$pread
05.30.05 (10:58 pm) [edit]$pread is a sexworker's magazine on the business. I had come across an article on it before somewhere in a city paper but I never saw an actual copy until I finally discovered it in a lingerie shop in Park Slope, Bklyn where I stepped into to get some things to be equipped with for my job. I just found out that they were those who rarely carried the magazine, which turned out to have a good range of coverage of the subject matter and it does maintain certainly quite a quality of the writings; I did not really expect this. I bet that I throw this into my 'to prescribe list' along with Bust and Glamour en France. The next issue will have an interview of Michelle Tea, the author of Valencia and Chelsea Whistle and now Rent Girl as a lesbian progressive sexworker.
The last one Rent Girl is her memoir as a former hooker in a graphic novel. The interesting comment Tea made on it and the business is also in the review of the book. Let me quote some from it:
"once I did it I knew I could always do it, survive it, and it is lodged now forever in my most desperate places, a final fall back plan." In a mind-blowingly honest moment, she describes her sometime urge to get back into the biz as a sort of blindness-"I'm older now, smarter and less damaged...and I would forget how much I hate whoring the way an alcoholic foegets how much she hates to get drunk."
...In the end, Michelle does a great job of shedding light on a much undiscussed topic: how far we are wiling to go to feed ourselves, and the mild shock that sex workers often feel upon discovering that there is always another person willing to do the things you find offensive, even impossible.
The latter part indeed paraphrases the whole structure of the current market in the US that is divided into races and nationalities; some are underpriced and assigned to take all the shittiest parts to make livings such as minorities and/or foreigners whereas white American workers have options and still make sufficient livings.
I am going back to the full working gear now that I am off the school finally.
Aging Out
05.27.05 (1:37 am) [edit]This is another phrase, or a terminoogy, to describe certain situation in the context of adoption system. I was working on my very final essay for the political science course that I have taken this semester and got so worked up to discover that I forgot to go in front of TV, which I hardy do recenty by the way, and failed to catch a program that I was looking forward to from a while ago. Oh, how hard I was kicking myself for the disappointment!
The program was actually a documentary film about adoptees in the US;the film follows adopted kids, who got in the system rather later in their lives. It examines how the system works for or destroys them over the course of the development of the reationships they have with their adopted parents and ultimately, the society. Stupid me lost the director's name or the title of the film but I caught the radio show that highlighted the subject of adoption system as negative influences on kids. The freqently talked about subject actually has got only little attention pr changes party because not all people go through the system by themselves. So who gives a damn to kids even their parents did not care? That sort of idea is more prevalent than taking it seriouy and try to do something drastic about it.
The subject that was specificly dealt with in the show was the issue that I mentioned in the beginning: aging out. This is a word that describes the state of kids' growing out of the age that the adoption system is appicable. There was a guest of an actual adopt ee who was deemed as an 'aged out' case for being 21 years old when she was still not ready to go independent. She had her child with her husband when she was still at college. She was a faschinating talker and almost convinced me at first. But when it came to her case, I would end up holding the same opinion as I had at the beginning of the show. Go indepent alone. You can do better without all the trouble the adoption brings to you. Get a scholarship or student loan plus welfare if you want to put yourself through college.
A case like hers calls for some changes of the rule, but mostly change of her dependent mind set or the concept of family institution. Why does she need to stay in the adoption system that involves the design of family when she had nothing to like about. If she only needs certain network that brings funding to her. she can easily find a couple of different fundings she might access. Isn't this another scar she has got the abused childhood that practically let her adopted herself out of her biological family? Since she was deprived so much in the famiy institution, she has developed the fixation. Now she feels desperate to compensate the loss only from it?
The other issue she and the whole show articulated was the phenomenon of adoptees' overflow into the military. The structure is so obvious that we can assume without hearing the statistic and theory. They go the military system because they have no option to support themseves when they are opted off the adoption system. However, the military is no longer an easy place to live off but you really get sent the front and actually a lot of former adoptees are killed or injured the current war. This supports the same old thory; people who have less money get sacrificed sooner. The born underpriveledged go less and less priveledged.
