80’s Cartoons and Restraining Orders

I’m laying on the couch recovering from a bout of cholera (it was actually the flu, but it sure felt like cholera there for a moment) and because I can’t sleep, can’t move, and can’t think I’m watching Jem and the Holograms. It’s a classic cartoon from the 80’s that revolves around the good girl rock band, Jem and the Holograms and the bad girl rock band, The Misfits. Jem and Holograms represent everything Mouskateers in Rock and Roll--good wholesome girl rockers who run a charity house for foster girls; their boyfriends sleep on the couch; they dress nice, have good manners, and make nice music. The Misfits on the other hand are more like the Sex Pistols--they engage in massive property destruction; dress in “alternative fashions;” and make mean music.

As I lay on the couch watching this classic entertainment I’m struck by two things: 1) how could I idolize Jem and the Holograms so much as a child and grow up so much like the Misfits? and 2) why didn’t Jem and the Holograms ever take out a restraining order on the Misfits?

Let’s consider #2 because that’s the more interesting point here. Consider this scenario: you and your new band perform in your first ever public appearance, a battle of the bands. After appearing and winning by a landslide a rival band STEALS your instruments, DESTROYS your instruments by throwing them out of a moving vehicle at you, and nearly RUNS YOU OFF A CLIFF in the process. So maybe you don’t press charges because that silly other band is just like that. But then, 1-2 days later after your house burns down and you perform again, the same rival band tails you, wrecks the house of a millionaire you’re attempting to court for a free mansion and NEARLY KILLS YOU AGAIN with runaway construction equipment.

At what point is one justified in taking out a restraining order?

Good girl band or not, when you’re life is literally in danger because of the antics of the other band is it not acceptable to say enough is enough?

And not that this is the only logistical problem with this show’s plotline; the daughter of a music company owner and her friends are fortunately rock band material over night (literally) and said daughter’s boyfriend is also (fortunately) band manager material. I suppose we could chalk all of that up to fate.

And, I just noticed something else while laying here in my sickbed, despite Jem’s role as a superstar mogul saintly type, she is also the consummate damsel in distress. She runs a foster house for girls and does the plumbing herself working side by side with her boyfriend Rio who does the electrical work. What a sharing partnership. Then, as Jerica becomes Jem and gains in popularity and power she is nearly run over by runaway construction equipment, thrown off a yacht at top speed, and burned to death in a freak soundstage equipment. Rio is thankfully there for each situation to save her, thereby solidifying his place as her man.

So does Rio not push Jerica to take out a restraining order because he has savior syndrome? Deep down inside he feels inadequate and he knows so long as the Misfits run free Jerica/Jem will constantly be in mortal danger? Perhaps I have found a solution to my quandary.

Perhaps the crux of Jem and the Holograms is that Jerica and Rio have an emotionally destructive relationship that manifests itself in her attempts to seduce him with her alter ego (Jem) and his refusal to urge her away from physically dangerous situations. I think we’re on to quite the psychoanalytic reading here.

And as an addendum: the bad guy named “Zipper” puts his mask on before robbing the casino while wearing a leather jacket with “Zipper” written in giant lettering across the back. Sneaky bad guys in this cartoon. Very sneaky.

When Did Fat People Turn Into Sith Lords?

I was reading an article on Newsweek http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/09/16/cleveland-clinic-ceo-apologizes-to-overweight-staffers.aspx and apparently a CEO in Cleveland said that if he could legally avoid hiring fat people he would. He sounded shocked in his apology that any of his fat employees were offended and stated that he didn’t mean to hurt their feelings. Apparently he made it clear that he hates obesity but not obese people.

We’ve had a long and illustrious history of “hate the sin, love the sinner” in this country. In the early 20th century we thoughtfully told ethnicities that we didn’t hate them because they were Black, Asian, or Hispanic, we just couldn’t love them because they weren’t white. In the latter part of the 20th century we told homosexuals that if they would just stop being what they are, or at the very least have the decency to be celibate their whole lives, we could all get along happily. Now we tell fat people we don’t hate them because their fat, but we have to hate them for their own good until their skinny.

I just feel like everyone in this world loves the skinny girl inside me so much they can’t help but do their best to support her.

So when did obesity become a headline? When did being fat become akin to killing a baby or two? Have I massacred the Jedi while I was sleeping?

