Gold Diggers, Skinny Bitches and Trophy Wives, Oh My!

Cue the Kanye kids; I feel a blog entry coming on…

Want to learn the secret to true and lasting relationship fulfillment? Don’t want to work when you’re over 40 (or perhaps at all)? Wondering why all your type A female friends are “slaving away” while all the bimbos you know are off getting hot stone massages? You need Smart Girls Marry Rich. Penned by the same altruistic mavens who brought you (the thinly veiled vegan-orexic propaganda) Skinny Bitch, Smart Girls Marry Rich is the ultimate guide to achieving security and happiness in your long-term relationship (hint: it has nothing to do with your dude’s sexy blue eyes). Because who else would you trust to give you relationship advice than the women who bestowed upon us the sage like nutritional adage: “Healthy = skinny, unhealthy= fat”?

OK, I know (or perhaps I just hope) that supposedly instructive tomes such as Smart Girls Marry Rich and The Rules are just a bunch of inflated crap that’s designed to be incendiary so the authors can get on talk shows and sign six figure book deals, but I just can’t look away. It’s not just that they fry me… they fascinate me. There is something about looking at a view so violently opposed to my own that I can’t write about it without squirming in my chair. Maybe it is because it forces me to examine and defend my own views, or maybe it’s because I love a fight. At any rate, here’s my take on Smart Girls:

First of all, I can’t stand self-help books that divide all women into two opposing camps. Either you are a miserable, overworked career harpy or a pampered, cerebrally challenged bimbo. Has anybody ever met anyone who truly embodied either of these stereotypes? What if the overworked career woman actually (gasp) finds her job fulfilling? And for the last time, why is it automatically assumed that every woman who doesn’t work outside the home lives a life of leisure? The hardworking (mostly) stay at home mom that raised me would take exception! She worked her ass off bringing up two kids, running a household and helping my dad sustain the family business. To this day girlfriend has never had a hot stone massage, although she sure as hell deserves one.

I may be about to start a feminist shit-storm by saying this, but I’ll say it anyway. Women, whether we’re high-powered career types, stay at home moms, or some amalgamation of those things, make choices. None of these choices are inherently weaker than others, they are just different. I think it is actually pretty cool that at some point in my life I will be able to make a choice to shift my focus from career path to mothering, to some sort of collage of those two things, and back again, as it makes sense for my family and I. I get to decide how to put my life together. Chances are the man I start my family with will never get to make those sort of compromises because it is assumed that the only way any natural red blooded heterosexual male would ever want to contribute to his family is by working a very narrowly defined 9-5 job. We all say how terrific we think stay at home dads are, but the overall subtext is that any man who would give up a life of ambition to focus on fathering is lazy, emasculated and unmotivated. We feel sorry for stay at home dads and the women who marry them. How can she respect him when she makes more money than he does? How can he feel like the man when he’s changing diapers?

Don’t even think your partner might relish having a more equal hand in creating a home bringing up your family. According to the Smart Girls you’re kidding yourself. Ask for anything aside from a traditional male partner who will play his part to provide, provide, provide and you’re asking for trouble. And he better be established before you tie the knot because a self made man whom you support in achieving his goals will leave you once he gains success. Once again, my parents who married in 1972 with 500 bucks between them and went on to start a successful business and own multiple homes would bristle at this assumption.

Nobody asks guys if they “still want to be working at 40.” Nobody expects that men would all be happier if they married wealthy and live their lives sipping Mimosas by the pool. Yet time after time, women are told that we’re supposed to feel unfeminine, nay, unnatural for having a drive, curiosity and ambition that might challenge us to explore (and even find deep satisfaction) outside the domestic sphere. Women’s work is incredibly undervalued in our society, yet we’re instructed that we give up all our chances for power, security and a happy life if we attempt to pursue other types of work. Clearly, the only power that is is safe and appropriate for me to have is the power to get a man to buy me stuff.

Smart Girls really plays into the whole security hysteria that is plaguing our culture right now. Everyone likes to think they could have avoided the stock market crash. We all would like a little more stability in our day-to-day lives. It is tempting to believe that marrying rich can provide that stability. I understand the point Smart Girls makes about the fact that romantic love is fleeting so a marriage that lasts a lifetime needs to be built on something more stable, but I disagree that money is what makes a marriage stable. Just ask all those bankers who are getting divorced by wives who “didn’t sign up for” life in the middle class.

