donny deutsch's nipples, msnbc, and the death penalty

a man, a girl, and a nipple

the nipple belongs to donny deutsch. initially, it was my intent to use his .com as a introduction, but his page opens with a one minute+ long movie about something worth cheering for, and i was afraid what was being cheered for would end up being donny 'the nipple' deutsch, wasting a full minute+ of perfectly good cheering.
i remember years and years, as in maybe a decade ago, i would briefly park my clicker on a local cable show, featuring deutsch interviewing various people of local interest. totally forget where, i'm thinkin' jersey or philly, it's unimportant. what is important is, watching donny then wasn't completely horrible.
watching donny on 'morning joe', is.
especially this morning, prompting me to compose a letter to 'the nipple'. here goes:
donny-
this morning you did look pretty darn dapper. i would even click "like" and give you a big ole faceybook thumbs-up if i could.
however!
stop sign! do not try for dapperer, because as joe said, you will rival mark mackinnon and mark is on the precipice of creepy dapper.
however, ignore all 'sock rules according to scarborough'.
sockless ankles look fine in sperry topsiders, keds, and birks.
hush puppies, not so much.
ok, next topic.
why oh why do you permit these people to just beat the living dignity right the eff out of you
every
time
you're
on
'morning joe'?
a decade ago, i woulda never imagined you a punching bag for the current gold medalist in eye rolling, mika b.
good gawd man, grow a sack and knock it off!
and wtf is wrong with wasps?
love,
cmk

p.s. and if this is some cutesy little good dresser/bad dresser banter for the sake of bantering, it isn't cutesy. it means, you will soon grow man boobs and start scheduling mani-pedis.


dear michael eric dyson (msnbc political analyst)-
please don't speak for what "white" people want to hear. i won't tell my friends what you wanna hear, deal?
thank you,

cmk
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/michael-eric-dyson-hire-by-msnbc-deepens-black-ire-over-al-sharpton-show.html

and let me finish, smerc.

dear smerc-
i believe the death sentence is no longer a viable option in a 2012 society. exactly as you stated, michael ross of connecticut, insisted all appeals on his behalf stop, and that he be put to death. he finally received a lethal injection after 17 years of judicial muddling, and only because ross refused to participate in any further appeal.
philadelphia's mumia-abu jamal case has been an appellate cluster-fuck, affording jamal a never-ending appeal circus, while maureen faulkner and her family are afforded another opportunity to be disrespected by a judiciary seated to protect her.
as a nation, we are a litigious society gone absolutely fucking mad. i support term limits for political offices.
i'm not certain i even like scotus sitting until they can't get up.
i definitely do not support the opportunity for anyone, death row or otherwise, the right to appeal to infinity and beyond.
there are limits on everything in life.
and i don't give a forefather's rats ass if it's scotus approved or not.
rules are made, rules are broken, rules are amended.
hope and change.
i support the proposal to eliminate the death penalty in connecticut after all sitting on it, have fulfilled their obligation to the state.
sincerely,
cmk
p.s.- wear more purple! it looks fanfuckingtastic on camera.



p.s.s.- and speaking of dead men not walking  -  manson, woah, you are lookin' beat the fuck up!





 

new cmk page

vehicle of adventures

'a year of dangerous living' is an ode-to-me page chronicling the adventures that landed me here, and adventures yet to be had in 2012.
cmk2012 will continue to serve my smerc interests.
shotgun, anyone?

a year of dangerous living

mememe

 

last year i decided 2012 was to be my breakout year.
some may call it a "make-it or break-it' type thing, and those some are completely in err.
the notion of getting broken in the process never entered my mind.

i was committed to achieving my personal idea of success in the year of our whatever, 2012.
and that's that.
i made a promise to myself, that i will do absolutely everything within my power to create my future, letting not one opportunity to ensure success pass me by.

an aspect of my career goals involves public speaking, name recognition, and some schmoozing.

