muffy bolding

I am feeling particularly politically incorrect today — and would therefore, in the spirit of all that is irreverent and unholy, like to pose a query along those lines.

Ms. and I have lately been discussing those character traits that we each possess that are stereotypical to our particular ethnic backgrounds. When I say stereotypical, I mean STEREOTYPICAL — there’s nothing pansified about the truths I seek here.

Also, what I am asking doesn’t even necessarily have to be about your ethnic heritage — it could also be about your gender, your sexuality, your “pose”, your geographical location, your occupation, or your socio-economic background, i.e., are you a be-mulleted dyke who teaches high school phys ed for a living…or a trailer park dame who honest-to-christ REALLY PREFERS the taste of Velveeta cheese…or a punk chick with a pierced nose, little black ‘geek chic’ glasses, cherry-red hair, and Betty Page bangs.

You get the idea. The point is to turn your shit inside out — to own your small vanities…and to laugh at them. Just because you ARE one thing, doesn’t mean that you can’t be another.

And, another.

And, another.

I am finding that people of my political persuasion — though they would vehemently deny it through a terse mouthful of vegan burger — often tend to be quite humorless when it comes to laughing at themselves and their contrivances. With this question I am posing, I aim to kick that sacred meatless cow right in the balls. (Cow? Balls? Forget it, I’m on a roll.)

I firmly believe that this lack of humor and irreverence has hurt us on the national political scene. If we could just take a moment to think back, we would remember that the Left was originally populated by legions of Artists, Tricksters, Surrealists, and Holy Fools — radical thinkers and doers who were not above laughing at themselves and using their own foibles and folly to make a valid political point. And consequently, through their chuckles and their confounded befuddlement, The People scratched their heads, listened, and HEARD. We now take ourselves FAR too seriously, and have therefore become that kid on the playground who can’t take a joke, can’t make a joke — and worse, CAN’T FIGHT BACK.

We have lost our way.

So, to put my righteous indignation (and dignity) where my mouth is, I shall go first.

I am of very distinct southern Italian heritage — that’s Sicilian to alla youse who are too much of a dummy to figger it out for yourself…capische? So, there are definitely things about me that fit — like the assassin’s glove of Luca Brasi — your basic stereotype of a Sicilian broad.

Such as:

*I got a mouth on me like a Teamster.

*I got big, womanly, cushiony tits. These are tits that could breastfeed a nation, folks.

*My shoes of preference are black witch shoes.

*I carry a wooden spoon in my purse AT ALL TIMES — and heartily threaten to use it on the tender asses of my three children when they step out of line (even though at 9, 12, and 16 they are FAR beyond any reasonable age to spanketh…and have each received a mere total of about 5 between them in their entire lives.)

Irregardless, they still scatter like cockroaches when I whip it out of my purse.

*I go sit in the car to pluck the hairs on my chin because, “the light’s better out there…”

*I really, really, really like Holy Mary, Mother of God — enough to even be seriously considering tattooing her image onto the flesh of my body. It seems you can take the Italian dame outta the Catholic Church, but you can’t take the Catholic Church outta the Italian dame.

*I have ZERO QUALMS — and, in fact, often take great relish — in the notion that I will FULL ON tell a man — ANY MAN — to go fuck himself if he pisses me off.

*I like to cook. I like to feed people. And, I like to EAT.

*I can talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk…and even worse, repeat myself. Do you know what I’m sayin’ here? I mean, I can REALLY talk. No, you have NO IDEA what talking is. I am the Crown Duchess of Talk. When you look up “talk” in the dictionary, there is a picture of my face. I was BORN talkin’, baby. Do you know what I mean?

*When not restraining my boss, ponderous hooters…my bra can be found hanging on the inside knob of my bedroom door.

Christ, it simply doesn’t GET any more Italian than THAT.

“Fuck you, Leroy — this was MY audition!”
— Shirley Mulholland, Fame (the movie), 1981

R.I.P Gene Anthony Ray

R.I.P., lovely Trees

and, many thanks for all you have given.

