Categotry Archives: douchebaggery

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General Francisco Franco Is Still Dead, and Hiram Montserrate Is Still A Douche

Categories: bitterness, douchebaggery, hiram monserrate watch, i heart oppression, the patriarchy: you can't live with it....that is all

So the New York State Senate finally got around to voting on legalizing gay marriage today:

Marriage equality failed today in the New York Senate after a years-long battle to bring the issue to a vote. The final tally: 24 YES, 38 NO. Among the surprises was a “no” vote from Queens Democrat Sen. Hiram Monserrate, who had previously been a vocal supporter. In October, Monserrate narrowly escaped a felony assault conviction for slashing the face of his girlfriend with a broken glass. Monserrate’s NYC office: (718) 205-3881. His Albany office: (518) 455-2529.

Yes, it’s our old friend Hiram Montserrate shocking nobody with a fucking brain that he once again turned out to be lying, devious jerk. We knew he hated women; now we know he hates gays: fortunately, the New York State Senate takes so few damn meaningful votes that we may have to go months before we find the next group Montserrate thinks is disposable.

And fuck, it sucks that NYS couldn’t make this happen, although there is hope now for future votes (and primary challenges to the Democrats who voted No.)

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Monday Media Watch, Edizione Internazionale

Categories: douchebaggery, media tool kit, politicians have penises

O HAI AGAIN, DUCKS! And yes, this really is a Monday Media Watch–I get in just under the wire by virtue of being in California.And being in California, I decided to put aside my usual Monday Media Watch sparring opponent–the New York Times–and try one of the local papers for a change.

So today’s target: The San Francisco Comical, er, Chronicle, and specifically this article on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi! Take it away, Joel Brinkley:

So Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is shaming his nation. That’s what pundits and commentators are saying as the Italian courts pursue charges of bribery, corruption and tax evasion. But by far the most visible allegations revolve around his sexual escapades.

But before we all clamber aboard that bandwagon, is it possible we misunderstand?

 Hey, that is one promising start, Mr. Brinkley–because certainly lady people have noticed a disturbing trend to judge us by our sexual escapades rather than the substance of our scandals! In fact, we often get judged on our “sexual escapades” in the absence of any other “scandal”! Let’s take a look at Mr. Berlusconi’s issues:

After all, as the prime minister explained at a recent news conference, “to my male colleagues present here I say: Raise your hand and tell me you don’t think it’s nice to rest your eyes on pleasant and enjoyable feminine presences – rather than sitting at a table with people lacking aesthetic qualities.”

Oh. I see. I think I can diagnose these difficulties. He’s a douche.

Now, “pleasant and enjoyable feminine presences” by its very nature is enough to make me do a Radfem Stomp. But for the sake of my blood pressure, and the possible edification of a dudebro who stumbles upon this site, let’s unpack that: first, only feminine presences are pleasant and enjoyable–this comes as a surprise not only to big ol’ bisexual me, who has been known to find masculine presences both pleasant and mm-hmm-hmm enjoyable, but it also pretends that there are no men who might agree with Your Duckmistress about said pleasant and enjoyable masculinities.

But let’s dig, Starbuck, to the little lower layer: you can’t just utter a sentence like that without it seeping context. And the context for it is that for men in power, women have far too long been seen only as, well, pleasant decoration and the occasional useful sex object. One would presume, just from his saying such an asinine thing, that a room with Chancellor Merkel, Baroness Thatcher, Secretary Clinton, and Secretary Albright would not be one of “pleasant and enjoyable” presences, despite all the named presences being female. So to sum up, on the Berlusconi scorecard of douchiness:

Female Heterosexual Desire…………………………………………….Inconsequential
Male Homosexual Desire………………………………………………..Invisible
“Plesant and Enjoyable” Males…………………………………………Ignorable
Women Who Aren’t “Pleasant and Enjoyable”
by virtue of Silvio’s Lust………………………………………………….Inconceivable

Okay, I know what you’re saying: I’m making some leaps of logic here. Maybe his (very debatable) Excellency isn’t a douchebag–maybe he’s just a man of his time, well-meaning but saying douchey stuff. Allowances should be made, etc. And maybe you’re right; maybe I haven’t given him a fair shake…

Certainly that must be why he showed up at 18-year-old Noemi Letizia’s birthday party last spring. It’s probably a coincidence that Letizia, a model, poses for provocative photos in her underwear. That couldn’t have been why he gave her a nice birthday present, a gold necklace worth about $10,000.

