Susie Bright's Journal

I Only Have 13 Invitations Left!

A little inside baseball for those of you who are bloggers:

BlogAds, my ad agency, has allowed me to handpick and sponsor a few bloggers each year, to admit to the club. 

But that system is ENDING in twenty days, and I only get to pick 13 more people. Thirteen!

Please write me ASAP if you want one of my last golden tickets. I need:

your blog name, 

your blog URL, and--

the email address you would want to be contacted at.
 

I want to promote my favorite writers, so let's do this!

Once you're "in" at BlogAds, you're part of their network— and yes indeed, the ad money rolls in. They take a small cut. They take care of the coding and tech stuff, so you don't have to run the ad production and bill-collecting. They just send you the check.

Of course you can promote your own advertising, (you should!) and sponsor free ads— you simply direct prospective clients to the BlogAds link or phone. When people ask me, "Hey, I'd like to advertise on your site," I send them over to BlogAds with a big kiss.

There's no quota. You just get back to your real interest, which is writing and editing your site!

But better than that, your blog gets grouped with other birds of a feather. For example, when "Brokeback Mountain" came out, the film distributor picked a whole bunch of liberal, queer, and feminist bloggers to launch an ad campaign. It was great... I loved the movie, it became a viral hit, and everyone profited.

You can also turn down any ad you don't like—boy, have I pressed that button. I've told the agency, "This ad would be okay if they changed an offensive photo or got real with their copy, blah blah." You don't have to tell the client, they tell them! Hooray!

I have sponsored feminist blogs, sex blogs, food blogs, politics blogs, cinema, whore blogs, queer blogs, hiking blogs, art of all kinds, fashion, bicycling, even a Korean soap opera blog. Subject is immaterial! Your readers won't be aware I am your sponsor, if that is a concern... they won't be reading me. It's a mentoring program. I would pick you based on three things:

a) you are gung-ho, reliable, a busy little bee

b) I love your writing

c) you get at least 3,000 hits a week.

If you don't have that much traffic, it's not worth your time. And if you're already getting more traffic than that per week and you're not running ads— you're nuts. Or you have a very nice trust fund and I envy you.

Okay, that's it. I await your email. Once I sign you up, you have to do the paperwork in the next couple weeks. 
 

Blogs and Clits UP, Susie

 P.S. Some of you may wonder, "Does Susie support this blog entirely on ads?" No, it's about half & half ads— and individuals who subscribe. 

All my subscribers get the royal treatment... i send them free copies of my books or videos, because they are the ONE PERCENT of my readership who understand that a meaningful blog doesn't exist on pixie dust. They're like the heroes who support public radio... they GET IT. 

I also subscribe to MY favorite independent bloggers and broadcasters. I stopped buying supermarket magazines and put my reading money into the writers' hands— best decision I ever made. 

Claudette Colvin, Not Rosa Parks, Was the First to Claim Her Seat

 

“My mother told me to be quiet about what I did,” Ms. Colvin recalled. “She told me: ‘Let Rosa be the one. White people aren’t going to bother Rosa — her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.’ ”

via www.nytimes.com

The author of this story "courted" Ms. Colvin for four years to get the interview that broke this story. It's fascinating. She, and another teenager, were the first ones to hang tight in their bus seats, but they were both not considered respectable enough to front the Mongomery anti-segragation campaign.

The Great Balloon Boy Wishes You an Awesome Thanksgiving

I'm especially fond of my Thanksgiving blog treats. Here is an index of previous inspirations:

NOVEMBER 26, 2008   Charlie Chaplin's Recession-Proof Thanksgiving 

NOVEMBER 21, 2007  

Mom's Baked Apples with the Marshmallow Buttplug

NOVEMBER 22, 2006  

If You Want to End War and Stuff You Got to Sing Loud

NOVEMBER 23, 2005  

Butterball Baby

NOVEMBER 21, 2007  

White House Turkey Stuffed with Leaks and Donuts

Why Does This "Deceived Dad" Story Remind Me of Gay Marriage Rights?

via www.nytimes.com

NYTimes Magazine cover story today about a cuckolded husband named Mike, who was aggrieved to learn that he'd been paying child support for years for a daughter who was not biologically his. He loves her dearly, but he doesn't want to pay child support-- and in fact, would like a refund.

