Stop Slut-Shaming Bristol Palin

Recently, two children of affluent families of conservative values have have found themselves in the media spotlight for unintended reasons.  First you have Josh Duggar, who had been investigated as a teen for molesting five underage girls – four of whom were his sisters.  Next you had Bristol Palin, an abstinence only spokesperson announcing last week that she is expecting a child her second child out of wedlock.

Once the Josh Duggar incest molestation scandal broke the word hypocrisy was thrown about, and rightly so. The Duggars covered it up for a year, reluctantly involved to the police and ran for senate on a campaign that incest should be punishable by death.  They also actively campaigned against equal rights for Transgenders using the war-cry: “Think of the children.”

Now that news has broke that Bristol Palin is pregnant again, it is fine to use the word hypocrite once more. After all what mental gymnastics, and cognitive dissonance are required to be a highly paid spokesperson for Saving It For Jesus or what-the-hell-ever while being sexually active.  I suppose it’s possible she has only had sex two times and is one of the most fertile woman in the world.

To be sure, when you put yourself so high above others, but don’t practice what you preach, your fall is that much harder.  If this had happen to Sasha or Malia Obama, you can bet that the Right-Wing Zealots would be accusing the Obamas of being terrible, horrible parents.

What isn’t cool is how so much of the criticism and humor boil down to Slut Shaming.  She opens herself to jokes due to her “abstinence only” approaches to sex education that eschew birth control.  So it’s perfectly fair to make a comment like “I don’t think that is how abstinence is supposed to work.”  But saying things like how she can’t keep her pants on are not only factually precarious but just plain mean.

Let’s not forget that the women in the act that took two is the only one called to the carpet and receiving all of the abuse.

What Josh Duggar and his parents did was illegal, not to mention immoral and just plan wrong on so many levels.  But having consensual sex and getting pregnant, is not against the law.  So please don’t bash Bristol for being sexually active.  Bash her for not acknowledging the hypocrisy of being paid large sums of money to lecture about abstinence and then intentionally getting pregnant out of wedlock.

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Group Dance Lessons: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

About a decade ago, as part of a New Year’s Resolution, I decided to take professional dance lessons.  I found a Studio near my home and a beginner’s group class that fit right into my schedule.

Dancing for Every Occasion: A special overview program that introduces you to 8 dances: Waltz, Rumba, Foxtrot, Swing, Salsa, Tango, Merengue and Cha Cha. The basic patterns of the listed dances are covered.

Dancing has never been my strong suit so I didn’t expect to be on the next season of Dancing with the Stars or even to become a great dancer.  I simply wanted to be able to improve my rhythm-challenged white-boy dancing style which needs all the help it can get.

The ratio of girls to guys was about 3:1. That’s not really a good thing, as I’ll explain in a minute. The age range is anything from a few high school girls (or at least that’s how young they look) to middle age men and women, and everything in between. For the record, I wasn’t there to meet anyone, I was there to learn some much needed dance moves. No, Really.

The Good
The instructor, Christa, is very patient. She breaks the dance down and steps through it as many times as necessary. Each week we learned a different style, which builds on what we learned the previous week. For example, Week1 we learned a Waltz and in Week2 we learned some Rumba, which built off the same 3-step box, but adds a fourth step or a pause and in a room full of beginners, hilarity ensued.

The format is generally the same each week. First Christa divides the men and women to separate side of the room.  Then she demonstrates the dance routine, first the guy’s part, then the ladies. Then she has the guys line up and then has the women pair up, placing the extra women in-between pairs. We do the routine, then we rotate so that the unpaired ladies get to be partnered next. If only life worked that way!

Because there is such a difference in the number of guys to girls, the instructor is forced to rotate partners as quickly as possible so that everyone gets a chance to practice the dance with a partner. After all, everyone paid the same price for the same lesson. She could pair up girl with girl but that defeats the purpose since most dances are designed for the guy to lead (sorry ladies).

The Bad
It takes about one cycle or attempt at a dance routine to get it down and each time you switch partners, you have to adjust to each other’s level. Theoretically, if we all know the same dance, it shouldn’t matter, but if we could dance, we wouldn’t be in a beginner’s class in the first place.

