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The Real Life Sherman McCoy

Have you ever read Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities? It’s one of my favorites. One of the three main characters, Sherman McCoy, is a stock broker in 1980s New York, a self-proclaimed “Master of the Universe.” Without giving too much of the book away in case any of you want to read it, McCoy, heading back from the airport to his Park Avenue apartment, makes a wrong turn and ends up in the Bronx. When his car is approached by a few young black men McCoy makes the assumption that they are going to try and rob him and his mistress and takes off, hitting one of the men in the process. He flees the scene, not knowing whether or not “the skinny one,” as he is referred to, survives.

At this point I could, obviously, take this post in myriad different directions. I could point out the racism and classism, make a comparison between the New York of the late 1980s and the one that I live in today. I could note how much has changed or, more accurately, how much has not. I could go on about how the in-your-face biases that existed then have, in many ways, been replaced by something slightly more hidden but certainly more dangerous. I could talk about all the people who believe, because they live in some alternate universe of privilege and ignorance, that we are living in some sort of a post-racial society. Those people, of course, are all white. But I won’t. Instead I am going to tell you a story.

The other day at work these two middle aged women came into the bar, sat down and ordered some drinks. They asked me my name, which always makes me a little nervous — that request tends to lead to more annoyance than anything else — and settled in to chat and laugh and enjoy the afternoon. After about an hour and a half, give or take, during which time some guy who was clearly on pills tried to bolt on his bill, one of the women left. The remaining one told me that they were sisters and that they were up in New York from Philadelphia. As she spoke a heart-breaking story emerged. Her sister’s son, her nephew, had just moved up to New York in June and was working in film, living in Bed Stuy, commuting by bike. About three weeks earlier, on his way home, he had been struck by a car and then, while he was on the ground, he was struck by a second car and dragged down the block. Both cars left the scene. A by-stander called 911. I immediately asked about his head, his spine, she assured me they were both, miraculously, fine. She and the doctors attributed his survival to his sheer size: 6’2″ and solidly built. But he still wasn’t out of the woods. The accident broke his arm clear through, fractured every one of his ribs which in turn punctured his lungs. His spleen ruptured and the skin where he was dragged down the asphalt, well, I am sure you can imagine. Gone. This poor kid. He had been here for 4 months.

So I thought back to Sherman McCoy. I remember when I read that book I simply couldn’t get past the not knowing. I couldn’t understand how a person could continue with his life with the knowledge that he may have killed someone and, even worse, that if he hadn’t fled the scene he could potentially have done something to help. Accidents happen but how do you leave? It’s not really an accident anymore, is it? It morphs into a choice.

When she finished telling me the story she asked,

“How did they sleep that night?”

And all I could say, in some attempt at comfort, was

“I hope they never sleep again.”

I meant it. I hope their days are consumed by looking at the news, searching the internet wildly for any information about an accident that occurred on a specific night, in a specific place, clearing their search history as they go for fear that their secret will be discovered. I hope they find nothing. They should continue to wonder. I don’t hope that anything in kind happens to them but I do hope that they have souls because, if they do, then this will eat them alive. As it should. Sean — his name is Sean — will be okay. His Aunt convinced me of this and it seems better to believe it than not. But those assholes? I hope they suffer for the rest of their lives. There is no way they could have mistaken Sean for anything other than he was, is: a human being. And yet not one but two different drivers decided to protect their own asses rather than stop and help. It was an accident. But now it is a choice. And it makes me feel a little sadder about the world I live in.

Tags: bartending, bike accident, biking, Bonfire of the Vanities, Brooklyn, Sherman McCoy, Tom Wolfe

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Uncategorized|

Dear Blood Manor

5 Nov

To Whom it May Concern:

My name is Rebekah and last Thursday after work my friend Jessy and I visited your establishment. For Jessy, who loves all things scary and apparently was not afraid of a movie called The Babadook (which, admittedly, I have never heard of and will never be seeing) this was an outing to be excited about. But for me? Totally different story. I agreed to go because I am always down for an adventure but immediately after agreeing I thought to myself,

Self, that was maybe the stupidest decision you ever made.

You see, I startle quite easily. If there is a thunder storm I jump at every single clap. You could say to me,

Rebekah, I am going to hide out around the corner of this hallway and then when you come down the hall and get to that outlet over there I am going to jump out and scream BOO!

And I will walk down the hallway, completely aware of your plan, and still have a near heart attack. It’s awful. I haven’t watched a scary movie since the 7th grade when a few of my girlfriends and I watched Psycho in the basement of my friend’s house. I didn’t sleep through the night for weeks afterwards and I still have flashbacks of that scene where Norman Bates watched the car sink in the lake whenever I see a bag of Raisinets. There was this one time, over a Labor Day weekend, when my roommates and my then-boyfriend were all out of town and I was home by myself and decided to have a Law and Order: SVU marathon in my bedroom. That night I had a dream that I was the victim in the show and that when I went on the witness stand I realized that the judge in the case was actually my attacker and I had to sit there and continue to testify while he stared at me and then all of a sudden <flash forward> and I was running through some dark, damp house and he was chasing after me with a hammer. Only he wasn’t running. He was walking, calmly, and I knew that he would eventually catch me because I was headed for the roof even though I am fully aware that people in these shows always head for the roof and that is their demise because once you get to the top of whatever building there is nowhere else to go but down or dead. Anyway, I woke up at that point and nearly gave myself a stroke from fear when I thought that a sweatshirt hanging over an open closet door was actually a homicidal maniac watching me sleep, waiting for the perfect moment to bash my head in. As you can imagine I am not well suited for haunted houses.

The days leading up to our visit were a blur of anxiety for me. I am not someone who likes to flake and I had given my word so I knew that barring a freak fire that I would have no role in igniting (….) I would be walking through that haunted house. And then, the day came. All day long I hoped my friend Jessy would forget (there was no way) or just become tired and decide she didn’t want to go (she is the energizer bunny!). I thought maybe she would smell the fear radiating off my body and think, well, maybe this isn’t the best idea. But no. There was no escape. So we got on the train and made our way to your house of ghouls, stopping for some liquid bravery en route.

Before I knew it we were waiting on line to enter. As if the screams coming from inside the building weren’t enough to ratchet up the anxiety level, there were some scary people milling about outside, working the line. There was the woman dressed up sort of like a demented Big Bird, the guy on stilts in something that looked like a zombie costume with a tiny little zombie head on its shoulder and gross-looking gauze dangling all over the place, and a lady in a bustier with dollar bills attached to her body, walking around with a stapler trying to entice us to staple dollars to her skin with real staples. I think maybe that requires repeating. She wanted us to use a real staple gun with actual, real metal staples to puncture her skin. There was blood. It was horrible. I hope she got a tetanus shot. There were two guys ahead of us in line who were amused by my fear and I think maybe thought I was flirting with them a little? I don’t know. It was weird. I mean, they couldn’t know this but I would never flirt with someone in line for a haunted house. How could I think about anything other than maintaining a certain level of calmness in the face of sure doom? I mean, I am a multitasker by trade but that is too much. Even for me.

And then, we got into the House. Everything was dark. And loud. There were laser lights. There was this weird robotic thing that was remote-controlled that would lean into you and blow gross, scary air on you as you walked by. Everyone knew I was afraid. Maybe it was the sweat. Maybe it was the eyes darting frantically to and fro. Or perhaps it was the fact that I was holding onto Jessy’s backpack for dear life, audibly weighing the option of walking through the entire house with my eyes closed like I did at those catacombs in Lima. As we began our adventure, they all came straight for me. The rooms were all decorated with gruesome scenes of torture chambers, demented clowns, circuses gone wrong. And then there were people, always people, impeding your progress with their bodies, getting onto your personal space, breathing on you, whispering not-so-sweet somethings into your ears. We darted around them. I felt like we were in a post apocalyptic version of Frogger. One of the dudes leaned into me and said

I am going to follow you home. I will find out where you live. I will rip you apart.

And this is where it all went from fun to maybe not-so-fun. Just so you know, owner of Blood Manor, this is something that we out in the world call triggering. As someone who has had a weird-o do regular drive-bys of my house when I was in high school, who was followed home here in Brooklyn and who was stalked to a hotel in a mountain town in Guatemala, the fear causing me to lose all access to the Spanish-speaking part of my brain, this was not received as emptily as it had been intended. My stomach dropped. My brain swirled. And then we encountered the angry gorilla man. We entered his lair and he herded us into the corner of the room. We looked around – every single door had an exit sign on it. Which way do we go?! How do we get out?! There were people walking towards us from every direction, looking lost. I couldn’t tell whether they were visitors like us or zombies, walking undeterred towards their next victims. I looked around and said, in a semi-panic,

Where do we go? Which way do we go?!

