The China Study (The most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted) by T. Colin Campbell, PHD. It. Blew. My. Mind. ...and ruined me! I now consciously watch everything I put into my mouth far beyond if it’s vegan or not.
A basic synopsis is that a 20-something year study was done on both humans and animals relating to diet and disease. The study found that a whole foods, plant based diet (vegan or practically vegan) like that of rural China is optimal for a healthy life free of diseases of affluence including Diabetes I and II, Heart Disease, Breast and Prostate Cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS, arthritis, cataracts, impotence, etc... Diet is more important in preventing or reversing these diseases than carcinogens present and genes.
I can’t even begin to describe how this book has opened my eyes (and I was already a vegan). I had no idea that cancer was preventable with diet. Now that I do I’m all the more into being vegan!
Making a case for being vegan is really secondary to showing the evidence of the numerous studies these scientists conducted so it’s not an obnoxious vegan diet book. While I really have no words to describe how awesome it is (other than “READ IT NOW”) I did mark some notable paragraphs.
“Very few people actually know what they should be doing to improve their health.”
If President Obama addressed the nation with a new vegan diet recommendation eyes would surely roll. Being vegan has a stigma attached to it that we’re not healthy and that you need meat and byproducts to be healthy. There’s that phrase we vegans have heard at least a thousand times: “Vegans don’t get enough protein.” That’s just not true! Meat eaters get more than enough harmful proteins (derived from animals) and not enough positive proteins (from whole-foods/plants).
“Your friends, family and colleagues may not be supportive. For whatever reasons, many people will find it threatening that you are now a vegetarian or vegan. Perhaps it’s because, deep down, they know their diet isn’t healthy and find it threatening that someone else is able to give up unhealthy eating habits when they cannot.”
SO TRUE! There’s an obnoxious and overweight woman who is a colleague of mine that always has to make a snide comment about what I’m eating - “Well I like to ENJOY my food...” Unfortunately I can’t say what I’d like to say to her - “So do I and I’m not 200 lbs overweight with health problems.” I’ll take my spinach over your deathburger any day!
“In practical terms this means that beef, pork, lamb and veal consumption is decreasing while lower-fat chicken, turkey and fish consumption is increasing, In fact, by consuming more poultry an fish, people have been increasing their total meat intake to record-high amounts, while trying (and largely failing) to reduce their fat intake. In addition, whole milk is being consumed less, but low-fat and skim milk are being consumed more. Cheese consumption has increased by 150% in the past 30 years.
Overall we are as carnivorous as we were thirty years ago, but we are able to selectively lower our fat intake if we so desire, due to the wonders of food technology.”
He then goes to show an example of a lower fat new-age diet meal vs. a high fat traditional meal. Surprisingly the new meal has less fat as a total percentage of calories, but more protein and much more cholesterol. The example shows that you cannot isolate certain parts of your diet and focus on them - like fat - but instead choosing a plant-based diet will take care of lowering all disease risk factors as well as provide a lot more nutrients and ZERO cholesterol.
“More people die because of what they eat than tobacco use, accidents or any other lifestyle or environmental factor. We know that the incidence of obesity and diabetes is skyrocketing and that Americans’ health is slipping away and we know what to blame: diet. So shouldn’t the government be leading us to better nutrition? There is nothing better the government could do that would prevent more pain and suffering in this country than telling Americans unequivocally to eat less animal products, less highly-refined plant products and more whole, plant-based foods. It is a message soundly based on the breadth and depth of scientific evidence and the government could make this clear, as it did with cigarettes. Cigarettes kill, and so do these bad foods. But instead of doing this, the government is saying that animal products, dairy and meat, refined sugar and fat in your diet are good for you! The government is turning a blind eye to the evidence as well as to the millions of Americans who suffer from nutrition-related illnesses.”
Basically the USDA’s Food Pyramid (that we all learned as children) will give you heart disease. Why don’t they remove meat and dairy? Because government is a business and recommending less would mean people might eat less meat and dairy, become healthier, visit the doctor less, take less drugs, and everybody (but veggie farmers) makes less money.
Read this book, then look at The Food Pyramid and try not to vomit all over your keyboard.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
a wolf at the table
i just finished reading my third Augusten Burroughs novel (Running with Scissors, Dry). i LOVE him. i also really love this passage from the book. a little unexpected atheism creeped up on me!
---
At home my father saw me kneeling before my mattress. I seldom knelt when I talked to God. kneeling is for people who aren’t friends with him, I thought. Kneeling was formal. Kneeling was for guests. You would kneel if you weren’t certain. Kneeling was wanting and showing, not knowing and believing. That’s just what I thought, at least.