Photo by Tyro Photos

The Ugly
Whenever Christa wants to demo a new move, she has us go back to the boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. We do this EVERYTIME she teaches a new step or routine. And each time, the guys seem to be challenged on how to form two or three rows (I guess gym class was so tragic for everyone it’s been blocked out of our memory). So that’s precious time off the clock because Christa has to explain to the guys up front how to form a straight line.

Then Christa will say find yourself a partner. Some people have come here with partners (read: significant others) and while that’s all well and fine, they act like we’re in junior high instead of an adult dance class. The guys kinda look at their girls like “get over here, don’t make me dance with a stranger.” Which means the women have to find their boyfriends/fiancées/husbands/whatever in a crowd while other women bump into them trying to just get a partner so they can learn the freakin dance.

Here’s The Thing: we rotate partners in 30 seconds or so. Towards the end of  class, most people finally figured this out and the transitions went faster and smoother. Unfortunately, after an entire week goes by, we have to re-learn this newfound skill.

The Really Ugly
Remember what I said about guy-to-girl ratio and all that wasted time getting realigned?  One particular week the studio “invited” this Singles Adventure Group to audit the class.  So now you have twice as many people including first time students who are not familiar with the class format of lining up and rotating partners.  Needless to say I did not sign up for future lessons.

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Father’s Day never meant much to me

Father’s Day never really meant much to me, especially when I was a child.  I have a few memories of my dad, none of them very good. My dad was an Absent Father, which is the politically correct term for not wanting to have Any-Fucking-Thing  to do with his offspring. One time when I was six or seven, I was eating a hamburger and I put ketchup on it, and I licked the extra ketchup off the cover.  Yes that is gross but I was six.  My dad decided to teach me a lesson so he spit on my plate and told me to lick that.*  Did I mention that I was six!

*I’m not looking for sympathy because everyone has their own ghost stories. And I have no reason to believe my ghost stories are worse than yours. We live in a fucked-up world, this is just for context.

One year I did give my mom a Father’s Day Card as a statement that she filled in the at that position but otherwise, it has always just been something in the background.  I’d see a Father’s Day commercial for a sale on tools or tires and I’d think I have to buy a power drill anyway, why not save some dough.

In fact the biggest significant Father’s Day has had until recently was when friends had to decline invitations to get together that weekend because of Father’s Day.  Even though they were the one with the father, they seemed to act like they were going to the dentist instead of spending time with a loved one.

As Walter Michka of Open Heart Blog points out:

“My Facebook news feed fills up around this time with posts about fathers. Grainy photos a skinny, smiling young men. Maybe they’re in uniform or holding the person who posted it when they were a baby. The captions with the pictures wax poetic about how these men were their rock, their inspiration. How their dad read Little Women to them at bedtime. How they miss their dads now that they’re gone and on and on.”  —Thinking of Dad on Father’s Day

So after four decades of never really giving a Flying Fuck about Father’s Day, I suddenly am a dad and the hallmark holiday is supposed to mean something.  Confession: Last year  I bought myself a 65″ Smart TV that was dirt cheap on a Pre-Father’s Day sale.

So while I am now legitimately part of the Dad’s Club, I am still more  concerned with how  to raise  socially-conscious children with beautiful manners and high self-esteem while Keeping Up with the Kardashians is still out there.  Or at the very least, be the kind of father my kids don’t eventually grow up to hate.

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Gun Culture Reform: Time for a Serious Discussion

By now you have heard about The Shooting at The Place where So Many innocent and defenseless bystanders were slaughtered like lambs.  Of course I’m talking about what is now called the  #CharlestonShooting on social media.  But since this post has been sitting in my drafts folder since The Dark Knight Rises Midnight Massacre in 2012, I can be talking about any of the senseless gun massacres that have occurred within the last decade or the next one around the corner.

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times… at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.” – President Obama

A few weeks ago everyone was arguing what the definition of Hero was.  Now they are debating what constitutes Terrorism.  Over the next few days and weeks, this tragic event will be politicized and exploited in a zillion different ways. It will be used to argue various agendas and advance specific narratives.  I’m cynical enough to know that we won’t resist the urge to engage in that pettiness, but not so jaded that I still don’t hope this time will be different somehow.  That something inside of us will say enough with the excuses and the finger pointing and the spin doctoring and everyone will instead demand we fix the problems instead of the dictionary.

I’m not here to give concrete solutions about the gun problem our world faces because I don’t have any.  That is going to take a conversation between much smarter people than I.  I don’t know nearly enough about every aspect but I am constantly reading up.  Addressing this topic right now feels like it would be sticking my head into a hive of angry hornets and why would I want to do that?

