Athena’s Mom

Hello New Yorkers!

It’s called deodorant.

D. E. O. D. O. R. A. N. T.

You put it under your arms.

After you shower.

Yes, shower.

S. H. O. W. E. R.

Take one.  Please.

Making a grown man cry is only cool if you are Mick’s flavor of the week. (And no, that flavor is not necrosis.  Thanks for playing!)

I know, I know, it’s ninety degrees out, and we are all rubbing our 8 millions strong selves up against each other all day–on the subway, on the street, in elevators, in line at Starbucks.

You get the idea.

We’re hot, we’re sweaty. Sweat: it’s a good thing, a sign our bodies are thermoregulating. Our autonomic nervous systems are working.

But…

You notice how you keep getting an entire bench to yourself on a rush hour A train?

New Yorkers, you all smell like you slept with a corpse.

No, really New Yorkers– what are you rolling in before you leave the house?

I ask, because my eyes water every time I have the misfortune to come within smelling distance (about a block for those who are especially rank) of you all. It’s cramping my style, and making me lose my faith in God.

I’m worried about you all.

You’re not staying on top of the funk.  Frankly, I’m a tad disappointed in the smelly lot of you.

How hard is it to hose yourself down every twelve hours?

At the very least, you can towel yourself down in a Starbucks bathroom. They let anyone use them. You don’t even need to buy a latte.

I am a deeply, deeply flawed person, and I have managed to keep my BO under control.

If I can do it, so can you.

And you know what? A cleaner, less smellier you will be a happier you. Estranged friends will want to get back in touch. You will get seated at your favorite restaurant. You’ll be able get a job somewhere other than Best Buy. Babies will stop dying in your presence. You will no longer set off car alarms every time you raise your arms.

Life will be good, and you will reach personal heights you never imagined possible.

Love,

Me

Found on YouTube, Sesame Street meets Avenue Q (I know, I know… but seriously, just watch):

“When it comes to swimming, I’m like a fish who doesn’t want to get my hair wet, because I’m too self-absorbed with my appearance!”

Hey Everybody, Let’s All Go To The Beach And Complain

By Janice Talarico
July 9, 2008 | Issue 44•28

The warm weather’s upon us, and you know what that means: It’s fun and sun and whining time! Just doesn’t feel like summer until we hit the surf and sand and bitch about every conceivable thing.

The paper of record does a particularly good job of capturing the extreme income disparities present in New York City– for instance, you can often find an article about a Bronx high school with a 75% drop out rate side by side with an article about a high school on Long Island where the every member of the senior class was admitted to Duke.

I don’t know if you have been following the Esmen Green story? On June 19th, the security cameras at King’s County Hospital captured a woman collapsing (face-down) and lying undisturbed (i.e. unassisted) on the floor for an hour until she died. The woman had been waiting over 24 hours to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.

Esmen Green was an immigrant, she was black, she was mentally ill. Most importantly, she was poor. She had the rotten luck of being mentally ill in an overburdened public system. Things turned tragic for her when she collapsed out of sight of any one compassionate individual.

Today, the Times ran the following story:

Challenges of a $600-a-Session Patients

The article discusses the particular issues confronted by psychiatrists to the super wealthy in New York City.

Many of these patients have intractable narcissism. Not quite as deadly as being poor, mind you.

The New York Times’ continued coverage of both the desperatly poor and the desperatly rich provides an interesting portrait of financial trends in this country.

The shrinks to the rich article is a part of the series “Age of Riches: Articles in this series are examining the effects of the growing concentration of wealth.”

The narcissistic hedge fund manager paying to have his shrink helicoptered out to the Hamptons just seems to be the corollary to an underfunded public hospital neglecting patients.

Remember the idea of redistribution of wealth? Remember taxes? You know those ideas that lead to all caps rants on the Wall Street Journal comments page?

Yes, we might want to reconsider the consequences of this country’s economic policies.

I have to say that one of the awesome things about living in NYC is brunch culture. Or the idea that somewhere between 10 am and 3 pm on a weekend, you can meet a friend for waffles, omelets, mimosas, snark and the Sunday Times.

I gave brunch culture a fair shake in Champaign. Me and a friend used to meet at Le Pepe–for pancakes and homefries. No mimosas because we had to drive to get to Le Pepe. Even that petered out because neither of us could coordinate our schedules.

As for my time in Chicago– brunch was at my grandmother’s with bagels, locks, and coffee cake. Sunday Times included.

Anyway, today I met Alexis for brunch on the UWS. It’s sweet that she allows me to indulge these leftist bougie impulses, such as doing social things on the UWS. Oh, and listening to me prattling on about men and my continued desire to hook up with a doctor (the only thing that does not make this totally JAPpy is that I don’t need him to be Jewish.)

