Patrice O’Neal

Patrice O’Neal is one of my teachers.  Only a brilliant artist can finesse political incorrectness these days.  He brought the stuff floating around in your head to light with an undeniable humor and intuition about the way the ugly truth really works in your brain.  His comedy was a relief from the distasteful images burning holes in our brains amidst media pressure to think proper thoughts.  Conversely, in his comedy, there was an implied sensitivity about the subjects that he ridiculed.  It takes mad skills to be able to balance the two.

He didn’t play to the least common denominator, the way that a lot of comedians corralled on these “comedy” specials do.  He talked about unpopular, marginal things, and you’d find yourself nodding involuntarily at them.  Yes, some of his comedy made me cringe — but it was worth it.  You can’t doubt his intelligence.  I found him refreshing.  I’d take him over any politically correct person using all the ‘proper’ lingo, etc., whose actions indicate otherwise.  As a black comic, he didn’t use his comedy as an artless tool to lash out.  I know his comedy wasn’t for everyone.  Too bad.

http://nymag.com/news/features/patrice-oneal-2012-5/

Awkward moments in beauty

I like to think that I’m artfully bummy.  I know how to be stylish though.  “When she does it, she does it right,” someone said.  I do care what I look like.

But people think that their opinion of their own looks is objective.  I’m pretty, or I’m handsome, they say.  Just a form of self love, maybe?  What else could it be when you say, ‘I’m pretty’ like it’s a statement etched on a library façade?  Some of us believe we’re good-looking, and that it’s a cold fact.  I’ve always said that it all depends on who’s looking at me.  Some days I stand out, other days, I blend in.  It’s more important to focus on having personality.  (Hehe — this is what all aging, average-looking people say.)

I had to have personality, a sense of humor, to have taken some of the comments that I’ve gotten.  At this age when a man stares, I think he just wants to rob me, so I’ll take all the compliments I can get.  But I’ve gotten interesting comments throughout the years.

One coworker said that I looked like Pam Grier.  Pam Grier was fine.  I do not look like no Pam Grier.  I know it’s possible for me to look like a woman who has huge tits when I don’t really have any.  But — really?  This person was on psychedelics, obviously.

I unwittingly jumped in front of a woman in Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I got into a confrontation with the woman and her friend — I was young and stupid.  Outside, once I had gotten waaaaay down the hill, one yelled, “Crackhead!  You ugly bitch!”  I wanted to cry but told her that she was a pussy for telling me this standing a block away.

I do have a penchant for the raggedy.  To top it off I was skinny with platinum hair, a nose ring, and had ordered corn on the cob and biscuits in a Kentucky Fried Chicken – I never ate their chicken.  The bitches thought I was broke.  I could see why calling me an ugly crackhead bitch was a convenient insult.

When I wasn’t blonde, my head was shaved.  “I love a bald headed girl,” this guy said as I was leaving a club.  Yay me!  This was a Latin club where the women have mucho hair, so I might say that it was the highest compliment.

Finally my friend’s mother raved about my mother’s beauty.  “Her skin’s like peaches and cream and her hair is beautiful, and she’s soooo tall,” she said.  “But what about Sandee,” my friend said.  “Oh, she’s all right, but her mother…”  When I want to pretend that I don’t care about my looks, I just remember this.  Ouch!

Naked

It’s a racket!  Go ahead — throw money at these people.  They just want you to buy all their stuff.  A fall wardrobe, winter wardrobe – Oh spring’s here, I need a spring jacket–bah!  You can wear that same jacket in spring as in the fall.  I ain’t no slave to consumerism!  It makes no sense to have all these clothes.  Who cares what’s in fashion.  Clothes from 1982 cover your ass the same way in 2012.

Yeah I got thirty year old clothes.  So I know how holes work in clothes.  In shirts, holes start in the arm-pit area.  In pants it’s the crotch.  Crotch holes were in at one time so people thought I was in style — hehehe.  I wear clothes until they fall off.  I just had to throw away my grey shirt.  The holes in the arm pits were so big that the shoulder part wouldn’t stay on.  But I know how to beat the system.  When I wear shirts with holes I put jackets over them so no one sees.  Sometimes I get compliments on my overall look.  These people don’t know I have holes and that gives me the inner titters, like the time I went on an interview wearing a skirt suit with no drawers on.

On occasion I’ll wear a holey shirt straight out in the open.  I’ve been doing holes for years.  Back in the eighties my boss said they called me ‘corporate militant’ behind my back because I wore runny stockings and holes sometimes.  Mme. Weebles will tell you the panty hose industry’s a racket.  Oh wait a minute – oh wow — years ago another boss bought me all these clothes – I know sexist, inappropriate, yeah, yeah – anyway, I thought it was because he liked me but now as I’m typing this, I’m thinking maybe it was because he felt sorry for me.

When I want to, I know how to dress up.  And, when I do it, I do it right.  I have a Persian lamb coat and leather pants that I paid lots of money for.  But I’m no fool.  I made sure to wear those pants every day since I paid so much for them.