I thought the whole point of an egalitarian society was that we don’t have to depend on our partners for material things so instead we can depend on them for the things that money can’t buy, you know… love, compassion, understanding, emotional support, all the stuff Bernie Madoff can’t embezzle away.

Maybe this is just an oversimplification by one of those single, career oriented, childless harpies. Perhaps once I’m gestating little Frances Bean Peaches Bjork Jr. in my womb I’ll start thinking about the cost of cruelty free prenatal vitamins, cloth diaper service, day care, braces, Rock n’ Roll Camp For Girls and Harvard and send my mate out packing to pull down six figures.

Until then, here’s one thing I do know: life’s a bitch kids. Getting up every day, going to work, making ends meet, raising kids, its hard work. I can’t imagine it all being worth all the toil sacrifice unless I’ve got someone I love deeply in my corner, fighting that fight right alongside me. Life is shitty enough, why the hell would I want to come home in the evening to someone I wasn’t crazy in love with?

Seriously Awesome Or Seriously Lame?

If you couldn’t get enough of the Lonely Island parody Jizz in My Pants:

(If you can’t tell by the title…seriously NSFW)

You’ll spazz out with your vag out over Ms. Taken’s answer to it:

(NSFW) 

On one hand, I’m happy that there are women in comedy out there making wickedly hilarious videos like this in the first place and I’m seriously jealous that I didn’t think of think of this particular parody myself.

On the other hand, check out Ms. Taken’s website and you’ll see it hawks a fake wedding ring that you can put on to ward off skeezers when you’re out at clubs. I fail to see how pretending to be some dude’s property (that is the whole point, right? That a potential sleazoid will see that you “belong” to some other dude and back off?)  is an at all empowering answer to male douchebaggery. I’d rather see a world where firmly telling  a guy to back off when he tries to make his uninvited hard-on cozy between your ass cheeks is the socially acceptable thing to do. The fact that you aren’t interested in that particular person’s attention should be a good enough reason for them to sod off, no faux-rock required.  Another thing– how am I supposed to “work the room” like Ms. Taken’s web site suggests, if I’m wearing a wedding ring? Won’t that ward off  the socially well adjusted men I’d like to hit on in the first place?

 I’m just so tired of reinforcing the idea that the only way a woman can navigate uncomfortable situations, even when those uncomfortable situations boarder on harassment (as I feel some of the worst club behavior does) is by being nicey-nicey and non-confrontational and invoking the all powerful specter of the other penis.

OK, I’m pretty sure that the Ms. Taken ring is a novelty item that is supposed to be a great gag gift for bachelorette parties and not an actual self-defense tool, but the idea of it somehow takes the punch out of the video for me. I wanted to believe that I was discovering a rad female driven comedy troupe and instead it  turned out to be just a lame advertising tool for a gimicky novelty item. What a way to kill my feminist comedy she-rection. 

Peaches Part Deux: Fashion Redux

One of the fun things about going to shows is that you get to check out all the messed up stuff  the cool kids are wearing.  The Peaches show was no exception. As you can imagine the crowd offered some serious pageantry, ranging from the sublime to the completely douche-tarded.

I’m going to refrain from passing too much judgment on people’s looks as I’m loath to fan the (completely hilarious) flames of the hipster hatred fire. Hipsters after all, are people too, and hating on them has become as trendy as actually being one which makes it totally fin. I’m not sure what it is about hipsters that makes people so angry. OK so maybe if you went to art school and got sick of girls in tutus with rat’s tales talking about their puffy painted thesis projects, then I can understand. There is something about purposely looking bizarre and having absolutely no sense of humor about it that sort of gets me. If you are going to go out every morning with a handle bar moustache and a monocle, you best be able to laugh at yourself. But then, far be it from me to pass judgment on people’s fashion choices. I used to go to school slathered in glitter wearing a nausea-inducing psychedelic polyester dress, red argyle socks, Tevas, a patchwork bucket hat and a Lisa Frank back pack. All at the same time. Yep, I was that girl. That’s what Catholic school does to you.

So anyways, here are my top five favorite looks from a set of people who are clearly not burdened by the constraints of trying to build a tasteful business casual wardrobe. Enjoy.

1) Plaid Flannel Shirt With Matching Rambo- Style Headband.