Berlusconi’s wife was angry. She left him, saying his visit to the birthday party “really surprised me because he has never come to the 18th birthday parties of any of our three children, despite being invited.”

Come, now. Berlusconi is the prime minister of Italy. He has a busy schedule. Even a young Noemi Letizia understands that. “I am in awe of him,” she told an interviewer. “He calls me, and I go to him.” But only “if he has time.”

 Right. Well-meaning guy who can make time for underwear models but not his own children…como si dice “douchebag” in italiano?

But let’s not stop at Italian heads of state–there’s plenty of members of the doucheoisie right here at home!

For example, two newspapers, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa, recently reported that [businessman Giampaolo] Tarantini told police he lined up 30 women for Berlusconi and his friends, “if the need arose,” and brought them to 18 parties in Berlusconi’s homes in Rome and Sardinia in 2008 and 2009.

“I wanted to meet Premier Berlusconi, and to that end I spent a lot to get into contact with him, knowing his taste for women,” Tarantini told the papers. “I merely accompanied to his house young women who I introduced as my friends while keeping quiet about the fact that I sometimes paid them.”

You’d assume that all of the press coverage, all of that back-room business, would spell Berlusconi’s political demise. Think of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, both of whom are accused of covering up extramarital affairs. The South Carolina legislature is considering impeachment, and Ensign’s re-election prospects in 2012 appear to be slim.

What about Berlusconi? Do we misunderstand? If the public opinion polls are an indicator, we do. His popularity among Italians, in recent polls, stands at 63 percent – a figure any chief of state would envy.

What do Italians know that we don’t?

Well, Joel, first off, maybe Americans do know something about this–President Clinton had approval ratings at or near the 60% range all during l’affaire Lewinsky. And you conveniently ignore the fact that in the case of Urbin and Sanford, a huge part of the scandal is the hypocrisy of a candidate who deliberately cultivates an image of being squeaky clean and virginal (outside the God-sanctioned marriage bed) being caught metaphorically with their trousers down. Neither Berlusconi nor Clinton built their image around their presumed superior morals, and more importantly neither routinely made political hay out of condemning other people for their presumed moral failings.

And of course the article ignores, or minimizes, the fact that Berlusconi is the richest man in Italy, someone who routinely throws bushels of money into his various political campaigns (he owns his own political party) and has been mired in controversy, legal actions, and charges of criminality pretty much from the inception of his political career. With Berlusconi, his sexist actions are just the tip of the iceberg. Which could have been an interesting jumping off point for an article that might look at how hidebound belief in personal superiority (such as sexism) might also be revealed in other aspects of someone’s personal dealings (such as rampant corruption from within the government.) But that wouldn’t be as fun to write as a “Europe good sexy fun, America evil Puritanical morals police” article, which continues to get written whenever any scandal remotely sniffing of sex heaves into view–witness how often people have taken this precise tack over the Polansky arrest, even when European opinion is hardly neither uniform nor even close to the perception of the writer.
And besides–writing about how a European leader who is both sexist and corrupt, and whose sexism reveals things about his corruption, might force you to consider the same things about American leaders–and then who would invite you to the cool parties, or give you op-eds in local papers?

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Monster Rat: A Gallery of the Rape Culture

Categories: douchebaggery, hiram monserrate watch, media tool kit, politicians have penises, your rda of misogyny, Your RDA of Outrage

Hiram Monserrate is a douchebag.

Need proof? Consider the lovely legislative record of the freshman NYS senator: he not once, but twice threatened to caucus against his own party–which for the first time in over 40 years was in control of the upper house of the New York State legislature and had an ambitious progressive and reform agenda, including legalizing gay marriage–making good on his threat the second time and throwing the entire state government into chaos (and costing the taxpayers billions of dollars.) And both times, he couldn’t even stand steadfast to his own dirtbag principles (well, except the most important: look out for Hiram first)–he turned coat on his turncoat companions and slunk back to the Democrats.

