a different kind of monster

Hi, I'm Ali, and it's been 3 days since my last fiery pontification on why I hate Taylor Swift.

Screw it; I'm leaving Taylor Swift Hater Rehab. Although that's not really an apt description of this particular hatred of mine. I'm sure Taylor Swift is lovely, doesn't deserve to be degraded, and makes all the little woodland creatures flock to her when she skips through the forest.
What concerns me is that the media/people around me extol a figure who subscribes to and owns such a lurking brand of latent, archaic sexism in her music.

Why aren't people talking about how heinously disenfranchising Swift’s schema of relationships are? Swift, who is now 21, NOT FOURTEEN, is a grown woman, yet the media coddles her like she's the next coming of christ. The media rewards Swift for writing her own music as if she singlehandedly invented the process itself. Swift writes decent and predictable songs, and that's okay. Every song is about the same unrequited love, unmet expectations, and tragic heartbreak.
She's the musical equivalent of the Twilight Series, except that, for whatever reason, no one criticizes Swift fans like they do Twilight fans. As a huge Twilight fan, I accept said criticism and derision, and admit that it is in fact, horrible writing. Which is why it is perfectly fine to like Swift, as long as you don't subscribe to just about anything she says or emulate her in any way.

Is Swift a "good role model"? Absolutely not. If my daughter were ever to submit herself to the sort of helplessness and self-victimization that Swift not only has sustained but basically reinvents with every new song about a boy who broke her heart, I would smack her with a copy of The Feminine Mystique. Every time a young girl puts up a poster of Swift up in her bedroom, Betty Friedan convulses in her grave.

The fact that Swift thinks she is the quiet, comely girl in the corner who the boy never notices in lieu of the shiny, morally bankrupt cheerleader is a complete mockery of girls who were ever ACTUALLY quiet and comely. In Swift's video of You Belong With Me, she purposefully looks dowdy, mussing up her otherwise perfectly curled mane and donning a pair of enormous glasses. Which she has to do to make the point, because she's actually tall, blonde, and gorgeous (despite unbecoming narrow shoulders).

Swift's definition of "outcast" is a carbon copy of the classic archetypes; outcasts are in the band, wear T-shirts versus short skirts, and dance around their bedrooms awkwardly. This is nothing new. As far as I'm concerned, all the "villains" of Swift's teenage dream/nightmare (aka the cheer captain who straightens her hair at 5:15 in the morning every day before school) deserve the guy, because they play dirty and look slutty, which is an awesome combination.
"I'm in my room it's a typical Tuesday night/I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like"

...

..

.

Someone enlighten me; what music could Swift's protagonist possibly be listening to that has more street/indie cred than the hotter cheerleader's music? I'll wait.

But honestly, this isn’t about a specific weird and misguided lyric of hers. It’s about the fact that somehow Swift is considered a better role model than Lady Gaga (I know I can hear your groans, this bitch is going on about Gaga again, but let me assure you that everything, absolutely everything, relates to Gaga) or Nicki Minaj. Are they sexually suggestive and explicit? Yes. But they also threaten to poison and kill people, which is awesome. The level of empowerment that prominent female figures such as Minaj and Gaga are promoting and asserting is so much more exciting and creative than the predictable drivel that Swift is pumping out. Also, if you base your outlook on romance/relationships/boys on one of the many misled popular beliefs/coping techniques of Swift, it makes you a stupid person.

BOOM, ROASTED!

Dr. Douchebag & Awesome Sluts Vol. I

[Despite the title this is not about cheesy porn, sorry to disappoint.]

Ali here, blogging from the couch. Scintillating, I know. I'm watching Chelsea Handler and for whatever inane reason, Dr. Drew Pinsky, that Hollywood "rehab" hack, is judging the shit out of Miley Cyrus for the now-notorious video wherein she smokes salvia.

First of all, it's obviously just awesome the Cyrus is tripping with her friends instead of "dating" Taylor Lautner and sleeping with Hollywood's worst playboy and writing mediocre songs about it, all the while clinging desperately to some ridiculous, infantilized, virginal ideal. Anywayz... more on that later.

Cyrus 18. She's clearly been wanting to slut it up since she was 14, when she first realized that she was a pop icon and that she could date hot aussies. I think we should congratulate her for making it to 18 without any DUIs or sex tapes. 18 is the age that you should be smoking weed with your friends which should be considering more scandalous than smoking salvia, seeing as the latter is actually legal, but whatever...

So, why is Dr. Drew suggesting she "get help"? Obviously, Billy Ray will tweet some shit about disappointment, and TMZ and E! will speculate about the public's reaction to it in a shocked and scandalous tone, but honestly, this shit is legal. Thank god Pinsky is on a show as irreverent as Chelsea Lately, because as soon as Pinsky tried to lace his "joking manner" (i use this term loosely. every time Pinsky tries to be funny a D-list celebrity injects meth into their eyeballs) with serious hints that Cyrus should seek help, Chelsea and the other panel guests would shove his bullshit back in his face with comments like "when are you even a doctor", and "why would you want celebrities to get clean, your career is based off the probability they won't".

