Dear Pat Benatar,
What's up with the monkey?
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
By The Time You're 25
The title of this post is a reference, first, to a rather wonderful Sleater-Kinney B-Side from the "Get Up" single, and second, to the fact that as of four days ago, I number among the ranks of the "25 and over" set. My feelings about this are mixed. On the one hand, it's been a fun couple of days. The trip to the zoo was loads of fun. I could have stayed there and watched the otters play around for hours. I got to hang out quite a bit with friends and family, and the cohort took me out to dinner last night, which was equally awesome.
But I often feel like the last few years have slipped through my fingers - kind of a "how the fuck did I get to be 25/when did that happen" moment, i guess. 23, after all, was a near total wash, and I don't really feel like i got out of 24 what I wanted to. And now I'm halfway through my twenties with no money, and what I suspect is not much of a better idea of how to be an adult in any positive sense of the term than I had when I was 21 or 22. And that's a little scary, because as much as i could concievably spend the rest of my life playing World of Warcraft or rewatching Buffy DVDs, that strikes me (no pun intended) as a pretty defeatist scenario, and I would like to - no. fuck that, I need to figure out how to actually participate in struggles for social justice in meaningful ways. And I would also like to figure out how to build/find a community here in the city that I feel comfortable in but that challenges me to be a better organizer/researcher/academic/whatever and a better person. The idea of struggling through all this shit into my 30s is kind of scary, and 30 doesn't feel anywhere near as distant as it did a year ago. Grad school, i guess, will do that to you.
I think i'm being overly melodramatic. But hey, at least you got something mildly substantive, right? I haven't been a good blogger lately either, i guess.
But I often feel like the last few years have slipped through my fingers - kind of a "how the fuck did I get to be 25/when did that happen" moment, i guess. 23, after all, was a near total wash, and I don't really feel like i got out of 24 what I wanted to. And now I'm halfway through my twenties with no money, and what I suspect is not much of a better idea of how to be an adult in any positive sense of the term than I had when I was 21 or 22. And that's a little scary, because as much as i could concievably spend the rest of my life playing World of Warcraft or rewatching Buffy DVDs, that strikes me (no pun intended) as a pretty defeatist scenario, and I would like to - no. fuck that, I need to figure out how to actually participate in struggles for social justice in meaningful ways. And I would also like to figure out how to build/find a community here in the city that I feel comfortable in but that challenges me to be a better organizer/researcher/academic/whatever and a better person. The idea of struggling through all this shit into my 30s is kind of scary, and 30 doesn't feel anywhere near as distant as it did a year ago. Grad school, i guess, will do that to you.
I think i'm being overly melodramatic. But hey, at least you got something mildly substantive, right? I haven't been a good blogger lately either, i guess.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
In addition to the Jews for Jesus, who are wandering the streets of Manhattan (and Brooklyn) clad in IDF-style attire and snazzy fascist evangelical messenger bags, another group of people are also clearly seeking to convert us heathen judeos to the side of the Jeebus. This would be the flotilla of teenaged baptist missionaries from Union City, Tennessee currently patrolling Park Slope's 5th Avenue between (like) 13th street and 9th street. They've been around since monday, handing out literature all Jehovah's witness-style and setting up tables with stacks of very abridged bibles. Those psalms are just too risque, i guess. I should note that I've been to Union City, Tennessee, in the dead of the night, when Julie and I stopped at the Wal-Mart there to get gas and food on our long drive across the country in a breakdown-prone 37-year old vehicle.
I think part of the reason that these people piss me off can be best expressed in the form of a song. Or two. The first is, of course, Joe Hill (aka Joel Hagglund)'s "The Preacher and the Slave." (Which, were I actually speaking to you rather than writing a blog entry, and were Thomas present while i was speaking to you, I am sure he would be happy to oblidge you with a couple of verses, because that's the kind of guy he is.)