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Here are some things We ALL must stop doing before we can have any hope at all of creating a solution.

Stop Stereotyping the Sides
I’ve shot guns on more than a few occasions and I use to have a FOID card.  And I’m pissed that the City of Chicago spent all that money fighting a losing battle in court to try and prevent guns in the city. That said, I’d prefer there be no guns at all and truthfully, less of the other ways for one tribe of humans to annihilate another tribe (bombs, bazookas and drones).

Not everyone who owns a gun is a closed minded racist inbred bigot who feels that the government ought to stay out of its business.  Not everyone who is for reasonable gun reform is a liberal pansy who feels that guns are evil and should only be used by the police and military.  Stop alienating gun aficionados by referring to them as “gun nuts.”

Stop telling Ghost Stories around the camp fire
I believe people who argue that defensive uses never save lives are being just as disingenuous as those who claim that guns don’t increase the death rate. There are tons of stories of a child who finds Daddy’s gun and shoots their little brother.  But there are also anecdotes of people who used a gun to safely defend themselves.  You can find examples of both  ad nauseam.

(photo courtesy of Jenny Addison)
This is such a heavy subject I really need some innocent cuteness to get through it

Stop putting all gun related violence into the same bucket
As it turns out, big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.

“In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows. The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media’s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR-15, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle. This, in turn, obscures some grim truths about who is really dying from gunshots.”   The Assault Weapon Myth

Its interesting that when it is an inner city neighborhood escalation it is called “cultural propensity toward violence and retribution.” and when it is higher income suburbia, it’s just road rage.

Stop having fun with words where Guns are concerned
Politicians want to get elected and re-elected so they do the automatic weapons ban dance.  They come down hard on banning “assault rifles” or “automatic weapons” but here’s the thing.  What is an assault weapon?  As opposed to a blend in and not offend anyone weapon?  Other than revolvers all guns are automatic in that you can reload them quickly.  The distinction is really between fully automatic weapons (which have been banned for ages) and semi-automatic which essentially means you have to wait a precious two or three seconds before you can fire another round!

True Automatic Rifles are a small subset of the type of guns that are out there.  It’s like fighting the war against second hand smoke by banning pipes but allowing cigars and cigarettes in your non-smoking section.

What I’m trying to say, is that the arguments above and others meaningless ones are just distractions and always seem to stop the conversation from even beginning.   Until we actually have a discussion about what is and isn’t an acceptable role for guns in our society, we  are doomed to continue the Litany of Tragedies:

• Sandy Hook,
• the moviegoers of Aurora, Colo.,
• the children of Newtown,
• the Charlestown Shooting,
• Orlando (updated)
• Las Vegas (updated)
• [insert next tragedy here]

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Why I hate small talk

Of course I’d love to here about your Civil War miniatures…somebody please kill me now!
(Photo by David Goehring)

I really hate small talk.  It’s usually superficial observations or comments on what is perfectly obvious.  I get that it serves a purpose in social situations like conversation openers, silence
breakers and even a way to begin the process of bonding.

There are two ways to think of Small Talk.  One way is to accept that you are going to be stuck with the other person for some length of time and you might as well make the best of it.  You talk about unimportant safe subjects that won’t offend anyone or reveal any significant secrets.

The other way is to view small talk as a tennis game of phatic talk until a more substantial subject arises.

Them:  Isn’t this great weather?
me (playing along):  Yes though it’s unusually warm for this time of year.

Them:  So what do you do for fun?
me (finally something fun):  I run marathons and stalk real estate.

Them (ignoring my peeked interest and moving to the next topic):  Do you have any vacations planned?
me:  Purple, because aliens don’t wear hats.

Them:  Aren’t these crabcakes delightful?
me:  ugh!

And I think this is where the break down occurs. I’m from the second camp and I often encounter people from the first. I get frustrated if I find a topic I want to talk about or want to steer the  conversation towards, and the other person is going through their script of safe, boring topics that they don’t care what the answers are.

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I found the perfect stylist, or why I hate haircuts

Two of the things that I hate the most in the world sometimes occur simultaneously:  getting my hair cut and making small talk.