The director of the film that I missed was on the radio show, too. He described what he did, saw, what was gained and what was lost during the shooting process. The whole film was dedicated to one adoptee who he had followed as one of his subjects in it and who actually died on drugs before the film was completed. She was a Mexican American who was born on drug addict parents. She was bounced back and forth among adopted families. Although she was underpreviledged all in her life, she showed conspicuous exellence in the academic field. As the director put it, she was the most likely to succeed among all adoptees he was folowing in the process of filming. What happened to her was that she could not shake off her drug addiction after she started her college with the scholarship she won.
Athough all kids had different backgrounds and different problems, the director describes, there seemed to be a key element for endurance w hen some could survive obstacles and hardships. If they had somebody who cared them, and somebody they care, they showed remarkable strength no matter how hard their lives got.
This show turned into a talk in style as usual. Most callers were formerly adoptees who went through their negative experiences but the amazing was a woman who was going through all the hell of orphan, adoption from a family to another, sexually abused, ran away, got married just to find hersef to be even more abused by the husband, finally saw the guiding light in getting education. Now she was a lawyer, as she described, "I was so angry that I really wanted to change the system." Isn't this really aspiring?
Inner city's teen talk
05.24.05 (11:51 pm) [edit]I often leave radio on when I am in my place with or without doing other things for the main focus. One of my favorite program during the daytime hours i s Teen Talk Radio that is on the air from four to five pm on tuesday and thursday on 91.5 FM in tri-state NY area. The amazing thing about the program is that you actually get to hear lots of different voices that's hardly, or almost never,on the air in the usual broadcasting context. Therefore, this program is outstanding. What the program offers is to have inner cities teens and let them talk about themselves and thier troubles in lives. They have regular members for the show and they graduate after certain period just as a school semester opens and closes. Most kids in the show are minority kids who usually get no attention from the society but negative ones like criminal potential. Subjects they bring up in the show are sometimes too harsh; this is not the MTV fake 'real TV' but real teens nobody had bother with. The triumph of them is the fact that they do voice thier experiences and connect themselves to others. Troubles they discuss are from wide range;drugs, teenage pregnancy, relationships, school, dropping out of school, adoption, gangs, abuse, addiction, self esteem and empoerment material. The kids set topics and themes for each week and organize the show. They often perform skits based on small piece of script written by themselves.
As I happened to run into this show, I literally recognized how little these teens are represented in the society unless being generalized and judged as unnecessary trash, or midly put, undesirable state of human lives. Just one hearing would tell you their voices are something you scacely hear somewhere else, but only in the negative context; gangsta rap or TV drama's troubled teen criminals.
Most kids in the radio show are african americans (or small number of latino/as). Just taking accents of them explains how underrepresented their real presences are in media. Thieir distinvtive accents are never to be broadcasted unless certain label of novelty is attached with proper market strategy.
However, it is only rediculous to try keep on ignoring them when they really are the majority of the inner city life. Whether you like it or not, they are even the representative figures of the inner city teen life. So figure out why they are having suhc a hard time struggling to be heard.
These teens in the show invite mentors everytime according to themes they have for a week. Some are volunteers in many different fields who were in jails and got straight afterwards. Some might be HIV positive people who are coping with the treatment. Others are former homeless who are building thier lives up again. All those real mentors guide those kids and tell stories of what brought them to the trouble and how they got out of them. They are no nonsense because they are all have- been- there- done- that people you can never listen without respect. And I have got to say that there is certain honesty in their voices here you can't find anywhere else. The reason is very simple. This is the part what the mainstream society dismisses, ignores and pretend not to exist. The denail and dismissal is what the society constitues of. But I turn the volume of the radio up and say that you can never say they don't exist after having these kids say what they have in minds. Hear them talk because this is the most honest and trueest part of the society. And these are the most crucial voices that we have to encourage to be heard more. Because the indestructability of human is there we can reach in their remotest voice from what is called 'standard English' that is circulated as the main stream social order.