now, i consider timing to be everything. and when certain events occur at precisely the same moment in time, i consider that a message from the universe akin to being punched in the face with a wrecking ball.
i guess it is here i must be completely open about my proclivity to rely somewhat on astrology, to believe there is some thing out there that pays attention to stuff we do (good and bad), and a slightly elevated grasp of human nature.
the "or break-it") crowd might call this, weird.
fine. that makes complete sense to me.
you're either open to this or you are not, and if you aren't, that is cool, too.
you're probably going to hell anyway.
so timing, opportunity, and two free tickets to the michael smerconish bookclub all collided like an orchestrated car wreck on the schuylkill. i could win tickets, get publicity, name recognition, and meet my favorite bald person http://www.smerconish.com/ in one fell swoop! all i had to do was a 5 minute stand-up comedy audition, at a bar, in a casino, in front of drinking people and hookahs.
jesus h. chris christie!
i have difficulty speaking on the phone because my voice is a marriage of eddie vedder and marge simpson's cigarette-eating sisters. however, i made the damned promise to not allow anything that could propel me toward achieving my goal pass me by.
and i did it.
and i lost.
but i wasn't horrible, and i didn't faint, and there are some very important movers and shakers at wpht1210 that don't mind that i say the cunt word.
success!
you may think because i lost the comedy competition (to a rather fantastic local guy, chris smith, a cuspy pisces-aries typed ) i failed. but i laugh, hahaha, because one week after my comedy "fail", i received an email from an aforementioned mover and shaker, informing me of 2 comped tickets waiting for me at the scottish rites auditorium in collingswood, nj!
had i not decided to live this year unabashedly out of my box (oh stop it) i would never had stood on a stage pretending to talk funny, ending up with exactly what i had set my mind to on january 1, 2012 in the most roundabout way possible.
'roundabout' also being an excellent yessong.
and bonus! i met an awesome guy, a local dj, whom i remain in contact with to this very day.
chris smith http://comedianchrissmith.com/about-comedian-chris-smith.html and i stay in touch through gmail.
a total win win and then some.
from there, i decided to join a group.
i do not have a great deal of success in groups, and i totally understand i am partially responsible.
i admit it- i'm a group snob.
my clique-ability was made very obvious by jerri simmons, a neighbor of mine and 3rd grade class mate. and as cliques go, a third grade clique is like making it to first base. not a huge accomplishment. however, just as i was entering middle school, who shows up at camp lejeune north carolina?
yes!. her. jerri.
and i'm fucked again by my 3rd grader past; a past i was hoping to put behind me as if i was in a dod witness protection program for wayward girls.
i shake off thoughts of rejections past and cannonball into the meetup pool. with an expected amount of tech communication difficulty on my part, i secured a spot in a writer's "meetup" in downtown philadelphia.
i have discovered i can only drive into the city on wednesdays and park for free. i have another proclivity for parking violations, but seriously, in philly everyone with a car has the same proclivity.
i made certain to board a non-quiet car so as not to disturbed my fellow non- quiet passengers on a quiet car with my ipod, again. nothing like a 51 year old woman getting called out by the train conductor for owning ineffective ear buds, spilling bittersweet symphony onto a speeding septa train.
i got off at suburban and made my way to the meetup - in a highrise, even! movin' on up.
i was right on time, and the meetup commenced.
i was completely ill-prepared in that i brought my laptop rather than printed out copies of my work, and i totally missed the part that said, "we charge for this". all on me; unless i am researching, recommending, or quoting, i notoriously peruse stuff, get the gist, and move on.
i will try and commit to improving this, too.
i also immediately noticed, i was probably the only one in the room who would use the word vaginarific! to describe barrack obama's catholic church/birth control/insurance debate.
i also discovered without a doubt,i am an editors worst freaking nightmare.
we went round the table reading each meetup member's work. we offered up thoughts on what we liked about the piece, then what we disliked, culminating with the uncapping of a heavenly scented, hallucinogen-inducing sharpie marker. a red one!
i am kinda glad huffing was not "in" when i was young.
it was at this moment i knew i was not going to be a good fit for the group. i am horrific with grammar, and punctuation. my long term memory is as efficient as my ovaries have been ever since, well, neverthehellyoumind; there was no way i could or would fit improving my grammar into a "2012 is my year" plan.
still, i really enjoyed being around writers, and thinkers, and i had a pretty fantastic time hanging out with a bunch of people i had no clue even existed one hour earlier.
the sharing came full circle and it was my turn to share my work. i described an essay or two i'd written, described my blogging, and ended with the ultimate writer's sin. i actually said,
"i can't write like everyone else. i cannot pay attention to grammar because i write exactly as i speak (and i mean pretty much exactly) and it is crucial to me personally, that people hear my voice first."
i saw the mika brzenzski style eyeballs roll. i did. rollin' like a river they were!
every newbie writer says this shit.
E V E R Y   O N E. 
then the they say, "no. i really mean it. i'm the one that will break the strunk and white glass ceiling that holds we, the grammar-challenged creators of stories, down!"
i won't say that.
but i will prove it.
anyway, to wrap up my evening i was pretty much voted off meetup island.
i was indeed not a good fit.
but i am totally cool with that because they're right. i would never be able to say cunt in front of any of these people, ever. so this ends well, and as it should.
it was also wonderful because it was one more thing that i have done all by my big girl self, to secure a life i have previously only dreamed of.
one cannot sit back letting life happen all around you, and ask yourself, "why does my life suck so much?"
the answer is simple: "what are you doing about it to make it not suck?"
i am going to look for a free meetup group. maybe a group of writers who really like lewis black, have similar whack minds, and talk with their hands like chimps on crack.
i'm lookin' for that group next!

cmk

dear frank bruni- i don't want your penis

girls, i'd be doing the same shit if i'd had the facebook

when frank bruni's latest new york times article 'the bleaker sex', http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-bleaker-sex.html was brought to my attention by morning joe early this am, i googlemarked bruni's article for a serious read later, but took a moment to peruse the first couple of paragraphs just to get the gist.
not a good idea if you are one trying to not judge. cuz i totally did.
i disliked the characters; i disliked whomever wrote such characters, and then i went to my chiropractor and forgot all about it til now.

