What Would Wendy O. Do?

When I was 12 years old a boy in my 6th grade class, Mike Henle, told me that he could beat me at baseball any time. The rules: he'd get one other boy as a teammate and I could get as many girls as I wanted as teammates. Many days after school, me, Jenny, Lupe, Lydia, and all the other little girls I could round up would be out at K Street park, huffing and puffing, trying our darndest to kick those boys asses.

Mike always won. (He was a really good baseball player, dammit!) Although I was always disappointed, it didn't slow me down. Around the same time, I bought this shirt that said "GIRLS LIB". The i's were dotted with little baseballs. You can't really read it in this picture, but here I am wearing it:

I don't know why but it's ingrained in me. I've always felt this overwhelming urge to fly the feminist flag.

So here we go: I am a woman. I drive a van. I love vans. When on roadtrips in my van my boyfriend and I will switch off behind the wheel, help get each other snacks and both keep the tunes rocking on the stereo. So when I read a recent column in the vanning magazine SLOWLY WE ROLL, pathetically titled "Riding Bitch with the Vanner Babes", I couldn't help but groan and roll my eyes. Even if it was meant to be tongue in cheek, it irritated the fuck out of me. It's been a long time since the 50's chumps! The intro to the column dripped with cringeworthy bits that I found totally demeaning to women.

So to any vanner dudes out there who agree that a "righteous vanner babe riding bitch" should be keeping the "inside of your rig nice", keeping the "drink tray stocked with a cold one" and whose main job is keeping the "tunes cranking" while you are being a "Van Man" I say FUYA!

See you on the road motherfuckers, where I'll be in the driving seat!

--Beth

Where is She Now? The Decline of Penelope Spheeris

I have always thought a DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? would be amazing. I mentioned this to filmmaker Penelope Spheeris when I interviewed her in '98 for Punk Planet magazine. And again when I met her at a Women's film fest in SF in the early 2000s. She always said she would never do a WHERE ARE THEY NOW? for various reasons. One being that the folks from her first two movies thought she made a bunch of $$ off them -- but she didn't. So she didn't think they'd be in another film for her.

Early this year I was thinking about it and decided to make a DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? website. Figured I don't have time or resources to make a movie but I COULD make a killer website and go through each movie and do little head shots with quotes... and links to what people are doing NOW. Thought it would be hilarious. Especially some of those in the Decline #2 The Metal Years who claimed they were GOING to be rock stars and make it big.

So I made the site. Started watching the movies and filling it out.

Then I saw in the paper that Penelope Spheeris was coming to SF to show Suburbia and Decline #3 and do a Q&A. Cool!

I went to the show and met her while she was selling and signing posters in the lobby. Told her about my website I'd started and was immediately met with a very defensive "YOU CAN'T DO THAT." She told me that she is working on a WHERE ARE THEY NOW? movie. WOAH!!! I had NO idea!! I have always wanted to see that so was VERY stoked!! She was not however, stoked on my project. I told her that I'd send her a link and that it was just a website, maybe it would help promote her product. Talked to her daughter a little too, who was also there with her, and is working for her mom now. (Her daughter Anna put together the recent DECLINE box set that just came out.) They told me to send them an email via Penelope's filmmaker website.

So I did.

In the email I sent her links, wrote what I thought was a very nice and heartfelt, genuine email -- expressing my love of her movies. I told her I'd like to continue my site but of course would take it down if she objected as I'd never want to piss her off. Told her it was a labor of love (labor is right, it was a painstakingly time consuming site to fill out) and I wasn't making money off it or anything.

A few weeks later I got an email and letter -- from her lawyer. Telling me to take site down. So I did.

I feel really bummed that after talking to her AND sending the email to her, she (or a fucking assistant) couldn't have just sent me an email back herself and asked me to take it down.

I guess because I considered myself a kindred spirit, not a douchebag.

I am realizing now though that I am not a kindred spirit... because I would not have treated someone like that.

I feel disappointed. Not in having to take the site down, I said I'd do that. But in how she "replied" to me.

Fucking Hollywood. Bleeeech.

--Beth

Here are some screenshots of the website template I made... it was gonna be funny! Was gonna cover everyone who got interviewed in all the Decline movies. 

--Beth

Child Abuse Takes on a Whole New Meaning

Years ago I saw a documentary on Shiloh Pepin, known as the Mermaid Girl. She was born with her legs fused together. A rare condition called sirenomelia. She didn’t have a uterus, a bladder, a large intestine, a vagina or rectum. She had her first kidney transplant when she was two and had more than 150 surgeries in her short lifetime. She fought hard to live, but died at age 10, spending the majority of her time with doctors.

Shiloh was spunky, cute, funny, and full of life. She was also very miserable most of her life and suffered terribly. During the documentary, there is an interview with her mother, who is crying. She said that she knew Shiloh would be born to unthinkable misery (she knew about the condition but decided not to abort). She admits that in selfishness, she wanted to have a baby, and so she did.

I don’t understand why this isn’t child abuse. Yes, Shiloh was extremely lovable and even led an admirable life. But it’s bullshit to make someone suffer so, when it could have been prevented.

