Just What I Need

I went out to my usual Indian food haunt a few weeks ago and I met a nice sailor from DLI. After he returned to work I was left with the talkative older man that had been sitting next to him at the bar.

This presumptuous creature proceeded to tell me that I was carrying too much anger and that he could make it go away forever. He also said he could make me "more feminine." You'd have thought I was dressed in men's slacks, sporting a mullet and speaking of my eternal passion for K.D. Lang. Even if I was, that wouldn't mean I was less feminine- just that I worked at a mining camp in the Northern Territory of Canada.

There is nothing quite like having a perfect stranger (and a man no less) tell you that he can make you more "feminine."

I don't know what sort of New Age hogwash he's into but I imagine it involves "healing crystals" and an overly tactile form of chakra alignment.

First of all, I like my anger. It reminds me not to go near certain people or pay heed to them when they start spouting nonsense. It has allowed me to take four years of wanton abuse against my person by the U.S. Coast Guard and channel it into a scathing memoir that will hopefully shame the organization into making several much-needed reforms.

Second, I'm not about to let some man tell me how to behave acceptably within my own gender. I spent my formative years having the Southern Baptist try unsuccessfully to do the same and I have zero tolerance for this sort of thing.

Where does this asshat get off?

Did I saunter up to him and say, "That mala hanging around your neck smacks of a Caucasian desperation to appear enlightened?" No. I didn't. I merely thought it to myself while he was rambling on about "working with me to cure my ills."

Another day, another snake oil salesman.  

Watch Out For Those "Nice Guys"

A recently created Tumblr page called "Nice Guys of OkCupid" drew my attention to a particular flavor of passive aggressive misogyny that tries to pass itself off as something wholesome.

These pages are filled with the musings of self-proclaimed "Nice Guys" who all seem to have a poor command of the English language and a huge sense of entitlement.

What are the habits of a Nice Guy, you ask?

Here are some highlights:

He tells anyone who will listen how nice he is.

He whines about holding the hand of Girl X when she is weeping over some other guy who dumped her or hasn't noticed her existence.

He wonders why, even though he's never said anything directly about it, Girl X just can't read his mind and see that he's the one  it she should be with.

He pretends to listen and be concerned when Girl X is talking, all the while looking for a chance to initiate physical contact.

He thinks that being "nice" entitles him to certain things-like having sex with Girl X at some point.

If Girl X rejects him outright, she turns into a slut, whore or bitch. Also she is stupid.

He lumps millions of "girls" into the same category saying, "they only want to date assholes." He concludes that he should just "become an asshole", not realizing that he already is one.

He has a never-ending supply of self-pity and a serious victim complex.

The parts of this Tumblr page that are particularly disturbing are the ones where the "Nice Guys" respond to the questions OkCupid has given them.

One actually wrote that "A 'No' is just a 'Yes' that needs a little convincing."

Another one answered in the affirmative to the question, "Do you feel there are any circumstances in which a person is obligated to have sex with you?"

Several others said they felt that the man should be the head of the household.

Reasons for the singleness of the "Nice Guy" have never been more clear.

For more classy "Nice Guy" moments visit:

niceguysofokc.tumblr.com

Tommy Triangle: Champion of Percussion

This post, like many I have written in the past on other blogs is largely a bunch of nonsense. There. I've admitted it. Let's get on, shall we?

The NPR and I were headed down the highway the other day when a song from Carmen blasted out from the radio. I was suddenly amused by the persistent tinkling sound of a triangle that I had never heard before. "Listen to that," I said, "Someone is playing the hell out of that triangle!"

From my imagination, I crafted an entire life narrative for a young triangle genius I named "Tommy." 

He had been plucked from Mr. Snerdly's 6th grade band class by a visiting youth orchestra director who declared that he had "perfect timing." 

From there he would be catapulted to International stardom, playing with great orchestras around the world. 

He would stand in the back with the other percussionist, wearing a tuxedo and following through sheet music composed almost entirely of rests until the peak moment came. He would then ding his triangle with uncanny skill. 

The fierceness of his gesture would cause his carefully shellacked hair to fall forward into his eyes and require a strong head toss to settle it back in its original position.

The NPR and I giggle at the thought of this. 

I took my inspiration from the following image that I saw on Failblog a long time ago:

Not all at once ladies.

Happy Holidays Y'all!

I'm not a fan of Christmas- that's why I always try to run away when it comes around. However, there are other festive moments that have been made more delightful by the company of good friends.

Last night I had a party at my place to celebrate the conclusion of my U.S./Mexico Relations class. It was lovely.

My good friend Soleil also invited me and some of our classmates to do Thanksgiving at her house. I love parties where I'm not required to cook.

In a few weeks I'll be in Mexico getting a tan on a white sandy beach. Hope your holidays are nice too.

Two Turntables

I bought myself a couple of early Christmas presents

I got an original Abbey Road album and more modern selections

The sound of vinyl is amazing.

A Word on Cheap Umbrellas

It was raining heavily here the last few days and the NPR made off with my only umbrella so I had to nip down to the pharmacy and buy a new one....along with a small bottle of Tequila (to cure my chest cold.)

They had a selection of small black umbrellas for $9.99 and I bought one.

The cheapest umbrella I've ever bought was in China and it lasted a few days before the fabric separated from metal bits and it started turning itself inside out at the slightest breeze.

This new cheap umbrella was particularly insidious because it inspired a certain confidence in its rain keeping-off capabilities and lulled one into a false sense of security.

There is a seasonal ice rink that opens each year in town and I like to get there early so I can have the ice to myself before other people come out.

