When Nazis are in bloom...

Neo-Nazi Gathering photo from www.rickross.com

My stats have been unusually good tonight. When my husband congratulated me on that, I said, "It's Nazis." I don't know why it is, but you can always count on Nazis to be crowd-pleasers for a certain group. As for my faithful readers, I hope they'll put up with me, figuring that Nazis are just a momentary burp of Write and Wrong tastelessness. And if new readers happen along, I should say I don't write about Nazis often, so if you read an older blog and see something else you like, then welcome. But if you're a new reader in hot pursuit of Nazis, go back to Google, kthnxby.

I never understood the Nazi thing. But if I were stupid or, even better, stupid and psychotic, maybe I'd think, Way cool! You get to wear great-looking uniforms, ride motorcycles, and beat the shit out of anyone you want! Plus there's that great salute to Hitler, who's always right and dead besides, so he can't boss anyone around! I also understand that some S&M sickies are attracted to the leather and boots factor, while all sickies everywhere can link their arms in brotherhood and universally agree on the wisdom of killing people you don't like.

There's a website I stop in on every so often; it's for people who have cats that look like Hitler. It's at www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com. Cats that have the forelock and little square moustache are known as kitlers. And while I enjoy looking at kitlers, and realize they didn't ask to look like Hitler, I don't know how I'd feel about having one myself. I guess I'm Naziphobic.

There are worse things to be.

Hate speech...

US Neo-Nazi Party Member. Unattributed 2007

One of the problems in being a Nazi, Neo or otherwise, is that, evidently, you're driven to do things like this to yourself just to stand out. Witness this poor schmuck whose face doodlings are an almost exact match to those junior high notebook covers scrawled by underachievers everywhere.

There's been a lot of chatter around the blogosphere about all the hate speech spouted by La Palin, how it's riled up a group pundits have prissily labeled low-information voters. In thinking how this riling up gets accomplished and what it does to you and me, I ended up where everyone else does when it comes to hate speech: comparing the McCain ticket to Nazis. This is stupid, because McCain and Palin are not Nazis, not even secret ones, and rabble-rousing existed long before Nazis. Still, Nazis are where I landed.

Given my Nazi\hate speech fixation, I decided I needed more research. I've been surfing, and in my travels discovered this chunk of info, courtesy of Wikipedia:

In March 1959, Rockwell formed the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, a name chosen to denote opposition to state ownership of property. In December of that year, the name would be changed to the American Nazi Party, and the headquarters moved to 928 North Randolph Street in Arlington, Virginia.

This refers to George Lincoln Rockwell, who started the American Nazi Party, and, as Wikipedia notes, was subsequently shot in the head by a member of the party.

On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was killed by gunshots while leaving the Econowash laundromat at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center in the 6000 block of Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia.^[17]

The Dominion Hills Shopping Center still stands, and the spot where George Lincoln fell is thoughtfully marked with a freshly painted black swastika on some anniversaries of his death, depending on just how motivated the local Nazis happen to be. Lately, not so much.

I bring up these unriveting excerpts about the American Nazi Party, because George Lincoln Rockwell lived two houses down from my family in Arlington, Virgina in 1959. His arrival was unmarked except for the dented Bondo-body truck he parked at the curb, and the many boxes he lugged down to his basement apartment at the V's, who were looking to make some extra cash by taking in a tenant. Later, he dragged down a printing press and that's how my family got involved.

The V's were nice people, Armenian immigrants who had been in the US a good long while. Pete V. had already earned some admiring nods among our neighbors, after he'd threatened to brain a local wise-guy with a double-ended truck wrench. On this particular night, Mr. and Mrs. V. showed up at our house, looking troubled, wanting to see my father, who the neighbors all agreed was probably the smartest guy around. In times of turmoil, he was consulted on all sorts of matters. And so the V's came knocking.

