In reading Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, I have been consistently surprised and delighted to share in her unique and fresh perspective on the world around her. She was open to experience and lived for adventure; of course, we all have a rosy glow when reminiscing about the past, but in her retelling, the reader is transported to the streets of Paris, the fish markets of Marseilles, the countryside spotted with orange flowers, all tied together by mouthwatering descriptions of French food and wine.
Paul Child, Julia’s husband, worked in government service for many years, beginning before World War II and continuing in various embassy posts (which is how they ended up living in Paris in the first place).
the best picture, in my opinion. this is what marital bliss is like.
He was serving the US Government in the Marseilles post during the era of Senator Joe McCarthy, most known for his 1950s communist witch hunts. At one point, Paul was called to Washington, DC to be interrogated by the McCarthy commission; Julia recounts how the feeling of betrayal and anger remained with them “like ashes in our mouths.”
Making my bed (okay, laying in my bed) after reading this passage, I caught myself thinking “the government always screws you.” This is both somewhat correct and wildly inaccurate.
(there is swearing and consent stuff in here, fair warning)
This is the first google result for “metal thumbs up.” Nailed it!
Okay, so I’m back, after a brief sojourn dealing with a broken foot (pro tip: don’t break your foot). Throughout my convalescence, I have been exploring the world of chair and wheelchair aerobics (you have no idea how much stuff is on YouTube until you are stuck at home for three weeks). However, I have been cheating on the music, using my iPod instead of the video music (let’s be honest, it’s mostly generic techno anyways).
While doing Pilates Sit Ups (they are terrible), I was roasting a track by Attila, called Payback. Here it is, in all its aggressive glory:
We’ve discussed problematic messages in metal and hardcore before, but I wanted to single out this song for one reason. I only have one remaining friend from high school, and our sisters are also the same age. She was telling me (years ago, I believe) that her sister would blast “Payback” whenever she was having a bad day, or feeling particularly angry. I went on to listen closely to the song myself, having had my share of teenage angst in my day, and WHOA. Whoa.
See, look at these guys. Come on.
I won’t reproduce the lyrics all here (here’s a link, should you want to peruse them), but this song dovetails beautifully with ideas about consent.
For those of you (us, really) who didn’t read all the lyrics, there’s an incredibly shocking verse, “I will find your fucking bitch and fuck her right in front of you.”
Later on in the song, he talks about how he can “tell she really wants it, she’s dripping wet and salivating.” Okay, again…is this a response of a woman tied down, trying to survive? Is it a bodily response disconnected from her mind (people can be aroused against their will)?
Also, using the word “bitch” to describe anything but a female dog is problematic, because it associates women with being weak, being mean, being irrational….not to mention its long association with sexual violence within the prison industrial complex. Another rapey layer for you.
My first instinct was a loud “WTF!” and reaching for the dial, but why turn it off when we can improve it? Here are some of my ideas for adding consent to these lyrics. Maybe we could turn this into a thing…
Attila’s “Payback”, formulated to respect consent/women (by Me)
Who the fuck are you?
Who the fuck do you think you are?!