In an act of true dedication, I made my way through the dripping city to buy a season pass. It was there that I first experienced the unpleasantness of getting rained on whilst standing under an umbrella.

My umbrella was apparently designed to soak water through to its underside and allow the moisture to collect in large drops that then fall on the unsuspecting user.

After a brief skate on the barely-solid ice I decided to head home. I stopped by a corner market on the way home and pondered dumping my useless umbrella for a new one.

Instead, I bought another small bottle of Tequila (for medicinal purposes) and sulked home in a soaked wool sweater.

Lesson leaned: Cheap umbrellas are worthless. 

The Resume

I thought I would apply for a journalism fellowship being offered by National Public Radio.

One problem keeping me from moving forward with this is the need to update my resume.

As it stands my resume is heavy in two areas: journalism (good) and military action (weird).

A casual perusal would leave one with the impression that I am extremely skilled at shooting at things and writing stories.

With very little stretch of the imagination one might even conclude that I am the perfect candidate to shoot at things and then write a story about it.

I'm sure Guns and Ammo Magazine will be ringing me up any day now....

It's Late and I'm Cynical

I'm writing two research papers on NAFTA at the moment.

One is about the increase in illegal migration from Mexico as a result of the treaty and another is on the economic damages it caused in Mexico, especially to the agricultural sector.

Even after living in Mexico where NAFTA and the word for "Satan" are interchangeable, my knowledge of the treaty was not what it should have been and I am now taking action to change that.

My inspiration came from a huge and very public row I had with my International Econ professor at grad school.

The professor stated that NAFTA wasn't all that bad and that dismissing it as such was irresponsible.

This led me to raise my hand and say that it might not have been that bad for the U.S. but that things had turned out very differently in Mexico.

I stated that I had lived in Mexico during the time when a spike in the price of corn had caused the price of tortillas to skyrocket with devastating results for thousands of poor Mexicans.

I also added that maquiladoras weren't some wonderful cure-all for Mexicans because they were labor intensive and those who couldn't keep up with demand or were injured could be fired and easily replaced. I also pointed out that they had no social safety net to protect them when this happened. (Not to mention that their wages don't provide some sort of stepping stone to a better life).

She answered me by saying, "let me debunk that.." at which point I lost my proverbial shit and replied, "you can't debunk the truth."

Then she decided to throw some Latin at me. "There's a term called ceteris paribus," she began.

"Ceteris paribus," I said, Latin for 'all things being considered equal,' only between Mexico and the U.S. things have never been equal."

She went on to say that without NAFTA, Mexico would have been worse off and suffered from more poverty and that, "Things in Mexico are better now."

At that point I realized that it was futile to stay in the class and that doing so carried the risk of my saying something I might regret later. So I walked out.

This was not the first time I had listened to this particular professor gloss over ugly economic realities.

When I spoke of a town where I used to live that had been devastated by competition from China she dismissed my story by saying there were government programs to help the unemployed.

Only things didn't happen that way and government assistance programs are not a long-term fix.

Her complete unwillingness to accept criticism on economic policies always seemed suspect but her attempt to "debunk" what I had seen first-hand was the final straw.

I marched over to my adviser's officer and spoke with both her and the dean of my school. I told them I was dropping my Econ class and that I refused to take any other classes with someone who was so biased and ignorant. I likened her teaching credibility to someone who claims that the earth is flat. For good measure I threw in a "how dare she" when referencing her attempts to nullify my personal experiences in Mexico.

After my soul-baring experience in that office, I sought out my favorite professor who happens to be Mexican and to have worked with the Mexican government during the drafting and revision of NAFTA.

The results of that conversation were extremely vindicating.

I have written before about the willingness of some of my classmates to accept awful policies and economic practices in the name of "development" or "Capitalism" but I am particularly horrified by this practice in recognized authorities such as economics professors. Especially professors who are teaching future policy makers.

A friend of mine who graduated from Yale law school told me he had seen countless econ students take up the teachings of their econ idols and act as if they were sacred and infallible.

I have seen various economists state over and over again that NAFTA "isn't bad but..."

What is it about this treaty that makes economists first point out its failings and then back peddle like mad to defend it?

I started out writing my  paper on NAFTA-induced migration with an unfurrowed brow and a sense of benign curiosity.

Then something dreadful happened on page four.

After reading a NYT article in which no less than three economist essentially said, "NAFTA isn't bad but..." something in me snapped and the following paragraph was formed:

I am surprised by economists’ repeated defense of NAFTA even while saying things like “NAFTA isn’t bad but… (Insert shortcoming here).” If a trade agreement is being crafted between nations without due diligence then, in my book, it's a bad agreement. I often think there must be some secret pact between economists to never admit to NAFTA failure for fear that it would somehow draw attention to the fact that many of them are nothing more than fortune tellers working with improper assumptions, faulty math, and a complete blindness to human suffering caused in the name of Capitalism. 

Perhaps this sudden nastiness has to do with the lateness of the hour or perhaps the seeds of discontent were sown months ago when a certain economics professor decided to "debunk" the suffering of thousands of Mexicans. 

Who can say really? All I know is that I'm leaving off the paper writing until I've had a good night's sleep.

Post Election Sigh of Relief

So my ovaries have begun to relax again and Operation "Flee to Canada" has been postponed indefinitely.

I did my usual Thursday night gig yesterday but the torrential rains kept some of the more delicate lounge lizards away.

There were two belly dancers performing before I got set up and I was hypnotized by their moves and made sleepy by their undulations.

Lucky for me, I get paid in Chai. Four glass fulls saw me up 'til 3 a.m.