But I was kneeling that night because I needed so much, so desperately. And what if I was wrong? What if kneeling was merely good manners? Like never putting your elbows on the table, the way my grandmother Carolyn taught me.
“Augusten, what are you doing down on your knees like that?” my father asked disdainfully.
I turned around as I stood up. I sat on my bed. “Nothing.”
He parked his fists on his hips and asked incredulously, “Son, were you praying?”
The sheer disappointment on his face made my own cheeks burn. “A little,” I admitted.
“Oh, son,” he said, rolling his eyes and lightly shaking his head from side to side. “Jesus Christ, Augusten. You’re much too old for this praying business, much too old.”
His eyes continued to bore into me as if the full magnitude of my dishonor was only just beginning to be revealed.
He continued. “Praying is something little kids do. Son, it’s like writing a letter to Santa. Now, you wouldn’t sit down at your desk and write a letter to Santa anymore, would you? Praying is just exactly the same thing. You’re old enough now where you have to understand that if you want something in life, you are responsible for taking care of your needs yourself.”
Boldly, I said, “But you were a priest.”
He didn’t shift position, but I sensed a change, a certain tensing of his body. “Well, no. That’s technically not correct. I wasn’t a priest. I was a preacher.” He waved his hand in the air to dismiss the distinction. “Son, there is nobody in life who is going to do anything for you. There isn’t a God in any traditional sense; a man up there in the sky who grants wishes like a magic genie or a wizard.” He laughed softly, even contemptuously. “Is that what you really believe, son? That there’s an all-knowing something or other up there in the sky with a magic wand who’s going to get you a new record player or whatever it is you’re asking for?”
I had been on my knees, moving my lips along with the silent prayer, because what I was asking for was that important.
God, please take my father away. Please make him leave. I am very afraid that he’s going to do something bad. there’s something wrong with him. And I am very worried that my mother and I won’t make it. she used to say he was dangerous and I didn’t understand. But now I do. If death is the only answer, please take him. If he doesn’t hurt me, I’m afraid I might hurt him. I’ve become quite good with the rifle, you know. I’m sure you’ve seen me. Unless you think I’m the one that’s bad and then you can take me. I won’t be mad at you.
When I spoke to my father my voice came out low and soft, almost a whisper. “I don’t really believe in a God that gives you new ice skates and stuff.” I kept to myself then when I ate vanilla frosting straight from the can, I could feel god standing right beside me like a real best friend, watching and smiling and wishing he had a mouth.
My father stepped forward and slapped me on the shoulder, a rare and shocking instance of physical contact. “Okay, son, all right,” he said and walked out of my room. Without having to watch him, I knew for a fact that as he walked down the hall and into the kitchen, he turned off each light switch as he passed it. He then checked all the burners on the stove, even though nobody had cooked a thing all day -- I’d had cold cuts from the package for dinner, pickles from a jar. Next, he would walk into the living room and peer at his thermometer-barometer unit, which was bolted to the wall. he’d repeat the figured in his head until he made it back into the kitchen where he would write them down on the top page of his diary. Next, he would pour himself a glass of vodka and carry it into the living room. He would sit in his rocking chair in the dark.
I didn’t know if it was because of what he said or just that I was getting older, but I soon stopped feeling God standing right beside me everywhere I went. I stopped talking to him when I was alone in the woods or under the bridge looking for diamonds among the river stones. I stopped asking God to protect me.
I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alone. Maybe god was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not.
And if I put everything in God’s hands, wasn’t that a cop-out? If I didn’t get what I wanted I could use God as an excuse, I could say, “He didn’t want me to have it.” When, in fact, maybe I hadn’t worked hard enough on my own.
If I wanted to be free of my father, it wasn’t up to some man in the sky. it was up to me.
---
At home my father saw me kneeling before my mattress. I seldom knelt when I talked to God. kneeling is for people who aren’t friends with him, I thought. Kneeling was formal. Kneeling was for guests. You would kneel if you weren’t certain. Kneeling was wanting and showing, not knowing and believing. That’s just what I thought, at least.
But I was kneeling that night because I needed so much, so desperately. And what if I was wrong? What if kneeling was merely good manners? Like never putting your elbows on the table, the way my grandmother Carolyn taught me.
“Augusten, what are you doing down on your knees like that?” my father asked disdainfully.
I turned around as I stood up. I sat on my bed. “Nothing.”
He parked his fists on his hips and asked incredulously, “Son, were you praying?”
The sheer disappointment on his face made my own cheeks burn. “A little,” I admitted.
