Daily Archives: March 23, 2011

14 posts

Not Exactly in Defense of Chris Brown

Full Disclosure: I have experience with domestic abuse. I personally hate the terms “victim” and “survivor” so, let’s just say I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of habitual beatings. I’m not defending the actions of Chris Brown. I am saying, in comparison with other convicted famous domestic abusers, he has been grossly mistreated by American media.

I’m calling bullshit on the media’s continued social lynching of Chris Brown as The Worst Man Alive (Yeah, I used the “L” word).

Chris Brown is not a good guy. But by my standards he’s a pretty average variety of bad guy with worse judgment. A variety of bad guy so average that if he were white, his new album might be in the iTunes top ten by now and yesterday’s GMA performance might have been outside and accompanied by a throng of screaming fans and no questions about his battery of his ex-girlfriend.

There is something rotten in media land (what’s new?).

The inequity in media coverage of Chris Brown versus oh, say that colossal grade A asshole Charlie Sheen, (who has shot one woman, allegedly beat a UCLA student for refusing to have sex with him, beat and threatened to kill a porn actress he was dating, threw furniture at and threatened to kill ex-wife Denise Richards, threatened to kill ex-wife Brooke Mueller twice and terrorized another porn actress in the famous Plaza Hotel incident) is stark and startling and it has dramatically colored the public’s opinion of the two characters.

A number of great blogs have covered the contrast in coverage between these two total bastards, calling out TMZ in particular for their imbalanced coverage, but recent events demand a revisit.

Chris Brown went on GMA to shill his latest album. He performed and then sat down for what any other artist, not matter the level of scandal they were currently embroiled in, should have been a perfunctory and largely b.s. interview. GMA claims that they cleared all the Rihanna-centered questioning was approved by Brown and his people. Honestly? That seems like a pretty tall glass of bullshit. “Bad Boy” hasn’t been profitable for Brown and any PR flack worth his cell phone minutes would never have ok’d that line of questioning.

Was his temper tantrum and window breaking unacceptable? Absolutely, but part of me wonders how patient and mature I would be if I was still being publicly flogged for some of my more considerable fuck-ups?

ESPECIALLY when a dude, who has by all accounts done a lot worse was about to embark on a sold out one-man show.

Which brings us to that sad piece of shit a lot of people apparently are willing to pay a minimum of $79 to see (some reports have tickets in the sold out Chicago shows going for as much as $514) to see spew insanity, Charlie Sheen.

Coverage of Charlie Sheen has focused on his substance abuse (Oh poor him! Won’t somebody SAVE him!) and his nonsensical verbal diarrhea (That lovable scamp!). He has never had his feet held to the fire of a public flogging, largely because he’s been so successful at painting all the women who accuse him of misdeeds as gold diggers. Either despite the statistics that state one in four women have been a victim of domestic abuse the American public is more willing to believe that six women in a row are all gold diggers, rather than victims of a habitual abuser OR the media has done a good job of helping Sheen sweep his litany of misdeeds under the rug by focusing on his ” male need to kill and to win.”

Every interview Sheen does is a softball. Can you imagine if Brown had shot a woman? He’d be living under an overpass. Yet Sheen has shot a woman, beat up others and threatened to kill a few and has a million Twitter followers and tens of millions in the bank.

Anybody have any theories about the disproportionate and unequal media response that don’t begin and end with “because Chris Brown is a black man?” Honestly, if you do I am dying to hear them.

Racialicious

Bitch Magazine

Game Over, Man! Big Love Post-Mortem

HBO has finally parted ways with its polygamy-based show about love, faith, duty, sharing, and some other spiraled into crazy things that mostly left us shaking our heads and wondering whether it was worth it, and undoubtedly, why it was that we watched this show for five seasons.

