I secretly love electronic music. I mean, not that trendy stuff. I'm talking about shitty house music, old Chemical Brothers, and the kind of remixed top-40 that gets played at the end of the night at really pedestrian "clubs." I went out with a little girl squad recently, and in between 8-dollar drinks and filthy tables, there was a delightful blend of really terrible, amazing music.
The most probable reason that people would like this type of music is because they've been ingesting MDMA and vodka-Redbulls all night long. Since Redbull gives me dry heaves and I'm not a pill-popper, my fondness for dance music remains a mystery, even to myself. One clue might rest on the fact that it's all beats-and-bass...music designed to have sex to, in other words. On the other hand, if you call a genre "dance music" and then expect me not to love it, you'll be terrifically surprised.
The first time I really heard anything that could be classified as "electronic music" was when I was in the sixth grade, when I was way too young to be listening to Dig Your Own Hole. No matter! I'd listen to it on my Walkman, lying in bed at night, trying to figure out why the hell I was feeling jumpy and wide awake. Anyone who denies that music has powers
should be forced to repeatedly listen to what Dave Barry dubbed the worst song ever written, "MacArthur Park" by Richard Harris. We can set it up Clockwork Orange-style, and the resulting Slurpee-ization of the doubter's brain will be more than enough to create a new comic book supervillain.
My most recent electroresurgence was prompted by "What Else Is There?" the gorgeous 2005 Royskopp song, which features (total babe) Karin Dreijer Andersson. KDA then led me to find The Knife and Fever Ray, acts that both feature her spooky vocals. I'm not going to lie: I can't name-drop dance music acts like her (equally babe-onic brother) Olof Andersson, who DJs around Europe and who I would totally make out with. But I got a tiny primer in high school from friends, and can at least recognize most of the major musical waves out there.
For example, what happens when you mix indie music with dance music? Why, Chromeo, of course! One tasty recipe calls for copious amounts of irony, like when folky hipsters cover chart-toppers (see "Straight Outta Compton" as performed by Nina Gordon; Weezer's version of "(Hit Me Baby) One More Time," etc.). Also delicious is the parody, as evidenced by Lonely Island or Flight of the Concords and their goofy-ass take on thugged-out hip-hop.
Hip, funny, serious, deathly, sexy...none of those mean much if I can't dance. Because the most important thing about dance music isn't if it's, like, performing CPR on its audience. Will it make me shake my ass? Will I sing along? Will I get an endorphin high from three hours of sustained joy? Then, and only then, has dance music done its job.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Dude Energy
If science ever gets bored with playing with atoms or screwing over the environment, they can always turn to harnessing one of the more potent sources of energy in the universe. I'm talking, of course, about Dude Energy.
As we leave behind our teens and enter the world of adulthood (and its corresponding adult magazines), we also leave behind a time when smacking each other in the bag was like, a huge source of entertainment and pleasure for guys. I'm not even mentioning that whaling on each other for no good reason made up roughly 40% of teen-boy social life. Plus, when else are you going to get really, really good at the Halo franchise without putting a marriage/career on the line? Or be powered solely by Mountain Dew and "that's what she said" jokes? It's glorious, glorious I tell you.
Women don't do that. Girls didn't do that either. We don't usually go around growing funny mustaches or debating which episode of The Simpsons was the very finest. Oh, sure, sometimes there are exceptions - remember when Cameron Diaz was first on the scene, and every interview she did was how much she liked burping/farting? - but for the most part, girls are delicate flowers when it comes to stuff like that. Which is a shame, really. I think we'd have a lot more fun if it occurred to us just to slug it out when we get mad at each other. Instead , we use all that fakery, peaking in high school, but lingering through a huge part of female-on-female social interactions.
Dudes have an easy physicality, a way of takin' 'er easy that's hard not to admire. It's this kind of mindset that allows a dude to play Frisbee on a Thursday afternoon, or have the mental capacity to store 800,000 songs in his brain, but forget his best friend's birthday. It's the easy jokester, the guy who can hit on a woman while sporting a ripped tee-shirt, the dude who can wear that same ripped tee-shirt four days in a row. Dudes are champs at cooking meat and terrible at making the bed. What's not to admire about that?
As we leave behind our teens and enter the world of adulthood (and its corresponding adult magazines), we also leave behind a time when smacking each other in the bag was like, a huge source of entertainment and pleasure for guys. I'm not even mentioning that whaling on each other for no good reason made up roughly 40% of teen-boy social life. Plus, when else are you going to get really, really good at the Halo franchise without putting a marriage/career on the line? Or be powered solely by Mountain Dew and "that's what she said" jokes? It's glorious, glorious I tell you.