At that moment I sort of felt like maybe we would be in the house forever. And I didn’t know whether or not we could trust the demented gorilla man. Would he send us in the right direction? Would he tell us to go through a door only to lead us back into the room with the clowns, or worse, the one that looked like a root canal gone wrong?! But he didn’t do either of those things. He hissed

You’re fucking the whole thing up!

And called security. We almost got kicked out of the haunted house. Seriously. Jessy and I almost got ejected by a huge dude in black pants and a black, Blood Manor polo for being afraid of a dude in a weird gorilla suit. I felt like I had left Blood Manor and walked straight into Crazy Town. I looked at the security guard in utter disbelief and simply said,

We’re lost. All the doors have exits on them. And it’s dark. How are we supposed to know where to go?

He pointed at one of the three “exits” which led us into a room we had been through before. We walked around, the shine taken off, the fear evaporated. I looked around the room and rather than seeing gruesome scenes I saw poorly designed sets for underfunded plays. And instead of jumping from monsters and the orchestrators of torture chambers, I saw actors in face paint and gauze, simply trying to pay their rent. They got in our faces, we stared back at them dead-pan. There was no more fear, no more fun. We just wanted out. The gorilla man was a total buzz kill.

We emerged from the house pissed off, trying to figure out what we had done to be nearly ejected. Did we make it through the house too quickly, fucking up the flow? Did we make a wrong turn? Or did we just encounter a ghoul at the end of a long, arduous night, his patience on zero after dealing with scores of assholes, who took his anger out on the wrong people? Lord knows as bartenders we have been on the other side of that equation more than once.

It was a weird ending to what was a fun, albeit anxiety inducing, night. It made me think a lot about perception, about what we bring to the table when we enter an interaction, about what it must have been like for the people acting in the house. My ears were ringing from the loud noises for the rest of the night and into the next day and my eyes took a bit to adjust to normal lighting after spending the better part of 1/2 hour being visually assaulted by flashing bulbs and lasers. I can’t imagine it is a comfortable work environment. Or maybe the guy was just an asshole, not well-suited for his role as an undead gorilla. Either way I sort of feel like you ripped us off, Blood Manor. We will not be back next year. Maybe you should look to hire a new gorilla. Oh, and lose the triggering threats.

Rebekah

Tags: anxiety, fear, friends, Halloween, haunted house, Norman Bates, Psycho, scary

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Categories |At Which Time I Write Letters|, |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Thinks I Think|

A dude told me not to trust the Jews. Funny thing is, I am one.

28 Oct

Working behind the bar is a weird thing. Sometimes it feels as though going through an average day it work is like walking through a moral minefield. At any moment something might happen, someone might say something, that violates my own personal set of morals and I am left trying to figure out where the line is, trying to figure out when I should step in and say something and when I should just shrug my shoulders and walk away. Or, perhaps better yet, whether the smartest approach of all is simply to pretend like I heard nothing and simply carry along, seemingly unphased, while on the inside my mind is running through all the fucked-up implications of whatever it was that I just witnessed and whether or not my silence makes me complicit in a person’s horribleness. It is positively exhausting.

So I have this customer and generally he is okay. Well, more to the point, I thought he was okay. He has very odd tastes in alcoholic beverages but I won’t judge him for that…much. Other than that he mostly keeps to himself and as long as I keep his glass full he is happy and easy. Well, he was happy and easy until he found out I’m Irish (on my mom’s side) and decided he liked me. Not like liked me, like in middle school when you like people, but just liked me as a person, a bartender and, I guess, an Irish(wo)man. Anyway, so then he started telling me things which, in hindsight, I wish he hadn’t.

Note to self: put skin-toned tape over celtic knot on back; continue to not answer the question “where are you from?” with anything other than “Jersey.”

Okay, so here is a thing to know about me, just as an aside. And this might come as a surprise to some of you but I really dislike it when people use words like “gay” and “retarded” pejoratively. I even wrote a blog about it once. Here, read it. The thing is that it is incredibly important to realize the power of language, and to understand that using words that only further marginalize already marginalized groups does actually have an impact on our lived experience. Like, personally, and n on a lighter note, I need to stop calling people “pussies” unless I want to kind of turn the whole thing on its head and rather than using the word to mean that someone is weak or a coward, I could potentially use it to mean that something is strong and amazing! Like a vagina! I mean, I don’t think I could realistically start a one-woman revolution to redefine the meaning of the word pussy in the English language, so I should just retire it (as I have been trying to do) so that the effect of my using it isn’t to make the comparison, which is ever-so-common, between something that is characteristically feminine and something that is weak. You get me? So, yea, pussy has got to go unless I want to be a shitty feminist. And the words “retarded” and “gay” have to go unless you want to be a shitty person.

The reason I mentioned all of that is that I think language matters and I really don’t like when people say anything disparaging about groups of people in my presence and this guy has a habit of making rather off-color comments but in such a way that there is some room to believe that maybe I am reading into them. He doesn’t use things pejoratively, but he will mention someone and then look at me with a sort of side glance and be like

“you know what I mean?”

And it’s like,

“I think so? But I can’t really tell and if you mean what I think you maybe mean then I think you are an asshole and I do not agree with you at all in fact will you just stop talking to me or better yet, just leave?”

And so I am left in this weird sort of middle area where I want to call him out but then if I do call him out he could backtrack and be like you totally misinterpreted that and then I look like the asshole. He’s wiley. I think he was testing the waters. My basic approach was to just appear as uncomfortable as possible and walk away in the hopes that if he did mean what I thought he probably meant that he would realize I was not going to agree with him and we could go back to our previous relationship: he says very little and I make him drinks. That was hoping too much.

The other day he came in and was feeling a little bit chatty and asked me what my drink of choice is.

Me: Powers on the rocks.
Him: (after screwing his face up to demonstrate that he thinks Powers tastes like gut rot) Oh. How did you get on that?

I would like to add in here that I will tell people that I am Irish by descent if it comes up, but I don’t feel particularly attached to the country. I’m sure it’s a really awesome place but I haven’t ever visited there, I know very little about it, I don’t look Irish at all and it didn’t really play a very prominent role in my upbringing. I have the celtic knot on my back not because it represents my heritage, but because when my Grandma, Mima, went to Ireland for the first time in her life she brought me back a necklace with a simple celtic knot on it that I wore for 10 years until it broke so I got it tattooed on there. It doesn’t represent Ireland, it represents Mima. But this is an Irish guy and he asked if I was also Irish after seeing the knot and rather than go into a whole thing I just said yes, because I am.

Me: Well, I was dating this guy and he always drank Jameson on the rocks and I really liked whisky but I didn’t want to be that couple that drinks the same drink so I started on Powers and just never stopped. Funny thing is last time he sat at my bar he ordered a Powers from me. I felt like the winner.
Him: He’s an Irishman!
Me: Chinese Jamaican, actually.
Him: Jeez, where did you find one of those? What a crazy combination.
Me: (Ignoring the “one of those” comments) well, before him I dated a guy who was Jewish and Cuban! So that’s fun.
Him: A Jew? Oh no. Never trust the Jews.

I feel as though it is important, at this point, to address the fact that I am Jewish. That’s right. An Irish-Russian Jew. Bat Mitzvahed and everything. And at this point there was no way to pretend like he wasn’t being a total bigot. So I jumped in.

Me: Oh? Well that’s funny because you seem to trust me plenty.
Him: (Confusion turns to panic) But you’re Irish!
Me: Yup. Also, Jewish. Crazy, right?
Him: Well, the Irish just cancels the Jewish out.

At this point I was seething. In my brain I was saying,

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU BIGOTED PIECE OF SHIT!

But in reality I cocked my head to the side and said, more or less,

It doesn’t work like that. And just so you know, we’re everywhere. Hiding in plain sight.

It was one of those things that I was hoping would sort of scare him, you know, since we are so untrustworthy and all. I mean, I even touched his glass! I handled his money! I might have been swindling him and he would never even know it because he thought that I was a trustworthy Irish person rather than a lying, stealing, cheating Jew!

Anyway, it was crazy. He felt like an asshole and tipped me really well. He didn’t apologize though, or take it back. And I bet every time he sees me now he is always trying to see the (not so visible) Irish in me and ignore the (blatantly obvious) Jewish characteristics. So now I am left feeling like maybe I should have called him out on the earlier, sneakier things rather than wait for him to prove himself to be an actual bigot who was bigoted against me, you know? And, just as another aside, I said to someone recently that whenever someone, or a group of someones, is generally bigoted, they always also hate the Jews. People are always hating the Jews. All through history and shit. And this person was all “nah, people don’t hate the Jews anymore. Not after Hitler and all that” and I was like “um…hello?” And now I wish I could remember who that person was and I would tell them all about this dude and be like,

QED mother fucker. Q. E. D.

