oh-stella!

To quote Kid Rock:

“I’m not straight out of Compton. I’m straight out the trailer.”

I was born in Kentucky. I grew up in Missouri and Indiana. I did some time on the east coast. I didn’t like it. Too many people.

If you were to ask someone like, say, Bill Maher, who, it should be said, I love, whether or not I’m red or blue, based on just those five sentences up there, he’d undoubtedly paint me red. Because I’m from the middle of the country, and east and west coast liberals see themselves as representatives of the majority of the population of the country, enslaved to the small minority at its center. Which, mathematically can’t possibly be true, or we would have never had George W. Bush as a president. Minorities don’t win elections. Ask the Green Party.

But what if you were to tell Bill Maher that I graduated from high school eighth in my class, that I got a scholarship to a liberal arts school as a creative writing major, that I listen to indie rock bands from Brooklyn, that I’m an atheist, that I flunked biology because I refused to dissect dead animals because I thought it was wrong, that I’ve had a black boyfriend for seven years? He would probably change his mind.

But, then, what if you told Bill Maher that my favorite place in the world is atop an Appalachian mountain, that my father used to threaten to take us and drop us off in a part of St. Louis that he called “Niggertown” when we were bad, that I used to get picked on by black kids in school, that I spent the entire summer of the year I turned ten working in a tobacco field, that my grandmother had an outhouse until 1995? Then he’d probably change his mind again.

That’s just the thing. Why have we become the kind of people who think we can know what everyone else thinks or wants and why they think that or want that, based on details of their lives that we connect with some sort of stereotype? If it’s wrong for someone to say, “She does this because she’s a woman” or “He does this because he’s black” then why is it okay to say “They do this because they’re from the South” or “They think this because they’re from the Midwest”?

Lyndon Johnson was from Texas and he was the president who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Bill Clinton was from Arkansas and he was the president who tried to make it possible for gay people to serve in the military.

Not everyone from the middle or the bottom of this country is a stupid hick. And when you assume that to be so, you’re as bad as you accuse the stupid hicks of being.

“His name is Obama. He must be a Muslim. Therefore he must be a terrorist.”

“He’s from Alabama. He must be a redneck. Therefore he must be stupid.”

How exactly do those two differ? They don’t, really.

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that you underestimate people at your own peril. No one’s ever going to help you if you overlook them based on some idea you have of them as being unworthy.

Liberal democrats, I say this to you, stop acting like the only sensible minds in the country exist on its coasts, and maybe the middle will come to you.

I get nosebleeds pretty frequently.  One of my earliest photographs was a picture of a sink full of blood from my nose.  So now I’ve come full-circle:

The black and white one I like especially, because it reminds me of inkblots, and, therefore, this:

I decided to add back-dated old blog entries from a previous blog at a previous website, just because I can.  So, there will be entries to this blog that predate its actual existence.  But I’m okay with that, so you should be, too.

This eighteen-year-old boy said to me that he’s going to vote for McCain because he doesn’t like Obama’s ideas, but he didn’t ever elucidate for me exactly what those unlikeable ideas are.

To which I could only say, horrified, that which is my best argument for why no one should vote for McCain, even if they don’t like Obama very much:

“You know, if John McCain, who is very old and not in the best of health, dies, Sarah Palin will be president. Sarah Palin will be president. Think about it.”

Sarah Palin is scary. Sarah Palin is a caricature of what conservatives appear to believe is the perfect woman. And she could be the oft-mentioned “heartbeat away from the presidency.” She could be the “leader of the free world.” And we thought Bush was bad? Seriously. Frightening.

He never did say why he didn’t like Obama. So I told him, “People who refuse to explain their positions very often do so because they don’t actually have one.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that either.

If you’re poor, you can’t have welfare. If you’re rich, you can have seven hundred billion dollars. The moral of this story is that being poor sucks. Especially when you’re in the midst of the largest transfer of wealth in American history. If you’d fit into the cast of Gossip Girl, you’ll be just fine. Everyone else can suck it. It’s okay, though, because Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house.

What I’d like to know is, where’s the faith-based charity for failed financiers? Why can’t Wall Street ask Jesus for money? Ooooh… Riiiight… Money-lenders in front of the temple. I totally forgot.