Women don't do that. Girls didn't do that either. We don't usually go around growing funny mustaches or debating which episode of The Simpsons was the very finest. Oh, sure, sometimes there are exceptions - remember when Cameron Diaz was first on the scene, and every interview she did was how much she liked burping/farting? - but for the most part, girls are delicate flowers when it comes to stuff like that. Which is a shame, really. I think we'd have a lot more fun if it occurred to us just to slug it out when we get mad at each other. Instead , we use all that fakery, peaking in high school, but lingering through a huge part of female-on-female social interactions.
Dudes have an easy physicality, a way of takin' 'er easy that's hard not to admire. It's this kind of mindset that allows a dude to play Frisbee on a Thursday afternoon, or have the mental capacity to store 800,000 songs in his brain, but forget his best friend's birthday. It's the easy jokester, the guy who can hit on a woman while sporting a ripped tee-shirt, the dude who can wear that same ripped tee-shirt four days in a row. Dudes are champs at cooking meat and terrible at making the bed. What's not to admire about that?
Monday, June 29, 2009
King of Pop Rocks
As 95% of the world has facebook-status-updated, twittered or read about at this point, Michael Jackson is dead. Lynn Crosbie, naturally, is feeling pretty blue.
I've previously called out Leah McLaren, another Globe columnist, for being a boring narcissist, but I've never had any actual contact with her. Lynn and I, on the other hand, have had an email spat. It involved the proper definition of the wifebeater tank top and culminated in her accusing me of being "old." Since she's, oh, twenty years older than me, it naturally got my back up.
In any case, I take umbrage with Crosbie because her favorite game is comparing Hollywood celebrities to Greek tragedies, which is a metaphor that was old when Elizabeth Taylor made Cleopatra - coincidentally, a product also created in 1963, much like Lynn. It just seems so trite, and obvious, and annoying. She also has a major hate-on for OJ Simpson, which makes her whole MJ thing so bizarre.
See, in Lynn's final words to Wacko Jacko, she mentioned his childhood, his tragic relationship with fame, his crazy adult life, and his metaphorical relationship with fame, especially his marriage with Lisa Marie Presley. You know? King of Rock 'n' Roll, King of Pop? Yeah. Throw a little King of The World in there, and you've got the whole she-bang. But nowhere in her flouncy little piece does she mention the fact that Michael Jackson turned from a black child into...well, certainly not a black man. Lynn's piece never mentions race.
There are "reasons" for Jackson's metamorphosis, including lupus and pancake makeup. However, there are also "reasons" like plastic surgery and skin bleaching. It's possible that the biggest reason might the fact that Jackson was a person who straight-up loathed himself. The Jackson Five released their first single when Michael was only nine years old, and Jackson admitted to Oprah in 1993 that he suffered beatings and humilations at the hands of his father from a young age. It's not a total shock that the man turned out to be freaky. As Britney proved, young fame can equal the crazy. As thousands of destroyed adults can attest, childhood abuse ain't no stroll in the greenery.
Now, keep that equation of monstrous childhood fame + insane childhood trauma in your mind as you cast yourself back to the 1970s and 1980s. There was no Obama back then. There was a film genre called blaxploitation, for christ's sake. Jackson, being a child star, was practically castrato. On the other hand, Jackson, being a black man, was "supposed" to be sexually potent. On the third hand, Jackson was an alleged anorexic, falling into a category of folks who aren't known for their self-acceptance. On the fourth hand, he has been accused of being gay (not to mention having an affinity for young boys) for the past 15 years. (On the fifth hand, I've turned into a mutation and need to stop this handsy business.) Michael Jackson was a man who just did not turn out well - mentally, physically, or emotionally.
Lynn Crosbie chooses to open her memorial by quoting Shelley's poem "Adonais," which seems a bit cruel. She follows up that stunner by moving on to the great poets of the 20th century. Any guesses? Air Supply. Yup, Crosbie can't live if living is without Michael Jackson. What is that? Look: I was never an MJ fan, since I was a ten year old girl when he started running into trouble with ten year old boys. His cultural relevance peaked the year I was born, so my memories of Jackson aren't of a musical and dance genius, but of a man who was dodging rumors and pulling publicity stunts.
However, Crosbie would have been 20 in 1983, and would have been a part of the massive take-over Jackson enacted on pop music. She would have been around for both the black and white versions of Jackson, and should have been able to toss off an analysis of his racial imbroglio without a second thought. In fact, given her writing about OJ Simpson, she should have zeroed in on that. And...she failed. Her memorial, with the Air Supply and the Adonais, with the Elvis comparisons and the Blanche Dubois shout-outs, was superficial.
