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    Showing posts with label David Elsasser. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label David Elsasser. Show all posts
  1. Bubbling

    Friday, August 14, 2020

     












    I am bubbling with appreciation.  After my last blog entry, a former colleague (who works in a partner program from where I worked) told me he enjoyed the blogs and wanted to send me some money as a “subscription fee.”  He seemed to be concerned about my feelings about being offered money.  I felt bad that he was concerned I might be insulted.  I’m not.  He has always been kind to me, and there’s no reason for me to have mixed feelings about his generosity.  I know the difference.  I’ve received monetary gifts from those who want my silence and from those who just want to feel good about themselves.  There’s a huge difference when someone just wants to help me out.  It’s pure.

     

    Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as VP.  She wasn’t my first choice, but I think  they are a good balance.  A friend once described her as an ass-kicker.  She is.  They won’t be calling her “Sleepy Kamala.”  And she must scare the SHIT out of the orange one.  Biden and Harris have my support.  People, please put aside your specific preferences and vote for Biden.  Puh-leese.  Neither Biden nor Harris would have ruined thousands of children’s lives by separating them from their parents and losing them to be trafficked to a Jeffrey Epstein-type island. 

     

    I’m sorry if many of you feel like you have to choose the lesser evil, but please do.  PLEASE.  I don’t think I can bear any more torment by a malignant narcissist.  I’ve painfully learned how dangerous they can be even when not in charge of a country.  It’s no joke.  They have no bottom in terms of how low they are willing to go.  They are willing to F up their own children.  I’ve seen it up close and personal.  My heart is torn over personal narcissistic damage, not just to me but to my dearest loved ones.

     

    Narcissists proudly leave a path of destruction.  I’ve learned that the terribly hard way.


    Regarding the pandemic, I’m not in the position of having a school-aged child at this time.  I consider myself lucky not to have to handle parenthood in a pandemic.  I’m sure it would be a very challenging time for all.  But I doubt I would risk his life by sending him to school next month.  My son was always more important to me than money.  I wish Trump felt the same.

      

    I’m gratefully attending a poetry workshop on line.  It’s one I’d been attending in person for some years on and off when I was able to.  They took it to Zoom during this pandemic.  My computer has no webcam or mic, but the workshop leader, David Elsasser (Happy birthday, David), makes it work for me anyway.  I am truly grateful.  I send him my poem and he screen-shares it.  After all the feedback, we speak on the phone and he puts me on speaker.  He makes it all work out.  It is truly one of the highlights of my week. 

     

    I’d been working on a poem addressing the women who act like I’m after their husbands.  It was nuts at one of my previous jobs regarding that.  And even up the block where a woman whose man is a drug dealer seemed to think that.  I was like are you fucking kidding me?  I wanted none of them.  So it was long due for a poem.

     

    I was concerned if the poetry workshop folks would get what I’m saying, but they didn’t let me down. ❤💗❤

     

    I look forward to returning to comedy again.  I hope I’m still funny.


    I just learned a film I acted in several years back is now released and going world-wide!!!  I hope I get discovered by someone in a position to change my financial situation.  I played a substitute teacher.  The director was a lovely man to work with -- Abdu Dandridge.  The film, PRESSURE, is available for rent or purchase.





     


    Big love to CGG-M every day.  💕💕💕💕

     

     

     

     

     

     


  2. What's going to happen to us?

    Tuesday, November 1, 2016

               

              Last week, I was one of two featured readers at a poetry reading in Brooklyn.  My co-feature was David Elsasser.  It was warmly hosted by Evie Ivy at the Green Pavilion on 18th Avenue where the prices are right.  It was a long haul from the Bronx and very worth it.  I had a blast.  However, the reason I bring it up is this:  A woman who contributed to the open mic shared something before her poetry.  She said that on an escalator (she named the building, but I don’t recall it) many years ago, she too was groped by Donald Trump.  When she turned around startled, he told her that she should feel good because he doesn’t usually grope women like her.  She asked, “Do I still have a job?”

            I admit, at first, I didn’t know if this woman was for real or not.  But when she described his response, I thought, yeah, that sounds like him.  She wasn’t tall and glamorous or blonde.  So in his mind, he flattered her.

           Then a few days later, the FBI is again investigating Hillary. 

           What’s going to happen to us?

           Can Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama and Joe Biden please step in?   

           On a positive note, the first part of episode 3 of Comics Watching Comics appears tomorrow!  I have no idea what part of episode 3 I will be shown in, so I'll be watching them all.