Of course, I also get to listen to Alexis’ headspinning description of the quotidian lesbian dramas.

Stuff lesbians like: Drama–”Lesbians like drama”.

Women like drama in general. Women like drama about relationships– and while straight girls get some of that drama neutralized by boyfriends who rightfully ask “what’s the bfd” every time we start spinning conspiracy theories as to why he took an entire 6 hours to answer an email–lesbians pretty much feed off of it, geeking up all drama between partners and would be partners to 11.

I won’t go into the specifics of Alexis’ current drama– suffice it to say, we had to be at Pride to wave to a specific person in the lesbian runners club without catching the eye of another person in that group.

So we went to pride. Alexis smartly suggested we stand north of the village (to avoid Stonewall Sardines). We ended up around Herald Square, which meant we got to watch tourists from all over the world marvel at what must be a typical American Sunday, complete with assless chaps, Donna Summer, and all over body paint. Because Stars & Bars= Reaching for that Rainbow. Now, everybody dance now!

I kind of wished the Stonewall uprising had occurred in the fall. The last weekend in June is so hot. And humid. And drag queens have got to be the last bastion of mass pantyhose wearing. With open toed sandals too. Seriously, have drag queens not gotten the memo?

Sexiest queens had to be the GLBT Brazilian group. Most esoteric, GLBT group? Queer stutterers. I am not kidding.

The parade had a great turnout– Governor Patterson was there. Christine Quinn showed up. We had Mayor Mike (probably confirming my brother’s theory.) Chuck Schumer was there.

So all in all, lot’s of excitement. There were an encouraging number of AIDS groups. Also, the parade was delightfully diverse, both ethnically and age-wise.

As a straight allie, I appreciated float after float of buff men gyrating to camp disco classics clad in little more than glorified tighty-wightys. One of the nice things about Pride is it celebrates the much needed abandonment of gender roles and expectations. This means I can oppenly ogle men much in the way men ogle women (or men– for that matter. Have you ever read the men seeking men section of craigslist?) Who doesn’t want a parade of pretty men going down 5th Avenue?

Of course– to quote Margaret Cho– “I should have been more specific”.

I hold out for a weekend of bi-curiosity before I resign myself to marrying a man with neck-rolls and a Nextel douchebag gleeping cell phone clipped to his belt in a leather pouch. A man who spends all of our expendable income on sports memorabilia.

There has to be something else out there, right?

Oh well, on to the gratuitous display of club classics,

And because it is Pride,

Report Assails Political Hiring in Justice Dept.

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: June 25, 2008

Justice Department officials illegally used “political or ideological” factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law school graduates with Federalist Society membership or other conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday.

One rejected candidate from Harvard Law School worked for Planned Parenthood. Another wrote opinion pieces critical of the USA Patriot Act and the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. A third applicant worked for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and posted an unflattering cartoon of President Bush on his MySpace page.

Investigators reviewed e-mail messages from Ms. McDonald in which she indicated that “leftist commentary” or “buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice’ ” were grounds for rejecting applicants. Membership in liberal organizations like the American Constitution Society, Greenpeace or the Poverty and Race Research Action Council was also seen as a negative mark, the report said.

I can safely assume my membership in that rogue terrorist group–the ACS– is why I did not get a summer job with the DOJ. You should have seen the guy I had to work for instead.

Even if I had been in bed with the Fedies during law school, I doubt my application would have made it past the initial screening. My BA is in liberal arts. Four years of studying Hegel is letting the terrorists win.

George Carlin (1937-2008), for everyone who needs a laugh:

In honor of Mr. Carlin’s memory, we should all say ‘fuck’ on network TV. When children are watching. Because how else are they going to learn how to use that word correctly?

More on the Stupids Step Out from Salon:

Barack Obama is a Muslim, and other stories

Barack Obama has been running for president for 16 months. He’s written two best-selling books, has already spent more money on TV ads in most states than any presidential candidate in history and employs about 1,000 paid staffers — and a legion of unpaid volunteers — working around the clock to spread the word about him.

So far so good (nods).

In recent focus groups in key battleground states, participants told Democratic pollsters matter-of-factly that Obama, if elected, would refuse to be sworn in on the Bible.

And,

In one group conducted on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, seven out of 12 independent Virginia voters taking part said they thought Obama was a Muslim (he isn’t), and some questioned his patriotism, saying he needs to prove he’s “for America.”

This doesn’t bode well for Virginians. First Macaca, and now being referred to as “”low information” voters”.

I love the euphemism “low information”. It’s like calling a person with mental retardation “mentally challenged”. Or just “special”.

Low information voter. It has such a ring to it. Don’t ask me, I’m stupid a low information voter. Foreign policy? Global warming? It all makes my head hurt, what with this requirement for being a “high information” individual. Ask me who I want to have a beer with– but none of those high information micro-brews. Low information Bud Light for me and the president, please.

