The Bully's Adjectives: Lady Slurs

The other night a friend of mine popped onto Facebook and i.m.-ed me. A female co-worker with a history of being moody was back at it. Unpredictable. Surly. Accusatory. Normally, I am all sympathy. After all, if you have a problem, it is a lot easier to diffuse the situation if it doesn't come out of left field, grievances are aired and everyone can get on with life. Walking on eggshells sucks. But the words chosen to express his anger set my hair on end. Whore. Ugly. Bitch. Something nasty about her teeth. The only ones missing from the high school slur hit parade was "fat" because it doesn't make any sense applying it to this particular subject and "faggot" because it is 2015, we are moderate liberals and that word is generally slung at other males*.

In the heat of the moment, I can see losing your sense of propriety. It doesn't make it right but people say stuff that they regret when they are in the throes of passion. Later on, after the "oh shit" moment, apologies will be administered because even the mouth that the words have slipped from knows that they just ain't right. Been there. Done that. But this went on longer than that, past the "what have I done" zone.

 It took me back to a time when people used those wicked words to debase me as a woman too.  Words like these that were used to label me undesirable in society, make me feel worthless. They were the words a bully shouts to inspire the mean spirited to ostracize and separate.

The progression of slurs starts simple in our lives. "Ugly" always seems  to be in the nasty adjective convoy. "Fat" also becomes popular really early. Curiously, when a little kid is taking another shot at another little kid,"mean" is also an insult but sounds childish when you throw it at someone as an adult. Probably because it is not a slap at a physical attribute. My daughter still cannot stand to hear the word "stupid" because it harmed her so badly as a child. Children generally go for the more intelligent insult, the ones they think are really the essence of the person, not just ones built to kill self esteem.

Grown up bullies like to tear down a woman's physicality, sending a subtle message that they aren't worth more than how they are desirable.  It is why, in hindsight, if the onslaught carries on past the heat of the moment, I become afraid to discuss whatever transpired for him to transgress into such a state.

The ugliness that is allowing these words to continue also tends to come with the bully's "them or me" mentality. Theoretical suggestions about how to handle the situation can turn on you as soon as you show any sympathy toward "the enemy." I become the bad friend, not supportive. Sometimes I also become a bitch for not agreeing when really I am just trying to understand what he may have done to tick her off. Anger is right next door to crazy in the logic house if they can't let it go.

When I hear slurs, I become afraid. They are the words that are born from hate, the tools of a bully. I have a hard time sympathizing with the cause because I quit comprehending the rest of the conversation. My instinct is to back away and protect myself. My friend was mentally injured, feeling  mistreated but I could not hear what happened without the barrage of physical  pot shots being fired.

He would see my trying to make sense out of the co-worker's behavior as not supporting him, creating a personal  insult because I didn't rally around his anger. If I chose to engage and asked him to stop saying these things,  it would probably come down to "I can't even express myself" which is not true. "I am upset because...." "She did this thing that was unjust..." "I don't know what to do because...." That is expressing yourself. "Fat" "Ugly Bitch" "Whore" is just being mean.

*besides that whole wildly ignorant thing

Crippling Self Doubt And Other Evil Villains: The Dark Side To Performing Without A Net

Ironically, this is from the show mentioned below. 
Dale Stones is the one throttling me.  
Photo by Justin Moore.

It sits in a dark corner,waiting for you to relax and let your guard down. It knows that life is going well for you and it wants to fuck it up.

Or it cuddles in the front row, dead center with its ugly girlfriend, Panic, goading you as you fall deeper and deeper into the pit of sweaty self abuse with every consequential mistake you make, making it worse and worse.

Or it pokes you with its stick made out of everything that you ever hated about yourself  as soon as you do the slightest thing not perfectly.

You will be fired. You aren't worth loving. You are nothing but a fuck up so how could you possibly get this right. Remember the last time you failed? Remember how badly it scorched you? It's going to happen again and again and again because you are nothing but  failure. You are going to die in an even worse version of the body that you have only ever loved when you are emaciated. You are fat. You are old. You have failed at life.

It makes you jealous of everyone, constantly lonely because there is not enough reassurance in the world that you are as good as every one else. Lugging the wounds of your emotional past with him wherever he follows you.

We finished a show that was technically difficult for the hosts because there was a lot of material to regurgitate relatively unrehearsed. And even when we could rehearse it, it wasn't going to match what would happen during a live show because the audience was an essential dynamic. Instantaneous change is the nature of the beast and it is terrifying. So the crippling self doubt has a wealth of food with which to strengthen itself.