Tonight my school is hosting the final social hour of the semester and an after-party will follow at the same venue as last night. I might drop in. The in-house DJ has become somewhat of a mentor.

Halloween DJ

Finally! An excuse to use my fancy sari!

Set up is a serious affair. 

Here I can be seen faking a double scratch.

Lady DJs

Last night I did a gig at a local club where I met a Moroccan DJ who had just returned from Ibiza.

He said he was excited to find a "girl DJ" and this made me wonder how common female DJs are in general.

I found the following post on a blog called Flavorwire which was lamenting the fact that DJ Mag's list of Top 100 DJs (2011) did not feature one single female. To counter the oversight, they posted "10 Female DJs You Should Know."

My heart is full of joy.

Lynn Vincent is Better Than You

Lynn Vincent talks with God a lot.

I learned this from reading a profile about her in the latest edition of The New Yorker.

I have to say, this magazine really knows how to churn out a good hate read.

There I was, pouring over the self-righteous verbal diarrhea of this Evangelical nitwit and I just couldn't stop turning the pages.

Here's her background: Lynn had a wild mother who was into drugs and free love. She ran away from that life and ended up living in Alabama with a religious relative that made her go to church a lot. Finally, she "came to Jesus" and it changed her life (just not before she indulged in some sex, drugs and rock n' roll.)

She joined the Navy and gained a mentor who was, "A senior chief-a lesbian actually" who really inspired her and got her to polish her boots more.

If you think this awesome lesbian role model made her more sensitive to the plight of gay people, think again!

After writing for an online Christian publication called "World," Lynn eventually got involved in (Holy) ghost writing.

She wrote "The Prodigal Comes Home" with Michael English who got hooked on drugs, cheated on his wife a lot, and then returned to the sweet, sweet, little ten-pound baby Jesus.

She wrote a tale with Ron Hall called "Same Kind of Different" about how Ron, a wealthy art dealer and God-fearing man, strays from the path of righteousness when he meets, "the kind of woman who seems to grow indigenously in California, right alongside the palm trees."

After getting sauced off of some white wine (which I can only assume came from a box) he writes that there was, "a meaningful pause...in the eyes, the sparkle of invitation." (Here we see "woman" as a spritzer-swilling hippie temptress.) And then they fornicated.

 Poor Ron. The experience was so magical that he forgot all about his wife and kids! Doh! Looks like it's time to put Jesus back on speed dial!

Then there was the book she co-wrote with her old buddy Robert Stacey McCain who just happens to be a white supremacist. When Vincent was taken to task by Rachel Maddow on this fact, she became defensive.

"It's all unreal and unfair," she told Ariel Levy of the New Yorker, "I wrote a book with an old college friend who, at some point, six years before we met up again, made some questionable racial remarks to somebody, and I'm supposed to be accountable for that?"

Why can't people just stop persecuting her for helping her racist friend write a factually inaccurate book!?

Here's an excerpt from "Donkey Cons: Sex. Cons, and Corruption in the Democratic Party"

Two Iraqi scientists, newly freed by American forces, in April 2003 went on the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera and said they had watched vandals loot a Tawitha nuclear facility of 200 barrels of milled uranium oxide, or "yellow cake." Or the dozen or so sarin and mustard rounds, 7-pound block of cyanide salt, vial of live botulinum, and 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium recovered by coalition forces.

Media Matters for America explains why this information is false:

Their source for this claim is a 2005 World magazine article. Unmentioned by Vincent and McCain was the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, which determined that the available intelligence did not support the conclusion that Iraq had biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons programs. Nor did they mention the 2004 Iraq Survey Group report, which found that Iraq had dismantled its WMD programs and not made any efforts to reconstitute them prior to the 2003 invasion.

In case you'd like to read more of Lynn's thoughts on abortion as black genocide and gay people as a blight on the earth, mediamatters.org has a pretty good sampling of her writing on the subjects.

The best known ghost writing she's done to date is Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue"- a book Jonathan Raban of the New York Review of Books called, "a four-hundred page paean to virtuous ignorance."

Levy adds that others have called it "a vehicle for score-settling and self-pity."

Lest people think that Vincent has ascended to a higher state of being and can't relate to them, she confesses to having had an abortion when she was sixteen.

While she benefited from this safe and legal procedure at a time when having a child was not right for her, she later regretted it and decided to dust it off and use it as a guilt-inducing tool on other women.

"I didn't regret it until I had my own children," she says, "and when I looked at them and saw what I had done..." (Cue the waterworks.)

But Vincent isn't done. She goes on to elevate the former non-sentient clump of cells to great heights; "If I hadn't done that, there would be a human being. It could have been....who knows? Someone who changed the world."

Or it could have been a high school janitor with poor interpersonal skills. Or a rodeo clown with a shoe fetish. Or the next Ted Bundy. We'll just never know...(Cue the waterworks.)

But Lynn bears up well under her cross and looks on the bright side; "There's no one, I don't think, including people who have killed somebody, who can say to me, 'I've done worse things than you.'"

Because: Manslaughter=Abortion (Just in case you missed her meaning).

Here are some things that irritate Lynn:

"Women will never be equal enough, the environment will never be clean enough, because there are people invested in making a living off these grievances! Where does it stop?"

Lynn goes on to add:

"I can say as a woman who's almost fifty, I've never experienced discrimination."

So, to recap: Lynn makes a living off of writing down the grievances of others and has never been discriminated against which makes her the perfect person to criticize women who have.

Well great. I'm glad no one has even discriminated against good old, God fearing Lynn.