so i read the entire article, and while i still have a bad taste in my mouth about the mini-carries, i absolutely adore the writer/director/actress, 25 year old lena dunham. she has got her status update shit together and knows her audience.
and i will recommit to my pursuit to not judge.

cath, you're okay; just try! love, dali

straight up, i never liked 'sex and the city'. i was a stay-at-home mom that spent most of my day in the clothes i slept in the night before and wiping ass. i couldn't relate in any way whatsoever.
'sex and the city: the tween years' has as much chance with my clicker as those k people that can't keep up with a damned thing.

so back to bruni's 'bleaker sex'.
i looked up bleak because i was pretty certain there was nothing complimentary about it. and i was correct. not for nothin' but there's not one nice damned thing about it.
bleak is nothing but awful. and bleak.
look, i would feel bleak too if i watched young people i would inevitably equate with my own 20-something brood having mostly horrible sex. and ever since 'american pie' i wear earmuffs for young people having sex stuff.

but if, frank bruni, your column insinuates, "the zeitgeist-y, early-20s heroines of “Girls” engaging in, recoiling from, mulling and mourning sex..." makes girls bleak, what about the boys?

let's have a look:
a. boys engage in sex.
b. boys recoil almost immediately after sex, if not when they wake up.
c. girls mull because girls are thoughtful; boys brag because boys are braggarts.
d. girls mourn because "he didn't post a status update!" the next day, guys mourn because girls want them to.
girls are no more nor less bleak than boys have always been.
so there!

five sluts

next, from bruni's article:
"Are young women who think that they should be more like men willing themselves into a casual attitude toward sex that’s an awkward emotional fit? Two movies released last year, “No Strings Attached” and “Friends With Benefits,” held that position, and Dunham subscribes to it as well. "

yes frank, it is an awkward fit and it doesn't work. both movies end with friend-sex turning into happily-ever-after-sex when both girl and boy fall in friend-sex-love. and while i have no personal experience, i have heard one bajillion times, "friends can't have sex and stay just friends" from a couple of friends that would know.

dunham of 'girls' sums this up best -“There’s a biological reason why women feel about sex the way they do and men feel about sex

the way they do. It’s not as simple as divesting yourself of your gender roles.”

 the biological reason

in 2012, girls are still sluts.
in 2012, boys still aren't.
what we are witnessing, is an earnest effort by girls to achieve the same sexual autonomy boys have always enjoyed.

girls wanna know the secret. if anyone knows the secret, please give it up.
every day i see girls emulating boys feigning sexual bravado by way of "oops i dropped this! lemme bend over and get it" boob shots and booty call status updates.
on the flip side, boys in public restaurants using their cell phones like grandma's photo album flipping through pics, taking "we were here at this place together" photos, and constantly checking to see who might have called.

boys like dirt, forts, and spiders; not status updates

girls want control. i believe they would like to control the urge to pull their hair out whenever a guy doesn't call. or text, or update his status. i believe girls would like to have casual, random sex if they choose to and not be held to any higher standard than a guy. social networking gives the appearance this is all about sex. i'm not a fan of tit shots, especially when i knew you when you were a brownie, but i get it.
i am going to watch 'girls', http://www.hbo.com/girls/about/index.html only because i'm so impressed with  lena dunham.
but bruni, bleak? pffft.
girls are sugar and spice and everything nice and there's not one bleak thing about that!
and young ladies, you do not take ownership of yourself when you share yourself with the world wide web.
be strong, be smart, be have. but especially, don't be boys.
love love.

update: bruni appeared this morning on msnbc's morning joe, amongst a round table that included 4 other men and mika b.- joes' valuable, eye rolling, professional op-ed reading female version of a sidekick. bruni regurgitated his times piece, which regurgitates some father goose fairy tale that what women really want is to grow a great big, old dick and be rid of men altogether.
maybe if you're author, maureen dowd, of 'are men really necessary?', a life without men works.
as a woman who would never think to ask that question a life without men would be sad.
they look good in baseball pants; kevin costner in, 'tin cup'; willing to work 80 freaking hours a week; have the penis; they father our daughters, and if you're lucky, give you good company as you make your way to dying.
i rather like them in general, and a few of them in particular, but i would never, ever wanna BE one of them.
nothing much was added to bruni's misconception that girls just wanna have fun and be boys. and mika sat on her hands the entire time because i am pretty sure she isn't getting any.

wouldn't touch that

cmk

lewis black lives in philly in buzz bissinger's house

cmk' saturday wrap up
march 31, 2012

we're here. where's smerconish?

since turning 50, smerc has been wpht-mia a lot. normally, i would be bummed about this; however, not this time.

i found out what buzz bissinger is all about and he is so much more than lights and friday nights! just as i was totally floored by bernie parent when i had the great fortune to attend smerc's book club, http://www.smerconish.com , held last month in collingswood, nj - thank you patty pat!

