There are times when my job is a real headache – screaming gays, power struggles, cheap Chinese skinned alive fur. I often question whether I should be looking to do something more meaningful for a living. But I have to admit that it is almost always highly entertaining. And the women I work with are truly awesome. We’re the oppressed minority in that place, so we’re very good to each other.
MOTO sits next to me in the office and because she’s all tiny and Japanese and perfect looking I call her horrible names: Chippie, Pudding-Chan, Skinny Little Slut, etc. I also threaten to beat her up pretty regularly but she’s feisty and has been completely psyched ever since I taught her how to give an indian burn. She tries it on everyone. Moto’s desk is a wreck and completely covered in Hello Kitty items–Hello Kitty screensaver (which once brought with it a raging virus), Hello Kitty mouse, mouse pad, ruler, calculator, clock, etc. It’s a plastic pink nightmare in which she sits peacefully in her size 0 jeans, slowly munching sweets and snipping with pink Hello Kitty scissors at imaginary split ends in her superlong Japanese hair.
ROCKET was in for a couple of days fixing various computer bugs and she even managed to get a Hello Kitty temporary tattoo on his arm. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it, but he did show it off at the bar that night and found these for her later on:
AGH!!!
Moto has this hanging over her desk (along with photos of Kim Kardashian and Ice T’s camel-toe queen Coco, with whom she’s bizarrely obsessed with, but we’ll save that topic for another blog). This brings me great joy every time I look at it:
Moto and I spend many hours “shopping” for ridiculously high ticket items we want in Vogue and Bazaar and Elle and W Magazine. We clip the photos out and tape them to the wall and the other girls give us commentary on the merits of the items we’ve chosen and point out the items that they too would like to own. We can get away with this because we work in fashion and it kind of looks like we’re researching, you know, if you squint. So we found this photo (of which there are many like it) in Elle:
Me: Oooh, my skin is grey but my eyeshadow is tres cunty!
Moto: My bag is sooooo heavy.
Me: It’s dark. So dark in the land of beauty.
Moto: I will die soon but my heavy bag is fierce.
You get the picture. Btw, how completely fucked is that photo? This is what the fashion fags and the socialite boys want us to look like, ladies. Beware, beware of this pop culture version of beauty. It hates us.
So I am regularly frustrated by the lack of consciousness in the industry. But today I am so psyched about where I work, and this is the reason. Pat designed this t-shirt to show her support, and then the staff put together their own trampy version of Michelle Obama to feature it:
And it gets better. JULIE, our webmaster, sent out an email featuring the sale of this t-shirt to the entire customer list! Meaning that all of the conservative Sex and the City housewives in the middle of the country who have no idea that Ms. Patricia Field is a crazy New York lesbian with flaming red hair and a most decidedly liberal point of view are now either considering Pat’s opinion or angrily typing hate mail.
Either way, I am completely psyched because a stand has been taken. It is so rare that I feel like we’re doing anything with a consciousness in the store. And the fact that Julie had the balls to actually hit “send” just pleases me to no end. She doesn’t have a tattoo on her and I doubt she’s ever seen or even heard Motorhead, but she is totally badass.
I have never been a particularly political person. Frankly, politics usually bore the hell out of me. I’m much more interested in sitting around and cutting out photos of overpriced accessories from bullshit fashion magazines. But lately I feel my heart pumping with hope when I hear Obama or Hillary talking about the fact that we could actually have positive change. How lovely to hear people who don’t appear to be lying to me, who can pronounce “nuclear”, who seem to actually care about the middle class and the planet. In this time of crisis I can’t NOT have an opinion to express. To remain quiet is to accept the evil, and that is just not possible now. Even if we go down with the corporate ship, I’d like to do it with my big fat mouth open (as usual). And I’m so pleased that I work in an environment where my famous boss is not afraid to lose favor with some of her fans by expressing an opinion, and my co-worker is given the freedom to state the case openly.
And lastly, and on that note, my ex and very good friend JESSE MALIN wrote a blog that speaks quite eloquently, so I’m going to paste a bit of it here:
“I just got back from a family trip/writing retreat in southern Florida. My Grandfather, Arthur, is about to turn 90. He has always been kind of the Iggy Pop of the family, working out every day, swimming, dancing and bugging the ladies at the library for new books. He had recently fallen ill and it was pretty devastating but somehow with the magic of the force, the schwartz, pma (he might have invented this), or just the early bird special at China Lane, he emerged from the hospital and returned home while I was down visiting.
Sitting on the terrace in a worn down apartment complex, we spoke about embracing as many minutes as possible in this wild life. Obama came on the TV. Papa was happy and impressed. He spoke of the Candidate’s eloquence and spirit and comparisons to JFK and other moments of major change and hope that he had witnessed in his lifetime. Another family member, on the other hand, is afraid that he is a Muslim, anti-semite and too green for the gig (I thought he was black?) Some of this information was passed on from Hollywood actor John Voight in a soundbite to the scared and gullible. Being down in Florida made me feel more sensitive about the needed votes or sometimes it all feels ridiculous and futile like when Gore won the presidency and they fixed it like a corrupt prize fight in a pseudo democracy where Bush would win again.
None-the-less, I feel it is always a lesser of evils game. I don’t believe we are truly hopeless. Having Barach Obama’s message and image penetrating through the media is a very exciting feeling, whether he wins or not (and I hope he kicks McCain’s ass). I’ve never had so much disgust and embarrassment over a political governmental administration as endured these past 8 years. Watching Bill Clinton introduce the Rolling Stones in “Shine The Light” on my hotel pay per view screen, brought me questioning in a dreamlike reality “did this cool charismatic INTELLIGENT man, who actually likes rock’n roll, really exist as the President of my country, the United States of America? It seems very foggy and surreal. The present reality here is the good ole’ U.S. is the worst economy, a soaring unemployment rate, sick gas prices, raping the Earth, lying, Big Brother surveillance, thousands of kids dying in a war that continues on and on, etc. etc. etc. A Rasta man once called it “politrics.” Someone else said don’t mix music and politics (Billy Bragg made a career of it but he also writes a pretty amazing love song). I do urge my American fans and friends to PLEASE vote this year in this historic election.”
Amen, amen. Just make sure that if you’re one of those Bottega Veneta models you put a couple of nuts or carrot sticks in your $3965 bag before heading to the polls. We wouldn’t want you to faint and accidentally land on the McCain lever.
MISS ANTHROPE'S HOUSE OF HIGH DRAMA 