  3. WoMen In Black

    Tuesday, November 5, 2013


    On Saturday, November 2, 2013, I was one of three poetry features at a poetry reading at the Riverside branch of the NY Public Library.  The other two were Evie Ivy and Penelope Maguffin.  Both are women I know from the NYC poetry circles.  We decided to dress in black.  There's a kid in me who loved the idea of matching colors with the others.  I don't have sisters, so this was a nice taste of that sort of thing.  We are each seasoned, lived, and with lots to poem about.
     
     
     
    When I look at the above photo, I find it interesting that we all have long hair.  Most of my adult life, I kept my hair very short. 
     
        
      I'm in the green with the shortest hair in the photo.  It was easy.  I could comb my hair with my hand.  But during my separation, the guy who cut my hair well had to leave for a job with a pension.  He left what he loved, as so many have, out of fear for his older years.  I began to let my hair grow.  And grow.  It is more work, but it is my chance to enjoy having long hair.  As a youngster, I didn't like my hair.  Times were different and less types of looks were considered attractive, and I was as brainwashed as any other Barbie-owning American child.  I must insert here that before having any Barbies and Kens, my dear mother, a unique individual, sent away for a Barbie-like doll with a different name, and her hair was coarse.  I remember having such mixed feelings about the doll's hair.  Yet I knew deep down that my mother got me a doll whose hair was more like mine and hers.  I had trouble liking it in the age of Dippity-Do, Sun-In, ironing hair, using juice cans to set it straight, and doing whatever to get it long, straight, and, if possible, blonde.  Such wasted energy on not liking what one has.  Now I enjoy my hair and the freedom to do whatever I want with it.  Every now and then, I entertain the thought of cutting it again, but when I see the photo of the three of us, I'm glad I can still pull off this long-hair look.  
     
    The other thing that comes to mind when I look at us being introduced by David Elsasser, is WoMen In Black.  We send poems out into the world for those open to them.  The movie would be different than Men In Black
     
    Evie suggested we rotate for our reading.  I liked that, and Penelope decided to jump into it with us.  It turned out so well.  Considering it was a library and not a bar, and I was totally sober, I had so much fun.  The mic was good, so I didn't have to project my voice.  I was able to speak in a conversational way.  I had dug up old poems and edited them.  I read very new poems also.  Some were sad, touching, serious, but most were funny at least in part.  So there was laughter and applause.  The rotating helped keep it alive and moving.  Evie, me, Penelope.  I've heard a lot of Evie's work in the past but much of Penelope's was new to my ears.  We each enjoyed the experience so much.  The audience was soooooooo appreciative.
     
    One of the people who approached me after the reading asked me where I read.  I said, "Wherever I'm asked," but I'm not out there as much as I'd like, and I went on to explain that I also do comedy and have two jobs to just exist.  Her reaction is what I loved.  She said what a shame it is that such a gifted person has to work so much to exist and not work as much on her craft.  Later it occurred to me that the man I had a child with and gave so many monogamous years to never said such a thing to me.  As high as I felt from the wonderful event, I am so capable of sinking fast again.  So I've been actively re-running the reading in my head.  I work at feeling decent.
     
    A man named Fred, who I have met a few times before at another reading series, came over to me and asked if men really are such jerks (I think he said jerks.  If not, it was something along those lines.)  We talked for a while, and I said that I like mature men and that it had little to do with age.  I didn't need to explain anything to him.  He understood already.  He's not incapable of imagining life as someone other than himself.  He even said how much he doesn't even realize until he hears a voice like mine.  I'm so okay with that.  He can't realize everything without hearing from us.  He hears.  He lets it in and doesn't argue the validity of my reality.  That speaks worlds about him.  Sooooooo, of course, he's married.  Add to that, he behaves like he's married.  I like that in a person. 
     
    A co-worker and friend, Richard, came to the reading to tape me since I don't have any video of me reading my poetry.  He enjoyed the whole thing.  I won't see him until Wednesday, so I am not able to include a video here today, but I can share a poem.
     
    Urban Goddess
     
    She's an urban goddess
    has a woman home
    rounded, shaped as a dome
    stretch marks
    worn as badges
    veins and bellies bulge
    talking and singing and laughing
    abound; spontaneous shimmies
    occur.  A home
    menstrual flow celebrated
    welcoming fertility and maturity
    women's periods   
    like the phases of the moon
    not altered but respected.
    A home -- girls safe, clits
    protected as they were
    physically designed to be.
    A home -- boys and men welcome
    to love, not rule.  She's
    an urban goddess.
    Let her in.
     
     
    (c) Mindy Matijasevic