You betrayed me this whole fucking time
I’m the baddest motherfucker in the building
So remember when it’s time for me to get my revenge
I will find your fucking bitch (or girlfriend, the woman you are currently having sexual relations with)
And fuck her, right in front of you (as long as she says yes and I am honest about my plans for our sexual congress)
Some people think that they can get away with murder
But everybody here can see the blood right on their hands
It’s a crazy fucking world and there’s no one left to trust you have to be careful who you trust
As people we have voices, leave the traitors in the dust
Revenge is something lethal and the taste is bittersweet Their punishment awaits, we’ll sweep their bitches off their feet! Living well is the best revenge
It’s ironic when she screams my name and begs for more
It’s really sick, I’ll hand it to you shes a great to be with CRAZY BITCH someone who very much enjoys and participates in sex
I like the way she rides this dick
I didn’t think I’d have to warn you (because we’re friends and friends talk through their issues)
You let it go too far again (because you trusted me to be an adult and handle my emotions constructively)
I thought you knew that I was crazy! (and thought I was taking care of my mental health in an adult fashion)
I let my actions speak loud
Tie her to the bed and let a minute get ahead (after I ask for her enthusiastic consent to bondage)
So I can get a better look and let her settle in the thought of it- (and ensure she is enjoying her sexual activity)
I can tell she really wants it I can see her dripping wet and
Salivating at the though of it (and she says yes, I am into this)
Tie her to the bed and let a minute get ahead (after we set a strong safeword and discuss mutually agreeable boundaries)
So I can get a better look and let her settle in the thought of it-
I can tell she really wants it I can see her dripping wet and
Salivating at the thought of it (and she says yes, I am into this)
So let me speak, answer me-
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU
You walk around with your nose up in the air
But you can’t smell the shit that comes out of your mouth
You’re a liar, you’re a bitch someone I don’t trust, and you’re a fake
WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE
I’ve spent my precious time dealing with your problems
And payback is a bitch the worst
What goes around comes around my friend
And you will soon realize it!
It’s tough to listen to metal, sometimes, because it’s been so reviled.
Upon A Burning Body, being serious. And reviled.
I will never forget the newscasts after the Columbine shootings, when ghoulishly excited reporters combed through the shooters’ rooms, reading lyrics from CDs they had lying around and looking at closets full of black clothing.
Despite its bad reputation, however, I have always wondered if the metal=bad person debate might be a bit more of the chicken and the egg than we’re comfortable admitting.
arghghghghghg
In the past two months, my new favorite thing to listen to while lifting is the new tape by Whitechapel, Our Endless War. If you haven’t heard it…you need to. It’s amazing. Here are my twofavorites from it, just in case you want to try it out.
At any rate, the fifth song on the disc, Let Me Burn, has an incredible beat, with a heavy, growly chorus “Why do I do the things I do? Why am I evil through and through?” (You can listen here…you’re welcome.)
Whitechapel: see, look at how serious they are!
I love this song, and this album, but don’t consider myself an evil person. Much of my soul searching tends to be of the “am I really doing enough for the world around me, am I doing good things” variety. But I love this song.
Chelsea Grin, letting you know they’re serious. Except for the guy toward the back. STOP SMILING, GERALD!
So riddle me this. Are “evil” people drawn to evil sounding music? Does evil, bad sounding music bring out bad qualities in us?
I don’t think so. I think often this type of music is popular mostly because it does not offer the rougher parts of the self as areas of shame, which we cannot acknowledge in fear of losing our basic humanity. We all have bit and pieces of evil in us, negative thoughts, anger or hatred for the world around us, but the vast majority of people will never commit violence, never act on their violent thoughts, and be able to function in normal society. How refreshing, then, to have an outlet in which we can enjoy these negative aspects of our personalities without being fearful or ashamed that they will take us over and all will be lost.
The Acacia Strain is serious about it, too. So Serious.
What do you think? Do you have music that speaks to the darker side of you, lets you indulge those thoughts safely? Or do you think it promotes violence (which is where much of the researchhasled)?
I go both ways, especially when it comes to specific glorification of violence (the same album has a song with a chorus exhorting listeners “no one cares, kill yourself, your kids and your wife”), but I can’t help digging that nasty beat.
shocking, i know. i drive a car to work, mostly because i’m usually using my vehicle for work-related supply pickups, because i just got a new bike, and because i work in a crappy neighborhood. and also, rain is always possible and i hate rain, amirite?
i went to a gas station in my neighborhood, where two different dudes called me baby while i was at the pump. i walked in to pay, and said “excuse me” to the man coming out. he said “that’s okay sexy, you go on wit your sexy little badass self.” ugh.
i’ve written about street harassment before, and how it raises up a bunch of conflict in me. but i hate and have always hated being called baby or sexy in public.
for about three years i told everyone who called me baby that baby was not my name, and that this was inappropriate. i’m tired. i don’t like weighing the good done by telling someone to fuck off versus the vitriol and nastiness that comes my way when i don’t like “compliments.”
leave me the fuck alone. get your gas, say excuse me like a human being, and be done.
