we are indeed made of awesome

Last night, $DANCE_DEITY smiled down on us, I tell ya. We were gooood. The musicians overpowered the shitty acoustics at Plant Zero for the ROSMY set and rocked that joint (cutegaychick in particular pretty much drummed her whole awesome self out, necessitating 30 minute crash between sets). Every time I looked over at the chorus when arovd and I were duetifying or I was leading and turned around, TA DA - they were beautifully together, and dancing rather than staring at garrity's ass (though a fine ass it is).

Ironically, then we flubbed the choreographed ending... cause we were relying on an audio cue and could hear neither saz dynamic shift nor Brettocks' near-shouted count of eight. Thanks to the magic that is ATS, none of us were really phased by the departure of our choreography. Even that was a work of art.

Locals, if you missed it, man... you missed To the Earth mach 2 ON FIRE. [Er, I wish we had video of the set, so we could later pick apart something that was already made of awesome and make it into a more artfully carved awesome. The video we have now is mostly from one night of less conviction.]

Oh, yeah. And then we went back to Art Works and did it AGAIN. That time with a wee bit less fire and nailing the ending.

And then? I came home to an invite to perform at Tribal Pura. On stage with our (well, Dvora & my) TEACHERS. Which I am totally confident in our ability to do after last night. Dude!

peta

This started as a comment on fatshionista, but I want to expand upon it.

PETA's talking trash at Michael Moore, and of course they're calling him a Fatty McFatterson. It's just PETA. That's what they do. And I mean, really? Michael Moore, of all people, ought to be able to take a little of what he dishes out (not the fat, just the fundamental disregard for the perspectives of others - I generally agree with him but still sometimes want to smack him).

The current state of PETA depresses the hell out of me, because some of their points are valid, we should be ashamed of the meat & dairy industry (whatever we might feel about using animals for food), we often don't treat pets with care and respect - our relationship to animals in general is out of whack. They used to have such a powerful message. PETA & ALF were the groups that really drew attention to the sheer cruelty of animal experiments (only 20 years ago, sheesh). When it was still considered (in my lifetime) totally swell to flat-out fuck with animals in order to get things like a model of chemical depression, PETA - using what would become their usual just-this-side-of-legal and overexaggerated tactics - managed to get most people angry about that.

I think, after being so successful at making fur (well, to an extent) & animal testing widely accepted as wrong, that they're grasping at straws for something else to make an issue of. They tried freaking people out about pets - they'll call you if you post an ad in the paper offering kittens or puppies, and there was a period where they picked up strays and killed them [FOR REAL; PETA is based in my hometown] - and lo, that didn't work. Though I will say, it's the same ideas as PETA holds about domesticating animals that have me currently squished on like 1/4 of my bed because one of the cats curled up in the middle while I was up - and hey, who am I to push her around just cause she's smaller & doesn't have a job?

Taking on the meat and dairy industries legislatively hasn't worked either, so they're trying to find a way to make vegetarianism popular - and they figure capitalizing on the Obesity Crisis is as good a way as any. PETA would prefer to offend people, because that garners attention - fat vegetarians aren't going to start eating meat, and maybe some people will be shamed into vegetarianism. I suspect it'll mostly turn out like my mom's meatless diet, though; once she didn't lose weight, she went right on back to the meat. Vegetarianism! The new Adkins Diet!

But more importantly, I'm sad for the people of PETA that they're turning into, or possibly have always been, asshats. If you "save" animals or reform the meat/dairy industry with such disdain for your fellow humans, what does that do to your psyche? Is it a requirement of radical, world-shifting activism that you lose touch with the world-as-it-is?

fat hate bingo!

I'm just reposting stuff that Paul posts from now on. Cause, if I missed Fat Hate Bingo, what kind of fattivist am I?

No kind at all, I tell ya.

There are equivalent Anti-Feminist Bingo (and a subset just for comics), variants about racism and white liberals... "gay bingo", on the other hand, is a search string that nets a variety of drag-based activity. Point being, if you haven't heard of $ARGUMENT Bingo, it's a way of getting someone who's spouting the same tired arguments to leave you alone until they've at least read some of the common refutations of said tired arguments.

I've never actually used one, cause I like tired arguments, but my favorite is Fat Hate Bingo's "500 lbs!" - a number so often cited as meaning someone must be unhealthy, and being unhealthy means everyone else has a moral duty to shame you.