“Oh, son,” he said, rolling his eyes and lightly shaking his head from side to side. “Jesus Christ, Augusten. You’re much too old for this praying business, much too old.”
His eyes continued to bore into me as if the full magnitude of my dishonor was only just beginning to be revealed.
He continued. “Praying is something little kids do. Son, it’s like writing a letter to Santa. Now, you wouldn’t sit down at your desk and write a letter to Santa anymore, would you? Praying is just exactly the same thing. You’re old enough now where you have to understand that if you want something in life, you are responsible for taking care of your needs yourself.”
Boldly, I said, “But you were a priest.”
He didn’t shift position, but I sensed a change, a certain tensing of his body. “Well, no. That’s technically not correct. I wasn’t a priest. I was a preacher.” He waved his hand in the air to dismiss the distinction. “Son, there is nobody in life who is going to do anything for you. There isn’t a God in any traditional sense; a man up there in the sky who grants wishes like a magic genie or a wizard.” He laughed softly, even contemptuously. “Is that what you really believe, son? That there’s an all-knowing something or other up there in the sky with a magic wand who’s going to get you a new record player or whatever it is you’re asking for?”
I had been on my knees, moving my lips along with the silent prayer, because what I was asking for was that important.
God, please take my father away. Please make him leave. I am very afraid that he’s going to do something bad. there’s something wrong with him. And I am very worried that my mother and I won’t make it. she used to say he was dangerous and I didn’t understand. But now I do. If death is the only answer, please take him. If he doesn’t hurt me, I’m afraid I might hurt him. I’ve become quite good with the rifle, you know. I’m sure you’ve seen me. Unless you think I’m the one that’s bad and then you can take me. I won’t be mad at you.
When I spoke to my father my voice came out low and soft, almost a whisper. “I don’t really believe in a God that gives you new ice skates and stuff.” I kept to myself then when I ate vanilla frosting straight from the can, I could feel god standing right beside me like a real best friend, watching and smiling and wishing he had a mouth.
My father stepped forward and slapped me on the shoulder, a rare and shocking instance of physical contact. “Okay, son, all right,” he said and walked out of my room. Without having to watch him, I knew for a fact that as he walked down the hall and into the kitchen, he turned off each light switch as he passed it. He then checked all the burners on the stove, even though nobody had cooked a thing all day -- I’d had cold cuts from the package for dinner, pickles from a jar. Next, he would walk into the living room and peer at his thermometer-barometer unit, which was bolted to the wall. he’d repeat the figured in his head until he made it back into the kitchen where he would write them down on the top page of his diary. Next, he would pour himself a glass of vodka and carry it into the living room. He would sit in his rocking chair in the dark.
I didn’t know if it was because of what he said or just that I was getting older, but I soon stopped feeling God standing right beside me everywhere I went. I stopped talking to him when I was alone in the woods or under the bridge looking for diamonds among the river stones. I stopped asking God to protect me.
I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alone. Maybe god was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not.
And if I put everything in God’s hands, wasn’t that a cop-out? If I didn’t get what I wanted I could use God as an excuse, I could say, “He didn’t want me to have it.” When, in fact, maybe I hadn’t worked hard enough on my own.
If I wanted to be free of my father, it wasn’t up to some man in the sky. it was up to me.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
moral dilemma
Being the angry person that I am, I see / hear things on a daily basis that really bother me. Most of the time I just forget about them because it’s not worth the time and energy sitting on things that don’t matter in the bigger picture. Today I saw something that really got to me and I can’t seem to get it out of my head so I might as well share. On my way home from work, when I arrived on the J train platform there was a kid there who was probably around my age standing there with an enormous TV on a wooden platform with wheels. My first reaction was how the hell did he get this on the train platform, down then up at least 3 flights of stairs...
He was at the back of the train, which is where I had to wait. This kid looked puzzled and as the platform started to fill up with people waiting for the train people started to ask him exactly what I was thinking - how did he manage to get that huge TV to the spot it was sitting, let alone by himself. It turns out that the TV was just sitting there and it didn’t belong to him, but since it was seemingly abandoned he was considering taking it but couldn’t figure out how to get it home. A few people told him that it’s not worth it because he doesn’t even know if it works.
The kid started wondering out loud if it was “ethical” to take a TV that didn’t belong to him that was left in the subway. Then he saw one of the onlookers was a Hassidic Jewish man. He turns to the Jewish man and says “Hey, maybe I should ask you for your ethical opinion on this one... is it ethical to take a TV that has been has been left in the subway but might belong to someone who is coming back for it?”