The girl I saw sporting this look seemed to be channeling Euro joke-pop sensation Gunther.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too bad she didn’t try to touch my tra-la-la.

(NSFW)

2) Pirate Chic

There will always be a spot in my heart for pirates, but I thought the pirate -chic look was supposed to be oh so five minutes ago? Regardless, any girl who can rock an eye patch with a cocktail dress and still look fierce gets a gold star in my fashion playbook.

She looked just about as glam as this lady, which is to say very.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Members Only Jackets.  

I’m not gonna lie, I’m jealous of anyone with a Members Only Jacket, especially if it happens to be gold lame, like the guy I saw at the Peaches show. Members Only jackets remind me of my grandad, but not in a creepy way, I swear. This particular dude had an old school MJ vibe going on, which was fine by me.

4) Fascinators 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been a big fan of fascinators for a while now.  In my other, other life (the one where I’m not a blogger or an educator but a girl who likes to dress up as a crazy french lady and high kick down Mass Ave with feathers in her hair) fascinators are my go to fashion staple when I need that little something extra to go with my false eyelashes, ruffled rumba pants, and 60-yard cotton candy pink crinoline. You know, when I feel like being understated. Girls who don’t have a femme to femme drag queen complex like yours truly are sporting them with jeans and T-shirts, which I think is a tres charming way to mix it up a little.  You can get them all over etsy now but this one is from Truly Fallen,  where I’ve gotten some fun stuff in the past. Bonus, the lady who sells them is super nice. 

5) Moustaches

The number one hipster accessory of the mo has gotta be a kickass moustache. And to think, I was once so ashamed of mine that I had it burned off my face with costly laser procedures! But that’s another blog entry. Anyways, kids these days are all about the facial topiary, even Peaches herself is know to be apologetically hairy. The great news is if you can’t grow one, there are a variety of fake moustache options out there on the internet. 

So there it is kids, all the fashion news from the front lines that’s fit to print. And in honor of all things eccentric, I leave you with one more Peaches clip. This one has been my theme song today and it’s rife with some good old fashioned equal opportunity objectification.

(NSFW)

Stuff I Like: Peaches @ The Paradise

Best concert I’ve seen at the Paradise since Patti Smith in 2001. Actually, Patti Smith to Peaches is a pretty realistic comparison. Both of them posess a fearless, ovaries out (hey, this is a feminist blog, I’m making the lingo work for me, dammit) stage presence and both of them aren’t afraid to shit all over stereotypes of what a woman in music is supposed to behave like.

I have a feeling Peaches is what Madonna wishes she could be… you know, actually daring, edgy and relevant. Unlike Madonna, Peaches sings graphically about sex without trying to be stereotypically sexy which ultimately is more of a turn on than the pandering from boring, gym toned pop stars that we’re supposed to accept as hot .

And oh… the costumes. After watching Peaches catapulting across the stage in a sequined unitard with long locks of fake peroxide-blonde hair dangling from the sleeves I am pretty much ruined for buisness casual attire forever. Why can’t I come to work and strut around in a harlequin romper with giant, fuscia balloon sleeves? Why? Sometimes I think I want to be an adult, contributing member of society, and sometimes I’d like to eff it all and run off and make whacked out performance art in a large mirrored space suit. Life is dificult.

So in honor of two of my favorite women who rock, here are some sweet vids:

Peaches, Boys Want To Be Her.

And my favorite Patti Smith song of all times, Horses.

Happy Monday, Kids.

The Story of (My) Stuff

The latest internet video to go viral in my neck of the woods is The Story of Stuff , conceived and put together by “unapologetic activist” Annie Leonard. The website bills the video as a, ” Fast paced fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.” To the delight of many and the chagrin of some the video is already being used as a teaching tool in schools across the nation. Why do I give a crap? In my other life (you know, the one where I’m not a wildly popular feminist blogger with a razor sharp wit and a slew of commenting minions) I am an educator. Peel back the noxious layer of sarcasm and you’ll find that I actually care deeply about young people. I care about nurturing their intellectual growth and curiosity, I care about their developing sense of self and I care about how they form their opinions and their outlook on the world.