 Now if we could just eradicate the problem for the billion or so women who actually do experience it.... but hey, at least Lynn's doing alright.

Oh, and there were some marital difficulties for Lynn. But (thank the sweet JC) after her husband left her, she decided to forgive him. They took a second honeymoon to Catalina Island which the ever-classy Lynn says was "like going to Cabo without the cartels and the dysentery."

Toward the end of the article, Lynn sends an email to writer Ariel Levy saying, "I've been praying for you since you left here. You may be a nonbeliever, but that doesn't mean that you're not God's child."

I speak smug Christian so let me interpret this message for you:

"Hey Jew! I have been thinking about how you are going to burn in hell someday and I've been praying for your soul. Even though you are a lost heathen you are still basically a human being in my book. God told me to tell you that."

*crescendo of dry heaves*

An Hour of Redemption

I will be one of the DJs at our Halloween Party and I'm looking forward to NOT committing the same errors I did last time:

I will not accidentally press a button on the deck with my boob, thereby silencing the music.

I will not set up the system to load music on one deck only.

I will not mess around with the slow music meant to make one ponder the deeper things in life.

I think I will also bring a small squirt bottle in case any drunk people try to get in my personal space and insist that I play some Hip Hop.

*squirt* *squirt* "Get off the table!" *squirt* "Bad drunkard! Bad!" *squirt*

That should just about cover it.

Bollywood Glamour

The jewelry I ordered from India arrived yesterday and couldn't resist wearing out to dinner with friends.

The sound of my awesomeness makes others difficult to hear.

I love the subtle, understated...oh wait

Snowdon O'Leary Makes His Debut

As promised, here are images of the lawn gnome. 

The students marveled over his mysterious appearance. They nudged each other, pointed and did double takes. Some seemed confused and one asked, "Has that always been there?" A group of Chinese students seemed particularly taken with him and two Danish students whispered about him as if they were standing in front of a religious work of art. 

The most amazing thing is that he stayed in place all day long and was still in his spot when I left school at around 7 p.m.

I think we have a new mascot.

New Music Friday

Let's take it down a notch and experience Porcelain Raft's "Drifting In And Out."

Ever wonder what it would sound like if the lead singer of Mazzy Star started taking Zoloft, dabbling in Electronica and listening to Cure albums?

Just press play:

Answers For Your Favorite Cultural Relativist

If there is one thing I hate in discussions about international human rights violations, it's that one turd who whines that we have to no right to put our Western values on other cultures.

Bam! Conversation over.

Or is it?

 Enter Ann Marie Mayer and her book "Islam and Human Rights." In the text Mayer mainly focuses on Islam but her arguments have wider application.

She starts out by addressing the claim that the West has committed atrocities of its own and is therefore is in no position to judge others:

"If the hypocrisy of the foreign policy of a scholar's home government disqualified that scholar from pursuing study of other societies and cultures, most such study would be barred."

She continues:

"To believe that Islam precludes Orientals from claiming the same rights and freedoms as people in the West is to commit oneself to perpetuating the Orientalist tenet that Islam is a static, uniform system that dominates Oriental society, the coherence and continuity of which should not be imperiled by foreign intrusions such as democratic ideas and human rights."

And further:

"Assertions that governmental resistance to international human rights represents a defense of traditional culture and morality have been made by governmental spokespersons in international conferences in attempts to defend governmental records of human rights violations."

Mayer points out that among scholars and practitioners of Islam there is hardly a consensus on religious interpretation.

Here are three of my favorite quotes:

"As an Argentinean observer of the attitudes of American cultural relativists has noted, their position implies that countries that do not spring from a Western tradition may somehow be excused from complying with the international law of human rights. This elitist theory of human rights holds that human rights are good for the West but not for much of the non-Western world."

"The result is a vague warning against "ethnocentrism," and well-intentioned proposals that are deferential to tyrannical governments and insufficiently concerned with human suffering."

"Because the consequences of elitism is that certain national or ethnic groups are somehow less entitled than others to the enjoyment of human rights, the theory is fundamentally immoral and replete with racist overtones."

How I wish I had read her work when one of my classmates used the "Western values" argument to kill a conversation about female genital mutilation.

Instead I just gave him the stink eye and said, "Oh, please."

Next time Cultural Relativist. Next time.

Vulgar en Verde

My school just added a bunch of too green Astro Turf around some of the trees in one of our common areas. 

For some reason, it just didn't sit well with me. 

Why couldn't we use bark or pebbles? Why must our natural areas wear unnatural ground toupees? 

It's had a strange effect on my fellow students too. 

During the class breaks I found half a dozen or so of them standing on the artificial grass with brows knit, lifting one foot gingerly and setting it down again. They seemed to feel that something was off about the whole affair.

"It's missing something," I said aloud. And then inspiration struck.

I went to several garden and hardware stores yesterday looking for the perfect Astro Turf compliment. 

The helpful assistants showed me all sorts of tasteful rabbits and frogs and the occasional Buddha in repose.

"Do you have anything a little more.....tacky?" I asked. 

They did not. 

This was obviously a job for the internet.

That's where I found this beauty:

He whistles! And in 7 to 10 business days he will be delivered to my house. 

I'm not sure if I want to add more or just let this fellow make a statement by himself. I've considered buying pink flamingos and rainbow colored whirligigs but I don't want to puncture or damage the school's property or do anything that can be construed as vandalism. 

I'm thinking of buying some giant red and white spotted mushrooms and maybe a couple of plastic geese or a light-up frosty the snowman-as long as they are brightly colored and an affront to good taste, I'm game.

I'll be sure to photograph the final oeuvre d'art and post it here.