Lynn: Michael Jackson was a tragedy. Not a Greek tragedy; a modern mess that is embedded in our time's obsession with race, fame, childhood, sexuality and the bizarre. Michael Jackson - the true MJ, who was successful and powerful, who fed an adoring audience amazing, world-changing music - died years ago. We've been watching his ghost for years.
I've previously called out Leah McLaren, another Globe columnist, for being a boring narcissist, but I've never had any actual contact with her. Lynn and I, on the other hand, have had an email spat. It involved the proper definition of the wifebeater tank top and culminated in her accusing me of being "old." Since she's, oh, twenty years older than me, it naturally got my back up.
In any case, I take umbrage with Crosbie because her favorite game is comparing Hollywood celebrities to Greek tragedies, which is a metaphor that was old when Elizabeth Taylor made Cleopatra - coincidentally, a product also created in 1963, much like Lynn. It just seems so trite, and obvious, and annoying. She also has a major hate-on for OJ Simpson, which makes her whole MJ thing so bizarre.
See, in Lynn's final words to Wacko Jacko, she mentioned his childhood, his tragic relationship with fame, his crazy adult life, and his metaphorical relationship with fame, especially his marriage with Lisa Marie Presley. You know? King of Rock 'n' Roll, King of Pop? Yeah. Throw a little King of The World in there, and you've got the whole she-bang. But nowhere in her flouncy little piece does she mention the fact that Michael Jackson turned from a black child into...well, certainly not a black man. Lynn's piece never mentions race.
There are "reasons" for Jackson's metamorphosis, including lupus and pancake makeup. However, there are also "reasons" like plastic surgery and skin bleaching. It's possible that the biggest reason might the fact that Jackson was a person who straight-up loathed himself. The Jackson Five released their first single when Michael was only nine years old, and Jackson admitted to Oprah in 1993 that he suffered beatings and humilations at the hands of his father from a young age. It's not a total shock that the man turned out to be freaky. As Britney proved, young fame can equal the crazy. As thousands of destroyed adults can attest, childhood abuse ain't no stroll in the greenery.
Now, keep that equation of monstrous childhood fame + insane childhood trauma in your mind as you cast yourself back to the 1970s and 1980s. There was no Obama back then. There was a film genre called blaxploitation, for christ's sake. Jackson, being a child star, was practically castrato. On the other hand, Jackson, being a black man, was "supposed" to be sexually potent. On the third hand, Jackson was an alleged anorexic, falling into a category of folks who aren't known for their self-acceptance. On the fourth hand, he has been accused of being gay (not to mention having an affinity for young boys) for the past 15 years. (On the fifth hand, I've turned into a mutation and need to stop this handsy business.) Michael Jackson was a man who just did not turn out well - mentally, physically, or emotionally.
Lynn Crosbie chooses to open her memorial by quoting Shelley's poem "Adonais," which seems a bit cruel. She follows up that stunner by moving on to the great poets of the 20th century. Any guesses? Air Supply. Yup, Crosbie can't live if living is without Michael Jackson. What is that? Look: I was never an MJ fan, since I was a ten year old girl when he started running into trouble with ten year old boys. His cultural relevance peaked the year I was born, so my memories of Jackson aren't of a musical and dance genius, but of a man who was dodging rumors and pulling publicity stunts.
However, Crosbie would have been 20 in 1983, and would have been a part of the massive take-over Jackson enacted on pop music. She would have been around for both the black and white versions of Jackson, and should have been able to toss off an analysis of his racial imbroglio without a second thought. In fact, given her writing about OJ Simpson, she should have zeroed in on that. And...she failed. Her memorial, with the Air Supply and the Adonais, with the Elvis comparisons and the Blanche Dubois shout-outs, was superficial.
Lynn: Michael Jackson was a tragedy. Not a Greek tragedy; a modern mess that is embedded in our time's obsession with race, fame, childhood, sexuality and the bizarre. Michael Jackson - the true MJ, who was successful and powerful, who fed an adoring audience amazing, world-changing music - died years ago. We've been watching his ghost for years.
Friday, June 26, 2009
How I Met Your Father
I've been watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother these days, which is totally messing with me. The show is adorable, and Jason Segel obviously needs to move to Canada to date me: both Marshall Erikson on HIMYM and Nick Andopolis from Freaks and Geeks are totally sweet, funny, tall dudes. That's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like 'em. He just seems so genuine, you know? I know he's an actor and it's likely he's a huge turd with a gigantic ego, but I'm sold on the characters he plays. Cute, with a side of awesome.
Ahem. This wasn't supposed to turn into a love letter to Jason Segel. Apologies all around. No, the reason I mention HIMYM is because the show is totally obsessed with marriage, and it's weirding me out.