Let’s think about this logically for a second; even if we accept some of the stereotypes as true, fat people are lazy, fat people are dirty, fat people are worthless--we still haven’t touched on a great many problems that (I feel at least) could use our attention. Pedophilia, not tied to weight. Rape, not tied to weight. Murder, not tied to weight. Torture (and/or invading other countries on false pretences) not tied to weight. But let’s really focus on diabetes and obesity because that is OBVIOUSLY the world’s biggest problem.

And it isn’t that I don’t see the point of educating people about the health risks of eating cookies (and cake and ice cream) or smoking, but charging those members of society that have “avoidable” problems has yet to lead us down a good path. First of all, our definition of avoidable has included everything from homosexuality to bi-racial marriage. Glad no one’s ruining society with those anymore. Secondly, when people are forced or punished for their failure to live as they will within reason the part where we’re supposed to be living in a republic gets iffy. Now, we could argue over the “within reason”; what is within reason? It’s a good question.

Perhaps within reason would include your basic behaviors like non-violence, non-thievery, not committing genocide, and basic considerations like not spitting on each other, cleaning up after pets, and not running down pedestrians who cross when they aren’t supposed to. Let’s consider adding on to this now: every member of society should contribute as much as their potential allows; they should be healthy; they should create as little of a stir as possible in the economy while serving as the perfect consumer. Wow, that really does sound like a utopia doesn’t it? To never be annoyed be a fat person next to you on a plane; to never have to consider why someone on welfare should or should not receive it. To never have to accept that a lifestyle you abhor could make someone happy. It would so simple; it would so perfect. We would be a society of perfect beings each making each other perfectly happy. Wait a minute...didn’t they try that once before? In Germany? Say, oh, about 1930’s or so?

Maybe you think I’m being too extreme. After all, fat people DO cost society money. And what right do the obese have to health care? If no one needed health care then all of our premiums would go down and our preventative costs would be so low. And it’s a good argument; why should we pay out for health care costs that could be avoided? Why should we allow people to exist in a state that is unbeneficial to society? Why should we consider health care a right instead of a business?

Then again, why don’t we carry this argument to its logical conclusion: if we are upset that particular groups cost the health care industry unnecessary money that in turn drives up the cost for everyone else, then all specific groups that are known money drains should be terminated from the health care plan. This includes but is not limited to:
1) The elderly--come on, once you hit seventy you’re health is only going to get worse. It only makes sense to deny them health care as their days of productivity are long gone and there is no economical gain for keeping them alive.
2) The premature--sure there’s a chance a premature baby will survive, but the more premature it is the lesser that chance and the greater amount it will cost. Healthcare should not be afforded until the child has proven itself viable and not a drain on society’s resources.
3) The mentally disabled--why should counseling, Special Olympics, or any other myriad of programs be supported? And why should any mentally disabled person be provided healthcare? They drain society’s resources, even when supported by family.
4) Anyone who has ever attended a rehab facility of any sort--whatever you did to land yourself in that rehab facility could have been avoided. You now, therefore, have a pre-existing condition that should disqualify you from affordable health care. Perhaps, given enough time if you can prove yourself a healthy, stable individual who will not take out more than you pay in, you could be granted health care sometime in the future. Unless of course your years of abuse have caused chronic health issues. Then you’re on your own.

What’s wrong with this plan? Why wouldn’t people like this? It’s a plan based solely on economic growth that completely and totally reduces people to numbers: how much they put in versus how much they take out. There is no “right to life” or “freedom” in the economy. You don’t have a right to live poorly or waste your life or (heaven forbid) be unattractive. This plan is feasible through methods like public shaming and not so subtle hints that particular groups are hated not, exactly, for what they are, but certainly for what they’re not.

Arguing that all obesity isn’t controllable isn’t the way to get things done either; that is a kinder, gentler way of saying “You can’t help but be the fat slob that you are and while I never want to have sex with you, I wish you all the best.” No, the only solution here is to force gastric by-pass surgery on the obese; a one time cost that would thoughtfully and considerately mutilate their body into something more economically viable.

Because this is a SERIOUS issue in the world today. Your role as a citizen and an American depends on your ability to be healthy, attractive, and productive. Our economy is failing not because CEO’s ran their companies into the ground, or banks engaged in predatory lending, but because YOU, Mr. And Mrs. Fat Person, have type 2 diabetes. Our world is a mess not because various nuclear warheads are unaccounted for or terrorists like to blow people up, but because YOU, you big fat slob, dared to have joint trouble. The size of YOUR ASS is directly related to the war in Iraq.

