| And I'm getting madder.

Let’s Talk About Books!

Posted on July 4, 2006 by Sister Wolf

There are books I’ve read that entertained me, enriched me, educated me, annoyed me, and enraged me. Some haven’t done shit to me. And a few, to some degree, have changed my life. If this gets pretentious, just scream “eeoow!” and click Back. I’ll try not to be sickening, but who knows.

Charlotte’s Web — Wasn’t that a great book?! I’ve read it to each of my kids, and it was as great as ever. I think this book made me fall in love with reading, and with words. And I still cry at the end.

Naked Lunch — I was 14 when I read it, and I remember feeling euphoric when I read the dialogue out loud to my best friend. The prose style opened up a whole world to me: you could be brilliant and crude and erudite and dark and hilarious all at the same time! William Burroughs could, anyway.

Gormenghast — I was around 17. I don’t think I’ve ever come upon a literary universe this vivid, imaginative, engrossing and affecting. It reinforced my love of language.

Middlemarch — The most perfect novel in the English language. And proof that a woman could write as intelligently and commandingly, and with as broad a scope as any of the great masters, without a hint of girliness. A masterpiece, godammit!

Confederacy of Dunces — I was 28 and worked in a book store. Someone urged me to read it, and to ignore the stupid lurid cover it had in this paperback edition. Thank you, Jim, wherever your crazy ass is! This book articulated the horror and comedy of being smart and useless. A perfect tragicomedy that you can read a million times. It just gets more funny and poignant with each reading.

White Noise — This novel encapsulates the modern condition so brilliantly that I knew there was no point in trying to write fiction any more. Nothing could live up to Don de Lillo. I remember feeling grief that I wasn’t Don di Lillo. But even Don di Lillo isn’t happy with being himself, it turns out.

Prisoners of Childhood — Everyone who has read this book by Alice Miller tries to force it on other people, saying it will change the way they view their kids and their own childhood. It actually does do that! Upsetting at first, but worth it. It almost proves that the truth will set you free.

Neurotic Conflicts — Karen Horney has a funny name but she knew how to discuss the most difficult concepts in simple, eloquent language that even an idiot could understand, if only idiots would pursue psychology books.

Moby Dick — I cannot read Moby Dick. I’m sorry, I tried and I just can’t do it. It is not readable to me. But when my son read it one summer, for pleasure, not school, I realized how much smarter he is than I am. If you’re not a mom, you might not know how fantastic this feels. I admire his huge brain, and he can tell me about Moby Dick if I ever need to know.

Okay, that’s nine. Would anybody like to offer one from their own list, or even their whole list? Or make fun of my list? Or pretend to have finished Being and Nothingness? I’m here for you.

Posted in Words | 5 Comments

The Love Between Men

Posted on June 28, 2006 by Sister Wolf

It is my opinion that every major American movie is about the Love between Men. More than an opinion, it is a conviction. You can argue with me, but you will be wrong. You can say, like someone did last week, “What about African Queen?” Before I could even reply that in that movie, Katharine Hepburn is essentially a man, he guessed it himself!

I’m not even talking about “Lord of the Rings,” which anyone can see is totally gay. I’m not talking about Top Gun or Lawrence of Arabia, which are blatant festivals of homoerotic love. How about “Proof”, has anyone seen that? It’s really about the love between Jake Whatsisname and Gwyneth’s father, not Jake and Gwyneth. “Syriana?” The love between George Clooney and the doomed Prince. “Pirates of the Carribean” – Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. The looks exchanged between the men in these movies are more loaded with passion and longing than anything that transpires between a man and woman.

You might think you’ve found an exception, and exceptions prove the rule. But remember: any movie (or TV series, for that matter) where the plot revolves around an enmity between two men is really about their thwarted love. “Deadwood”, my current favorite TV series, is full of relationships, but all the action, really, is riding on the deep love between the Swearengen and Bullock, the saloon owner and the sherrif. Their love is beyond mere friendship or sex: it is Destiny Itself. Noble, unshakable, and gay as the day is long.