Look, I love marriage. Granted, since I'm friends mostly with broke people, I've yet to attend an actual fancy-person wedding (caterers, photographers, cake, parents, etc.), but the institution, I'm on-side with. You know how it was trendy for a while to be all snorty and derisive when the topic of marriage came up? People would say things like, "I know we're in love, man, so why do I need a piece of paper to say that?" as they walked barefoot along the dirty sidewalk, holding their dreadlocked beloved by the hand.
Those words always felt a little fake in my mouth, since I actually do believe in marriage. While it's totally square to admit an interest in nuptial ceremonies, I've been known to peruse a bridal magazine or two. I'm not going to lie - usually I'm just looking for really pretty dresses. But it's not something that I'm going to reject out of hand as being some patriarchal convention designed to subjugate women and reinforce the capitalist world, man.
You know how people are always spouting about how half of all marriages ending in divorce? Think again, chumps. Turns out, that number goes way down if you adjust for things like undergrad degrees, age, and how long you wait before getting knocked up (as a couple, of course, even though coupled guys who say "we're" pregnant need a swift kick in the babymaker). Backwater teenagers who get married in a maternity gown? Probably not going to be celebrating that tenth anniversary. Quel surprise.
Marriage, these days, is presented as some ball-and-chair setup that means the loss of youth, privacy and the slow strangulation of a healthy sex drive. Some nosy wife is always shrewing at some balding husband, while a gaggle of children - a product of boring, tired, infrequent sex - soaks up the retirement fund in the form of plastic children's toys. I'm sure some people honestly feel that way, and those folks shouldn't get married.
But for the rest of us: what's so bad about love and support? What's the problem with a friend you get to have sex with? Someone to feed you soup when you have the flu, someone to be a cheerleader, a person who will still like you even if you fuck it up? I'm not talking about l-o-v-e here. I think it's way more important that you actually like the person you end up pledging your troth to. Yeah, sure, communication and respect are important too...but isn't awesome when a couple has been married for thirty years and they can still make each other laugh so hard they cry? That goes way beyond love, man.
Getting back to television: HIMYM is lying to me. It's presenting this world where awesome, adorable, sweet dudes are totally into the idea of marriage. This is SUCH a LIE. Most of the awesome, adorable sweet dudes I know are properly girded with girlfriends, but nary a one popped the question. It seems like guys who are well into their thirties are the only ones getting down on bended knee. Ryan Reynolds married ScarJo, who is a full ten years his junior. (Sidebar: is anyone else having a hard time figuring out what those two talk about? I mean, they're both hot, but he seems funny and charming, and she seems...not.) It seems obvious that my mid-twenties brethren are still lapping at the Fountain of Youth, from which an eternal spring of take-out pizza and joints flows.
I'm not hating on any of the following: take-out pizza, joints, guys in their twenties, guys in their thirties, How I Met Your Mother, or Ryan Reynolds. (Scarlett? Meh.) But I am saying is that show has created this optimistic world where cute, rumply-haired architects just want to fall in love and get married. Is this the world I live in? Maybe I need to move to a different city. Because, frankly, with my smarts, wit, and breasts? I'm an excellent catch. Ryan Reynolds, I am, like, right here.
Television is fantasy. It's not supposed to be realistic, and hey, if it makes single girls feel like maybe there's an attractive sportscaster waiting just around the corner, what's the harm? This show introduced the slap bet to the world; it's not exactly reality TV. However, when television is good - and this is good TV - it feels real. Seinfeld, even though it devolved into lunacy very quickly, always felt real. Friends felt real. How I Met Your Mother also feels real; it feels like, even though the show is using actors and props and scripts and all that phony blah-blah, it still hits in a place that uses the real...which makes it successful...which makes me a little mad at it, for the he's-right-around-the-corner trip it lays on its audience.
Damn. So meta! What would Barney Stinson do?
Ahem. This wasn't supposed to turn into a love letter to Jason Segel. Apologies all around. No, the reason I mention HIMYM is because the show is totally obsessed with marriage, and it's weirding me out.
Look, I love marriage. Granted, since I'm friends mostly with broke people, I've yet to attend an actual fancy-person wedding (caterers, photographers, cake, parents, etc.), but the institution, I'm on-side with. You know how it was trendy for a while to be all snorty and derisive when the topic of marriage came up? People would say things like, "I know we're in love, man, so why do I need a piece of paper to say that?" as they walked barefoot along the dirty sidewalk, holding their dreadlocked beloved by the hand.
Those words always felt a little fake in my mouth, since I actually do believe in marriage. While it's totally square to admit an interest in nuptial ceremonies, I've been known to peruse a bridal magazine or two. I'm not going to lie - usually I'm just looking for really pretty dresses. But it's not something that I'm going to reject out of hand as being some patriarchal convention designed to subjugate women and reinforce the capitalist world, man.