It’s not funny cause it’s true. That last sentence was logic actually used by an eighteen-year-old.

How does our news shape our perception of morality?

Summer’s Eve

I recently viewed a Summer’s Eve bottle and I thought some serious deconstruction needed to happen. On the back of the bottle it lists the purposes:

~Sensitive skin formula
~Gently washes away odor causing bacteria from the external vaginal area
~Soap-free
~Fragrance-free

And directly underneath all of that in big bold letters was the tag line:

“enjoy being a woman”

Well, of course, this got me thinking. When one has an excess of odor causing bacteria does one not enjoy being a woman? That is the reasonable conclusion implied by their statement. Furthermore, this implication seems to put forth that odor causing bacteria is a particularly female problem and that should there be odor for those not females (males for instance) it wouldn’t be nearly such an issue. If you can’t enjoy being a woman it might be because of odor; odor is only such a strenuous hurdle for women as stated by the gender specific use of “woman” at the end of the catch phrase instead of person. If odor were an issue for both sexes the phrase would read “enjoy being a human” or “enjoy being alive” but instead it is targeted specifically at females with the message we alone need to worry about odor and if we don’t take proper care of said odor we will not be able to enjoy being a woman.

I am reasonably sure I am not a fan of odor causing bacteria, but I am also reasonably sure that I am not a fan of odor causing bacteria on men or women, be it in the genitals, the underarms, or behind the left nostril. My point here is that odor causing bacteria is more an unpleasant situation for all concerned regardless of where it occurs. What’s more, I have never, up to this point in my life, considered my enjoyment in being a woman dependent on the existence or non-existence of said bacteria. Firstly, I don’t really have much choice. No one ever asked if I wanted to be something other than a woman, and while transgender surgery exists it isn’t a viable option for me. It seems slightly pointless, therefore, to not enjoy being a woman because that would be like not enjoying existing. Both are possible, but neither is preferable. Secondly, the notion put forth here that one needs to engage in specific activities to enjoy being a woman ties my happiness to the cleanliness of my vagina in specifically destructive ways--in my opinion. If one were attacked and overcome by odor causing bacteria one should be annoyed, perplexed, perhaps even embarrassed (if people held their noses when you walked by that could be mortifying) but should one stop enjoying their existence? That’s a fairly severe reaction. Is it not more plausible that one would be annoyed at the health issue and take care of it, but still happy to be alive? Do we stop enjoying being alive when we have the flu, a cold, or a herpes outbreak?

There have been multiple times in my life I have not been able to enjoy my day because I felt ill, tired, or beaten down by life. But my ability to enjoy life has never been called into question because of those slight hardships. Everyone understands such hardships are passing and inevitable. Why is it with Summer’s Eve and other feminine cleansing products the message is put forth that you could avoid it, should avoid it, and won’t enjoy living if you don’t avoid it? You can no more avoid at least one yeast infection in your life than you can avoid at least one cold. There is a complex eco-system down there and many pools, detergents, and climates are not user friendly. But it isn’t viewed as an inevitable annoyance, rather we treat it as a slight outbreak of the plague. I hear the Black Death was fairly unpleasant for all, not to mention highly contagious. I’m pretty sure if you don’t use Summer’s Eve you won’t cause the death of thousands.

No doubt some think I am once again reading too much into things, and I won’t tell you you’re wrong. But reading too much into things is what I do. And I ask you this: does my reference to vaginal odor make you uncomfortable? More so than body odor would? Does reading the word vagina cause a twinge or giggle? Why is that? It seems more daring, shocking, or offensive to write about Summer’s Eve than it would be to write about deodorant or even jock itch deodorizer, and it is that very simple reality that proves my point. How many women even know what jock itch is? We put different emphasis on different health requirements and that is what I’m attempting to illuminate here; in the case of odor causing bacteria we emphasize first that it is a specifically female problem and second that you cannot be a real woman, a happy woman, or a pleasant, sociable woman unless you are vigilant in your addressing of the problem. Finally, the occurrence of severe odor causing bacteria is not as rare as some might think, nor does its existence ever become known except in particular cases. There is a whole lot of life outside of those particular cases where one can still enjoy being a woman.

