Prop 8: Don’t be that guy.

So Prop 8 has been repealed, and now the repeal is being appealed. Everyone expected this of course, but I’ve been thinking about how the whole Prop 8/Perry v. Governator journey will be remembered by generations to come. The odds of equality not being granted to the tax-paying homosexual citizens of this country are extremely low. I’d honestly bet my life on it, because this is not the first civil rights battle we’ve had in this country, and historically, however long it took, forward thinking prevailed and a bunch of bigots ended up looking phenomenally stupid. Lets take a nauseating trip down American memory lane:

“Americans” killed the Native Americans. Somehow, a bunch of assholes convinced themselves that they were entitled to this land that they just “discovered”, despite the fact that other human beings already lived there. Eventually we realized how disgusting that was and cut it the f!^% out, but it took quite a while for that to happen. I don’t think giving the Native Americans a smidge of land and the ability to run casinos is any type of reparation, but the historical consensus is that we were being assholes.

Americans had slaves. Many, many slaves. Human beings treated like objects. Isn’t that amazing to you, my computer-owning friend who probably has never had your life and family threatened over your ability to pick crops? Yeah, we were being assholes. We had a big war about it, and it nearly broke up this country. Let me repeat that: people were so outraged that the government was telling them to stop “owning” other people that they picked up their guns and killed people over it. They thought the government was getting too big, and that it had no business telling them how to run their lives. Some considered owning slaves to be a God-given right. Some people on this dirty, dirty rock still do. History does not smile on these assholes.

American women couldn’t vote until 1920. Anglo white women haven’t had it as badly as a lot of other races of women, but for the purpose of this blarticle I’ll just use this example. Women–half the population–weren’t allowed to vote. Hell, until the last half of the 1900′s, women weren’t allowed to leave their husbands without the man’s permission. So the suffragettes fought, and a bunch of assholes–including the president–fought back. Now we can vote, we’re taking over the work force, we have 2 new female supreme court justices, and… Well… Sarah Palin. But hey, we never would have been gifted with “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin” if women weren’t in politics, and we have the suffragettes to thank for that! (Just for poops and giggles, I recommend researching women’s suffrage in the US vs. polygamy in Utah.)

Americans were segregated. While women were celebrating their suffrage, blacks were still getting utterly and truly f!#ed by their former massahs, and if you youngsters have been watching Mad Men, you know that it wasn’t all that long ago. In fact, it hasn’t even been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act was passed. A lot of people fought to uphold segregation and the ‘Merica of their youths–that perfect, utopian ‘Merica where the economy was good, government was smaller, women didn’t vote and where white men were proud of themselves for not owning slaves, but didn’t have to drink from the same water fountains as the darkies. They said blacks were dangerous, a menace to society and a threat to the white way of life. Despite that passionate argument, segregation ended.

I was born in the 80′s, so I really don’t understand how large groups of people in this giant narcissistic country of ours, so proud of its ability to lead the world and herald the future, could ever have thought that segregation was any type of sane. South African apartheid is a whole other brand of crazy, but South Africa has never gotten onto a podium and jerked itself off while talking about how much the entire world looks up to it. My point being that history regards the people who fought against ending segregation as a bunch of assholes.

Now we have Prop 8, and a bunch of assholes are once again fighting to continue oppressing a group of fellow human beings. The most ironic, and saddest thing people should know about Prop 8 is the degree to which the African American population in California was manipulated in order to get Prop 8 passed. I don’t know the exact figure, but exit polls showed something like a 75% “yes” vote for Prop 8 by the black community, and without that, Prop 8 would not have passed. (Is it any coincidence that Prop 8 was on Obama’s ballot?) The pasty white assholes who 50 years ago would have been fighting to uphold “Separate but Equal” spent a pretty penny manipulating African Americans, and it’s extremely sad to me that it didn’t occur to them that their voting “yes” on Prop 8 turned them into the assholes their families fought against.

Perry vs. Schwarzenneger is ultimately going to pave the way for equal rights for our gay brothers and sisters. Gay and transgendered marriages will no longer be put in a separate category, DADT will be repealed, and a lot of people are going to feel phenomenally stupid. I can’t tell you how long it will take, but I will say this to everyone fighting against it: Do you really want to be that guy on the losing end of a civil rights battle, fighting to keep human beings from being treated equally?

