enough

Unreality show

I don't know about y'all, but I do not do reality TV. I don't feel the need to go into the reasons why, but I will comment that I think the whole "reality" exploitation thing is our modern-day version of the coliseum with blood-thirsty sub-humans (the audience) getting their soulless, debase and depraved needs met through observing the anquish and tortured sufferings of others.

So I am not up on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars nor do I care to be but because I work in media, I am often forced to walk through a newsroom past the office of one of my friends, who covers media. He watches a lot of TV at work and the cool thing about hanging with him is getting to see advance DVDs of HBO and Showtime series way before they hit the air. Which was manna from heaven during my Sopranos and Deadwood addictions. Okay, yes, depraved, but at least it was not touted as "real." Which leads me to today's before and after artwork here to the left, which I stumbled across in my friend, the media critic's lair. So, OMG, you guys, WTF happened to Priscilla????? Is it me, or does it look like her face was melted off her skull in a horrible fire and her mouth was reconstructed with tissue trimmed from her labia? Holy plastic surgery gone waaaaaaay wrong, Batman! I realize the woman is in her 60s now, but I think she would have aged beautifully if she had just left herself the hell alone.

I think those dudes who hung out with Elvis all those years--the TCB dudes--the Memphis Mafia--whatever they called themselves--need to track down whoever did this to her face and at the very least force-feed him/her about a dozen peanut butter and banana sammiches. Jeebus Chrysler.

the sweet spot

The GITB has decided he has been off regular exercise long enough so he's going back to his kick-boxing class twice a week. Tonight he got all suited up and wandered into the bedroom where I was trying to edit a report while lying flat on my back with my laptop on my tummy. Not very effective, btw.

"Hey, honey, kick me in the balls, " he says..."I'm wearing my new cup."

I refused and he insisted and so I finally leaned over the side of the bed and socked him in the balls. It was very satisfying. A few minutes later the kid wandered in with the dog and said that the Tae Kwan Do teacher had left a message on the machine earlier that class is canceled tonight due to illness. The GITB was bummed.

who's a stupid whore?

um, yeah. That would be you.

V-Day

Yet another life lesson in how it's so not all about me. Not even remotely.

A few days before I was set to perform in the Vagina Monologues here in sunny Tampa Bay, Jane Fonda went on the Today Show to chat about this being the 10th anniversary of the VM and her role in the big-ass V-Day event in New Orleans next month. And then Jane said "cunt" on live, national television. And Meredith Viera looked exquisitely uncomfortable and blinked really hard a time or two. Then in the segment immediately following Jane's c-bomb, Meredith bowed and scraped and apologized for Jane's "inadvertent slip." What. Bullshit. Jane didn't slip. She said "cunt" and she meant to say "cunt." Cunt, cunt, cunt. That was it for me. If I had a shred of hesitancy left, Meredith's groveling apology eradicated it. Here's the thing: Meredith apologized for potentially offending anyone. No apology for the fact that this pejorative has been used as a weapon against women and girls for way too long.

Enywho...so the morning of the event John calls me to say that one of the cast members has fallen ill and could I read an additional monologue for him that night.

I asked which one it was, and he said “It’s the one that is based on the wide-spread and organized rape of young girls in Bosnia during the war over there.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he stopped.

There was a pause and he said, “Do you think your daughter would do it?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask her,” I said.

I gave the script to Schmoopie and she took it into her room, sat on her bed and read. She came out a few minutes later and said she would do it.

That night, when she rose and walked to center stage, I held my breath.

“My vagina was my village,” she read, her voice soft and sweet and soaked in the
innocence that she is at this stage of her life.

She continued. “My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing, sun resting, sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw.”

The auditorium was silent as she read. I heard a few gasps as the monologue grew darker and painted scenes of brutal soldiers and the rifles they used as tools for sexual assault, the horror of rape, the death of childhood and home and possibility, the violation of the vagina and all it signifies.

It was stunning.

There is still a lot to say about vaginas. I think that my daughter has a lot to say. And she and her vagina really haven’t even started getting to know one another yet. But they will.

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