Check out the Juicy Meat necklace, barettes... And the glass heart brooches below, with the little stuff in them....
Yes, please!!!
I wonder if she'd make a glass heart necklace with a steak inside!!
http://www.faeriesmak.com/jewelry.htm
Yey, Birthday! Come to my freakin' party!!!
Well, I'm turning a quarter century this year, and thanks to the generosity of the WerePad, who are hosting a Neurogenesix club on May 6th, and the wonderful DJ Blau, who was so kind as to share the birthday-ness of her party with me, I get to have a huge birthday party!!!
Invite whomever you want!
$5 cover,
Cheap Drinks,
Come and help me celebrate my 25th Birthday!! Damn it, I haven't had a party in five years to celebrate, and this is a big one!
The WerePad is @
2430 3rd St.
Between 20th & 22nd
The WerePad has such a lovely high ceiling, the non-smokers won't be bothered by the smokers. There are also huge video screens, with fantoozle multimedia!!
DJs
Blau,
Glitch,
Orgnsm,
Sei'ichi
& Penguinoid
will be spinning dancing madness from Noise to Industrial, and even into the realms of some ridiculous remixes of hip-hop and pop...
Yeah; if you don't usually, you might feel more comfortable wearing black, and of course if you feel like dressing up like a zombie, you'll make me a very happy girl.
But mostly I would just LOVE to see all my old friends, and to have my folks from many different sectors of my life show up to help me celebrate.
Blog-reading strangers are also welcome, as long as you aren't sketcy, scary, or don't know how to not blatantly stare at women and not hit on them when they aren't giving you the green light. If you suck, we will kick you out bodily.
If you can't make it, consider spending lots of money on me (Amazon list for Amber Steele, or you could get creative... I like Mark Ryden and Jesus crap, or anything that looks like it came out of the Gray's Anatomy book), or maybe coming out to dinner with me on Saturday. But really, you should come and shake your bootay! WHoot!!
Here's what I sound like when I'm bored, and IMing a friend who may or may not be online:
I'm bored.
me: And I was bored all afternoon at work.
me: and my housemate is out of town, so my boyfriend said a couple of days ago that he would use this evening to "fuck [me] all over the house".
me: But instead, he is at his house doing laundry.
me: I suppose I shouldn't bitch, since I've been getting it once or twice a day for the past few weeks, but I am bored.
me: BOOOOORED.
I'm fascinating, non? Hee hee..
Well, at least I can blog at you folks. I'm listening to "Culo" by Pitbull. WHoot! CULO! I don't even know what that means. Herm.. Maybe I can find a dictionary of Spanish slang for you... Well; I did, but it isn't quite as detailed as I might've hoped. Here goes:
culo (noun, masc.) ass
CULO! How appropriate.
On a more serious note, I did have a Hunter S. Thompson's work hits real life moment. I'm reading "Hell's Angels" right now, which is weird because it's an early work of his, and so it isn't very Gonzo. But a good read, nonetheless. A lot of the book deals with the Angel's image as created by mass media, and the reactions to it that both general society and the Angels had. For the general public, this was, of course, an extremely negative association. But this book was written about the 1960's; in fact the main events covered in the book happened 40 years ago, almost exactly. And I am aware that the Hell's Angels are still known as the toughest motorcycle gang around, but also that they don't really exist in the way that they used to back then. You certainly don't hear about gangs of bikers wreaking havoc on a town anymore. Now the hoodlums of the decade are gangsters in the sense of African-American people from the ghetto.
Yet today, up on Parnassus at the hospital, a huge man riding a Harley. He was clean, wearing light colored clean clothing and a skull cap, with a large cigar hanging out of his mouth. He looked kind of jolly with all of his belly and his open face. On his bike, he moved gracefully over to the side of the road, talking to the people on the sidewalk, asking for directions. I realized that H.S.T. had been absolutely correct about the way that these men were entirely different beings off of their motorcycles than they are on them. Of of his bike, this man's weight alone would make him lumbering, perhaps slow, perhaps slamming each heel down in front of him, giant like, joints squealing under the stress. But on his bike, he flowed, comfortably sitting upright, a friendly voice curling its relaxed American tenor around his cigar. I couldn't hear what he was saying at first; he was about five yards from where I was sitting, stuffing my face with my classic tuna sub. But I could see the body language of all of the twenty- and thirty-something med students and residents as they steered themselves away from the curb. Heads dropped, and the motorcyclist began calling out to specific people as the crowds tried to walk an extra two feet away from him.