I immediately walked to the other side of the platform. Grrrrr! How naive of this kid to think that just because someone is religious that they should be consulted for their moral opinion on anything. How does this kid know the man isn’t on his way home after spending a few hours in a sleezy motel room in Times Square with his favorite whore? Should I ask him if sodomy is morally wrong? Maybe he would know if it’s wrong for a married man to sleep with a single woman? How about if it’s ethical to shake a woman’s hand?
In our society, morals and ethics are unfortunately tied to religion. Even more unfortunate is the common misconception is that those without god or religion in their lives can’t possibly be good or ethical people.
He was at the back of the train, which is where I had to wait. This kid looked puzzled and as the platform started to fill up with people waiting for the train people started to ask him exactly what I was thinking - how did he manage to get that huge TV to the spot it was sitting, let alone by himself. It turns out that the TV was just sitting there and it didn’t belong to him, but since it was seemingly abandoned he was considering taking it but couldn’t figure out how to get it home. A few people told him that it’s not worth it because he doesn’t even know if it works.
The kid started wondering out loud if it was “ethical” to take a TV that didn’t belong to him that was left in the subway. Then he saw one of the onlookers was a Hassidic Jewish man. He turns to the Jewish man and says “Hey, maybe I should ask you for your ethical opinion on this one... is it ethical to take a TV that has been has been left in the subway but might belong to someone who is coming back for it?”
I immediately walked to the other side of the platform. Grrrrr! How naive of this kid to think that just because someone is religious that they should be consulted for their moral opinion on anything. How does this kid know the man isn’t on his way home after spending a few hours in a sleezy motel room in Times Square with his favorite whore? Should I ask him if sodomy is morally wrong? Maybe he would know if it’s wrong for a married man to sleep with a single woman? How about if it’s ethical to shake a woman’s hand?
In our society, morals and ethics are unfortunately tied to religion. Even more unfortunate is the common misconception is that those without god or religion in their lives can’t possibly be good or ethical people.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
pictures i love
purple and the gold, please!
diablo cody.
twins are creepy. miu miu.
i want this necklace. the woman is leonor scherrer.
heart shaped bruise (or hickey?).
i want to look like her!
i want her hair!
alexander wang.
Monday, April 5, 2010
manufactured monster
In elementary school it was TLC. In high school (and still) it was Pink. I fell in love with Gaga when I first saw her wearing one of her crazy outfits before I ever heard her music. I had heard of her in college (she was my year at NYU) because a friend was working with the same producer she was and swore to death that Gaga was sleeping with him (she was right). As I learned more about her I became enamored with her as a complete package. Although technically a musician, her music is just a small part of why I love her. She wears the hottest, pantsless, avant garde shit (I also hate wearing pants), she’s pretty-ugly (she’s ugly in a way that is actually pretty), she can dance, she has a powerful voice, she identifies as bi-sexual and I get this powerful feeling from her that she is unashamedly herself. She’s not afraid to be who she is...
Or so I thought. The downfall began with the media controversy of her “Telephone” video with Beyonce, the girl-on-girl kiss and the blurred out vagina on screen, the PRODUCT PLACEMENT. This video really stirred up the Internet and I read so many pretentious critiques presuming Gaga’s motive for every second of that video that it made me sick. I was certain that this video was a turning point (downfall) in her career for a few reasons. First, the collaboration with Beyonce is so forced and awkward that it is clearly a ploy for Gaga to appeal to Beyonce fans. Secondly, it just missed the mark from all of her other videos. Maybe because you can’t make a Tarantino film without Tarantino (I don’t care if you have his Pussy Wagon). And lastly, THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT is astounding. Warhol on steroids.
THEN there was “Growing Up Gaga” - a pretty crushing interview by Vanessa Grigoriadis in NY Magazine that caused my entire vision of her (hanging and covered in blood) to come tumbling down. I went through the article and picked out the particularly crushing parts of the story, but I must warn you DO NOT CONTINUE if you want to blindly love the Gaga.
I guess I was so naive to believe that the only motive to create this amazing Monster was to inspire the world to be who they really are. I realize now that who we see just another manufactured pop star BUSINESS, mixed with a hot Swedish stylist, that exists solely to sell records. To think, just a few years ago she was probably wearing Abercrombie and NOT sleeping with women (she told Barbara Walters that she has had sexual relationships with women).
1. And Gaga, of course, takes the credit herself. “I went through a great deal of creative and artistic revelation, learning, and marination to become who I am,” she explains. “Tiny little lie? I wanted to become the artist I am today, and it took years.” She studied what has gained attention with shock value and did exactly that to make people think she’s so unique.
