jazzbaby433

[jazzbaby433]

She formed the clay

Majestic mountains

Between her fingers

Pinched pointed peaks

Twisted tiny tops

Sprinkled snow and ice

Carved copper canyons

Dug deep

Filled rivers

Lucky for me

Today she made the choice

Of clear skies

[jazzbaby433]

[jazzbaby433]

Mount Susitna the Sleeping Lady.

Anchorage, AK

[jazzbaby433]

You can get away with calling something “white trash” in polite company, on cable television and in the headline of a magazine article. An article in The New Republic once posed the question of whether President Trump might be “a white trash icon.” For some reason, the term manages to come across as less offensive than most other racial slurs.

Yet “white trash” could be called the Swiss army knife of insults. It’s deft in its ability to demean multiple groups at once: white people and people of color; poor people and people who “act” like poor people; rural folks and religious folks and anyone without a college degree.

So why does “white trash” still get thrown around without much pushback?

Why It’s Still OK To ‘Trash’ Poor White People

Illustration: LA Johnson/NPR

[jazzbaby433]

Merry Christmas, if you want one.

I’ve done Christmas with my own family the vast majority of my life, and I’ve done Christmas with my significant other’s family a handful of times. No matter how I try to embrace the season, I hate Christmas. If life has been busy, it halts my momentum. Likewise, if life has been lagging, it forces me to face the year.

Next year, I’m having Christmas alone. No tree, no lights, no friends and family. I’d skip all the expectations and forget the entire holiday existed.

I’d wake up late, after all I likely would have the day off and most places would be closed, make myself a cup of tea, and take a big drink of water while I wait for the pot to boil.

Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde is a personal favorite when I’m melancholy and want to detach from my own lonliness, so I’ll probably listen to him while sipping my tea. I would feel my shoulders relax into his thin, sandpaper - like voice, as the tea warmed my body, passing through my throat, and settling into my stomach.

When it comes time to flip the record, I’d go fix myself a pot of coffee and roll a joint. I always found the combination of coffee and pot to be very relaxing. As I continue to climb out of my slumber, I may be so inspired to sing along with Mr. Zimmerman, or maybe not. This will be my day, and I will do (or not do) as ever I please.

I’d fix myself a simple yet hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon, with toast and an apple, taking great care to cook my eggs perfectly overeasy, and my bacon just a touch crunchy.

Maybe I’d spend my day organizing around the house or reading a book. Whatever it was, it was entirely my decision that wasn’t dictated my tradition or obligation.

Maybe I’d peek out the window and see what the rest of the world is doing, but I would stay right where I was.

As night crept in, I would indulge myself with chicken wings in garlic sauce, with French fries, from the Chinese take out spot. My big adventure for the day would be the four-block journey to pick up my dinner, and grab a six pack of beers on my way back home.

The day would wind down with the wings and a few beers, while I watch a movie or binge on some show.

The gift I would have received on Christmas Day would be my own freedom. Freedom from tradition and commitment to a single plot of twenty-four hours. It would be my day.

[jazzbaby433]

The Jam

“Who wants to jam?”

“I do!” I know the game is ending soon and I want to give myself one last chance to jam before it’s over. I’m not entirely sure how soon it will end, but last time I heard, there were nine minutes left in the bout.

It’s close game, though I refuse to look at the score. I don’t want to psyche myself out if we’re behind or get too comfortable if we’re ahead. I think we might be down by a couple points, but I don’t check. I see Penelope Bruise put on the pivot panty and say to her, “If I don’t get lead jammer, I’m giving it to you.” She nods.

We go out on the track, and I glance around to see who was skating. Dolly Pardon Me glances back at me. At the beginning of the game, she jammed against me and wished me luck before we started, but now once the whistle blows she’ll want nothing more than to kill me. Joan Jett Pack looks to me and gives me a smile. She’s been nothing but encouraging throughout the game, and telling me that I’d been playing really well. Her smile gives me faith. Penelope is on the other side of the track, which is not great if I need to pass the star right off the bat

The jam timer yells out, “Five seconds!”