You know how people are always spouting about how half of all marriages ending in divorce? Think again, chumps. Turns out, that number goes way down if you adjust for things like undergrad degrees, age, and how long you wait before getting knocked up (as a couple, of course, even though coupled guys who say "we're" pregnant need a swift kick in the babymaker). Backwater teenagers who get married in a maternity gown? Probably not going to be celebrating that tenth anniversary. Quel surprise.
Marriage, these days, is presented as some ball-and-chair setup that means the loss of youth, privacy and the slow strangulation of a healthy sex drive. Some nosy wife is always shrewing at some balding husband, while a gaggle of children - a product of boring, tired, infrequent sex - soaks up the retirement fund in the form of plastic children's toys. I'm sure some people honestly feel that way, and those folks shouldn't get married.
But for the rest of us: what's so bad about love and support? What's the problem with a friend you get to have sex with? Someone to feed you soup when you have the flu, someone to be a cheerleader, a person who will still like you even if you fuck it up? I'm not talking about l-o-v-e here. I think it's way more important that you actually like the person you end up pledging your troth to. Yeah, sure, communication and respect are important too...but isn't awesome when a couple has been married for thirty years and they can still make each other laugh so hard they cry? That goes way beyond love, man.
Getting back to television: HIMYM is lying to me. It's presenting this world where awesome, adorable, sweet dudes are totally into the idea of marriage. This is SUCH a LIE. Most of the awesome, adorable sweet dudes I know are properly girded with girlfriends, but nary a one popped the question. It seems like guys who are well into their thirties are the only ones getting down on bended knee. Ryan Reynolds married ScarJo, who is a full ten years his junior. (Sidebar: is anyone else having a hard time figuring out what those two talk about? I mean, they're both hot, but he seems funny and charming, and she seems...not.) It seems obvious that my mid-twenties brethren are still lapping at the Fountain of Youth, from which an eternal spring of take-out pizza and joints flows.
I'm not hating on any of the following: take-out pizza, joints, guys in their twenties, guys in their thirties, How I Met Your Mother, or Ryan Reynolds. (Scarlett? Meh.) But I am saying is that show has created this optimistic world where cute, rumply-haired architects just want to fall in love and get married. Is this the world I live in? Maybe I need to move to a different city. Because, frankly, with my smarts, wit, and breasts? I'm an excellent catch. Ryan Reynolds, I am, like, right here.
Television is fantasy. It's not supposed to be realistic, and hey, if it makes single girls feel like maybe there's an attractive sportscaster waiting just around the corner, what's the harm? This show introduced the slap bet to the world; it's not exactly reality TV. However, when television is good - and this is good TV - it feels real. Seinfeld, even though it devolved into lunacy very quickly, always felt real. Friends felt real. How I Met Your Mother also feels real; it feels like, even though the show is using actors and props and scripts and all that phony blah-blah, it still hits in a place that uses the real...which makes it successful...which makes me a little mad at it, for the he's-right-around-the-corner trip it lays on its audience.
Damn. So meta! What would Barney Stinson do?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Rolling Out
In honor of the heat - seriously, Extreme Heat Alert should be a flavour of Doritos, not an ongoing event in Toronto, complete with cooling stations and advisory statements to check on your collection of infirm and elderly friends/family - I'll keep this captain's log entry short and to the point: summertime and the living is...meh.
For the past couple years, summer has been a traditionally bad time for me. I have painful memories of a bad breakup - one that came right on the heels of disastrous news about my sister and her health - and the summer of '07 was compounded by a dear friend being deported, not to mention me moving away from my first Toronto home. It was The Time Of Great Crying, which made me a total drag to be around. But, thankfully, I had amazing friends and a wonderful family to help drag me out of the mud, and I made it through.
But! A side effect of living through really horrible shit is getting to re-live it...again...and again. You know, I've never been through a war, or been horribly mangled in a prison riot, and it's not fair to say that my horrible summer was like either of those things. On the other hand, it certainly wasn't a cakewalk, and trying to pretend it wasn't bad is actually pretty stupid.
In any case, prison riots or no (hint: no), summer usually brings out a host of insecurities. Will I always be single? Will I ever find a job? Am I a huge disappointment to everyone I've ever met?(For those keeping score at home: yes, no, oh god, yes.) And dudes: it's tough climbing out of that mindset sometimes.
A couple months ago, I stole a fantastic idea from my friend Amanda. She concocted a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, a conceit I admire very much, seeing as how it avoids that dreadful "bucket list" thing and still leads to actual deeds getting actually done. One of my 101 was "cry in public" and ladies and gentlemen: mission accomplished. I am the proud owner of a 2009 Hissy Fit. It was, like me, blue.
