Marcy Sheiner's Blog, page 8

Gotta Rant!

Considering my blogs have trickled down to a few a month, another rant substantially ups the percentage I’m doing in this mode (you do the math; I’m no good at it). I have a confession: when undergoing personal angst I click open my file of social outrage and direct my fury there. Some bloggers use their forum like a diary, and even non-bloggers spill the personal beans all over Facebook; not me. Pre-Internet I’d let it all hang out, as the name of my blog implies, but now the potential audience is too wide and the timeline eternal, so I’m a bit more wary about what I say. Besides, there’s enough misery and injustice in the world to keep me ranting forever—so here I go again.

California rapists get free pass: Three young men brutally raped a 15-year-old girl, scrawled obscenities all over her body, and proudly circulated pictures of their conquest all over high school. Eight days later the girl killed herself. And the boys? They got 45 days in Juvenile Hall. What kind of judge gives rapists a 45-day sentence?….Fukushima Japan: Nearing the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that crashed a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, the beast lives on, out of control and oozing radiation into the air and the ocean. Former residents—340,000 of them—joined the burgeoning world refugee population. The Japanese government, more or less in denial mode, actually admits they can’t go home for six years, but they know they’ll never go home again…Rising Refugee Population: News stories of refugees always remind me of the late Doris Lessing, who described in her novels the increasing hordes that roam the earth in search of environments still hospitable to human life. She was tuned in to refugee-ism as a way of life as far back as the ’60s. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in 2013 there were 10.4 million refugees worldwide and another 4 million in U.N. refugee camps…Spy vs. Spy Department:  Thanks to  Ed Snowden’s courageous whistleblowing, President Obama ordered a committee to investigate the agency, and their conclusions led him to announce that the collection of U.S. citizens’ phone calls will henceforth cease and desist.* Meanwhile, Snowden’s still called a traitor and remains exiled in that country considered for decades our mortal enemy: Russia….More Spy vs. Spy: But who needs the NSA when you’ve got Facebook? Part of their campaign for world domination entails hooking up with other sites so they tell me to check in using my Facebook account, and when I do, a pop-up box asks for “permission” to give out my location “for today only”! If that means what it sounds like, who-knows-who will be following me around all day. WTF? I always click “No” and they let me onto the site anyhow...Baseball: And now for a little baseball news that’s making me crazy. Oh, but wait! There’s more than just “a little” so I’ll have to table this until I can devote an entire post to it. Specialized ranting, I like that idea…coming soon. (Maybe. I never commit.)

 

*Apparently I misunderstood: According to the , Obama only made “cosmetic changes,” and failed to rein in the mass gathering of telephone information. Go to to learn about the USA Freedom Act and, if you agree with it, sign their petition.

Filed under: Rants, Spy vs. Spy, violence against women Tagged: Current Events, Doris Lessing, environment, Facebook, Obama, Politics, rant

Deleted by MS

Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones RIP

Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones, died today at the age of 79. Baraka was a poet, a playwright, and a political activist. Rather than write about my feelings towards Baraka or how and why they changed over the years, instead of doing the IMeMine routine, I decided to post one of his poems, saved a lifetime ago when I tore it from the pages of the Village Voice. Re-reading it I fell in love with his work all over again.

For Baraka’s bio, facts, photos, politics, and controversies, Democracy Now is doing a whole hour on him today, and numerous other sources of information abound.

When We’ll Worship Jesus

Amiri Baraka

We’ll worship Jesus

When jesus do

somethin

when jesus blow up

the white house

or blast nixon down

When jesus turn out congress

or bust general motors to

yard bird motors

Jesus we’ll worship jesus

when jesus get down

when jesus get out his yellow lincoln

w/ the built-in cross stain glass

window & box w/black peoples

enemies we’ll worship jesus when

he get bad enough to at least scare

somebody—cops not afraid

of jesus

pushers not afraid

of jesus, capitalists racists

imperialists not afraid

of jesus shit they makin money

off jesus.