I look for holes in the wall, and for skaters my size or smaller. I had already learned the hard way not to try and push past someone bigger than me.

The whistle blows and we go. I remember what Amelia Tear Apart told us in training: never stay in one spot for more than two seconds. I shuffle around and check different parts of the wall as the pack starts to spread out. Somehow, I thought I heard a ref call lead jammer. I skate over to Penelope and tear off my panty.

“What are you doing? Then you can’t be lead!”

I fly forward and scramble to put the panty back on. I look to the inside of the track to see the ref pointing one finger to me and one finger in the air, at least I think that’s what he’s doing. I keep going and manage to make my first lap around, despite my legs burning. Amelia starts jogging alongside me from the inside of the track to say something. All I can hear is “jammer,” “box,” and “keep going.”

I see the pack at the turn just ahead of me. Dolly knocks me down, and I land on the knee I had injured a couple weeks back. I grind my teeth into my mouthguard and push myself up. As soon as I’m up someone else knocks me down. I keep going and see Penelope.

“If you need me to, tell me!” I yank off the panty and give it to her. “I guess that counts, too.” I get into the pack and starts looking around for the other jammer, I had already forgotten who she was. The final whistle blows.

As I skate back to the bench, Amelia is grinning and hugs me. I hear her saying something, but I’m either in disbelief or too exhausted to understand. Finally, I hear her.

“You won!”

The rest of my team surrounds me and we all huddle in a sweaty embrace. All of them keep telling me, “You won the game! We won!”

I throw my hands in the air and let out my battle cry. We won, and I made that happen.

[jazzbaby433]

Fool Me Once

He stopped me on my way down the stairs just as we were about to set up. “Hey, I need to talk to you for a second.” I stopped and turned to look at him. The last several times he needed to talk to me for second, it took much longer than a second, and he told me exactly what I did not want to hear. After a few minutes of rambling and bullshit, he told me the band wasn’t getting paid.

After I booked my friend’s band to fill an extra spot. After I scrambled through every name I could get my hands on, because he called a week before the gig telling me he needed yet another band or the show would be cancelled. After I had to call the venue and give them the correct spelling of all the bands’ names. After we had cut a deal for all the extra work I had done for this asshole. The band wasn’t getting paid.

I got on stage to check the sound, and sang an old Cole Porter tune I had learned ten years ago as a deep dark rage boiled inside me. I hadn’t learned much from the music industry just yet, but I had learned to keep my mouth shut and always put my best foot forward in public settings, especially on stage.

I stepped off the stage and found a friend of mine from the previous band. I couldn’t say anything to her. We locked eyes for a moment, and she must have read my anger as nerves. She hugged me and told me we were going to do great.

The sound guy had turned off the stereo, and the band got started. I walked to the stage and stood in the audience while they played our first song. Before I went up to join them, I had made a resolution. I was going to give this prick the best performance of my life and tell the audience we weren’t getting paid for it.

I sang out, letting my many years of classical training lead the way, and gave the audience exactly what they wanted. I went down on my knees, and twisted and turned every way my body could–and likely in some ways it’s not supposed to. My anger fueled the show in a way I could never imagine, it became an out of body experience. By the end of the set, my leather pants were ripped, and my knees were incredibly bruised from slamming them on the stage repeatedly. I was lying down howling at the moon.

My loving boyfriend/guitarist helped me up, and I stumbled back on top of my seven-inch platforms. My common sense had gotten the best of my pride, and I decided not to out the guy publicly for the sake of professionalism or something.

I stepped off the stage and people from the other bands rushed to compliment my performance and thank me for setting up the show. I smiled and thanked them for playing, not telling them about the guy who had swindled me and sat with his title.

As we left, I solemnly swore to myself not to work with promoters again. As with many of my own promises, I’m sure I’ll break this one too. But that night was when I decided we were to be our own entity, and not to let someone else take control of what I had worked so hard to nurture and create. The band was my baby, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give it to anyone.

[jazzbaby433]

No One Will Ever Believe You

I was in a hurry, carrying a guitar and amp, and about to pick up a music stand before going to sing jazz at some restaurant in SoHo.

