I’ve watched with some horror as the 80s have been re-written as being all about Michael J. Fox – sometimes I wonder if I dreamt it all or if I was living in another universe.
Because to me, the 80s were all about things like The Belle Stars, and Haysi Fantaysee (the Boy George line, as it were), and beautiful things like Bananarama and Funboy Three doing “Aint What You Do.”
There were all the sweet (and sweet voiced) boys, like Terry Hall (of Funboy Three and The Specials), and Dave Wakeling (of General Public and The Beat) (“Never You Done That” is one of my favorite love songs, & so damned melodically happy it hurts) and Marc Almond and Jimi Somerville, Roddy Frame and Howard Jones.
The geeks had just begun to rule the world, too: Howard DeVoto and Devo and Gary Numan.
Anyway, my 80s were not about hot cars and coke. They were more about dredlocks, lip gloss and rants about Reagan. And I haven’t failed to notice that my 80s seem to be taking a backseat historically to the super-consumerist, “we won the cold war” bullshit. Of course they love Reagan; some days I think they all have Alzheimer’s, since the queer, genderfucked, international, happy 80s seem to be disappearing from the record.
When I’m an old, old woman, I’m going to be in a rocking chair saying, “But boys did wear makeup! And girls did shave their heads!” & Then they’ll give me another little pill to forget, & I’ll hum “Europa & the Pirate Twins” till I sleep.
The Lack of Category
Something in a couple of not-so-recent threads – one about growing up a tomboy & the other about kids and gender identity – had me thinking about categories, since right now, boys compete against boys and girls against girls, though there are sports where that’s starting to change.
Two thoughts resulted:
1) I wonder what would happen if overnight we had people compete based on 1) build (height, muscle tone), 2) fitness level, and 3) experience in the sport/game. That is, if we got rid of gender altogether.
2) What if right now our real problem is that we don’t have enough categories? I mean, say we split the world up tomorrow by hair color instead of gender, Blondes and Brunettes. It’d force red-haired people to choose, and argue that there should be a third hair color. It’d force someone like me (who has kind of streaky hair) to choose. What if we told the Blondes they had to be delicate, graceful, and nurturing (how I have come to hate that word!) and told the Brunettes they had to be aggressive, powerful, and strong? Would L’Oreal make a fortune? Would there be Blondes trapped in Brunettes’ bodies?
I’m quite serious. Take all the attributes we normally assign to male/masculine or female/feminine people, and apply them to people with one hair color or another.
Sure seems arbitrary, doesn’t it? My guess? The whole men/women thing makes about as much sense.
Betty (Not) On the Rag
Poor Betty. The other day while wearing her trademark summer thongs, she bumped her toe really, really hard. Her doctor predicted the toenail will fall off in not too long, and so she complained to me tonight that “just as it’s about to be summer, my season for wearing flip-flops, I’m going to be missing my toenail, and I like having manicured toenails.”
Oh, sad, sad day.
I said: “Wow, it’s a good thing you’ve never gotten your period at the absolute worst time, eh?”
She stopped complaining pronto. We will buy her pretty band-aids to cover up her lack of big toenail, instead, if it even falls off, which I doubt it will. (Did someone say Drama Queen?)
Speaking of Eating…
Because of this whole plan to lose weight and work out more, I’ve had to teach myself how to cook. The other night I made my first meatloaf, and I’ve otherwise roasted a chicken, made my own chicken stock, then soup, and made meatballs. My father would be quite surprised.
Scene from Helen’s early teenage years: Dad sitting at head of table finishing dinner. Grandma and mom cleaning up. Helen putting away dried silverware.
Dad: “Isn’t it time she learned how to cook?”
Silence. Shocked faces on mom, grandma, and Helen. Dad still chewing.
Helen: “I’ll learn how to cook when YOU do.”
Which explains why I don’t know how to cook – because my father certainly never did. I did at least know where the spoons went, though, which is more than I could say for him. Anyway, I find it entertaining, but only when I can’t write anymore, because otherwise, I’m the type to put an egg onto boil and forget about them until they explode and hit the ceiling. I’m not kidding; I’ve done it lots of times, and I’m usually writing or reading when I hear the *pop* in the kitchen.