Hopefully, the 2010 Hissy Fit will be much smaller, and the 2011 Hissy Fit smaller still. It feel weird to admit that I'm still thinking about it - hell, even my sis seems mostly past it. But I get the sense that "seems" is the operative word there: we all carry baggage we don't want to admit to, because it seems like we should be past it, or that we are past it - except for tiny weekend-long exceptions, of course.
Other items on that list were things like "touch a dinosaur bone" and "fall in love," both of which takes bravery and inspiration. Last year, when the 2008 Hissy Fit was rolling out, those kinds of aspirations would have seemed totally out of reach. Now, it just seems like I'm requiring less trunk space for all my baggage.
For the past couple years, summer has been a traditionally bad time for me. I have painful memories of a bad breakup - one that came right on the heels of disastrous news about my sister and her health - and the summer of '07 was compounded by a dear friend being deported, not to mention me moving away from my first Toronto home. It was The Time Of Great Crying, which made me a total drag to be around. But, thankfully, I had amazing friends and a wonderful family to help drag me out of the mud, and I made it through.
But! A side effect of living through really horrible shit is getting to re-live it...again...and again. You know, I've never been through a war, or been horribly mangled in a prison riot, and it's not fair to say that my horrible summer was like either of those things. On the other hand, it certainly wasn't a cakewalk, and trying to pretend it wasn't bad is actually pretty stupid.
In any case, prison riots or no (hint: no), summer usually brings out a host of insecurities. Will I always be single? Will I ever find a job? Am I a huge disappointment to everyone I've ever met?(For those keeping score at home: yes, no, oh god, yes.) And dudes: it's tough climbing out of that mindset sometimes.
A couple months ago, I stole a fantastic idea from my friend Amanda. She concocted a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, a conceit I admire very much, seeing as how it avoids that dreadful "bucket list" thing and still leads to actual deeds getting actually done. One of my 101 was "cry in public" and ladies and gentlemen: mission accomplished. I am the proud owner of a 2009 Hissy Fit. It was, like me, blue.
Hopefully, the 2010 Hissy Fit will be much smaller, and the 2011 Hissy Fit smaller still. It feel weird to admit that I'm still thinking about it - hell, even my sis seems mostly past it. But I get the sense that "seems" is the operative word there: we all carry baggage we don't want to admit to, because it seems like we should be past it, or that we are past it - except for tiny weekend-long exceptions, of course.
Other items on that list were things like "touch a dinosaur bone" and "fall in love," both of which takes bravery and inspiration. Last year, when the 2008 Hissy Fit was rolling out, those kinds of aspirations would have seemed totally out of reach. Now, it just seems like I'm requiring less trunk space for all my baggage.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Daddy Issues
Most dudes I know have a complicated relationship with their dads. It's not a straightforward one-to-one kind of deal, where the dad offers sage life advice and smokes a pipe and wears natty cardigans, and the son kneels obediently at their feet, waiting for said life advice to be doled out in easy-to-remember chunks. Because real people don't exist in 22-minute slices of time, the actual fathering of the sons becomes a little more fraught. Well, not the actual fathering, which is pretty straightforward and takes significantly less time. I mean the parenting, which isn't really a verb, but hell, let's roll with it.
It's not like my girlfriends have an easy time with their mothers, but at least most moms stuck around to screw us up. Dads are usually the parent who disappears when marriages end, which leaves the kids gettin to know their fathers through awkward breakfast dates and guiltily written cheques...if they're lucky. Some fathers just take flight, leaving town and occasionally starting a new family in a different area code. There's a scene in Fight Club where Ed Norton talks about how his dad started fresh every six years, "like he was starting a franchise," and he isn't a rare oiseau. While Mama Bear usually keeps the cubs and the cave, Papa Bear can wander the forest, catching salmon and pooping. (Yeah, I'm comparing divorced couples to bears. It's an analogy, or maybe a simile. It's probably not a total success, either.)
I'm lucky - my dad not only stuck around, he's also a good father. I was a 100% asshole during my high school career, and somehow, my relationship with parents survived. While my mom took the brunt of my jerk-store behaviour, my dad wasn't immune, and it's amazing that we even hang out, let alone like each other. To my credit, I did develop a sense of humour somewhere in the past ten years, which probably saved my ass from any number of lost relationships. However, to their credit, my folks were willing to get past a few terrible years and move into, like, a healthy adult relationship with me. That's lucky. My parents are awesome.
My friends gleefully refer to my dad as "the silver fox," a moniker he earned by having white hair and remaining a trim, handsome guy into his middle age. (Both my parents have aged astonishingly well, which means I can look forward to getting carded well into my sixties.) He used to have this rooster-esque hairdo, which was floppy and long and kind of business-silly, but when my sister needed chemo, he shaved his head in solidarity. Weirdly, it made him look more muscular and about ten years younger, but he didn't do it for vanity; he did to support his daughter. He's a stand-up fella, my dad.