This has been my conviction for so many years, my husband just looks at me out of the corner of his eye when we watch the pivotal scene in every movie where the Two Men exchange The Look. “Say it,” he taunts me. “I don’t even have to say it” I have come to reply. Sometimes I let him say the words himself: “It’s the love between Men!” Sometimes, like in “Heat”, with Al Pacino and Robert DiNiro as the lovesick mortal enemies, I can barely watch.

For most of us, this is probably old news. I didn’t need Quentin Tarantino to explain it to me. When I saw Top Gun, I wanted to yell: Just Kiss Already! each time Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer glared at each other. So I’m not claiming to be breaking any new ground here. I’m just wondering if anyone wants to either back me up or pretend I’m wrong.

Posted in Celebrities, Rants | 5 Comments

Youth in Asia

Posted on June 26, 2006 by Sister Wolf

Today, I read an op-ed piece in the LA Times about euthanasia, along with a sidebar thing saying that new legislation on this subject is up for a vote in California. First of all, I will always be bothered by the word euthanasia, since like all kids I thought it has something to do with Youth in Asia. Second, I am already obsessed with death, so I resent having new angles from which to contemplate it. Third, I am sick of hearing people’s self-serving accounts of how they helped kill a dying loved one.

This was the nature of today’s op-ed, written by Anne Lamott, a novelist whose work I haven’t read. I never liked her (based on nothing, just an irrational bias) and now I like her less. She tells the story of how a dear friend of hers, Mel, learned he had cancer, with only a shot at 6 more months if he underwent chemo therapy. Mel chose to forgo the treatment, deciding instead to try to enjoy the time he had left until he couldn’t enjoy it.

So Mel asks Anne if she will help kill him when the time comes that he is too sick to go on. She agrees, but feels bad, thinking back to when her dying father asked her and her brother to help kill him. Back then she refused. Now, she feels it would have been the right thing to do. So weeks pass and Mel and his wife call Anne, who has managed to score some barbiturates and has read instructions put out by the Hemlock Society. Mel has a lovely last night on earth, surrounded by friends, and Anne gives him the overdose, mashed up in apple sauce. Mel dies peacefully in his sleep while the friends sit around with their wine, feeling sentimental.

What do you guys think? My feeling upon reading this was: Fuck. Good for you Anne, you killed an old man. Happy? Want a fucking medal? I want to know why Mel’s wife didn’t do it. Why did they choose Anne as executioner? Is she the meanest one in their social circle? I once worked with a woman I’ll call S, who confided to me that she’d helped kill not one but TWO people: Her father and a close friend who had AIDS. I must say, there was a certain note of pride in her disclosure. I listened to the details and just thought eeoow. Both stories involved groups of friends sitting around like vultures for the Event.

I am kind of torn on this issue: People shouldn’t suffer if their suffering can be relieved, but I’m not happy with people killing their loved ones. Most people can kill themselves, unless they are paralyzed. Let them kill their own self if they have selected that option. Don’t ask me, that’s for sure. Think ahead! Find a doctor or drug dealer and get your shit together beforehand. Either way, I don’t want the government involved. I don’t want them to specify the conditions under which some doctor can kill me; and I don’t want them to make it a crime if some 88 year old guy takes out his dying wife. The government can just mind its business, i.e. starting WWIII.

One day someone may ask you to help them die. My mom asked me, when she was dying of cancer. I didn’t need to mull it over. I told her that I couldn’t do it, and that she wasn’t ready to go yet. I think the latter turned out to be true. Death is a process, just like life. When I’m on my deathbed, I hope I don’t start asking people to kill me. If they won’t kill me right now, while I’m still young enough to enjoy it, fuck them. I want to leave this life under my own steam, hopefully with an inane comment, like Larry David when he calls his best friend over to whisper: “You use too much mayonnaise.”

