Men Necessary, Alas

I'VE BEEN THINKING about men a lot lately. This is not unusual. I don't mean that any untoward way. Just that I try to understand them, as I try in general to understand people who are different from me. You know--like it's a good mind exercise.

I quite like men. Sometimes they make more sense to me than women. Men like to verbally joust, roughhouse and trade quips, whereas many women seem so delicate and polite that I can't relate. I often imagine there is some soft sisterhood out there to which my application is yet outstanding.

And men usually seem to like me back. So all is swell, right? Alas, no. Because it's always fraught. Probably something to do with sex. Specifically, the conjoined twindom of desire and derision.

Ladies, you probably already figured out, consciously or un, that being an object of desire is a form of power. Conversely, to desire is powerless. So when some guy harasses you in the street, maybe what he's really shouting is that he hates you because he wants you. Come to think of it, how much of sexism is just men trying to reassert power over those who rob them of it? (My research thus far indicates that power is very important to men.)

I often get the vague impression that older men in particular want to think I'm at least a little stupid. And I wonder if that isn't because if I'm cute and younger and smart it's just going to piss them off. I'm thinking, for example, of a co-worker with whom I share undeniable mutual fondness (and respect, or so I thought) who, in venting about his job stress, once remarked that it must be nice to, as receptionist, "just sit there and look pretty."


IT'S EASY FOR heteros of both genders to team up against one another. Like Frenchy telling Sandy that men are amoebas on fleas on rats, or Rowlf singing to Kermit that you can neither live with nor without 'em. The generalized group wielding the power to hurt you makes a ready target. (Man, I guess that's one more way it's a challenge to be gay. Who do you scapegoat?)

I'll say it plain: I've had a lot of men treat me like shit. Enough to make me wonder if there isn't something about me that turns otherwise decent guys into hole-in-wall-punching, insult-yelling, heart-breaking assholes. Not a pleasant thing to wonder.

Surely there are many reasons for this, many of those to do with my own many faults (not least among those many, the fact I think it's my fault [thanks, Dad!]) and just as surely I am one of many, many women to wonder approximately the same thing. (Just for the hell of it, here's that word one more time: many.)

But to unabashedly side with my own sex for a moment...All too often when men treat us this way, it is, once again, a bid for power in a situation in which they find themselves lacking it. When, in addition to a body and a mind that attract them, you possess various skills (kitchen, bedroom, couch, &tc.) that would make them want to stick around...Well, that is power indeed. And it may piss them off. And make them want to cut you down to size by hook or crook--by objectification, by possessiveness, by cultivating dependence, by infidelity, or simply by rejecting you before you ever get the chance.

But ladies, if we're being honest with ourselves we will admit it goes both ways. That a man who attracts us also scares us. And our fear may become self-fulfilling.

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Haters Never Prosper and Obama Totally Deserves the Nobel

You see the hate
That they servin on a platter
So what we gon have
Dessert
Or disaster
--KW

I KNOW WHAT you're thinking. This post is worthlessly untimely; no one cares about a stale opinion. But the blogosphere (what an icky word) gets its parasitic bad rap from all the half-baked, loudly-shrieked opinions that are its burden to publish.

A mind as nimble as inhabits the skull of Frank Rich can dash out brilliant analysis on cue. Paulie's pundit crush, Sully, for another example, had these wise words on the subject of Obama's Nobel immediately. But we can't all be that quick smart.

Better, perhaps, for the rest of us, to think well and then say. Which is something op-ed writers get irritated at Obama for doing. (Maybe because they are deadline-stalked op-ed writers who lack the luxury.) But those radass speeches don't birth themselves overnight; insight requires time and meditation. We could probably stand, as a nation, to slow down and think a little.

The way Obama models this behavior itself qualifies him for a Nobel. I'm not even old enough to know when we became such a fidgety society, always thumbing our electronics, greedy for new inputs. We're unaccustomed and uncomfortable having to wait for anything. But Heinz teaches that the best things come to those who do.