My memory is that Pete brought some resiny-tasting Armenian liquor as a gift, but I imagine my mother just served coffee. Me, I was crouched at the top of the stairs in my jammies, curious about why the V's were visiting.

The problem was, Mr. V. explained, their new renter. After he had wrestled the printing press downstairs, Mrs. V. became curious about Mr. Rockwell. She had also discovered if she stood on a vent in the floor of the coat closet, she could hear every word coming from the basement. It seems on certain nights, Mr. Rockwell liked to have some guys over to discuss the coming race war, the far-sightedness of beloved Adolph, and the recruiting of more storm troopers.

She found out that they had been meeting at the Economat over on Wilson, before Rockwell rented her apartment. Now that he was in our little neighborhood, he liked it and thought his digs might be just the thing for the American Nazi Party Headquarters. Later, Mrs. V had gone outside and peered in her tenants truck, only to discover the cab was littered with shabby little pamphlets with swastikas on the covers. The V's dilemma was that they wanted him gone, but since he'd paid his rent, they didn't know how to toss him out. Pete mostly wanted to beat the crap out of him which, my father admitted, was tempting.

I don't remember what my father eventually came up with as a plan. His position was that nobody needed to put up with Nazis, especially not in their house. The V's hadn't bargained on his printing press, his meetings, or his storm troopers when they'd rented, so George Lincoln and his ilk could trundle right back to the Economat, and good riddance.

What I remember from that night was the V's great fear and anger, which puzzled me. The moochy-looking guy I'd seen didn't seem capable of stirring up big emotions like that. I knew Nazis were bad, but the man I'd seen didn't look anything like Nazis I saw on TV in old newsreels.

Lincoln was booted out of the V's that week without any protest, and our lives went on.

Eight years later, George Lincoln Rockwell was murdered just outside that Economat, where all his trouble-making first started.

You live by the laundromat, you die by the laundromat.

Don'tcha do it..

Billy Graham Preaching At Earls Court in 1966

Looks like I missed him by a year. I lived at Earls Court in 1965, when my parents were in London. But that's not why I clipped this, nor am I consumed with preachers or their lack. This is about a writing thing. In his blog, my husband has made a few references to my saying that a writer shouldn't lecture his readers.

Yeah. Okay, I said that but only because I couldn't remember what I really said, and still can't. What I meant was that a writer shouldn't lord it over her readers. She shouldn't set herself up as a better-than version of normal humanity. The way I think of this is leaving some white space: giving the reader room to inject himself, herself, themselves into what's being said. A reader needs to stroll around the text, try it on for size, see if it fits and if it doesn't, the reader should feel like he can stay a while, maybe see if the text is ill-fitting but still intriguing. That's what I meant, and I still can't figure out a simple way to say it.

Enough of that.

I've been thinking about the Great Depression. My extended family was in Oklahoma then, and had been since well before statehood. We did not become fruit-pickers in California, nor were we sharecroppers, with our fields and houses buried in a tomb of dust. Instead, we seem to have gone on much as we had. One of my grandfathers was a lawyer, who mostly represented Native Americans, and the other was a wildcatter. The wildcatter grandfather thought the depression had a real bright side, which was cheap labor, and built his house in Tulsa then. My mother suspected she was served horse for dinner several times, but otherwise didn't feel terribly deprived.

Illustration for Main Street, by Grant Wood
1 of 9 drawings 1935-1937

Meanwhile, in 1932, Grant Wood established the artist's colony, Stone City, Iowa, while teaching at the University of Iowa. It's still there, Stone City is and, when I was in school, so were a lot of people who knew Wood and studied with him. One was my faculty advisor, Byron Burford. "If you took a class with Grant Wood, you just about went crazy," Burford used to say. "He made you learn painting the way he thought it was taught in the Renaissance, so you had to grind pigments and all that stuff. But actually, he didn't know much about the technical side of painting. He did a bunch of screwy things like shellacking over the surface and sticking his paintings in a hot oven to dry."