Character Building: DJ Edition

Oh my, my, my.

What went right on Thursday night? Not much my friend, not much.

I got there around 11:30 so I could get a feel for what the other guys were playing. To my surprise the venue had a dance space. I was expecting to play slower ambient house or chill type background music. I quickly saw that that wouldn't do.

Before I play a set I will sit for hours at home looking for rare remixes and trying to match beats so when I cross fade from one deck to the other there won't be any weird cacophony.

I subscribe to a premium membership through the DJ software company so I can get unlimited downloads like 99-Style by Poka- which is damned near impossible to find anywhere else. I have it on Sound Cloud but the free downloads ran out ages ago and the program isn't set up for mixing.

Anyhoo, I wasn't expecting difficulties with the equipment but that's exactly what I got.

I suppose if you are going to fail as hard as I did, it helps to at least do it in front of friends-people who wish you well and will still speak to you when you see them in class on Monday.

Sigh.

I got all hooked up at about 1:45 a.m. and S helped me get situated. He and I are both still learning how to use the actual deck and spend the majority of our time using the software on our laptops for mixing.

When setting up we accidentally selected the option that only allows you to download one song at a time on one deck. When I tried to add a song to deck B, the song loaded over the one I was already playing on deck A. Awful!

Then the speakers went silent and we could hear the muffled music emanating quietly from some unknown origin. We spent the next few minutes looking all over and trying to find out what button we had hit to make the music go away. At this point A. came over and drunkenly asked if I would play some hip hop. He kept insisting and cajoling. I was panicking over the impending disaster and shooed him away.

The people on the dance floor started to get restless and clear out. We had to figure something out fast. I reset the deck options and S somehow figured out the problem with the speakers. Finally Poka came booming out over the speakers and people started to dance.

"I think we need more practice with this thing," S said, gesturing at the deck.

I agreed.

The song after Poka was slower and a few people left the floor. The song after was also slow and the rest of them cleared out.

The owner of the establishment came over and put his arm around me sympathetically. (Imagine a kinder, gentler, Asian Simon Cowell.) "Sweetheart, do you have any salsa?" he asked.

"I don't!" I wailed.

I called S over and he replaced my laptop with his own. The resulting silence sent the rest of the patrons home which wasn't too surprising since it was pretty near closing time anyway.

I felt so awful.

The kid who won our school DJ contest was there trying to get an idea about what to play at the Halloween party. I drove him home and we talked about the clubs he had gone to back in his native Japan. He said he needed some help compiling music for our party and I promised to help him out.

My friend Ser came over today and told me he thought more people would have voted for me if they had known how pronounce my DJ name.

I had tried to be all clever and chosen the Nahuatl word "Xochitl."

The guy who won was calling himself "DJ Atom."

I think Ser may have a point.

While Ser and I were driving around Fort Ord we discovered a roller rink and I noticed they have a need for a DJ.

I bet I'd have to play a lot of Justin Bieber for tween girls and that's just a step above painting one's face white and pretending to be trapped in an invisible box.

Anyway, here are some tips I've compiled for anyone trying to DJ in a U.S. club:

1. Always have an alcoholic beverage handy. Don't drink it just keep it there so you can blame it on the ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-alcohol if things start going south.

2. Have an easy-to-pronounce DJ name, especially if there is a competition and people will have to write it down to vote for you. (I'm thinking of changing mine to "DJ Hot Mess" or "DJ Technical Difficulties", that way I can say I warned my listeners.)

3. Remember that you are NOT in Europe and all those sweet remixes that would bring 'em to their knees at Club Pacha will probably not go over well with the Americans. Be prepared to play something hideous like that damned G-6 song or something with Chris Brown's punk ass in it. (I refuse to play Chris Brown but there are plenty of auto-tuned substitutes that are equally as awful.)

4. Don't get all "lost in the music" and start doing crazy dance moves around the equipment. You might fall on one of the deck buttons and mute your sound (like I did). It ruins your image of cool indifference if you're too into your own tracks. Head nodding, and some light stepping is okay.

5. Show up early and do a mic and sound check before everyone else gets there.

6. Do NOT hit the Sync button on the same side of the deck where the current song is playing unless you want it to sound like Alvin and Chipmunks just dropped a frantic dance track.

7. Only fiddle with the pitch buttons when you are confident that they won't spell out disaster on a cross fade. Practice at home.

8. Never wear long sleeves to an inside gig. No matter what the weather outside is like, inside is going to feel like a sauna.

I'll add more to the list as my experiences permit. For now though, this ought to be a good start.

Good luck and good night!

Thursday Night Live

I will be DJ-ing at a local venue this Thursday night and the following track will be my opener:

The DJ Experience

Last night I participated in a school DJ competition against four other guys.

 I loved it!

People shouted "turn it up", especially when I played Gangnam Style. One guy made eye contact with me and then started doing the horse riding dance from the video. A group of girls broke out into grins and started bobbing their heads. The Korean students showed explicit approval.

This track seems to be universally liked.

It was great to have my friends there to support me and dance and show their enthusiasm.

Several people came over to where I was mixing to ask what I was playing or just to say they liked my set list.

Ohmygoditwastotallyawesome!

I don't know who won yet, but I even if it wasn't me, I had a great time.

This DJ

Try not to envy my powerful speaker output.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! 

Many of you may not know this but I have been harboring DJ desires for some time now (just check out my wallpaper). 

On the last Friday of every month my grad school hosts a social hour. I've had some interesting times at these events. The first time I showed up not knowing that I was supposed to bring my own cup for the wine. I ended up drinking wine directly from the bottle; girl out of South, South not out of girl, etc. The next time I wore a lengha and a fake nose ring. 