In general I think the video is great. In this age of global warming denial teachers have scant resources to provide their students with a balanced scientific approach. However I do see the point that some parents are making that it is a bit much. Not because as one parent complained, “it doesn’t say anything positive about capitalism”. As if the media, their textbooks and the entire culture around today’s kids isn’t pro-capitalism enough! Besides, to me the image of a cartoon U.S government shining corporate America’s shoes is the least disturbing image in the twenty minute video. In fact, compared to the image of skulls and crossbones over a nursing woman’s chest to depict the toxins found in breast milk, that image is downright cheerful. What gives me pause is the fact that I’m not a big fan of dumping large amounts of overwhelmingly negative facts on kids (OMG YOUR MOM’S BOOBS ARE FULL OF POISON AND YOUR PILLOW COULD KILL YOU!!!!!!!1) Without balancing it out with at least as much emphasis on and here’s what you can do about it. In the entire twenty minute video Leonard spends seventeen minutes painting a brutal portrait of how our innocent little trips to the Big Box stores contribute to the rape of our planet and only three minutes talking about solutions. If not framed appropriately by a skilled adult, it could be enough to overwhelm a viewer and make them feel hopeless. The problem is just too big. However I guess skilled adult is the key word here. Think of all the amazing conversations a video like this could facilitate. Think of all the fake town hall style debates, alternative waste treatment plans drafted by students, the haikus written to a felled tree! You could have a regular interdisciplinary education smorgasbord going on here. OK, I’m done with the teacher geek out now.

The real reason why I’m writing about this today is because the Story of Stuff really got me thinking about all of my stuff. After all, my love affair with Target is well documented. I’ve always been so darn proud of the fact that once a year or so I go through my wardrobe and skim off at least two full garbage bags of clothes I don’t wear anymore to give to charity, as if that somehow makes me Mother Effing Theresa. I never stopped to ponder the reasons why my closet is a revolving door of useless crap in the first place. Impulse buying? Guilty as charged. Inability to resist a barrage of shiny and cheaply priced goods? Check. But why is my attitude toward stuff  like that in the first place? Is it more than just too much disposable income and a lack of self control? Does it also have to do with the fact that some post WWII Don Draper type was sitting in an office 50 years ago trying to think of a way to jump start the economy and decided that manufacturing goods to purposely wear out was a part of it?

Stuff wears out. Stuff goes out of style. Stuff has to be replaced. All of this time I’ve just taken that idea for granted. Looking further into it I realize that’s not always the case. I think of the Patagonia long underwear I’ve had since 7th grade, it still looks like new and I still wear it every winter. I think of the Doc Martins I wore every day for about six years (even backpacked across Europe in them and wore them to summer camp) before they finally fell apart. Then I think of all the shirts from H&M that unravelled on my body or sat crumpled on my bedroom floor for months after one wear.

Does having all this stuff make me any happier? I always think so when I snatch it off the shelf at a retailer. But it never does. I hate finding places to put it all in my tiny cramped apartment. I hate dragging it down three flights of stairs to the laundromat. And I really, really hate folding it, putting it away and packing it up in boxes every damn time I have to move.

So kids, you are my witness, this self admitted clothes horse (I’ve always hated that expression, horses don’t wear any damn clothes in the first place!) is cleaning up her act. I’ve purged my closet this season but this time I’m not replacing with abandon. I’m trying to consider quality and usefulness over price, and I’m trying to do with less. So far, it’s working. You’d be amazed how much easier it is to get dressed in the morning when you don’t have 8,000 shirts that all look bad with the pants you’re wearing. Having fewer choices actually makes it easier to get dressed. And I’m curbing those trips to Target, I swear. What I’ve got is good enough.

So what’s the story of your stuff? Are you purging, re-arranging or re-thinking your consumption habits these days? Any tips for a career stuff-hoarder?

Shine On You Crazy Diamonds

This Week’s Best and Worst in Feminist Blogging:

Best:

There’s an all out knock down drag out UFC style cage match going on between old school and new wave feminists right now and thanks to teh world wide web everyone with an opinion and an internet connection has a front row seat. 

Linda Hirshman over at Slate’s brand spankin’ new feminist blog double X fired the first shots with the article The Problem With Jezebels. What’s the problem with these young feminists, drinking, having casual sex and not taking the blame for sexual assault? The nerve! My first reaction was, huh? Really? We’re still upset about this? Didn’t they invent the whole free love thing in the 60s? Why are old school feminists pissed now that their daughters are actually cashing in on it? If feminism means equal opportunity for both sexes, that means women have equal opportunity to not only climb the corporate ladder and influence society, but to get drunk, get laid and act like chuckleheads without having our lives and reputations destroyed for it. Because we’re human, just like men. And the victim blaming thing? Not cool. As long as society continues to put most of the responsibility for sexual assault on women, some men will continue to find reasons to rape. Why shouldn’t they when “she asked for it” is still accepted as a valid excuse? 