But Wood, like a lot of artists had quit looking to Europe as any kind of art center, and, instead, began to develop a type of aggressively regional art. And, how nicely this brings us full-circle, back to the preachy-stuff. There hasn't been any giant upsurge in the value of depression era art. It's always been seen in the same light as soviet propaganda painting. And it is propaganda since it's also about delivering a big, fat social message that urges the viewer to do something!...generally a something like converging on governments, with pitchforks and torches. Didactic, is what we call art like that.

In my experience, viewers and readers are equal to artists and writers. Both groups gotta make up their own minds.

(Anyway, you can't tell nobody nothin' no how.)

greed is....

If you don't have a greedy friend, I suggest you run to the nearest mall or WalMart right now, and buddy up to someone, preferably a someone with a packed-to-the-rafters shopping cart or a someone tilting under the weight of ten Nordstrom bags. Tip: You'll recognize the uber-greedies because they're also sloshing a 32 oz. soda as they go thundering down the store aisles.

This is not to say that I'm free of greed myself. As my husband would acknowledge, I can mow through a bag of Pepperidge Farm Ginger Man cookies at warp speed. But, as with all sins, there's greed and there's greed. Being friends with a real pig is helpful in setting your personal greed benchmark, just having like that invaluable dirty friend, who hasn't tossed a pizza box since the eighties, can make you think better of your own crappy housekeeping. Plus, you learn things.

Way back when, before it was fashionable to be enormous, I had a huge friend who owned a car, which I didn't, and she was also something of a slob. A three-fer, in other words: greedy, car, slob. She had it all. When I was around her, not only did I have a ride, I felt like a living testament to The Balanced Life.

One day she offered to drop me off at home, but asked if I'd mind stopping by the grocery with her. Not a bit, I said. Going shopping with her turned out to be a transformative experience, as Oprah herself might say. When we meandered down the aisles, she'd give these sudden ::cries:: Oh my God!! she'd yell, look at that ham!!!! Then she'd lift a giant hock out of the meat case, oh so tenderly, and cradle it like an infant, beaming down at where its face might be, if hams had faces. Sweet Lord! she'd holler when we passed the bakery, Looky here!! Cupcakes!! Lemme just grab this box!!! And she'd stare into the clear plastic container like we were at Tiffany's gawking at a 56 caret rose-cut diamond. And on we went, pausing reverently like pilgrims in front of soup displays, blowing air kisses at Sara Lee cakes, tickling cheeses, etc. My intro to food porn.

Some years later, I became semi-friends with a different breed of greedhead. She was very attractive, worked as a graphic designer from her house, had a scandalous marriage in her past, a rotten teenage kid upstairs, and was born dead. On the wall, right next to the front door, there was a proudly framed news account of her lifeless entry into the world and her subsequent revival. She was also the kind of person who would take you hostage without a single qualm. I just need to run by Dillards, she'd say. Come with me. And I would, only to discover one thing leading into another, until I found myself home, finally, at 10 PM, with nothing in the house but a sticky carton of Chinese take-out for dinner.

My friend drove a big black late model Caddie, and bought stuff in quantity. She'd say she needed jeans, but this really meant she needed 24 pairs of them. She'd tell me she just needed a crew neck cotton sweater, and then bought 50 at one swoop. And on we would slog, buying the improbable amounts my pioneer forebears purchased when they drove into town twice a year. Except she did it every weekend: 36 Lady Hathaway shirts, 200 pairs of cotton socks, 15 pairs of Maine Trotter penny loafers, 200 tortoiseshell barrettes. This was fascinating to me in a lot of ways. First, why so much? (Ans. Because she wanted this much.) Second, why was it all the same dull pastel preppy shit? (Ans. Because dull preppy shit was what she wore.) Third, was this mountain of stuff just for her? (Ans. Yes.)

For me, seeing such a monstrous display of piggery bought a bit of self-forgiveness. After watching my pal buy 73 Ralph Lauren hoodies at one whack, my bingeing on drugstore eye shadow didn't seem too terrible.