I don’t like the idea that I can only enjoy my existence if I do what Summer’s Eve tells me. That’s all I’m saying. Why can’t the Summer’s Eve bottle just sit quietly awaiting its use (and appreciated use) without passing judgment on what it means to be female? I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Douchasaurus Rex Sighting or How I Met an A-Hole

How do people go on blind dates? How do you find the courage to keep going after everything is so awful every time? Not that I’ve had a ton of experience or even that all my experience has been bad, but as I attempt to do this “dating” thing I’ve made a brilliant discovery about why I never dated before: I don’t like people.

My mother, she would be sad to hear me say such a thing. But here’s the deal, when you go on a date (and you don’t get drunk) you realize within ten minutes whether you are attracted or not attracted and whether you want to talk to them further or not. Perhaps that seems like too short a time to some, but in my admittedly short experience I have found this rule to be true. The only time it isn’t true is when I ingest approximately a Ball Jar full of rum in that ten minutes.

Dating is hard when you’re grown up! It’s not about cute boy/cute girl, hey do you want to play doctor? It’s not about he likes me and no one else does so I guess I’ll say yes. Once you cross 25 it isn’t enough that you are or are not attracted to them (and honestly when the attraction isn’t there you find yourself going down the rest of your list anyway just in case) but you think, would I like to talk to this person for a significant length of time? Would I want to call this person with news? Do I want to tell this person all my most embarrassing stories? Would I ever want them to meet my family? How would they interact with my family? Would they be able to survive my family? These are not questions that bothered me when I was 16. When I was 16 it was all about “Sweet. We totally just made out. Let’s do it again.” Life was simpler back then.

But within a reasonable amount of time a person can assess both the physical attraction and the mental and then you’re stuck. Not because you don’t like them (though sometimes you don’t) but because you promised some hours to this person and you must make good on that. Never mind that it is an undefined amount of hours so unlike an unpleasant business meeting you have no idea when it will end; no, with a date you must continue conversation, listen when you don’t want to, try not to show your mind wandering, and maintain a polite veneer.

An earlier date wasn’t like this, it was pleasant from start to finish and I really appreciated the experience. But most recently I found myself across from someone with no recourse for escape. I’ve never felt so unneeded at an activity which was supposed to include me in my life. He didn’t care what I had to say. He didn’t really care about my face either--unless he just “zones out” in the general direction of my chest. I wanted to slap my hand down on the table and scream “Really?!” but that wouldn’t be polite.

He wasn’t wholly unpleasant, and I’m sure he’s a nice guy. But I discovered some things about attraction that I had previously only theorized about:

1) You can’t force it. Either there is a twitching in your loins that signals interest or there is a very real feeling of revulsion.

2) While I don’t need super muscled men I do need a man that is comfortable with himself. This was a big realization for me. There is a difference between a person that isn’t particularly in shape or svelte, but is comfortable with their body and moving their body, and someone who is not only unathletic, but moves and holds him/herself as if they aren’t quite sure how their limbs are supposed to move. I don’t need someone who can protect me, but I really can’t stand the idea of dating someone who it is obvious couldn’t protect himself. I’m not looking for the Karate Kid here, mind, but at least the ability to run away without falling down. And I run exceptionally slow so he doesn’t even have to be able to run fast. I don’t think my standards are set at the Olympic athlete level.

3) When someone looks at you while you talk as if they are looking for a reason to argue just walk away. What I don’t need is some A-hole that thinks he can mentally dominate me and make up for getting made fun of in high school by proving his manly intelligence by destroying me.

4) There is no substitute for general peace of mind. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how good looking you are. It doesn’t matter how rich you are. If you are bitter, unhappy, argumentative, or hoping no one realizes that you don’t actually like yourself that comes through in everything (EVERYTHING) you do and say. Those around you will be uncomfortable and unsure how to handle what appears to be a nuclear warhead.

So this is my proposal for an internet dating website. The following questions will sort people into groups from which they will then choose possible dates:

1) Are you thin if you’re a woman and muscular if you are a man?
2) Will you not date someone who answered no to the above question?
3) Were you picked on in high school and do you still think about that (however rarely)?
4) Have you had a tendency to date “crazy” people? And, has this made you bitter or aggressive in your mannerisms?
5) Have you ever, for any reason, had the cops called on you?

With this system we can sort the pretty people from the rest of us, the snobs from the losers, and the crazies and those that love them from the lame and mundane like myself. Where are those questions internet dating? We, the people, need them.

There are good reasons I’m a hater not a dater.