I volunteered to work at the Motor City Pride festival this past weekend. I’ve always tried to go to LGBTQ events and I’ve been a frequent attendee of the Chicago pride parade; this was my first event in Detroit around these issues.
I love pride events because they’re generally amazingly positive. People walk around with smiles on their face, dressed to the nines, dancing and talking and generally having good interactions with each other (that I have seen, anecdotally, in public, only in my experience). Instead of getting catcalled and feeling raked over by men, I get to just be friendly, with less overt sexual innuendo; when I’m approached by a woman, I rarely feel dirty, guilty or endangered if I (politely) turn her down.
But this is an article about a t-shirt.
Before the event, there were some jarring happenings. My boyfriend told me I should reconsider volunteering “because someone might think you’re gay.” He also told me he was concerned that I might be targeted for violence because I was working at the Planned Parenthood table. After the event, I met friends for a drink; one of them kept expressing his amazement that there were many POC around “I thought these were just a white people thing, black people aren’t so gay.” Whoa.
I’m a newbie to LGBTQ activism, and definitely coming from a place of privilege; I grew up in a middle class home, I’m white, cisgender and straight. It doesn’t get much more privileged than that. As such, I’ve been working on my understanding of how I can be an ally to the LGBTQ community without pushing an agenda I think people want, devaluating their experiences or making it all about me instead of about the community and people’s lived experiences. I work in mental health, and have members who identify all across the gender and sexuality spectrums. I’m lucky enough to call some LGBTQ folks good friends and colleagues.
Anyway, back to the point. I bought a shirt from Ally tees (www.allytees.com) at the event. I wore this shirt to work today. And it provoked a huge amount of angst and anxiety in me.
In Michigan, you can still get fired for being gay. I work with people who may have bad reactions if they misinterpret the shirt, but more importantly, I was concerned about them misinterpreting the shirt and rehearsing speeches about what being an ally is, speeches that started with “oh no, I’m not gay.” I work in a dangerous area, and thought hard about if I wanted to walk down the street wearing a shirt whose message started with the word “lesbian.”
It shouldn’t matter if someone thinks I’m a lesbian. Really, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be an issue for my workplace to walk around in a shirt with words like “queer” and “intersex” on it. But really, the issue is all I was doing was wearing a fucking t-shirt.
If I’m freaking out about a word on a shirt, that’s a function of my privilege. People are in danger of physical harm while walking hand in hand with the person they love. People stress about who to bring to a Christmas party because their boss might find out and they’d lose their job. People are devalued, dehumanized, shamed, blamed and attacked for being the people they are (which my own profession did not stop until the 1970s).
Naming who we are, in gender, sexual preference, and every other way we identify, is not dirty or something to be ashamed of. The people who are open and upfront all the time are brave in a way I can barely conceive, and those that aren’t have my empathy. If it is not easy to just walk around with a t-shirt on, can you imagine if the person you are is not “acceptable”?
Fuck this (cis)tem, man. Fuck the patriarchy. Most of all, fuck thinking our experiences are the only right ones, and other people should bow down to what we think is right.
It used to be that if you didn’t listen to a band, it was generally because their music sucked.
I’m getting really tired of not being able to listen to my favorite bands because the members are dickbags.
First, As I Lay Dying singer Tim Lambis hired a hit man to murder his wife. Sucks, man. Not to mention the response on twitter, mostly focused on how she deserved it.
haha, his shirt says honour. this is what we call “irony.”
Now I’m hearing a guitarist in pop punk band New Found Glory was accused of lewd acts with a minor and had child porn.
this guy can’t get an adult woman into bed? the horror!