2. Though she may not be bisexual herself—of the many friends of herself interviewed for this article, not one of them recalls her ever having a girlfriend or being sexually interested in any woman offstage—her politics are inclusive, and she wants to promote images of as many sexual combinations as are possible on this Earth. Gaga says she’s a girl who likes boys who look like girls, but she’s also a girl who likes to look like a boy herself—or, rather, a drag queen, a boy pretending to be a girl. There’s little that gives her more pleasure than the persistent rumor that she is a hermaphrodite, an Internet rumor based on scrutinizing a grainy video. That’s not Madonna. Madonna wouldn’t pretend she has a penis. All I have to say is that my friends certainly know who I sleep with.
3. Gaga also throws in our face something we’ve known all along but numbly decided to ignore: American celebrities have become very, very boring. (The fact that she has done this at the same time that much of the actual music she makes herself is somewhat boring is another feat.) One of her essential points is that celebrity should be the province of weirdos, like Grace Jones circa Jean-Paul Goude and her pet idol, eighties opera–meets–New Wave cult figure Klaus Nomi, who died of AIDS at 39. Note to self, dress as eccentrically as possible to get attention.
4. Jealous older girls stuck in the chorus began calling her “the Germ.” “They always talked behind her back, like, ‘Gross, she’s the Germ! She’s dirty!’ ” says a classmate. Gaga has often mentioned that she was an outcast in high school, but other than adolescent shenanigans like these, her friends from this Pudding-like crowd do not share this recollection. “She was always popular,” says Julia Lindenthal, Marymount ’04. “I don’t remember her experiencing any social problems or awkwardness.” Oh yea, include the social outcasts in high school by telling everyone you were picked on too.
5. I remember thinking, Wow, she is so over-the-top.” Gaga also had an odd habit of refusing to let cast members in plays call her by her real name backstage. “If you tried to say ‘Hey, Stefani’ to her, she’d put on the voice of her character, and say, ‘No, I’m Ginger!’ ” says a friend. “It was so bizarre, because we were kids.” She’s an actress constantly in character.
6. When Fusari first met Gaga, he didn’t see the private-school thing and thought she looked like “a Guidette, totally Jersey Shore.” HOW do you go from Jersey Shore to fucking Catherine Baba meets David Bowie... ever? Oh, someone tells you to.
7. Gaga began taking the bus from Port Authority to meet him at his New Jersey studio at 10 a.m., writing grungy songs with Zeppelin or Nirvana riffs on the piano and singing her quirky Jefferson Airplane lyrics over them. So if Gaga was truly making music she loved, it’d sound like “Stairway to Heaven”?
8. The two of them worked on rock songs for four months, but the reaction among their colleagues was negative; they also tried the singer-songwriter route, like Michelle Branch or Avril Lavigne, but those didn’t gel either. “With those kinds of records, people are looking at the source of that music, who it’s coming from,” says Starland. “Those artists are usually classically beautiful, very steady, and more tranquil, in a way.” Gaga can’t be a singer-songwriter because she’s not pretty enough.
9. “We weren’t going to get past A&R with a female rock record, and dance is so much easier,” says Fusari. Gaga freaked out—you don’t believe in me, she told him—but, from that day onward, they started working with a drum machine. They also began an affair, which made their artistic collaboration tumultuous... Gaga wasn’t into fashion at this point: She liked leggings and sweatshirts, maybe with a shoulder out. “A couple times, she came to the studio in sweatpants, and I said, ‘Really, Stef?’ ” says Fusari. “ ‘What if I had Clive Davis in here today? I should call the session right now. Prince doesn’t pick up ice cream at the 7-Eleven looking like Chris Rock. You’re an artist now. You can’t turn this on and off.’ ” Being true to yourself means you totally change your sound to ‘get past A&R’ and listen to when people tell you to change your clothes.
10. It was at this point that she began her serious study. Gaga picked up a biography of Prince, started shopping at American Apparel, and became entranced by aughties New Age bible The Secret, according to friends. As a Catholic-school girl, she interpreted Fusari’s remarks as a signal to cut her skirts shorter and make them tighter, until one day they totally disappeared: All that was left were undies, sometimes with tights underneath. And so she began her serious study of how to get attention.
11. Bursting with confidence, Gaga was ready to be transformed. Need I say more?
12. Herbert even spent his own money to send her to Lollapalooza over the summer, and he started to think that her look was wrong—someone in the audience shouted out “Amy Winehouse,” and that made him nervous. “I told her that she needed to dye her hair blonde, and she did it right away,” says Herbert. “God bless that girl, she really does listen.” Dye your hair blonde because someone with money tells you to.