I am about to attend my first football game in three years. This is only remarkable in that my grandfather recently passed away and I think he would like that his passing somehow results in more football in my life.

We take football very seriously in my family.

Football and my attitudes about it weren’t something I ever consciously thought about growing up; I knew that when Dad was watching football you left him alone, and that when I went to a game I could watch the marching band. I also learned fairly early that football was an out I didn’t have; I didn’t get out of chores because I was tired at football practice or anything else. Despite how that sentence sounds, however, I don’t carry any bitterness about that. And this is sort of the crux of my football musings here: football is, and always has been, another member of our family. I would say it was like a religion, but that implies some level of deification or worship and that’s not how we approach it at all. Football merely is to us; you do what needs to be done to get to the game, and you support the people who are involved in it whether they be coaching, playing, or part of the marching band.

We are not football snobs.

I muse over the role football has played, though, because I’ve discovered since leaving home there is no way to explain how I feel or what I expect to someone who wasn’t there every day. We don’t obsess over names of players and stats; we don’t watch the games avidly, and while we care no one would call us rabid fans. But, for me at least, unlike someone who likes football or has discovered they like football it has, quite simply, always been there. I never questioned it; I never felt bad about it. I never wondered why football got more attention than other activities. I never doubted my Dad loved me even though I couldn’t play football. You don’t harbor bitterness towards the member of your family that requires so much attention; you do what you can to fulfill that need and enjoy your time outside of it.
And I have decided talk about football now (I have decided that anyone cares about the role football plays for myself and others) because my grandfather really loved football. I don’t think I ever fully understood how much until I recently read some of his writings. It wasn’t just a game for him; his players were like family and the institution offered the chance for kids to learn something meaningful. What’s more, you could learn whether you played or not—if you knew how to listen anyway. Football was a lens through which he viewed life, and he wanted the us to see life through that lens as well.

Football is the only game where eleven bodies slam into eleven bodies with enough kinetic energy to kill someone; the ball is inconsequential to the physical aspect of it unless you are a quarterback or wide receiver. For the lineman and the defense especially the difficulty lies in finding a way to overpower one or two people as big or bigger than you are, running yourself into them as hard as you possibly can. But when it’s all over, when the game is done, and the score decided what matters isn’t whether you won or lost; what matters is whether you won or lost correctly. I know, sort of a weird concept isn’t it?

But the important part here is the struggle. The fight to move the ball and protect your team--the fight to obliterate the other team. That you have literally fought as hard as you could, as fairly as you could, and learned to accept either outcome. I don’t know of anything in life where that attitude does not serve one well. As think back over the discussions I've listend to between my grandfather, my dad, and my brother--and any discussion concerning our approach to extra curicular activities--I realize how embedded this idea is in our familial philosophy. You learn to fight through pain, physical and mental, to do what needs to be done, and you learn to deal with that pain when the job is over, not ignore it or repress it or boast about it, but to quietly heal so that you are prepared and healthy to fight another day. That’s what football, or in my case living with football, has taught me. As I think back over the conversations of recent years I think this is the concept Grandpa was really trying to emphasize. It doesn't only matter that you win, but that you struggle always the most ethically and nobly that you can.

I haven't learned that lesson fully yet; how can you? But my mind has been recycling these ideas over and over again for the past few days and this is an idea, a concept, that is important to revisit. This idea of ethical struggle is worth understanding. If football were a religion then only those of us who have played could follow it truly. But because it's a member of our family it is simply one more personality that shapes the family dynamic. That is why I can think about all of this in terms of football even though I haven't played a sanctioned game in my life. I think Grandpa would appreciate that.

Added on 9-14-09: This post arose as much out of a conversation with my brother as out of my own philosophical musings. I wanted to make sure I added that so that everyone would know that in this case, my ideas were not formulated in a vaccuum, but owe as much to him as to myself.

I’ve been doing some self-evaluation. I even busted out ye old Codependent No More to see what gems of knowledge the only self help book I’ve ever read and not laughed at had to offer me. After pondering codependency, my life, and my relationships I have a question of the world: what do you do if you’re a recovering codependent who seeks other codependents to be codependent with? Or: what do you do if you’re a recovering codependent and feel there are particular behaviors you must cut out of your life and those around you for your own sanity and happiness? Ms. Beattie doesn’t address these questions in her book.