The biker called out to a young man, probably approaching thirty, with a healthy head of curly brown hair, a strong body, broad shoulders and nearly six feet on his frame. The young man looked down at the sidewalk a couple of times before he could no longer avoid the attention he was getting, then walked over to hear the biker's question. He shook his head, not knowing whatever the biker had asked him. The biker had removed the cigar from his mouth, but people were still finding him unintelligible, probably because they were too afraid to make eye contact with him, or to let themselves hear what he had to say, and therefore feel obligated to answer him. It occurred to me that he should get off of his bike; he was in a loading zone, and people were obviously intimidated by his presence on the motorcycle. The biker pulled a couple more yards down the street, only to get the same treatment. Just before he pulled away and drove off down the street, the wind blew a bit of his question into my ear, and as he roared off politely, I realized what it was he'd been asking for.
I heard him say,
"505 Parnassus?"
The last person said the number of the building I was sitting in front of, so at least he'd tried, I suppose. But 505 Parnassus was the giant hospital right across the street. The main hospital. The biggest building there. The building that probably every employee and student has to go into at least once a week for something or other. And they'd all been so afraid of this tender-looking, brightly t-shirted, clean Harley rider. Not wearing colors. Not wearing any darkly symbolic insignia. Just a big guy with a skull cap and a cigar, riding a Harley, asking for the most incredibly simple help. He was probably trying to visit someone.
Culo-holes.
Today, spring broke like the water of a woman two weeks overdue. I just walked home from BART in the soft evening sunshine, nostrils full of the warm scent of wisteria and jasmine in full, manic bloom. The small roses have all bloomed, and there were giant, white-tipped red tulips straining up at the baby blue sky... It made me realize once again how rarely I get home in time to enjoy nature. Not that I dislike coming home at night, but the smells and colors of a dwindling afternoon are much appreciated after months of strutting home in the nervousness of shadows with the idea of a rapist still in the area.
On a lighter note, however, I went to a talk this week that was taking place at UCSF. It was called PIERCED, INKED, & MODIFIED: BODIES & IDENTITY, presented by Dr. Victoria Pitts. Since she was having problems with the projector at first, she gave us the sense that we were missing lots of pictures, but I really didn't see as many as I expected when the problem was finally fixed. Here's an excerpt from the email I sent to my friend who let me know about the talk:
The speaker was a young woman doctor who did a pretty good job of looking at differing viewpoints on body modification. But in general, it was rather too broad of a talk for one hour. She had a really nice stance about insisting that plastic surgery, electro peels, diets, etc. were also forms of body modification. She set the public acceptance of these actions against piercing, tattooing and branding in order to point out the rational disconnect in society's alienation towards "alternative" body modifications. At the end of the talk, an older woman was just pushing at her with a question, trying through repetition to get Dr. Pitts to state that there is sickness (mental) involved in body mods. Dr. Pitts answered rather nicely that her rule was whether the body modification expressed or produced suffering that was the measure of whether it is unhealthy.
Oh, I wasn't very saucy... i could've piped up... My rule is always whether people make sure that they heal properly, and whether after going through an experience that causes pain and changes the body, do they respect their body more, care for it, keep the wound sterile, and honor what their body has allowed them to experience? Because lots of folks don't take good care of their piercings/tattoos. Lots of folks just get the same tattoos as everyone else, and treat the ritual/act of body modification like accessorizing with make-up. That seems to me to be a rather disrespectful and careless way of treating one's body. On the other hand, through respect, one's body modifications can be celebration of individuality and the power of self.
Another thing that I noticed was the focus on appropriation of other cultures' (those that white westerners think of as tribal) symbols and texts, and how that plays into the same exoticising of foreignness that we've been guilty of since colonialism. This is an interesting (but obvious?) question. And I wonder more about what it means to intellectually/academically ignore the majority of tattoos, which are in fact based on plenty of very modern american things. This seems to me to be another sign of "whiteness" being considered a cultural blankness. Sure, there is a wealth of cultural appropriation that takes place, but what about the trends in realistic tattoos, celtic tattoos (of course, this could be considered cultural appropriation as well), pin-ups, fantasy, gothic, metal, biker..... And yet those are all ignored for some reason...
