Category: blog

Torture is wrong

Yesterday, President Shrub vetoed an intelligence authorization bill because it prevents the CIA from torturing people. The bill would have banned waterboarding, stripping people naked, forcing them to engage in or simulate sexual acts, subjecting them to extreme temperatures, and making them stand up until they fall down. It would still be okay to hurt interrogate them in lots of other ways.

I’m not a Christian, and I have a hard time turning the other cheek — and I still know that torture is wrong. GWB, on the other hand, does profess to be Christian, and I have to wonder why he thinks that waterboarding is what Jesus would do. And even if he thinks it’s morally okay, I can’t believe he’s stupid enough to think it really makes enough of a difference to the overall goal of national security to justify the damage it does to us as a people. Torture does not consistently produce reliable information and it does not build the long-term goodwill of the world community towards America. All it reliably does is reduce human beings to bags of suffering, or the monsters that cause it.

I am ashamed of the president of my country, and all the politicians who have participated in and supported the misery he has inflicted on people here and abroad.

I do not often engage in political discussion, even with members of my own family, because usually people just stake out positions and pound on each other. Everyone wants to be “right.” Everyone wants to win. Kind of like elections. Kind of like war. People want to win, hey, I get it. But we don’t have the right to win at any cost. We don’t. We have, or used to have, the right to speak freely, to move freely, to be in general treated equally under the law, to dissent without fear. We’ve given up a lot of that to our leaders’ need to win.

And for what? Does this feel like winning to you?

Edited to add: At the risk of seeming to diminish my own outrage, here’s a funny take on the absolute seriousness of where we are right now.

DST sucks

I hate Daylight Savings Time with a savage passion. Hate hate hate hate hate it. It is deeply stupid, hard on my body and my psyche, and not even fuel efficient, people! Stop messing with my time!

Grump.

Edited to add: I just read this post which ends with this:

I just realized it’s time to turn the clocks ahead. Thank God — I actually thought I blacked out for an hour. — Erik Davis, with whom I sympathize completely.

You see? DST is baaaaad…..

What’s your story?

Have you heard of six-word memoirs? They’re in full swing over at SMITH Magazine (which is, by the way, a pretty cool site in general — wow, the human impulse to tell stories…). You can find out more in this New Yorker article, a brilliant marriage of information and demonstration.

I keep trying to come up with my own six-word memoir, but… can’t tell me in six words.

However, today I stumbled across this, and thought, But here I am in 20…

“I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

What’s your story? (And if it’s six words, go tell it to SMITH too!)

Literary lions and me

I’m a last-minute addition to the King County Library System Foundation’s Literary Lions event on Saturday, March 8. Nicola is also appearing, as are many notable authors from the Seattle/King County area. I’m delighted to be included in such august company, and shall do my best to be lion-like.

If you are in the area and have a bunch o’ money to drop on a worthy cause, please do join us. My mom was a librarian when I was a kid, and libraries and the wonderful books in them — free books! — have saved my sanity more times than I can count.

My new job!

I am a go-go dancer in a lesbian nightclub.

Seriously.

A 47-year-old go-go dancer in a lesbian nightclub. The dances are for women over 35, so I don’t look like someone’s granny who wandered onstage by mistake and started shaking it at the young people. Although we did have a grandmother on stage last night, and she was hot.

Last night was my audition. I danced my ass off for two half-hour sets, with a clothing change between. Afterwards, the owner told me, “I like the way you dance! You’re not a… classically good dancer, but wow, you have so much fun up there. It’s great.” And so I was hired.

I’m not sure if this makes me the Bold New Wave of club dancing, or the Novelty Act. I guess either is fine, as long as the crowd enjoys it. They were certainly watching, with what I interpreted as a mix of amusement and approval. From the stage, I can see the entire crowd; I can chart the conversations and read the body language when they watch me for a measure and then lean in to talk to each other. Oh my god, she’s wild up there! is followed either by the raised eyebrow of Seems a little extreme or the grin of How cool is that?

And that’s fine. I don’t need to be the sexiest thing on stage. I want to be the one who makes you want to dance a little harder, loosen up a little more. I want to show you the joy of giving your body to music without regard for how it looks. Because you know what? I am having fun up there. And you, on the left side of the floor, I saw you busting some of my moves. Looked great on you. You go, girl.