Our usual DJ graduated last semester and the one that replaced him last Friday was okay but he seemed to still be learning the ropes. I contacted our student council president and asked her if I could DJ at our next event. Not only did she approve the idea but it turns out that she was planning to have a competition to choose who will DJ our Halloween party ( an outside gig that actually require "DJ insurance"). 

Well this was all well and good except for the fact that I had never actually used any sort of DJ equipment. Turns out, neither had the other DJ. I ran into him and he told me the school had just purchased the Numark IDJ3. I went home and watched some YouTube tutorials and then made arrangements to check ours out so I could fiddle around with it and fumble my way towards mixing greatness.

The device is light and easy to hook up. It comes with a iPod docking station (which seems to render the deck buttons useless) and software that allows for interface with a laptop. 

I had fun learning how to cue, fade and scratch. This little marvel also allows you to mix, loop and record your own tracks on your iPod. 

There's a lot more for me to learn but I feel confident enough to face my colleagues this Friday whilst blending a playlist and tweaking a nob or two for effect.

My life goal is to have a 20-year career as a diplomat before retiring to Ibiza and becoming a granny DJ. I want to do things old school with Technics turntables, and some dude named Lars to hand me my records. If things get rowdy I'll just go all wide-eyed when the police show up and talk about how in my day, young people knew how to behave.

My iPod Nano gives a subtle shout out to 2008

Labor Day Panty Run

I went out to Big Sur with my daughter and friend Chris on Sunday.

One never knows what to expect from a California beach (weather wise) so I wore some black exercise pants and a thin long sleeved shirt.

After passing through more micro-climates than I care to count we made it down to the beach and the sun actually peeked out from behind the low-hanging clouds.

I decided that I needed some sun on my legs and that my black underwear was just as good as bikini bottoms. I slipped out of the pants.

I ended up chasing a Frisbee around the beach in my skivvies and the world did not grind to a halt.

No pearls were clutched, no children's eyes covered, no little old ladies revived through smelling salts.

I ran around like a wild thing in my underwear. It was awesome.

A Tail of Two Scissors

I went in for a major hair overhaul today.

I always pluck up the courage to grow it out and end up hating the results with every inch of growth.

I went to the lady I've come to trust when it comes to cutting the perfect bob.

So there I was, sitting peacefully and watching my hair come back to life. Ah, bless.

Suddenly, some hulking man stomped in and began making reference to "broken scissors."

I could tell the stylist knew the guy but I didn't understand who he was or, more importantly, why he thought he had the right to bust in and start asking her 50 questions while she was trimming my hair.

He demanded she give him the scissors so he could inspect them.

I didn't like the way he was standing over both of us or the fact that he insisted that the stylist deal with the scissor issue right then and there.

She stopped cutting my hair and meekly handed him another pair of scissors from her drawer. He then proceeded to look over them and claim there was nothing wrong with them.

His proximity to us and continued ordering about of the stylist grated on my last nerve.

He next told her to use them on my hair to see if they worked.

"Is it cutting the hair?" he asked.

At that point I had had enough.

"I don't want my hair experimented on," I said firmly.

My stylist picked up the functioning pair of scissors and resumed my trim.

The man walked away but continued to fiddle with the scissors. Finally he left.

The full story is that he came to my stylist claiming to have just started a scissor sharpening business and because he had been her customer for years, she was happy to try his service.

In the end, he broke her scissors and charged her $50 for his service. She had to buy a brand new pair of scissors for $320.

Somehow word got back to this guy that her scissors were broken.

I guess he though he could just storm into her store and intimidate her into using broken scissors and continuing to do business with him.

The lady told me she didn't want to bad mouth him so she had only told her sister (who also cuts hair at the salon) and the owner of the business so they would know why she didn't want to do further business with him.

Her sister later told her that he had broken her scissors as well.

She wanted to keep the peace so she had told the man "thank you, but I don't want your services anymore."

If I had had some sort of aerosol on my person I would have sprayed it repeatedly into his eyes while shouting "stranger danger!"

I guess it just goes to show why you should always have a small bottle of perfume handy in your purse.

WebQueawry - Searching

Some music for your Labor Day weekend......

U.S. Cotton Dumping Brings Hush Money To Brazil

I have just started my International Economics course at school and our focus this semester will be on trade and finance.

Our professor got things off to an interesting start by recounting a disturbing tale involving U.S. Cotton subsidies, the WTO and Brazil.

You won't believe what happened.

The U.S. heavily subsidizes domestic cotton production even when other crops could be grown more sustainably without subsidies. N.P.R. reports that these subsidies amount to between 1.5 and 4 billion dollars annually.

TIME magazine's Michael Grunwald  had this to say:

"I've previously written that federal farm subsidies are bad fiscal, environmental and agricultural policy; bad water, energy and health policy; and bad foreign policy, to boot. Cotton subsidies are a particularly egregious form of corporate welfare, funneling about $3 billion a year to fewer than 20,000 planters who tend to use inordinate amounts of water, energy and pesticides. But the World Trade Organization (WTO) doesn't prohibit dumb subsidies. It only prohibits subsidies that distort trade and hurt farmers in other countries."


The U.S. dumps this cheap cotton into the market and drives down its price making it difficult for subsistence farmers in places Mali, Benin, Chad and Burkina Faso to enter the market competitively and pull themselves out of poverty.

Back in 2002, Pedro Camargo, Brazil's Secretary of Trade in the Agriculture Department, decided to file a complaint against the U.S. with the World Trade Organization on grounds that it was distorting trade.

