The Personal is the Political Sometimes Equals the Personal is the Stupid
Drinking Liberally bulletin, written by me, sent Monday PM:
Until about 3:30, I was having a lovely Saturday. Hearing the thunder booming and watching the lightning flash across the sky I was reminded of nature’s immense power. I turned back to my computer and began writing something, when the lights flickered on and off as lightning flashed through my bedroom. “Oh crap,” I muttered, “I’d better turn off the computer before–”, and that’s when I heard an ominous “ZZZZZT-ZZZZT” from behind the Dell, and a window appeared on my monitor. “Connection Lost: A Cable is Unplugged”, which is code for “The modem is now dead.”
Thus, I am sending out this DL announcement a bit early, during work hours.
We’ll be Drinking Liberally at the Tangier, corner of 18th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia PA from 6 until whenever. Lure a friend with the promise of drink specials and free wings, as we dangle a pocketwatch in front of their eyes, brainwashing them with sweet nothings like “Bill O’Reilly’s a jerk” and “Ann Coulter is a Man”. Works every time, just ask Raymond Shaw.
Not DL-related at all: a good friend, a kick-ass bluegrass musician, and a stalwart progressive, Buddy Woodward is moving to Virginia with his band the Dixie Beeliners. They’ll be making a stop in Philadelphia on the way, tomorrow night at 9:00 to be exact, at Whiskey Dix (421 N 7th). Buddy and the band loathe the current occupant as much as we do, so if you’re in any shape to walk after DL, I hope you’ll drop by and wish him good luck!
Response to that email:
babylonsister1@xxxxxx.com.org
“Ann Coulter is a Man”
Great – my first visit this week & I get greeted by f’ing jokes about transgender people. Feeling real welcome boys. Haven’t you been following online how isulting we’ve been finding this?
My initial response was to apologize for offending, which I did immediately. I’m not in the business of alienating people, and lord knows the last thing I could give a shit about is sexual orientation or gender identity. But you know what?
When I consider the very real attacks on gays, lesbians, transgenders, and straights, I think “Babylon Sister” needs to grow up and target his/her anger at, you know, the people who are really trying to fuck up his/her life.
I mean, if he/she had written me saying “Hey man, don’t lump Ann Coulter in with us transgender people, we don’t want her”, the point would have been made, and made with class and a chuckle.
I think that Babylon Sister has had a tough life and has internalized a lot of the bullshit he/she had to live through, and now sees any snarky remark as “an attack on the community.” Well, if you think Ann Coulter is part of your community just because her questionable gender is batted around by lefties (never mind that Coulter’s ugly attacks on gay people set her up as a target), then fine. You go hang out with Ann Coulter.
It reminds me of the time I was hanging out in a West Philly bar. My friend Julie and I were laughing at the label on a bottle of Dock Street Lager, which features a very effeminate sailor holding a rope, and looking down the pier, like he’s cruising (I’m at work, and 21+ sites are blocked, including breweries so I can’t get a photo up to illustrate this just yet: you’ll have to trust me).
I remarked to Julie, “Dock Street? the way the sailor looks, it oughta be renamed ‘Cock Street’.” Juvenile, I know, but no more juvenile than my friend Jim, who’s gay, laughing at super-femme Rick Steves, the host of PBS’ Backdoors Through Europe. “Yeah, I’ll say he’s been through a backdoor or two in Europe…”
So we’re making fun of a label, when this young woman sitting next to us, turns around scowling and says “I just wanted to say, you may think you’re funny, but as a member of the community I think you’re totally rude and offensive.” We laughed in her face. Julie looked at me, and said “I never knew beer bottles could be gay.”
When you make the personal the political, and in many ways it is impossible to split the two, you run the risk of making everything into a crisis and a personal attack.
If Babylon Sister, who didn’t show up to Drinking Liberally, were to meet Ann Coulter, he/she would find that Ann Coulter would not accept him/her, and in fact would attack him/her for his/her very existence. This is what Ann Coulter does every day. I’m sorry if Babylon Sister is so thin-skinned, so insecure in his/her own identity, that he/she sees a crack on a truly odious person as an attack on all transgendered people. I’m sorry for Babylon Sister, not sorry for what I said.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
here ya go:
http://www.dockstreetbeer.com/images/rollover_a/Dock-Street-A_4.jpg
July 27th, 2006 at 1:02 am
Before his death, my grandfather got a neighbor to videotape him reciting/singing some songs, hymns, scripture, and poems he’d grown up with. For the most part, the content is predictable, tame, sentimental and vaguely entertaining for anyone who knew and loved him.
But every once in a while a lyric would include a reference to “the darkies” or something similar.
Was my grandfather a racist? In my experience, by the commonly-accepted definition, not at all. If called on using that sort of language, however, I’m pretty sure he’d tell people they were being oversensitive, simply because his background didn’t afford him the same cultural sensitivity that his children and grandchildren took for granted.
Basically, I’m with you, because I and my circle of friends crack the same kind of wise that you got called on. And I imagine our grandkids will probably be just as taken aback by our insensitivity.
*shrug*
July 27th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Actually, I probably listen to a lot of your grandfather’s music, including stuff with references to “darkies”. If you’ve been reading the site for awhile, you know I’m very much into bluegrass and old-time country music, both of which have strayed into lyrical content that would now be considered offensive (more prevalent in old-time than in bluegrass, which is a living musical style). When I perform songs with questionable, or gratuitous, lyrical content I change the offending word. Thus, in “the Girl I Left In Sunny Tennessee”, I sing “you could hear the children singing/ as she buid farewell to me” instead of “you could hear the darkies singing…”
That said, the comment about “Ann Coulter is a Man” was not an attack on transgendered people. babylon Sister kind of reminded me of Woody Allen in “Annie Hall”, when someone says “D’you eat?” and he says “Jews? Jews, who said anything about Jews?”
July 28th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
lutton:
Look at the guy on the bottle on the left, and tell me he’s not cruising.