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March 03, 2005
Not Your Average Ho
Well, it’s good to know that “Lady Cat cussed everybody out” tonight on the premiere of America’s Next Top Model. All night tonight during such a stellar block of television, people were saying the most hysterical shit. Teena Marie, my all time favorite, on the finale of Road to Stardom asked one of the contestants about the “hook” on her “track”. She said, with a totally dead serious face, “What does ‘I’m not your average ho’ mean?”
Between the 24-hour Jennifer Lopez music block on MTV2 and the marathon of last season’s America’s Next Top Model on VH1, I have to say that this week of television consumption has gotten out of control. I just couldn’t stop watching. After that Amanda character with the ice blue eyes wondered who “ganked her crystals”, I’d flip back to J Lo. Yes, I’m using the term J Lo but if you heard how I was saying it, you’d be more open to accepting it. It’s a quick, flashy pronunciation leaving the long O sound kind of hanging in the wind. My favorite J Lo lyrics that I try to incorporate into my every day conversation are “these rumors got me laughing, kid” and “I’m out, son” and sometimes I throw in the fact that I “stay grounded as the amounts roll in” for good measure. I mentioned to a girlfriend of mine that I actually quite enjoyed Jennifer Lopez’s runway presentation of her new high end fashions (if that’s what we’re calling it these days), and my girlfriend said she is still my friend! I’m slicking my baby bangs down right now. Seriously though, I can’t help but be fascinated. When does she sleep, this Jennifer Lopez? How does she store the furs? Does her hair person stay in the guest house? Does she ever just want to go into the Rite Aid by herself and purchase an 88-cent package of hot pink Peeps, an overpriced bottle of Biosilk, a couple of soaps made for babies and the good bag of beef jerky? I mean, these things make me surprisingly happy. Or is her happiness measured in a completely different way? Obviously.
Now before you go thinking I’ve just been sitting in front of my TV all the time, let me tell you about some sightings.
In one random Tuesday at the mall, I saw the dude Michael that got fired from The Apprentice, Mario from American Idol and the girl with the N Y name from Road to Stardom. Nyla? In one day. Bizarre, huh? I was told that I watch way too much TV, but I disagree. I have some staples, like Jeopardy! and The L Word (okay, and Wife Swap and Starting Over) and then I just pop in sometimes on non-staples like Home Delivery. Have you seen Home Delivery? If you’re not into obese babies, outrageous hair makeovers and paternity tests, you probably wouldn’t like it. Although, I got mesmerized by it the day I saw the 15-year-old girl who named her triplets all the same name, but she pronounced them all differently. AND that WASN’T (was not) an emphasis on her story. Fascinating, but not to the point where I can watch it every day. The commercials during that show are too stressful. Turn the phone back on, become some kind of technician in only four days, refinance, stop gambling, buy some diapers, use this kind of dishwashing detergent and pass me the popcorn chicken.
Oh shit, chicken. So, when I was younger, I had a boyfriend that worked at Sweet Tomatoes, that big ass buffet place with the fancy pizza and the granola topping for your ice cream. Where I grew up, it was the shit. Maybe yours is called Souplantation. I think they’re the same. Why anyone would want to put the word plantation in the name of a business I don’t know. Does it conjure up weird shit for you, or am I just crazy? Anyway, he worked there and they threw out so much food every day. So he got into the habit of boxing some of it and giving it to homeless people at the end of the night. I think he’d get in trouble if he was caught doing this so it was always this “fuck the man” type good deed which somehow made him that much more intense for me. You know, in that kind of intense -- because you’re a jackass kid and anything some cute boy says is fucking magical and you’re doodling his name on your actual thigh in geometry class like an asshole -- that type of shit.
From that experience, I started to always wonder about etiquette between myself and a homeless person. I never want to insult anyone. So, I’d wonder if they somehow thought I was an asshole by asking, “Would you like some of these pumpkin hazelnut muffins that were baked 15 hours ago?” Do they hate me? Am I being presumptuous? Do they think I bit off of it and does that offend? I mean, it’s not really that cool if you think about it, but then again…
Dude, should I just mind my own business? Am I a bad person for second-guessing what can be seen as a nice gesture because I’m too scared to offend somebody? All that thinking made it too much for me, so I’d go along and let him start off the interaction and if it went awry, he’d be the one handling the awkwardness of a homeless man telling him to fuck off with his fancy muffins.
I tell this story because today as Coral and I were driving home on another rainy day in LA, we saw a homeless man with his two dogs (what do the dogs eat?) underneath a tree a block from our house. She had a big ass salad in a box, and she said, “Oh should we stop and give this to that homeless man?”
