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Diary of a Married Call Girl Reason Online: My conversation with Kerry Howley about seduction, trafficking and the anti-prostitution problem. Am I My Brothel's Keeper? Dip Into Chapter One |
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| Saturday, December 31, 2005 My Next Reading/Signing: Thursday, Jan 12 7:00 pm Save the date! Benefit Reading for $pread Magazine Double Event: $pread Coffeehouse Reading + Sex Work Olympics Who: $pread contributors Audacia Ray, Jo Weldon, Shane Luitjens, Tracy Quan and others will read, followed by a sizzling discussion with all present. When: 7pm til 9pm, Thursday Jan 12, 2006 Where: Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St (between Rivington and Stanton) Subway: F, V to 2nd Ave Admission: $4 - $8 Celebrate: launch of the 4th issue! -- Afterparty: Around the corner, at the Slipper Room, 167 Orchard St (corner of Stanton St.) $7 - $10. Sex Work Olympics, featuring events to represent all sectors of the industry. Dance the night away. DJs spin till 2am. -- Discount entry price if you attend both events. Questions?: Email info@spreadmagazine.org Tuesday, December 27, 2005 A Taste of Vinyl: On My (Newly Operational, Thoroughly What's Happening) Turntable RIGHT NOW "The original recordings of Ruth Etting" (Columbia ML 5050) Side 2, Track 6: Ten Cents A Dance (Rogers & Hart) What a heart-breaking voice. I admire the way this narrator sings about physical hardship ("Customers crush my toes") and the business side of taxi-dancing ("All that you need is a ticket") -- while admitting that "sometimes I think I've found my hero." Ruth Etting was a big pop star for about a decade, from 1927 to 1937, though her career began around 1914. I was first exposed to Ruth Etting's voice in the 1980s, on "the station that swings", WNEW-AM. Guess that should be swang, which it did, until a terrible darkness descended in 1992. N-E-W was also the station that taught a young barbarian everything she barely knew about pop music, courtship, romantic disappointment/fulfillment and the meaning of love. Of life! WNEW-AM became my second home. I can still hear the anthemic call letters and the dial setting -- Eleven Three Oh, Eleven Three Ohhhh! -- and that gorgeous N-E-W chorus sailing right through the musically deprived Eighties until...splat. The best music. Just. Died. Some say it died in '98 when the new WQEW closed down. (Explained here.) But it was never the same for me after the call letters changed. This lovely collection of Ruth Etting favorites -- Love Me Or Leave Me; Nevertheless -- is helping me to recover from the long-suppressed grief I have felt over the demise of my listening home. http://www.wnew1130.com/about.shtml Sunday, December 25, 2005 News Flash It is just amazing what they can do these days with a few wires and a laptop. VINYL has returned to my life and I love it. Stay tuned. Friday, December 23, 2005 Melting-Pot Myopia? What to make of James Mottram's view of Asian "cultural diversity"? It sounds a bit rigid to me. In this rather snide but informative piece, he takes Rob Marshall to task for casting Michelle Yeoh (born in Malaysia) as a Japanese character in Memoirs of a Geisha. I haven't seen the film, so I've no idea whether that was a good or bad choice. But Mottram's attitude has me wondering... Do Asians have to be nationalistic toward each other in order to be authentic? When Mottram refers to the "rather myopic 'melting-pot' image of the continent," what is he saying about Asians who don't buy into the limitations of ethnic nationalism? Thursday, December 22, 2005 More About This I-word I don't know how the recent developments will affect Roger Toussaint's leadership cred. His members go back to work without a contract, without even amnesty for the fines. How does he feel about that? He recently posted this comment on the mayor's use or abuse of the word illegal: You must hope everyone has forgotten your biography: "Bloomberg on Bloomberg." You boast on Page 59 .. how you started your rise to great wealth, great enough to enable you to buy the Mayor's office twice. You set up your office "...all without permission, violating every fire law, building code and union regulation on the books." I guess illegality is in the eye of the beholder. A confessed lawbreaker has the gall to lecture 34,000 hard working people whose only crime is standing up for ... dignity and respect on one of the toughest, most dangerous jobs in New York. Wow! So I'm just now in the process of ordering the mayor's memoir. It's available, used or new, for about three bucks. I'm curious to see this with my own eyes. Aren't you? Solidarity For Now? I am glued once again to NY1. Randi Weingarten, president of the UFT (teachers union), is talking about why people become labor activists: to make life better for future generations. The NY1 host responds that of course people want this for their FAMILY, but it's not the same thing when you're talking about a workforce. It's not? Why not? What's a family? Too many people have a narrow DNA-driven definition of family. Perhaps they can't imagine going on strike to protect a future generation of people who aren't even blood-related. In reality, your kids don't always ending up doing what you do for a living. Many people, wanting their kids to be better off, will discourage their kids from following in their footsteps. Some don't bother to have kids, so why should this generational stuff matter? As a former sex worker, I've thought about this a lot. Were I a parent, I would want my offspring to find a distinctive new