that evening, bernie parent was one of smerc's featured authors, and i admit it - my first thought was, "ugh. hockey." and, it is here and now i must fess up just how wrong i was. and now i want to be bernie's bff.

bernie parent is optimistic and positive and all about balance; very zen. if the dali lama were a tall, hockey-playing cannuck he would be bernie parent.

go flyers!

tell me this buzztweet isn't so lewis black?

well, imagine my surprise when i discovered buzz bissenger was more than pigskin! and the fact that most every other smerc listener hated him made him all the more appealing to contrarian moi!
buzz's sardonic, dry style is very lewis blackish and he pulls no punches. i might have a  ladycrush on buzz, i'm not sure. friday afternoon, i messaged his fb account with the following:

• i think it's sorta creepy when fb sends me a message that some total stranger thinks i'm friend material. so, i'm introducing myself before fb sends you that creepy message from me.
  i'm catherine. i'm the one smerc fan that likes your show. you're like lewis black, whose delivery is better than crack.
  anyway, i'm not a football person so i basically ignored the whole 'friday night lights' thing. sorry. you'd ever know i had marshall texas blood in my veins. however, i am now your fan and now we can be friends. but i will never like football.
  it's a win win. peace-
  catherine m.k.
  
  i patiently waited and sent buzz a friend request after i had given fair and ample warning i was doing so, and having heard no objections after a reasonable amount of time (and not to look anxious or nothin') sent the "omg, i'm pathetic please be my friend" friend request.
  

  

  you'll always be my favorite

  saturday, 31 march 2012 - 11:30 am and i have yet to hear back from buzz. but i am like my new hero, bernie parent and i am very, very patient. i will really, really try to not judge sports people any longer. i will.
  i will try.
  and nobody's perfect, let's not forget that when i'm really trying.
  
  in a nutshell, this week smercsucked due to michael's absence.
  'cept for buzz.
  buzz was freakin' awesome. 
  
  

  

  i think i could wanna go to there

  
  cmk
  
  ps- jesus, even he's balding! i bet he's a flippin' pisces, too.
  this also gives me fair warning eddie vedder may indeed be bald some day. fair warning to you too, edved. i am usually right about these things. just sayin'.

olbermann: twit-glutton and karma

oh you be quiet, keith

you freakin' tweet-hog!!
11 (eleven) 144(one hundred and forty-four) character filled tweets!
don't you have some equally bitter webmaster-type person that can put your twit-tirade on a more appropriate format?
that my friend is 'twit-gluttony'.
add glutton to one or two pre-existing deadly sins keith, and welcome to, "hey! you're pretty much fucked!"
again.

for those who have not subjected themselves to olbermann's second scribed bunch of sour grapes, business insider shares keith's twatpology here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/olbermann-canned-from-current-tv-2012-3

i never paid you any mind when you were on espn doing sport stuff. i did run into you once in starbucks, at 'the commons' in avon, connecticut.
as a philly transplant, i was not expecting much from a dude that drinks starbucks and climbs into a vehicle with connecticut tags, and from that day forward you have always lived up to my philly expectations of you.
of you and connecticut.

never having watched you do sport stuff, (i am risking the ass u me thing, but this is worth the risk) i can't see that snarky attitude of yours workin' around a bunch of manly sports guys. i mighta' had to deck your ass if you acted all whiny on my sports show. ugh.
you were msnbc's original rachel maddow, without the obvious girl-parts; which by the way, is required for snark.
unless you're a gay man, and that is the only exception whatsoever when testosterone can pull of snarky.

plain and simply put, you just don't have the parts. which made it weird to watch you verbally pull bill o'reilly's hair on a nightly basis.
well meow!
but you're a man and men are not supposed to pull hair.
men do a roundhouse to the jaw and knock the other guy out with one perfectly machismo punch, and walk away.
keith, you are a snarky nag in a man's body and i believe your gig is up.
leave it to us pros. thanks!

"thanks keith! now i'm in first place!"

cmk

zimmerman man-fans

the more the better. i think.

i had the unfortunate benefit of listening to wednesday's smerc callers addressing the trayvon martin case, and for the most part i have drawn the sad conclusion, we still need the al sharptons to shine a great, big spotlight on injustice, if not but for weeding out  bigots and idiots.
as if bigot and idiot are separate. 

*many of whom listen to the show.
i still say, we give al his walking papers and send him on his merry way to his msnbc gig, 'politics nation', and we all know even al scratches his james-brown-head and asks himself, "how in god's hell did i pull this one off?" i know al sharpton has some naughty karma comin', i just don't know when.

as a replacement i suggest harold ford, jr. because i like him. i like lenny kravitz, too.
and on the hot scale, while ford isn't awful on the eyes, kravitz is so easy he's practically skanky.

one point i keep hearing over and over again is the image portrayed by the media of trayvon martin, represents someone younger and smaller than the 17 year old shot dead by george zimmerman. it was suggested he looked 14, and the photographs used were judged to be unrepresentative of the hulking, menacing kid on purpose!