It’s been a hell of a year, and I’m sure it’s not only this year. In fact, I’m sure it’s not only these bands – these are just the ones who were caught, who were publicly caught, who couldn’t intimidate and settle out of court. But this is a manifestation of the culture we’ve been talking about for the longest. (One where the assault survivor has to write a piece stating her bodily integrity is worth more than a crappy punk band. Really.)
see? at least an hour in the morning just for the hair.
Now, real talk – the Casualties are not that great. One of the people who first introduced me to skinhead oi told me they were the definition of poseurs, and asked me how long I thought it took for them to put all the studs in their jackets and do their Mohawks in the morning. I did enjoy me some tunes from On the Front Line, though.
New Found Glory was the soundtrack to my high school years (yes, I had terrible taste at 16. Shut up). I still pull out their self-titled CD when I’m feeling extra energized and need mindless tunes with the windows rolled down.
As I Lay Dying was one of the first metal bands I listened to and liked; I mean, come on – Distance is Darkness? The Darkest Nights? These are some excellent tunes. And they were great live – I paid some of my hard earned money to see them. And these dicks are talking about being a Christian band? The same ones who demean women and value the lives of their wives so little to hire someone to kill her, rather than getting a divorce or eating cold pot roast without complaint like normal people?
this fuckin’ guy
That’s the thing. I cannot support these groups that don’t place importance on people’s rights. Playing the guitar does not immunize you from being an asshole and doing terrible things, any more than dunking a basketball,running a pass or batting a strike does. It still takes me a little bit of rationalization to enjoy stuff from Attila (who talk about fucking bitches and removing the pussy from your life) or Leftover Crack (who glorify drug use and killing cops while being a strong voice against war and discrimination against LGBT folks).
I’m really tired of having to decide what music to enjoy based on who is the least terrible person. I’m tired of hearing 10 bands be crappy to women with only one yelling about treating people like people. I’m tired of going to shows where I only see one woman in lineups of 5 bands and all I hear about is her tits. If we can boycott baseball games because of assault charges, if we can fire Kobe for raping a woman, if we can impeach politicians for unconscionable conduct, surely we can find some good bands in this damn subculture of ours who can act like they care about the other 50% of human beings.
Step it up, bands. Step it up, fans. Don’t support music that demeans you. Don’t buy albums that recognize only dudes as awesome and worthy. Don’t go to shows where bands are known for taking minors backstage and doing whatever they want. This is our damn culture – we don’t have to buy into anything they’re selling us. At the end of the day, that’s the point.
the image search for “crying on the scale” only pulled up ladies, by the way.
a weekend that started by arguing with my sigificant other about BMI scores (read: baloney) when he said he was healthy and i told him it was a scale from the 1800s not meant to measure health and i was obese by BMI standards. he replied “you’d be fine if you lost 30 pounds.” then insisted he didn’t want me to lose weight.
which is good, really. like most people i know, i’ve been eating 70% healthy and exercising 5-7 days a week for the past 5 years, at least…probably longer. and my weight has been the same within 10 pounds. pretty sure i’m where i’m at.
except, you know, when it doesn’t.
i’ve gotten to a point where i can buy chocolate and keep it in the house. where i’m actually craving salads and cucumbers, rather than feeling forced to eat it rather than what i really want. i’m starting to be intuitive and feel healthy.
this article, right here, sent me back to all that rage i feel every time someone’s told to change their body, that the only thing standing in their way is the lack of effort.
be happy in your life folks. the body is the vessel, it’s not the final summation.
further proof that diets make us all insane, first talked about (or at least, empirically supported) in the minnesota starvation study. and here it was on post secret.
made my heart break, for this person, my old self, and everyone who will ever suffer like this.
fucking diets, man. we have to start trusting our bodies!
As I’ve mentioned before, I work mostly with people of color, colleagues and clients. Being in this environment has exposed me to a great deal of music, especially popular music, that I had previously been able to avoid. This exposure has led to a lot of thinking, and the second installment in the punk rock portion of this blog.