The show went well. I felt good about it for a bit. But that only lasts so long. My partner excelled so of course I felt worse about every stinking mistake I made because now I failed him as well. Error is public and effects every one you touch. An introduction is weak. A wrong lyric trips another performer. He is young and likeable and perfect.  I was proud of him because he took a step beyond his comfort zone, putting himself in a place where his dark brooding evil villain has plenty to suck from him too. But that post show warmth only lasts so long. As soon you are all alone in your head with Crippling Self Doubt goading you from the corner, reliving the things you should have done.

Now we do it again. And I will fight my inner villain with the only tools I know to put him at bay. Rehearsal. Review. Fix the mistakes. And be perfect. So he will be quiet for now. Today. Until the next time.

The Boys

My friend Dale Stones of  Sirlesque, the only all male burlesque troupe in the Boston area,  is running a series of classes in male burlesque on Wednesdays in March, ending with a show at the end of the series at Club Cafe in Boston. It is a very affordable opportunity for men who are interested in taking the plunge to do so in a safe supportive environment. Dale is one of the most in demand dancers in the community because, besides being talented, he is also exceedingly nice. 

It will be interesting to see who walks onto that stage on March 28th. Who the brave ones are going to be this time and if they will stay. It's a unique welcoming world of self expression with so many opportunities,particularly for the men  because there are so few, but it takes a special personality to stick with it. And what is that personality is exactly? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

After giving it a good long think, I still find if  hard to explain a single reason that draws of people into the Boston burlesque community. And that goes double for our men folk.

Yes there are almost naked women and men. That is sort of the central theme that goes on through the concept. At the end of the acts, more often than not, people wind up without their clothes on. I suppose that will attract a few but it takes a committed pervert to go through the trouble of designing and costuming an act just to see some titties. Or butts. Or whatever is a fella's flavor. 

Boston burlesque draws an extraordinarily creative group of people. They are constantly developing original concepts that are put into original shows that also have to be developed. When I think of the people that I have encountered since I went from the Lucky 13 amateur contest that Rogue Burlesque held in 2012 to when I became the troupe's character emcee in 2013, I think of the words "brave" "physical comedy" "artist" "beautiful." "Almost naked" is much farther down the list of adjectives, possibly because it is such a given that it has become an "oh that."

The community tends to gravitate toward a bohemian vein. We certainly have our share of tattoos. But when you look at the handful of men in our midst, this seems to be less true.  The adjectives that I just mentioned absolutely apply to them but, possibly due to being so few of them, they tend.....although not exclusively...to be professionals with day jobs.  They, like the super heroes that they sometimes emulate on stage, have a day persona and a night persona. You would never guess that the statement, "I will be glittering and gluing my costume for the NYC show all weekend" would ever be passing their lips if you met them in line at the grocery store. 

So why? Why walk into a clearly female dominant arena and take the risk of, er, exposure? These men are in good shape because they take their bodies seriously. They have be able to dance and emote. Every act is a story told without the convenience of words. They work hard to make a routine that is original with a message.They are driven to entertain but they are also driven to bring something unique to the table with every performance. Any fool can take his clothes off. Not everyone can do burlesque. 

Somewhere along the line, they walked into a room and said, "I want to be part of this thing." And,like their sisters in the community, they took the chance. And believe me, it is as terrifying as it looks.

It occurred to me some time ago that no one in this community is judged by their sex or their sexual choice or their race or their religion ore their marital status or anything else that you can think to judge each other against. The element of trust is strong as is respect. As long as you work hard and contribute work that is good, people are open to whoever you are.

Maybe it was on a dare. Or to prove something  to themselves.Or to someone else. Maybe they had body issues.Or confidence issues. Or maybe,even,they saw someone in a show and wanted to get closer to their world. But that step into the ring took huge balls because somewhere in the preparation for it, shit got real. And then next day they went back to their lives and said, "I want to do it again."

*Interested in Dale's classes? Feeling brave? Contact him at mr.dale.stones@gmail.com.

Because I Promised: Needles And Why I Hate Them

A bad stick

There are good sticks and there are bad sticks.

A good stick is usually someone like a phlebotomist or a pediatric nurse. They insert needles into people's bodies on a very regular basis, often in areas that are normally a little tricky. The needles go in so fast and smoothly that you barely feel them. You don't feel the needle moving around under your skin, poking into places where it shouldn't go. They don't mumble to themselves about your bad veins making life difficult for them. It just gets done.