This is where I find that I just don’t get second wave feminists. Or maybe they just don’t get us. In the immortal words of Will Smith, Parents Just Don’t Understand. Hirshman also doesn’t get why Jezebel’s Tracie finds this picture (NSFW) funny, saying, “How can Tracie…criticize the men who go to Hooters?” I think the picture is a damn funny commentary the phenomenon of “accidental” celebrity coochie sightings. But then again, I’m one of those lazy, spoiled new wave feminists who thinks women shouldn’t have to behave like a “model minority” to get ahead. I also think I should be able to vote for the candidate who best represents my ideas regardless of their gender, drink what I want, fuck who I want, and laugh at my own vagina. 

For the record, Salon’s Rebecca Traister thinks the mud slinging fest is great, and I’m inclined to agree. After all, the fact that now we’re having a multi-generational non-linear debate about what a feminist is means that contrary to the rumor, feminism is still alive and kicking. 

Worst:

Yahoo’s newish website for women has been bugging me for a while. I’ve been holding off on writing about it since it’s mostly too stupid to pay attention to (think Jezebel only with a lobotomy or Martha Stewart’s Living minus the style). Shine is supposed to be the female’s destination on the web, all a girl really needs in her online day. In reality it is Journalism Lite, a thinly veiled platform for advertisers to capitalize off female insecurity in order to get us to buy into a certain lifestyle and ultimately spend money.

Mostly I’m just annoyed that Yahoo keeps sending Shine updates to my inbox, as if I’d actually be interested in it. The topics on the front page include: Manage Your Life, Fashion & Beauty, Parenting, Love & Sex, Food and Astrology. This is what I’m supposed to be interested in? Notice that the news isn’t even on this list. I’m supposed to care about astrology before I care about current events? Who gives a crap about Darfur as long as I have my star forecast! There’s no section on careers, business or the economy, nothing on science, entertainment or the arts. However there are articles on How To Woo Him With Your Phone Voice, How To Make Yourself Interesting, Why You’re Not Losing Weight and if that all fails, How To Get Back At Your Ex. Well thank god! I thought I was going to have to live the rest of my life as a fat, boring loser with a bad phone voice! Thank you Shine!

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that there is plenty of room in feminism for fashion, lip gloss and relationship advice. I love magazines like BUST that give a nod to craftiness and the culinary arts, honoring the DIY domestic spirit of our grandmother’s generation instead of discarding it. After all, being able to knit our own leg-warmers or whip up a great three bean casserole doesn’t have to be a function of oppression, it can be a way of overthrowing the patriarchal society that says we have to shop, eat and dress a certain way in order to have value. 

What I really resent is the assumption that most women don’t care about the world beyond our own appearances and relationships and all we’re capable of consuming is articles about fashion, beauty and dating. I believe that most women genuinely do have interest in the greater world around them. However the media that is marketed toward us refuses to address those interests unless they come pre-packaged from some sort of “women’s issues” angle. As if I can’t possibly relate to, let’s say, suffering in Iraq unless it has to do with women and cute little children. I’m so tired of the assumption that I’m not going to read a news story unless it has to do with a kidnapped white girl.

So boo on you, Shine, for adding to the glut of junk Cosmo Girl Culture we have to wade through in order to get to anything of substance.

Stuff I Like: The Steamy Bohemians

 

All right kids. I’m just gonna put this right out there. I have a big, huge, raging lesbian girl crush on The Steamy Bohemians. Scratch that, it’s more than a crush. I am viciously, wildly and perversely in love with the Steamies. If I could, I would marry them in a big, gay Massachusetts wedding, because that’s what will start happening when we let the gays get married. People will start marrying their dogs, their cousins and their favorite stand up comedy duo and we’ll all end up going to hell. Just you watch.

But, I digress.

A Steamy Bohemians show is is like watching your raunchiest gal pals riff off each other after a couple of vodka tonics, except, you know, funnier. And with guitars. And banana shaped maracas.