13. “I’m getting a nose job,” she said. “I’m going to get a new nose, and I’m moving to L.A., and I’m going to be huge.” Being true to yourself means getting cosmetic surgery to change your face so you can fit society’s mold of beauty.
14. She began wearing her crazy disco outfits everywhere. “She was never out of uniform, if you will,” says Kierszenbaum. Again, she is an actress always in character.
15. The newly liberated Gaga didn’t feel like she needed to express her sexuality in a typically feminine way, either, and she became obsessed with androgyny, with the look of Liza Minnelli. She loved the free expression of drag queens—she wanted to wear the same clothes as those guys, cover herself with glitter, wear a wig. Though she wasn’t from gay club culture, management began sending her to small clubs around the country. I've never seen one picture of Gaga that was androgynous? Exploit gay culture for more money, really, it’s okay.
16. Like Warhol at the Factory, when Gaga likes someone, he works; when she’s done with him creatively, the door is closed. Use people to further your career, then throw them away.
17. “I developed an artist to grow with that artist,” says Fusari, his voice pained. She’s changed her cell number, and most of her old friends can’t reach her anymore. Forget your friends once you become famous.
18. She spent a lot to get here—her tour has been losing about $3 million, according to music-industry sources, because she refuses to compromise on any aspect of the stage show. “I spent my entire publishing advance on my first tour,” she told me. “I’ve had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year’s worth of rent.” Spend so much money on pianos that your tour is losing money when there are people dying of hunger and disease all over the world. Fucking sick.
19. With her 360 deal, Lady Gaga doesn’t own as much of Lady Gaga as one would think. Essentially, this is a joint venture among Iovine, Universal Music CEO Doug Morris, and Sony/ATV publishing head Marty Bandier. Sell yourself. Do it.
The article appropriately closes with “It’s an unlikely rise, and an unlikely name, and a totally unreal image. But what’s reality?”
Or so I thought. The downfall began with the media controversy of her “Telephone” video with Beyonce, the girl-on-girl kiss and the blurred out vagina on screen, the PRODUCT PLACEMENT. This video really stirred up the Internet and I read so many pretentious critiques presuming Gaga’s motive for every second of that video that it made me sick. I was certain that this video was a turning point (downfall) in her career for a few reasons. First, the collaboration with Beyonce is so forced and awkward that it is clearly a ploy for Gaga to appeal to Beyonce fans. Secondly, it just missed the mark from all of her other videos. Maybe because you can’t make a Tarantino film without Tarantino (I don’t care if you have his Pussy Wagon). And lastly, THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT is astounding. Warhol on steroids.
THEN there was “Growing Up Gaga” - a pretty crushing interview by Vanessa Grigoriadis in NY Magazine that caused my entire vision of her (hanging and covered in blood) to come tumbling down. I went through the article and picked out the particularly crushing parts of the story, but I must warn you DO NOT CONTINUE if you want to blindly love the Gaga.
I guess I was so naive to believe that the only motive to create this amazing Monster was to inspire the world to be who they really are. I realize now that who we see just another manufactured pop star BUSINESS, mixed with a hot Swedish stylist, that exists solely to sell records. To think, just a few years ago she was probably wearing Abercrombie and NOT sleeping with women (she told Barbara Walters that she has had sexual relationships with women).
1. And Gaga, of course, takes the credit herself. “I went through a great deal of creative and artistic revelation, learning, and marination to become who I am,” she explains. “Tiny little lie? I wanted to become the artist I am today, and it took years.” She studied what has gained attention with shock value and did exactly that to make people think she’s so unique.
2. Though she may not be bisexual herself—of the many friends of herself interviewed for this article, not one of them recalls her ever having a girlfriend or being sexually interested in any woman offstage—her politics are inclusive, and she wants to promote images of as many sexual combinations as are possible on this Earth. Gaga says she’s a girl who likes boys who look like girls, but she’s also a girl who likes to look like a boy herself—or, rather, a drag queen, a boy pretending to be a girl. There’s little that gives her more pleasure than the persistent rumor that she is a hermaphrodite, an Internet rumor based on scrutinizing a grainy video. That’s not Madonna. Madonna wouldn’t pretend she has a penis. All I have to say is that my friends certainly know who I sleep with.
3. Gaga also throws in our face something we’ve known all along but numbly decided to ignore: American celebrities have become very, very boring. (The fact that she has done this at the same time that much of the actual music she makes herself is somewhat boring is another feat.) One of her essential points is that celebrity should be the province of weirdos, like Grace Jones circa Jean-Paul Goude and her pet idol, eighties opera–meets–New Wave cult figure Klaus Nomi, who died of AIDS at 39. Note to self, dress as eccentrically as possible to get attention.