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Categories |A Bartending Life|, |My (Awkward) Day|, |Things That Get My Hackles Up|

An Open Letter to a Developer

16 Oct

Dear Ryan Pedram,

Hi, my name is Rebekah and I live down the block from the luxury condominiums you are currently constructing. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my street. I have lived on this block for over 10 years now. Even still, even with all these young kids from where ever they are coming from moving into Brooklyn in droves every month and saying they are “from” here, I don’t think I can actually call myself a New Yorker. It never feels as though I have been here quite long enough to call this city my own without feeling like an impostor. Even still, I love my block and it is more my home than probably anywhere else. Despite what people say about the anonymity and lack of community here in New York, I know my neighbors if not by name then certainly by face. I wave at them and chat with them when I go about my day and they notice when I leave on some adventure or other for an extended period of time; they notice when they haven’t seen me running in a while; they just notice. Well, those who are left do, anyway. See, my block has changed quite a bit in the past few years. It seems like every few months one of those familiar faces is forced to sell their property under the pressure of constantly rising property taxes and in response to the threats made by developers like you.

Now listen, I am not going to sit here and pretend like my arrival over 10 years ago wasn’t a canary in the mine shaft to some of the people who have lived here for decades, generations, even. When young, white kids start moving in, you know shit is about to change. I did my best to respect the place I was moving to, the neighborhood that existed before my arrival. I never once acted, like so many newcomers do, as though I “discovered” something. Talk about some language reminiscent of colonialism, ya know? I know now that my young, privileged face read as an upcoming rent hike to those that lived here then. Like the beginning of the end. Like gentrification (which it was). To those people, I apologize. Seriously. I know it doesn’t make it better but I am truly sorry. Even with what followed: all the new faces, the new bars, the coffee shops, the thrift stores, the bike shops, the bike shops, the bike shops — all the trappings of Hipster New York that have made Brooklyn a brand and paved the way for a Banana Republic to open on Fulton Mall (like, what?!) — this neighborhood has, in many ways, remained itself: low key and unassuming. A lot of the people on my block have managed to hold on.

But now the new New York that has been plaguing neighborhoods all over the city, but most notably Brooklyn, has arrived here. (Thank you for that, Bloomberg.) And you are responsible for the building currently going up on my block. This past spring and summer, men in suits descended on my street, trying to buy up whatever buildings and lots they could. A house that had gone down during Sandy, one which was never cleared away, suddenly looked like dollar signs. Buildings with residents — houses where people lived — were condemned by the city and those people forced out to look for new housing in a place where rent prices seem to climb by the second. Then those houses were leveled. And then silence. Until this past week.

This week has been horrible. I, like many people I know, live an off-schedule. I am a bartender and a writer. I keep odd hours and I work from the table in my (usually relatively quiet) kitchen. I understand that I cannot expect the world to kowtow to my abnormality. But the construction has made my home absolutely uninhabitable. Noise I can handle. I live in New York and share this space with millions of people and I understand what that entails. If I wanted pitch black nights with stars and crickets and to be awoken by birds in the morning, I would move to the country. But Mr. Pedram, everything is shaking. The work your contractors are doing up the block, which, by the way, they said they would be done with by 6pm on Tuesday when I first spoke with them (it is currently Friday at noon), is causing things to fall off my refrigerator, my coffee to dance across the table, my cats to cower, fur standing straight up, under the sofa for hours. When I called you on the phone just now you said that the Department of Buildings had been called to the site 2 dozen times and that this portion of the work would be completed in 45 minutes. As if the fact that you aren’t breaking any of their bullshit regulations should offer me some solace. I mean, I know this is crazy but how about you offer us some compensation? I am paying rent on a space I cannot be in. You stand to make millions and millions of dollars. Do the math.

I am not going to act as though my experience has been any different from, worse than even, the hundreds of thousands, hell, millions of New Yorkers who have watched as their neighborhoods become unrecognizable, as the homes they’ve rented for years become unaffordable, as the mom-and-pop shops they have frequented close and make way for banks and pharmacies, banks and pharmacies, more banks and more pharmacies. And I know, it is a lot worse for other people. My roommates and I are still able to afford our apartment, for now. And I am so incredibly thankful for that. But when those starry-eyed newcomers with their strollers hogging the sidewalks, their cars taking our parking spaces, their money closing our neighborhood businesses arrive, how long do the rest of us have? They will have “discovered” this neighborhood that existed for so long before them and before me and it will start to look like everywhere else.

I know that it is all money to you. But just for a second, can you acknowledge that people live here? More than that, even. Acknowledge that people have lives here. Lives that they have worked hard to establish. Lives that deserve better than apartments that shake because you need to make way for the new hip neighborhood. Because after you do that, after you throw up this shottily-constructed building that, if the other new construction in this neighborhood is any indication, will begin falling apart within 3 years, you will move onto the next thing, pockets lined with cash. And those of us who live here now, probably won’t be able to afford it anymore. And where do we go? Where do any of us go? Where do all of the people — in Crown Heights, Long Island City, Harlem, East New York, Astoria, Mott Haven — go? And how much longer can this really go on? How many more newcomers with money can there be?

I’m sure you don’t have the answers any more than I do. And I am not going to act as though this is something only affecting me and the neighborhood I live in. I know this has been going on for years, that I am lucky to have avoided it so long, that other people, specifically people of color, have it worse. I know that I am partially to blame. But fuck, man. My house is shaking and the only thing I have to look ahead to is an ugly new building going up on my block. Assuming I can still afford to live here.

So thank you for taking the time to answer my phone calls today, for speaking with the contractors about my complaints, and for saying that you “understand and feel for what I am going through.” Thank you, in short, for attempting to placate me. But just so you know, I think you, and all the people doing what you are doing in the name of personal enrichment, are assholes. I think you are all destroying this city. This city that gets slightly less awesome with every single personality-less building that clutters the skyline. And by the way, it has been more than 45 minutes and my house is still shaking.

Sincerely,

Rebekah

Tags: Brooklyn, change, city living, developments, displacement, gentrification, income disparity, New York City, noise

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Uncategorized|

“Well he doesn’t live in Afghanistan. Like me.”

15 Oct

You know that thing that people always say to kids who don’t want to finish all the food on their plate? You know,

“eat all those peas because there are kids starving in (insert name of country that currently brings to mind deprivation here).”

I mean, to be entirely honest with you, it would be just as accurate, and probably more meaningful, to say something like,

“eat all those peas because there are kids starving down the block only you likely won’t ever be faced with it because we do a really good job of hiding our poverty problem in plain sight and then pointing a judgemental finger at others.”

I mean, what a truly ridiculous thing to say to children. To make them feel as though by not finishing all the food on their plates they are at most contributing to, and at least complicit in, the starvation and suffering of their peers the world over. I mean, obviously wasting food is not a good thing and we should appreciate what we have from a young age, but everyone knows pretty much everything (except fried food) tastes better the next day anyway and Little Sally’s pea consumption, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with inequality in food access. It actually would make more sense to draw a parallel between the effects on food production caused by changes in climate which is a direct result of our overconsumption of fossil fuels and the methane gas emissions of our industrial agriculture than some little kid forgoing the overcooked veggies on her plate. But I digress.

The reason that I bring this is up is that there is this thing that happens on the Internet and In Real Life that drives me absolutely bananas. So let’s say you go on your Facebook page or Twitter feed and you say something like

“Ugh I got shat on by another bird. Worst day ever.”

And then someone writes you back and is like,

“Well if that’s your worst day then consider yourself lucky. You could be getting bombed in Gaza.”

or some shit. And it’s like, fuck, now I feel kind of bad because you’re right, it would be way worse to be bombed in Gaza, or anywhere really, than to be shat on by a bird. But at the same time it’s like, no, fuck you, I was obviously being fascitious and really, what the fuck does one thing even have to do with the other?! Nothing! Nothing at all! And also, there is no way for me to be bombed in Gaza because I am here in Brooklyn. So, if we’re being accurate, I actually couldn’t be bombed in Gaza. Just like wasted peas will not change someone else’s access to a nutritious meal, my feeling negatively about being shat on does not mean I am incapable of feeling negatively about other things at the same time. I can be mad about my own experience with bird shit and simultaneously be mad about people living in fear of aerial bombings. The brain is magical.

So I remember when Michael Brown was murdered and a lot of people were, rightfully, posting links to articles about it. The people in my circle by and large were appalled and there were lots of exchanges about institutionalized and systemic racism and a renewed hope that maybe by blowing the lid open on the fact that racism is endemic in the United States we could really get to the process of addressing it, having a real, honest and hurtful nationwide conversation about racism and its implications, and maybe, just maybe, move in the direction of change. Meanwhile, some kid posted an article about Syria and was like,

“All this talk about Michael Brown and no one cares about what is happening in Syria right now.”