But here's the deal: my food friend and my clothing friend would have argued until past sundown that they really needed this stuff. And they believed they did.

But don't believe me. Find your own greedy.

'tis a pity...

The Pity Party by John Wos

And a while it's been since last I posted, gentle reader. I've been up to my lightly penciled eyebrows doing accounting things, and writing nada. Still, thoughts have fluttered through the dark caverns in my head on their little bat wings. To remind myself of their fleeting presence, I've been collecting pictures that seemed reflective of my fancies. This glum little number was the best of the barrel after I Googled self-pity and clicked on Images.

The self-pity on my mind was that of the Republican party's hard right wingers. I've been wondering why it's such a favorite emotion in those quarters next, of course, to that crowd-pleaser, vein-popping rage. I'm thinking about this, because I got to see it in full flower on the Rachel Maddow show. One of her announced guests was David Frum, Bush's ex-speech-writer who coined the unfortunate axis of evil phrase, which started the dominoes toppling. He came on the monitor in a big fat sulk, the kind that always made my father chortle, Careful. Don't trip on your lower lip.

After Rachel's first question, which was on the order of, The McCain campaign, WTF with all the racist screaming? David said Rachel had no room to talk about irresponsible speech, and let loose a pissy stream of whine about Rachel's meanness and sarcasm. And Rachel did as she does, listened alertly like a doberman, ears cocked, and then asked why he thought her questions compared with people screaming Kill him! Treason! Off with his head! at the La Palin/McCain goon-fests. David pouted, then mumbled that Rachel had her own show, which was a public forum of sorts, and that, within her very limited arena, she had a duty to be more careful in her speech. (Cue snuffles, quiet sobs)

Watching him quiver and sniffle, I thought, Damn, I've already had you as a boyfriend several times over. Not David Frum, natch, but guys with lots of similarities, and most specifically that brand of drenching self-pity. During that dating period, when I was as close to a Separatist Feminist as I'd ever be, I remember some of my boyfriends screaming about dykey women having the fucking nerve to protest anything when they were sitting on a fortune to begin with. When I'd lash back at this cruel idiocy, they'd melt into a puddle of salty tears, and choke, See? Feminism makes you mean.

The first couple of times it happened, I gaped in amazement and said, You don't really think this cheesy bullshit is going to work, do you? And, yes, they all thought that cheesy bullshit would. Thing is, I was raised to believe this kind of reaction was despicable, and so, in turn, I only became more hard-hearted. This, I think today, was the right and proper response. Watching the Democrats on CNN, these past eight years, I realized they were treating Republican self-pity as though it was a genuine felt emotion rather than a bogus contender. Don't! I'd yell at them from my side of the screen. But they'd soldier on, every self-defeating one of them, making nice and caving in on warrantless surveillance, no SCHIPS for kids, more money for the Iraq mess.

I had a beloved aunt who referred to such gluey manifestations of self-pity as very inexpensive behavior. And now, thinking of her, that's where I'll leave things tonight.

It's good to be back.

Dinners and nightmares...

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.

Richard Hugo, Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

I'm picturing Wall Street today as looking like this pix I found. I think it would be great if it did, if all the traders, hedgers, and short-sellers just had it out, went apeshit on each other. Be helpful in getting rid of all that money-fear.

During a different time, my own forays onto Wall Street made me wonder deeply about humankind. I always landed there around 5 PM, and always seemed to be facing a solid wall of tramping people staring ahead blankly, into some psychic middle ground. If I tripped and fell in front of that advancing horde, I knew I'd wind up a flattened corpse, entirely covered with shoe-prints.

I was first in NYC during a crack in time, between the Beats and the hippies. It was a pretty good time, although we little bohemians didn't have a label for ourselves. We were all artists of some type or other, seeking each other out in the East Village, hanging out in Washington Square, just glad to be together like puppies in a heap.