Certainly, I had to go for it. I decided I would rather have the story to tell of how I tried out to be a dancer and didn’t make it, than the story of how I almost… And here we come right back around to the possibilities conversation.

Oh, and I have a stage name! You can call me Lucky. I get paid, I get tips (well, we’ll see — none of us made decent tips last night, what’s up with Seattle women? Put some money in the jar, people! Baby needs shoes.)

Kelley Eskridge: Executive. Novelist. Screenwriter. Go-go girl. I think it has a certain ring, don’t you?

If you are a woman, come see me dance. (All women and trans people are welcome. Go check out the FAQ.) I’ll dance one show a month, and will post my schedule when I get it.

Sorry, guys. Or maybe not — I love to dance for/with men, but I wouldn’t get two steps onto your stage before being told to make room for the 20-somethings. It’s your loss. I like men enormously, but I think many of y’all have some wacky ideas about what’s hot.

Wild and precious life

What will you do with your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver

There are moments like being brushed with a feathertip, a soft fleeting understanding that so many things are so much more possible than I let myself believe. That it doesn’t matter whether I get everything I want, but rather that I want things so fiercely that I try to get them. Against the odds. In spite of my limitations. With disregard for what I know to be possible or, gods help me, appropriate. I want to look at my life and constantly marvel at how wild and precious it is, and the only thing appropriate to that is to love and dance and work and live as well as I can in the face of all my private triumphs and despair.

No, I haven’t been drinking. I’ve been feeling.

An open letter to the Academy

Dear Oscar guys,

And I know you are all guys, because no one who has ever actually worn one of those dresses would make people sit in them that long for such a boring stupid program.

I was fairly amazed at the cluelessness of it all. I understand that the reason the Oscars are a million hours long is so the network can sell 999,999 hours of advertising and make a packet. But yeesh, people, there’s no point in selling ads when the audience isn’t watching. (This year’s ratings were The Worst Ever since Nielsen started tracking the show in 1974.)

And why aren’t we watching? Because we are bored. I can only imagine the suffering of the live audience — at least I can TiVo through the worst of it.

Here is what I want: a return to dignity. It’s Hollywood’s biggest award, so why not let the awards, and the nominees, shine? I don’t need a funny host (and if we have to have a funny host, can we at least have a funny host?). I don’t need a monologue. I’d love to see a confident, successful actor host the evening — Denzel, Meryl, Jodie, Tommy Lee, I have a list. I’d like them to open the evening by saying, “Welcome to the 81st annual Academy Awards show. I’m honored to be here, and to have the pleasure of recognizing the fantastic work of this year’s nominees. Tonight, we begin with the nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.” Ba-da bump. On with the show.

And then have one presenter for each award. One actor in nice clothes who comes out and makes a brief, heartfelt, personal speech about the category for which they are presenting — what the category is, and why it’s important to film. Don’t make the presenters be “entertaining,” and for the love of god don’t make them pronounce anyone’s name.

And then show lengthy clips, at least a minute each, that highlight the nominees’ work — including the cinematographers and the composers and the editors and the writers. Oooh, that’s hard! Here’s the thing: if you aren’t running around like a blue-assed fly trying to write jokes for presenters, you might have the brainpower/critical sensibility/time you need to select clips that would (and here’s the really radical notion) actually make people want to see the movies!

And then give the winners at least 90 seconds each to thank their goldfish if they want to. You Oscar guys are so fucking rude to the winners that it’s unbelievable. So what if their speeches are lame? They just won an Oscar, dude, they deserve their 90 seconds. And I would rather watch a minute and a half of someone being incoherently (or even tediously) happy than watch one more second of lame scripted patter between presenters who are only there because their agents had power lunches.

And then end the show.

Oscar guys, why is it so hard to understand the power of simplicity, dignity, and focus?

I’ve just written my first screenplay. Of course I’ve written my Oscar speech… but when I imagine giving it under the circumstances of last Sunday’s award show, I just want to put a nail through my forehead.

I will not thank you for your attention, since I suspect you will pay none. But mark my words, one of these days it will be impossible to tell the difference between the Oscars and “Dancing with the Stars.” Oh wait, “Dancing” will be the one with the bigger audience….