We’ll worship jesus when mao

do, when toure does

when the cross replaces Nkrumah’s

star

jesus need to hurt some a our

enemies then we’ll check him

out, all that screaming and hollering

& Wallering and manking talkin bout

jesus, jesus in a red

check velvet vine & 8 in. heels

jesus pinky finger

got a goose egg ruby

which actual bleeds

jesus at the apollo

doin splits and helpin

nixon trick niggers

jesus w/his one-eyed self

tongue kissing johnny carson

up the behind

jesus need to be busted

jesus need to be thrown down and whipped

till something better happen

jesus aint did nothin for us

but kept us turned toward

the sky (him and his boy allah

too, need to be checked

out!)

we’ll worship jesus

when he get a boat load of AR-47’s

and some dynamite

and blow up abernathy robotin

for gulf

jesus need to be busted

we aint gonna worshp nobody

but niggers getting up off

the ground

not gon worship jesus

unless he just a tricked up

nigger somebody named

outside his race

need to worship you self fo

you worship jesus

need to bust jesus (& Check

out his spooky brother

allah while you heavy

on the case)

cause we aint gon worship jesus

we aint gon worship

jesus

we aint gon worship

jesus

not till he do something

not til he help us

not till the world get changed

and he aint, Jesus aint, he cant change the world

we can change the world

we can struggle against the forces of backwardness

we can change the world

we can struggle against our selves, our slowness,

our connection with the oppressor,

the very cultural aggression which binds us to our  enemies

as their slaves.

We can change the world

we aint gonna worship jesus cause jesus don’t exist

Xcept in song and story except in ritual and dance, except in

slum stained

tears or trillion dollar opulence stretching back in history, the history

of the oppression of the human mind

We worship the strength in us

We worship our selves

We worship the light in us

We worship the warmth in us

We worship the world

We worship the love in us

We worship our selves

We worship nature

We worship ourselves

We worshp the life in us, and science, and knowledge, and transformation

of the visible world

But we aint gonna worship no jesus

We aint gonna legitimize the witches and devils

the spooks and hobgoblins

the sensuous lies of the rulers to keep us

chained to fantasy and illusion

Sing about life, not jesus

Sing about revoltuion, not no jesus

Stop singing about jesus,

Sing about creation, our creation, the life of the world and fantastic

nature how we struggle to transform it, but don’t victmize our selves by distorting the world

Stop moanin about jesus, stop sweatin and cryin and stompin and dyin for jesus

Unless thats the name of the army we buildiing to force the land finally to change hands.

And lets not call that jesus, get a quick consensus on that.

Lets damn sure not call that black fire muscle no inivisible

psychic dungeon

no gentle vision strait jacket, lets call that peoples army, or wapenduzi or simba

wachanga, but we not gon call it jesus and not gon worship jesus

Throw jesus out yr mind. Build the new world out of reality, and new vision

We come to find out what there is of the world

to understand what there is here in the world!

To visualize change, and force it

We worship revolution.

Filed under: Poetry, political theater, Politics, racism, theater, writers, Writing Tagged: Amiri Baraka, Arts, Current Events, LeRoi Jones, Literature, Poetry, Politics, Writing

Nowhere Boy: Film Review

Now I know why I’ve always disliked the song “Julia”—the only Beatles song, other than the misogynist “Run For Your Life”—that I’ve ever said that about. It’s so dirge-like and mournful, so different from their usual upbeat fare, including their ballads. Having just seen Nowhere Boy, the story of John Lennon and his two mothers (Mother Julia and Aunt Mimi), I know why the song is such a downer: it is in fact a dirge, a kind of epitaph for the woman who gave birth to John and cared for him until he was five, when Mimi took and raised him.  Nowhere Boy brilliantly takes a slice of John’s life, short in duration but deeply significant, to create a film that encapsulates almost everything we  need to know about Lennon to understand the man and his music.

