Jill Rants and Raves

baby blue birthday blog

The title of this blog means nothing, but I was in the mood for a little alliteration. Too clever for your own good, my mum would say just before she swiped me across the face. But the reason for the desire to be a smart ass with words today was that I was given a fab book for my birthday yesterday and I have been fixated on it since then. 'JunkYard Dogs and William Shakespeare' is a small photo book with pix by sculptor, welder and photographer Mark Lamonica - not to be confused with the wrestler of the same name aka Bubba Ray Dudley and Mongo Vyle (go figure).

This book features photos of junkyard dogs across America with quotes from the Bard - you know, the one from Stratford on Avon - and not only are the photos gritty, impassioned and insightful, the combination of them with the quotes from Shakespeare's plays is nothing short of inspired. This is the kind of book I love and wish I had done.

Did you know that Will wrote " I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog - Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself" (The Two Gentlemen of Verona) or from the same play "The dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word." ?
Perhaps we forget that it was Shakespeare who gave us one of our most enduring dog phrases from Hamlet: " Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew and dog will have his day"

I read many of the plays and a good number of sonnets while in my enforced english school daze, but it is only now, as an animal obsessed adult that I even notice the large number of references to dogs. Interesting that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the southeast bank of the Thames was right next to a bear pit, where presumably dogs and bears went at it for the merriment of those who got bored sitting through one of Will's lesser three acters. This is the equivalent of going to a multiplex cinema and nudging your companion in the ribs saying " Oooh, I'm hating this movie, wanna sneak into Pirates Of The Carribean next door"?

But birthdays are a strange thing aren't they? We protest that they mean nothing, especially after 40, and then privately hope that we can still get people excited about bringing us free food and making a cake for us. I pulled this off with extraordinary aplomb last night. And I've got 40 extra bottles of beer and a pot of coq au vin in my fridge to prove it.

One year older and distinctly unwiser, I always assumed I would soften with age. Not true. And as I am seemingly not in a hippie dippie self improvement mode let me give you my fave Will dog quote, from Merchant Of Venice: "Thou call'dst me a dog before thou hadst a cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs"

'Rosie' Point Arena, December 2005 ©

Trash Talk

Photo: London 1982 ©

I don't usually listen to NPR, don't ask me why, everybody else in the Bay Area does, I know. But sometimes my finger misses my car radio preset for KFOG and slips to the next button which my ex programmed to be more like her neat and pristine Honda Accord. So there I am at NPR and 'All Things Considered' which is a damn good show, as you all know, because you are all listening to it. Except the five people who wrote to me privately to tell me they listen to Limbaugh.

And so I'm listening along and hear the phrase, uttered by an Iranian official, that Israel is a 'filthy tumour in the body of the Muslim world'. Ooh, ow. That is flat out mean. That is trash talking. That's like the shit you hear on the professional basketball circuit. Then you have our Prez, for the umpteenth time, forgetting that microphones tend to be switched on. Especially when they are anywhere near him. You don't talk shit about Hezbollah. Not 'live'. Wait till you're back home, out of earshot. Geez GW, get a grip.

But this is just making me itch for the the days of the Roman Coliseum. And the days when feuding gangs (read governments, tribes and armies) chose a field and turned up one morning to sort it all out, just hoping that they brought the better set of toys.

And speaking of the Romans, I understand it was that handsome emperor Lucullus who thought it might be a good idea to throw a few dogs into the ring at the Coliseum and watch them be trampled to death by a bunch of elephants. Well, this is what Israel and their supporters in the highest echelons of the 'civilized' world are doing right now in Southern Lebanon. Trampling all over apartment buildings, businesses and public facilities instead of trampling those few Hezbollah who were misguided enough to think they could infiltrate Israel, steal a couple of soldiers and then send a note:
"Hey Jews, we'd like to do a swap. Meet you at midnight outside Tyre, bring some of our guys to exchange. By the way, can you bring some of that cheap red plonk we got in Haifa last year. Thanks much. Love Hezbollah."

And speaking of dogs, some guy in Georgia was arrested for fighting his dogs - against other dogs, not elephants. He pled guilty and got away with a $15,000 fine, even though his 27- yup, twenty seven pitbulls all had to be euthanised. I'm in a mood, and to be honest I think it's a really bad idea for me to listen to the politically correct station.

The End Of The World?

Honestly - I am shocked and disappointed that Israel caused such destruction in Beirut. Lebanon, surely has been one of the Middle East neighbours moving slowly but certainly towards the kind of modernisation that might have made for an ally. They would have tried - as much as any government can - to bring Hezbollah's kidnappers to justice. I mean, there's Hezbollah across the continents of Europe, Africa, India and in the suburban progressive streets of Berkeley.

After the 6 Day War in 1967 when my father took me to visit family members in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I said with 13 year old fear - 'Dad, I think this must be the beginning of the end of the world". He replied ' Jill, every generation thinks they are experiencing the 'final' chapter in history". And coming from his vantage point of having been born, Jewish, in Berlin in 1904 and therefore experiencing the First World War at close quarters and having served with British Forces in North Africa during the Second World War, I took his words seriously.