And that’s not even what earned him his nickname: Monster Rat.

That comes as a result of the “incident” of December 19th, 2009. Monserrate brought his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, to an emergency room over a half hour from his apartment. She had been slashed down to the bone by a broken glass. Monserrate claimed he had tripped in a darkened room and accidentally smashed the glass into her face. Giraldo disagreed, although she would later recant and say that his version was correct. But that night she called him “crazy” and said, “I can’t believe he did this to me!”

It seems that he had been driven into a jealous rage by finding another man’s business card in her purse. A security camera would later show images of him beating her in the hallway, dragging her by her hair. She tried to get away from him but nobody opened their door.

He was indicted, but once Giraldo changed her story, it proved impossible to convict him of anything but misdemeanor assault.

Now, I can leave it there: yet another case of a powerful man using his privilege to abuse a woman and get away with it–as Joanna Molloy did in the New York Daily News:

In the hallway after the verdict, women in jeans and lawyers’ suits clustered in groups and shook their heads. “This sets women’s rights back a long time,” said one female court officer.

Forgive us if we find the couple’s story the most incredible coincidence since Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same Fourth of July.

Erlbaum did find Monserrate – who courthouse wags have been calling Monster Rat – guilty of reckless assault, for forcibly dragging Giraldo out of the apartment in a scene caught on videotape.

It’s a misdemeanor, so Monserrate gets to keep his job in Albany.

So for your enjoyment (read: rage), here is a gallery of Bramhall’s cartoons, which are disturbing and triggering enough that (in a Second Awakening first) I present them after the jump.


A Gallery of the Damned

Politics
Most often, Bramhall used Monserrate’s image as a commentary on politics, albeit one divorced completely from anything having to do with women’s politics:

Don’t you just love the terrified woman in that last cartoon? Way to exhibit sensitivity as well as your usual perspicacity, Bill!

The Cartoonist’s Chore

A few times, Bramhall includes an image of Monserrate in cartoons commenting about how hard/easy it is for him to do his job, i.e. come up with cartoons:

Almost, But Not Quite

Once or twice, Bramhall almost shows some sensitivity to the underlying issue of violence towards women–but then as usual completely smothers that in a smug blanket of privileged fuckery that uses images of that violence to make a crude joke:

The Big Finish

This last cartoon ran during the height of the Senate leadership crisis. It is so full of douchebaggery and misogynistic imagery that it practically makes up its own genre: douchedy, maybe, or WTF-tire.

For those uninitiated into New York State politics: in addition to Senator Douche, you can see former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (presumably with a prostitute) at upper center, and in a nice homophobic touch former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith dressed in the little Lord Faunteleroy outfit. The horse’s ass at lower right is Assembly leader Shel Silver (and an assessment of his character I tend to agree with.)

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Today in Tales From the Douchoisie

Categories: douchebaggery, media tool kit, your rda of misogyny

Hello, Ducks! Can you guess what Google Reader threw up in my lap today? Did you guess Tucker Max? I didn’t, which I guess is what makes it sexy…or something; I’m not up on my fratire. But let’s check in, courtesy of The Frisky…

Oh, what? The fratire thing?

The Frisky: Gawker deemed you a “ham-fisted frat s***.” The feminist bloggers hate you. You’ve been called a “professional sexist,” “anti-feminist,” and a “promoter of rape culture.” The New York Times labeled your prose “fratire.”

TM: Hold on now. The New York Times was not insulting me when they called my writing “fratire.” In fact, they said I invented a new literary genre, one that defines a whole new generation of writers and readers. How is that an insult?

Yes, the brave new world of Two and a Half Men, Maxim, and Ketel One ads:

I think that this isn’t exactly a new genre…unless you think that the needs, feelings, and emotions of young white dudes has been an underserved artistic destination for these last, um, 2,000 years.

Sigh. On y va…

The Frisky: Are you a “misogynist”?

TM: Complete bulls**t. A misogynist is someone who hates women. I love women. Everything I do is to impress women. Without women, I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Plus, half my fans are women. The people who call me misogynist are the ones who haven’t read or engaged my writing, and are just looking for a bogeyman to attack.