No matter how disgusted I get with the BS happening on this planet, I know that on a long enough timeline, our understanding of humanity evolves towards compassion. I don’t think we’re in a very good place at the moment with our civil rights blind spots, environmental murder and this whole “selfish is the new generous” movement, but critical people, both conservative and liberal, have always been saying that the world is going to hell, and that now is the “worst” period in history (see my EFH2T post “The Superlative Now for more on this).

You don’t have to get a banner and wave it around to show what you believe in, but you should decide which side of history you want to be on. And hey, if you disagree with me, we’ll just let history decide who is the asshole.

BP, Boycotts and the Free Market

I am one of many people who support the growing “Boycott BP” movement. Obviously the oil spill is a huge tragedy, but moreover, I believe the company’s response has been pathetic at best, evil at worst. Using boycotts as a form of protest is nothing new, and no one really can be sure that it will have an effect on a giant oil-sucking corporation. However, since we consumers cast a vote every time we make a purchase, it makes sense not to vote for such a company.

In response to the Boycott BP movement, however, Newsweek chided activists for punishing all the mom-and-pop gas stations who only supply the BP product but are not directly owned by BP. They reason that a boycott is not an effective way to punish BP or make any kind of statement, because it doesn’t do enough to their bottom line, and suggest bugging the politicians instead. Fine, yes, do contact your representatives as well. I’m not suggesting that government regulations are not also to blame here, because obviously that’s a big part of the problem. But I disagree with Newsweek on the issue of boycotting the end-point gas stations, and here’s why:

The whole point of free market capitalism is that consumers determine what is successful in the marketplace. Lets say Company X makes mattresses and sells to mom-and-pop mattress stores all across the country. If the mattresses are good quality, comfortable, and reasonably priced, you can bet that consumers will buy them, and both Company X and mom-and-pop will profit. However, if the mattresses are cheap quality, with springs poking your back, and are made of potentially toxic materials, consumers won’t be so eager to buy them. Duh.

So mom-and-pop now have a bunch of crappy mattresses from Company X that they can’t sell. They will stop placing orders with Company X and find a new supplier with a better product. Yes, they may lose money in the short term, but that’s capitalism. Every business gambles when they buy product to resell. In the big picture, after enough stores stop ordering from Company X, they will be forced to either a) improve their products and practices, or b) go out of business. Yes, people will lose jobs. Yes, that’s sad. But is the consumer responsible for paying the salary of everyone involved in the making of a crappy product, or on the payroll of a corrupt company simply because if they don’t buy the product, the company may go out of business?

If we boycott BP supplying gas stations, whether owned by BP or not, it will affect them. It will also affect all of the people who buy gas from them to resell, and that’s capitalism. It forces business owners to ask harder questions before getting into bed with a supplier, and that’s how the free market improves. These mom-and-pop gas stations will start buying from another company, and just have to cross their fingers that their new supplier has learned from BP’s mistakes. Feel free to tell these business owners why you won’t buy from them, but reserve your anger for BP itself.

Moreover, a boycott will continue to push people towards supporting research and development of greener fuels and technologies. Someone with capital to invest may see this anger as incentive to gamble $500 million in a new R & D project, or in a green start up. Plus, if enough dissent builds, BP backlash could persuade some of the other oil companies to examine their own practices (because lets face it, they’re all f!#@ing evil).

We in the USA are not communists, and despite a lot of hysterics on the far right, neither are we socialists. If you can’t stomach the possibility that people will lose their jobs in our free market economy, maybe you should consider relocating. Always remember that your purchases speak for you. BP brands to boycott include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe and, Safeway gas.

Several area gas stations cover up “BP” on signs – News – The Times-Tribune.

Newsweek’s latest anti-boycott article which overall makes some very good points about the evils of all oil companies and the necessity for government interference. But doesn’t a public outcry against BP also speak to the government? Just wait and see how many politicians use anti-BPisms in their campaigns in November.

Ebert on 3-D, and I fully agree.

Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too) | Print Article | Newsweek.com.

Manipulation like this is why I so rarely go to see movies in the theater. It’s just nonstop extortion, and it was even worse in Germany, where the moviegoer is expected to pay an additional fee for any movie over 2.5 hrs, or to sit in the back half of the theater. Plus, I’m part of the 15% (although I think it’s probably a lot higher) who get nasty headaches from the visual assault of 3-D movies.

Booo, 3-D!

Current Events Rant: 528-Pound Woman Gives Birth to First Child

528-Pound Woman Gives Birth to First Child – KTLA.