My meatloaf isn’t bad, either.
You're a Bigger One
From a book called The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role:
“Hawks” on the issue of war are considered more masculine than “doves;” when Senator Goodell changed his position from supporter of Vietnam to critic, Spiro Agnew christened him the “Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party.”
He is explaining how the four ‘commandments’ of masculinity make up ways to be considered masculine if you’re a man, and they include: 1) No Sissy Stuff; 2) The Big Wheel; 3) The Sturdy Oak; and 4) Give ‘Em Hell. He talks about the way masculinity’s requirements gets more flexible into adulthood because having high status can eliminate or less the need for physical power and aggressiveness, which are required for adolescents who don’t have as much access to status and accomplishment yet. Then he goes on to clarify:
But one rule has not changed appreciably: the old first commandment of No Sissy Stuff! remains intact, with almost all the force it possessed in the testing period of adolescence.
"Foreign" Chemicals
For various reasons of my own, I was doing some light reading on sex differentiation and H-Y antigens and I came upon a wiki article about fraternal birth order, which says:
“It is hypothesized that the fraternal birth order effect may be caused by increasing levels of antibodies produced by the mother to the HY antigen with each son. The HY antigen (histocompatibility Y-antigen) is found on the surface of the cells of male mammals. The presence of this foreign chemical when bearing a son could trigger the mother’s immune response, which may then lead to different brain development patterns in later male children.”
Which got my head going in all kinds of gyne-utopian scifi kinds of directions, because doesn’t it sound like the mother’s body is actively preventing too much macho in the world? The “different brain development patterns” being obliquely referred to is of course gender variance and/or homosexuality in males.
Dunno: it just sounds like Charles Wallace and his mitochondria, in a way, doesn’t it?
Pretty Boy Voice
So Betty & I both agree that Steve Miller Band is really fun music to listen to, and maybe the kind of music that people wouldn’t expect us to like. But we do, pretty regularly, & everytime we listen to him I’m struck by how damn sexy his voice is.
But today I also noticed – while once again noticing how sexy his voice is – that it’s damn high-pitched for a guy. You might even say it’s a pretty voice. That’s his singing voice I’m talking about; I have no idea what his speaking voice is like.
Put that next to Kathleen Turner’s voice, though, and you’ve got a deep woman’s voice that’s also considered very sexy. My point? None in particular, but if I can encourage more transwomen to drop the high pitched voices I’d be pleased indeed (& in good company, finally).
Men in Skirts
As usual, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments is on just in time for Easter. I love it for all its corniness, and I’ve seen it more times than I can count, but if it’s on – I still get sucked in. My favorite exchange is when Nefertiri (Anne Baxter) tells Ramses to bring back a sword with Moses’ blood on it, and Ramses (Yul Brynner) replies, “to mingle with your own.”
But for anyone who thinks men look effeminate in skirts, I might recommend you check out some of it – at least the beginning, where you get to see Yul Brynner in a skirt.
That’s about as far from effeminate as I can imagine.
And if you really want to get to know Yul, you can see him in all his glory. Yep, I’m a fan, and have been since the first time I saw The King & I.
Someone Needs to Make Porn Like This
A beautiful Campari commercial.
Betty looks like the woman, but I’ve got a few more pounds to lose and a lot more hair to grow, and you know – I’m still not going to look like her. But I aspire to. (Okay, I just checked the model’s stats, and I’d have to grow a few inches, lose more chest, waist and hips, and probably 50 more pounds. But I can dream. Or alternately, I can just be a shorter, slightly curvier version.)
(Thanks Marlena for finding it, and VeronicaMoonlit for finding her name.)
Girls Gone Helpful
It seems sometimes that all we ever hear about in terms of what kids do with their Spring Break is of the ‘girls gone wild’ variety, but Sirena sent me this link to a movie that documents a very different type of Spring Break spent by some kids helping clean up houses in New Orleans.
I’m not surprised to see that Acorn organized these trips; they’re one of the best orgs I know at building community.