A bad stick is usually someone who doesn't insert needles unless they have to or are new to the process. Like doctors*or new EMTs. They've practiced on a lot of oranges and oranges are not the same as my human flesh. I would like to blame these people for all of the shrieking I am wont to do when the suggestion of an I.V. arises. They are the reason that I can recite my patient's bill of rights to hospital staff by rote. The reason that when crossed with the prospect of dying or being hospitalized, there is always a moment where I consider death as a more palatable option.

The thought of a foreign object puncturing my skin is distasteful but it isn't that part that really bothers me. After all, I have tattoos. Those weren't comfortable but they are more like cuts with ink poured into the marks. It is the deep invasion of metal into my body. The foreign pointed object that so often hits the wrong nerve endings. The thing that I can see immersed in, well, me that does not belong. It makes me want to scream even typing about it.

For several years I was a human pin cushion. Due to a chronic illness, someone was always jabbing me for blood tests, I.V.s and the occasional heplock when hospitalized.You would think I would have gotten used to it but nope. I didn't even resign myself to it being fact of life, like so many others in the situation. There wasn't a single time when I didn't secretly plot an escape. It hurt. I clenched. I cried.

I was recently presented with the possibility of another illness. The illness should scare me but it doesn't really because I have  the needles to think about. I've had a long time to distance myself from the needles grateful that I don't have to deal with them. And now the potential for blood tests and injections and heplocks and I.V.'s if my prognosis is bad scares me far more than disease.

It is irrational. I know. But they are needles, you know?

* This does not include my niece the doctor whom I am sure is excellent at stabbing people.

Fear Of Karaoke

I'll watch others get up and belt out a song with abandon, joyously making an ass out of themselves or killing it. Doesn't matter. They march up with intent of purpose in hand and let it rip. I've seen people who still spell "S.E.X." let their freak flag fly to the tune of a Sinatra song. They bond with all of the other karaokers because each stepped up and took it on, all members of a Song Singers That Could Club. I look on with envy but cannot. Bring. Myself. To do it. I will fail. Microphones are my friends but not this time. This time I want to run away from its potential evilness. Something inside says karaoke will eat my soul.

Fear is usually rooted in something that is driven into us via nature or nurture. Snakes, bears, even little bitty spiders can actually harm you.  A needle is something puncturing your protective skin. A dentist may have caused you pain when you were too young to understand the intrinsic reasoning. Too many horror movies at a young age? Those clowns will get you.

It seems from the list of phobias that I just read that given enough time, people can be afraid of just about anything.  Fear of dolls, peanut butter being stuck to the roof of your mouth and FLUTES all have real phobia names. So far I see no phobia word for the fear of karaoke, though. I feel illegitimate.

Stage fright, public speaking, being stared at when you are in danger of being publicly humiliated is a huge issue with many many people who are raised to not draw attention to themselves,the opposite of safety. Which is why, as a comic and a performer who puts herself in often emotionally (and occasionally physically) precarious situations, my fear of doing karaoke makes no sense and pisses me off.

Can I sing? Yes. Have I sung in awkward situations in public? Yes. Have I made an idiot out of myself in front of hundreds of people? Hell yes with a capital H. What is it about this particular situation that is so daunting? What was done to me in the past that dictates this irrational behavior? I suspect church choir but can't prove it.

I will over come it, though. I have friends that share my plight and have made strides to conquer this. It is not something that will effect my life if I don't act on it directly but I will know that it is there. It controls me on a small level and this is not acceptable.

So there's a new sheriff in Fear Town, Karaoke, you clown under my bed. You creepy elf on a shelf. You peanut butter on my rooftop. I won't accept you. You won't scare me no more.

Pictures to prove it to follow. Please play the theme song to "Rocky" in your head when you see them.


Update 7/23/15 : Nope. Not yet. But I'm not dead yet.

Other Roadside Distractions

Back when we were little, my sister Chrissy and I had a special relationship with vending machines in hotels, particularly cheese and cracker combos, the unnatural orange kind that came in a six pack of little sandwiches. Getting money to put in the vending machines was clarification that we were not in our house and chances are wherever we were had an indoor pool. The whole place smelled faintly of chlorine and if we played our cards right, one of us might be walking with a little bar of soap. Our older sisters were off in big girl land and the two of us were angling for tv in bed with a remote control and a can of Coca Cola, baby!

The United States back in the day had a plethera of Howard Johnson's and I think that if eating chicken in a basket and playing logic puzzles in a restaurant slash adjoining motel was a career,sign me up. There will always be the thrill of seeing the first signs of Spanish Moss on the trees and pecan bars being pimped in rest stops insinuating escape from the cold of the north and the nearness of the round accents of my relatives in my heart.