And it’s like, I’m sorry, what?! Because the fact that we care about this tragedy necessarily means that we can’t simultaneously care about that one? It’s like Jesus fucking Christ, man! What in the world is wrong with you?! So, what? You’re going to go to Ferguson and tell the parents of Michael Brown that what happened to their son was terrible but, hey, what about the implications of our drug war in Mexico? I mean seriously. Go fuck yourself. There are terrible things that happen in the world all the time. Sometimes those things happen to us and people we know and sometimes they don’t. We cannot possibly engage with all the horrible all the time because it would eat us alive. Believe me, I have tried my damnedest. But also, that there are worse things happening to other people doesn’t mean that the shitty things that happen to us are any less real. Losing someone in a car accident is not any less painful because we are in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence. Those things are simply not connected. Our pain is our pain, our experience is our experience. Plain and simple.

I bring this up because the other day at work some random drunk woman (British, blonde, middle-aged; this is relevant, I swear) commented that someone looked angry. I said he wasn’t angry. Just having a rough week. And she looks at me and she says, and this is a direct quote,

“Well he could live in Afghanistan. Like me.”

My brain basically exploded. I stared at her for slightly longer than was comfortable and I walked away. Obviously I have been thinking about this nonstop since it happened. If I had a chance to speak with her again, this is what I would say…give or take:

You are a self-righteous asshole. I am sure that you have seen plenty of terrible things, but that does not diminish the impacts of the things that happen to others in their day-to-day lives. Loss, physical pain, anger, loneliness, heartache and yes, even happiness do not cease to exist because there are injustices happening elsewhere in the world. There is not a finite amount of feelings that exist, like by feeling happy about one thing means that you necessarily have less anger to feel about another. And if someone has a shit day then they have a shit fucking day, regardless of how shitty someone else’s might have been. That is honestly neither here nor there. And, besides, last I checked you were sitting at my bar with your girlfriends on a Saturday night getting wasted off Kettle 1 and sodas. I am sure that what you do, things you have been exposed to, have been difficult but the fact of the matter is that you get a week off. And in that week off, maybe don’t shame people about their lives. Because honestly, the best way to get people to stop listening to you, to stop wanting to learn, is to behave exactly the way you behaved. Talk to people, not down to them. You are not better than anyone else.

Obviously I didn’t say any of that but hopefully someone will, in real time, and much more articulately than I could manage even with 5 days of thought going into it.

Tags: deprivation, international aid, peas, self-righteous, shame

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|

Donald Trump is kind of our fault

5 Oct

I have actually written about Donald Trump on this blog not once, but twice. The first time was right after he tweeted that Kate Middleton shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude and that she only had herself to blame” for the photos that spread like wildfire on the internet. What he forget to mention, of course, was the fact that she and Prince William were at some super secluded chalet somewhere in the woods and some asshole paparazzi with a crazy telephoto lens took her photograph from so far away that she would have appeared more like a spot in the distance to the unaided eye rather than someone flaunting her nudity for the world to see. That’s basically the same thing as if a Peeping Tom who took a woman’s photo while she was in the shower through her curtains using some sort of crazy perv camera and then saying that maybe if that woman had purchased curtains that were impenetrable by x-ray beams then she wouldn’t have had her photo taken and so basically it was her fault. Not the dude who bought the camera. No, of course not. But the woman who did not protect herself from every potential breach of privacy regardless the likelihood. I also would like to say for the record that women, and men for that matter, should be able to sunbathe nude with the reasonable expectation that no one photographs them and then distributes said photographs to “news” organizations. Also, to take it one step further, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but if these organizations would stop being dicks and refuse to purchase nonconsensual nude photos then maybe assholes like the photographer in this story wouldn’t purchase cameras with telephoto lenses, or whatever they are called, to steal images of people. A girl can dream.

The second post I wrote was 2 days later on the same topic only this time Trump made it worse. He was able to make it worse because Fox “News” invited him onto “Fox and Friends” to elaborate on his tweet because obviously 140 characters worth of misogyny was not nearly enough. He made sure to tell people that obviously he liked Kate Middleton (which I am sure made her feel oodles better because anyone who is anyone wants Donald Trump to think favorably of them) but went on to say that exposing yourself when famous is just asking for trouble because if someone stands to make money off of your nudity then of course that’s precisely what they should do. Not, you know, be a decent human being. And then to make matters worse he commented on how someone had posted a picture of Prince Harry’s dick online and rather than be consistent and be like “well it’s his own fault for exposing himself” he said that Harry’s security detail fucked up. Photos of a naked female? The woman’s fault. Photos of a naked man? His security detail.

So anyway, when I wrote about Donald Trump the other two times it was like, ugh, why won’t this clown shut the fuck up?! And now? A few years later? Dude is leading in the presidential polls! Where are we living? Opposite land?! And it’s like, I really don’t want to give him any more credibility by taking him seriously enough to even write about him (even though not many people read this blog but whatever) but I am just so dumbfounded. Like, for real. This shit is bonkers.

So I just got back from traveling through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand with my friend Carrie and during our trip numerous people, finding out that I am American, asked me what the deal was with Donald Trump. And I mean, how do you even answer a question like that? Because what IS the deal? So far what he has done is insult practically everyone, make a mockery of our political system and reawaken all the rabidly racist, sexist, antisemitic groups in this country all while taking absolutely zero responsibility for the impacts of his words. I mean, seriously, the person leading the polls is someone who refers to himself as The Donald. THE DONALD! WHAT IS THAT?! It’s like, fuck! We have this guy who is all on about his money and whatever and he has filed for bankruptcy like 100 times. And he makes duck face always. And his hair is stupid. And he is still angry about something (entirely accurate) that Rosie O’Donnell said in 2006. I mean, imagine this dude as president. Actually, maybe don’t because I just did and it made me really sad. Also, angry.

I just don’t understand how this dude has said and done all the fucked up shit that he has said and done and he is still relevant. Actually relevant! He released both Lindsey Graham and Jorge Ramos’ private cell phone numbers; he said John McCain is not a war hero; he made lame ass comments about Megyn Kelly’s period; and, just, his hair. And while I am on about his hair, I am just going to copy/paste this quote from Vanity Fair here:

“In this 2002 photograph, Trump has changed his hair color to ‘Burnt-Cheetos Auburn.’ As well, the conventional hairsprays and salon products of years past appear to have given way to rubber cement and snot.”

I don’t know. I know that for a time, and maybe even still right now, some people thought this whole thing was funny. But it wasn’t funny, it isn’t funny, and it won’t even be funny when a few years in the future we look back and say, “hey, remember that time that poor excuse for a human being ran for president and actually led the polls for kind of a while?” Cuz the way I see it, this is just emblematic of the fact that our country is very sick. Very, very sick. I mean, look at what is happening. We have people shooting up schools, churches, parking lots and movie theaters damned near every day. We can’t pass meaningful gun control policy after a bunch of kindergardeners were murdered and a racist fuck opened fire in a church during worship. We have a somewhat sizeable portion of the population that still believes, despite the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that our president was not born here. We have a bunch of overpaid white dudes trying to defund a woman’s health organization because they want to legislate what happens inside of our bodies and they simultaneously want government to mind its own business. We have some asshole raising the price on AIDS medication because his personal enrichment matters more than the lives of millions of people worldwide. I could continue but it’s just too damn early and shit is too damn fucked up.

Shit is bad. People keep saying that we will reach some sort of breaking point but I just don’t even know. We refuse to deal with the institutionalized problems within our country that keep the status quo. And we refuse to acknowledge that the American Dream is becoming less and less real and trying to “Make America Great Again,” as fucking Donald Trump says, is going to do absolute shit if all we care about is money and keeping the disempowered where they are. Donald Trump’s ascension, and his staying power, is significantly less surprising when we take the state of our country into account and realize that our population is kept intentionally ignorant about the reality of our political situation and that the lives of anyone other than the rich and famous are simply unimportant. It is all a game of being the coolest kid on the block and, unfortunately, some dude who regularly launches ad hominem attacks from his Twitter account is in the lead. This isn’t funny. It’s fucked.

Tags: 2016, America, antisemitism, decision 2016, Donald Trump, GOP, hair, Kate Middleton, presidential race, racism, sexism, The Donald, USA

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Thinks I Think|

Some Spacial Awareness, If You Please

12 Dec

I know I’ve been a little quiet lately but I blame the fact that I have been working like a crazy person. I also blame the amount I have been working on this massive cold I have come down with. It is epic. Seriously, I woke up yesterday and my snot was the color of a locally sourced organic egg. Orange. It was horrifying. I guess this is what you get for working regularly in 3 different bars, and occasionally working in two bars in one day. And then working the following night in bar number 3. You just end up coming in contact with all sorts of nasty things. Dirty glasses, people who blow their noses and then leave the tissues on the bar for you to pick up and lots and lots of one of the dirtiest thing out there: money. I touch a lot of money. And when I don’t put a small piece of fruit or a glass with some water near my register I end up licking my fingers a lot to get the change. I touch the money and then lick my fingers and then touch the money again. I can actually taste the grime. I don’t even want to know what kind of shit I am putting in my body on the regular. Probably the kind of shit that gave me the cold that I now have. Probably the kind of shit that caused me to have snot that resembles a box of Crayola crayons.