I'm super excited about my next tattoo. I'm either going to fill my arm with the heart on it in so that it's a short sleeve, or start in on my left upper arm with a lovely collage of Mark Ryden's work. I definately want The Last Rabbit, as well as many different parts of The Butcher Bunnie; the little girl, perhaps holding out her hand to touch the last rabbit's ear instead of Abe Lincoln, the meat, some of his bees.... I'm super excited. Yey! Here's a link to Mark Ryden's site, if you'd like to know what I'm talking about. I would theive a pic with this link, but they're pretty well protected, so....
Ooooh! I just found a place to snatch them from; I'll post them for you all to see...
(by the way; Mozilla isn't letting me use the spell check, so please forgive me...)
So; for shits and giggles, I googled myself. And low and behold, someone was confessing their crush on me. So I posted back. Hee hee... I can't wait to see the responses from here....
And to share them with all of you!!
http://www.fahrvergnugen.net/archives/2004/06/29/zombies/
My friend wrote me that she feels like s&m has walked out the door of her life, and that it just takes honesty to get inside of her, instead of having to break down the walls with pain. But I feel like I am going backwards from that space; the walls are building themselves up inside of me, like a little girl is crawling up into my stomach and hiding herself in the wet walls of my insides. And it seems like there is nothing but the tearing of those walls that would make her come out and scream and cry and feel the fresh air so that I could feel young and free. There is just so much I don't want to deal with right now. My whole life has been changed, at least for the next year. All of the schools said no, so I won't be moving, won't have a reason to quit my job and travel, won't have an arbitrary situation that cues me to finally call 'bullshit' on John for disappointing me... It's like I'm in the middle of a lake, and all I want to do is float here in the water, where nothing can reach me except for the soft motions of the tide, and if I let my head slip underwater, I can't hear the people and obligations that are screaming for me to come back to the shore. And it's so calm underwater, but my fingers are pruning, and my hair is getting tangled in my face, and I can't move myself quickly with the water pushing all around me. But it's so quiet, and so calm... and I know I should come back for air, and let my skin dry so that I don't rot, but I just want to sleep, to float in the comfort of unconsciousness.
I just heard from UCSC today. Nope. That makes all three of the grad schools I applied to. All of them. And I can't even tell you about how awful the situation that Bonni is in was. I'm trying to advocate for her a little bit; I called the news today, hoping that they'll get down on that shithole that they sent her to. It's outfuckingrageous. We sat all day with her on Friday, watching the med assistants and orderlies come into her room and look around the curtain at the 101 year old deaf and mute lady with a look on their face that said, "I think... uh... she looks... uh.."
Yup, she was dead all day. And it took them all day to bring other people in to check to make sure that she was dead. They're also denying Bonni the drugs she's prescribed half the time (maybe because they're taking her oxycontin and dilaudid themselves, hmmm?), but sometimes giving her the shot in her leg to thin her blood three times instead of two per day, (maybe because no-one is washing her properly or moving her every couple of hours, so she's at risk of bed sores and staph infections, hmmm?)... Well... that's only the beginning of the crap. Like when they emptied her catheter and didn't close it, so by morning time her piss was all over the floor. How about that, huh? Or the doctor who didn't call her perscription in to the pharmacy? And then came by and told her she'd be getting speech therapy. That girl has absolutely nothing wrong with her speech. She talks more than a speed freak, and is still as incredibly fucking hilarious as she's ever been. She made us laugh about all of that crap most of the time we were there. But she can't fucking move herself or walk. What the fuck does she need speech therapy for, huh?
I want to kill. Tomorrow I'll be contacting M.A.D.D. Who would have ever thought that, huh?
This week makes me violent.
But you should buy Bonni's album; it is fucking amazing. Swans and Twin Peaks influences can be heard, samples, and her amazing performances... I love it.
www.fearofdolls.com
This site will also link you to the fund for her benefit, although you can donate at any Washington Mutual to the account for the Benefit of Bonni Suval.
Do it.
Oh my goodness... what in the world am I going to do without livejournal??!! It's so intensely sad that I am freaking out over my lack of LJ... damn maintenance. SHeESH!
And now that I've read CURLY GIRL already today... Herm...