I’m not a huge fan of kids, but it’s really because I generally just hate parents. And here’s why: because unhealthy fucking people–physically, emotionally, psychologically, and/or financially–don’t consider the consequences to the kid of having a kid.

This morbidly obese woman can’t even care for herself. She’s 25 years old and weighs 528 lbs! All she knows is that oh, having a baby is her dream, and she will be so happy to have a baby. And no, I don’t believe that being over 500 fucking pounds is not her fault or that it’s all a “thyroid problem”. 300? Fine. maybe you have a really bad metabolic condition. But 500? No. Just no.

Even if being morbidly horrifically obese really isn’t her fault, it’s up to her to make a responsible decision and be honest with herself about whether or not she’s really capable of raising a healthy child and giving that child everything a child needs from a parent. It’s why I seriously question whether or not I should have children. But this woman will probably be sick and predominantly bedridden for the child’s entire life, so why the hell would she want to put a child through that? Because…

“I wanted this child with all my heart, whatever the sacrifice.”

Yeah, even if the child is the sacrifice.

Rantlet: Happy New Year, owwwwww

Happy new year everyone! I hope everyone had a good time doing whatever you find festive. Oh, me? I just partook of the yearly tradition of someone at the new year’s eve party giving me a cold (lookin’ at you, monkey!), so now I’m just sitting around like a lump eating popsicles and whining to myself about my sore nose. Ow ow ow.

But things are afoot–whether or not they are great is up to the observer–and though I am momentarily incapacitated, onward go the moving arrangements and tying up of loose Berl-ends. Oh, lame pun. Give me a break. I’m half delirious.

I will be back in LA on January 16th–that’s just 8 more days! And forthcoming is my full review of Five Weeks in a Balloon (spoiler alert: I strongly disliked it), plus in honor of my birthday and looming maturity, I will give a grossly immature recap of all the funniest uses of “ejaculated” in the book’s dialogue.

y’know what I miss about driving?

I know I’ve been Berlin bashing lately, and I’m sure a large part of it is a subconscious attempt to distance myself emotionally from my soon to be ex-city, but living here has clarified a few questions I had about myself living in Los Angeles.

For one, am I a car person?

This is the longest I’ve gone without a car since I was 17, and after sitting in traffic and dealing with crazy ass drivers following me home to start fights, I wondered if maybe public transit would be a better solution–after all, I spent many years hoofing it around many other large cities growing up. Maybe it would be a nice change?

Well, I’ve concluded that I am, indeed, a car person. And here are a few reasons why:

First, I don’t like being in crowds. I don’t like outdoor music festivals, amusement parks–generally any place that involves a lot of shoving, standing, and smelling of other peoples’ sweat. And since Berlin’s trains and buses are packed full of smelly, no-shower-taking-because-hot-water-is-a-luxury-item Germans, I’ve had my fill for a good long time.

Second, if I’m going to get lost, I’d at least like to have the opportunity to make a U-turn and get back on course. Today I got on a bus which had a list of stops including Treptower park, but that skipped over about 5 stops, including mine, in an area I don’t know. Why? I don’t ask these questions any more. Ask any good German why anything is the way it is here and they’ll tell you to just accept it and stop asking so many questions. So I had to wander through the typical Berlin wintry mix of slush, ice, and poor traffic control to find another stop. Wah. Also, Berlin hasn’t gotten the memo that Germans are obsessively punctual–most of the time, the buses are either early or late, and sometimes don’t bother showing up at all.

Third, yes there is traffic, it takes forever, and it sucks. But having to take 3 different trains/buses to go 3km while freezing your ass off sucks worse. There are certain things you can do to kill time in a car that you can’t do in public transit, namely sing and/or practice material. Yes, you can do this in public–typically accompanied by a hat and polite request for change–but given my lack of enthusiasm for crowded trains, you can imagine my lack of enthusiasm for the people on those trains staring at me (which they do anyway–wtf are you looking at, Germans? Jesus h.). One might argue that you can read books on trains and buses, but I get dizzy and hate carrying heavy things around all day while climbing the millions of stairs between S bahn stations.

Other miscellaneous reasons I miss driving include the fact that Berlin drivers will hit pedestrians just to prove a point, keeping a barrier between myself and any crazy, vomit-filled drunk wandering around (and here people can drink everywhere! Hooray for puke on trains and buses!), having a place to take mobile naps in the middle of the day should the need arise, not having to carry a small suitcase as a purse, eeetc.