Anyway, not the point. The point is spatial awareness. I have been noticing recently, and I don’t really know why this is surprising to me, that people have absolutely no idea that they do not own whatever piece of ground they happen to be traveling over. I get it. This is a city inhabited by a huge number of self-involved pricks but if ever there is a time to think communally it is when you are traversing the grid. Or when you are traveling on the bus or subway. There is a finite amount of space, people. You gotta share it. So I decided to compile a list-like thing with some of the areas that could use some, er, improvement. And I am sorry for the quality of writing here. I blame the aforementioned snot infestation of my brain.

1. Umbrellas

Back in the day when MySpace was a thing that non-musicians used, I wrote a blog all about proper umbrella courtesy. I think about that blog often, mostly every time it rains and I almost get my eye poked out with someone’s mishandled golf umbrella. A size of umbrella, by the way, that has absolutely no place in a city like New York. I just feel as though the sidewalks are only so big and when your umbrella takes up the whole thing so that other pedestrians are forced into the street where they are likely to get soaked when a passing car plows through a puddle well, that’s a problem. And I get it, buying an umbrella from the “UM-brella, UM-brella” guys on the corner seems silly since those things last two, maybe three good rains but at least they leave space for the rest of us, ya know? I would take an UM-brella toter over a golf umbrella person any day, even though sometimes one of the prongs on the UM-brella is sticking out at an odd angle, making passing the UM-brella person a bit, er, treacherous. I fear for my eyeballs when it rains, I really do.

Since I am on about umbrellas, I have a few more little things to mention. There are some times when having your umbrella open is simply unnecessary. One instance that comes immediately to mind is when you are walking underneath some scaffolding. Scaffolding is like an umbrella, in that it blocks the rain from falling on you, only it is shareable in a non-awkward way and made of wood. There is no need to double up, folks, because when you do other people, people who maybe left the house without an umbrella and haven’t gotten a chance to buy a new one, are forced onto the street where they inevitably get wet. And there you are, safely walking under not one but two devices keeping your precious clothing bone dry. It just ain’t right.

And one other thing, when you are walking down to the subway or up from the subway, put your umbrella down. Especially if you have a golf umbrella. I know it sucks to get a little wet but come on. When you have a golf umbrella you are the only person that can fit on those narrow subway stairs because you are carrying a huge, unwieldy felt weapon that could blow in any direction at any time, splattering passers-by with rain droplets and maybe, just maybe, skewering an eye or two (are you sensing a theme here?). I have missed more than one train because some asshole with an oversized umbrella blocked the entrance to the subway and I was none too pleased about it. None. Too. Pleased.

2. Strollers

You guys, with the strollers, come ON. I honestly think, and correct me if I am wrong here, that double-wide strollers should simply be outlawed in New York City. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have to have such a law on the books because people would have enough sense to get those like stacking strollers, or the kids-facing-each-other strollers, but no. People in this city INSIST on the double-wide which, you know, takes up the entire sidewalk and then those people act inconvenienced when the stroller doesn’t fit in a store, or isn’t allowed in a restaurant. If your stroller can’t fit comfortably through a normal-sized doorway, then you shouldn’t be using the stroller. End of story.

Then there is this other thing that I have been noticing recently. On more than one occasion in the past few weeks I have noticed a dude walking down the street with a stroller, seemingly taking his child on some errands, or for some fresh air, or whatever it is that parents with kids do which I imagine is not that different from some of the things that I do only I do my things unencumbered by anything other than a shoulder bag. But here is the kicker: instead of walking directly behind the stroller, he walks behind the stroller and to the left, pushing the stroller with his right hand. He is not doing this so he can walk alongside the stroller and have a conversation with his kid which would still be annoying but at least would make sense. He is just casually walking down the street, paying the kid no mind, and meanwhile taking up the entire sidewalk. It’s like, dude, it doesn’t matter how far away you walk from the stroller we all know the stroller, and the child it contains, belongs to you. And if that is embarrassing to you for some reason, get one of those damn Bjorn things and give the rest of us some damn space.

On a side note does anyone else find it sort of off-putting when people go to the store without their kids but with their strollers and put their grocery shopping in the stroller where the kid would normally be? I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for this – the parent dropped the kid off somewhere and decided, since they already had the stroller in tow, to use it for other things – but it always gets my mind running. Makes me feel like I am in the middle of some horror film. Like, this kid got kidnapped and the parent never leaves the home without the stroller just in case she runs into the kid on the street even though the kidnapping happened like 15 years ago and the kid wouldn’t even fit in the stroller anymore if the kid was to turn up. Dun dun duuuuuuuuuun!

3. Hand holders, butt pocket hand-putter-inners, waist encirclers, etc.

Let me just start off by saying these two things: (1) I am not one of those angry anti-relationship, anti-PDA people who gets offended by people proclaiming their love for their partner, or their appreciation for their friend; and (2) I, personally, do not like hand-holding but that has nothing to do with this particular entry in the list. This is all about the space. Because what I have noticed, and maybe I am wrong, is that when people are holding on to another person in some manner or another they tend to amble along rather slowly. I’m no speed walker or whatever but I, like most New Yorkers, have a rather brisk gate. I might not have anywhere that I have to be at any particular time, but I will get there at a decent clip, ya know? I don’t actually mind a solo ambler, but it does become a little difficult when amblers attach to other amblers and they then create this impenetrable fortress of amble. Then you have to either slow down to their pace (well, I never!) or else step into the street and risk being run into by an overly aggressive cycler who may or may not be riding on the wrong side of the road. Treacherous.

4. Scooters

In the interest of full disclosure I need to make this one thing clear: I despise scooters. Oh man they make me so mad. I know that this is unreasonable but it’s a fact. So this paragraph will be dripping with disdain. Just so you know. Don’t take it personally but I hate your scooter and when you are on it, I hate you a little bit also. (Kidding. Maybe.) I think that adults look ridiculous on them and, honestly, if you ride a scooter as an adult you should ride in the bike lane along with the people riding respectable modes of transportation like bicycles and skateboards. As for kids on scooters, well that’s a whole other thing. Kids on scooters are my second worst New York City transportation nightmare, just after riding on a train with a bunch of middle school students that just get let out of class for Christmas break or some shit. Kids on scooters are a force to be reckoned with. They go so fast and a lot of times they don’t really know how to control their scooters and it’s like this horrible game of chicken only they are wearing helmets and you are not. Take one scooter-powered helmet to the hip and you’ll understand my concern. That’s a bruise.

I just actually had this flashback. So there was this girl in high school who got one of those rolly backpacks. She was this little slip of a thing and she was taking ALL of the classes so she always had so many books and she put them in her backpack, only it wasn’t really a backpack it was like a rocket-powered travel suitcase and the “rocket power” came from her, running full speed through the hallways so she could get the best seat in class. That’s what I always figured, anyway. I was always a little annoyed by her until one day, on my way to class, she ran right into me! And I fell down! In the hallway! And she didn’t even apologize, she barely even stopped, she just zoomed off down the hallway to class. I was furious. So what did I do? I wrote an article in the school newspaper about the perils of getting to class in the age of rolly backpacks. I am pretty sure I got called into the principal’s office over that one because this one girl was the only one in the school that had such a backpack and the principal thought it sounded like a personal attack, which it was, but it was too late because it was already printed. Rolly backpack girl knocked over the wrong spiteful writer!

By the way, I take some comfort in the fact that my disdain is at least consistent.

5. Gaggles

I like to travel in a good gaggle just like the next gal but when gaggle traveling it is important to be aware of the scope and size of your gaggle. A gaggle takes up more space than a duo, or a trio even (trios being problematic because of the odd-numbered nature of the crew), and so it is good to break off into groups in an effort to share the sidewalk.

Okay, you guys, I actually don’t encounter gaggles all that often I just really like the word. Gaggle, gaggle, gaggle. It’s so fun. And, yea, it is annoying when you see a gaggle and you have to go around them but whenever I see one I always just giggle about the gaggle and it makes the slight inconvenience of passing them by totally worthwhile. Hopefully I will see a gaggle today. I could use a good gaggle giggle. Actually, just typing “gaggle giggle” did the trick.

This post brought to you by my snot-infested brain. You’re welcome.

Tags: Brooklyn, New York City, NYC, rain, Razr Scooters, sidewalks, streets, traveling, umbrellas, walking

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Uncategorized|

Representative Peter King Blamed Garner’s Death on his Obesity

4 Dec

I am really angry. The decision to not so much as indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner is the most obvious case of institutionalized racism I think I have ever seen. It is unbelievable. Hearing the decision yesterday made me physically ill. I am so disgusted, saddened, disillusioned, embarrassed by our “justice” system that I can’t even put my feelings about the whole thing into words. So instead I am going to direct all my anger at Republican Congressman Peter King from Long Island. My mom once told me that sometimes it is good to have a hate object and well, Congressman King is my hate object. So, in over 3000 words, I transcribed the majority of an interview King gave to Wolf Blitzer of CNN interspersed with my largely unbridled rage. There is a lot of swearing. I hope I got it right but please, tell me if I didn’t.