as the mother of 4 children i am going to explain something to you people who have never been placed in charge of memorializing your branch of the family tree. let me further say in my defense, i never asked for this job because i completely, absolutely suck at keeping track of anything smaller than a child.

when my children were all young, i could go pick one up, put it on the couch, and take photos of it until i ran out of film with rare objection. i stood on many-a-sideline screaming and hooting and hollering about my sport-child, snapping photos in between hoots.
there comes a point, when the child begins to whine and moan and groan at you on a fairly regular basis, and asking them to pose for a picture only gives them one more thing to bitch about, so screw that.
i still find it a lil hypocritical when i creep on their fb pages
and see photo after ph/scratch that, album after album of them posing for someone else and doing utterly stupid shit; obviously i am meant to take this personally, so i have, and i'm done photographing my children.
add a.d.d. to that and you have my filing system.
i do not have one album.
all my photos are in a box in a closet i can see from where i am currently sitting.

i tell you all of this because of the hypothetical i will now pose:
my child doesn't come home one night. at some point my child will be deemed legally missing and i can notify the police.
i am probably in a panic when the police request a recent photograph of my missing child.
i run to my box of photographs and grab the first photo i come to that most closely resembles my missing child.
i would not stop to make sure the photo was from his junior year, out of a uniform of some sort, or was particularly as tall or as heavy as my child.
i would hand it over to the police and say, "this is the best one i have right now. please use this and when i am finished with this meltdown, i will get you a more current photo."

the 1210 sleuth-set has it all figured out, with little if anything of a factual nature to consider. beyond trayvon martin's death as the result of being shot by george zimmerman  everything that follows  is conjecture or verbal accounts from witnesses i don't know from rocks. i heard more reasons for zimmerman to shoot-on-sight than i wanted to hear and it left me very depressed.
and then i realized al might hang around longer, which was even more depressing a thought.

i just want to let you know why moms don't always have just the right picture, and i have debunked one bigot-idiot-theory.
feel free to bring on another.

p.s.- for those children whose mothers don't have albums or "baby's first steps" journals, it doesn't mean we don't love you, we just have lots of shit to do )

cmk

*smerc- you may wanna rethink your fan base. just sayin'

vogue's p.o.s. mother of the year

dara-lynn weiss, your dinner is served

yeah, i said piece of shit.
if shit is low-cal, dara-lynn weiss will run to add it to the list of acceptable consumables for her daughter, bea.

many believe bea's luck-of-the-sperm birth into a 99%er's dream family will be her boarding pass to the new-elites' american dream. i suggest bea will spend a good deal of her boarding time in an eating disorder recovery facility.

mental health patient and bea

i highly recommend renfrew, on spring lane, in philadelphia.

i cannot in good conscience lay this all at the monolo blahnik's of ms. weiss. IF, and that is a large if,  bea's pediatrician called her obese and instructed ms. weiss to walk-not-run with bea to the nearest weight watcher's meeting, the pediatrician should be reported to the ama or the carpenter's union for being an utter tool.



let's get real - dara-lyn weiss is an egotistical asshat that cannot bear the stigma of a daughter who does not rival a cadaver with her body mass index.
asshat says: One day Bea came home from school in tears, confessing that a boy at school had called her fat. The incident crushed me, but it was a wake-up call. Being overweight is not a private struggle. Everyone can see it.

dara-lynn weiss is also a hypocrit as she stuffs several cookies in her own piehole while restricting bea to one, or none, or 89 push-ups depending on ms. weiss's mood of course.
asshat says: When she was given access to cupcakes at a party, I alternated between saying, "Let's not eat that, it's not good for you"; "Okay, fine, go ahead, but just one"; "and "Bea, you have to stop eating crap like that, you're getting too heavy," depending on my mood. Then I'd secretly eat two when she wasn't looking.

dara-lynn weiss thinks this is unfair.
asshat says:The struggle is obviously not over. I don't think it will ever be for either of us. Bea understands that, just as some kids have asthma, her weight is something she may always have to think about, unfair as it seems.She will probably always want to eat more than she is supposed to. She will be tempted to make bad choices. But now she has the foundation to make these choices in an educated and conscious way. Only time will tell whether my early intervention saved her from a life of preoccupation with her weight, or drove her to it.
http://www.nymag.com/daily/fashion/2012/03/mom-reacts-vogues-fat-7-year-old-girl-story.html?imw=Y

there is nothing shocking when vogue magazine celebrates  the ugliest, beautiful people. vogue magazine is for vapid, self-absorbed asshats who will applaud ms. weiss for her pro-active role in her daughter's health.
that's what vogue readers will say.

renfrew will say your daughter has an eating disorder.
and when the admissions clerk asks you if you have any idea when bea's eating disorder began, you can tell them ms. weiss, it all started with the april issue of vogue.
oh, and great luck with your book.
as a bookseller, yours will be one i seem to misplace all the time.
every time.
cmk