I know Mother's Day is a huge deal, with the brunches and the flowers and the hats, but Father's Day shouldn't be tossed aside. Dads are important: their presence and values inform us as both children and adults, and their absence and flaws can make a significant impact on the people we become. When I was rhyming off ideal boyfriend characteristics to my mom a few weeks ago, I included "good relationship with both parents," because a dude with a solid connection to his ma and pa (regardless of their marital status) is likely to share some of the values that my own parents instilled in me: communication, flexibility, honesty, and the importance of getting a little tipsy with out-of-town friends and blasting Tubular Bells at four in the morning. The usual stuff.
So: Mom, I love you. Dad, I love you, and happy Father's Day. You're both awesome.
It's not like my girlfriends have an easy time with their mothers, but at least most moms stuck around to screw us up. Dads are usually the parent who disappears when marriages end, which leaves the kids gettin to know their fathers through awkward breakfast dates and guiltily written cheques...if they're lucky. Some fathers just take flight, leaving town and occasionally starting a new family in a different area code. There's a scene in Fight Club where Ed Norton talks about how his dad started fresh every six years, "like he was starting a franchise," and he isn't a rare oiseau. While Mama Bear usually keeps the cubs and the cave, Papa Bear can wander the forest, catching salmon and pooping. (Yeah, I'm comparing divorced couples to bears. It's an analogy, or maybe a simile. It's probably not a total success, either.)
I'm lucky - my dad not only stuck around, he's also a good father. I was a 100% asshole during my high school career, and somehow, my relationship with parents survived. While my mom took the brunt of my jerk-store behaviour, my dad wasn't immune, and it's amazing that we even hang out, let alone like each other. To my credit, I did develop a sense of humour somewhere in the past ten years, which probably saved my ass from any number of lost relationships. However, to their credit, my folks were willing to get past a few terrible years and move into, like, a healthy adult relationship with me. That's lucky. My parents are awesome.
My friends gleefully refer to my dad as "the silver fox," a moniker he earned by having white hair and remaining a trim, handsome guy into his middle age. (Both my parents have aged astonishingly well, which means I can look forward to getting carded well into my sixties.) He used to have this rooster-esque hairdo, which was floppy and long and kind of business-silly, but when my sister needed chemo, he shaved his head in solidarity. Weirdly, it made him look more muscular and about ten years younger, but he didn't do it for vanity; he did to support his daughter. He's a stand-up fella, my dad.
I know Mother's Day is a huge deal, with the brunches and the flowers and the hats, but Father's Day shouldn't be tossed aside. Dads are important: their presence and values inform us as both children and adults, and their absence and flaws can make a significant impact on the people we become. When I was rhyming off ideal boyfriend characteristics to my mom a few weeks ago, I included "good relationship with both parents," because a dude with a solid connection to his ma and pa (regardless of their marital status) is likely to share some of the values that my own parents instilled in me: communication, flexibility, honesty, and the importance of getting a little tipsy with out-of-town friends and blasting Tubular Bells at four in the morning. The usual stuff.
So: Mom, I love you. Dad, I love you, and happy Father's Day. You're both awesome.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Dance Your Pants Off
Riddle me this: when did childrens' dance recitals turn into Prelude For A Striptease?
Yesterday, I happened to find myself at the end-of-year dance show for a fairly large Toronto dance school. Among the usual vignettes (four year olds skipping in a lopsided circle, manically grinning tapdancers, sequins), there was a huge amount of booty shaking, shoulder shimmying, and pelvic thrusting. One number had the girls start in pairs: one bent over at the waist, the other standing behind. I'm no prude, but like, seriously? That's a sexual position. A really sexual position.
Bitching about "young people today" always makes me feel like a crotchety old lady, but I don't recall this skill set from my own days as a dancer. Granted, I was hugely self-conscious and not blessed with any rhythmic sense whatsoever, but the eruption of sexualized dance moves seems to have happened after I wore a tragic leotard and danced to "It's Raining Men." When I asked my mom about it, she told me that she had actually taken my younger sister out of a dance class because, and I quote, "they were teaching the girls to dance like sluts," which was completely weird to hear my mom say. "The little girls?" asked my dad, and my mom was all, you better believe it.
Ten or fifteen years ago was before dance studios started offering hip-hop classes, which, aside from a truly strange number involving cowboy hats and a lot of shoulder shimmying, was the source of almost all the sexy moves. I am a hip-hop fan, and not just backpack hip-hop: I've shaken my ass to Usher like everyone else. But. I shook my ass in a club, which I got into because I was of age. It's never really all that appropriate to "bend over the floor and touch your toes," as Li'l Jon romantically suggests. At least I was doing it as God intended: drunk, with other drunk people, sans audience.