Wolf Blitzer: What’s your reaction to the grand jury decision today?

Rep. Peter King (hereafter RPK): First of all the death was tragic and…uh…and our hearts have to go out to…uh…the Garner family. Having said that, I do not believe, I feel strongly that the police officer should not have been indicted. I’ve been following this case from the start. He had a 350-pound person who was resisting arrest.

They were arresting him for selling loosies. And although he did resist being handcuffed, which I would imagine happens quite often, Garner neither attacked any of the 5 officers who surrounded him nor did he attempt to flee. His being 350-pounds does not by definition make him a threat.

RPK: The police were trying to bring him down as quickly as possible.

Using a chokehold. The use of chokeholds, according to the New York Law Journal, was limited in some form since at least 1985, when police commissioner Benjamin Ward issued this order:

1. Effective immediately, choke holds, which are potentially lethal and unnecessary, WILL NOT be routinely used by members of the New York City Police Department.

2. Choke holds will ONLY be used if the officer’s life is in danger or some other person’s life is in danger and the choke hold is the least dangerous alternative method of restraint available to the police officer.

We can all agree, since we have seen the motherfucking video of Eric Garner dying in broad daylight while pleading for his life, that at no point in time were the lives of any of the officers in danger at all. There is no grey area here, there are no inconsistencies. Eric Garner was murdered, plain and simple. On August 1st the fucking medical examiner reported that Garner’s death was due to compressions of the neck and “prone position during physical restraint by the police.” It was ruled a homicide.

Also important to note, because the ban on chokeholds has been in effect for so long, New York City police officers are not actually trained to execute the move properly, increasing the risk of injury or death significantly.

RPK: If he had not had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese almost definitely he would not have died from this.

Apparently Representative King thinks the appropriate course of action here is to blame Eric Garner, and his pre-existing health conditions, for his own death. According to Rory I. Lancman and Daniel Pearlstein of the New York Law Journal, “What makes a chokehold so dangerous is how quickly it can kill, depending on a number of essentially unpredictable (and even unknowable) variables, including the underlying physical and mental health of the person being restrained and the skill of the officer applying the hold.” So, yea, Garner’s health was a contributing factor to his death (according to the coroner’s office) but do you know what the actual factor was? The chokehold. A chokehold which was likely improperly executed because, as per NYPD regulations, Officer Daniel Pantaleo was not properly trained to use the move. And the thing is that if he had not used it, improperly and unnecessarily, Eric Garner, despite his being asthmatic, despite his being overweight, and despite his having a heart condition would almost certainly still be alive right now. In the words of Representative King, “almost definitely he would not have died.” But let us continue.

RPK: The police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition. I know that people were saying that he said 11 times or 7 times I can’t breath? Well the fact is if you can’t breath you can’t talk.

Fuck you you mother fucking piece of shit. Do you know why people are saying he said “I can’t breath” 11 times? Because he did. And you know how we know that? Because we saw the video. Eric Garner was being strangled, he was forcibly put on the ground, face first, and held there by the weight of more than one police officer. He died as result of compressions to the neck and the position he was placed in by police officers during his arrest. He could not breath. He died because he could not breath. And that is the fault of the arresting officers. Not his preexisting health condition. He died because Officer Daniel Pantaleo murdered him.

RPK: And if you’ve ever seen anyone locked up resisting arrest, and I’ve seen it, and it’s been white guys, and they’re always saying ‘you’re breaking my arm,’ you’re choking me,’ ‘you’re doing this,’ so police hear that all the time. They…uh…in this case…uh… a chokehold is not illegal, it is against department regulations, but if you look carefully I don’t think there was an intent to put him in a chokehold because he does move the baton as he brings him down.

So according to King because the police apparently hear all kinds of people whining about being hurt or, you know, strangled and because sometimes those people whining are White guys then the police couldn’t possibly be expected to take the whining of this man, who just happened to be Black, seriously. But the point of a chokehold is to cut off airflow, to keep someone from breathing. And it has a history of killing people. It was banned in LA because it was the cause of death of 16 people being arrested between the years of 1977 and 1982. And if our knowledge of (the lack of) police accountability means anything, I would venture to guess the actual number is higher. Also, Representative King, does the name Anthony Baez ring a bell? Because the Eric Garner case is hauntingly similar. Anthony Baez died from asphyxiation after being subjected to a police chokehold and subsequently suffering an asthma attack in 1994. The officer was acquitted. Twenty years, no fucking difference.

RPK: Also people are saying very casually that this was done out of racial motives, or a violation of civil rights. There’s not a hint there that anyone used any racial epithet and also what’s not mentioned is the senior officer on the squad that was there on the location was an African American female sergeant. So I don’t knot where the racial angle comes in. I have no doubt that if that was a 350-pound White guy he would have been treated the same.

I don’t actually think that anyone is saying anything casually. I think people are saying this with all the seriousness and with all the gravity that they can muster. I think people are saying this based on a history of institutionalized racism that dates back over 200 years. I don’t think there is anything casual about hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets across the country, across the entire world, to say this is not okay, that this is not justice, that Black lives DO matter and that all of us of all races and religions and backgrounds see that. There is nothing casual about the Lincoln tunnel being shut down, about die-ins, about the millions of tweets, about the pain that so many people are feeling, about the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown and Anthony Baez and Sean Bell and Tamir Rice and Amadou Diallo and all the others. There is nothing casual about any of it because we are sick and tired of the consistent valuation of people based off their skin color. And the police officers don’t have to actually say anything racist for their actions to be racially motivated. They were not afraid of Garner because he was huge, they were afraid of Garner because he was huge while being Black. And they acted the way they acted because the risk involved was so low because the odds are they wouldn’t be held accountable for their actions because usually they aren’t. Because in our society, in our police forces, in our justice system Black lives don’t matter. This case is an example of that reality and there is nothing casual about it. It is fucking disgusting.

And the fact that the person in charge was “an African American female sergeant?” That’s like when people say they aren’t racist because they have Black friends. There being a Black person present does not take the element of racism out of the equation and that the person was female makes this statement absolutely laughable. We live in a culture that not only exhibits institutionalized racism but also institutionalized misogyny. And just as racism seems to flourish in organizations such as police departments, so too does misogyny. But I wouldn’t expect someone as unexamined, as willfully ignorant as Representative Peter King to be able to understand something like that.

Rep. King then goes on a minute long explanation of the police officers’ presence in the neighborhood, saying that it was at the request of the people “in that minority community” that they were there because Garner was “constantly selling cigarettes outside their establishments.” So obviously since people of color allegedly had a problem with Garner selling loosies then the police presence, and their subsequent actions, was not only justified but also completely without racial undertones. Oh, okay, I get it now.

Wolf: Chokeholds, I’m told, are banned by the New York City Police Department, Congressman, so I guess a lot of the question is why isn’t the police officer, in this particular case Daniel Pantaleo, being held accountable if in fact he did engage in that chokehold?

RPK: First of all it’s not illegal it’s against departmental policy so that has nothing to do with committing a crime. Secondly there is a real debate as to whether or not that was a chokehold because he did not seem to sustain the baton at the Adam’s apple…

A debate in your head, and amongst your racist friends, does not actually count as a real debate, sir. And when you are capable of watching a man murdered on tape and come out the other side saying only “he did not seem to sustain the baton at the Adam’s apple,” I just, you have not a human bone in your body. You have no emotion, no empathy, no sense of right and wrong. You are so blinded, so controlled, by the societal norms that you claim don’t exist. You actually make me sick.

RPK:…and again I don’t think there’s any indication either they intended to choke him…when you have a 350-pound guy that’s resisting and he’s almost 6 to 7 inches taller than you (and he’s black) you try to grab him where you can and bring him down. And when he was on the ground, I heard someone before say they beat him, nobody punched him, nobody kicked him.

But again the autopsy showed that the pressure on his body during the attempt to handcuff Garner was a contributing factor in his death. They didn’t need to punch him or kick him. They just needed to forcefully push him into the ground and ignore him as he begged for his life, which they did. That they had the sense to not punch or kick him does not make this justifiable, it does not make them any less wrong and it doesn’t make this any less racist.

RPK:...and remember, they didn’t know this was being video-ed. And yet there is no indication of any racial remarks, or attempt to kick him or punch him while he was down.

So what, is a congratulations in order? Can I remind you, Representative King, that the sergeant in charge was a Black woman? And while I think that, as I said before, given the misogyny present in society and, in an even more pronounced ways within police departments, while her presence is not enough to make the argument that there were not incredibly clear racial elements to this entire event, I do think that her presence is enough to keep those under her from using racial epithets. And just because someone doesn’t speak like a racist, doesn’t mean they don’t act like one. And it certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t one.