If George Bush had been president during the Great Depression, there never would have been a New Deal. Only golden parachutes for stock brokers about to jump out of the window.

Hypocrisy abounds. The American government right now is a parody of itself.

I wish I were one of those people who thinks Obama will save us all, but I’m not that deluded. “I have a bracelet, too,” is just not enough.

Guy at Work: I heard that first shift got chicken, today. Why don’t we have any chicken?
Me: I don’t know. It’s three o’clock in the morning, what exactly do you expect me to do about the chicken situation? Where am I going to get the chicken?
Guy at Work: Yeah, well, I heard that they get donuts every morning, too.
Me: So? You also get paid more than they do.
Guy at Work: They knew that when they took the job, though!
Me: Just like you knew when you took your job that you weren’t going to get free chicken and donuts every day.

*****
Girl at Work (eating free pizza): You need to call J_______ and tell her she cut the slices too small on this pizza, because it’s hard to get off the pan.
Me: Yeah, I’ll get right on it. I’ll call her right now and make her feel bad about the pizza she just spent the past two hours cooking in the hot bakery because you aren’t happy with the way she cut it. You know, the pizza that you didn’t cook yourself and didn’t have to pay for and didn’t have to do anything but get it off the pan, which is apparently too difficult for you. I’m doing that right now.

*****
One of my many managerial pet peeves is all the free stuff that people expect to receive, above and beyond their pay and their benefits. I can barely restrain the urge to tell people to stfu and buy their own chicken or pizza or ice cream or whatever, most of the time. Not because I care about the company saving money or anything like that. But because the sense of entitlement just grates on my nerves. I think they were high during government class, because they seem to have hallucinated a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the rights to chicken and donuts. I was not high, myself, so I missed that one. My bad.

So, I’ve been listening to Solange Knowles pretty much obsessively the last couple of weeks. I love her. Mostly because circumstances have forced her to become the anti-Beyonce, and, while that could have gone badly, like Ashlee Simpson’s attempts to become that anti-Jessica, instead, it turned out pretty awesomely. She’s a good singer, and even better songwriter, and she’s got soul, style, and substance. She makes interesting music that’s easy on the ears and visually stimulating videos that are pleasing to the eyes. Therefore, my love.

I was ill, so I laid in bed and I watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, thinking to myself, “Oh, my god, Chinese people are creepy.”

Which was my awed first thought and not the broad racist statement that it probably seems at face value.

The Chinese government put a lot of effort and money into impressing the rest of the world. And it was impressive.

But Tom Cruise impressive. The Chinese government was jumping on Oprah’s couch declaring its love for Katie Holmes.

And that’s creepy.

The next day, still ill and lying in bed, I kept turning channels, pausing briefly if something caught my attention.

And the thing that most struck me?

The fact that everyone was dwelling on John Edwards’ mistress from three years ago and whether or not he fathered her baby. I’m sorry, a prominent comedian had died, suddenly and unexpectedly, an American was murdered at the Olympics, and, most importantly, Russia had invaded Georgia, and still, the news was that a former presidential contender fucked somebody three years ago? Bitches, please.

Then, when they finally did talk about Russia invading Georgia, it was because the Russians told the Bush administration to STFU when they told Russia that it couldn’t invade Georgia.

You know that conversation went something like this:

USA: So, um, you guys invaded Georgia. Invading Georgia’s bad, mmmkay?
RUSSIA: Really? We can’t invade other countries when we want to? Hey, how’s that thing with Afghanistan and Iraq working out?
USA: Fine. That is so not the point, though. Seriously, you have to stop invading Georgia. Just man up and be nice to them. We would really appreciate it. We’ll even give you a shout-out at the next U.N. summit.
RUSSIA: If it’s all the same to you, we’re going to keep invading Georgia.
USA: Dude! I just said–
RUSSIA: What? I can’t hear you! You’re totally breaking up! Sorry, man, I have to go, this reception totally sucks. Catch you at the next G8 meeting!

Now the photography section is done, too. Content-wise, anyway. I plan on fiddling around with the album theme, once I can stand to. I just spent the past two hours uploading pictures. Not fun.