It's pretty sad when you're waiting for work to come in. I suppose I can find some more poop to do... I think there's still a pile of mystery paper somewhere for me to go through and sort... Herm... Or I could triple re-sort the drawers... Or play with ACCESS... Maybe that's what I'll do; I'll try to make a query to find out what paperwork I can send far, far away to the land of storage. Ah, work. Dontcha love it?
At least tonight I can go to ~hopefully~ the new Burlesque class with my lovely super-friend, and then we could go and shake it at DG... Oh, the bumpin' and a-grindin' tonight. We're gonna dance the cooch!
I am really enjoying HBO's Carnivale, for those of you undecided about whether or not to watch it. It does start a bit slowly, but it's picking up nicely, fun to watch the characters... I like it. I wanted to put in a picture of the girls doing the cooch, but I can't seem to find one...
Okay; I'm going to jockey some database, baby.
So, upon request, here is the reel that I am in for the dance class!!
http://pthproductions.com/demos.html
It's quicktime only right now, but there's a link to free downloads on that page.
I heard from the women that I took self defense class with that the man who has assaulted one woman on her doorstep and beat the shit out of her, and raped another woman at gunpoint three blocks from my house has raped another woman. And yet a careful of young men thought it would be a good idea just now, in the pouring rain and darkness of my corner, to stop their car at the intersection and yell at me, "Hey there, white chocolate!" and not drive away. And I really didn't feel like running into a different apartment building or something, like perhaps I should've so that they wouldn't see where I live. But now I'm thinking of taking the IMPACT Weapons course, so I'll have a better idea of what to do if I run into that guy.
There are some things that I just don't want to think about.
I was on my way home from a meeting with my dance teachers, who brought all of the dancers together to make the possibility of paid work seem more real, so that they can get a better sense of commitment from us. It made me feel scared. I think it is because I'm at a place in my life where everything seems so up in the air; my whole life can change based on how my grad school applications are responded to, this puts my job and relationship in jeopardy, and makes me feel crazy because I feel most safe when I can plan things in my future. But I can't plan much, because I don't know whether I will have to possibly start school in the summer or fall. And I don't know if I can rely on my relationship, I don't know what to do about having a job that wants to be able to make me commit to it, but won't know for months whether they can commit to me, and I don't know if I will be able -- or want to -- commit to it. And here come my dance teachers, who I want to respect and trust, dangling the opportunity of a dream life of performing, even just part time, that may or may not happen, that I may or may not be able to commit enough to depending on where my future may or may not lead me. And it's terrifying for them to say to me; trust us; give us your all; when I really want to, but know that it isn't certain. It makes me super emotional and scared.
But, on the other hand, I do know that I can rely on myself. And what they are asking from me is mostly that I discipline myself; commit to getting back into shape, and stay that way. It certainly isn't the idea of committing to rehearsals and performances that weirds me out; when I know I have a show going on, then being there for rehearsals and changing my life to work around that schedule is a given. What is really frightening to me is putting my hope on the line. Probably because I have so much hope out there already; school, relationship, moving, traveling.... And all of these things are somewhat out of my control right now; I've done most of what I can in those situations, for the time being. But to hope for dance; it requires such an immense amount of discipline and hard work and sweat and tears and pain that it's really hard to commit to without supporting that commitment with a large amount of hope and exaggerated expectations.
I suppose that I should take my own advice from earlier today, and think of my friend who has come to the bay area and created for herself the beginnings of a career in film, from which she is actually making enough money to get by on. It's stunning, really, what she's done. And I am nervous about putting myself in that venerable position of testing how good I am, since in some ways that feels like what I am doing with my grad school applications.
Isn't there some way I can flush some of this fear and anxiety out of myself and get back to the bravery that I know is inside of me? I know there must be... I just feel like my soul needs a hot sauna and a thorough scrubbing. But how?
No more Hunter S. Thompson. There was a lovely article in the SF Chron today about HST, I particularly appreciated David Kipen's acknowledgement of the time it will take for HST's literary reputation to recuperate after his suicide. The conservative bastards who will waggle their chicken-greased "I told you so's" and crumby cruciform "You see what happens when you break the rules??" all over the glory of his writing for many condescending years to come. Ironic that the iconic flaunter of freedom from America's pressures to conform should be so impinged upon by the expectations of society in regards to such a basic, personal freedom as the choice of life or death.