Jon Stewart tackles the issue of Obama related misinformation (ORM):

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=173522

More from the Salon article on FightTheSmears:

That’s not the traditional approach in politics when confronted with lies (nor is it the traditional way to fight urban legends). “The rule that I was sort of raised on was … you never respond at greater volume and in a bigger medium,” said Mark Blumenthal, editor of Pollster.com and a longtime Democratic pollster. “The problem with that is that no one ever held a press conference [to say Obama is a Muslim], there were no ads, no campaigns embraced the notion of Obama as Muslim, yet it’s everywhere.”

As it turns out, even low information voters are no longer receiving information from traditional forms of media. Instead they hit the bastion of misinformation and crazy rumors– the Internet. It’s not just for porn.

And the Obama campaign is countering the rumors in the most direct way possible. On a website. No speeches; no long tropes in the New York Times. No risk of misquoting or misplaced sound bites. Just a website with short simple sentences and a handy-dandy even low information voters can use interactive feature.

I have been reading FightTheSmears.com, because, well…THANK FUCKING GOD!!!

My father and I were talking last night about how this simple concept would have saved Kerry’s campaign.

FightTheSmears has started with the big smears flying around about Barack Obama, including the one where he is a Muslim. And the one about Michelle Obama using the term “Whitey” in a speech.

The rumor (what Barack’s people called smear) is stated, and you click on a link allowing the truth to appear. Is it truth? Well, the site is providing counters to rumors that do not make sense.

For instance, we have

Smear: Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Truth: Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.

Because this is a site from the official Obama campaign, they did not write the truth this way, “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian. You fucking idiot”.

Apparently people hate it when you call them stupid, stupid.

I think what annoyed me was the people who continued to believe that Barack Obama was a Muslim even though he wrote about being a Christian and publicly attended a mega church on the South Side of Chicago. Insisting that Obama was a Muslim in the face of that evidence??? Yes, you are stupid.

And while our particular style of governance attempts to give everyone a voice, even the very stupid– those of us not in the very stupid camp have forgotten that we have the right to tell people buying into uninformed hysteria that they are wrong, and here are facts that comport with reality.

Sometimes I fantasize about doing a Cesar Millan dog whisperer ‘Tsst’ to claim my alpha status over stupid people. Because I am arrogant that way. I’ve never actually seen the Dog Whisperer. I did see the episode of South Park that mocked it, thought…

Ooooh, who’s uninformed now?

FightTheSmears does invite readers to submit rumors they have heard. Rumors discover via an email forward–one in all caps, perhaps. One that crashes your browser and mentions angels? No? Not ringing a bell?

The campaign is young. The smears have only begun…And Bill Maher could have much of what I have just said, but with punchlines. And pot jokes.

From Bestweekever,

20 Headlines That Are A Lot Funnier If You Pretend They’re About House M.D.

My favorites?

House belatedly supports ‘Frank Sinatra Day’.

Because I could just see the patient of the week being a retro-crazed neo lounge lizard who collapses at a swing dancing competition. And House spends the entire episode insisting that the patient’s inability to live in the now is a symptom. But in the end, House realizes that liking Frank Sinatra and all things from that era between the end of the Second World War and the Kennedy Assassination is in fact a genuine personality quirk.

And,

House subpoenas Karl Rove

While watching C-Span, House notices that Rove displays an unusual head tilt. House spends half the episode trying to get Rove up to PPTH. Legal gets involved.

House can sub my poena any time…oh, wait.

And finally,

Gas buildup cause of vacant-[H]ouse blast

Vicodin OD and Fish tacos. ‘Nuff said.

The Onion givith:

Controversial Court Ruling Upholds Homosexual’s Right To Prance Around Demanding Attention And Being A Drama Queen

HARTFORD, CT—The Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday upheld the right of individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, to engage in any number of “grandiose behaviors,” including, but not limited to, sashaying across the room “like a hussy, yelling ‘Oh my God!’ at the top of their lungs while hopping up and down, and generally acting like Miss Thing.”

Why can’t courtroom artists nail foreshortening?

In (legitimate) news, the Times brought back the memory of Beard Magic Barbie:

Earring Magic Ken is the [heterosexual indoctrination, um, toy] industry’s nightmare. The character, who had blond highlights in his hair and a leather vest, drew howls from consumers, who did not see him as a realistic boyfriend for Barbie. Ken was already coping with arched eyebrows over his sexual orientation, and he seemed to have come out of the closet — something that Mattel most definitely did not intend.

And here is where our Barbies have a cookout at the Dream House, and explain Ken’s absence away with the old business trip excuse.

Lotta Menn.  Heh.