career path -- not to follow my own which is, in turn, very different from my parents'. Whether your offspring will enter the same occupation/profession, whether you have offpsring at all, you CAN still care about the next generation of people who will be doing your job. Because work is the most important thing we do. And the key to a modern person's identity. Even if other people don't understand, respect or approve of your job, work gives meaning to your life. That's also why some people do volunteer work: they need to be working, even if they aren't paid for it. The urge to improve things (or not let 'em get worse) for the next generation is also an urge to give something back. It's the right thing to do. Barricade Watch: What is a Blackout? I just watched Brian O'Dwyer (a labor lawyer) talking to Roma Torre about the coming media blackout and other strike stuff. Roma theorized that the blackout might give the transit workers more of the respect they feel they deserve. Brian talked about what respect might really mean (e.g., more participation in the disciplinary process) and what you can't/can say during a Blackout. And now we're hearing more about the internal politics of Local 100 -- tensions between Toussaint and, for example, "5 out of 7" vice-presidents. So far O'Dwyer has not talked about: Does the blackout apply to websites? Or just traditional media? Maybe that's a naive question but I'm curious. And if it DOESN'T apply, is it possible the language online would be less offensive, hysterical and racist? More radical, confrontational and thorough? Hard to say. More soon. I have a coffee date in 10 minutes! Wednesday, December 21, 2005 Barricade Watch: The I-word I never watch TV but NY1 is my new best friend. Last night, I watched Roger Toussaint in conversation with Bobby Cuza. Roger handled the issues well and sounds far more educated than any of his adversaries. I find that interesting. Unlike the mayor (who favors the use of catch words like "illegal" and "thuggish") Toussaint did not speak down to the public or resort to political babytalk. The constant mantra from the mayor and others -- "illegal strike" -- should only remind us that unions were once illegal (and still are in some countries.) The I-word is as meaningless as it is inflammatory. Laws are not written in stone, they are always being revised and discussed. Laws, quite often, are unjust or even stupid. Thinking people should not, therefore, fling this word around just to demonize their opponents. This just in, from the president of Local 100: "The thugs are not on this side of the podium." Saturday, December 17, 2005 Tune in today at 5:00 pm Eastern Canada or USA! I'll be on CIUT-FM 89.5 "Sex City" with Louise Bak, 5:00 - 5:30 pm. To listen live: http://www.ciut.fm/events.html Maybe This Time I'm as addicted as ever to Maureen Dowd! Today, she relishes the ascendancy of gay cowboys and sensitive-guy apes. I know quite a lot about sensitive guys, their ways and their means. I know less than nothing about sensitive APES. Cynthia Erb, author of Tracking King Kong, told Maureen: "This time, he really seems to have the qualities of a hero in a woman's romance - he's distant, he's suffering, he's aloof." BUT, Dowd points out, if Kong's more sensitive, the Ann Darrow character is (surprise!) not exactly sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Ms. Erb explains: "She goes from a naïve, innocent, screaming, virginal character in the 30's to a sexually free, liberated feminist woman in the 70's... she has the benefits of feminism and is the one who in some ways initiates the courtship. She actually works to earn his interest." WORKS to earn ... his interest? That's a benefit?? According to what deranged school of thought? The only women who should "work" to earn male interest are women who get paid for their sexual favors. I'm so exasperated I just might join the screaming-innocent-virgin brigade. If they're naïve enough to let me in. Friday, December 16, 2005 Barricade Watch: Unborn Again No longer do we hear of The Great Unwashed -- a concept almost Unknown in affluent societies. Now, it's The Great Unborn. Both Kalikow and Toussaint are defending (some say exploiting) their unborn constituents in conversations with the press: "...that would be a disservice to both our riders and the city, now and still unborn." -- Peter "They have to get away from the notion that in this round of bargaining the T.W.U. will give up its young, will give up its unborn." -- Roger http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/16cnd-mta.html Recent Discoveries: Phantoms (and Fannies) of British Columbia Last night, a delicious meal at the Atlantic Grill on Third Ave: 7 kinds of oysters. My favorite, the Phantom Creek, hails from British Columbia. This Northwestern bivalve has "the tough shell of a beach oyster" combined with a most excellent flavor. Another favorite oyster, encountered at Quatorze Bis (on East 79th btw 1st and 2nd), is the Fanny Bay. Beloved, also, by a certain character known as Jasmine (who can tell you why oysters go much better with a martini than a Chardonnay.) The mind-palate problem: I never think about a new oyster's regional origin, preferring to taste each briny critter with an uncluttered mind. I'd LIKE to think my favorite oysters come from the East, from Prince Edward Island perhaps. But they don't. My two current faves are from BC. And yes, I did something very girly and had my first round of oysters with a glass of Chardonnay. There were two on offer: something Hessian ("fruity 'n' forward") from California and one from South Africa ("buttery bordering on benign"). I tried, liked, and will therefore recommend, the buttery South African to go with your Phantom Creeks. Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2 The Barricades!! Last night, I went to the Demos holiday party (hosted by Senior Fellow Prins) and met two lovely social justice wonks, Cole Krawitz and Dara Silverman. I ran into Michael Deibert and ended up having a very fruitful discussion with Heather Rogers about which ID carries the greater stigma: Bimbo? Or Marxist? I also had a chance to harangue Doug Henwood about the idiotic use of labels like Liberal and Conservative. It's one thing for TV shows to invoke this kinda lingo but people at parties? Call me old-fashioned, but are you a lefty, a neocon, a centrist or a wingnut? A Marxian bimbo? That's what I want to know. Don't tell me you're a liberal. What KIND of liberal? I consider myself a reformed neocon. Which is almost as disreputable as a limousine liberal (remember those?) but... I don't take a lot of limos. Yes, of course, I have been in a few, but not as many as you might think. In New York City, the norm for people like me* is to rely on a combination of yellow cabs and MTA buses. I can handle the public transportation system up to a point, because I find the Manhattan bus system rather genteel. Actually. (*People like me: girls who are often in a rush to get somewhere in open-toed shoes; however, because a freelancer, am almost never in a hurry when wearing my sneakers, so that means I can/should take the bus.) As a consequence, I have -- whether dabbling in right or left-wing thought -- always been rather sympathetic to the organizations that represent cabbies and transit workers. I am fiercely in favor of giving NYC cabbies their due -- they are a private sector extension of our public transit system -- and I was bitterly opposed to the previous mayor (Giuliani) because he dehumanized and harassed our private sector public transportation workers. Today, the city's public sector transit workers have our attention, and I am soooo rooting for their leader, one Roger Toussaint. In 2001, Angela Pidduck published this profile of Toussaint, describing how and why he became the president of the Transit Workers Union (Local 100). As you contemplate the looming transit strike, read about the man whose political skills could turn your holiday shopping into a viable occasion or a short season in hell: "At about the same time late last year that the people of Trinidad and Tobago went to the polls to elect a new government, and a group of Supreme Court Justices in Florida tried to untangle America's presidential election, a forty-four year old Trinidadian, Roger Toussaint, was embroiled in a three-way electoral battle for the post of President of New York City's Transport Workers' Union Local 100..." Yes, I have posted Pidduck's link in the past, but I really want everyone to read it. The MTA workers deserve our support. They keep this city and our economy ALIVE. Even if you're a bit of a union-basher, you should make an exception for them. The battle for available cabs will turn brutal this weekend if the MTA doesn't come to an agreement with Mr. Toussaint. Local Hottie and Hostess, Nomi Prins: http://www.nomiprins.com/ Angela Pidduck: http://www.maravalinc.com/angela/roger_toussaint.htm Roger Toussaint: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/nyc-strike1214-gallery,0,7059919.photogallery?coll=ny-li-bigpix Monday, December 12, 2005 While getting my pedicure today... (I hope it's okay to reference the occasional pedicure here?) I read this spooky piece in Guardian Weekly and tracked down the URL on Guardian proper. http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,,1651342,00.html Jenni Russell is onto something when she argues that an understandable desire to protect children from abuse has mutated into the assumption that any adult can legitimately be considered a threat to any child. I'm glad someone is speaking about this -- and the broad political implications -- but grateful not to be raising kids in the environment she describes. Eep. Two radio dates in Toronto this week! On Monday Dec 12 (later today)I'll be on CHRY-FM in Toronto: Covered & Bound. Tune in between 4-5 pm Eastern Canada/US time. To listen live: http://www.yorku.ca/chry/ Saturday Dec 17, I'll be on CIUT-FM 89.5 Sex City with Louise Bak between 5-6 pm. Stay tuned for more details. To listen live: http://www.ciut.fm/events.html Wednesday, December 07, 2005 This afternoon: Court-TV I just found out that I will be on Court-TV this afternoon - Weds Dec 7 at 5:30 pm Eastern USA Time. I'll be discussing a recent news story on "Catherine Crier Live" with a panel of experts... wish me luck. If you tune in, let me know what you think! Tuesday, December 06, 2005 Ice Queens If you saw those infamous penguins (yeah, those penguins) on the big screen this summer... and followed the public conversation about the Emperor penguin's raison d'etre, you'll want to read about, uhhhh, career-girl penguins in the latest issue of $pread. Eliyanna Kaiser refers to this phenomenon of nature as "the coldest profession." In fact, if I understand this correctly, $pread is working a theme because these, in fact, are married call girl penguins! Check out the latest ish of $pread for Rachel Aimee's commentary on another kind of married call girl... news from Canada ... midlife crisis of a pimp...and more. You have to get your copy now, before they sell out (in the quantitative not qualitative sense.) http://www.spreadmagazine.org/subscribe.html http://www.spreadmagazine.org/ |