Posted in Horrible Stuff, News | 8 Comments

Entourage Exegesis

Posted on June 19, 2006 by Sister Wolf

entourage.jpg

Thinking about Entourage, I realize how little about it I am able to grasp. The tone, the target audience, the reason it’s so popular, these elements remain a mystery to me, even though I’ve seen most of the series since the stunningly stupid pilot episode. I know it’s supposed to be a comedy, but I can’t tell if it’s being ironic about its subject matter. I thought it was a spoof, but now I hear people saying how realistic a portrait it is of the “New Hollywood.â€? I know the lead character, Vince, is supposed to be incredibly attractive, but to me he is somewhere between Ben Stiller and a generic swarthy Terrorist. i.e., icky in the extreme.

Okay, so here is my understanding so far: A bunch of creeps from somewhere come to Hollywood so that the Good-Looking one, Vince, can become a movie star. His buddy Eric, a midget, is acting as his manager, even though he has no experience at this. Their pal “Dramaâ€? is Vince’s retarded half-brother, who looks around 20 years older and once had an acting career. Their friend “Turtleâ€? is an overweight loser who wants to get laid, but not quite as much as the others. Vince has an agent named Ari, who is the consummate Hollywood prick, and is played by a guy with a reputation for same.

Vince and his entourage (get it?!) spend most of their time either arguing or ogling hot skinny chicks wearing bikinis. There is lots of sex, but we don’t actually see it, thank god. Vince has had a relationship with a girl played by either Mandy Moore or Jessica Alba (I get those two confused.) She plays an actress who keeps dumping him. Vince scores big when he gets cast as “Aquamanâ€? in a blockbuster directed by that guy who made Titanic, who plays himself. Despite major stardom, Vince and his pals are still moron yokels who speak every line as though trying to be heard by a deaf person. I can never figure out when something is supposed to be funny, so I turn to my Husband to look for cues. Since he has asked me to stop screaming at the TV, I have learned to maintain my composure until the closing credits, at which time I allow myself to curse freely, If you watch Entourage and don’t do likewise, please get in touch and explain before next Sunday.

Posted in Celebrities, Horrible Stuff | 3 Comments

Why Men Hate Women

Posted on June 16, 2006 by Sister Wolf

Before you get all excited, let me say that I am no feminist, far from it. I don’t think women should play lead guitar in rock bands, and I don’t want them to be sports commentators. I don’t want men to be strippers or nurses, either. If you need explanations for this, you know where to find me.

So, let’s examine why men hate women! Maybe you disagree with the premise, in which case, try thinking about burkas, chadors, clitorectomy, honor killings in India and Pakistan, blah blah blah. Now, all men are affected to some degree by their fear and loathing of women. This is not to say they don’t also love and desire women, but the fear and loathing exists at a primal subconscious level, and is played out continually in all societies. Bottom line cause: The first authority figure in every man’s life is a woman, whose power over him is absolute. She can withhold the breast, the bottle, all forms of comfort, life itself. Bad Mommy! She is not always there to provide what he wants, and later, she will probably even yell at him when he pees on the floor. He will never get over this early experience, and he will project it upon every woman he meets for the rest of his life.

You might be asking why women don’t grow up hating women, but maybe you realize that because every female infant will grow up to be like mommy, they internalize her instead. She is not the enemy: she is their gender role model.

If you’re reading this and you’re a man, by now you’re either mad or snickering with distain. If you’re a woman, you’re going either Yes, thank you for articulating this Unconscious Knowledge, Sister Wolf! Or else you’re going Big duh. Men: WE KNOW YOU FEAR AND LOATHE US! We still love you and we need you for all kinds of things! We need you for sex, for money, for opening bottles and taking out the trash. We just can’t quit you! Don’t even worry. But we see your hatred every day, all over the world. You fear our sexuality, so you make us wear big blue beehives and cover our hair. Or you make us get breast implants in order to get your attention and/or demean us. You hate us when we’re assertive. Every male insult for women has to do with power: we are bitches, cunts, ball-breakers, shrews, battle-axes! Men don’t even try to insult us by calling us weaklings, or babies. Because those traits don’t make us feel threatened (i.e. mad.)