When the show first debuted, before TLC’s bandwagon-hopping with their romantic comedy called Sister Wives, and the real life situation regarding Warren Jeffs, and most recently the removal of several compound children by Child Protective Services (Yoikes! So much ewwww.), this little show settled in to test the American view of family. What it means. And what sorts of limits we put on our own feelings, our jealousies, our acceptances, sex, and lastly, commitment. Over the course of five seasons many questions were raised about all of these themes. Did the final season and the finale answer most of them? [Stop reading here, if you’re worried about spoilers.]

Well, yes and no.

No one character escaped persecution or emerged with clean hands at the end of this final season, and each season leading up to the last created more questions than answers about who these three people at the epicenter of Big Love really were.

Nicki: The Puritanical Princess

Nicki, played expertly by Chloë Sevigny, was so wholly unlikable. She was manipulative, mean, nosy, strange, pious, unyielding, and just downright aggravating. Feh! to the absolute max. There were no limits to what she would do to get what she wanted. No amount of sneaky crap she’d conjure to hide her mistakes, and when push came to shove, it was always Nicki who made things ten times worse. Just, urgh. I never, ever, understood how they put up with her. What was the appeal? Her ties to the prophet? Her fashion sense? Her screeching “me, me, me-ing?” At some point, we find out that she was the product of abuses on the compound, and that she’s damaged in a way all the progeny of Roman Grant seemed to be. This was expected, no? The assumption, I suppose, was to make us feel sorry for her, and create some deeper understanding, mostly to uncover what made her little rabid mind tick. This didn’t help much, but at least it gave us more to focus on other than her scheming and lying…but not much.

Margene: The Child Bride

The little naive starry-eyed nymph was just a little too much poured sugar, right? In effect she was much like a large child. She was often chastised and scolded by Nicki and Barb. And given her youth and vitality, she was often relegated to the “bearer of new fruit” role in the marriage. Just how many babies did Margene have? We finally find out in the season finale when Bill says three. I would have just assumed nine. Seriously, I had no idea. Whenever she went to her house and emerged, a new infant was attached to her body in some way. It’s no wonder the writers decided that not only will Margene be a child, bear children, think like a child, but now Bill also married her when she was sixteen! Brilliant! No, crazy, desperate and a stupid, stupid way to add false-drama to this thing! Why did they do this? As if Margene and all her infomercial oddities weren’t enough to annoy the clapboard off a trailer, now they add statutory rape to the wacky stew, because watching her pout as an adult in every episode just wasn’t enough. We really had no useful purpose for Margene if you can’t tell.

Barb: The Good Wife

Good, kind, forgiving, Barb. Barb was always my favorite. Jeanne Tripplehorn’s take on her was excellent. She never compromised her position in the family, and seemed to be the one with the most growth. She was always reaching to understand herself and what she ultimately wanted out of her life, her faith, and her relationship. She wasn’t a large child like Margene, or a damaged soul like Nicki, the more we came to understand her. Barb was someone who initially didn’t believe in polygamy, but found herself led to it, and then embracing it, perhaps selfishly, perhaps out of necessity. Is this a flaw? Perhaps, but one she tried to carry with grace. Nonetheless, I always thought Barb was too good for Bill, and his weird choices for the other wives. It seemed totally incongruous that Bill would choose the ambitious, independent Barb, and also choose Nicki and Margene, two of the neediest people in his family, next to his children.

Bill: The Fearless Leader

Bill’s a jackass. He’s always been a jackass. He’s a selfish, unforgiving, unfaithful, egotistical blowhard who’s willing to sacrifice just about anyone and everything to preserve the principles he finds important. To two of his wives he’s more father figure than husband. To the one he seemed the most devoted, he sought to diminish her. And let’s not forget Anna, who he basically just had an affair with, wanted to conveniently marry, and then knocked up. Of the four it looks like she, out of them all, came to her senses and backed away from the damaged clan after observing all of their feeble, desperate lives.

Throughout the show it became more evident that Bill was striving to be more and more Roman-like. He wanted to be a prophet in his own way, wheeling and dealing, and trading in on his friends and family in order to create success. In the end, while he rails against Albie, that distorted, sad, little man, Bill has just as much ego, and seeks just as much power to push forth his personal agendas. In his own way, he is Albie but with a different flock of followers.