–MILD SPOILERS AHEAD–

The movie opens with John as a 16-year-old madly in love with American rock ‘n’ roll, but with no musical knowledge or training.  Through a series of events he comes in contact with his mother, Julia, who he hasn’t seen since he was five. At that time his father tried to take him from her, planning to drag him off to New Zealand. Julia passively let him go, but her sister Mimi grabbed him from his father and, with her husband, raised him.

Mum is now remarried with two daughters, and thrilled to see her long-lost son—who lived right around the block from her! Julia’s a lively gal, and behaves more like John’s girlfriend than his mum in every gesture and act, but this is never commented upon in any way by anyone. Julia’s husband doesn’t want John hanging around so much; apparently Julia’s prone to breakdowns, and he thinks she can’t handle it. And Mimi–well! It’s the age-old story of the sensible devoted woman who fed, washed and looked after John all these years being shoved aside for the flighty beauty who abandoned him.

Unfortunately, the story went a little differently, according to Julia Lennon’s bio in Wikipedia, than this cinematic portrayal; actually, not a little but quite a lot: “After complaints to Liverpool’s Social Services by her eldest sister, Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she handed over the care of her son to her sister. “ Additionally,  Julia saw John almost every day, and by the time he was eleven (and not, as the film tells us, 17) he was frequently staying overnight at her house. Having read the story after seeing the movie, I can’t help but question its point-of-view entirely.

One place where history and art agree, however, is that Julia influenced John’s development as a musician. In the movie she hands John a mandolin and teaches him to strum (“think Bo Diddley, she says”) and she’s always singing and dancing with him. “Why can’t I be Elvis?” he moans, and Julia replies, “Because the world is waiting for you to be John Lennon.” That quote is just too beautiful to complain about, even if the screenwriters made it up.

While John and Julia are getting to know each other John forms a band, begins performing, and meets Paul McCartney.  Possibly the best thing about Nowhere Boy, at least to my pure delight, is the casting for John and Paul: respectively, Aaron Johnson and Thomas Brodie Sangster. Each of them slips into his persona so effectively that after awhile they begin to look like the originals—and it couldn’t have been easy, psychologically, to play a pair of beloved icons for an audience mostly familiar with them. Their relationship is portrayed from the start as a rivalry, but I don’t know if the filmmakers were being faithful to reality or merely to legend.

The end of the movie is a matter of historical record, but if you don’t know it and don’t want to, stop reading. I didn’t know it, and was stunned when Julia got hit by a car and died.  When the movie was over, the song “Julia” kept slogging relentlessly around in my head on its endless loop of grief, and I had to play it—only to find that, knowing what I do now, I no longer hate it at all.

Filed under: film, flicks, Mothers and Sons, movies, music Tagged: Arts, Beatles, film, John Lennon, Julia Lennon, Mother Julia, movies, music, Reviews

Good News New Year: Lynne Stewart Out of Jail

Lynne Stewart, an attorney who defended political prisoners throughout her career, was granted  compassionate release on New Years Eve. Stewart, 74, has late-stage breast cancer and was serving a ten-year sentence for allegedly delivering a client’s communication to a group branded as terrorists. For more information on Stewart and her case, see The Center for Constitutional Rights,  CNN and Democracy Now. The latter link shows Stewart’s arrival at LaGuardia airport, where she was greeted by a bevy of family and friends — it’s a jubilant scene guaranteed to lift your spirits.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics Tagged: Center for Constitutional Rights, compassionate release, Current Events, Lynne Stewart, Political prisoner

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

Filed under: Musings

Bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy (Photo credit: puptoes74)

Hey Everybody! You can read my Guest Post titled Spending Time in the Four-Gated City on Therapy Through Tolstoy, a charming blog devoted to the subject of bibliotherapy. If you don’t know what bibliotherapy is, visit and all shall be revealed. I just recently stumbled on the term myself, and when I checked it out I was inspired to write the post.