I forget what specifically provoked me to write this, except for missing the ability to sing in my car. Oh, and because I forgot to bring an extra pair of pajama bottoms from Naomi’s apartment, which is now 45 minutes away grrr.

So in summary, I look forward to sitting in traffic in the sun beneath LA’s gloriously thinned ozone layer, especially right now because it’s so unbefreakinlievably cold in here. I am sorry that cars are hurting the environment, but I need one. I promise I will not buy a Hummer, Escalade, Expedition–in fact, I would like a more Euro-style compact after seeing so many cute lil buggers driving (badly) around town.

Brainwashing is brainwashing (or “Yes, I hate living in Berlin.”)

I’ve recently announced my decision to move back to Los Angeles from Berlin, and I can’t believe how hard of a decision it was considering the simple fact that:

I… Hate… Living… In… Berlin….

Wow, did I really just say that? Am I allowed to say that?

Here’s the thing: Berlin is cool. Berlin has cred. I think we’re completely brainwashed to believe that it is so completely uncool to say something like “I hate living in Berlin” because that automatically makes me uncool and, um, uncredible (?). So it took me a while to sack up enough to say out loud the reason why I, and so so so many other people, constantly complain about living here.

But uncoolness aside, the fact that it took me so long to admit that I hate living here has to do with another type of brainwashing, which is this idea that I’m supposed to be super effing happy with everything all the time.

So despite the fact that living here has put me in a perpetual bad mood for an entire year, I tried to convince myself to be positive about Berlin, and yadda yadda yadda. And there are things I love about Berlin, namely my friends, colleagues, students and the aesthetic buffet that is the prolific street art covering most surfaces. But I can feel in my bones that personally and culturally, I don’t belong here.

So what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with admitting that this is a place I don’t relate to–if for nothing other than the simple reasons that I don’t smoke or drink beer–and a place in which I cannot envision myself thriving in the long run?

I don’t care what anyone says any more. I no longer believe that admitting that I hate living here is a negative thing to say. It’s another way of saying “I don’t belong here”, which to me is just a fact. It’s a fact that will help me get closer to the place where I do feel like I belong, just like trying on clothes that don’t fit will help find the ones that do. What’s negative to me is the constant bitching that goes on without any real accountability; I’m not saying that I hate it here only to perpetuate the compulsion to say it. I’m getting the f outta dodge.

For the record (whoever is keeping one), Berlin is a fantastic place to visit. The street art is just amazing, and it’s a place everyone should experience just for the environment.

BUT–and not that it matters–there are some things about this place that my GOD I just do not understand:

1. The Germans are fanatic about collecting and returning bottles for the recycling deposit, and yet there is broken glass EVERYWHERE, because the trendy (and passive aggressive) thing to do is to throw your beer bottle on the sidewalk like a duschbad when you finish it, to show your friends how kuhl you are.

2. Not only is there dog shit everywhere, because Germans have a lot of dogs and apparently no aversion to or compulsion to be accountable for their dogs’ refuse, but I have on many occasions actually seen people pull down their child’s pants, lift them up, and hold them over the sidewalk–ie, that place where humans all walk with the shoes they also bring into their houses–until the kids crap right there. What… The… !@#%$#???

3. If you need to call a company, be it your phone company, internet provider, or even to buy tickets to a show, not only are there no 800 numbers, but they actually charge you money, usually around 14 cents/minute. I honestly can’t believe people tolerate that sort of shit, but…

4. If someone at a company that you pay, like a restaurant, taxi service, internet provider–anything, really–makes a mistake, they will argue with you til eternity about it to try and get out of fixing that mistake. I once had a five minute argument with a waitress because I ordered a plain cup of coffee and she brought me a latte. “Why the hell would I order a latte when I don’t drink milk?” I asked. “Because that’s what you ordered,” she said.

There’s plenty more. Again, not that it matters. And why doesn’t it matter? Because I’m leaving. If I were staying, I would be a negative duschbad for living in a place I can’t stand and bitching about things I can’t or won’t change. It’s not my country or my culture, and I’ve had enough experience with immigrants complaining about my country and culture to know that I believe anyone who is determined not to integrate with the culture of the country to which they have immigrated is just being an ass.

But now that that’s done, I’m going to dedicate the next post to the most awesomest mural I found a couple weeks ago.