Men love our bodies, but they must first overcome their fear and loathing of our V area, which in the adult woman is covered with hair. Eeow, get rid of that hair, it’s too scary! If we wax it off for you, though, it will look like a child’s V area, which is harmless. Not only that, a waxed V area is naked in a sad, vulnerable kind of way, like a sheared lamb. If you disagree with this last point, on aesthetic grounds, okay (you pederast!) but before I would wax my precious V, I would have to say: “First wax your balls, pal and then we’ll talk about it.” Finally, there is female armpit hair, the scariest sight you can impose upon any man in the Western hemisphere. If you’re a woman with unshaven armpits, you are a woman with THREE PUSSIES, and few men are up to that challenge. My husband however is one of them, I am happy to report. But the average man will react like a vampire faced with the sign of a cross.

There you have it. I feel this is enough to set you on the right track. I could elaborate for a hundred pages, but my pigsty awaits me, and my husband has rented a movie. Since he handles my armpits with such courage and grace, I will go and join him for the stupid movie.

Posted in Rants | 103 Comments

Why Did God Make Ann Coulter?

Posted on June 10, 2006 by Sister Wolf

Even though I’m a devout atheist, I sometimes wonder what the hell He is thinking. Ann Coulter! That is some fucked up shit. Up to now, I have just thought of her as a horse-faced anorexic with a strange turn of mind. But considering her recent statements, I see she is a real problem. I don’t think there are enough pies in the world to throw at this woman. Although, perhaps she is just hungry, and not really unhinged! If she could just sit down and eat one of those pies, perhaps she would stop hallucinating.

Now, to promote her new book, she is going around badmouthing the “9/11 Widows”, a group of women who lost their husbands in the attacks and have been vocal about various political issues. Ann wants them to shut up, and accuses them of taking undue pleasure in their widowhood. I don’t know what else to say besides, What a fucking cunt! Is there some other position a sane person can take here? Even Bill O’Reilly isn’t thrilled.

I am no authority on Ann Coulter. I don’t know how she has achieved credibility as a pundit, but I assume she has some level of scholarship in her background. The more I hear about her, the more I am reminded of Camille Paglia, who used a similar method of shock and awe to achieve notoriety. Camille Paglia would, and did, say anything that would get her on a TV talk show. But there was something endearing about her; maybe it was her sheer neediness, which always seemed to temper her arrogance and ridiculous pronouncements. Ann Coulter, though, is really a bitter pill. She’s like an old- fashioned Disney villainess! Too malevolent to be real, but still scary.

I guess we live in an age where if you look like a Barbie gone bad and have a preposterous point of view, the whole world will look up and pay at attention to you. It would be too hypocritical for me, of all people, to denounce someone just for being a provocateur. Getting a reaction is sometimes even more fun than eating, and I think I can speak for Ann in that regard. But this woman is so egregious, in every way, that it reflects poorly on all of us if she is given one more second of serious thought by “the media”or anyone else. One of my kids used to love to be shocking, and he is still good at it. His favorite statement was: “I eat my own shit!” He devised a perfect piece of theater: it’s stupid, disgusting, pathetic, but always gets a pissed off response. Just like Ann Coulter. Next time she announces that she eats her own shit, let’s all just ignore her.

Posted in Horrible Stuff, Rants | 4 Comments

Leave My Vag Out Of It

Posted on June 9, 2006 by Sister Wolf

In the last week, to my great dismay, two women I know have imposed the V word on me. I realize that by admitting a dislike for it, I am inviting an endless barrage of V word comments and messages, but that’s the price of public dissent. I can’t stand to hear the word, even though I don’t really have a good one to offer in exchange. It bothers me so much that I cringe when someone says “ginormous”, a supid word even without the V thing. “Angina”: not good either. The idea of actually sitting through a performance of The V Monologues is too horrible to contemplate. I know I’d have a stroke, or a complete mental breakdown, if not both.