4. Jealous older girls stuck in the chorus began calling her “the Germ.” “They always talked behind her back, like, ‘Gross, she’s the Germ! She’s dirty!’ ” says a classmate. Gaga has often mentioned that she was an outcast in high school, but other than adolescent shenanigans like these, her friends from this Pudding-like crowd do not share this recollection. “She was always popular,” says Julia Lindenthal, Marymount ’04. “I don’t remember her experiencing any social problems or awkwardness.” Oh yea, include the social outcasts in high school by telling everyone you were picked on too.
5. I remember thinking, Wow, she is so over-the-top.” Gaga also had an odd habit of refusing to let cast members in plays call her by her real name backstage. “If you tried to say ‘Hey, Stefani’ to her, she’d put on the voice of her character, and say, ‘No, I’m Ginger!’ ” says a friend. “It was so bizarre, because we were kids.” She’s an actress constantly in character.
6. When Fusari first met Gaga, he didn’t see the private-school thing and thought she looked like “a Guidette, totally Jersey Shore.” HOW do you go from Jersey Shore to fucking Catherine Baba meets David Bowie... ever? Oh, someone tells you to.
7. Gaga began taking the bus from Port Authority to meet him at his New Jersey studio at 10 a.m., writing grungy songs with Zeppelin or Nirvana riffs on the piano and singing her quirky Jefferson Airplane lyrics over them. So if Gaga was truly making music she loved, it’d sound like “Stairway to Heaven”?
8. The two of them worked on rock songs for four months, but the reaction among their colleagues was negative; they also tried the singer-songwriter route, like Michelle Branch or Avril Lavigne, but those didn’t gel either. “With those kinds of records, people are looking at the source of that music, who it’s coming from,” says Starland. “Those artists are usually classically beautiful, very steady, and more tranquil, in a way.” Gaga can’t be a singer-songwriter because she’s not pretty enough.
9. “We weren’t going to get past A&R with a female rock record, and dance is so much easier,” says Fusari. Gaga freaked out—you don’t believe in me, she told him—but, from that day onward, they started working with a drum machine. They also began an affair, which made their artistic collaboration tumultuous... Gaga wasn’t into fashion at this point: She liked leggings and sweatshirts, maybe with a shoulder out. “A couple times, she came to the studio in sweatpants, and I said, ‘Really, Stef?’ ” says Fusari. “ ‘What if I had Clive Davis in here today? I should call the session right now. Prince doesn’t pick up ice cream at the 7-Eleven looking like Chris Rock. You’re an artist now. You can’t turn this on and off.’ ” Being true to yourself means you totally change your sound to ‘get past A&R’ and listen to when people tell you to change your clothes.
10. It was at this point that she began her serious study. Gaga picked up a biography of Prince, started shopping at American Apparel, and became entranced by aughties New Age bible The Secret, according to friends. As a Catholic-school girl, she interpreted Fusari’s remarks as a signal to cut her skirts shorter and make them tighter, until one day they totally disappeared: All that was left were undies, sometimes with tights underneath. And so she began her serious study of how to get attention.
11. Bursting with confidence, Gaga was ready to be transformed. Need I say more?
12. Herbert even spent his own money to send her to Lollapalooza over the summer, and he started to think that her look was wrong—someone in the audience shouted out “Amy Winehouse,” and that made him nervous. “I told her that she needed to dye her hair blonde, and she did it right away,” says Herbert. “God bless that girl, she really does listen.” Dye your hair blonde because someone with money tells you to.
13. “I’m getting a nose job,” she said. “I’m going to get a new nose, and I’m moving to L.A., and I’m going to be huge.” Being true to yourself means getting cosmetic surgery to change your face so you can fit society’s mold of beauty.
14. She began wearing her crazy disco outfits everywhere. “She was never out of uniform, if you will,” says Kierszenbaum. Again, she is an actress always in character.
15. The newly liberated Gaga didn’t feel like she needed to express her sexuality in a typically feminine way, either, and she became obsessed with androgyny, with the look of Liza Minnelli. She loved the free expression of drag queens—she wanted to wear the same clothes as those guys, cover herself with glitter, wear a wig. Though she wasn’t from gay club culture, management began sending her to small clubs around the country. I've never seen one picture of Gaga that was androgynous? Exploit gay culture for more money, really, it’s okay.
16. Like Warhol at the Factory, when Gaga likes someone, he works; when she’s done with him creatively, the door is closed. Use people to further your career, then throw them away.