Analyzing 911 calls in Fla. shooting death by Smerconish

Analyzing 911 calls in Fla. shooting death by Smerconish

hot old lady in love park

i left love park's candlelight vigil for trayvon martin a few minutes ahead of the peaceful crowd. those who could stand plummeting temps and winds that literally blew me down the sidewalk two times, went on to occupy something in philly, while i briskly walked to my illegally parked jeep.

i peed for a second time at the krispy kreme on chestnut, plucked a parking ticket off my windshield, (philadelphia parking kiosks only take quarters while my camera bag was filled with nickles and dimes), and headed toward the art museum. i made my way on to a user-friendly schyulkill- this means i am headed west leaving the city after 7 p.m. est.

the schyulkill is always friendly when you're leaving.

too late for smerc, i tuned into wpht http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/station/talk-radio-1210/   

and hung out with gary arnell for a chill drive home.
arnell's guest, jenice armstrong, columnist for the philadelphia daily news, was reporting live from ground-zero, love park. seemingly surprised by the small number gathering for the candlelight vigil, http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/Trayvon_Martin_vigil_at_Love_Park.html?viewGallery=y ms. armstrong seemed even more perplexed by the national attention the death of trayvon martin was receiving. 

i listened further as ms. armstong recounted philly murders in recent past, that, according to her garnered no attention whatsoever, posing the question, "where was the outrage over these murders?".

in a column, posted 3/26/2012

http://www.philly.com/philly/living/20120326_Jenice_Armstrong_.html?cmpid=138894519
armstrong highlights 4 recent philadelphia homicides near or around the gunning-down of trayvon martin and in conclusion states, " Not to take as much as a Skittle away from Trayvon, but aren't these people's untimely deaths worth our getting worked up about as well?"

answer: of course they are! and what did you do about them, jenice? and your job doesn't count.  

trayvon martin's murder has received attention that eluded our fellow philadelphians for one reason and one reason only-

al sharpton.

al

did anyone in philadelphia call al blueberrypie sharpton?
i am pretty sure sharpton works a lot like batman, and requires at the very least a phone call, if not a shaft-like help-us-hologram in the sky.
i find the naivete in your question, well, weird at it's least.
the civil rights movement gave birth to the much needed organization and representation for a very underrepresented group of americans.
whites had always been above and beyond represented in every possible constitutional way, and had no need for such organization. and imagine in 2012 if there was a national association for the advancement of white people.
it was never needed, nor would it be tolerated.

young black men are murdered at an outrageous, disproportionate rate every, single day in this country. 

as a journalist, but more importantly as a black female journalist who, i am assuming lives in or at least near philadelphia, i ask you this: 

 how do you not know yourself what to do to draw attention to your hometown - which currently places 1st for homicide rates in 2012?

the world's perfect puppy, lucy

i am an aarp card holding woman in the suburbs of philly and i know who to call. when my puppy, lucy, hears al on msnbc recalling his pie-thieving days in brooklyn, she growls. even my dog knows - call al sharpton!
nothing brings the racial tension to the table like al.
no one can spin the murder of a young man by a gun wielding security officer into a racial frenzy, like al.

now, if sharpton were not such a self-promoting opportunist, i would applaud and encourage his participation in every homicide in every city across this great nation.
the problem with al is, he forgets why he is there and only sees the color of one's skin. i just find that odd from a man who quotes dr. martin luther king.
sharpton should have term limits, much like our congress should have term limits. out with the old, in with new.
sharpton, like his fellow sexagenarians, are antiques to the system. sharpton wants to march in a world that needs less and less marching. 

not exactly stealth

if al could fly to florida, stir up some shit and then fly back to his rockefeller center office in new york, new york, hop in his corporate limo, and get back to his day job at msnbc, that would be great. but al can't do that. al needs to be the story; needs to be the show; he just can't walk out of the limelight.
we need a navy seal-type who slips in under the tv camera radar, wreaks all sorts of havoc, then slips out as stealthly as he came.
mission accomplished, bin laden is dead, claps hands together and that's that.
last night i stood among fellow philadelphians where i saw some angry, some sad, some determined, some militant humans meld together; i saw folks i thought probably had some money in their pockets and some i knew did not. i saw old and young, human and canine.  i listened, i participated, and i then i drove home.

that's what i did, jenice. my job is working in a bookstore. my obligation as a human being was to choose to be in love park.
reporting the news is one thing.
being the news is another.

cmk

no more division, please.

the week in vaginas and smerconish

guess the day i posted vagina, go on, guess

at the conclusion of one week's worth of posts, google analytics have proven what everyone on earth already knows:
men love vagina.
now, i could be getting just as many female hits; however, get the fuck real- the word vagina is to a post title as danica patrick is to the nascar.
hot hot hot.
it's a win win and from now on, i may have to refer to the cooter in every possible way in every post title, henceforth. 

it's saturday and i am now going to introduce you to:

cmk saturday wrap up:

as word of e.l. james', '50 shades of grey', spread like a whore's ankles, women all over america flocked to bookstores requesting a copy of what was being touted as, "the steamiest, sexiest work of raunchy fiction since, well, ever." 

and i use "requested" lightly. 