A typical American

at a comedy show last week, a comedienne interviewed some audience members, asking where they were from, what they did, and so forth. one man sat grimly in the corner of the front row with his wife, who thought it was all delightful. the comedienne asked this man where he came from, and he very smugly and slowly said, “America.”

i knew right away that he was not, in fact, American, not only because of his badly imitated accent, but because i don’t know any Americans in Europe who would say, “i’m from America.” we all, including me and all the other Americans at the show, say, “i’m from the U.S.” turns out, the man was from Scotland, and being a smartass.

it’s mostly the Brits who say that someone is “from America.” pretty much every Brit i know here says it out of habit–it goes back a few hundred years (many also still call us Yanks). a lot of people give us crap about calling ourselves Americans, on account of the north and south portions. it’s the only decent adjective for us (what else would we say? United Statesians?). but i don’t know anyone who travels and says they are from America. my generation was taught that it is an inappropriate thing to say, and that our country is called the United States. they even changed the name of the pageant. but this issue is one of those cultural divides between the scorching reds and everyone else. i’m sure Glenn Beck would vomit in his mouth hearing that Americans living in Europe aren’t ranting about how great “America” is. (personally, i rant about how great the United States of America is.)

the other comedienne made lots of jokes about Americans and how we all ski because we’re idiots, and so on. i laugh at American jokes, because they’re funny. we are usually insulted as ignorant, stupid, culturally lacking, judgmental, racist, etc., and not to say that it’s not true some of the time, but it’s ironic that the people who accuse us of prejudice are doing the same thing to us.

every time i meet someone from the middle east, as soon as they find out i’m American, they say something like, “oh so you must be really scared of me then.” one guy made a big deal of telling me that there’s an Arab living in my building, and doesn’t that frighten me… i usually just blink at them incredulously and say, “um, no.” i would apologize for the racial profiling of middle eastern people in my country, but we were attacked by an Islamic terrorist group, which consists of middle eastern people. if we were attacked by Irish redheads, we’d be strip searching them, too. i was detained for an hour both ways on my trip to Israel–they actually took me into an office where i had to show them my picture on my comedy group’s website before they would let me through. people get paranoid when they think they’re living under a bullseye. that doesn’t mean we think all middle eastern people are terrorists.

it’s often much dumber than that. i was telling some friends that my sister and i traveled from Vienna to Prague to Dresden to Berlin by train, stopping in each city for a while. this guy i’ve never met turns to me and says “that’s soooooooo American.” i blinked incredulously and said, “they’re in a straight line, and we only had 5 days. it’s an extremely logical trip to make.” i don’t even understand what he was implying–that Americans are smart travelers?

but generally, peoples’ prejudices about Americans are extremely vague and uninformed, because most of the people making these statements have never actually been to the U.S. how would the Germans feel if everyone in the world assumed they were all Nazis because there is still a neo-Nazi movement here? the NPD actually won enough support to be on the ballot this year.

a lot of Americans don’t travel outside the country, and for that we are insulted and dismissed as xenophobes, or arrogant duschbads*. before i actually lived in Europe, i never really formulated a response for this assumption. a few months ago, i was talking with a Belgian guy who again brought up the “i heard most Americans don’t even have passports” line. it didn’t take me long to respond once i thought about it. i said that despite what people like to believe, most Americans are not rolling around in money, and international travel is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people. we do go to Canada and Mexico, just like the Europeans skip around to their neighboring countries, but the reason this “Americans don’t get passports” thing started is because until 9/11, we usually didn’t need passports to go to Canada and Mexico. if you didn’t look suspicious, they didn’t make a big deal out of it if you had a state ID, sometimes less. one time i took a bus to Montreal and forgot my passport. they let me through because i had a note from my mother wishing me a good time. i even boarded a plane once with no ID–they accepted my checkbook.

so i’ve tried to explain this to Europeans, and they usually just say, “huh. i never thought about it like that.” i also try to explain that many of our states are larger than their countries, and going from state to state is sometimes a bigger ordeal for us than jaunting from Switzerland to France to Italy, etc. i tell them i’ve lived in an Islamic country and studied Norwegian recreationally, and that we generally aren’t isolationists. i’ve often been told that i’m not a “typical American”.

my point is that it doesn’t make me feel special to be told that i’m not a “typical American”, as if i’m somehow the exception to the “Americans are idiots” rule. most modern Americans are paranoid as anyone else being threatened, but overall very tolerant and open to other cultures. our country is big, and contains a few hundred million people, including millions of immigrants and children of immigrants. get to know more of us before you call any of us “typical”.

phew. that’s been bugging me all year.

*duschbad=literally means shower bath, but sounds like something much funnier.