My grandfather's house was in Siesta Key which is part of Sarasota Florida. He was a blind retired southern colonel which I equated with being just like the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy only my grandpa was a quarter Spanish and the other colonel struck me as pretty anglo. My grandfather was like a sleeping lion. I knew he could be fierce and frightening because I had heard the stories but he was always in bed. His house smelled like bay leaves and the Gulf Of Mexico outside of the window. We would walk down to the beach wearing flip flops so the coral wouldn't cut us and spend the day playing with sea urchins and little shrimp, Even the air felt alien compared to  our home in the Catskills by the woods. It was different and different was important.

In New Hampshire in the summertime, we would visit the House Of Colors and marvel at all of the different rocks and minerals they sold. Later we would go look for pretty rocks in the mountains and find some in the wild ourselves. We saw the movie "Cabaret" from the back of our station wagon before we drove back to our little cabin on what could be any number of picturesque lakes, hoping in my heart that another bat would get loose in it and give us a that extra thrill of ducking under furniture while Daddy chased it with a broom, forever tying Liza Minelli and bat infestation in the same memories.

Whether it was by monetary necessity or the joy with which my parents embraced natural America, our vacations were simple. We went to some amusement parks but it takes concentration to remember them unlike the roiling pots of quicksand in Homosasa Springs that impressed me permanently. Every time we drove away from our home it was with a wave of excitement that we were going on a somewhat thrifty conquest, embarking on a low budget adventure.

Years later while I was in high school, I had an audition in New York City  so my mom and dad decided to make a big stink out of it. We stayed at the Plaza Hotel, ate at Trader Vics downstairs and had lunch in the Edwardian room just outside of the lobby. I remember that the bathtub being regal. Someone brought me a grand drink with the alcohol removed in a tub of a drinking vessel with a half peach skewered down the middle of it that was delicious. It was a truly wonderful experience but in the scheme of memory things, it still wasn't better than the orange crackers in the vending machine at Howard Johnsons.

The Muse Club

I never could understand how the Charles Bukowski barfly type of writer ever got anything done. The image of the drunk tortured soul writing brilliance from the booth of a bar made no sense. O Henry at Pete's Tavern in NYC. Dylan Thomas at The White Horse. Have you ever spoken to someone in a bar on a bender? The repetition, the inability to complete full sentences, the irrational emotions driving the whole cart, none conducive to concepts that I would find worth reading. It is hard enough for them to walk out of the bathroom without toilet paper on the shoe , let alone complete a 5000 word short story that somehow made it to the publisher without beer being spilled on it. It's times like that that makes me believe in the power of a muse, a very specific voice in their head helping them to tie the strings together and complete the story.

Writing creatively is a heady, lonely thing sometimes. It is not easy to expose a part of yourself in order to make a creative impact. Sometimes you avoid it in order to not have to finish because it is a long arduous process, especially the types that are long form like a 3-act play or a novel. The critical voice in your head can derail the whole works. Procrastination is a creative thief if you give it enough time to dig its heels in. No matter how brilliant you are if you can't finish your works or even get a decent start to it, you ain't nothing but a person staring at a sheet of paper or a blank screen.

The reference to a muse normally makes me think of either a hot woman that a musician keeps around to write songs about or the hooker of legend whom Van Gogh cut off his ear to give to her. She is a person who is lusted after in a most unrealistic way, on a pedestal that usually is very unsteady. Tragic or romantic or both.

I suspect that for some writers a muse is something more basic. They complete the need for a person to be heard, give a place for ideas to be processed and feedback to be given and, sometimes, to be written about if they fit the bill at the time. Maybe they are a literary agent or a wife or the support buddy from a writers group (sort of  a prose driven AA sponsor if you will). Or a  friend who understands the need to do this thing, at times not even aware of their position. Maybe even a child, forcing the inner voice to produce or else fail as a role model.  There is something about that person that inspires safety and/or makes the writer feel like they will be accountable to them.  Romantic inspiration lasts only so long. Utilitarian muses are stable, even if they may be temporary.

I always wondered if I have been someone's muse. I think I have. I think most of us have been. No one has sung a song just for me that I know of and I've never known me to inspire a line in love poem. I've read a lot of other people's writing, though. Listened to many jokes. I have  heard words fall out of the person, form something beautiful for the first time, witnessing creation that was talking to me first, have had ideas given over to me because I made them feel safe. I'm not sure if I've even given them a need to create but I have inspired trust, made them feel like they could be great when they completed something. And if I am very very lucky because I can say I was the first to this beautiful thing come to life and go on to become a success.

Thank you for being there all these years, my friends who have read for me, helped me form my ideas and kept me going with encouragement. "Muse" is an uncomfortable title but that is what you have been to me along with "friend."