i remember faces, too

they flocked like the birds in hitchcocks', 'birds' flocked and left some booksellers feeling if they just got their eyeballs pecked out by a buncha really horny angry birds.

some ladies almost cried.
and some ladies, mostly the sweet, lil' old ones, needed to be warned, "oh. i don't think this is what you think it is. it's not really romance. like, this would make jackie collins look like a children's author."
or, "there are "things" involved; you know, like, um, (whispers) handcuffs and stuff." winks.
random house finally reprinted the book; the female literary libido could be satiated among whatever else those lady-perverts do, and i would no longer have to explain or discuss bondage, discipline, or s&m to one more blue-haired old woman.

smerc goes to boston this week to attend that chris matthews jfk book/movie thing. an excerpt from a poem i wrote on https://www.facebook.com/smerconish :

for only a man like jfk
has para mores to this very day-
who in their golden years of life
claim, "i fucked him too! not just his wife!"

chris needs to let this go. 

besides, caroline kennedy is putting out 83 kennedy book per year already. please. 

stop.

arlen "the turtle" specter poked his curmudgeon little head out of his shell and promoted his new book, 'life among the cannibals: a political career, a tea party, uprising, and the end of government as we know it'.

are you effing kidding me? that is 20 words long!

and of all people to have the worlds longest title in the history of longest rambling titles, it would be specter. it took 30 seconds of airtime for him to spit the damned thing out.
1. i cannot wait to have to enter this title into a title search at work.

2. and, i just might consider whether i will even do a title search if mr. specter continues to announce, "you can buy my book at that evil internet place that rhymes with schmamazon..." first.

bookstores employ real people from your district. you should be ashamed, mr. specter.

but please say missourah, more often. i do love that; so huck finn of ya.

lastly, the vagina has been replaced as the gop platform now focuses on, that's right, you guessed it:

one of my personal favorites

yes, that. 
msnbc said the word etch-a-sketch 1,438 times friday, replacing  former record holder, cooter rights.

the ohio art co., maker of the etch-a-sketch, says the 1960's era toy is flying off the shelf!
i thought buddy elf made the etch-a-sketch?
that being said, i wonder if viagra sales went up, up, up during all the federal vagina wrangling.

that is it for the week.
this blogger will see you monday.
tomorrow i rest )
cmk

love

philly 3/26/2012

let's go!
msg. me on fb.

www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20120323_Million_Hoodie_March_set_for_Philadelphia_tonight.html

sharpton, heathers, and hoodies

above all else, my heart breaks for the parents of trayvon martin. so far, the only absolute truth i can accept is, there is no more unimaginable pain or grief than the loss of your child. period.
i am inexpressibly sorry.
al, i hope you will find comfort and solace from those you love during this difficult moment. i am sorry for the loss of your beloved mom.
but i still do not like you, and you should have never stolen her blueberry pie.
ok. now i rant.

a disclaimer-
i will not:
i will not replay events that occurred 3 weeks ago in sanford, fla.
nor will i render my opinion on events that occurred 3 weeks ago in sanford, fla.
i have a modest legal background, and aside from a few obvious cases that i followed like it was crack, i have finally learned to hold off on judging the guilt or innocence of a defendant, pretrial.
this is not to mean i won't offer opinions, oh no....
i have so many opinions, the dvsm suggests i'm a hoarder.
i reject such nonsense, and the bitching commences.

3/22/2012

i joined the https://www.facebook.com/MorningJoe chat thread bright and early as usual.
it is my personal car wreck and i just can't look away.
as news of the trayvon martin death spread, the last several days focused less on the gop clusterfuck, and more on the events surrounding the death of this young man.

joe opened the show from his home state of florida, and the first 30 minutes of programming was devoted to this story.

fb's mj chat thread was on fire with opinions, and as opinions go these were far, far, did i say far different than the usual attack, attack, attack behavior. i do believe this is when ann franks' "good" comes out in people as we tone tempers and attempt to tap into verbalizing our "feelings" rather than beat the shit out of each other with our opinions.

it struck me the number of white people who kept pointing out their whiteness when expressing their sorrow in a way that suggests it is somehow odd for a white person to have sorrow over the death of a young, black man.
 

im old, i'm white, and i care

there were petitions to be signed coordinated by posters who less than 72 hours prior, said to another poster:

ms. links-a-lot: m.s. (a fellow mj poster) would vote for bozo the clown if he was white!
now i am all for the freedom to express yourself, but good gawd how do you say something like THAT and 3 days later start a petition about racial injustice? 

but ms. links-a-lot is also an old white woman in delaware.

from another poster whose name i deleted because i am "fair" to newbies:
name deleted: Don't let up on the Trayvon Martin coverage. People need to know the truth & his family deserves justice. With live from another white middle aged woman in upstate NY.
3 hours ago · Like · 4
to which i reply:
Cat Kerr "newbie"- as if it is weird a white woman would care about this? why mention your race in that post?
3 hours ago · Like · 1
Cat Kerr should you get extra props bc you're a white lady who says you care about a black kid?
why not, i care!

i had pretty much secured my position in the mj shitter for another day after that comment.
which is fine. 

mom! cat's in the toilet again.

i do bring these situations on myself by expressing strong opinions. so a'ight, if you wanna roll, then baby i will verbally roll your ass into a little ball and kick you to the curb; albeit, in the kindest, gentlest way possible because i am zen and you are SO not.white people say the right things when they have to. especially in public, and even MORE especially on a chat thread where they will NEVER be accountable for one damned real thing.