What Did We Learn?

The Power of Three

As much as the focus began to creep away from the three women at the heart of this show, and center more on Bill and his ever reaching wants, the finale brought the focus back to the mother, the purist, and the free spirit. By the end, they are all drifting in new directions, two away from the confines of the family, and one attempting to gain what she always desired, more significance, and a step out of Barb’s shadow, but with her blessing. The scene where Nicki tells her big revelation to Barb that she knows she’s difficult is hilarious in that, we along with Barb, are saying, “I know.” And Margene, the oddly constructed dreamer, is finding what she was searching for, growth outside the family, but still maintaining her roots within it. And finally Barb now fully embracing and accepting her new role as priesthood holder and leader, can rely more on Nicki to run the home, without usurping the other in Bill’s eyes.

The Kids Are Alright

~~George Clooney returns to ER~~ Sarah returns happy with baby in tow. Ben and Heather have worked out their fidelity issues and have married, sans Rhonda. No sign of Teeny, but we’re probably to assume that she like her siblings are thriving and doing well, and probably not embracing the tenants of polygamy, because just why would they put themselves through that again? There’s no word of what’s happening with Margene’s nine children now that she looks like a pixie and is sailing on the Carnival Cruise Peace Corp, but mostly we’re supposed to infer that they’re being raised by Nicki as if Marge were a wayward teen mother who’s now off to college.

Someone Pays Bill’s Check

Because HBO likes sudden, unexpected, surreal deaths (See: Omar and The Wire), Bill doesn’t die the way anyone could have predicted, at the hands of Albie, or in a car crash while singing hymns, or from a massive heart attack while on the Senate floor, no he’s killed in a random, odd way. Some neighbor has just had enough, you see? Enough of people doing things for him, like sodding his front yard. That’s as good a reason as any. So Bill is shot, and he’s now looking over his friends and family, including his mother and father who’ve gone to the great beyond like a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic, and the neighborhood he changed with his three connecting houses, two cats in the yard, yadda, yadda, and a dream of polygamous acceptance.

A Clean Finish

All in all, I don’t regret sticking with it to see where it would go. The show brought us some colorful characters, and a lot of interesting moments. Do I think the show spun out of control a bit? Yes. In the same way Weeds has driven off the side of a cliff and into a landfill? No. Was there more than a little light shed on the Mormon faith, the abuses that reside in some of these compounds, and the intricacies of polygamy. For a layman, perhaps. But for someone living the life, I’m sure Big Love barely scratched the surface. Which is to say that in the end, for all that has occurred and was brought forth in five seasons, I think Big Love’s ending was a bit too tidy. Those lingering questions and sturm and dang that went along with living the polygamous lifestyle were neatly wrapped up. With Bill’s death it seemed that all the family’s troubles including, prosecution, excommunication, ousting from the community… just went away. Poof. In that regard, I guess you can say everything really was all Bill’s fault. Told you.

Crassthetics: Your Questions About Muffin Tops, Eye Makeup and Ingrown Hairs

Hello everyone, and welcome to our first installment of Crassthetics, where I answer your questions about clothes, makeup and whatever other shallow subjects you guys find confusing. If you have any nagging queries that you’d like addressed in future editions of this column, please send them to [redacted]. Also, many of the products I recommend below can be had through Amazon, so if you’re going to try them out, I’m sure that the Powers That Be would appreciate if you’d investigate what can be found through the affiliate link box at right before using the links I’ve provided to regular retailers.

I received a bunch of questions for this first column, but if I didn’t use yours, don’t worry; if it’s something I can answer, it will show up in this space in the future. Also, don’t be embarrassed! All questions will be kept anonymous, and I will not tell anyone about that gross problem that you have with your feet. For now, let’s hit some of the basics concerning properly fitted pants, eye makeup application and those pesky, unsightly ingrown hairs.