The Frisky: In your stories, women throw themselves at you. How many women have you slept with, and what advice do you give men on women?

TM: I have no idea how many women I’ve slept with. Probably more than 300, probably less than 600? I don’t keep count, because that would be super creepy.

Some women absolutely do throw themselves at me. I think part of it is that there are always some women that are into rich, famous, and powerful men. Then there is the artist aspect. Half my fans are women, and they are fans because they love my writing. There is the masculine thing; I am one of the few people in media who is unapologetically masculine, and that’s very attractive to some women.

You know? He’s not a misogynist. Just a narcissist living in his own, private world where women flock to him to give him blowjobs, sexy girls (the only real girls: see Amanda Hess’ brilliant “Anatomy of a Tucker Max Joke“) never think he’s being insulting to him, and “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” is…

…an awesome and groundbreaking movie, and great art always finds its way.

Box Office total, after two weeks: $960,425.

But wait! Ol’ Tuck has an excuse for that!

It may not hit at the theater, but it will hit on DVD, and hit big.

Yeah, you and Joe Francis, amigo. Funny the company you keep.

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Monday Media Watch

Categories: douchebaggery, media tool kit, monday media watch

Greetings, ducks! This week here at TSA we’re going to try something new and different–recurring theme columns! Today will be the inaugural Monday Media Watch.

Over the weekend, in between writing SQL specifications, I managed to actually watch some TV (other than Buffy DVDs, that is.) In fact, I caught Mike Judge’s 2006 internet cult fave Idiocracy.

I’m mostly confused by Mike Judge–I was in college when Beavis and Butthead first came out and was never really impressed by watching a couple of barely-articulate slackers make fun of music videos. (I mean, I wasn’t even a fan of that in real life.) But after that came King of the Hill which might as well be a modern-day Leave it to Beaver–Hank Hill’s solidly middle-of-the-road conservative values always win out in the end. In some ways it’s similar to Parker and Stone’s “common sense” values on South Park, although without that show’s audacitous offensiveness and sometimes spot-on satire. But both are similar in the way that the “common sense” approach that always manages to win out looks suspciously like the point-of-view of middle class white privilege.

(With some caveats: I liked Judge’s Office Space for its gleeful and accurate satire of the mindlessness of modern corporate existence, and the South Park movie’s general gleeful destruction.)

Idiocracy probably had visions of being a satire, and its vision hits some easy but satisfying targets: a Costco the size of a city, every conceivable surface–clothing, furniture, even the flag–covered with advertising slogans, cable TV hitting the lowest possible common denominator (the Violence channel has a show called “Ow! My Balls!” consisting of an hour of a guy getting hit in the crotch.) Much of this is chuckle-inducing, greatly enhanced byLuke Wilson in another of his startled shlub turns.

Other jokes, however, have a cringe factor. Judge ferociously attacks the pornification of American advertising by showing us a world of franchise sex: Starbucks gives hand jobs, H & R Block offers “gentleman’s tax planning” and there’s even fried chicken with “full release.” All of which might have gone off better had not the other main character (played by Maya Rudolph) been–a prostitute.

And that leads us into some other troubling matters. The English language, we are told, now resembles a mix of “hillbilly and Valley Girl slang,” but there seem to be a preponderence of hispanic names and “accents” around to demonstrate how much stupider America is in the 26th century. And yes, there’s a black president–but one who comes off as just another bunch of 21st century stereotypes: he’s a former wrestler and porn star. (In fact, the three main African-American characters are: a porn star, a prostitute, and a pimp.)

Not surprisingly, the movie ends up validating a white male slacker as the only reasonable character–and hey, given that Mike Judge is a white male slacker who made very good, I guess I can’t blame him. But Idiocracy has developed some kind of hip-cult status on the Internets, and I have news for you guys: it ain’t as transgressive as you think.