It’s not because I’m squeamish! And I’m not a prude. But I do have a sensitivity to words that those funny Germans even have a word for: sprachgefuhl. It is a gift and a curse, like so many things. So I’m gonna use that as my excuse. God knows I like having a V, it just doesn’t wanna do a monologue. It might be up for a dialogue, but that is off-topic.

When I was around six years old, my sister and I went to visit our cousins, Diane and Carol, who were slightly younger. We taught them the V word, which we thought was pronounced “pagina.” All four of us ran around laughing our heads off. We called each other Mr. and Mrs. Pagina, until the adults made us stop. The reason I remember this so clearly is that my sister and I were banished from our cousins house for the next 10 years! And clearly with good reason: Diane grew up to be a militant lesbian, and Carol ran away to join a hippie commune. The pagina is that powerful!

Okay, so what word would I like instead? That’s a problem. Love Canal would be okay, except I think that’s the name of some place full of carcinogenic toxins or something. Crotch is okay, but maybe not. That sounds like some place that either itches, or you get kicked in it.

I once came into posession of some email correspondence between two people who were married to others. Their letters were hilarious, and wonderful in every way. A favorite quote among my friends is the part where the man recalls making out in one of their offices: when he stroked her thigh (it might have even been her “pantihose”!) he “thought about that little bit of heaven between [your] legs…..”

Ha! I happen to know that he never did gain entry in that LBOH. I think I will have to go with “Honeypot”. It’s silly, it’s affectionate, Winnie the Pooh was down with it, and it reminds me of “Candy” by Terry Southern, still the filthiest book I’ve ever read.

Posted in Words | 9 Comments

Haven’t Been There, Haven’t Done That

Posted on June 6, 2006 by Sister Wolf

Nobody likes a snob, but we Reverse-snobs can be even more obnoxious. I’ve come to take pride in the fact that I haven’t seen any Star Wars movies. Or Jaws, or the Godfather. I never saw The Brady Bunch or Starsky and Hutch or Full House or countless other staples of American pop culture. I didn’t avoid these things to prove a point or anything; they just didn’t interest me. But now, it’s like a talking point when the discussion turns to contemporary mass entertainment. Lots of people I know can boast, with all honesty, of never having seen a single episode of Survivor, That 70s Show or even Friends. It’s a feather in their caps! Our ignorance of these stupid totems makes us feel superior. Untainted. Just better than the rest of you!The other day, at a casual get-together, the conversation turned to Angelina. My son’s girlfriend didn’t know what “Angelina” meant. God, were the rest of us envious! What a cool accomplishment! My son, being a strong competitor in the Reverse-Snob arena, came back with, “I’ve never seen a single episode of Sex in the City or Friends.” My husband raised the ante with “I’ve never seen a single episode of Seinfeld!” I shot back with “I’ve only seen 3 Seinfelds!” Due to my son’s fierce interrogation, I had to admit to seeing 4 Seinfelds. His girlfriend announced that she hasn’t seen The Sopranos. We weren’t impressed: Big deal, she doesn’t have HBO.

We all saluted ourselves for missing out on every “reality” show we could name. The Girlfriend then confessed to being addicted to American Idol. She felt so disgraced that I announced, “That’s okay, I once saw one of the winners sing. Her name was Fabulosity!” My husband corrected me — apparently, it was actually “Fantasia.”

Soon the competition for Most Ignorance became fierce. No one had ever seen ER, Law and Order, Lost, Desperate Housewives, it went on and on. We felt like fucking Kings! We were miles and miles above the Common Man. We knew Nothing of Anything popular and mainstream! Finally, my husband called out to my son, “Well, I don’t even know YOU!” to which my son replied “I don’t even hear you talking!” I think someone closed the conversation with “I’m not even in this room!”

It was a great evening. I haven’t seen the O.C, no CSI crap, no Marry a Millionaire or Apprentice or The Batchelor or Everybody Loves Raymond or that one with the woman who has big red hair and her gay best friend, and I don’t give a shit how good The Godfather is, I’m not gonna see it. I’ve never seen anyone eat maggots or sing show tunes for Paula Abdul. I don’t wanna see cops or lawyers or psychics or doctors or real-or-fake families. Oprah, though, I fucking LOVE. I mean it. Oprah should run for president, and that will be a whole new manifesto.