The Steamies know how to keep it real, tackling such hot topics as what happens when your second cousin is really really hot:

(Warning, none of these vids are even remotely SFW, unless you happen to work in a brothel, in which case, rock on!)

Or how to handle the static when some dude catches you making out with his girlfriend:

And if incest jokes and vagina puns aren’t enough for you (vajungle, anyone?) how about a trip to sex town?:

They are the MCs and twisted masterminds behind Jerkus Circus, the freaky, sexy, fun variety show that swept Boston and is now poised to take over the world, or at least a very small section of it in select urban areas. Chances are they’ll be coming to a bar near you, so check ‘em out. I’ll be the creepy girl in the back, scrawling love letters on a cocktail napkin in crayon.

Please, Think of the Hipsters!

OK, so most of my readers are aware of my well documented love/hate relationship with American Apparel. An affair that has been complicated of late with the announcement that AA has now launched a line of (sort of) maternity clothing. Now just ‘cuz you got knocked up doesn’t mean you can’t still dress like coked out disco skank! This adds yet another perverse layer to the American Apparel Hates Fat People (or at least fat women) debate. What does it mean that AA is willing to start a line especially for husky guys but their answer to expecting women is to just try and wriggle themselves into some of their stretchier styles? Clearly they have demonstrated an understanding of the fact that larger people need larger clothes, so why doesn’t the idea ring true for the women’s line? Is being pregnant just not a good enough excuse to get fat?

So here goes kids, I’m dusting off my hate letter to American Apparel. Enjoy:

Dear American Apparel,

I appreciate that your 100% cotton garments are so expensive because they are made without any slave labor in sunny L.A where you pay your workers a living wage. Really I do. I appreciate it so much that I continue to buy your products even though you are enabling a generation of hipsters to dress like aerobics instructors from the 80s without even the effort of raiding a thrift store. I appreciate it so much that I even look the other way from your horrific print adds. You know, the ones with some anorexic, strung out looking girl in some vaguely masturbatory pose that’s supposed to be provocative with a look in her eyes that says she’s oh so bored with everything, even sex (which she probably can’t even muster the energy to have since she’s so emaciated that she looks unable to menstruate, let alone break a sweat)? Yeah those ones.

In your Cambridge store today I witnessed a phenomenon that makes me want to whack you upside your collective fashion mullet. To put it bluntly, you seem to think that the only people who should be wearing your 100% cotton slavery free garments are people the size of the waifish models you use to pedal them. Lest you mistake me for a lone whiner, it has been well documented that I’m not the only woman with this problem.

I think a person my size should be able to fit comfortably into a size large at any mainstream retail store. Hell, throughout most of the 1990s (before the whole size inflation thing happened and I woke up the next day and was suddenly a size 6 without doing anything differently) I WAS a medium or a large at most shops. If you are trying to take a stand on the whole vanity sizing things and have Americans start thinking realistically again, then I respect that, although somehow I think your motives are not so altruistic. 

Okay, okay, I understand that a womanly figure is threatening to the other greasy haired, concave chested half of your sales demographic, the MALE hipster.

So I beg you, AA, if you can’t muster any compassion for your female shoppers, think of the male hipsters! What about all the sensitive men who’s self esteem you are destroying with your size deflation when they find they can’t fit their scythe like hips into your tightie whities or striped cotton 70′s athletic shorts?  Female eating disorders have long been a scourge in modern society, now must you now send the other half of the fashion conscious sector to purge over toilets as well!? Aren’t they better employed spending their parent’s money on weed or flunking out of an art school they aren’t talented enough to be at in the first place? How will they manage to roll out of bed by 3PM to pound a Miller High Life and get to band practice if they are too worried about their love handles? How will these fragile men live their lives if they are forced into the same kind of all consuming body image schizophrenia that most women engage in on a daily basis!?

The real dirty thing about all this business American Apparel, is that I bet the size deflation doesn’t run through to the male side of your clothing line. In fact, I wonder if size inflation/deflation is even an issue with men’s apparel in general. Tell the truth AA, nothing is worse than a fatty, especially a fatty who tries to wear trendy clothing and feel good about herself even if she’s not a size two. That’s just like, ew. And while we’re at it, nothing is more threatening to the image conscious, emotionally crippled pretty boys you like to sell your clothing to than a woman who could kick their asses. 