I barely made it on the train. I tucked the little amp under my seat as I sat down. Then I saw him.

After three years, there was Martin sitting five feet away from me. In my goddamn city, my goddamn borough, on my goddamn train. He was the last person I wanted to see. Our eyes met and we had the sudden realization of who each other was.

 “Who’s that guy?”

I turned to see Bill Murray sitting next to me; he must have seen our collective reactions.

 “That’s my ex. He really fucked me over back when we both lived in Cincinnati, and I haven’t seen him since I left.”

“Oh really? He seems like a real prick.”

Martin kept glancing in our direction as he twisted his brow in disbelief. He got up to get off the train at the next stop. Great, I thought to myself, he lives in my neighborhood, too.

“Watch this,” Bill Murray said. He walked up to Martin and sucker-punched him, right as the doors opened. Martin caught himself before smashing his head on the platform, his glasses flew off his face and cracked. I bit my lip to hide my smile.

“NO ONE WILL EVER BELIVE YOU!” Bill Murray yelled.

All I could do was stare at the trail of blood tricking down the side of his chin. It seemed like a harsh reaction, but Bill Murray just did what I really wanted to do.

He quickly shook off his brief spurt of violence and looked at me with a smile. “Or you, for that matter.”

I wasn’t sure what happened next. I figured it was best to make my escape.

[jazzbaby433]

Super Troopers

As we went up the stairs, I heard her laughing and felt a slight sensation of relief. Not much, but a twitch. They were all laughing. I heard one of the officers say, “The schnozberries taste like schnozberries.” They quoted the movie Super Troopers… I assumed that was a good sign, but couldn’t be too certain. Another one of them pointed to my long-haired boyfriend and said, “Hey! There’s the guy who ran to hide the weed!” We froze. They still seemed to be joking, but we knew better than to fuck with several members of New York’s finest. We were running a roof top concert without any kind of sound permit, and illegally selling booze. Things could go very wrong at any moment. The uncontrollable laughter from the officer’s fellow cops proved that they were –thankfully– joking. “It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t care if you smoke pot.” We all collectively let out a sigh of relief. “Just turn the noise down a bit, the neighbor was complaining.” We said “yes” to the officers, and had our last band of the evening turn down as they left. Then they came back. Straight up the stairs, onto the roof. We were fucked. But they acted like a new squad of cops– as if they were not here less than five minutes ago. We looked at them, then at each other. These were the exact same cops that were just on out roof. She was the first to speak. “There was a group of cops here just a moment ago,” she said. “Did you see them?” “No!” One of the cops barked, “What did these other cops look like?!” After a long, tense silence, my poor long-haired boyfriend spoke.

“Well, officer… to be honest, they kinda looked like… You.”

An uneasy silence hung suspended in the air, waiting for the hammer to fall. “It was us!” The cop yelled. And with that, they gave each other a round of hearty high-fives and left.

[jazzbaby433]

How to Become a Tortured Artist

As a child you will be classified as "different." Your parents will send you to many therapists, some of which will prescribe a variety of pills meant for various mental disorders. You will have few friends in school, and will often be a victim of bullying. Befriend your parents' artsy friends and take refuge in those friendships.

At some point in your childhood or adolescence, you will have some kind of traumatic experience. You may either be a witness or victim of some kind of physical or sexual abuse. You may also have a near-death experience. Whatever it may be, this experience will stay with you for the rest of your life and greatly influence your performance style and relationships you have with others. Your therapist(s) will continually revisit this event and find connections between the event and your current behaviors.

Through your childhood and adolescence, be extremely androgynous. The more people question your gender or sexual preference, the better.

Continue therapy and begin to sell your medications to your classmates through high school. Use the money you will make from selling prescription medications to buy other drugs and start experimenting with those. Start by smoking marijuana, and later you will move on to hallucinogens such as LSD and mushrooms, or other "harder" drugs such as cocaine and ketamine. Availability of these drugs--excluding marijuana--may vary depending on your location, and you may not experience drugs, other than marijuana, until you are into your late teens or early twenties.