I'll collectively insult us further (I love you all, individually, rest assured) and say we Americans tend to be lazy and only want the sure thing. Obama inspires us to instead reach for greatness. He defies, and makes us want to defy, the pull to spare ourselves the potential pain and humiliation of the whole risk-taking thing.

Haters say he hasn't *done anything*.

Yeah. Except make the whole world believe anything is possible. Slacka-ass-slacka. How much you wanna bet those same weenies saying, What were you thinking, Nobel Committee? were partying hard on election night.


HOW QUICKLY WE forget the unprecedented number of--in Wire terms--plates of shit this guy was handed. Our nation was more royally fucked than it has been in generations and we're peeved he hasn't fixed it in a year.

Sure, there is all-important Policy (see Gene for that), but there is also something intangible and arguably larger. It's called leadership. And he's got it. I have great confidence in Obama's ability to solve the world's problems, because he knows how to wield soft power. His biracial talent for straddling worlds makes him a peacemaker on a grander, subtler scale. I know Obama has made missteps, and he is a politician. But I fully believe he can achieve greatness if we just give the guy some time and a chance.

I would add to Gene's list of rookie year accomplishments the shift Obama has engendered in our national mood. Damned if black people aren't on average cheerier, even if they won't admit it. (And I can't think of an American population more deserving of cheer.) Everyone I know who worked seriously on the campaign was subsequently inspired to aim their lives more toward what Zora Neale Hurston called "far horizon." And when I say Obama makes everyone believe anything is possible--well, I might be projecting. If you doubt this mood shift theory, just try the following exercise: Close your eyes and say to yourself, Bush isn't president. Obama is president. Did your shoulders ease down a bit from that tense position around your neck? I thought they might.


FAIRY TALES ARE a gas to watch, but substantially less fun to live. Political fairy tales are especially hard on the actors, seeing as how they must play out on a huge public stage. Just ask Howard Dean and George McGovern how they feel re: this. Presidential politics is ripe for life-ruining humiliation.

In Protestant work ethic-y America, there is perhaps no greater humiliation than to be exposed as a hopeless dreamer--which is of course ironic considering the whole "American Dream" thing. We love dreams, so we hate them; desire and derision as conjoined twins. (On this see also black people's initial mass rejection of Obama. Note that he is black now.)

But he did it. He had the Nobel balls. He put his own life on the line for us. You know, like Jesus.


SOMETIMES YOU have to keep your own time. Which I think our president understands. He is wise enough to know that when you brood quietly and wait to speak, people listen when you finally do. And that when you stand your own firm ground, rather than swaying reedlike with the winds of polls and pundits, people believe in your leadership.* As well they should.

The truth behind the heaping criticism may be that we are so scarred--not only from the raw gash wounds of the Bush years, but from the thousand cuts inflicted by politicians who perennially abused our trust--that we would be suspicious of next man, good as he looks, no matter what.


*Triple mixed-metaphor word score.

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Who I'm Worshiping Now--THE FICKLE REVERSALS EDITION

I've oft been accused of fickle hero worship. Of course that's hogwash. Anyway, here's


WHO I'M NOT WORSHIPING ANYMORE

Ah, Boomers. Break my heart every time. I only wanted to admire you; is that so much to ask?





...and, to show I'm an optimist, with heart, here's

WHO I'M ONCE AGAIN WORSHIPING




Her freshly book-published essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God makes me say, "She is my sister, and I love her."

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Oh man. Beautiful song.

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Most Popular Post of All Time

OVER A YEAR AGO, I tossed off a little rant about Keith Olbermann, to whose narcissism I am severely allergic. I never expected it to be my most popular post of all time. But so it is.

Every few months some crazed Olbermann-loather (like myself) pops out of the woodwork, googles "Keith Olbermann sucks," finds my post (it is currently the eighth-ranking Google result for that search) and, if I am especially lucky, leaves a rant in the comments section that far outshines my original.