I keep in mind that this book isn’t exactly meant for the me now; it was more applicable to the me of four years ago, but, regardless of the ways I’ve changed, old knowledge is always worth reevaluation for worth and possible reapplication. But I can’t help but wonder what is ethical and moral in relationships when it comes to helping and supporting friends, and walking away from friends you feel are bad for you. Let me see if I can clarify--if you’re friend has a rough day, week, even month, you are a crappy friend (I pass judgment here, it’s true) if you abandon them because they aren’t “fun” or it is too difficult to stand by them when their mood is down. But if you’re friend is having a bad life punctuated by the occasional good day, week, even month, then when is it ethical to walk away and save yourself while leaving them to figure it out? When it is unethical and selfish? This is the crux of my immediate questioning.

And I think it’s an important question. We tell people they need to be aware of themselves and their needs; they need to protect themselves from abusive relationships and destructive choices. We have Lifetime movies and ABC Family movies where the boyfriend/girlfriend is so obviously awful and the hero/heroine is so desperately drowning. But real life is rarely, if ever, that simple. While it’s hard to walk away from a destructive relationship--sometimes impossible--once you manage to extract yourself there is a definiteness there. When the story is told everyone will quickly and clearly understand that the alcoholic, drug user, emotionally abusive bastard treated you poorly, and that while s/he might not be a bad person there was nothing you could have done. It was both right and good that you walked away and congratulations on pulling yourself out of an awful situation. But...when it’s someone who makes you tired, stressed, or generally unhappy without exactly hurting you when are you at liberty to walk away? When is your decision to let that person figure it out ethical, and when is it abandonment? And (though I don’t think I can begin to evaluate this idea here) when and/or how do you tell them that you are walking away?

I know. Not even JCVD can get me through this one.

It is precisely this gray area that I find myself subsisting in presently, however; not all of a sudden (does anything that promotes self-evaluation ever really happen all of a sudden?) but over the course of the last four years. I’ve worked past the self-help book. I know how to take time for myself (you might call me selfish and you wouldn’t be wrong) and I know how to stand by my friends (I would go to jail for those I love). But when I discover that someone isn’t good for me, that beyond simply not making me happy they make anxious, stressed, irritable, judgmental, short tempered, mean--the list goes on--when or how do I proceed from there? My modus operandi heretofore has been to pull back, gain distance, disappear. But is that the better choice? Is it better to simply give them room to grow or not grow as their own life journey dictates or am I ethically bound as a friend to tell them why I’m pulling back?

I think I feel that space in this cases is the best decision; it is no more fair to me to be miserable because of unpleasant company than it is that the unpleasant company is miserable in the first place. But with my assertion of autonomy--this is my space and my mind and you aren’t allowed to manipulate it--must I reveal, explain, and/or justify that assertion? If the answer is sometimes, when do those sometimes occur and how does one recognize and navigate them?

It doesn’t feel right to me to simply pull away from those I’ve established relationships with, but I am codependent so of course it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right for me to be brutally honest about how someone’s behavior makes me feel and affects me, but I come from a family that would sooner admit to venereal disease than own up to feeling sad or wounded. I’ve been raised to believe that if someone affects me it is because at some very basic level I have allowed it to affect me; if I were tougher/stronger/smarter whoever it is that ruined my day wouldn’t have ruined it. I recognize now that is a patently false idea. Simultaneously, however, you aren’t always a complete victim; often in life we have some degree of power and wielding that power responsibly is as important as surviving someone wielding theirs irresponsibly at us. If I get robbed we can all agree there was nothing I could do, but if I get manipulated and feel used...should I have been tougher/stronger/smarter? If that feeling of use and manipulation makes me angry, depressed, and/or unsympathetic am I being over sensitive?

I understand that things aren’t easy; it no longer surprises me that they aren’t, but knowing a thing to be true and knowing what to do about that true thing are two very different skill sets. The last four years of graduate school have required a particular level of selfishness from me I do not feel bad about--I needed to learn and to learn one needs to spend time with/on one’s self--but I also know I have not held the line of necessary selfishness and convenient selfishness as strongly as I should. But hell, even knowing all of that I still have no answer to the problem of what constitutes ethical behavior when you recognize destructive behavior in another. I guess we all do the best we can, but that idea is a copout and too often used to excuse our failure to do what we should.

This would all be so much more awesome if I could fix it with a roundhouse kick to the head. Granted I can’t roundhouse kick, but I could learn man. I could so totally learn.