The moral of this story is: You should read his books. And if you need reminders as to why you should read his books, you can look at some of my older entries.
http://curlyripemeat.blogspot.com/2004/07/moore-mad-thompson-please.html
http://curlyripemeat.blogspot.com/2004/07/whats-wrong-with-america.html
Herm... I was just re-reading some of my stories from my visit to Vegas. I really, really want to go back there, and soon. I wish the hotel roomage were cheaper. I need to make friends with some folks who work in a Casino. I want to go and see Zumanity again. And there is a large road trip in honor of HST leaving San Francisco and Los Angeles for Vegas on March 24th. They're encouraging people to rent red convertables and REALLY do it up. I'm tempted, actually. I suppose I should email the guy... Here was the post I saw on LJ:
"We're leaving San Francisco and Los Angles for Vegas on Thursday night (March 24th, 2004]. Meeting up in Barstow. Thursday night.
Then on to Vegas.
Bring your own red convertable and ether jar.
No really. We're doing this. Email: propaganda@thoughtpolice.com
I'll see you before the bats see me.
Forward this. Put it on your blog. Post it somewhere cool.
I haven't had a two-week hangover in a few years.
Let's party and show the man we'll miss him."
Now, doesn't that sound tempting?
Hermmm.....
I'm sitting at work with nothing to do, and so I am pretending not to be blogging by writing this out in an Outlook email. Heh. It's been a little bit ... foreboding-?- to think about writing about Bonni. The sad truth of the matter, if you haven't already heard from me, is that she was hit last week by a car while she was crossing the street, and now she's in the hospital in a full body brace. She's going to be okay; she broke lots of important bones, but somehow managed not to splatter her innards, which is good.
There was a cabbie who saw it happen, and chased the hit + run Cadillac through town, onto a highway, over a bridge at 85 mph, while radioing in to the cops, who caught the guy because of it. And it's pretty fabulous that the guy will go to jail for what he's done to one of the most amazing, talented, beautiful women in the world. But he's been arrested before for drug offenses, driving drunk, driving without a license... So there doesn't seem to be much chance that he will somehow have managed to get insurance that will help with Bonni's plight. And Bonni was a retail slave, so she certainly didn't have any insurance. The hospital is trying to help her, there have been talks of bands playing benefits for her, and there is an account that people can donate to. Please, please do!! You just go to Washington Mutual and ask for the account under her name, Bonni Suval.
But all of these things won't even begin to cover the frustration and anger she has at having her life fucked up. She was just starting to make things work for her in New York, she had come to Seattle to play a show with her band in honor of their CD being released, and things were finally going good for her. And she deserves things to go well for her. Her quota of shit for this lifetime had been filled years and years ago. So, she finishes her concert, and crosses the street just a few hours later to be smashed into with a "sickening thud," after which she flies through the air and lands on the sidewalk and refuses to wake up. Who would want to wake up after that? I'm sure parts of her wish that she were in a coma through this healing process she's embarking upon.
He broke her tailbone, her back, her femur, her arm, her scapula. He fractured her ribs and her skull. And now she has to be in the hospital for probably at least three months, where well-meaning nurses try to change her body-brace, not realizing that it's attached to her leg. Bonni is a hardcore motherfucker. When she is sick with pain, you know she's not talking about some measly triple-root-canal-/quintuplet-birthing sort of pain.
You sick, sick fucking world.
And here I am, lusty with my drive again. Last night was the first time in 8 months that I've smiled in the middle of painful dance class exercises. And it felt good. I thought about the results of my grad school applications, and realized that I will be okay no matter how they turn out. Because, if I don't get in, I'll just apply to another school, and another school. And maybe it will take me an extra year to actually get to grad school. But there just isn't any reason for that to freak me out. In a couple of weeks, I will be next to my broken bonni, and I get to tell her that her life is going to be okay again, and that she can pull it back together after being tied to a sterile rack for three months. And I better believe it. That is my job. I can handle a possible postponement of my schooling, even though I've spent the last eight months thinking that I would lose it if it doesn't work out the way I want it to. But that's just ridiculous, because it could've been me walking across the street and getting hit and run. At least I have insurance, and job security. And I can handle some changes of plans.
I think that being reminded of that is making me feel a whole lot better about life.