His ex-wife (who lied to him about the paternity) eventually married her "true" love, the bio-dad of the daughter. He's a bit of a mystery in the article— don't know if he was in on the fraud or not. Nevertheless, the daughter lives with them but visits her Mike, the only guy she calls "Dad," every other week. Apparently none of the adults are rich or gallant enough to take on the financial burden on their own. 

Mike, meanwhile, married another woman named "Lori," who is bitter that they can't "afford" to have a child of their own as long as Mike is sending checks to the first family. 

It's ended up in court, where so far, through several appeals, the law holds that Mike still needs to keep paying his end.

it is MESSSSSY.

Personal relations between the so-called adults are so vituperative that "Lori," actually wrote a long comment after the NYT article (always a bad idea!) where she says every decision they've made has been "prayerfully considered." That's always a red flag.  

The grown-ups involved cannot come together equitably for the good of the daughter and the courts aren't much help either.  I'd hate to be any of them, growing old and realizing that... the affection and devotion of the kids you raise does not have a price tag on it.

One solution to these dilemmas would be to suggest that a child can have more than two parents legally responsible for them. Whoever shares the love and the bond shares the responsibilities.

I think this consciousness comes early to families who are deliberately formed through more complicated acts of conception rather than deception. If you are in an adoptive family, a "gay" family, a family where the "sperm and the egg" are not the whole story of who gives a damn about each other— you end up making your own plans and contracts to protect your mutual devotion to your kids. 

When anti-gay-marriage bigots scream that gay marriage may lead to legalized polyamory—with visions of sugarplum orgies dancing in their heads— they are missing the more important consequence. YES, if we reformed family law to reflect reality instead of Bible scripture, children's welfare would be better protected. 

I could say a hundred more things about this article— and the wrath that it unleashed in the Comments area... but why don't you take the reins?

Sapphire Before Precious— The Lesbian Story Behind "Push"

I've been looking forward to seeing the new film Precious for over a year now. It's adapted from one of my favorite novels, Push, by Sapphire, a woman who has a special place in my heart— she's a poet I published in 1989 in On Our Backs, one of those writers whose little story came into the slush pile and blew my mind. 

Her OOB story is about a woman finding her ex, Fontaine, strung out on heroin. It's called "New Orleans."

I remember my managing editor said at the time, "It doesn't really have that much sex in it—" and I said, "Who cares? She's brilliant and what's there is unforgettable."

I've attached the original publication here.

This was at a time when lesbian authors, to put it mildly, could not get a break. Before Dorothy Allison published Bastard Out of Carolina. Before Sarah Schulman had her novel mooched for RENT. Before Pat Califia was known outside of the queer inner sanctum. Lesbians were the Sisters From Another Planet. 

Remember when daytime talk show hosts weren't lesbians? When no uncloseted lesbian sang your favorite ballad on Top 40? 
 

At the time OOB published Sapphire's "New Orleans," most lesbians were uninvited to any party and unwilling to poke their heads out. The San Francisco Chronicle would routinely run stories about gay power in the city and interview a few men. Seriously. Things had not changed that much since Queen Victoria.

I'm deliberately writing this review of Push before I view Precious. I'm curious to see how much of the lesbian storyline is carried over from the book. The marketing campaign for the movie focuses on a teenage girl brutally abused by her mother, who has borne one "mongoloid" child and has another baby on the way, both a result of rape by her father. 
 

Rough, and true to the plot.

However, the main device of the narrative is that the protagonist is instigated to keep a diary in an English literacy class because she has to turn it in, in order to get her welfare check. Her teacher is a dyke.

When Precious begins her writing, it's a jumble of semi-literate English. It takes a moment to figure out what she's saying. Moreover, Precious has never expressed herself, or spoken openly about anything going on in her life. What rolls out is a cannon.

If Push is about ONE thing, it's this: when speaking truth to power, literacy is your sword. 

 

As Precious claims the written word, her life is revolutionized. 