In other words, the conservatism, self-pathologization, and the fractured and individuated subject colonized by the universal discourse of salvific sacrifice and submission doesn't quite cut it for me. I don't really have a problem with religion per se. I've been to enough prayer meetings and seders and seen folks like Scott M. and Lillian D. in action enough to know that clergy and congregations can intervene in and lead struggles for social justice. There are folks who get left out of these movements and discourses sometimes (and I'd count myself among them,) but there are possibilities for solidarities I will not and cannot discount. The fact remains though, that if the heterosexist, reactionary, fundamentalist Jeebus to which both the Jews for Jerry Falwell and the folks from Tennessee are trying to convert New Yorkers clearly has no desire or plan to tear this motherfucker up and thus clearly cannot really love me. "Where were you when we were on strike for six months?" I wanted to shout at the Jews for Jesus today. And I'm sure any answer i would have recieved would have attempted to cloak a profoundly reactionary discourse of self-pathologization in a new-age fundamentalist preoccupation with individuated salvation - which just isn't going to cut it for me. (It being a theology and practice founded upon and in dialogue with movements for justice and liberation. Bear with me here, I'm no theologian. "I don't even believe in Jeebus")
So, Jews for Jesus, no thank you.
I think part of the reason that these people piss me off can be best expressed in the form of a song. Or two. The first is, of course, Joe Hill (aka Joel Hagglund)'s "The Preacher and the Slave." (Which, were I actually speaking to you rather than writing a blog entry, and were Thomas present while i was speaking to you, I am sure he would be happy to oblidge you with a couple of verses, because that's the kind of guy he is.)
The second song i think is pertinent here is The Coup's "Heven Tonite," off 2001's Party Music. A brief excerpt follows.
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:CHORUS:The starvation army they play,
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
They sing and they clap and they pray
'Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife --
Try to get something good in this life --
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
FINAL CHORUS:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
got faith in the people and they power to fight
We gon make the struggle blossom
Like a flower to light
I know that we could take power tonight
Make 'em cower from might
And get emergency clearance from the tower for flight
I ain't sittin in your pews less you helpin' me resist and refuse
Show me a list of your views
If you really love me
Help me tear this muthafucka up
Consider this my tithe for the offer cup
In other words, the conservatism, self-pathologization, and the fractured and individuated subject colonized by the universal discourse of salvific sacrifice and submission doesn't quite cut it for me. I don't really have a problem with religion per se. I've been to enough prayer meetings and seders and seen folks like Scott M. and Lillian D. in action enough to know that clergy and congregations can intervene in and lead struggles for social justice. There are folks who get left out of these movements and discourses sometimes (and I'd count myself among them,) but there are possibilities for solidarities I will not and cannot discount. The fact remains though, that if the heterosexist, reactionary, fundamentalist Jeebus to which both the Jews for Jerry Falwell and the folks from Tennessee are trying to convert New Yorkers clearly has no desire or plan to tear this motherfucker up and thus clearly cannot really love me. "Where were you when we were on strike for six months?" I wanted to shout at the Jews for Jesus today. And I'm sure any answer i would have recieved would have attempted to cloak a profoundly reactionary discourse of self-pathologization in a new-age fundamentalist preoccupation with individuated salvation - which just isn't going to cut it for me. (It being a theology and practice founded upon and in dialogue with movements for justice and liberation. Bear with me here, I'm no theologian. "I don't even believe in Jeebus")
So, Jews for Jesus, no thank you.
The revolution in this tune and verse
Is a bid for my love to touch the universe
Strugglin' over wages and funds
Let the movement get contagious and run
Through the end when it's gauges and guns
And if we win in the ages to come
We'll have a chapter where the history pages are from
They won't never know our name or face
But feel our soul in free food they taste
Feel our passion when they heat they house
When they got power on the streets
And the police don't beat 'em about
Let's make health care centers on every block
Let's give everybody homes and a garden plot
Let's give all the schools books
Ten kids a class
And give 'em truth for their pencils and pads
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