When I saw the story online last week about the baby boy born with his brain outside his head, I felt sick. He’s already lasted longer alive than doctors predicted. But what kind of “life” is in store for him? 7-month-old Bentley Yoder is alive and kicking and has undergone surgery to place his brain back into his skull. As with Shiloh, his mother knew what was in store for him but had him anyway. 

Is it really worth it? I say the CONS outweigh the PROS in cases like this. 

Think about it... what if it was YOU who was going to be born with a defect like fused legs or a brain blobbing outside your cranium. If you had a choice, would you CHOOSE life? 

Nah, I didn't think so.

--Beth

(Unless a Navy Seal parachuted out of a helicopter to pluck him from the icy ocean waters during a hurricane) Your dog is NOT a RESCUE

Full confession: I once purchased a puppy at a Beverly Hills pet store. I didn't plan it -- the circumstances involved a husband high on cocaine, a marriage hanging by a thread, and the age old subconscious attempt to save said marriage by "having a baby." This dog turned out to be the love of my life however (RIP, Pablo) so I can't say it was a mistake but I WAS always embarrassed by the question "Where did you get him?" 

I have also had and loved dogs I adopted from the Humane Society. Never once did I refer to them as "Rescue Dogs" and the recent obsession with this classification drives me fucking nuts! Unless you found your dog starving in the woods with one foot caught in a bear trap, you did not rescue him. You wanted a dog so you went out and picked out a dog. Yes, you have done a good thing by choosing your pet from an animal shelter but I guarantee your dog gives you more love, laughter, and life enjoyment than you can give it. When pet owners need to qualify their dogs this way, it says more about their desire for a moral pat on the back than it holds any actual meaning about that pet. 

My wardrobe consists almost entirely of things I buy at thrift stores but I do not say I wear "abandoned clothing." Likewise, my apartment rental is not a "liberated vacancy." And the son my parents adopted at age 5 out of the California welfare system was not a "rescue boy." 

Now stop being so pompous and just enjoy your damn dog!

--Heather

Fuck You Media Scare Tactics

Last night, I woke up in a cold sweat realizing that I had NO IDEA how to escape if someone zip tied my wrists together. But then this appeared in my Facebook feed. Thank god for the internet. I feel so much better now.

Everyone needs to know this:

Here Is How To Escape If Someone Zip Ties Your Wrists. This Is A Life-Saving Technique.

TRENDZIFIED.NET

 --Heather

PICTURE BELOW MAY APPEAR SMALLER THAN IT ACTUALLY IS

I'm not a very traditional gal so it will not surprise you to hear that I do NOT endorse the giving of pre-marriage engagement rings. Besides the negative environmental impacts of the diamond mining industry, I abhor the judgement that comes along with them as women compare size and men go into debt for the cost of the future brides "rock."

But my normal dislike of this practice has been ratcheted to an all time high with the spectacle of Mariah Carey's ridiculous engagement ring from her billionaire husband to be. Price estimates go as high as 10 million dollars. Again, TEN MILLION DOLLARS. Yes, your fiance can afford that ring but why would you possibly want it? How can you seriously wear that (or more often, keep it locked away in your safe) when that much money could literally change the lives of thousands of people? 

Oh, Mariah. Poor, poor Mariah. When I look at that ginormous diamond on your finger, I do not think you are rich in love. I think you are poor in self-esteem. This ring is not a symbol of love and commitment. It is statement of gross consumption and self-absorption. You are not the role model for little girls' romantic dreams.

Romance is your billionaire boyfriend putting a quarter in the machine outside the grocery store and giving you the ring that came out in a little plastic bubble because he was overcome by emotion and knew he just had to propose to you that VERY SECOND. And more romantic is you looking at that ring with love just because it was presented to you by the man you adore and wearing it even though it turned your finger green.

But what do I know? I don't believe in this shit.

-- Heather

I DON'T GIVE A PISS!

“Hey, Pete, I’m out of toilet paper. Will you pass some over?”

“Sure…but don’t ask me for a tampon!” jokes the boy in the toilet stall next to mine.

It was 1987, I was 18 years old, and I lived in a college dorm with unisex bathrooms. We brushed our teeth, emptied our bowels, and washed our hair side by side in a gender blended atmosphere. Bathrobes and towels covered our private bits but real privacy was scarce. And it was all perfectly NORMAL.

Thirty years later, I cannot believe the political attention and moral outrage now being given to the people with whom we will or won't share our public restrooms. My comfort level or lack thereof is the same whether I am in this shared space with a strange man OR an unknown woman. In fact, the less known they are, the less self conscious I feel. Contrary to the intimate bodily functions taking place, this is not an arena for intimacy. 

Going to the bathroom is not a sexual experience (for most of us.) To those who worry about sharing this space with an opposite gender bathroom mate, I say: get over yourself! We go there for a lot of reasons: to pee or puke, wash our hands and wipe our butts, put on make up, take out tampons, smoke cigarettes. Generally speaking, we do NOT go to the bathroom to meet people. 

So stop creating controversy over this simple and daily necessity of life. I have plenty of other stuff to worry about besides who is taking a piss next to me. Like who didn't replace the toilet paper roll!?!

--Heather