While salvia isn't exactly my thread count of Egyptian cotton, it's not the predecessor of some sort of Lohanian breakdown of Cyrus' in the future. Might this happen anyway? Possibly. But I'd hazard a guess that Cyrus and her friends were driving back from somewhere and passed the token, weird, goth shop (Madison's is called Amsterdam) and were like oh em gee Miley, it's totes your bee day, and decided to trip. The media is obviously about to try to make this a huge deal, but Pinsky is just vainly trying to assert his legitimacy in the public eye.

I hate "Dr." Drew Pinsky. Why is he awkwardly toned? Go be a real doctor. And I think Miley Cyrus has too many teeth but I so respect her for acting out and wearing slutty clothes and having awkward stripper hair, because at least she isn't pretending, or adhering to absolute caricatures of the least constructive sort of archaic feminine archetypes, ahem, Schmaylor Schwift.

I'm up too late and ranting.

Things

Exciting Things.

1. Today Beauty & the Beast comes out of the Disney vault, woo!

2. Apparently Chelsea Handler & 50 Cent's camps AREN'T denying reports that they are romantically involved. Best Hollywood couple, ever.

3. Chanel's Spring 2010 RTW line.

Unsurprising Things.

1. Todd Palin does not know the difference between inflectional and possessive apostrophes. http://gawker.com/5656514/leaked-emails-sarah-palin-doesnt-give-out-endorsements-for-nothing. And is also rude and childish.

2. Tea Parties are not libertarians, they are just crazy Christians posing as reasonable people who are upset at the economic climate of our country. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/05/tea-party-is-much-like-the-religious-right-only-moreso-surve/

arachne's surprise

i will graduate college in less than a year. i have done nothing amazing by normal standards. i have a vague ambition, which is to pursue that feeling i get when i'm silently reveling in something beautiful and nobody knows it because i'm just sitting in some coffee shop, reading some silly words. there's some couple in the corner breaking up and some harried student sitting next to me and neither party is aware that my world just shifted just a bit. i look up, shocked that no one has noticed that there is a crazy girl crying into her book, but i look back at my book and god is still waiting in the margin. if i'm late for something, i shut him away and promise myself later. if i'm not, i order another iced mocha and wedge myself sturdily in those words.

i want to spend my days, 9-5, in barnes and noble. i want to greet the woman who is at the first stand, trying to sell the b&n version of the kindle, like a next door neighbor who's watering her flowers. i'll take a sneak peek of the magazine section while i walk to get a coffee. then i'll begin the day with the heavy stuff, like A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and try to get through everything David Foster Wallace has ever written and take a crack at Anna Karenina one of these days, maybe even Vanity Fair. i'll take a quick glance at Joyce, sigh, and say not today damnit, it's friday. then i'll spend an hour or two on pop culture stuff, maybe work my way through oprah's book club and the bestseller lists and whatever Michiko Kakutani liked most as of late, even though she's a bit harsh for me. (ps, did you know she won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism?? i mean, obviously literary criticism is implied, but damn, i didn't even know they awarded pulitzers for that kind of shit. isn't that the prize for being the biggest bitch of them all?)

with my hectic morning done, i will abscond to the sections with big picture books about Warhol and Escher and the roman emperors and how to draw manga and the books of 1,000+ personality tests and fluffy bits on astrology. back to the coffee section for a quiet lunch paging through a book called Sex with the Popes, shooing crumbs away from the crease. i round out my day in the journal section, smelling the books bound with leather and writing all my thoughts in the oldest looking ones, aka definitely not the Ed Hardy one, which is pretty janky. same goes for the one with audrey hepburn on it, because i'm just kind of over her, and because sequins have no place in books.

by the end of my days i will have woven the most gorgeous tapestry. i will weave, even if the best weaver is an ungainly, unremarkable spider. even if the only one who can appreciate the beauty is the spider herself, because that will be worth enough.

i don't even know what 'baccalaureate' means

so, my friend emily suggested i relate a particular experience of mine, and while i'm loathe to put real life situations involving the embarrassment of others in my blog, in fear that i will be somehow followed and killed, i will take a chance on this one because it's just that good. also, i do not remember his name. (sidenote- the vehemence of my irrational fear of being followed and killed via something i said online can be directly traced through my mother, who, if you know her, is always suspicious that some sort of new adventure will end in death. this is mostly a good thing to remember.)

being the lazy, maternal sort, nannying for a summer job is incredibly appealing, and while i've since accepted a job offer from a normal family now, i had been trolling the uw-madison job center website for about a month. mostly, these listings are penned by women, but every so often a man is the primary contact for nanny jobs. this is rare, and as my mother has pointed out, amazingly dangerous. apparently awhile back a girl answering an ad for a babysitter on craigslist was murdered upon arriving at the house of the man pretending to need a babysitter. it's a very serious concern, and thank god my mom is always cognizant of any chance, remote as it may be, of bodily harm or death.