For the majority of my life, I hated getting haircuts. Probably because I didn’t like the way I looked with a fresh haircut, or maybe I just didn’t like the way I looked period (discussion for another day). I’m sure the experiences of my mom giving me in-home haircuts as a child factored in. A fidgety kid like me and a perfectionist like her was never a good combination. It was such an ordeal that we would put off the next haircut as long as possible and thus each haircut took a long time.  The first volley for power in a years long parent-offspring battle of wills.

Please don’t shave your initials again
(Photo by Charles Chan)

Once I started paying for my own haircuts, I was always trying to find the combination of economical (cheap) and stylish (not looking like a dork who just got his hair cut).  At some point I found Aimee. She managed to do the one thing I really depend on, remember how we cut it last time and doing the same thing. Over time we came up with our Summer Cut and our Winter Cut.  She also liked to trim my eyebrows, which at the time I thought was too girly (the Metrosexual Revolution was a few years away) but I let her.

I was doing cart wheels to fit into her schedule

It was a wonderful relationship while it lasted but alas, it became harder and harder to get an appointment with Aimee.  So much so that I was jumping through hoops to meet her schedule.  I had to plan my haircuts two or more weeks in advance.   I was doing cart wheels to fit into her schedule.   I decided that the person who cuts my hair should be available on my schedule, not the other way around.

When she moved locations, I used the opportunity to break up with Aimee. Breaking up with your stylist is easier than cheating on them because you basically make a commitment to never set foot in their shop again. So once I was free to find a new stylist, I vowed I would never get committed to a specific stylist again.

Since then I’ve gone to a variety of places,  most recently a place near my office that is staffed by teenagers. Talk about Small Talk Hell.  I have nothing in common with these kids yet they really try their darnest, going through the ST script.  I’m not good at small talk in general and when I sit in the chair at a salon with a stylist I’ve just meet,  everything empties from my mind and I suddenly become the Least Interesting Man in the World.

I was willing to put up with the teens because I got a decent haircut at a reasonable cheap price.  Even if they sometimes forgot to ask if they could trim my eyebrows (Aimee’s legacy still lingers!).  However, their hours didn’t mesh well with my schedule.  So I checked Yelp and found another place nearby.  For about $10 more, I got a better haircut (wife approved) and I found a stylist who provides just enough small talk from the second camp and then stops talking in order to concentrate on my hair!

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship….until she becomes more high maintenance than me.

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The 10 types of guy friends you will have at some point in your life

There are tons of stories out there about the X many types of friends you have or should have or could have.  What I’m posing here are the 10 types of friends every guy on this planet will have in their lifetime unless said guy is anti-social, geographically isolated or straight up hates people.  As you accumulate more and more spins around the sun, you will come across the following dudes.  They will be part of your wolf pack, be it short termed or for the rest of your life.  Some of them come around for a season, some for a reason, and some just to try and bang your sister.

For additional fun, instead of only using guy and”dude I tried to use all the synonyms I could think look up.  Feel free to play along at home.

 

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Summertime fun advice for Chicagoans

Photo Courtesy of Digital Vision-Photodisc-Getty 2

Even though summer doesn’t officially start for another eleven days, it’s after Memorial Day and the warmer weather is here.  I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life and for as long as I can remember, the transition from spring to summer is usually quick and brutal.  We get a few weeks of spring which is usually either rainy and cold or rainy and muggy.  Then the temperature jumps to the high 80s and 90s and you hear the cliches:

• It’s a dry heat.
• It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
• Hot enough for you?

Summer time in Chicago is synonymous with street festivals. Every weekend there is at least one block party, art fair or street festival, often more.  Street Festivals are 1 of the 5 things I’m too old for:

1. Over Crowded street fests
2. FREE advance screening passes to a movie
3. Waiting in line for a trendy restaurant
4. Sports Venues and Concerts
5. Wrigleyville

This isn’t meant to be an absolute. Once in a while, I might still be willing to put up with drunken sorority hasbeens and navigate Wrigleyville or deal with a crowded fest to see my favorite band like when The Smithereens played Retro on Roscoe that one year.

I’ve sort of amended my thinking on Street Festivals.  Some are free though many charge a suggested donation that can range anywhere from a few dollars to twenty bucks.  I still think it’s extortion to over charge for a festival, especially when there are so many better uses for that money.  But I do recognize that 1) no one is forcing me to go, 2) see my list above, and 3) I’m at a place in life where paying the fee isn’t going to break my bank.

