WordsWordsWords

On Friday, the President signed a Gay Pride Month declaration—not his first. Who could have guessed that could happen, even a decade ago?¹ A biracial president showing some love for the LGBT folks. Virginia Slims, eat your heart out.

June was chosen as Pride Month because that’s the month in which the Stonewall riots took place, in 1969. You can read more about it in the linked article, but I like to think of it as the moment in history when the cops realized that just because a drag queen is wearing a dress and heels, it doesn’t mean that she’s free of the upper body strength she has when she’s wearing jeans and work boots. Other homophile groups came before, but Stonewall became a seminal event (no snickers, you people) after which the gay community began to organize and fight back. In my vows at our government wedding in 2012 (our real wedding having occurred in 2004), I told the Professor I was proud to count among my forebears the Daughters of Bilitis and the Stonewall trannies. The Daughters had it going on in 1955.

To celebrate Gay Pride this year, I did something yesterday that I’ve been thinking about for a couple years, which is to get a rainbow tattoo. It’s not my first tattoo. That one pretty much gets a regular viewing from only my wife and my massage therapist. This one, I put on my upper left arm, sailor style. The Google image search for rainbow tattoos will give you an idea of the wide array of rainbow imagery that’s out there. Rainbow hearts, rainbow Hello Kitty, rainbow zig zag lightning, and some creepy things like the one that looks like a bear claw mauled the skin, exposing a rainbow underneath. If that’s what it took to come out, I’d’ve stayed in, thank you very much. However, I’m declaring the creepiest, this rainbow crying eye image:

A couple of years ago, I saw one on the image search—I see it still comes up on the first page—that caught my eye, though to make it work for me I changed up the color scheme. It marinated those two or three years somewhere in the back of my brain (which is about the amount of time I feel I should think about getting a permanent mark), and yesterday I decided it was time to go do it. Robin at Renton’s oldest tattoo shop, Ancient’s Arts, turned my awkwardly drawn rendition into a good looking pattern and did the work for me.

If my love for the Professor were an image, it would be a big purple swoosh with a cascade of rainbow stars erupting from it. Happy Pride Month, everybody.

¹In fairness, also see this article.

If you just want to read recommendations for a few great podcasts, skip to the bottom of this post J

I hate commercials. The noise, the racing images, the insult of our intelligence, the violent push to make us feel inadequate and to buy more, more, more. After all, that’s their job—to get you to turn off your critical thinking long enough to appeal to your lizard brain so you will make decisions with your emotions. I’ll look terrible in my short shorts if my legs aren’t absolutely hairless—how horrifying! I must run out and buy some Nair.

Some years ago we cancelled our cable when I became enamored of Netflix and Hulu’s experience. At the time, Hulu was fairly new, and its commercials were 15-30 seconds, still a tolerable level. When I cancelled last fall, the spots had grown to 2-3 minutes each. Mostly, I used Hulu to watch network shows without commercials. I cancelled because I reasoned that I can get 2 or 3 minutes of commercials, many times an hour, for free with our digital antenna. Why pay for them? Though in truth, I almost always watch Netflix, not broadcast television—you guessed it, because I can’t stand the commercials.

I’ve begun using Pandora for my music—$4/mo to eliminate the ads—and downloading podcasts for educational and entertaining talk. The only time I listen to my car radio is when I forget my 5 year old iPod—a hand-me-down from the Professor—for which my Mini Cooper has a built-in port. The only ads my podcasts have are short announcements of innocuous things like stamps.com or some organic gift basket concern. (See how well ads work? I don’t remember the name after hearing of that concern several times.) Some public radio podcasts make appeals for donations once or twice a year. Not assaultive-feeling marathons, by the way—just an announcement—and I do donate. They make it easy with a “text xxx to ### to give a $10 donation” approach. Being on the phone with a volunteer and spelling my name three times feels like the Stone Age. (In fairness, NPR stations have web pages where you get to fill in all the info yourself.)

OK, that’s the rant. But the point I was getting to—in a clear demonstration of the fact that I should have breakfast before blogging—is that all forms of media are undergoing changes in the way they distribute content. They want to reach their intended audiences in ways that work for the listeners/viewers. In my case, that just happens to be in a commercial free (or light) way, even if I need to pay for it directly.