While I was watching Idiocracy, I got treated to the usual series of ads catering to the doucheoisie that Comedy Central routinely runs. (It’s much worse on both CC and Adult Swim late at night, when the ads for the local stripper clubs run.) One of those included the newest Burger King Late Night series, in which their “King” character plays a prank on a sleeping person–in the spirit of this:

Except this one apparently was set in a woman’s dorm (or at least a house with female roomates.) Sadly, the video isn’t up yet, but what happens is that they do the old “shaving cream on the hand, tickle the face” gag–the woman wakes up and slaps her face to brush away the “bug,” only to smear shaving cream all over her self.

But here’s the part that makes this ad even douchier than normal–she wakes up and sees a strange man wearing a bizarre mask on his face. And screams. Well, no shit! I mean, this is the start of a slasher/rape nightmare, and I’d scream too. And I know that makes me a Humorless FeministTM, but give me a break–it’s bad enough that this forms the plot of every cop show on TV, do we really need it to sell burgers?

There was, however, one ad I did like:

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the Progressive ads–I don’t own a car, so I’m largely indifferent to them–but I love how she totally rocked this guy back on his stereotypes. Rock on, Flo!

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Headesk Is A Verb

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, douchebaggery, the patriarchy: you can't live with it....that is all

Greetings, ducks! Sorry about the delay since yesterday’s post, but I had to call a carpenter in–it seems my (quirky, writerly, rolltop) desk had developed a mysterious dent ever since I started using Google Reader to search for stories with the keyword “feminism.” Oddly enough, the dent seemed to fit my forehead perfectly, and got deeper after each one of the mysterious headaches I seem to be suffering from–strange.

However, in any case, I now have a nice shiny new desktop, and it’s time to take a look at what Google brought me today–oh. Oh, dear. Something titled “Hating Feminism.”

Well, let’s not be hasty; maybe it’s a feminist response to people who hate feminists! My heart leaps! See, it starts well:

I know to a degree where she’s coming from. A lot of the feminist-bashing is nothing more than people taking their personal problems and putting a political spin on it. But, of course, NOW is not responsible if you can’t get sex or can’t get your wife to respect you.

Well, not great, but not bad.

We’ve all seen those people. All their stories are about someone taking advantage of them. But even before the stories started, we knew just by looking at them that we are about to deal with a loser.

But that doesn’t negate that feminism has become a cancer. Many of the complaints against the feminists are the same as against Civil Rights warriors.

Oh dear.

Women will acknowledge that a big, tall man who’s in great shape is stronger than they are. What they don’t realize is that a 5-foot-3 110 pound high school boy is still vastly stronger than any woman who’s not taking steroids (aka male hormones).

Riiight…I forgot, that high school kid can whup Laila Ali one hand behind his back–because he’s stronger than every woman in the world.

Women get into an aggressive pose if you ever say that they can’t do something as well. But of course you can’t do some things as well, and you can’t do anything on an exceptional level (historic inventions, Nobel prizes).

Even when you look at things that women do much more than men (write poetry, cook, design clothes), almost all the great ones are male.

Right, because of ten millenia of denying women access to education, devaluing all work they do, and institutional sexism wherever people (read: men) do work for money that women traditionally have done for free, that in no way invalidates your argument. It’s all about the biology, right? I can take comfort in that, scientifically proven….wait a second.

I’m not exactly all about the biology, you know.

The worst outrage (other than the claim by feminists in Sweden that men should be forced by law to sit on toilets like women rather than stand) is the feminist demand that all men’s room become unisex while the women’s bathrooms remain for females only. The logic is that women always have to wait in line and men don’t, so that’s just unfair.

Okay, seriously? Do not take a trans person on about the bathroom.

No society treated women as well as the West. White men didn’t put you in wooden shoes to make your feet unnaturally small, didn’t cut off your clitoris, didn’t “Honor Kill” women for being rape victims. Whether a white woman chose to be a nun or a prostitute or anything in between, she was treated with at least some level of respect.

I’m going to laugh here. Because this has to be satire, right? Because we all know how well prostitutes are treated in our society, right? I mean, they have respect, which is why so many upper-class women have traditionally turned to prostitution; you know, Victorian gentlemen went on the Grand Tour, Victorian ladies went On the Job.

Is there any way you could make your satire richer?

(Update after this was already written: I was originally thinking of writing “whore” instead of “prostitute”, but decided not to because I thought people would react to it negatively. Upon re-reading this, I realized that this in and of itself made my point – Westerners do not accept gratuitous degradation of even the lowest class women.)

