experimenting with drugs to addict destruction to brief redemption back to being given LSD laced peanuts.

And moving on:

I was a bookworm as a child. I read everything in the "Young Adult" aisle (was it even called that back then?) from Judy Bloom to Christopher Pike. I remember when I bought Go Ask Alice. It was a now defunct bookstore, in a mall that still exists but is empty and due to be tore down soon (as soon as the economy recovers). It was towards the middle of the YA row, on the top shelf. It's dreary cover, it's song reference title, it all immediately appealed to me. And once I read the plot synopsis (for some reason, I was deeply interested in fiction about troubled youth – drugs, runaways, etc), I had to buy it.

I'm not sure how old I was at the time, probably late junior high/high school freshman.

And, oh, I bought this book, hook, line and sinker. I remember it scaring me, to think that this all happened to a real person, that this could happen to me or someone I knew. It was similar to the time I watched the pilot episode for Beverly Hills, 90210. It premiered during my first week of high school (possibly even the evening after my first day at high school) and I remember thinking, alternatively excited and petrified, high school is going to be like that??

Sadly, I didn't fully understand fiction, escapism or exaggeration for the sake of ratings back then. But I digress.Like any morally preachy book, this book freaked me out. Drugs were bad. Drugs would make you go from normal teenager to addict to whom all sorts of bad things happen to (again, referring back to long ago post, there is yet another example of the "bad" girl getting punished). And after she tries to clean herself up, she gets sucked back in. And though, I never babysat before and never planned on babysitting ever, even as cool as the Babysitters' Club made it sound, I was paranoid forever about ever babysitting after reading the LSD laced peanuts scene. Essentially, the lesson (though I guess I didn't listen) is that even if you try something just one time(even inadvertently), you are DOOMED.

I remember reading a few times back in the day but haven't thought about it much sense. I kind of thought it was cool that an ex of mine had a copy of it a few years back (and now, looking back on it, geez, the was kinda lame on his part). I didn't find out until more recently that an author (a biased, pro-Establishment author…apparently, a Mormon youth counselor) wrote it, that it was not the work of a "real-life" teen. Finding that out didn't upset me greatly (or much at all), though apparently, there has a ton of backlash about the book's author when others find out that revelation (just look the book up on amazon or read above referenced somewhat bitter/angry post).

Sadly, my copy (my well worn, much read and loved copy) is in storage somewhere now. After reading the above mentioned post and thinking back on some of the passages, yeah, it was corny. It was a bit heavy handed and, in hindsight, preachy and absolutist. The prose did seem, at times, very un-teenager like (but since I was reading it in the 1980s/1990s and it was written, I guess in the 1960s/1970s, I assumed teens back then were more formal and stuffy sounding anyway). But, through all the books (and books and books) I've read, it stuck with me. And I remember where I bought the thing, I remember a majority of the scenes (especially the scarier ones), that's got to be some sort of testament to the impact it has on it's audience (young and dumb and not aware of preachy authors with agendas).

My point is that it served its ultimate purpose – scare preteen/teen aged girls from (temporarily) getting mixed up in that crazy (yet swinging) scene…and I'd much rather have that than the current state of Young Adult lit – brand name brandishing, famous for no reason celebutard adoring Gossip Girl fluff. The fact that you can read it now, as an adult, and obviously see that it was written by an adult and not a real-life teenager…who cares?

Interesting note – Go Ask Alice is (was?) a banned book. I assume it was written to scare kids but yet, it gets banned out of schools so they can't read it…hmm.