Two Trees

“Two trees were born in a hillside grove.

But artists who climbed the hillside grove,
always painted the other tree.”

Joshua Tree

One Tree Hill

Jeffrey Pine

As of last night, our 12-year-old cheerleader daughter — Anne Katherine — has officially requested that, hereafter…she is to be addressed as “Artie”.

Upon entering into our bedroom, where my sweet husband is lying and reading The New Yorker:

Me: “Jesus Christ, Baby — what is that smell? It smells like shit in here.”

He (without looking up from his book): “It must be my soul.”

After discovering this product, my 2003 Christmas shopping worries are OVER, baby.

Using my unerring, finely-honed kitsch sensors — which have NEVER failed me — I predict that this little gadget is gonna be the runaway hit of the season…and perhaps beyond. Mark my words — you heard it here first.

These people are gonna make a bloody goddamned fortune.

http://www.octodog.net

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

“Living well — and ripping your enemy’s still-beating heart out with your bare hands — is the best revenge.”

— Michael O’Donoghue, 1942-1994…writer, wit, and ascerbic, blistering cunt

My sweet husband is currently lying in bed — all cozied down under our FAB comforter with a heating pad on his belly — reading a biography of Alexander the Great (his most recent historical passion.)

I just leaned over and told him that he looked so cute and sexy that I wanted to mount him and ride him like a polo pony.

He didn’t even look up from his book. He just chuckled like Pee Wee Herman (and not on purpose, either — that’s just how he actually laughs), and then went back to reading of ancient deeds great and true.

This poem is so gorgeous. I first read it many years ago — and its message of simple, humble devotion has never left me. It is one very eloquent man’s love poem — to his favorite suit.

I dedicate it today to all of those hopelessly romantic, textillian souls like myself — who have passionately loved an article of clothing as if it were a very extension of oneself, and mourned its eventual passing like an old friend — particularly ms. , who has been known to wear 50-year-old black crinolines until they literally crumble from her body and turn to dust…tinkling to the earth beneath her, coating her sensible shoes, and powdering her wake like a prayer.

Ode to My Suit

Every morning, suit,
you are waiting on a chair
to be filled
with my vanity, my love,
my hope, my body.
Still
only half awake
I leave the shower
to shrug into your sleeves,
my legs seek
the hollow of your legs,
and thus embraced
by your unfailing loyalty
I take my morning walk
work my way into my poetry;
from my window I see
the things
men, women,
events and struggles
constantly shaping me,
constantly confronting me,
setting my hands to the task,
opening my eyes,
creasing my lips,
and the same way,
suit,
I am shaping you,
poking out my elbows,
wearing you threadbare, and so your life grows,
in the image of my own.
In the wind
you flap and hum
as if you were my soul,
in bad moments
you cling
to my bones,
abandoned, at nighttime
darkness and dream
people with their phantoms
your wings and mine.
I wonder
whether some day
an enemy
bullet
will stain you with my blood,
for then
you would die with me,
but perhaps
it will be less dramatic,
simple,
and you will grow ill,
suit,
with me,
grow older
with me, with my body
and together we will be lowered
into the earth.
That’s why
every day
I greet you
with respect and then
you embrace me and I forget you,
because we are one being
and shall be always
in the wind, through the night,
the streets and the struggle,
one body,
maybe, maybe, one day, still.

— Pablo Neruda, 1904-1973

Someone asked me to post a few of my favorite poems — those that move me, curl my toes, quicken my pulse, bring about a wry smile…allow me to see god.

This poem, for example, simply takes the top of my fucking head off.

But, perhaps that’s what Ted intended when he wrote it — as there seemed to be no sophistry in his body, either. Only unequaled poetic authority, aching grace…and PURE GODDAMNED YORKSHIRE GENIUS.

I shall miss you, Ted — and all the poems that will remain unwritten.

Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

— Ted Hughes, 1930-1998