The title of my post, Dinners and nightmares is the name of a book I happened on that year, by Diane diPrima. She was writing poetry when, outside of some brittle academic types, not too many women were letting it rip. The poems in Dinners are pretty hilarious, describing the kinds of meals you make when you're down to oatmeal, an onion, and maybe a crusty can of tomato sauce and you're not a Nothin-Says-Lovin-Like-Somethin-From-The-Oven gal to begin with. She writes about her innumerable guys, relationships about fifteen minutes long, and casual good/bad/let-it-go sex, with enormous ease about herself. It's a good portrait of life in edge city, which was where most artists lived back then. A time when, as Dylan noted, he once got paid for a gig with a chess piece.

I think a lot of us are going to be rediscovering edge city, and it's not too bad. Hard to believe now, but many of us grew up not expecting to make much money and not caring that we didn't. Voluntary poverty, Michael Harrington called it, in The Other America. What little glittery treasures were we after if not gelt? Raw experience, was one, going to a place few middle-class anglos went to, and so some of us took off for Kathmandu. Another was mouthing off in our liberal mags, often published in someone's apartment, or starting another liberal mag to mouth off in. And some of us were just what we were, like Diane.

Anyway, now that the Golden Calf is melting down, it's going to be innaresting to see what folks will find to do instead. Just putting it out there, but may I suggest attempting the unknown? The artful? Or the heroic?

It sure beats cruising some big box store for a case of macaroni and cheese.

As my wise husband sometimes says, There are higher ways to be.

And I say, hell to the yes. You bet there are.

In dreams, I dream...

The picture I posted is by Henry Fuselli, called The Nightmare, one of several he painted on that theme. He used to be a great favorite of mine. I was very young when I first saw The Nightmare, and it struck me as revealing something profound about women. Now I think it's more about a man's view of women, seen through the cultural dream of his time. And it's still a rip-snorting portrait of a nightmare.

It's 2:30 AM now, or maybe closer to three, and I can't sleep. Partly it's the financial mess, a fine mess built on dreams, illusions, delusions, and lies and fueled on greed. Luckily, I went broke after the tech bubble popped, then slowly, slowly began to crawl out. So I'm spared what so many people are going through: the shock of losing the life you thought you had.

At such times, when I can't sleep, then the megrims and the gremlins come. Nietzsche astutely remarked, With sleeplessness, one is visited by fears one conquered long ago. But tonight's fear is about nothing I've known. It's about the sheer immensity of this crisis, the hugeness of it curling over everything, like a tsunami roaring to shore. And, of course, once a big important fear like that creeps over me, the little ones come scuttling in on its coattails, ready to nibble a night's rest into lace. The one thing these anxieties have in common is that I can't do a thing about them at 3:20 in the morning.

Although it didn't help me tonight, I usually take 5 mgs. of melatonin before bed. If I take an extra half-tablet, I have dreams. They've never been bad ones, only lurid and panoramic, with lots of characters and bright scenery. Last night's was like that, although it dissolved like soap bubbles when I tried to recall it. I remember I rode a donkey, and wore a long skirt of blue-checked coarse cotton. And the guy Henry Paulson picked to administer his bailout billions, Kashkari, appeared as an auto mechanic, smeared with black grease. I recognized his shaved head.

When I'd call her in a panic, always very late, my mother would say, What in the world can you do about it right now? As I'd think about it, I knew she was right: there was absolutely nothing I could do, and I'd toddle off to bed.

Talking one evening with some other women, our chat turned to insomnia, and how it nudged our anxieties awake.

I repeated my mother's question, and mentioned what a comfort it was, when a friend nearby spoke up. My mother said the same damn thing, but I knew what I could do right then. I could drink Diet Dr. Pepper, smoke cigarettes and stay up all night, my girlfriend announced.

As soon as she said that, I thought, She's right! What a great idea!

So now I'm smoking, trying not to grab a Coke, but the dawn's coming fast.