But this psychology is nothing new. We saw it in the 90s with Calvin Klein who said so famously that women over size 10 shouldn’t wear jeans. We’ve seen it throughout history. Because nothing freaks the fashion industry out more than a mature woman who isn’t willing to contort and starve her body by any means possible in order to fit into YOUR clothing.

But I’ve been unfair to you, AA. It’s not just you, it’s not just the fashion industry. It is the culture that supports it. The culture that tells women that we need to look adolescent to be sexy and that a mature woman in power is undesirable.

It’s me too, after all, I bought the little size XL sundress you had on the rack. And the A-line skirt, and the leggings, and the tiny tank tops in a rainbow of basic and fluorescent colors, and the sparkly gold hot shorts. And even though I’m not your target consumer, even though I’m spending my hard earned cash at a store that has tried to ward off my child bearing hips by making most of their styles too small to fit them, I still think I look hot in your clothes if I do say so myself. And sometimes I kinda hate myself for feeling that way. Damn American Apparel, I wish I could quit you. 

xoxo,

Fever

Stuff I Like: Pretty Things Peep Show

These days it takes something pretty exciting to get me to go out on a work night. “I’m almost 30″, I tell friends of mine who are still firmly ensconced in their mid-20s. “Do you know how old that is? If it isn’t good, I’d rather be home with cucumbers over my eyes, when you’re my age you will understand.”  I’ve been “almost 30″ for the last three years or so, and some of my friends, my sister in particular, just aren’t buying it anymore. “You aren’t 30 yet.” She says, rolling her nubile 26 year old eyes at me. “We’re going out.” 

Well worth it on a work night, or any other night of the week in my opinion, is the Pretty Things Peep Show.   

MC-ed by the freakishly beautiful Coney Island Side Show alum Insectivora who performs with the flexible as she is cute Go Go Amy and the yes she’s really as sweet as she seems in real life Bettina May, this is the real deal, an old school side show complete with corny jokes, magic tricks and spangled titties, in other words, totally worth it on a work night. 

However, this is old style vaudeville with a twist. Conceived and executed wholly by these three gals, the women of this peep show are far from just “pretty things”. Along with the classic burlesque fan dances and strip teases involving spectacularly intricate handmade costumes these girls navigate waters that are the traditional territory of male performers. In the midst of all the retro glamour Insectivora isn’t afraid to get busy hammering nails into her nose while telling dirty jokes with aplomb. She also has this surreal way of making fire eating look elegant and dare I say… easy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, what side show would be complete without the lady in a box trick? With the help of Go Go Amy’s contortionist skills Insectivora executes the classic Chinese Execution Blade Box. Go Go Amy even manages to wiggle out of her dress while facing the snip snap of the blades. It’s nice to not see female performers relegated to the status of “lovely assistant” and refreshing to see a show that’s so out there produced by three talented women with a ton of chutzpah. Plus, the idea of the three of them traveling in a van across North America just to bring carny delights to the masses really warms the cuckolds of my deformed little heart. 

There’s something about a woman you can’t easily fit into a box that both intrigues and intimidates people, which is part of the reason  why I love the Pretty Things Peep Show. The show is all at once, glamorous, innocent, dangerous, raunchy and playful. They’re on tour now, and if you go and see it, expect to be grossed out, turned on and amazed. Expect the unexpected, who knows, maybe you’ll even stay out late on a weeknight.

Friday Freak Out

Although they have been the official band of my heart for a while now*, The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize” is now the official song of their home state Oklahoma. This does not surprise me seeing as Wayne and the boys (oh, excuse me, it’s Professor Coyne now) are pretty much the coolest things to come out of Oklahoma since, well ever. Pretty much the favorite sons of the Sooner State, they even have a street in OK City named after them. And starting this fall, wanna be rock stars can register for classes with my favorite front man at the new Academy Of Contemporary Music at the University Of Central Oklahoma.

Ain’t nothin’ like the feeling of seeing a band you’ve loved since you also loved flannel shirts and sniffing sharpie markers in the back of Spanish class make good.

This is all sort of making me feel a little inadequate about the Massachusetts state song though.

Anybody out there interested in re-writing it into a freaky post punk ballad? Anybody? Bueller?

I nominate Geek USA…

* and oh hell, I just made them the official band of this blog. Because I’m cool like that.