Hope you like it.

Related articles

Doctors Prescribe Books to Treat Depression (mediabistro.com)
Can Books Cure Depression? UK Operates Bibliotherapy Program For Mental Illness (medicaldaily.com)
Doctors Are Now Prescribing Books to Treat Depression (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)

Filed under: Life, Literature, readers Tagged: Bibliotherapy, Books, Literature, Reading, Writing

Why Do We Die?

Why must we die?!? Okay, I get it that living forever isn’t such a fabulous idea— but why such pitifully short lives? I mean, I’m just getting going! This morning I heard a radio program on “smart urbanization” that I found totally stimulating; I’d love to look into this and be part of creating future living situations that work. I have lots of ideas that mesh with the experts’, at least from what I heard. This happens a lot: I hear something new and interesting and feel a strong urge to get involved. But do I have time to develop a career in smart urbanization or any other field? Doubtful. Even if I live another 20 years (also doubtful, especially if I keep puffing on toxic tobacco sticks), I’d have to give up or at least cut back on writing, not to mention doing all my favorite essentials like puttering around the house, doing crossword puzzles, and watching rented movies.

Even if I didn’t want to try out some new kind of work or even play, dammit! I’m just beginning to learn how to do the one thing on which I’ve maintained a steady focus. I’m only just learning how to write halfway decent fiction, to create characters who sound and act believable, and to invent situations for them that might interest readers. My non-fiction too keeps improving, but I didn’t have quite as far to go in that department. I had, still have, an enormous amount to learn in the genre I prize above all others, i.e., novel writing, but it is happening, and at a quicker pace than when I was young and distracted. What they say about improving with age is absolutely true—but we benefit from our growing wisdom for such a brief period, I question its value. Besides which, nobody wants you when you’re old and gray, as the song goes, even in the field of literature, where the powers-that-be want youngsters they can trot out in front of the cameras. And don’t get me started on the new forms of publication and how I can promote my ebooks by branding myself. That shit makes me want to throw up.

I did not intend to go off on a personal rave about my own career or lack of same, but all roads seem to lead to regret. My intention was to rant in general against this stupid idiotic pathetic system called Life. Who created or  invented it? You people who believe in a Creator, don’t you think he or she is pathetically incompetent? Talk about lousy planning! Nothing about our brief lives makes sense. We’re born, we get a few carefree years to play and learn one or two things—that is if we’re lucky enough to have a decent set of parents who don’t beat or otherwise abuse us, and we’re not born with some illness or disability, nor into abject poverty or war; then we struggle through whatever educational system is available, again if we’re lucky; and meanwhile we’re utterly confused, trying to figure out how to navigate such minefields as romantic love, sex, friendship, and something meaningful to do with our time; we work like dogs trying to go forward but too frequently we’re like Alice and the Queen, running as fast as we can just to stay in place–and this is, again, the best case scenario. Then we start to lose things like beauty and hearing and friends, and soon we go feeble and sick—even if we’re lucky enough to have only minor ailments, they’re a pain in the ass; and then poof, it’s all over.  A real idiot, that Creator. Or evolution. Or whatever or whoever.  I gave up trying to figure that part out a long time ago. Now I just want to know: WHY? WHY DIE? AND WHY SO SOON?

 

 

Related articles

Living Forever: Fantasy or Reality? (claudenougat.blogspot.com)

Filed under: Death, Feelings, Rants, Writing Tagged: Aging, humor, rant, Writing

Three-Dot Shout

When I don’t comment—or rather rant—about current events, injustice and / or news for any length of time, I get antsy. I feel like I’m all bottled up and just have to pull the cork. I would’ve loved to have Herb Caen‘s gig of three-dot writing, even if he did devote more time to Willy Brown’s hats than to current events. So here comes my version of three-dot writing.