But, dammit, I might be disappointed in Israel, but I am constantly reminded that if you live with fear you will react. And for those who might just forget what Egyptian President Gamal Nasser said on May 27 1967: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." On May 28, he added: "We will not accept any...coexistence with Israel...Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel....The war with Israel is in effect since 1948."

Don't misunderstand - I'm no Zionist, no apologist for the state of Israel. Nor are any of my family in Israel who love their country but not necessarily the government that leads them, like yours and mine do, down a path of rose thorns and bombs. But now, I'm glad my Dad has been dead for some years now, because I might have said to him 'Dad, this really does look like the lunatics have led us to the brink of the end", and he might not have been able to reassure me this time.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Butch.

From James Joyce's  'Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man' to Dylan Thomas' far more appealing (to me) 'Portrait Of The Artist as A Young Dog' to my  'Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Butch'  the  grand tradition of looking inward and backward at the same time continues. Not that I am placing myself anywhere near the grandeur of these 2 literary geniuses but having thieved the core of their title I feel a little connected. Joyce, the alcoholic Dubliner; Thomas, the drunken Welshman; and Posener the half a pint and I'm falling over Londoner - all we're missing is the Scottish representative. Did you know, by the way, that James Joyce had a lifelong fear of dogs, having been attacked by one?

But I digress - I am looking backward - that's for sure. Why is that, I wonder? I hope I'm not boring you with this agonising look at the loss of the very part of my adulthood that should have been my most expansive. When I look back at my 20's and 30's I tend to look back at my 'career'. And it was a pretty fine one - At 21 my one act play about 'coming out' was professionally produced in England, by 29 I had my first solo book of photography published by a major publisher, and my second book at 33. I was hailed as a bright new talent. Suffice it to say that the talent dwindled or I was no longer new - no worries, I learned how to fix cars. And paint houses.

In the 80's I started a postcard business, photographed for major British newspapers, ran community theater venues, managed a women's post punk feminist band that almost made it - more about The Mistakes another time - wrote, directed, acted, and all in all seemed to be having a pretty good time of it. So there you have it, a sort of minor glittering career.

But dammit, I was not happy. And it has always bothered me that in spite of being 'out', in spite of being a visible public spokesperson for the gay & lesbian community, I carried a secret with me, in any event. And now, my frustration bubbles up like a  pent up geyser. I realised recently that I was becoming more and more attracted to women younger than me, but I'm not a goddam predatory older sugar mama. I'm envious, purely and simply of a new supersize confident defiant genderfuck, fuck you sexuality. I love it, and I want to be part of it. I was, to be honest, just out of my time. Shit goddam.

Because, let me tell you, I am not willing to have gone through all the insults, abuse, physical assaults, snide and veiled comments, beer cans being thrown from cars, men flirting with my girlfriends, jokes, innuendo and assorted other shit just so that I can head into middle age feeling as if - contrary to popular belief - I didn't live being true to myself. What a laugh that would be.

But let's clarify - genderfuck is way different from gender reassignment. I never felt anything but a girl. A woman. But what is it about us butches that JoAnn Loulan once described as a 'third gender'. And why is this internal struggle so forceful that we feel  somehow undefined  until that moment when we have a woman - a particular type of woman - with her hand resting on the back of our necks, the woman that lets the world know who we are. It is as if we do not exist until then. Just as she could pass as straight until she is seen with her arm around us. And it is probably something that is completely incomprehensible to the rest of you.

And when I compare notes with others like me - it is usually the same. We look at photos of ourselves - portraits of the artist as a young butch - and shake our heads as we wonder - why, how?

So, as I look, longingly and knowingly at a new generation - remember us who are out of our time - who came of age in what was an explosive revolutionary demand for liberation, but who left some of our deepest needs, our most personal freedoms back in the closet.

 

What joker said aging was OK?

Remember Country Joe and The Fish? Well, just for the sheer hell of it, check out the website for Joe McDonald and enjoy seeing how a radical is ...well, always a radical .... really.

This is a really clumsy lead in to me talking about age. I am really bummed out about heading towards another birthday. And I am not getting any more comfortable with aging. In fact, I'm considering a Hunter S. Thompson exit at 60. I think by 60 I really will have become sick and tired of watching my body not be what I want it to be. And a friend of mine said she's having a garage sale today somewhere in Oakland and her old guns will be on sale. She's joking I think, but you never know.

Before you all reach for your phones to call me in a fury, I am not depressed, but I am not doing the age thing well. It isn't that I want to relive my younger days. I didn't like the 70's on the whole, and wasn't comfortable in my skin, in my being. And I loathed most of the music. Except of course 1978 was the heyday of the Tom Robinson Band whose anthem 'Glad To be Gay' was a pop music revolution all on it's own. Check out Tom's website and look at the lyrics of a quaint ditty called  Right On Sister (written for and about me!).