While driving to a basketball game, a song came on the radio called “Ghetto” by August Alsina. Listening to it, I was struck by the enormous emphasis on the female body (a.k.a. objectification) and the confusion about money. Is it desirable to have money, but date someone poor? Is this because it puts the poor partner in your debt, afraid to leave, without resources to escape? Sounds an awful lot like definitions of abuse.
awwww, i have to date people and make them feel shitty so i can feel powerful
This morning I was trying to think of some well known punk songs that have some of the same confusion, the same issues. Punk as an art form is inherently limited, as artists and fans reject monetary success as “selling out” (see: Rise Against, Against Me!) vs (Leftover Crack, Against All Authority. Hell, even Frank Turner (“we can never sell out, because we never bought in”)
We are so confused. We don’t want to work our shitty 9-5 jobs for the man but we can’t live without money, man. Real talk.
(Side note: I love this website www.angryyoungandpoor.com where things are too expensive for actual poor kids to buy. Awesome).
We expect people to learn a certain way in punk..even though we say we don’t. I remember lots of hype about Beth Ditto (who sang for Gossip which was a fairly mediocre indie band) being fat, going against the mainstream. If we’re going against all that crap, where are the fatties? Even most of the Riot Grrrrrl bands were young, white and thin, in makeup.
punk fucking rock. but thin. white. pretty. makeup.
Bodies in punk rock (as in most music forms) are primarily male bodies. Do a google search for “punk.” Here, I’ll even do it for you. Some ladies, not traditionally attractive, right? Mostly white, skinny, young. Hair funny colors. For some reason Miley Cyrus? Quick, name a punk band with all girls. Not even the Distillers! Not even Star Fucking Hipsters! Not the Horrorpops! And notice how these women look. Young, white, thin, makeup.
R&B and Punk objectify different people, different looks, different ideals. But we’re still objectifying.
In the documentary American Hardcore, Ian Mackaye talks about how he wrote the song as an anti-racist song after attending high school in Washington DC, as it was a black majority school and he felt he was unfairly judged by the color of his skin. In keeping with person focused ideas, I believe he really did feel victimized. However, as I was singing the song in the shower (don’t judge) I realized I have a huuuuuge problem with the lyrics to that song.
this guy’s totally into it.
I work in Detroit with a majority black staff and majority black clientele. I went to school for my master’s in Chicago, where we talked a great deal about systemic racism. I worked in community mental health in Chicago too, and the amount of poverty south of 14th street is sick. For those of you too lazy to click the link (I’M LOOKING AT YOU!) systemic racism is less like screaming the n-word at a black person and more like calling some neighborhoods “bad” or “ghetto” and being scared to go there without considering those people that have to (usually) stay there and are probably just as scared. Because they’re brown and that’s where brown people belong right?
Anyway.
see? everyone’s excited!
So my problem with “Guilty” is it’s total lack of awareness of two things: the systemic racism Minor Threat (a group of young white males) acknowledges, and the lack of understanding how they benefit from these systems that are still in place.
Here are the full song lyrics:
I’m sorry
For something I didn’t do
Lynched somebody
But I don’t know who
You blame me for slavery
A hundred years before I was born
GUILTY OF BEING WHITE
I’m a convict
(guilty)Of a racist crime
(guilty)I’ve only served
(guilty)19 years of my time
See what I mean? I doubt his classmates blamed him for slavery (but who knows); it seems more likely to me they resented his automatic sense of entitlement (“I shouldn’t be bullied”), his increased access to resources and advancement, the fact he was less likely to go to jail or prison than his black male counterparts ((.056%) vs (.105%)…the list goes on. Instead of recognizing his benefits from this system and owning them, he blames his “oppressors” who have found him guilty.
This isn’t an article about how Ian MacKaye is a bad person. It’s about how invisible our privileges are.
theshamedynamic 