Sign of the Times: A news headline on my home page today posits the question, “Was Wonderful Life Communist propaganda?” The smartest response I can make here is “No Comment,” the line that Ms. Magazine used to tag onto blatantly sexist ads way back when and still does for all I know…human stupidity knows no bounds, and today certain elements within the state of Utah are desperately trying to find a way around a court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, this is in Utah, the state where polygamists in the form of Mormons were for many years brutally oppressed, judged, shamed, and arrested; so they now want to persecute another group just as heartily. And why not? Isn’t it the American Way? As soon as a fringe group gains a modicum of respect by acclimation or copout —in this case I guess it would be copout since the Mormons voluntarily dropped their sinful living arrangements, so they get to stomp on another group that does things differently (though I should add that I have no idea if it’s Mormons who are leading the charge)…Two of three female musicians of Pussy Riot who’d been languishing in a Russian jail for the crime of bad-mouthing Vladimir Putin, (the third Pussy was freed awhile ago) were released today, about which I was happy­—until one of them opened her mouth. She declared her freedom was a ploy made by a cynical tyrant and she would have rather stayed in prison…Granted, she’s probably correct about the cynicism, and no doubt Putin has some kind of agenda—like creating good will for the Winter Olympics despite his open hostility towards roughly ten percent of the participants. Still, the day you land on Get Out of Jail Free in real life, you’d be better off just walking out the door and  keeping your mouth shut for a few days at the least; if you have something to say or write later on,  go ahead, but Jesus, don’t fuck with state power before you’ve even taken a breath of fresh air, not unless  you wanna go back inside. If you do, then fine, go ahead, spout off the first thing that comes to mind; but if you wanna stay out for awhile, maybe even do something for those you left behind, first you go home, get laid, have a cup of tea, and map out your strategy. Now I’m worried about the Pussy girls…and speaking of pussy, last night I watched a Louis CK comedy hour on You Tube filled with references to and pantomimes of pussy, a term he denigrated. Don’t get me wrong, his sentiments were sort of feminist ; he praised the female gender while ridiculing his own, so that’s not what bothered me. No, what bothered me was the sight of this out-of-shape sloppily dressed creature enacting sexual intercourse in the style of an oblivious, selfish teenage boy. Again, he was ridiculing and insulting that class of people known as male—but watching him go at it was an act of self-torture; to put it into simpler terms, I felt sick to my stomach ; why is Louis CK so popular?…Ironically I’d turned to a comedy show for escape from Democracy Now’s story of a prisoner in solitary confinement since 1981. 1981!! I can’t handle it, I tell you, certain things that go on in the world are simply intolerable and *solitary confinement is one of them! Please let that man and all others who are in solitary out of there THIS VERY MINUTE ! This is cruel and inhuman…finally, another home page headline announced that Xmas shopping has been slowing down steadily since the day after Thanksgiving…Gee, I wonder why.

I feel so much better now. Don’t you?

* Should you wish to do something about the huge and obscene growth of the prison industry, Californians United for a Responsible Budget is working on more than its name would suggest, namely, limiting the development of more prisons as well as campaigning for prisoners’ rights.
Related articles

Pussy Riot freed (msnbc.com)

Filed under: Current Events, Musings, Rants Tagged: Herb Caen, Mormons, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot, Russia, Utah, Vladimir Putin, Willy Brown, Winter Olympic Games

Publications List

Reblogged from Dirty Laundry:

Books (Author)

Love and Other Illusions: Short Stories. Rennaissance E-Books / Kindle @ Amazon.com 2013

Halfway to the Stars: A Novel, Smashwords, 2010

Sex For the Clueless: How to Enjoy a More Erotic and Exciting Life. Citadel Books, 2001

Perfectly Normal: A Mother’s Memoir.

People With Disabilities Press, 2002

Connecting With The IN Crowd: How to Network, Hang Out and Play With Millionaires Online…

Read more… 553 more words