I think…I think you need to, I don’t know–I was going to say “take a women’s studies course” but I think I’ll start with, “meet a woman.”

I’ll just…just read a little more…I’m feeling woozy…

Just as blacks have a very special way of looking at things (black-dominated NBA is good, but white-dominated swimming is an outrage), so too do the feminists. That they dominate the Angry Bitch Studies and departments like Sociology is just taken for granted, but all hell breaks loose every time feminazis find out that engineering or physics departments are mostly male.

*thump*

Wow, look at that–there’s already a new dent in my desk.

I think I better keep that carpenter on speed-dial.

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Bromantically Linked

Categories: douchebaggery, media tool kit, oh no not teh menz

Hello ducks! If you are like me, you watch television. (Actually, if you are like me, you watch too much television–stop it! It’s keeping you from doing better things, like read this blog!) And if, like me, you watch too much TV, then you’ve probably seen commercials for the next great man-child movie, The Hangover.

Of course, it may be difficult to pick out this new film from the constant swirl of frattish comedies–after all, it’s Judd Apatow’s world now, we just live in it. Never fear, though, ducks! The New York Times, in its ongoing mission of reminding us that all the news fit to print is by, for, and about men, has an article about The Hangover‘s creator, Todd Phillips.

In fact, the article makes Mr. Phillips out to be some sort of seer to the doucheoisie, a sort of guru of the frat boy picture. (In fact, one of his first movies was called, um, Frat House.) Mr. Phillips, in case you didn’t know, is the auteur behind Old School, Road Trip, and Starsky and Hutch. (Disclosure: I actually enjoyed the last one for the chemistry between Stiller and Wilson. I’m not perfect, ducks.) All in all, he has a portfolio that makes him the Apatow-lite, a secondary purveyor of the immature bromance.

Never fear, though: The Times breathlessly reports:

That doesn’t mean “The Hangover” can’t aspire to be the most grown-up work in Mr. Phillips’s unapologetically immature portfolio.

Well, that’s a relief–not the least because he doesn’t apologize for his movies! No, Todd Phillips is proud of his films! He wants you to squirm while watching–that is, if you are not an immature man-child (or at least aspire to be one.)

But wait! He’s not content for simple metaphysical torture–at least, where his actors are concerned:

Mr. Phillips does not always get his way. For a scene in which a police officer tests his stun gun on the guys, the director wanted his actors to be shot with a live Taser. “He goes, ‘Look at these clips on YouTube,’ ” Mr. Galifianakissaid. “ ‘It doesn’t hurt that much.’ And then the Warner Brothers lawyers stepped in, thank God.”

Well, there’s always next time–and given advances in technology, perhaps within a few years he’ll be able to tase the audience as well! Oh, think of the laughter we’ll have! Between the blackouts, that is.

Let’s give the last word to Todd, before he uses that darn taser again:

…[W]hen he tries to describe the plots of his films concisely, Mr. Phillips said recently, “the one-liners on my movies sound really retarded.” He chuckled briefly at his own analysis. “The movies, ideally, are better than they sound,” he added.

Speak for yourself, Mr. Phillips.

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A Bit of a Slice of Life

Categories: all about me, douchebaggery, rhetorical devices, teh tranz

Sorry for the lacuna, ducks–things got busy, there was the Lost season finale, and I’ve been working on a long piece that is taking a while in editing.

I suppose some of you reading here–if there is anyone reading here–might well wonder, “C. L., you’ve been nicely theoretical and wonderfully outraged, but can you give us a real sense of what it is like to be a trans woman? Is there any easy anecdote that can sum up your life in a neat, immediately understandable package? Am I wrong to want this?”

Ah! Well, my ducks, answering the last question first: Yes. Yes you are. But that doesn’t mean I won’t answer! Because while in real life doing Trans 101 can be a nasty chore, this blog isn’t real life! That’s why I’m writing it.

So, yes, ducks–and by the way, call me Cat, everyone does–as it turns out I do have a fresh-off-the-streets anecdote that can give you insight into what it means to be me! Even though I’ve chosen anonymity here! Life is wonderful that way, yes?