17. “I developed an artist to grow with that artist,” says Fusari, his voice pained. She’s changed her cell number, and most of her old friends can’t reach her anymore. Forget your friends once you become famous.
18. She spent a lot to get here—her tour has been losing about $3 million, according to music-industry sources, because she refuses to compromise on any aspect of the stage show. “I spent my entire publishing advance on my first tour,” she told me. “I’ve had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year’s worth of rent.” Spend so much money on pianos that your tour is losing money when there are people dying of hunger and disease all over the world. Fucking sick.
19. With her 360 deal, Lady Gaga doesn’t own as much of Lady Gaga as one would think. Essentially, this is a joint venture among Iovine, Universal Music CEO Doug Morris, and Sony/ATV publishing head Marty Bandier. Sell yourself. Do it.
The article appropriately closes with “It’s an unlikely rise, and an unlikely name, and a totally unreal image. But what’s reality?”
Friday, March 19, 2010
absolute swine.
Men really need to learn that disrespecting women is not okay. I’m sure even women with 2 teeth in their mouth and a shaved head still sometimes have to deal with men oogling and cat calling them. I can rant for days about this; it’s near the top of my list of things that don’t make sense in the world. My highly scientific theory tells me that “hollering” at women must work about 10% of the time for these scumbags to continue doing it.
Let me start by saying that my friend and office-mate at work has a very voluptuous figure (AKA lots of curves in the places men want to see them)! She literally cannot take two steps in public without men giving her constant attention. We were walking to the store during lunch time, which was 3 avenues away. In this time, every single man we passed either stared blatantly at her behind or actually verbalized their perverted “appreciation” for her body.
After a man driving some type of work truck insisted on driving alongside us at our pace trying to talk to her, I decided that this behavior is beyond obnoxious. Really, dude? You are driving at a walking pace in your fucking dry cleaning delivery truck trying to yell out your window at a classy lady on the sidewalk about how amazing her ass is? Not. Gonna. Work.
At block 3, two older men were sitting in their car and started yelling at her out the window, “Hey baby...” I yelled back. “Shut the fuck up you’re so disgusting!” In my moment of anger, that was all I could think of at the time. She was laughing because she didn’t know I had it in me. Five steps later another man on the sidewalk told her he wanted to place a choice body part of hers directly into his mouth.
I usually don’t get as angry as I did today over men being pure swine, but it took every inch of class I have in me (which is a questionable amount) not to stab about 13 men in the jugular AND they weren’t even talking to me! I truly feel sick to my stomach that she has to deal with this on a daily basis simply because she has a curvy figure.
Do these men not know that she probably hears this on a daily basis and nothing they could possibly say concerning her body is original? Men should know that just because a woman is beautiful it does not mean that’s all she has going for her. If you really want to get a woman’s attention, compliment her fabulous shoes, her eyes, jewelry, pretty much anything BUT her body.
What little faith I had left in men is absolutely depleted.
Let me start by saying that my friend and office-mate at work has a very voluptuous figure (AKA lots of curves in the places men want to see them)! She literally cannot take two steps in public without men giving her constant attention. We were walking to the store during lunch time, which was 3 avenues away. In this time, every single man we passed either stared blatantly at her behind or actually verbalized their perverted “appreciation” for her body.
After a man driving some type of work truck insisted on driving alongside us at our pace trying to talk to her, I decided that this behavior is beyond obnoxious. Really, dude? You are driving at a walking pace in your fucking dry cleaning delivery truck trying to yell out your window at a classy lady on the sidewalk about how amazing her ass is? Not. Gonna. Work.
At block 3, two older men were sitting in their car and started yelling at her out the window, “Hey baby...” I yelled back. “Shut the fuck up you’re so disgusting!” In my moment of anger, that was all I could think of at the time. She was laughing because she didn’t know I had it in me. Five steps later another man on the sidewalk told her he wanted to place a choice body part of hers directly into his mouth.
I usually don’t get as angry as I did today over men being pure swine, but it took every inch of class I have in me (which is a questionable amount) not to stab about 13 men in the jugular AND they weren’t even talking to me! I truly feel sick to my stomach that she has to deal with this on a daily basis simply because she has a curvy figure.
Do these men not know that she probably hears this on a daily basis and nothing they could possibly say concerning her body is original? Men should know that just because a woman is beautiful it does not mean that’s all she has going for her. If you really want to get a woman’s attention, compliment her fabulous shoes, her eyes, jewelry, pretty much anything BUT her body.
What little faith I had left in men is absolutely depleted.
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