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Mother’s Day Round up

Posted on May 15, 2006 by Sister Wolf

When I look at this face, one of the first things that come to mind (after OH SHIT!) is that somewhere this guy has a mother; and I’m glad I’m not her. I don’t know what drives someone to mutilate his face to this degree. But I know it isn’t what his mom hoped for from her son. Seeing everything from a mom perspective brings a kind of dissonance that takes the fun out of simple things, like a guy who thinks his face is a pin cushion.

Today for Mother’s day, I went to my sister’s house with my kid, who’d offered to repair her computer. My sisters kids have moved out, so she bought a parrot to take their place. The Parrot is cute and parrotty, but it doesn’t like to perform on cue. After begging the parrott to bark, oink, meow, say Daddy and imitate Homer Simpson, we decided to ignore it. Soon, it started to go through it’s entire repetoire, in a scrambled fashion, as if defragging. It’s impression of my sister’s voice was uncanny. She is currently tyring to teach it to say “I’m Jewish!’, possibly because my sister’s husband, once an atheist, is now a Christian Holy Roller. When she and her husband started yelling about their computers, it seemed like a good time to bark at the parrot and leave.

My sons took me to lunch, where I was distracted by the geriatric patrons, one of whom kept poking her lunch companions in the eye, as well as the sight of an amazingly ugly baby with a bouffant hair arrangement that made her look around 65.

After lunch, my kid screamed about going to Staples instead of going back home. I thought it was My Day!, but no, it wasn’t. I gave a short lecture on the evils of consumerism, but he just demanded even more money for Staples.

Later, I was interrupted during the Sopranos by a call from my adopted mother Vicci, a beautiful Jamaican woman who had helped nurse my mom when she was bedridden with Cancer. Vicci has stayed in touch for five years and introduces me to her huge extended family as her daughter. She has taught me about making families with people you love. This year I adopted a wonderful son from MySpace, who will one day get to meet Vicci and be embraced as her new grandson.

It’s complicated, being part of a parent-child continuim. I know a woman with two sisters, whose mother was a bopolar, alcoholic actress. One mother’s day, the daughters went to visit their mother, who had chosen to surprise them by killing herself before they arrived. It was the ultimate rebuke. But my friend went on to become a good mother of three kids and has published two novels.

It’s hard to stay true to your ideals; it’s hard to love crazy family members. It’s hard to reach out to others who may turn out to be your family in a different way. Personally, I got four bouquets of flowers, a great omelette, a framed portrait, no one punished anybody with suicide, and my kids have left their faces unadorned by metal spikes.

I feel like a fucking queen this Mother’s Day!

Posted in News | 2 Comments

Get Out the Kool-Aid! Part I

Posted on May 11, 2006 by Sister Wolf

I’m sorry but I LOVE WARREN JEFFS! What a pimp! He’s as ugly as the day is long, but he’s got plenty of chicks and ten thousand devoted followers. Wow, why weren’t we notifed earlier?!

Last night, CNN was all over him: footage of his zombie-like cult members shuffling along in weird, awful clothes that even Sears would turn up its nose at. All the women have straggly hair pulled back in unflattering braids, like he’s trying to punish them for the fact that he’s so ugly. All the kids look sort washed out and demented, like reverse Village of the Damned children. The men wear suits, without the cool scary dignity of Black Muslims, leaning more toward door to door salesman from Kansas.

Well, I fucking love it. Let’s just admit it, this is gonna make Waco look like a tea party! This will be Jonestown times 100. The cops seem terrified. They’re afraid to go into his compound! If you google Warren Jeffs, you will find instant nirvana (if you like reading about strange sociological phenomena, and nutcases with obscure diabolical powers.)

So far, the best part is that when his father died..the founder of the cult, an old codger with 75 wives…Warren Jeffs moved right in and forced the wives to marry him, OR ELSE. This makes him a literal motherfucker! God bless America.

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