I was interested to read in the paper this morning, then, that This American Life, my number one favorite podcast, has decided to forego distribution through NPR and to market itself directly to radio stations. It wants more control over everything—marketing, time of airing, and other arrangements. Host and Executive Producer Ira Glass said, “It seemed like at this point in our show’s development there was nothing a distributor could do for us that we couldn’t do for ourselves.”

More and more, we are hearing of digital distribution of different types, but all of which make end runs around traditional broadcasting media. This ship has almost sailed in print media—many authors sell books directly to come out on Kindle and Nook, rather than going through a publisher. News sites have nearly obliterated print newspaper. For that matter, I’m making an end run as I write this—I’m not going to have to go out to find a paper or magazine to print this blog as a column (good thing). Some feel this reduces the quality of information in the marketplace, because there is so little editorial oversight. Others think that removing the requirement of that same editorial oversight allows a proliferation of topics, opinions, and styles that we would never see otherwise. What do you think?

As a bonus, a list of some of my favorite podcasts. Below are links to their webpages. I believe all are distributed through the iTunes store, speaking of end runs.
This American Life
A description from their website: “There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There’s lots more to the show, but it’s sort of hard to describe.”
The Moth
Recordings of true stories told at live storytelling events around the country. They will make you laugh and cry in your car.
Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me
Their website simply terms it, “NPR’s weekly hour-long quiz program,” but it is so much more. Three clever and well-informed panelists will crack you up clowning around with a host and scorekeeper. (The points matter only slightly more than on Drew Carey’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?)
Radio Ambulante
A This American Life-style show en español. Based in the U.S., but covers stories from around the Spanish-speaking world. Some shows available in both languages. If you need convincing, listen to this chilling episode about a Peruvian game show contestant who suffered the consequences of her participation.
Un idioma sin fronteras
A show en español about language and literature. From Spain.
Lesbian/Gay Law Notes
Once a month, Professor Arthur Leonard—editor of the print version of Law Notes and generally recognized as the foremost authority on LGBT legal issues around the globe—sits around and chats about a few developments with the Executive Director of the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York. These days, waiting a month to report on things is a long time.
Stuff You Should Know
A show where two guys sit around and chat about the (sometimes spotty) research they’ve done about a topic. Themes are as wide-ranging as stuff you should know about avalanches, gypsies, the ACLU, amputation, and the Spanish inquisition. If you know much about the topic, don’t listen. It will just piss you off. I use this one mostly as a soporific. The content is a little bit interesting, but not enough to keep you from drifting off to the hosts’ mellow voices.

I also read books.

Tonight I was watching an episode of Mad Men, and it suddenly occurred to me that this series was largely about people walking in and out of offices and other rooms.

image courtesy of graur razvan ionut / freedigitalphotos.net

I began counting, then went back and watched the beginning to get those I’d missed before I started the tally. In 47 minutes, there were 32 instances of people opening or closing doors and stepping in or out. This was not counting any occasions when someone crawled through a window (yes, this happened), walked through an already-open doorway, passed through a doorless entrance to a room, or exited a room off camera with only the sound of the door heard. I enjoy this show a lot, but I’m pretty sure I will now be counting on my fingers through every episode.

Sterling Cooper (and its progeny) is really on the move. I’m imagining the sound design staff reading the script in preparation.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
–Robert Burns

Who would you think you are if you had no mirror? It’s hard to conceive of this as a possibility in our time. And even ages ago, Narcissus managed to find a pond. But if all mirrored surfaces somehow magically disappeared, what would happen? Perhaps you’d have a better opinion of yourself, not being able to see your own sags and bags, your wattles, wrinkles and warts. On the other hand, if you based your self-concept only on feedback that comes from others, it might present some difficulties in itself. People can be unkind.

image courtesy of Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

I am thinking of this because I’ve been haunted by a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with a Vietnamese immigrant nail tech. Vietnamese nail salons are ubiquitous here. There are at least half a dozen in our immediate neighborhood. The shops also come with many problems, chiefly the possibility of labor law violations and health hazards caused by exposure to unvented chemicals.

To try to attempt from contributing to these issues, I use shops that appear to have a positive atmosphere, stores that seem to have less employee turnover, and places that at least prop open the door, even if there is no ventilation system per se. Fortunately, the weather here allows for that almost year round. I also always tip very well and in cash. My current tech Tina, whom I’ve been with for about 2 1/2 years, is a citizen and has been in the States for 20 years. No need to worry about her! She can hold her own for sure. Exhibit A to prove that she is not a shrinking violet: one day she asked me if I ate meat. When I told her that I do, but not very much, she then asked me loudly and with consternation, “Why you so fat?!?” After I quit laughing, I explained that I eat a lot of candy.