The English classroom is filled with other illiterate teenage girls and we get to see some of their diaries, too. They're all wonderful. The teacher IS Sapphire. She really did this work for a living and she came out as a dyke to her students, which plays a scene in the book.
 

As disenfranchised as lesbians were at the time, her students were even more invisible. They were the unseen and uncared for. That this class even existed for a time was a miracle.
 

It seems odd to say that Push is a "feel-good" story— but it is! You scream aloud with joy as Precious begins to articulate what she feels and sees around her. Any teacher is going to cry for two weeks because this is what you LIVE for.

Sapphire has famously said that she wanted to write a novel where a young woman's life is transformed without a "Prince Charming." There's no man, there's no diet, there's no beauty makeover. The makeover happens inside and it's all because she TELLS HER STORY. 

I cannot wait to see this.

Below, some insider clips:

Some of you may know Gabby's mother, Alice Tan Ridley, who sings at the 42nd Street Subway station. She was the one who suggested her daughter go the audition. Awesome.
 
 

 And here's a lecture by Sapphire herself, after she won her recognition for Push. For those of us who loved her work before "Hollywood," this is a very special occasion.
 

Sapphire Lecture/Reading, 2007.

And finally, here's the trailer for Precious:

P.S. Thanks to Marcy Sheiner for kicking my butt to track "New Orleans" down! Some day I'll post the pages of  Califia's, Schulman's, and Allison's work from OOB here too. You'all should hang onto those back issues. They're quite rare... we didn't print very many copies and our back-issue inventory was lost in a storage shed disaster. 

Lies, Damned Lies, and Quotations!

"Hiring someone to write your autobiography is like hiring someone to take a bath for you."

—Mae West
 

I am an ardent quotations collector— I collect my favorites on slips of paper, write them on my hand, hoard hundreds on my hard drive. I belong to a brilliant "Quotation of the Day" mailing list that I look forward to each evening like a stiff drink. 

Really, who doesn't warm to the perfect zinger? They're as irresistible as truffles. 

The Internet is filled with "quote" sites, where you can look up anyone, no matter how obscure, and find their most famous aphorisms. 

I've been working on a book project where I find myself in deep quotation-research— and to my horror, I see that I, "Susie Bright," can be inventoried along with everyone else. Yet the "quotes" these sites attribute to me are so banal and fragmented they don't qualify as anything other than DRIVEL. 

Here's an insipid example: "I love turning my daughter on to old movies." Yeah, that's one for the ages! Mark Twain can just hand over his crown!

I guess these shitty quote-sites use some random "search-bot" to grab conversational-bird-droppings according to Proper Names—and that's what ends up in your file. (Maybe some of you know the real story?)

 I am no Dorothy Parker or Mae West, but I have come up with a memorable line now and again. I decided to start my own page of quotes, if only as a rebuttal. 

It's tricky to pick good quoations out, when one is the author— maybe what's significant to me is not of interest to others.
 

I remember an architect's office in West Los Angeles, across the Nuart Theater, once put a quote of mine up on their outdoor marquee, that said, "I masturbated to the Meese Report until I nearly passed out." They took a photo of their billboard at dawn and sent it to me, framed. I never would have guessed that statement made such an impression!

Here's my Susie Quote Page so far. Let me know if you have something in mind to add, or you think I should edit others out. Or tell me what your favorite line of mine is. It can be from books, articles, interviews, or something you overheard me say at a party— I don't care. 
 

Someday, when I'm 70, maybe Bartlett's will come find me— and I'll want my truffle basket to be in order!

UPDATE: Thanks so much for your suggestions in the comments below. I acted swiftly! Please keep'em coming, and if you have the cite, that's especially helpful, since I am now officially senile— all the more reason to accumulate quotes when my mind goes blank.

Mad Men, Ft. Hood, & the Stupak Amendment: Connect the Dots

 I can't be the only one to make the connection. 

For those of us who who are devoted to the American tele-novella Mad Men, the recent psycho-shooting at Ft. Hood had an eerie plot echo.
 

(Spoilers ahead).

