An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 31, January 31, 2012
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The dark side is somewhat of a fashion right now. We’ve got mainstream vampire mania, ubiquitous tattoo’s and piercings, and wholesale demonstration of counter culture. Back in my day I used to call the old farts old farts, and now I say dumb things like back in my day, so I must be quickly heading for old fart-dom. I am 48, so it’s funny to me how premature it feels to be feeling like this. Back in my day tats were colors worn by the miles upon the body of people who had lived and traveled the underground. Most of the guys I knew 30 years ago barely remembered getting their seedy tattoo in some equally seedy place. And it was a given that little scaredy boys didn’t frequent seedy places. “Hey girl” to a tatted chick implied a camaraderie of badness or darkness, and her tattoo was a demonstration of her culture in counter to the mainstream. Darkness in counter culture upon the body in the form of tattoos and piercings and dark aggressive, demonstrative clothing always held a dark sexual aura, and this aura more often than not had or maintained a history of sexual promiscuity.
Today is a whole new day, and the whole new day is being reinvented daily by all the day’s new dark counter culture fashionistas. I really like to compliment people on their tattoos and piercings and badass clothing, and if at that time I am not badass (I wear many hats), my praise of their badass get-up is felt as an insult. “Wow, if some old fart likes how I’m rebelling against his squareness, then I’ve lost the edge”. I guess I’d be better off staying within the mores of culture and counter culture, depending on which side I’m on. When I’m square to a square, “Hi, I like your outfit.” That works fine. When I’m counter to counter, “hey girl, that’s badass”. That works fine too. But when I’m square to Miss Badass, the only interaction that fits is to pretend to roll my eyes and shake my head and disapprove. That works for her. I know better than to roll my eyes and shake my head with Mr. Badass, since his counter culture image extends to needing to hit me in the face for my disapproval. Nevertheless, square or counter, the edge of dark fashion still appears to be sexual today, but the roots to the sexual aggresivity or promiscuousness have long been watered down.
In my baby days of admiring seedy underbelly real badass people, I used to hang out at the Pike in Long Beach California when the U.S. Navy fleet was still in town. I loved the stories of Shanghai China and Patpong Thailand and many other places, of Maori and Japanese tattoo history, and exactly which piercing came from which torture method or coming of age primal ritual. The guys that told me the stories were stumbling out of the seedy bar victorious at their mongering, or aching from their failure to prevail as top dog. The badass girls that hung with them walked and talked and lived their sexualized counter culture, and when I walked by I either got grabbed or slurred. For both he and her, their tattoos and piercings and clothing were worn as colors, and colors were earned.
When I talk to most people today, the “look” of badass is neither earned or demonstrated, or truly understood. I laugh when I try to explain in camaraderie jest to a fellow counter culture fashionista the specific sexual history to a certain tattoo or piercing or clothing, and I get an “euw” at me, as if I’m some kind of weirdo. “Hey baby, I’m not the one with the unga bunga cannibal piercing in my nose from Borneo, or the east L.A. gang bitch colors on my belly”. “Hey dude, I didn’t realize that sassy momma on your arm is your wife and you got the tat at the store next to Safeway”.
Despite whether we are scaredy boys or badass dudes, or princess momma or gang bitch, we all have a square culture and counter culture side. I am often impressed at the depth of humanity in the hearts of underbelly whore mongers or whores, and I am often saddened by the lack of humanity in the hearts of underbelly whore mongers and whores. I am often impressed by the depth of humanity in the hearts of fine upstanding square women and men, and I am often saddened by the lack of humanity in the hearts of fine upstanding square women and men. Six of one, half dozen of another. To say that one is better or worser, or upper or downer, or lefter or righter, than the other, terribly misses the mark, and it either de values the square or counter side in each one of us. Human is all we are, and not one of us any different than another.
Recently I had the honor and pleasure to work as a muse with one of the most powerful young ladies I have ever encountered. I dare any woman to try and match her rebellious courage and resolute survivalism. She is 20 years old, born and raised dirt poor Catholic Central America, and currently working as a high class independent prostitute in Tijuana Mexico. She is beautiful, slinky and tall, and stunning in her high class whore wear and heels. She has a nose, tongue, belly, and labia piercings, and a stunning tattoo on her lower back that she got working the streets at age 16. She made her way 3000 miles alone out of fear for her life after vengefully burning many bridges back home with pimps. She stands in front of a Catholic misogynist Latin America smiling in rebellion with her middle finger high into the air as blackened Barbie, and everyone loves to hate her. She and we all get off on it. She navigates booze and a plethora of drugs like a consummate pro headed quickly to a rebellious grave. She has the power and sense to rail against the square world and herself and the world with the most adept “fuck you” I have ever seen, and she is 20 years old. I dare any woman to match her rebellious courage and resolute survivalism.
I had the honor and pleasure to work as a muse with one of the most powerful ladies I have ever encountered. I dare any woman to match her rebellious courage and resolute survivalism. She grew up during WW2 and suffered things that blackened Barbie above hasn’t even imagined. She emigrated to America alone to avoid being raped by her father and uncles like her sisters and cousins, and married and raised decent children. She divorced her abusive husband, beat her alcoholism, and lived out her life as a square independent woman without a single outward demonstration of counter anything. She has the power and sense to know that you don’t have to rail outwards to live. I dare any woman to match her rebellious courage and resolute survivalism.
Both women have child's hearts and tenacious survivalistic power. Both women are courageous. Both women admire and respect and long for the other’s lives. “If only I was strong enough to swallow my shit and find me a man and raise good kids like square lady, despite my pain. But any dumb bitch can do that”, says counter Barbie. “If only I could stand there like sex on wheels and rail openly against the world that openly rails against me like whore girl. But any weak woman can do that”. The irony is that both women are the same, and both women are us. We all have dark boy and square boy in us. We all have dark girl and square girl in us. Some of us piss in the wind and stand there in front of all as villainous heroes and heroines, and some of us adeptly hold on internally and cope privately as heroes and heroines. Human is all we are, and not one of us different than another.
We would all love to trade lives with our alter ego fellow citizens, but we know we can’t, or we know we won’t. Today we wear our colors on the outside, mainstreaming the counter culture. I wonder what blackened Barbie will do next to act out her pain when my next door neighbor with a husband and kids looks and acts more badass than her to act out her pain. We are in a mysterious new world where we appear the same, prince and princess, bitch and bastard, boy slut and girl slut. It suggests that we are in fact the same, or we long to be. That is badass.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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