the sleaziest moment of the t.A.t.y nouveau rich bandit and a woman who was gotten rid of with $500
05.23.05 (10:52 pm) [edit]When you listen to the band of question, НИЧЬЯ （Nichiya）, you might be struck by how it reminds you of t.A.T.y, the very first commercial band launched from Russia and made it world wide. There is no mystery about it; the main member of Nichiya, Lena Kiper, was an original member of the t.A.t.y project who contributed all the hit tunes and the conceptual theme to the whole project (t.A.T.y.). The very problem of Kiper was that she contributed those creative assets that initiated and actualized the project to her then lover Ivan Nikolaevich Shapovalov, the notorious sleaze ball producer of t.A.t.y. Lena Kiper and Ivan Shapovalov were involved as a creative team for the band tatu while they were involved romantically as well.
As a common result of the entertwinded business and romance, they now are mudslinging. Kiper filed a lawsuit against Shapovalov for his ripping off her regarding for the whole tatu project that did not bring any reward or copyright to her after all the success only Shapovalov monopoliz ed. She was actually cut off the whole project of which she composed as the indispensable elemen t when their romance got soured. The total she got for all the contribution was in fact $500.
I hope this case at least serves some good and teaches some moral lesson such as below;
a) don't mix business with sex
b) don't trust a man who is, well, too shady to begin with (yeah, what did you expect, Kiper?)
The rumor says that the reason they broke off was that the scandalization Shapovalov played up to present the two youth as the suggestive borderline kiddy porn did not gain favor with more artistic and uncompromising Kiper.
The flimsy project never exhausts its ultimately scandalous gossip. The bio they presented in the beginning turned out to be total fibbing; Shapovalov was never a child psychologist or never got involved with music business before. The two girls who claimed to be childhood friends that developped into lesbian lovers were actually just hired people randomly by enterprising Shapovalov who had some scheme of 'underage sex' theme to sell out using the notoriety the country had already earned for providing child porn all over the world. This kiddy porn peddler actually puts Malcom McLaren into shame.
There is no doubt or mistake about how much success of tatu project actually owed to Kiper; you can trace and locate the origin of the voice of t.A.T.y actually in Kiper's fiery voice in Nichiya. Kiper's cool but intensely passionate vocal proves tatu was originated nowhere but here in her chilly fire. The saddest thing was that she gaveall her talent away to her then boy friend in the name of love. The title tune Nichiya (nobody's in Russian) was originally written as a tribute to Shapovalov for his birthday gift (oy,vey). This wound have been one of those hit singles of tatu project if two in love would never split.
Now Kiper is struggling to get her bounty of tatu project back from Shapovalov while she is working on her own project Nichiya with, this time, very lackluster band mate Oleg Borshevski. Can we interprete this as a sign of her having learned, at least one lesson? To pick someone less imposing? Before I do wish her luck, though, there are a couple of things that all of us who want to benefit from this moral tale should examine.
Why can't Kiper go solo? It seems, no, not even 'seems' but obvious, that she has got another man who is romantically involved as well as business wise, this time again. She sounds too good and talented to get discouraged by the con man who drew the whole picture of sleaze and shame. I might not the only one, though, who detects some hint of a pattern she's fallen into: the dependency of Kiper as a woman and as an artist. It is such a shame for she has got enough talent to step out of the zone where the majority of Russian women still dwell in;they are very desperate, servile and dependent on men to the extent that they appear goddemn deplorable and pathetic.
I would agree if you suggest that they cannot afford to spare dignity over survival just as anybody in the tough condition. There is nothing surprising to see women offer themselves when they have nothing more to offer.
This is not the characteristic only attributed to women themselves but to Russian men as well; they are as they are as the reactionary state of what Russian men are to them. Remember how Russian men are power hungry as if they try to overcompensate their dignity deprived by the loss in the cold war with the West, precisely w/ the US of A. I can't deny how primitive ideas they still have about women and relationships with them. Doesn't our Ivan fit into this category?