Yesterday after I got home from work I had to go to the post office to pick up a registered letter, something that always fills me with dread, or at least has every since that day two years ago when I got a registered letter threatening to sue me. Which did not happen! So it turned out okay, but I still get a twinge in my stomach.

I set out to walk down to the post office, first feeding Schwa and the Gray Mouser and changing out of the dress and suit jacket I had worn to the office today. That may be important. You see, as I was walking up the steps to my building, just a few minutes before, a man walking behind me had said, just loud enough for me to hear him, “Good night, pretty lady.”

Compliments like that always give me mixed feelings. Like any woman, I really don’t care to have my looks publicly commented upon all the time by random men on street corners. But on the other hand, he said it nicely, the sentiment was nice, and–well, let’s face facts; I went through a lot of things to be considered a pretty lady. So while I wasn’t happy that he felt like he had the absolute right to say such a thing…I did smile a little when I heard it. Just not at him.

So I changed into a tee and a jeans skirt; I only wore the skirt instead of jeans because I had just gotten it a few weeks ago, after looking for a long time for a jeans skirt. Now you know more about my wardrobe than is probably comfortable for either of us, but I will persist.

As I was crossing the street, a car came tearing around the corner, and I heard a guy in the car call out, in what can only be described as a fratboy-douchebaggy tone, “You look like a dude!” As you can guess, that wasn’t fun.

But here’s the thing, and the reason why this is supposed to be an exemplar in response to your question, ducks: he said, “like.” Like a dude.

In other words, he saw me as a mannish woman. Not a man.

It took me 35 years to get that like. But it was exactly what I needed.

And that’s what it feels….like.

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Triple Threats

Categories: (un)popular entertainment, douchebaggery, rape is hy-larious, teh tranz

The News From WOUTR, all Outrage, all the Time:

I have Saturday Night Live on. This is mostly nostalgia, though I’m not quite sure what for; I started watching the show during the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartmann/Jon Lovitz years, which were not exactly a great epoch in the history of television comedy. If I have nostalgia, it is from watching the “Best of” shows that Nick at Nite showed in the very early years of its existence, which were culled from the work of the original cast.

But in any case, I’m home on a Saturday (outrage intereferes with your social life, and my boyfriend is located in a different timezone anyway) and awake in the early morning, so I have SNL on.

Not that long ago, “Weekend Update” had Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and was a bright spot on the show; now both have moved on to greener pastures, and we’re left with Seth Myers’ minor-league douchebaggery, which isn’t particularly outrage-inducing–or rather, it seems to be hard to pick out against the normal background noise of douchebaggery on television.

The guest this week is Tracy Morgan, returning to his old haunts. I was never a particular fan of his, so perhaps it’s odd that I’m dedicating the first real post of the blog to him.

Right in a row, there were three separate sketches:

  • A parody of “Big Love,” the show about traditionalist Mormons. Morgan played what looked to be a trans prostitute, picked up by the clueless paterfamilias to be the newest wife. (The character, played by morgan in a horridly bad blond wig, is seen shaving with an electric razor; which is so stupid–I mean, everybody knows you can’t get a close shave with one of those things! The Mach 3 is the pre-electro transpeeps’ best friend.) The closing credits for the spoof: “Yeah. It’s a dude.”
  • A fake commercial for a pill that would keep men from getting sexually aroused in inappropriate situations, like picking up your high-school aged niece and her cheerleader friends. I’m…not sure what to say, except, gross–the other example is a Santa worried about a stray erection costing him his job.
  • A short film where two guys go to a party and make disparaging comments about the people there–but here’s the catch!–their comments are shown to be literally true; so “look at those Jokers” cuts to three guys dressed as the Joker. You get the idea. One of the guys is described as a serial rapist; the cut is to a guy busily humping a box of cereal. Hy-larious! (To be totally fair, the bit ends with one of the guys saying, “look at those two douchebags” and the image is the two of them looking into a mirror.)

So: trans-shaming; a reminder that men! always get boners! whenever they look at anything female!; and a nice little dollop of rape humor. All right!

Yes, this is pretty much how this blog is going to go.