How do you find jeans that don’t strangle your muffin top? I am a size 14, but it’s only my waist measurement that makes that. The rest of me (hips, thighs, and all) is about a size 10. So everything that fits my waist is way too loose everywhere else, but anything that fits my hips and thighs cuts into my nasty stomach.

I think that some people are going to immediately reject my answer to this question, but hear me out: Jeggings. Yes, the reviled, painted-on quasi-pants favored by Ugg-wearing teens at the mall. But! Not all jeggings are a crime against humanity, just the cheap ones at Wet Seal. If you shop carefully, no one will even know that you’re wearing jeggings instead of regular jeans.

Follow my logic here: All clothing is cut on an hourglass fit model. If regular jeans are made to fit the waist and legs of an hourglass model comfortably, and jeggings are made to fit at the waist and be skintight through the leg, then for someone whose hips and thighs are proportionally thinner than her waist, shouldn’t the legs of jeggings fit like regular pants? As it turns out, I have exactly the same body type as you do, and that logic is indeed sound. Jeggings provide the more narrow fit you need, but they still give at the waist because of the stretch content of the material.

There are two keys to careful jeggings shopping: Stick to dark, non-distressed washes and pay close attention to the fabric content. jeggings that still look like real jeans will have a cotton percentage well into the 90s. My favorite pair is 96% cotton and 4% spandex, and not even my mother (she of the passive-aggressive, “Is that what you’re going to wear?”) had a clue that they weren’t regular pants. If the pants contain more than two materials, move on.

And yes, jeggings are usually skinny jeans, another product to which many people seem averse from the start. You don’t have to be skinny or particularly young to wear skinny jeans, though, provided that they fit your correctly. In fact, if your legs are slender compared to your torso, skinnies will probably be particularly flattering on you because they’ll highlight an area that can help you create an optical illusion of overall slenderness. Pair them with a slightly loose tunic-length top for maximum effect.

Another thing you want to consider is the rise of your pants. Lower-slung waistbands are more likely to cut across an unflattering part of your body, so choosing pants that come up an extra inch or two will also help contain any wayward chub. But really, give jeggings a chance. They come in higher rises too, and there are plenty of pairs that have a regular button and fly like non-stretch jeans. Jeggings are the only growth-producing sector of the denim industry for a reason, and it’s not because those mall-loitering teenagers we mentioned have gobs of extra cash to buy them. Everyone from Old Navy to J Brand makes them now, so finding them in your size and price range should be fairly easy.

I would like to know the foolproof way to keep mascara/eyeliner from smudging, from which product to use, to how to apply. I use waterproof mascara and waterproof eyeliner and yet, it still smudges!

Listen up, because I’m about to change your makeup-wearing life: Urban Decay Primer Potion. It costs $18 at Sephora and will cement any eye makeup in a three-block radius to even the oiliest of lids. (I should know; the oiliest lids in the whole wide world belong to me.)

You just wipe a tiny bit on your eyelids before you do your makeup, let it dry for a few seconds and apply your eyeliner and shadow as normal. For maximum effect, use a liquid or gel eyeliner, which is far less prone to smearing, smudging or flaking in the first place. If you’re going to go liquid, my favorite is Dior’s eyeliner pen. Gel? MAC Fluidline and the MAC 266 Angled Eyeliner Brush. Application of either of those products has a learning curve over a regular pencil, but once you get the hang of it, the results are phenomenal.

If you’d rather stick with a pencil, my favorite high-end option is Make Up Forever Aqua Eyes, although it will still smudge a bit without the primer under it. If you want to stay in a drugstore price range, Covergirl makes a mechanical pencil liner that’s surprisingly budge-proof. For shadow, I tend to gravitate toward MAC’s wide range of choices, although virtually anything will stick like a champ with Primer Potion under it. There have been plenty of nights where I’ve fallen asleep without taking my eye makeup off (Bad, Pssshwhatever! Bad!), and the next morning, it still looks almost perfect. Sometimes I even go place with it like that.