The real struggle of women in Russia is that current law is not necessarily favorable to them. You can scarecely expect to get something when you devorce from a Russian man even when it happens due to HIS fault instead of hers; strangely, the man who cheats get the best part of everything under the current law. They are so eager to set women back to keep them remain helplessn so that women still count on them. Oh, this has begun to sound like an introductory feminis m theory that could go back to Chaucer's days. However, the backwardness and prefeminism-ness that I observe in women's condition in Russia always throws me off and makes me feel queasy.
I was discussing this matter with one of my Russian Jew mates the other day and he laughed it off.
"Ny, you can't just throw some ideas of doctrinal feminism invented&nb sp;here into those starving people and expect some thing similar happen to them. They will even eat the doctrine up by cooking it into something edible," he said.
I knew what he was driving at; the sophistication of any thought is too extravagant for them right now. The spiritual development comes hand in hand with physical back-up/proofs; as a human gradually grows into maturity with involving so many paradoxes and complexities, a society can't develop merely with philosophy. Oh, wasn't that what USSR had proved after the experiment of the whole communism? When people are too busy with struggling, making living or literally surviving to keep one's own body intact, anything more than concrete couldn't mean much.
However, women woud not get anywhere when all they can do is to cling to men just because they are men. Only education can free them from the predicament, if it only happens slowly. They can never count on men to change the society into any better shape for women.
Russian women are extremely dependent, partly because feminism is pending for the social turbulance they have been through. Well, then, what do you attribute the difficulty for certain women to digest and practice feminism in places where most people are more than stuffed, like wealthy Asian countries?
The Trailer for НИЧЬЯ (Nichiya) studies
05.22.05 (6:23 pm) [edit]Messing around with lots of Russian guys in my life, analysing the characteristics of them is always my favorite subject. Therefore, let me throw anther example of them by studying on Nichiya. Now I do get nervous just to put the name here because the last time I got my pc highjacked by the virus, my pc was almost gone. All the trouble my pc went through was attributed to their site or something secondary of it that I hit when on the search for it. Now I am horrified just to remember the nightmare and how easily we can contaminated by spywares that are so tenacious to advertise mailorder brides and sextrades from Russia.
the Positive Coffee project
05.22.05 (10:24 am) [edit]Woke up around nine.
The recent change in my life is, as I mentioned in the earlier entry if you can remember, that I allow myself to make coffee in my place instead of going out and get a cup of coffee in the morning as I had been in last three or more years. The reason that I stayed away from having it in my place before was that I tended to overtake it once I had an easy access to it. So the same logic works to alchol and cigarettes. I had huge addiction and dependency on two of them before. How I kicked the habit of my life was not to have it in my place. So this time, I am challenging myself to see if I can consume coffee reasonably without developing too much addction on it. Just a cup or two a day is the pace that is acceptanble here in my place.
So far I seem to be doing alright. Another positive aspect of this experiment that I have carried out is that this keeps me from buying a cup or two coffee outside and sitting around there forever for nothing. This literally saves me from wasting my time and daydreaming and wasting money as well. A cup of coffee at Starbucks costs two bucks easily. If you have two of them a day, you do the math how much I can save in the long run.
Not in the mood for staying indoor
05.21.05 (11:45 am) [edit]Since the weather is gorgeous, I can hardly sit around and work on things that I have to get done. Defnitely I am supposed to be pressed to do so many things but I have no endurance at this point. I am afraid that I would be out and have today's sun to the last drop by this evening.
no time to eat
05.17.05 (7:19 am) [edit]Woke up around seven. Lingered in bed with my (cat)husband until a quater to eight. Logged on, having a coffee. Now am wondering if I go get something sweet or just get down to the writing that I have to hand in by this evening. I will have an exam after that. Tomorrow I have one research paper to hand in and one small presentation to do in class. Yeah, it is utterly the most hectic time to go through in the semester. On top of it, I have this class to meet for the final; it is such a burden for me given that I've taken it just to meet the demanded schedule but I'd rather not skip or screw up for I am a determined modafucka!
finalment
05.16.05 (12:24 am) [edit]It seems to have got back to normal; now I get to see the HP for this account. I was dying for the frustration that I had no control over!
voltaire, j'ai mal a la tete!