The WTO sided with Brazil.

Always being one to set the example in global leadership, America ignored the ruling.

Former Florida Congressmen and retired WTO judge Jim Bacchus made this erudite statement: "The WTO has no legal authority to make any sovereign country do anything. It has no police force; it has no black helicopters."

In other words, the U.S. will go on being a petulant child and denying the legitimacy of international organizations that try to curb its power. (See also the "International Criminal Court" and "United Nations.")

But Brazil wasn't done with us yet. The WTO allows the winning party to tax imports from the offending country and that's exactly what was threatened.

Brazil contacted powerful businesses in the U.S. and warned them that heavy import taxes would go into effect within a month. Lobbyist for the businesses went into overdrive and the U.S. capitulated in the end.

According to NPR:

"The American negotiators sat down in Brazil and immediately declared it impossible to get rid of the cotton subsidies right away. But the two sides came to an agreement. The U.S. would pay Brazilian cotton farmers $147 million a year, and Brazil would drop the threat of retaliation."

From where I'm standing this looks a hell of a lot like a bribe.

"Maybe it's a bribe," Pedro Camargo told the reporter from NPR. "For Brazilian farmers, its' a lot of money."

So to sum up, we are still spending billions on domestic cotton subsidies, we pay millions to Brazil annually so it will keep its trap shut and farmers in West Africa are still struggling with poverty.

Hurrah for free trade, globalism, rational actors in the market, etc.

Darth Vader, Father of the Year

Whilst searching for an appropriate birthday present for a two-year-old, I came across the book "Darth Vader and Son" by Jeffrey Brown. 

Brown's delightful drawings feature Pa Vader trying his best to balance his Work-life responsibilities as parent to son Luke and lead oppressor of the rebels of the Empire.

I Hate Gaspar Noe

I derived this opinion from the obscene pedophile video he made for SebastiAn's "Love in Motion."

It was my original intent to post the song to my blog but after seeing the piece of sickening trash that passes for the official video, I refuse.

The video features a scantily clad, prepubescent child wearing devil horns and streaky mascara writhing around on her bed and the floor of her teddy-bear filled room.

Where were her parents? I don't know how they do things in the Netherlands (where the child is from) but this sort of thing would have Child Protective Services on your doorstep double quick in the States.

Gaspar makes disturbing films and tries to pass them off as "art." I don't really care what sort of drug-fueled shock and awe garbage he wants to make with adult actors but he should could be kept far away from children.

Seriously, why hasn't this vile wannabe Terry Richardson been arrested for this hideous monstrosity?

Hide. Your. Children.

Oh, Dear Lord!

It happened one night in Borja! 

At left, the original painting "Ecce Homo" by Elias Garcia Martinez painted on the wall of the church Santuario de Misericordia in Borja, Spain. 

At right, the down-home restoration efforts of what one official calls, "a neighboring octogenarian who acted spontaneously and without asking anyone's permission, although she meant well." 

Max Read of Gawker writes:

A couple of weeks ago, the Centro de Estudios Borjanos in Borja, Spain, received a donation from the granddaughter of 19th-century painter Elías García Martínez. The image on right is how it looked when the Centro went to check it out on August 6th after receiving the donation.Hmm.

There is plenty of opportunity here for a mature, sophisticated dialogue over the destruction of religious art however, after spending the last hour in hysterics, laughing until I wept, I think it best to to keep myself out of such discussions.

The commentary on El Pais' website was highly entertaining but one remark really hit home for me:

"Parece el cristo de alfa-centauro"                         ~ Francisco Javier Navarro  

(It looks like the Christ of Alpha Centauri)

Young Mathijsen Learns His Lesson

Let's watch as Tobias Mathijsen's 15-year-old brother learns a quick lesson about revenge.

Here we see him going through a series of emotions: shock, denial and finally, acceptance.

Oh Nee!

Paul Ryan, My Womb Would Like A Word

Dear Paul,

I need to have a word with you about your seemingly unhealthy obsession with my womb and what goes on inside it.

First, I would just like to point out that your Libertarian street cred and claims to be against government overreach into citizen's private lives goes right out the window when you start trying to legislate what certain private citizens (i.e. women) can and can't do with their reproductive organs.

It's also hard to believe that you really want to limit the power of the federal government when you have signed on as potential "first in line to the throne" should Mittens actually be chosen as the next president.

I often wonder why the people who whine the loudest about "big government" are usually running for a position within it. I'll save those musings for another post.

Anyway, lets get back to my ladybits. You've made it obvious that you see social programs as unsustainable and crippling to the economy.

Yes, I know you're legit. You worked at McDonald's once and eventually managed to become a millionaire (through marriage). If you as a white male with no uterus to speak of can do it, why not the rest of us? Amiright?

As a woman who bore a child at the tender age of 19 and had to raise that child alone, with no physical or financial help from the father, I can vouch for the saving grace of government assistance.

It was the very same social programs that you want to cut that helped me and my child to survive.

I don't know how you think young women with no higher education or life skills can make ends meet without some sort of societal support, but I would love to hear about your plan to "magic" their problems away.

Seriously, I would love to know how you plan to make minimum wage, unskilled labor jobs sufficient enough to cover the cost of rent, daycare, food, clothing and health insurance.

Because the real hard work for women begins not when she is carrying a non- cognizant, non-feeling, non-viable cluster of rapidly dividing cells, but instead when she gives birth.

Suddenly she is faced with the fact that she is unprepared financially, educationally and, in many cases, emotionally for the demands of motherhood. Single motherhood is a particularly cruel process as a woman has to bear the burden of meeting all the needs of two people while barely earning enough for one.