The JCVD Project

I’ve embarked upon a new adventure with my fellow partner in JCVD love. We have set, as a goal for ourselves, the task of watching every movie with JCVD in the credits. We will document this journey on our new blog, “The JCVD Project” which I have thoughtfully included a link to on the right. You will find there our Mission Statement, an explanation of our ratings system--the VD rating--and a breakdown of the movies watched as we watch them.

Mayhap it’s my natural response to studying so very hard these last few months. Maybe I’ve been building towards this moment that fateful summer I watched every movie Family Video had starring JCVD. Maybe this is why fate gave me an English degree. I don’t know the whys. I only know I must do it. This is the quest destiny demands of me, and I will deliver.

I want to tell the world about JCVD! No, it’s not Jess Carries Venereal Disease but Jean Claude Van Damme!

I recently watched JCVD (twice if you must know) and was blown away by its awesomeness. Now, perhaps because this is text and many markers of communication are missing, you might think I’m being sarcastic or employing hyperbole. But I simply must inform you with all seriousness that JCVD is one seriously impressive movie. After watching this movie I discovered something: JCVD can actually act--I know; my shock was significant as well. I also rediscovered something: I have inappropriate (you have no idea how inappropriate) love for JCVD in all his incarnations.

I admit I feel better about my JCVD love than, say, Steven Segall (it just happened okay? One day I was watching Under Siege and before I knew it I found him attractive. It wasn’t my fault; the devil comes at us in moments of weakness) but I’ve never owned my VD love as I have other obsessions. In all honesty, however, there was a summer when I rented every movie our video store had, but that isn’t a story I’ve shared freely until recently.

Spurred on by my re-ignited love for Mr. JCVD I happily dove into my Netflix watch instantly and discovered to my thrilling delight a classic known as Double Impact awaiting me. After finishing it I find myself giggly and nostalgic for the action movies of yesteryear. Double Impact (hereafter referred to as DI in keeping with my egregious abbreviations abuse) has everything a great action movie from the 80’s and early 90’s ought to have: there’s martial arts, there’s gratuitous boob shots, there’s a purposeless sex scene, there’s unlikely explosions, there’s ripping of the action hero’s shirt for proper exposure of pectoral muscles, and there’s such a painfully juvenile attempt at a story that as a viewer you can’t help but cringe every time something like genuine emotion comes on the screen. In short, it has everything I love and miss about action movies.

Sure it’s sexist. Dear lord is it sexist. At one point the heroine, who didn’t bother me overmuch until she started talking in the second half of the movie and it become painfully apparent that she couldn’t act, dropped the blanket she was wearing while her clothes dried (because she got wet...obviously) and we saw her chest. You know...like ya do. And there was the “bad girl” who had to have been a professional body builder cause the girl was stacked. Naturally she had to “search” the “good girl” at one point in what was a clumsy attempt at 1992 heterosexual male fantasy of lesbian domination. Oddly enough the “bad girl” wore leather and black and had dark hair while the “good girl” wore pastels with flowers and had blond hair. You just can’t get gender roles and sexism like that anymore. And I simply must mention the sex scene; you see there was no reason, even in this hastily thrown together plot for there to be a sex scene but they got around that by Alex (played by JCVD) getting drunk and hallucinating that his brother Chad (played by JCVD) was having sex with his girlfriend--the blond girl. Brilliant!

And the final fight scene was glorious, stupendous, beautiful! JCVD, wearing a rather dull turtleneck, loses said turtleneck when the bad guy rips it off of him. You only wish I was making this up. And then (AND THEN) bad guy, played by Bobo for those of you that know who I’m talking about, takes his shirt off so they can have some short of martial arts throw down and assert their dominant masculinity over each other. ‘Twas awesome.