Wolf: Because the uh, the allegation is that he was, what, selling cigarettes without tax. That’s relatively, that’s a pretty minor crime so the question is was it excessive force to go ahead and try to apprehend him with all these police officers surrounding him and using that kind of force?

RPK: First of all he wasn’t gonna go. Once the police come to arrest someone and he resisted you have to arrest him. You can’t have the community see someone be able to walk away from an arrest.

Well it seems as though the responding officers, through their use of unnecessary and yes, excessive force, made it pretty clear that Eric Garner wasn’t going to walk away from the arrest. But on a more nuanced level, the community already does not trust the police. The community does not respect the police. Our own mayor made a speech in which he discussed how he and his wife had to “train” their son Dante to be especially careful if he had an interaction with the police because the odds of it turning violent, or of Dante getting arrested without good reason, are higher because he is a person of color. The mayor of New York City essentially called the police department out on its racism and, in my mind, he was absolutely accurate in doing so.

RPK: The cops have to establish themselves….they were there serving the purpose of the local community… and again he was resisting arrest…I don’t think there’s any evidence at all, any indication that they wanted to choke him, or they wanted to kill him or cause any severe harm at all.

Wolf: Is it appropriate that Eric Holder, the attorney general of the United States is about to formally announce a federal justice department investigation into what happened?

RPK: I don’t see how there’s any civil rights violation.

Of course you don’t and that is because clearly you don’t have an accurate understanding of civil rights or simply do not believe that civil rights apply to Black people in America. You know who else thinks there was no violation of civil rights? And who actually called Mayor De Blasio a racist? Rudy Fucking Giuliani. And we all know what that asshole is all about. Actually, let me just highlight what that asshole is all about because I cannot stop myself through the rage. He actually said the following thing about De Blasio:

“If he wants to train young black men in how to avoid being killed in this city, he can talk about police. Police should never kill anybody unjustifiably. But you should spend 90% of your time talking about the way they’re actually probably going to get killed, which is by another black. To avoid that fact, I think is racist.”

OH MY GOD WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK?! Seriously! So now not only do we have fucking King talking about how the fact that Eric Garner was overweight caused his death, but we have Giuliani blabbering on about how De Blasio should “stop being a racist” and therefore focus on black-on-black crime while literally the entire country, or at least the portion of the country that isn’t mind-bogglingly racist or living under a goddamn rock, is up in arms about the deep-seeded problems inherent in policing in this country and by extension the justice system and society at large. At least King, in the part I didn’t transcribe here, where he talked about the decreasing violence in New York had the good fucking sense to not explicitly bring up black-on-black crime although anyone with half a brain could read through the lines. Also, Giuliani? This killing was unjustified and unjustifiable, but Eric Garner won’t see justice. And THAT is what people are talking about.

RPK: And I think it should also be kept in mind, Wolf, that no one has done more to save the lives of young African Americans than the NYPD.You know thousands of young African Americans are alive today because white and black police officers put their lives on the line every day going into the toughest neighborhoods to protect them…and if President Obama is serious about bringing racial peace to this country the last thing he should be doing is having Al Sharpton sit in The White House. When he says that people in the African American community don’t trust the police one of the reasons is because agitators like Al Sharpton are constantly criticizing and denouncing the police before he has any idea what the facts are.

The reason the Black community doesn’t trust the police is not because of Al Sharpton. It is because the police have been incarcerating and killing Black people at significantly higher rates than white people for decades. And that is a fact. Al Sharpton knows it, the Black community knows it, the rest of society knows it. It is just you and your racist friends that seem to be willfully ignorant of this fact. It is not a coincidence, it is not because of some ridiculous and untrue notion that Black people are more violent by nature than people of other races. It is because our system, from top to bottom, is racist as fuck. And people like you work to keep it that way.

And, just to add insult to injury (and to make all of this even more infuriating), here is the outtro:

Wolf: Alright Peter King the Congressman from New York, the son of a police officer, himself grew up in New York City so its obviously a subject that hits right at home to this United States Congressman.

So now I am going to provide a link to Jon Stewart’s bit from last night. He was, as many of us were, completely without words. He managed this, though,

“If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy to be honest with you.”

And I wish he could look Representative King, and Rudy Giuliani, and Robert McCulloch and all the other assholes who are using every ounce of strength and power they possess to simultaneously deny and reinforce the racism in this country and say what he said last night:

“I think what is so utterly depressing is that none of the ambiguities that existed in the Ferguson case exist in the Staten Island case. And yet the outcome is exactly the same. No crime, no trial, all harm, no foul.”

Racism is real. Quo erat demonstrandum, mother fuckers.

Tags: #blacklivesmatter, #handsupdontshoot, #shutitdown, chokehold, Eric Garner, grand jury, injustice, Michael Brown, police, racism, racism in America, Rep Peter King, Sean Bell, Tamir Rice, video evicence

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Uncategorized|

The World is Fucked.

24 Aug

Alright so here’s the thing. I have not one but two degrees in International Affairs. I don’t say this to brag, especially given that I was bartending before my second degree and I am bartending after so when it all comes down to it I am just an over-educated drink-slinger, as many of us are it seems. I say this because considering that I have two degrees in International Affairs you would think that I would be up on the news. On any normal day you would be correct. I like to read the news, I like to listen to the news, I like to talk about the news, I like to laugh about the news, but more than anything else I like to get angry and sad about the news. That is because on any normal day the news is mostly really upsetting. I long ago lost track of how many days I started crying about a third of the way through catching up on the news because goddamnit people are assholes. Really big assholes.

These last few weeks, though, I have been mostly avoiding the news altogether. It’s just like, too much. The other day I woke up to a text from a friend that read “I just watched the beheading” and it’s like, of course you did. You know why? Because the world is totally fucked. The world is so fucked that my friend watched a video that was made available on the internet of an innocent journalist being beheaded in the name of god, or that was the reason given by ISIS by what I can tell. The world is so fucked that the family of this journalist has to go through life knowing that millions of people saw their son beheaded and my friend has to go through life having seen the last gruesome moments of a man’s death documented and uploaded. It’s just…I don’t even have words. I just decided to read an article on the beheading to make sure that I am not making shit up and found this little gem:

“Earlier this year, (Abdel-Majed Abdel) Bary posted on Twitter a photograph of himself holding a severed head with the comment, “Chillin’ with my homie or what’s left of him.” But (Raffaello) Pantucci said that he appeared to have simply picked up and posed with one of many severed heads after a mass beheading by ISIS in the Syrian town of Raqqa. Posing with a severed head is common enough among ISIS fighters, he said, that the Twitter post alone does not point to any connection to Mr. Foley’s later execution.”

Can we just, you know, reflect on this for a second? This dude, a 24-year-old rapper who just moved home to Syria from the UK, simply picked a severed head up off the ground because there were so many of them lying around where he was with the other ISIS guys and then he posed with it. Like, yea, this looks like a good severed fucking head. I think this goddamn severed head I found just sitting in the dirt here will really get my point across. Seriously. What the ever living fuck? It’s like, our 20-somethings take selfies with their dogs and ISIS 20-somethings take selfies with severed heads. I shouldn’t generalize. That’s not nice or smart or any of the things I try to be but like, what. the. FUCK?!

Just as an aside, this is not me mocking or making light of anything. This shit is really serious and really, debilitatingly upsetting. This is just me writing my internal dialogue. This is what utter sadness/confusion/disbelief/anger/disgust looks like when I take out the majority of swear words and throw it on a page. This is the only way that I can express where my brain has been at the last few weeks. It’s been like white noise in there because I just cannot deal with how completely and totally fucked everything is. I am experiencing total shutdown of my capabilities to comprehend what is happening. Shall we continue? Okay.

So, Ferguson. The other day I ran into my friend Ashlie on the train and we were talking about Serious Things which is something we always do. And so we started talking about Ferguson. And I said that I have been having a hard time reading about it, that I had been largely avoiding it, because I just didn’t think I could actually go about my day productively if I started reading about it. And she said one of the most poignant and accurate things she has ever said, and she says a lot of them because she is insanely smart. She said “maybe we shouldn’t be able to go about our day productively.”

That is exactly right. We shouldn’t. What happened in Ferguson was appalling. Mike Brown woke up on Saturday morning, August 9th, thinking he was just going to have a normal day and he ended up dead. For no goddamn reason. And then his body was left for 4 hours in the middle of the street in the middle of the day in front of friends, families, neighbors, and community members while blood flowed out of his head and through the street. Four hours. There is literally no excuse for that. None whatsoever. And then to see images of police officers with assault rifles pointed at protestors? Assault rifles. Tear gas. Riot gear. As a result of Ferguson there has been movement in Washington to address the degree to which local police forces are armed in preparation for a terrorist attack, even though terrorist attacks on US soil are incredibly rare. In response, Republican Representative Peter T. King of New York, who is on both the Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees (oh, great news!), said basically that there was no evidence that giving this sort of heavy weaponry to police officers worsened the situation in Ferguson or elsewhere. He then continued by saying that he disagreed with anyone who might say “that somehow the police are the cause of what’s wrong.”