Along with controlled substances, you will also experiment with your sexuality. Lose your virginity at a young age--perhaps too young. Experiment with members of both sexes and masturbate frequently.

Be sure to constantly question your own sexual preference. This is not limited to which gender you prefer, but also what kind of sex appeals to you. Participate in group sex, and find an individual partner to test the waters of different fetishes and sexual practices.

Either drop out of college freshman year, or don't go to college at all. Move to a major city, such as New York or San Francisco. Live in a small shitty apartment with multiple room mates and get a job as a barista or waiter. You will barely make rent every month and often steal food from your job because you don't budget well, and most of your money is spent on drugs and alcohol, flamboyant clothing, semi-obscure music, and books.

Meet a fellow artist who introduces you to the scene you will eventually become part of. You will continually feed off each other as partners as well as competitors. Move in with this person. You will have a very complex relationship and the complexities will be brought forward through your art, whether it is visual or performing. You will very likely resolve any arising issues through physical fights, followed by very rough, and fantastic, make-up sex. This person may look a lot like you in a way that will make some people think you're siblings rather than lovers.

You will live with a drug-dealer at least once. There is no way around this. The best case scenario would be a low-level pot dealer, but this may not be the case and you may wind up living with someone who sells harder drugs or is higher up in the food chain.

This isn’t entirely a bad thing. It will make your drug of choice more readily available, possibly for a cheaper price, and your dealer/room mate may be somewhat generous. Keep in mind, however, this person is a salesman just like any other, and needs to meet a quota.

Your partner will find a small, well-known venue to showcase your talent. You will be received well by most, and greatly ridiculed by some--mostly those on the high end of the food-chain. Those who enjoy your art will say those who don't "just don't get it." Through this showcase, you will be offered more gigs at more venues. Some of them will be paying, most of them wont.

Become more and more well known in your arena. Continue your day job because you still wont get paid for most gigs, however money becomes less of an issue, due to the fact that you generally wont have to pay for the drugs you get or food. Be sure to use terminology that applies to your art, even if you don't know what it means. For example, if you are in music, talk about the "harmonics" of a particular piece. Be sure to talk loudly when discussing any upcoming gigs so other people--artists and non-artists--know that you are a working artist.

Your relationship with your partner will become very strained due to your new-found success, and growing ego. The arising issues now remain unresolved and sit quietly, but tensely, through passive aggression. Your sex life with your partner will become less passionate, and eventually will disintegrate. You will start to have an affair with one of your patrons, who will be at least 15 years older than you.

Your drug use will turn into a habit, which will turn into an addiction. Stress from your personal life and pressure to produce new work will fuel your addiction, while the great availability of drugs will enable it. As you self-indulgently complicate your life, and fall deeper into addiction, your status in the scene you once immersed in will begin to wane. You will be less known for your talent, and more known for your whirlwind personal life.

At this point, you have a few choices:

Go to rehab. Maybe try to come back to the scene after you've cleaned up, and try to resist the temptation of doing all the drugs that will still be readily available. Patch things up with your partner. Your renewed relationship will only make both of you happy for a month or so before old grudges from the past arise and passive aggression dwells between you. The quality of your work will begin to wane, and you fade into the shadows.

Go to rehab. Go home to try and start over, abandoning your scene and your art. Try going to (or returning to) college and take up a major that has a more secure financial future. Try teaching or medical assisting. You will have a comfortable and uneventful life. Sometimes you will remember your days as an artist in whatever city with your old partner, but you would never dare put yourself back in that scene. The drugs and pain aren't worth it.

Stay where you are. Attempt to continue your art, not knowing when your drug habit will kill you, or get you arrested. Your partner will leave you, and you may try to live with your patron that you have been sleeping with. This person will grow frustrated with your drug habit and eventually kick you out. You crash on a few people's couches until they become sick of you, and you're shit out of luck to find a roof over your head. Live in a park. Overdose and die penniless.

Become a recluse. Continue producing work, but continue to have a huge ego, and keep in mind that no one deserves to see what you've produced. You will have a vast catalogue of work. Some will be fantastic, most will be mediocre. Die penniless.