And I sat here and ate this shit up. Seriously, we don’t have action movies like this anymore. You could call it senseless violence and say it’s a good thing, but as I enjoyed the dubious pleasure that was DI I couldn’t help but miss the time when gratuitous violence was SO gratuitous that it had absolutely no chance of warping a child’s mind. You watch classics like Kickboxer or American Ninja or Under Siege and you know you aren’t bettering yourself. You are, in fact, treating the lowest part of yourself. I, the person that rails against the concepts of “high art” and “low art” gladly concede that this stuff is low art. But it does what it does well. Things blow up in exciting ways. Heroes are sexy and action stars can actually do the moves you see on the screen. Bad guys die overly complicated deaths, usually through helicopter blades or a thoughtfully exposed electrical box. If ever there is a scene with things marked “flammable” you know there will eventually be an explosion even if there has been no HINT of an incendiary device on screen; sometimes I think the hero is so cool that all he has to do is look at a barrel marked “flammable” and it will explode. But the neat part, the reason why I think I like it so much, is that no one watches a movie like DI and walks away worse because of it. The gender roles are crap, but there is less chance of danger for a young girl watching the chick in this be weak all the way through then there is in watching something like G.I. Joe where she learns she can be tough like Scarlett--as long as her uniform is thoughtfully unzipped all the time. There’s less danger in watching the violence of JCVD’s sweet martial arts moves than there is in watching any number of revenge movies where the thrill isn’t in the fighting but in the gore.

I’m not saying you should run out and watch DI (really, I promise I’m not saying that) but I offer this slightly embarrassing testimonial of JCVD love to helpfully bring back whatever fond memories you too might have of a time when action movies were simple and action movie stars didn’t shave their body hair.

Sometimes you just want to watch stuff blow up, and I know that JCVD will always be there for me when I do.

Working out, Cowboys in my Kitchen, and the Douchasaur

I just lifted weights for the first time in *mumble mumble* years. I feel a little bit like my arms have been stretched out by the rack and then flogged by little people placed at two-inch intervals each wielding a variation of a cat-o-nine-tails. But, I can sit down without my thighs giving out so that’s a plus. We’ll see if that’s still the case tomorrow after doing legs.

I came home and was standing in the kitchen heating up my leftovers from Bucca di Beppo (because nothing accentuates a good work out like family style Italian food) and I looked to my right at our “Studs ‘n Spurs” calendar. It was a joke (sort of) but some days when I’m feeling particularly sad I find my spirits buoyed by the shirtless cowboy on my kitchen wall with his too, too tight jeans. As I gazed at Mr. September I was excited at first; July, my birthday month, had a model who if he was a day over eighteen I’m a super model. Other months have been pleasant, but for a calendar dedicated to studs wearing spurs we haven’t always been guaranteed studliness.

All of this is to say that when I gazed at Mr. September, shirtless and appropriately misted so as to appear wet and tired after a hard day’s cowboying I became aware of something ruining my delightful objectification. There was something nagging at the back of my head that this picture just wasn’t as hot as it ought to be, and that bothered me. Gleaming six pack abs? Check. Wet? Check. Pleasant face? Sort of. I narrowed my search and realized it was, in fact, his eyes that were ruining our little moment.

I know. Have a laugh. Mock me. Who looks at a “Studs ‘n Spurs” calendar and feels bereft because the EYES aren’t right? It’s sort of like anyone on the planet actually knowing what color Pamela Anderson’s eyes are. But here’s the thing--or at least, here’s what I’ve decided the thing to be. There is a certain amount of badassery that exists metaphysically. Part of it is attitude; a man walks into the room and thinks, subconsciously even, I can take anyone here. Not because his self worth is dependent upon his ability to take anyone there, and not even because it’s true. More, it’s the knowledge that if he had to he could protect himself, but he won’t have to because no one there is worth his time to fight with. No matter how assy they get he’ll just buy them a drink and go on about his business. Unless they piss him off.

Furthermore, that attitude needs to exude from every pore of his being. Some call it confidence or assurance of self, but I don’t think that quite captures the self possession I’m attempting to describe. More it’s the complete inability of this man to conceive that even if he gets his ass kicked, even if he gets laughed at, even if no one in the room is aware of what he could do to them, he won’t be beat. That’s badassery my friends.

Bringing this back around to Mr. Sept. I want, when I look at a picture of a shirtless, wet cowboy on my kitchen wall the knowledge that the character portrayed for that photograph (and it is a character, you don’t shave your chest if you’re a real cowboy) has the sort of badassery that makes genitals weep. I want John Wayne with a James Bond attitude. I don’t want some dude with a six pack in a pair of tight jeans that looks like the only thought he’s contemplated for longer than a moment was how awesome he is.

I hate it when my fantasies are so rudely destroyed by life’s refusal to be objectified.

But that brings us to the discovery of a new species known as the douchasaur. There will be a list of all the various types of douchasaurs, but I’m sorry to say my hot cowboy fantasy has been destroyed in no small part to the undeniable knowledge that Mr. Sept. is a douchasaurus. And yes, I know this because of the eyes.