In Mad Men, which takes place in New York of 1963, there's a fictional character named Greg, an aspiring surgeon who disgraces himself so badly in the operating room that he is forced to go into, shame of all shames, psychiatry. 
 

Since I've placed my life in the hands of a therapist more than once, this reaction came as a surprise to me! 
 

Yet among Greg's colleagues at the hospital, the psychiatry career path is considered a "fail." The deep background on Greg is that we already know he is a messed-up dude, a rapist with serious issues who is the LAST person you'd want to be talking to on a couch. 

As the season closes, we learn that Greg has joined the Army where they're desperate enough to take a loser like him and give him a surgeon's scalpel and a badge.
 

 He's so ignorant he doesn't have a clue that Vietnam is his imminent destination.

Meanwhile, in real life, Nidal Malik Hasan, the deranged Army psychiatrist who went on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood, also turns out to be… a failed surgeon. The detail that caught my eye was the anecdote revealed by his uncle, who said that Hasan went into psychiatry after he FAINTED in the O.R. during a routine childbirth. The sight of a baby emerging from a woman's vagina sent Nidal over the edge.

With that clue, something in me snapped.

This was a guy, who by all accounts so far, has never been on a date, and routinely complained to his mosque's imam that he couldn't find a woman "pious" enough to marry, a virgin who would wear a veil around the clock.

Hassan is being scrutinized for any potential ties to espionage, fanatical religious beliefs, and vicarious PTSD from treating so many broken soldiers.

 But this man's craziness is more clearly understood in the context of his severe and distorted sexual repression.

In the midst of this reality-fantasy convergence, another piece of patriarchal-creep rocked the country— this time, affecting more people than Ft. Hood and Mad Men's viewership combined. We witnessed the Orwellian "health care reform" process become derailed by what I call "The Stupid Amendment," a wildly successful Vatican intervention to make sure that whatever health care plan comes out of Congress, it will be engineered to control women's wombs. 

 In other words, health insurance for men, not for women. 

The Stupak Amendment is ostensibly about preventing women from using their insurance coverage to pay for abortion procedures. But making a rule that women's healthcare below the waist is subject to moral review is outrageous. 

Would any of these politicians consider making a health care exemption to the complications of a man's penis? His prostate? His semen? His scrotum? His urethra? Would urologists, like abortion surgeons, be treated like criminals whose entire knowledge base should be wiped out of existence? Would any man be put on parade to prove "rape, incest, or imminent death" in order to prove that he needed a procedure about ANYTHING?

"Pro-life" rhetoric is now used across the aisle, with even the President proclaiming that the federal government will never fund abortions. 

 

Afghanistan annihilation, yes! Abortion, no!
  
 

 Our war-lovin', misogynistic culture cares so little about "life" that the candlelight vigil for the Hasan's victims at Fort Hood had the air of a rote exercise. Here's Wade Goodwyn, from NPR, talking last week: 

The thing I was struck by was... that the vigil was a well-established routine. 

 

I mean, this was a pretty big moment for me, but I could tell that the attending crowd had done this before. 

And when we interviewed people, the soldiers and the families, after the vigil was over, they'd tell us, "I've been to too many of these already."

This country cares little about killing all life forms and even less about the welfare of its children. Our atrocious infant mortality rates, hungry children, uneducated children, children with birth defects and developmental disabilities treated like trash… my blood's turned cold.  Watching Congressmen gleefully cheer on the passage of the Stupak amendment, for me, was like watching Greg rape Joan— and worse, to witness her acceptance of it.
 

It reminds me of something I wrote in The Sexual State of the Union:

American boomerangs from "Fear of a Black Planet," a Youth Revolt, a genderfuck coup, to the opposite horror: that of a lone man with a big gun. 

Meet the older, privileged, "had-all-the-opportunities" kinda guy who comes equipped with a bomb, no dates, and a pathologically self-centered attitude. Oh, we'll wish he had only been in the Crips! If only he'd been a drag queen, if only he'd pierced his dick and gotten high on dope! Any of these would be preferable, a million times more humane. 

We can diss a counter-culture, but what are we supposed to do with a counter-human? We can't stand to look at the cult of alienated masculinity and wonder how we got here.