My clothes are like old friends.  They know my body better than a one night stand. While I think dressing up can be an art, generally I think getting dressed is a pain in the ass.  I’d rather be naked.  I’m naked now.  My ass by the way is clean.  It’s important to be clean when you wear your clothes a couple of days in a row. Oh yeah, and I change my drawers everyday — when I wear them – AND — I always floss. It’s not cool to wear your clothes everyday and have plaque on your teeth at the same time.

When you don’t like a kid

The Bad Seed

It’s disappointing when you don’t like a kid.  Kids are supposed to represent hope, right?  But not all children are innocent, unassuming and adorable.  Some of them have shitty personalities.

Remember the Bad Seed?  She never got wrinkled, or had a hair out of place and she always said yes sir, no ma’am, please, thank you, and freaky little mature things like ‘how was your day today’ when usually a kid could give a shit.  All this and a penchant for killing people!

I know a kid who reminds me of her a little.  Scary, right?  She asks the right questions and is at your disposal – ‘Can I help you with that Sandee?’  She says to me with that put on voice – get the fuck outta here!  She stands erect and stares me dead in the eyes non-stop which is cool if it’s anchored by sincerity, but with her I feel a challenge, even mockery.

A kid came to the gallery where I work.  Her father asked me a question, and she interrupted him.  ‘What’s a wild garden?”  She says, trying to project maturity.  She stared, demanding.  She twisted her body in a controlled way.  The look on her face was put on.  The exhibition is based on the concept of a wild garden, so I told her what a wild garden was, but she didn’t really care to hear the answer.  She just wanted to assert her existence.  “How old is mommy?” She blurted out to her dad then, peering at me.  He wouldn’t tell her.  “Why?” She asks.  “You have to respect your mother’s wishes,” he said.  “Well how old are you?”  She asked.  “I’m old enough,” he said.  Maybe the kid sucked because her parents hide who they really are from her.

I didn’t like that kid.  But she gave me something to blather on about.  I like most of the kids who visit, even ones who run around like maniacs.  Being a kid doesn’t make you immune to unattractive personality defects.  Usually the kids who come in there make me smile from ear to ear.

Before my sister had her sons, I could give a crap about kids and wanted kids to stay the hell away from me.  My nephews have opened up a new realm of energy for me. I’m receiving energy that I didn’t get before.  It’s like I’m accepting that young and hopeful child in me.

Georgia O’Keefe

 

You shouldn’t wear those earrings here.  At work.

Why?

They look like, clitorises, hanging from your ears, that’s why.

They’re Georgia O’Keefe.

She didn’t make earrings.

Okay Georgia O’Keefish.  A designer based one of her paintings on the design.  I bought them at a street fair.

Well, you just corroborated what I said — she didn’t make earrings.

These earrings just celebrate her – look, look at them.  Want to touch?

They just look… (fondling them).

They look…what?

These earrings are, very provocative.

I can’t help it if you’re getting turned on by my earrings — they’re just pretty peach colored flowers in a pointed oval shape with protruding petals in the middle.  What if they were painted another color, like black?

They’d look like black clitorises then.

Aw c’mon Barry even black women don’t have black pus – I mean black clitorises – well some are darker, but not like pitch black.

How do you know?  You can’t just go by yours.

Okay so now we’re talking about my vagina – at work.

You’re the one who started it.

No.  You are.  You said my earrings look like clitorises.  I’m just wearing pretty pink colored flowers.

Yay!

Somebody wrote a glowing review of my book on the Amazon site!  You can see the review if you click on the book cover at the side here.   In case you were wondering, my Grandma Hattie made the painting that I turned into the book cover.  I told her the name of my book and she giggled.  I read my stories to her.  She’s 90.  She’s my biggest fan.  My sister put effects on it to make it look like that.  Sometimes I use the bare painting as the header for my blog post.  That’s it up there, a portion of it, huge, looming over my whole page.

My Dad said grandma’s work was folk art.  I have three of her paintings hanging on my wall.  One looks, I swear, like Van Gogh.  If you’ve read a number of my posts you might glean that she’s at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale.  It’s a reputable senior home in the posh part of the Bronx (yes, the Bronx!) called Riverdale.  Some of Riverdales’s prominent residents:  Joe Kennedy, Carly Simon and Yvonne DeCarlo.  A lot of rich people live there but I don’t know who they are.  Yvonne DeCarlo was a good actress who played in some good movies in the 4os through the 90s.  But to me she’s always been Lily Munster.

Vagina poem

 

‘twas the last century when I visited one of my dearest friends, Alisha.  Her mother had redecorated.  Though this was long ago in the 1900s, in my mind’s eye, I recall a baroque style with fringes, tassels and tapestry prints; the colors were pinks, mauves, soft burgundys and creams.  The glass lamps were pale pink hues and there was a chaise lounge.  Ooo la la, Paree!  I wanted to stay there forever.  The room had enveloped me.

I went home and wrote a poem about it, a very bad poem (well maybe not that bad).  Another dear friend, Chickie La Loca gave me the incentive to dig it out from a dusty old box of files.  Here it is:

Your room looks like the inside of a vagina

Mauves so warm you

could slip inside an

enveloping leisure

under an overhead

soft tone lamp shaped

like a shell.

Stretch out on the cream

chaise lounge

and breath in a deep

breath so deep;

let it out when

you feel like it,

in a burgundy mist chair…