05.14.05 (2:55 pm) [edit]I crawled out of the bed for I have got a ton of reading to get done for next week although I was feeling ultimately bad yet. Now how tough it is to focus even if I am literally holding onto l'Ingenu (sans accent, pardon!).
НИЧ ЬЯ
05.12.05 (6:02 am) [edit]Ever since I put the last entry, it seems that my pc has been totally affected by virus. God damn it! All of them are because of Nichiya! Anything that refers to Russia calls for those porn and mail order brides!
Poli-sci and НИЧЬЯ (Nichiya
05.09.05 (12:37 pm) [edit]Although I have to catch up with reading for this class of political science in French history, I got caught by this article on Nichiya, the Russiantechno duo. A member of the group is formerly a main composer for tAty project and the info that I discovered this afternoon on her was that she was totally ripped off by her then lover Ivan something, the notoriously shady producer of the whole t.A.T.y. Oy. To be continued. I have got to run for now.
Dirty Water
05.08.05 (1:15 pm) [edit]I cried in an instant when I saw the scene where one of four border crossers gulped the water they took from a filthy pool in the desert to quench the thirst they suffered for. He slowly cockes the bottle and the filthy water taken from the pool pours into his mouth. He smiles to say,"It tastes good!"
This was the most concrete image that I ever encountered to desribe the visceral politics between Mexico and USA. In other words, this scene represents the battle of minorities against the visceral politics USA imposes upon us.
Mojados through the night is a movie about four Mexican men who attepmt the border crossing to get inside of US terrtory as facing death in every moments. The biggest and most anticipated trouble is dehydration and hyperthemia; they cross the Texas border by walking the desert area for four days and nights withuot having no access to 'clean' water in a regular meaning. All they can do is to scoop the surfices of filthy pools they can find in the area. Foods they sored in their backpacks go bad and they suffer for chilly nights when they take naps at nights.
This extreme travel only gets them to the extremely exploited labor situation US offers as everybody knows. But they still think it is worth crossing the border, swimming through rivers and walking deserts as drinking the contaminated and bacteria filled water.
This is an ethical question; if there is anybody who dares to do, what makes them do so? And more importantly, can we let thme keep doing it? If any economic prosperity US is previledged is based upon their drinking filthy water, is it ethical to benefit it?
I cried when I saw them the water and smiled because this is not what people are supposed to do. But they do. The dynamics between US and Mexico is best examined here. However, the strong image brings the most important metaphor how much sacrifices we have to make to get by. Not only making our own livings but we, minorities are actually making others livings; the internalized social roles assigned to each racial group is overt. Mexicans keep on drinking water while black males are confined in getthos or jails, female minorities are already assumed as cheap whores, etc, to make the mainstream white's life easier and secure. As they keep on drinking filthy water, so am I. We are literally sacrificing our bodies and health to let those not do the same as us.
The responsibility of the maker's side should also needs to be questioned; if he is really not exploiting and benefitting other's life risking sacrifices. However, just for making the scene accessible to audiences including me, it is not wasting those four's bravery and decency of human lives to seek out a way to live in the extreme condition.
that's what the park named after for
05.07.05 (1:47 pm) [edit]I have been up to my neck school matter but I did not forget about the holocaust memorial day. People actually had a ceremony in the park called Holocaust Memorial park in Sheepshead Bay!
melancholy
05.05.05 (11:06 pm) [edit]The sudden melancholy came over me when I was strolling Brighton Beach shopping mall eating byloginaya(a pastry). How funny my mind worked when I was really supposed to be happy after having all the books and CDs in the Russian book store there.
entries in past
05.02.05 (8:34 pm) [edit]I am thinking of moving out of here because its difficulty of handling past entries. How come they are not accessible even to me?
A tip for survival
05.01.05 (7:09 pm) [edit]1, Don't even try to win over all the people you run into; limit people whom you want be liked and stick to them. Learn to enjoy how to annoy people you don't care and maintain the balance.
2, Talk to more than five different people a day with more than a thounsand words.
3, Have your favorite tunes and books and try to inroduce them to your friends explaining what appeals to you.