Many of these commenters are rightist lunatics who would hate me in real life. But our Olberloathing brings us together--in this ephemeral place, in this one magical moment. Thank you, Keith.

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Quotation for Election Tuesday

Tell him I'm doin fine
Obama for mankind
We ready for damn change
So y'all let the man shine

--Young Jeezy, "My President"


Can't believe the election was a year ago. In his mutterings at the end of this song, Jeezy also says to Barack, "You motivate us; you motivate thugs," which I find very sweet.

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In Which I Go Back to Black, Yet Again

WHAT KIND OF fuckery is this? Why do I keep showing up as Amy Winehouse each October, when she is long since discredited as a human being?

I don't care what anybody thinks. Amy is my favorite singer. I've said why before, so I shan't repeat myself. But I've been thinking about Amy a lot lately.

When she says, infamously: "No, no, no"...

I'll go out on a rather shaky limb and say she has a point. If you are a complicated, sensitive, artistic sort like Amy, Twelve Step paint-by-numbers may not do the trick.

Which is not to say she doesn't need rehab; addiction is serious and requires serious care. In fact I'm sure she has gained from rehab, having now made various trips there. Just that her objections are legitimate. To be ham-fistedly analyzed or plied with Help is fine, but to be loved and understood is infinitely better. I've always called Blake an asshole, but maybe she thought she was--or actually was--getting those things from him. And if I'm blaming all the bloody mutual destruction on him, I might be missing the point. And fans are nice, but they are not friends.

(Ame, if you're looking for a man--and I don't know whether you are, as explained below--I still think you should give Weezy a call. You guys would understand each other.)


WHEN AMY is feeling blue (black), she'd rather hang out "with Ray [Charles]" or "Mr. [Donny] Hathaway." Which I totally get, because when I'm miserable, I'd rather hang out with Amy. (Or Lauryn, who is just as brilliant and screwed-up. Or Erykah, who has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and keeps it together, and therefore can be artistically prolific and also offer the most trustworthy advice.) Maybe in future I should explore the notion of real-life 'girlfriends.'

Eh. Maybe not.


GOOD ART works hard to tell the particular truth. Therapy is lazier, generic. When those record execs were telling her to go to rehab, that's a variation on You should really get some help. Which is an unkind thing people say when they are too pre-occupied, lazy, selfish, confused or scared to try to give you any portion of said help themselves.

I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend

She doesn't want to let them off the hook. Doesn't want to be hauled off to get-better-quick-so-we-can-make-money-off-you camp. She would rather feel her pain in her own honest way. Amy goes black well. She makes the ugly beautiful, which a smart person taught me is the artist's cardinal skill.


AMY SAYS WE should just listen to her music, because that is the best of her. And from now on, I'm respecting her request. No more Google News searches. Just Back to Black. Her art is the only part of her we ever had any right to consume. We should listen to her sing and not gawk in sordid curiosity at her trainwreckiness. Because rubbernecking hurts if you are a sensitive soul like Amy; all that toughness and sarcasm is just an exoskeleton protecting her tender insides. Tattoos connote invincibility, but don't be fooled.

I bet she doesn't enjoy putting her biz in the streets, either. She probably covets privacy as much as the next person. I'd venture to guess that her personal life became public because her music and her drug-addled lunacy were the only adequate outlets she had for what was tearing her up inside.

Poor Amy. She just needs a friend. The hutch offer stands, girl. []







~BONUS~
FAVE QUOTES FROM MS. WINEHOUSE:

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet

--"Back to Black"

I played myself again
Should just be my own best friend
Not fuck myself
In the head with
Stupid men

--"Tears Dry on Their Own"

If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
Second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm
Breathless
Cause this ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me
And I cannot run now

--"Wake Up Alone"

What kind of fuckery is this
You made me miss the Slick Rick gig
And thought I didn't love you when I did
Can't believe you played me out like that

--"Me and Mr. Jones"*

* That one's about Nas. I've had imaginary rapper lovers too, Amy.

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