To be certain I don’t want to give away $20 any more than the next person. But it won’t kill me and it probably won’t kill you either.

For someone living on the margins of the economy, $8 or $10 per fest might be a big deal. To anyone else paying that amount might be unpleasant but you’ll live.  My new rule of thumb for evaluating the relative worth of a given amount of money in your life is: If you dropped it in a port-o-potty  toilet full of liquid feces, would you reach in to get it? If the answer is yes, it’s a lot of money. At least to you.

Besides, it’s possible you’ll meet someone for either a summer fling or long term relationship.  Summer in Chicago means you might end up dating someone who is training for the Chicago Marathon

Summer usually brings at least one set of out of tow guests.  Looking for someplace to take them that isn’t the same old tourist attractions?

You also have to feed them so here’s a guide for getting some good produce on the cheap.

If Memorial Day is the Unofficial Start of Summer, then  Labor Day is the natural conclusion and that means summer moves quickly, especially in Chicago.  Do not  let summer slip away.

 

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11 things you are doing on Facebook that are secretly pissing off your friends

It’s pretty commonplace to rip on Facebook users because obviously if you are not doing it the way I — I mean everyone else does it, you’re obviously doing it wrong.  I can’t fathom why so many people whine about How Things Should Be on Facebook. It’s a place where people post photos of their grandchildren or their pets. They can share a link to a snoring cat or a revolution half a world away. They brag about their boyfriends or chronicle the course of a loved one’s terminal cancer. People can post any mundane, fabulous, irrelevant, snarky, pointless, heartbreaking or remarkable thing they want to. It is what it is. Don’t overthink Facebook.

That said, there is a sort of de facto best practices that everyone more or less has silently agreed upon.  What you didn’t get that memo?  You were probably too busy out having a real life so let me give you the cliff notes:

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Why I’m renewing my Lincoln Park Zoo membership via snail mail

View image | gettyimages.com

The time has come to renew my membership to the Lincoln Park Zoo and I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: by mailing in my renewal application instead of paying online.  Why not use the modern convenience of online bill pay?  First, some context.

While I might have skipped a year here and there, I have been a member of the Lincoln Park Zoo since the late 90s.  Why am I a paying member of something that is free and open to the public?  I’d like to say it was because of my philanthropic side, but I cannot even spell that word.

In the beginning it was to save on parking at the zoo.  No I didn’t frequent the zoo very often like a deranged psychopath.  I played volleyball nearby in the evenings and the zoo removed the parking meters and started charging a hefty sum to park there.  It was a flat fee whether you got there when the zoo first opened or half an hour before they closed.   I don’t remember the exact cost but I was Hella Poor and making Diddly over Squat paycheck wise so this was valuable beer money going away.

One of my Vball friends clued me into the zoo membership.  For $30 you got a membership that came with free parking.  After a few weeks of volleyball the pass paid for itself.  So I bought and  renewed the pass for a long time.  the rates did go up of course.  I’m sure someone at the zoo noticed a spike in membership around summer volleyball season and adjusted accordingly.

When I switched from playing volleyball to running marathons, I still kept the membership because there were enough 5 and 10K races that started nearby to take advantage of the It was always still  a good deal and I could rationalize it by being all philanthropic to the zoo.

About that philanthropic thing:  I am aware that there are some serious ethical concerns about zoos and keeping animals in captivity.   I don’t know enough on this and am reading up,and at the moment addressing this aspect of zoos feels like it would be sticking my head into a hive of angry hornets and why would I want to do that?

Growing up in Humboldt Park, we didn’t really have a lot of spare coinage.  My friends and I would hop on the North Ave bus and head to the zoo because it was something free to do that got us out of the neighborhood. Yes we were free-range children.  Sometimes we’d try to get our visit in and make it back on the same transfer, but most of the time we made a day of it by going to the beach and/or walking through Old Town.

So for the moment, I’m of the opinion that zoos do more good than harm but am open to evidence of the contrary.

Oh and the The Reason I’m using snail mail is because I do not want this charge to appear on my credit card statement until the next cycle.

Now that I’m not running as much, and have all the expenses involved with raising two socially-conscious child with beautiful manners and high self-esteem it is a little tricky to justify the  $175 that would be required. [You need a Safari or higher level membership to get the unlimited free parking].  So my work around is to defer the payment as long as possible.

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