And I said, “Um, sure, I’ll drive back around but…”
She goes, “But what?”
And I say, “Well, I’d love to give him the food. He looks hungry, totally, but what if he’s mean?”
She said, “He’ll just say he doesn’t want it. I don’t know. He can feed those dogs. Shit…”
We get into this long conversation about the possibility of hurting someone’s feelings or seeming like assholes with homes blah blah blah.
So we sit in the traffic on the corner waiting to make a complete circle back around and I realize that I had some things in my car that surfaced after my car wash this morning. Yes, it rained on my $8 car wash. Just work with me. Can’t I have one thing? I felt like Mysterious from Making the Band. Can’t I have one good thing? I then broke a champagne glass with my bare hand as I growled my way out of the car wash.
I had a bunch of hats I’d gotten for free from somewhere. I always end up with random things in my car, little gifts I receive from the outside world. Everyone in LA is hustling some kind album, tank top, merchandise, whatever and they come right up to you and say, “Do you want my CD?” and you take it and you listen to it and sometimes it’s interesting. Sometimes, the most hysterical shit ever and other times it’s um, you know, gotta respect the hustle. So this hat was in my backseat and I had planned on putting it in this garbage bag where I collect all the things that I say I’m going to drop off at the Goodwill at some point today. Then today becomes yesterday becomes last month and by the time I’m ready, I think that dress is making a comeback and I never accomplish what I originally set out to do which is to purge all the things that are absolutely not flattering. No, there are pom-poms and embroidery on those huge sleeves and it’s just not ever coming back and it should have never found its way in. Yes, I guess I’ll keep this peach satin robe with the pearls hot glued to the lapels as my mother gave it to me for my birthday saying, “Issa sexy one, uh?” as she held it up to me. Have to wear it when she visits.
Now, I said, “Coral, throw that hat in the bag too…”
And as she put the hat in the bag, I go, “Wait! Make sure it doesn’t say anything crazy…” because people put anything on a hat or a t-shirt these days. I don’t really want to give a homeless man a Lil Jon shirt that says King of Crunk King of Porn across the chest although if you want one of those, a simple browse on www.merchdirect.com will lead you there. I personally enjoy the panties with Lil Jon’s face on the crotch and the word WUUUT! on the butt, but those might not be available. I guess I’m cooler than you.
She takes the hat back out of the bag, we look at it and it says WAGE SLAVE on it. The irony of it all. We give a homeless man in the rain a WAGE SLAVE hat and a half-eaten chicken salad. The irony actually silenced us. Until we realized Vision of Love was on, at which point we started singing at the exact same lyric as the volume crept up louder and louder with each more difficult note. And for some reason when that ended, I started singing another Mariah song off the same album. It was the one that goes, “A broken man without a home…” and Coral started singing along and I felt a kinship there. I mean, we’re grown ass women singing Mariah songs with straight up conviction and passion. “A victim of society, no one really wants to see…” Profound shit, if you think about it. I’m openly, unapologetically a huge Mariah fan. When my #1’s was stolen in The Honda Civic Break-in of 2003, I was devastated! I hadn’t uploaded it to my iPod yet. Fuck sticks.
The homeless man with the WAGE SLAVE hat could very well be a victim of society. I mean, he is one. He has to be one. If he ain’t one, who the hell is? But what exactly does “victim of society” mean? I mean, society is such a big intangible thing. Aren’t we all victims? Not to minimize the homeless man’s victim status. So you see, it never stops. I can’t stop thinking about it once I start. And quite frankly, I feel terrible about it as I’m sitting here, swear to goodness, with bleaching trays on as I type on my computer that is next to a credit card bill and a really expensive watch that I won at the Bob Guiney bachelor raffle that’s only out of its box because I’ve been meaning to sell it off somehow and use that money toward a whole bunch of Fresh perfume that I really shouldn’t have. But when I stop thinking about it, I feel just as terrible. It’s a shitty situation, really.
Anyway, starting tomorrow I’m going to turn the television off, get out my little yoga mat, and turn the TV back on for Wai Lana yoga and exercise my mind, my spirit and shit. Maybe I can evoke some humanitarianism or something. The time I spend reading and smelling the pages of Vogue on Jeopardy! commercial breaks could be spent much more wisely. I think I’ve lost track and/or hope since the most notable thing I said all night was, “Come on Tyra! Who will be the hood rat this season?” Couldn’t have been Lady Cat. She cussed everybody out. Remember?
Posted by melissah at March 3, 2005 05:04 AM