GIVE ME A PEN! I CARE!

white people sign petitions, join in for a little outrage, donate a few bucks, talk about legislating some new shit to protect minorites, and enjoy long walks on the beach. but when it comes right down to it, white people don't get messy about it.

black people march. they dodge bullets. they get arrested and spend time in jail-
and NOT "occupy jail" where you pretend you just got stoned at woodstock, burned a flag, and spent the night in the pokey with the po po.  
unh uh, black people go to REAL jail where it's hard to get out.
they yell and scream and demand equal protection, representation, and freedom under the same constitution that provides the aforementioned for my old, white lady ass.


let this be a lesson to those who start petitions.
next time, get up off your ass and actually go DO something about something.
 
hypocrisy at the expense of a young black man, disgusts me. 
and ANYONE who uses  another family's tragedy as an excuse to promote a personal agenda of any kind will be called on it.
this is your opportunity to evolve.
do it.
cm

kind hands have room for everyone

p.s. and i know this is super hard to believe, but, bozo THE clown is not on this ticket.

bubbles are for baths, not hoods

if this resembles your cd collection, you could be a hoarder

mr. smerconish-
it is not important when you arrive to the party, just arrive.
and here you are!
a&e added  'hoarders' to its' network of dysfunction on august 17, 2009.
just in time, too. 

crystal meth doesn't play well with teef

our fascination with mommies huffing spray paint, or boyfriends' selling blow-jobs-for-crack was beginning to wane.
maybe it's just me, but when i see an ass-balloon of heroin burst wide open inside a dude's rectum more than 2 or 3 times, all emergency rooms begin to look the same.
and IF, after 152+ episodes of "hey! surprise! this is really an intervention!" some dude approaches me and asks if i would like to be in a documentary about addiction, i am hauling ass the other way.

"no fuckin' way! you guys are from intervention?"

what better way to jar us from addict-complacency than a glimpse into the lives of the most severely, dysfunctional house dwellers on the face of this wonderful, freakin' planet?

as a matter of fact, it's 9 p.m. in philadelphia and courtney the heroin addict, has made her family miserable. she has a dog named ginger, who i know often wonders in her little puppy head " are you shitting me? of all the humans to stroll through the shelter, i get the one still falling for the "addict-documentary" line. this sucks."
 

but hoarders is a forensic entomologist's dream! maggots and larvae dining on a family cat everyone thought ran away 8 years ago.
wpht technical producer, greg stocker, gave the best explanation for the success of show like 'hoarders', "it's like watching a car wreck." best wreck ever!


those of us with the great fortune of existing outside the main line bubble, have more time on our hands to wrench our necks to gawk at other people's misfortune. and sometimes, it makes us feel just a better about our lives because we realize we could always be "that person."

main line bubblers are just too damned busy. 
you guys are always on the move; fulfilling brand spankin' new upper class obligations with neither the time nor inclination to pay any mind to such things that exist beyond the main liners' zip code. 
and i'm guessing there aren't many hoarders in your neighborhood like the ones you're going to meet on the real 'hoarders'.
y'all hoard totally different stuff.
but i won't judge.

i'm going to let charles murray do the judging, and he says (i paraphrase) "if you live in a bubble, you are gonna miss out on some good shit."

like hoarders, and nascar, and bonnaroo.

now, i can put together a pretty snappy outfit and go to the phila. museum of art one afternoon and no one would ever know i was in the wrong bubble.
on any given friday night, i can head to south street in clothes i bought at the salvation army and listen to my oldest son's band, 20 days in (no plug shame, here) and the only thing about me that MAY draw attention is my against-old-lady-rules silver hair which is apparently, way too long  and the 51 years i wear on my face.

old, pretty bald, wears jeans

on the other hand, let's say a member of your bubble went to the susquehanna bank center to see dave matthews band .
first off, since you refuse to wear jeans, the khakis scream- "I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR HERE AND THE ONLY REASON I'M HERE, IS THAT FELLOW UP THERE."
and i know you would wear some leathery, loafery things without socks. i have nothing else to say about that.
and the "my purse has a name" thing doesn't fly either.
 
my fellow bubblers and i learn to adapt. we are like fantastic, fun chameleons. we dare switch up our colors and go where we wanna go.
i highly, highly recommend y'all pop a little hole in yours, and dare venture and see all that you're missing.
like snookie and blue jeans and a thug in a cocktail dress! 
you are not living until you see this stuff.
and charles murray even says so! 

wouldn't it be cool if we could all wear our colors like this little guy?

cmk