obviously, craigslist is ridiculously shady, and normal people would always, always use caution if for whatever reason they are driven to this site, which is, in conjunction with porn sites and chat rooms, basically the underworld of the internet (sidenote- if my parents stop reading my blog i'll relate the story of how some of my guy friends at madison ordered strippers off craigslist, but here are the sparknotes: "strippers" on craigslist are actually hookers).

for reasons related to his home life situation and NOT in any way related to a quiet yet yearning romance, i will call this man Mr. Darcy.

i emailed Mr. Darcy responding to his ad for a part time summer nanny, and he promptly returned my email, asking when it was convenient for me to meet for an interview. i immediately phoned my mother, hoping to ameliorate her growing resentment toward me for what some could deem chronic unemployment. upon telling her i was meeting with the father of the children, she kind of flipped and said that was dangerous. as always, more hilarious than my mother's actual fears are the ways she intends to neutralize any threat. her first advice was that i bring my roommate kathleen along, who aside from having an actual job herself that she must get to, ostensibly could find nothing more thrilling that coming to a nanny interview with me as my bodyguard. her next piece of advice went something like this:

"okay, ali, what you have to do is drive by his house tonight WITH kathleen and look for some sort of evidence that he actually has children. you know, toys in the yard or something".

after i rejected the admittedly brilliant idea of a late night drive-by, she arrived at the most logical and non-psychotic way to go about this, meeting at a neutral location in the daylight. i emailed Mr. Darcy and we agreed on a local starbucks. i roll up to the starbucks, kinda nervous, and am greeted right away by a normal looking guy. emphasis on the "looking". we exchanged the customary pleasantries and then, the firecracker that started off this mess of an interview, he goes "so, i've never done this before".

maybe it's just me and my addiction to MSNBC's late night special To Catch A Predator, but that sentence carries a weight that no first time nanny interviewer really wants to wield. feeling more like a predator/escort than is decent at 9am on a wednesday, i laughed nervously (the prototypical reaction to hearing "i've never done this before" ) and was absolutely silent for about 3 minutes as Mr. Darcy told me that he's always been home with his kids, and has thus never required a full time nanny.

the following half a hour was minefield of red-flags: firstly, he mentioned that he works "odd hours", which for me, immediately connotes bouncing at a seedy "burlesque club" named Cruisin' Chubbies, or something. next, he casually mentions that his wife will be home but, and i quote verbatim, "she never really leaves the bedroom, and hasn't been in the kids' lives in a while" (disclaimer: the actual reality of this situation, especially for said children, is incredibly unfortunate and a bit sad. however, for the sake of entertainment, i am portraying it as simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, which it veritably is.)

now, the previous statement begs the question, how can a mother who lives presumably down the hall from her two children be absent in their lives? answer: she is an obvious recluse, mentally insane, or hidden in the attic. with each of these options sounding more appealing than the next, i was getting a bit weary and really weirded out by about 9:15am.

the rest of the interview with Mr. Darcy consisted of him alternating working in some really interesting gems ("how would you work conservation of the environment into my kids' every day lives?") with casually dropping some real bombs ("my son has some serious behavioral issues and my daughter sometimes refuses to eat altogether, how would you deal with that?")

the whole time i was basically feeding Mr. Darcy droid-like answers to his asinine questions while imagining the ways in which Mr. Darcy's troglodyte of a wife would inevitably murder me, were i to accept his employment.

i left the starbucks feeling confused and vaguely dirty, not unlike an escort. foiled again, damn you Mr. Darcy!

in an unrelated, unwarranted, and i'm sure largely unappreciated tangent, i am so over people taking time out of their days to imply how superior they are for NOT reading the twilight books. go do something else so we cave people can wonder about those big bright dots in the night sky while you reconcile the impossibilities of the human condition by NOT reading guilty pleasure books. assholes.

and let me just point out that the 8-16 year old girls who, while admittedly ascribing to the long and unhealthy tradition of those pesky Unrealistic Expectations for future relationships, are learning what words like "irrevocably", "masochistic", "omnipresent", and "disconcerting" mean. that, in this english major's opinion, is worth a little self-indulgence.

excuse me, maitre d? i did not order this.

the one thing too many people take for granted is that sometimes it is necessary to stop the truth from getting in the way of telling other people how you feel. i won't let the truth stop me from telling you how i feel, and i'm committed to that. it used to be an act of protection, and now it's an art.

(ps i'm typing with rubber gloves on)

in a crisis, it is always better to have a cat around. when your live-in leaves you, dogs will always be an inappropriately endearing reminder of the male sex. instead of a dog's optimistic and eager demeanor, a cat will simply brush by you, suggesting that you stop whimpering at once, you silly thing. you are far more fabulous than that, go do something posh and stop moping.