While I love Tina’s work more than that of anyone else who’s ever done my nails, she’s out in Issaquah; it’s sometimes difficult to work in a visit to her shop when I have to add the travel time to it. While I usually regret it (as does the Professor, bitterly, since she is the one who has to listen to me gripe about the substandard cuticle trim), I sometimes stop by another salon if things are getting too ragged and no trip to Issaquah is in the offing.

It was at one of these places that I crossed the path of a tech named Linda. (Many of these women use an American name that’s easier for clients to pronounce.) Getting a manicure can be an odd thing. You may have never before seen the woman—I’ve only ever seen two male techs—who does your hands and may not ever see her again. A language barrier may allow for little conversation. Nevertheless, this someone you don’t know is inches from you, touching and massaging your hands. Thus, a manicure may be simultaneously impersonal and intimate.

Many clients choose not to speak, but I usually do. In this instance, Linda was the only person there—she turned out to be the owner. I know that she must have heard this hundreds of times in her adult life (emphasis on adult, as we shall see), but I couldn’t help myself. As she approached, I remarked on her stunningly beautiful eyes, which were a startling green with flecks of brown and hazel.¹ She seemed to be 40-45, so my first thought was that she was the child of an American G.I. The children we left behind have had a terrible time, suffering cruelty, shame and discrimination for no crime other than being biracial—and children of the enemy.

The tech’s English was quite good, though strongly accented, and we chatted throughout the time I was there. Since we had talked about her eyes, I asked her if her dad was American. She said yes, and added, “I don’t know my dad. I don’t know my mom, too.” She explained that she was abandoned at an orphanage, where her adoptive mother found her. She told me her dad was white, but that she has a sister who lives in West Seattle who is half black. Their mom rescued the sister from a trash can and adopted her as well. All of this information that hit me as so horrifying seemed mundane to my narrator. However much it might still hurt, she relates the tale in a matter-of-fact way. It’s just her story.²

We’ve been at it a little while now, and the conversation is feeling comfortable, so I ask her how the other kids treated her when she was growing up. Not surprisingly, they were mean; she said they taunted her with something like, “merry-ca, merry-ca.” She said that she didn’t even know the word “America,” so she didn’t know what they meant. (The kids chanting it might not have really understood the nature and history of the jab either, for that matter.) She said that she was made fun of for her eyes, that people told her she looked like a cat and that she looked scary. She didn’t really understand those remarks, either.

What came next is what has haunted me. She told me she grew up in a tiny, poor rural village. There were no mirrors in it. As far as she could tell, she looked like everybody else. But when she was 18 or 19, she went to Saigon for the first time. There, she saw a mirror, and saw her eyes. Her incredible green, brown-flecked eyes. What must that moment have been like for her? I was too stunned to ask.

The rest of the story was a happy one. She and her husband own the nail salon now. She recently became a citizen, after passing the test on her fourth try. She said it was really hard because her English isn’t very strong. Her daughter helped her study until she finally passed. I felt happy for her success, but sad that she had to take the citizenship test. She should have been a citizen automatically, because her dad was also merry-ca.

So who would you be if you had no mirror? What realm would you inhabit that perhaps is alien to you now? I’m going to spend some time considering what my self-concept is based on. I want to be a citizen of my own country.

¹ I always find it unsettling when I describe a woman of color as beautiful. I want to display sensitivity to the pain that women of color have felt for being exoticized, eroticized, and objectified for their appearance.
² “The greatest cause of discrimination towards Amerasians came from Vietnamese societal attitudes. Mixed-race children were often so horribly tormented by their peers that many did not attend school. The more Caucasian or African American they looked, the more severely they were harassed. Faced with these pressures, many mothers abandoned their Amerasian children. Some were accepted into orphanages, while some became street kids, pursuing criminal activities to survive.” From “American GIs, Vietnamese Women and Children,” on PBS website about the American Experience episode “Daughter from Danang.”
**

Additional reading:
From globalpost.com, Vietnam War babies: grown up and low on luck
From Asian-nation.org, Vietnamese Amerasians in America

Can you imagine what a controversy it would have been
if it were Kirk and Sulu,
rather than Kirk and Uhura?!?!

image courtesy of Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net