Hip-hop is sort of the inverse of musical theatre. It's kind of inappropriate when adults are really into musical theatre. It feels a little embarassing, because it's artificial and showy. Musical theatre is designed for thirteen year olds: it's colourful and melodramatic, and someone's always tipping over in a hoopskirt. When twenty-nine year old women are singing along, it's a little shameful. Hip-hop takes that formula and flips/reverses it: when kids are into it, it becomes necessary to point out how fake everything is...which kind of ruins the fun. The stakes are higher, because while very few people have every been the object of inappropriate sexual attention for belting out the words to Rent on the streetcar, the same isn't true for little girls who dance like hoochie mamas.
I'm not claiming that hip-hop is bad for kids; I'm just asking that instead of teaching fifteen year old girls how to grind like video hos, dance instructors might incorporate breakdancing into the mix. It's an athletic and impressive dance style, and it doesn't require anyone to present their hindquarters like a mate-ready baboon. (Oh, damn it, again with the crotchetiness.) It would also be helpful to recall that nine year old girls aren't reknowned for their critical thinking skills, and that incorporating sexualized dance moves into routines designed for people who have yet to take sex-ed might be overstepping the mark.
So yeah: keep it in the (dirty, filthy, adult, fun) clubs, where it belongs, make musical theatre illegal for anyone older than twenty, and burn my tragic leotard. Can we all sign off on that? Because I suspect that next year's recital is somehow going to be an interpretive dance about handjobs, and that makes me afraid.
Yesterday, I happened to find myself at the end-of-year dance show for a fairly large Toronto dance school. Among the usual vignettes (four year olds skipping in a lopsided circle, manically grinning tapdancers, sequins), there was a huge amount of booty shaking, shoulder shimmying, and pelvic thrusting. One number had the girls start in pairs: one bent over at the waist, the other standing behind. I'm no prude, but like, seriously? That's a sexual position. A really sexual position.
Bitching about "young people today" always makes me feel like a crotchety old lady, but I don't recall this skill set from my own days as a dancer. Granted, I was hugely self-conscious and not blessed with any rhythmic sense whatsoever, but the eruption of sexualized dance moves seems to have happened after I wore a tragic leotard and danced to "It's Raining Men." When I asked my mom about it, she told me that she had actually taken my younger sister out of a dance class because, and I quote, "they were teaching the girls to dance like sluts," which was completely weird to hear my mom say. "The little girls?" asked my dad, and my mom was all, you better believe it.
Ten or fifteen years ago was before dance studios started offering hip-hop classes, which, aside from a truly strange number involving cowboy hats and a lot of shoulder shimmying, was the source of almost all the sexy moves. I am a hip-hop fan, and not just backpack hip-hop: I've shaken my ass to Usher like everyone else. But. I shook my ass in a club, which I got into because I was of age. It's never really all that appropriate to "bend over the floor and touch your toes," as Li'l Jon romantically suggests. At least I was doing it as God intended: drunk, with other drunk people, sans audience.
Hip-hop is sort of the inverse of musical theatre. It's kind of inappropriate when adults are really into musical theatre. It feels a little embarassing, because it's artificial and showy. Musical theatre is designed for thirteen year olds: it's colourful and melodramatic, and someone's always tipping over in a hoopskirt. When twenty-nine year old women are singing along, it's a little shameful. Hip-hop takes that formula and flips/reverses it: when kids are into it, it becomes necessary to point out how fake everything is...which kind of ruins the fun. The stakes are higher, because while very few people have every been the object of inappropriate sexual attention for belting out the words to Rent on the streetcar, the same isn't true for little girls who dance like hoochie mamas.
I'm not claiming that hip-hop is bad for kids; I'm just asking that instead of teaching fifteen year old girls how to grind like video hos, dance instructors might incorporate breakdancing into the mix. It's an athletic and impressive dance style, and it doesn't require anyone to present their hindquarters like a mate-ready baboon. (Oh, damn it, again with the crotchetiness.) It would also be helpful to recall that nine year old girls aren't reknowned for their critical thinking skills, and that incorporating sexualized dance moves into routines designed for people who have yet to take sex-ed might be overstepping the mark.
So yeah: keep it in the (dirty, filthy, adult, fun) clubs, where it belongs, make musical theatre illegal for anyone older than twenty, and burn my tragic leotard. Can we all sign off on that? Because I suspect that next year's recital is somehow going to be an interpretive dance about handjobs, and that makes me afraid.
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