“What do you think I’d see if I could walk away from me?”
Lou Reed,Candy Says
Significant Facts:
White, Female, North American, Upper Class, Skilled with pom-poms
You?
Facts I can’t change:
White, Skilled with pom-poms
Could move. Could grow poor.
Don’t want to, though. Sorry.
I’m not programmed to grow poor, not on purpose.
I tried it once for about ten years and it didn’t stick.
I bobbed back up to the surface with a gasp.
What I can change: the next word I write.
I used to sit around looking at The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin.
I had the idea that it was art, and therefore necessary. Or that it was necessary, and therefore art.
I still believe. But I don’t like to look.
Cut to Purple Rain. Prince played Prince, but an actor played his father, a mean, disappointed drunk. Prince acted like a little boy in those scenes, even though he was already Prince! He was a grown man with facial hair and a motorcycle. Well, Prince was super-horny, so he got away with everything. Horny can really get you places. But then again, horny can get you absolutely nowhere.
What I can change: mean people. I can stay away from them.
A bunch of cheerleaders stand in a gym and argue about their positions in a pyramid stunt. They get all worked up and red in the face. They say things they don’t mean, which they immediately want to take back. Sadly, they can’t.
These cheerleaders are no more or less important than anyone else in the world. Including: Lou Reed, Ronald Reagan, Susan B. Anthony, Brooke Shields, Missy Elliot, your cousin who still smokes, Long John Silver.
The Lou Reed quote I really wanted to use with this post was just too crude for my prudishness. Except that there’s something about it: “The two whores sucked his nipples ‘til he came on their feet.”
Respect.