He disagreed that the police are the cause of what’s wrong. I am a girl in Brooklyn who has been avoiding the news because my brain cannot handle the injustice and the sadness and the hopelessness and the evil that seems to be fucking everywhere. Representative King is a man in Washington with access to information and yet he somehow thinks that the police are not at all the cause of what’s wrong? Who is the cause?! Who is the fucking cause in this case?! Tell me! I am dying to fucking know and understand who the fuck is the cause of a police officer shooting yet another young, unarmed, black man if it isn’t the police officer! And I am dying to know who is the cause of leaving that body on the street for all those hours? And who is the cause of local police forces having military grade weaponry when they don’t get military grade training? And who is the cause of men and women in uniform, fingers on triggers, pointing assault rifles at protestors? Who?! I just cannot fucking handle it.

Cry break.

And then there’s Eric Garner. And the Ebola outbreak. And methane seeping from sea floors all along the east coast. And Ray fucking Rice and the stupid NFL. And INS detainment centers. And Israel. And Gaza. And the Ukraine. You guys it is just too much and I am angry and confused and it doesn’t actually even seem right that it’s beautiful outside.

Why do we keep doing this to each other? It is just so totally fucked.

Tags: anger, assault rifles, Eric Garner, extremism, Ferguson, ISIS, James Foley, Mike Brown, news, police, riots, Siria, terrorism, US, violence

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Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|, |Thinks I Think|

I thought I couldn’t dislike my neighbor more…

14 Aug

…I was dead wrong.

Have I talked to you guys about how much I dislike my down the street neighbor? Wait, yes, I have! I wrote about how he and I were feuding after he had like a 3 day long rager when I had work and someone, I am not going to say who it was, called the cops on him after that someone repeatedly asked him to turn down the club speakers he had installed in the garage behind his building because said speakers were making the entire bed of the unnamed person who called the cops on him vibrate. After that happened, down-the-street-neighbor told my landlord that the tenants of my apartment were throwing cigarettes onto his roof (none of us smoke), causing my landlord to lock the roof, thereby effectively ending our not-so-legal roof access. He also started growling at me when I walked by, making as if he was going to spray me with his hose while watering his flowers, and mimicking me whenever he heard me on the phone or laughing aloud or anything. This has been going on for the better part of 2 years, if I had to guess. Oh and by the way, this man is in his 50s. It is really incredible how some people literally never grow up.

As you have probably assumed, I really, really don’t like this man. What’s crazy about it is that we used to get along really well back in the day but it’s like once you allegedly do one little thing the whole damn relationship just goes up in flames and you are forced to roll your eyes at least 3 times a week in response to his growling. Rolling my eyes and feeling thankful that I Am (sort of) An Adult is the only thing that keeps me from pissing in a bottle and then pouring the urine over his carefully tended plants in the dead of night. Seriously, I have thought about this. My sisterfriend Marissa and I have talked about it. Many times. In detail. I even have plans carefully sketched out with escape routes and everything. Anyway, all that is really neither here nor there. What is, however, both here and there is that today when I got home from training at my new job I noticed a lot of brightly colored things hanging from the bannisters of the stairs leading up to the building. This is never a good sign. I then rushed to my bedroom and looked out the window, and there it was: The Big White Tent. Fuck. The only time there is a Big White Tent in his backyard is when he is planning on having some sort of incredibly loud family gathering. Seriously, you guys, I really don’t like when people use shorthand for things on the internet but FML for realz.

Just as a slight aside, I am someone who is good at a few things. One of the things I am especially good at is my ability to fall asleep once my head hits the pillow in my bed. I think it’s because I really only use my bed for one thing: sleeping. Okay, that is not entirely true. I also use my bed for some other things but I don’t really want to get into that right now. Or ever. On my blog. With my dad reading. Dad, pretend like I never said that about the other things. Just like, go back to the beginning of the paragraph and read up to the point where I said “sleeping” and then jump back down to right here. HERE DAD! THIS IS WHERE YOU START READING AGAIN! As I was saying, I don’t really watch TV in my bed or read in my bed. I just sleep there. For me, having a place thats real purpose is to allow me to shut my brain down is incredibly important. It’s like an oasis. An oasis full of cats. Well, two cats. Plus the third cat that they leave behind on my comforter that doesn’t seem to ever disappear no matter how often I vacuum the damn thing. Fuck that third shed kitty. I will suck him up in my vacuum over and over again. I will win this war, shed kitty!!! I am having a hard time focusing if you haven’t noticed. Maybe if I start a new paragraph.

Take two. So I fall asleep really quickly. Sometimes I wake back up again but then I pretty much just look at the time, express my displeasure at being awake by emitting one of those terrible clicking noises that I hate when people make but which I make anyway all the time when stupid things happen, and go back to sleep again. Then I sleep all the way until the morning! It is so good! What I am not good at is not sleeping. Some people are good at it. There are all these articles out there actually about how people who have insomnia are smarter than the rest of us and maybe that’s true but that’s okay. I would rather be dumb and well rested, thank you very much. So the reason I mention this is that I have had one of those weeks where I am really burning the candle at both ends. This is what happened:

– Went to bed really late on Sunday night.
– Had to get up at 7:45 to be at a training on Monday morning.
– Worked behind the bar Monday night until 4am during which time I had to listen to someone talk about how we are living in a post-racial society. It made me really mad. It made me so mad that I snuck to the bar nextdoor and had a demeanor-saving shot of Powers. This is something I will get to at a later date.
– Had to get up at 7:45 to be at a training on Tuesday morning.
– Went out for drinks on my way home from said training, had a delicious summer-time Manhattan made with rye and dry vermouth which led to me falling asleep at 9:15. Bliss.
– Had to get up at 7:45 to be at a training on Wednesday morning.
– Got a last minute call to cover a shift Wednesday night and walked through the door to my house at 5:30am.
– Had to get up at 7:45 to be at a training on Thursday morning.

I was really hoping that I would be able to recreate my Tuesday night and go to sleep super early. I ate some snacks, I drank some water, I watched some bad TV, I did not have a Manhattan, summertime or otherwise, and then it happened. Drumming. Live, loud drumming. The drumming went on and on and then the drumming left and went on a tour of the block during which there was some silence. Then the drumming came back. Then there was a quiet ceremony and now there is loud singing. With more drumming. Because as I mentioned before dude has MASSIVE MOTHER FUCKING SPEAKERS. It’s so crazy because this isn’t like, Madison Square Garden or a club or some shit. It is a small parking lot type situation on an ordinarily quiet block on a Thursday night. I know that I am sounding like a total old fogey here but like,

HAVE SOME RESPECT!

This is the problem I have with the world. People do not give a shit about the other people. I know the parking lot is his private property but you know what isn’t his private property? The air through which the incredibly loud noises coming from his huge speakers is currently traveling. The thing is that everyone in his small parking lot would be able to hear all of the things happening without huge speakers. He might not even need speakers at all, to be honest. All he needs are some people who are good at projecting their voices. I know some of those people. They are called actors. Some of them sing. Some of them even sing traditional Indian songs that are accompanied by lots of drumming.

The other thing about all this is that normally, I love this music. Like, if I were sitting in my room on not a Thursday after I got 2 hours of sleep when I have to bartend tomorrow and the next day and when I also have house guests coming (I am so excited!!!) I would totally be in my happy place. This music reminds me of being in India and I love being in India. I could pretty much be there all the time. Which would mean I would live there. Things are hard for me right now. Don’t judge. Sometimes I watch Bollywood. Here is a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWeVII7qF3A

You need to wait until you see the military guy’s mustache. Unreal. Seriously. You don’t even see that shit in Brooklyn.

Anyway, I lost track and I actually don’t even know where I was going with all this because I am so deliriously tired that I cannot even form a coherent thought. So, in summation:

1. My down-the-street-neighbor fucking sucks

2. I am so tired and frustrated about the fact that this is happening right now that I might actually cry

3. A tear just rolled down my check

4. If anyone wants to help me with the urine-on-the-plants plan I am taking applications. We’ll call it Operation Revenge Wiz.

5. Everything is loud and I am sad.

Okay, I am going to put in some earplugs now and hope that somehow a miracle happens and my misshapen ear canals don’t force the earplugs out almost immediately rendering the entire approach completely useless. Wish me luck.

Tags: Bollywood, drumming, etiquette, feud, jerks, music, neighbor, neighborhood, sleepy bartending, speakers, training, work

Comments 2 Comments
Categories |Things That Get My Hackles Up|

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I thought I couldn’t dislike my neighbor more…

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