On this episode of the “Crass to Mouth” podcast, I tried to save the hosts from their ridiculous world view.
Here’s a listener’s letter about it.
Dear Street Carnage,
In the 80 minute podcast, there was a wealth of logical fallacies, galling hypocrises, and enough evidence for you to take your case for The DEath of Discussion before any jury in the land and get a guilty verdict. (Guilty of being right?) It’s hard to pick the most irritating and illogical moments, but i’ve singled out a few of the most teeth-grittingly annoying moments.
Some source in the past few years (I’m guessing buzzfeed, the source for most awful cultural trends nowadays) has informed dumb girls that if they want to proceed directly to Genius Town without cracking a book or forming one single thought of their own – without the aid of Gawker, Buzzfeed, Huffpo etc – is to speak in a snide monotone. So this is the aural state of the 21st Century American female: starts with up-talking, vocal frying until her late 20s, then switches over to this world weary drone. Some progress. Now all the things being spoken are still scarfed down and barfed up from her social media feed, but that delivery suggests a certain maturity, a real hard won wisdom that can only be earned by lowering your voice an octave and slowing it down, or maybe wearing eyeglasses.
This is bad enough coming from women in their twenties and early thirties, but when you hear a broad in her forties speaking in this fashion it comes off as nothing less than brain damage.
The other half of this girl power duo irritated in ways not involving a lame vocal affectation. Ostensibly a feminist fighter for the Universal Sisterhood, the evidence of her life she offered would suggest the opposite of that. Her vocation seemed to be living off the money of a rich white man (who makes money writing sexist jokes for a pretty lady to say on tv). In exchange for this leisurely lifestyle she is his well-behaved sexual plaything that gives him total sexual freedom and never pipes up about his many anonymous hook-ups.
This is fine. I’m a free will man from way back, and sometimes people exercise their free will by choosing subjugation.
The problem is the hypocrisy. If you’re out there smashing the patriarchy with your dainty fist, don’t boast about being involved in a problematic, heteronormative relationship that is more Don Draper’s marriage in season one of Mad Men than a portrait of swinging Bohemia.
21st Century Feminism = Staying at home while your rich, white boyfriend goes out and makes money, while you wait for him to come home and fuck you, or fuck someone else and then tell you about it, or bring someone home for you to fuck. Look out Male Ruled Status Quo! Will it be able to survive such a blitz?
Now I used Mad Men as a reference, because Congress recently passed that law prohibiting you from knowing about anything that happened before you were born. Oh, they didn’t pass that legislation? I wouldn’t know from talking to the Kids These Days. (Also kids today now counts people deep into their 30s as young. This is untrue for all but doubly wrong for those humans with egg sacs.) Everytime a film, book, or album that came out before they were born comes up they will let you know they had yet to be born and then punctuate the statement with a smug chortle.
This came up multiple times with Kurt Metzgers’s kept woman. When the names KT McFarland and Barbra Corcoran came up, she giggled about never having heard of those people before. Two irksome points here: One, declarations of ignorance are now delivered with smug glee. Two, it seems 21st Century American feminism thinks the only arena for female achievement worthy of recognition is Show biz. Not real estate or the highest levels of international politics, but wearing make up, dressing up in costumes and being pretty and/or cute in front of a camera while people pay attention to you and give you money. Maximum girl power!
At one point the movie Zelig was mentioned. She didn’t know that. An alleged comedy writer living in New York City isn’t familiar with one the most acclaimed living New York comedy minds. A man who is as talented at creating comedy as he is at committing monstrous crimes against prepubescent girls, Woody Allen has achieved commercial and near universal acclaim as a stand up, tv writer, film director, “analogue” book writer, actor, and destroyer of trust in men for several little girls. Now the laymen could, though shouldn’t, get away with not knowing the work of Woody Allen. But for an aspiring comedy writer, nay, aspiring comedy FAN in NYC its an unforgivable act of ignorance to not know the Woodman. And seriously, Zelig is a hilarious and insightful movie about conformity. As Louis CK once said of Woody Allen’s movie Bananas “that shit *is* bananas”
Also, how hard is it to write if you’re a writer? Open a text document and start typing. Buy a twenty-five cent notebook at Walmart and ask anyone in America for a pen and they’ll give you one. The only thing stopping this woman and anyone else from getting down to the actual business of writing something is the deadly combination of too many excuses and too little ambition.
I’m sure these gals will find nothing but massive success in their lives, but I found them supremely annoying at times. Overall an entertaining podcast episode that merits a listen.
PS Bad choice of Fran Lebowitz as the intellectual she was imitating with her persona. Fran Lebowitz is a cool, fast-talking New York character who bemoans the state of todays dull, materialistic youth and urges them to stop taking pictures of their food and get out there and party. Martin Scorcese made a documentary about her, Public Speaking, a few years back and you’d certainly take back that insult/compliment once you watch it. Next time consider Andrea Dworkin, she was an ugly and humorless feminist intellectual.
-TIAS
Dear Tias,
Fran Lebowitz tours the country getting big bucks to shit on rich people and tell everyone how to write. She has written one book her entire life. She is a sow.
-GAVIN McINNES