The 80's started out pretty badly but improved wildly when I hit San Francisco. And of course punk, ska, and the rumblings of electronic music made the 80's palatable. And on another note, I am actually fitter, healthier and stronger than I was ten years ago, so don't start yapping at me about exercise. And I was pretty successful in the 80's so it isn't that I flunked on the fame front.

But I'm coming to understand as I get older that while I was never in the closet - my sexuality was pretty clear at age 10 when I put on one of my father's white shirts and tucked it into my Levis and slicked back my hair with Brylcreem - but I never truly got to experience the identity of my fantasies. Feminist disapproval of an identity I so yearned to live out kept me in another kind of closet.

So now, I look with a mixture of yearning, envy and admiration at the 30 somethings in Whole Foods, with a look so close to my own, but at 20 years younger than me, the brashness to live it - fully and without condemnation from their own peer group. You know what? I'm jealous. And that is bugging the hell out of me. I look at myself in the mirror at this familiar (but thinner) figure with my 501's gently nudging the tops of my black DM's (with yellow stitching) and a Thrasher Magazine T shirt which a younger lover gave me and the look isn't that bad, you know?

But I'm not a 30 something and I wonder sometimes whether my younger compadres look at me and tsk tsk to themselves ' hey it's tough when the 'older' crowd doesn't age gracefully.'

I don't own a business suit, I do not style my hair, I have not worn a dress since I was forced to wear one at boarding school, I NEVER tuck a shirt into my jeans, unless it is underneath something else that is hanging over the top of them, I own more T shirts than anything else, dressing up means watching someone else do it, I don't own silk, I wouldn't be caught dead in a tuxedo at a Bay Area Business Womens event, I virtually live in my Montrails hiking boots when not in my DM's. I don't own a suede jacket with tassels, wouldn't even touch a bolo tie and the idea of putting any kind of wristband, headband or other decorative touch on me would probably give me hives. I used to have one ear pierced ( it was so painful, I couldn't stand the second one getting touched), but I've even stopped wearing my small gold hoop. I would've loved a tattoo or four, but am so pain and needle phobic I'd probably stop them before they had touched me. Geez, I am simply a bloody wuss.

So here's the problem - most women I meet who are closer in age to me have their car radios glued to 'oldies' stations. Don't get me wrong - I can listen to Aretha, James Brown, the occasional Elvis, Four Tops and Ronettes with the best of 'em, and 'My Generation' by The Who is probably one of the greatest anthems ever written, But that was the 60's - it still had character which got lost in a 70's mass of 48 track excess. Those Superbands of my 20's and 30's - give me the bloody creeps. And disco? Please, save me from my own generation. Although, that was me the other day burning a CD that included ..."that's the way, uh uh uh uh, I like it, uh uh uh uh".

So, what am I saying? Who the hell knows. I'm just whining about preferring Green Day to Village People and wishing I hadn't wasted so much time wearing purple overalls and bell bottoms. Oh, God I feel nauseous now, just thinking about it. The 70's just ought to go away, and those of us who had to come of age in them should be able to get those 10 years back.

And don't worry. I'm not being flippant about Hunter Thompson's exit strategy, nor am I considering suicide at all. This is just a blog, I'm just messing around and yes, the colour photo of me is from the 80's. Sweet huh?

Elvis, Rush, GW, Viagra...wow!

Are things going a little wrong for Republicans? First there's the news that family values stalwart, Mr Limbaugh himself is getting unhitched from Marta, and I guess is marrying another Jewish gal. I think that's marriage numero 4 for the man who thinks gay marriage is an abomination. Then he gets caught with Viagra that wasn't prescribed to him. Rush, if you're going to get the rush, be a man and put your own name on the damn bottle.

Then GW has to provide air service to the Japanese Prime Minister who wanted to worship at the shrine of The King in Memphis. And I'm not talking Pharaos in Memphis, Egypt folks.
If Bill Clinton had still been President, there wouldn't have been any need to take PM Koizumi to Graceland. Bill was clearly channeling Elvis from the get go and Koizumi could have had his Presley fix while standing in the middle of the Oval Office. But because GW channels nothing more than money from one overblown corporate structure to the next they had to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars frying up banana and peanut butter sarnies (that's english for sandwiches by the way) on Air Force One all the way to Memphis.
For the ignorant among you - fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches were among the haute cuisine served at Graceland.

Koizumi it seems is a huge fan of The King and serenaded our Prez with a strange version of Love Me Tender' in Elvis' jungle themed playroom. Outside, some Elvis impersonators sang their version of 'Don't Be Cruel' - 'to a whale that's true' in protest against the Japanese habit of slaughtering these endangered giants. And among the protesters and supporters vying for space outside the gates a young man held up a sign which simply read 'Jailhouse Iraq'. It's true, Elvis brings out the best in all of us.
My own favorite Elvis? 'Little Sister don'tcha, little sister don'tcha, don'tcha do what your big sister does'. Someone should remind Jeb the same goes for brothers.