Perhaps you and Mittens have set up a fund to support the children you claim to care so much about? No? Well color me surprised.

I've also noticed that your tax plan would place a larger burden on those who can least afford it. Taxing the plebeians in this way will force them to tighten their belts and panic over how to pay for the basics of everyday life.

Taxing million or billionaires a little more would, at worst, force them to change to a cheaper brand of feed for their polo ponies and perhaps dismiss three of their five pool boys.

I think somehow progress and innovation would not grind to a halt if this were to occur.

I'll end this post with a quote from your favorite heroine, Ayn Rand:

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Watch It Ginger!

This is the cover for the forthcoming album from the Irish band "Two Door Cinema Club."

I must give in to my baser command of English when I pose this sincere question: What the shit is this shit? 

You have a band made up of three, seemingly non-threatening waif types who write fantastic music that you can listen to over and over again and this is what gets put on the cover of their sophomore album? 

Is this what happens when you transfer pasty lads from the Emerald Isle to the rough streets of L.A. for a recording session? 

I guess the misogyny smog just floats in through a window and gets into everyone's brains.

The lead singer, a sweater-wearing ginger named Alex Trimble has an innocent baby face and his voice makes me imagine that he has a passion for trees and Hush Puppies loafers. He seems like the type who would bring you daisies from a field and ask politely if he could give you a peck on the cheek. 

What the hell were you thinking Trimble? 

This doesn't make the band look cool by the way, it makes them look like a group of douche canoes headed for Douchebag falls.

It's like they wanted to prove that they can, in fact, "get girls" but then they don't know what to do with them so they stick them through the ceiling and wire their crotches for electrical current.

Here we have a hanging vagina lamp and inexplicably, the album is called "Beacon." 

Why? 

Is the light from the glowing hooha there to draw in nerds like little moths and then zap them? 

To me it just looks like a woman being reduced to her reproductive parts and used as decoration. 

And then it gets worse:

This is the image for the single "Sleep Alone."

A woman bound and almost naked on the floor.

To me it looks like she is a powerless victim who might be facing all sorts of horrors, like rape.

I find this image repugnant and said as much in an email to the company that handles the band's U.S. press.

I don't know what the flip these guys were thinking but I hope there's a public outcry and they are compelled to do away with these images.

Until then, I won't be buying any more of the band's music.

Development and the Privileged Class

I am currently in a graduate studies program. My degree concentration is in International Policy and Conflict Resolution.

The amazing thing about my school is that the majority of the student body is international. In addition to getting an education from the publications and professors, my classmates often have first-hand experiences in a region we are a studying.

I have learned about the Arab Spring from a Cairene who was in Tahrir Square when the revolution began. My close friend from Angola has taught me about the down side of foreign direct investment in his country when coupled with government corruption. My friend from Palestine had two of his brothers murdered by IDF soldiers and he still desires peace with the Israelis.

These students have made my educational experience that much richer.

The cost of my private institution means that the students, no matter their home country, usually come from a privileged background. Unfortunately, many of them are lacking insight into "how the other half lives." This isn't always the case but there is an undercurrent of elitism that remains in the classroom.

One need not have lived in abject poverty in order desire its eradication or to have a modicum of compassion. However, a life of relative ease coupled with youth and inexperience sometimes causes a frightening lack of concern for vulnerable and exploited populations.

This might be merely unfortunate in a student of finance or business but with students of public policy (who will very likely be crafting policy in the future) it is appalling.

I have heard fellow students make excuses for development models that devastate local populations by forcing them into a life of abject poverty and servitude.

"Well, at least the sweatshop gives these women a option other than prostitution," they might say.

The false dilemma seems to be a popular go-to fallacy.

Today, our instructor asked if it was fair for the economic system to assume that because no one was being forced to work in a sweatshop, that they had entered into that job freely, that that made it okay.

Remarkably, some people seemed to think that this sort of work was better than "nothing."

We watched a video on women in Bangladesh who work for 12-14 hours a day for 8 cents an hour in the smothering heat of a factory overseen by men who may hit them when they "slack off."

I'd like to think some of my classmates rethought their original positions after that.

Some of them still reasoned that wage increase would fuel mass unemployment, drive businesses to other markets or kill innovation and investment.

Happily, none of them seemed to object to having a fan installed in the factory to circulate the stifling air- so I guess there's that.

I will now insult the reader's intelligence by pointing out that the people thinking this way are the ones who will always profit from the situation. Neither they or anyone they know personally will ever have to work in these conditions.

Noticeably absent from our debate were any actual sweatshop workers. I assume if they had been present they wouldn't have shocked me by confessing to an enjoyment of being abused and shat on by powerful foreign multinational corporations.

Sweatshops do not empower future generations or allow for the formation of a middle class. They keep people in a constant and lasting state of poverty.

Heaven forbid one of these workers should become incapacitated and unable to ever work again. There is no health coverage or unemployment program to take care of ill and injured. There are also countless workers to replace the ones that have been rendered "useless."

The lack of ethical conviction in some of my fellow students kills me.

So many people are willing to shrug and say that some sacrifice is necessary for capitalism to thrive. As long as said sacrifice stays abstract and doesn't hit too close to home, it's perfectly acceptable.

Soon the Fall semester will begin and a whole new crop of students will appear. Some of them will continue to embrace and defend the same tropes that have allowed for some of the worst abuses against our fellow human beings.

Inevitably, several of them will try to get away with this sort of crap in one of my classes.

Heaven help them.