Mascara is a little trickier because I’ve found that many of the drugstore products labeled as “waterproof” still give me terrible raccoon eyes. (The same is true for eyeliner, unfortunately). L’Oreal Telescopic is okay for days when it’s not humid and you don’t think you’ll sweat, but if you want the holy grail, you’ve got to go with Chanel Inimitable Waterproof. Say it with me, ladies. Chanel. Inimitable. Waterproof. It costs an arm and a leg (or $30, if you have it), but it’s about a million times better than any of that similarly priced DiorShow foolishness that magazines always tell you to buy. I’ve tried just about every Dior mascara known to man. Don’t make the same mistake. It’s an expensive one.

Okay, so I’m prone not only to ingrown hairs in my beard, but hairs that grow parallel to the skin and then become infected. Or maybe that’s the same thing. I use an exfoliant (Clinique for Men’s Face Scrub) and little else. I’m reluctant to put too much in the way of chemicals on my face for fears of making a bit of photodamage worse. One dermatologist told me to dig them out with tweezers, but that seems…absurd? ill-advised? prone to scarring? Anyway. Any suggestions or pointers?

This answer isn’t just for the menfolk, because ingrown hairs plague all of humanity, as far as I know. You said that you’re tentative about using chemicals, but I’ve been using Tend Skin for several years on my extremely sensitive, persnickety, pale skin and have never experienced any irritation or discoloration. (And not to put too fine a point on it, but I’ve used it in some…err…sensitive areas.) There’s a bit of momentary burn if I use it right after I shave my legs or when irritation has already had a chance to set in, but it’s well worth the result: A near-complete end to razor bumps and ingrown hairs. I’ve tried every exfoliator on the planet (or at least it seems that way sometimes), and nothing works as well at preventing irritation as a little dab o’ Tend Skin. Buy it at Sephora and use it in an inconspicuous spot; if you don’t like it or you’re still nervous, Sephora will let you return practically anything.

If you want to exfoliate better without using chemicals, then get yourself a pair of exfoliator gloves from The Body Shop. They’re super inexpensive and can be reused a million times as long as you keep them clean, and it’s difficult to get a more thorough non-chemical exfoliation. You don’t have to use them every day, but once or twice a week with my regular soap has made a big difference in the smoothness of my skin. They can also be used on your legs, arms or anywhere that you have rough skin or problems with ingrown hairs.

As far as removing hairs that are already ingrown goes, your instincts were right about your dermatologist’s advice to dig them out with tweezers. That will create a tiny scab and possibly a temporary scar, and while the spot is healing, the hair will likely grow in again and be unable to penetrate the surface, causing the problem to repeat itself. Positively Sisyphean, right?

Instead, if you need to remove the hair, you’re going to need a needle or safety pin, a sterilizing agent and a pair of good tweezers. Because picking the hair out, even very carefully, can introduce bacteria into your skin and make the area infected, either wipe your needle down with alcohol or heat it with a lighter until it glows. Then, gently poke the needle or pin at the hair in an effort to bring it up above the surface. After it’s free, pluck it with the tweezers. If you need a tweezer recommendation, suffice it to say that there’s a reason Tweezerman is so famous.

That method creates the least amount of disruption in the skin, which means less irritation, less scarring and fewer future ingrown hairs.

Thus concludes our first installment of Crassthetics, but remember, there will be more. Well, if you send me your questions, anyway. Amull85 at gmail dot com. Do it, fool.

Photo via Flickr

Wednesday Daytime Open Thread

Hello there Crasstalk. Hope you are having a good day and are making it through the week without getting into too much trouble (you know who you are troublemakers). We are running a little thin on articles for the next couple of days, so if you have been thinking of putting together a post this would be a great time. Email me if you need help at crasstalk at gmail dot com.

Here are a couple of truly awesome workplace videos to guide you through the work day.

Have a wonderful day.