I'm a Magazine that Should No Longer Exist

I’m one of the oldest magazines in the country and I’ve had a good run. But the sad fact is I should no longer exist. It’s hard for me to come out and say this, but by sharing my story with the world I’m hoping that other magazines like me will have the courage to also cease existing.

I know what it looks like from the outside: I’m this empowering source of fierce, sexually confident feminism and no one gets to define what that means for me. Doing so and trying to call me out for being “shallow” is itself a form of oppression! 

Just because I care about makeup and fashion doesn’t mean I’m dumb and can’t ALSO care about quote unquote “real stuff.” Especially with articles like “This Female Politician Refused to Apologize for Calling Out her White Male Colleagues” and “Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro: We Will Win the Fight for Equal Pay.”

Sure, granted. There are quite a few of those types of articles inside of me.

But deep down, I’ve always known that my lip service to substantive issues can’t hide my hundreds of pages of advertising and insidious messaging that far outstrip any real content between my glossy covers.

It was sometime in the 1960s that I first realized I was actually just a profit-generating tool for the media-industrial celebrity worship complex that objectifies women and promotes rape culture starting from before puberty. 

Here are some of my articles written just this month in cloying tween-speak: “These Students Invented the Ultimate Hangover Remedy, Because Hey, That’s What College is For,” “Kim Kardashian and Pat McGrath are Revealing Something Major Tomorrow,” “You Need This Glowy Makeup Tutorial in Your Life,” “24 Totally Fierce Gladiator Sandals You’ll Want to Live in All Summer,” “What Kind of Maid of Honor You’ll be Based on Your Sign, and “What Does Boho Mean?”

I publish these articles because it’s what my readers want. However, the reason they want it in the first place is because I tell them they need it from the minute they become aware of their gender. 

See what I did there?

There are only so many hours in a day and so much bandwidth in a person’s brain. Every moment someone spends thinking about how to get (and pay for) the perfect smoky eye to make her man go crazy in bed is a minute she’s not spending thinking about other stuff. Stuff that doesn’t necessarily pertain to her physical attractiveness and sexual desirability, which matter, of course, but let’s be honest, occupy an outsized portion of real estate in magazines like me. 

As a result, physical attractiveness and sexual desirability in turn occupy an outsized portion of real estate in women’s—and worse, girls’—minds, all of which ultimately keeps my readers from realizing their full potential as human beings because they are too busy scrutinizing the abs on my photo-shopped models, starving themselves, and running up and down on a treadmill all day to look like Selena Gomez.

I’m not proud of what I’ve become, but again, I hope that by sharing my story, others like me—and there are hundreds of us—will be brave enough to vaporize into the ether forever.

The Struggle is Real: Trump's Hotness is the Problem

According to science, the real reason Donald Trump is successful is his "physical attractiveness." 

You read that right. 

When you skim the above-linked report, it's obvious that the word "attractive" as used in this study is just code for "white blonde man," which to be fair is not EVERYONE in the whole wide world's idea of "attractive."

And yet, this study's conclusion resonated with me. Has the real problem all along been how SMOKING HOT Donald Trump is? And then I realized that this WAS indeed the crux of my Trump obsession, and likely that of the 155 million other American women who Google image search pics of Trump on the reg and have to change their undies ten times a day as a result.

Our preoccupation with All Things Trump over the past year and a half has had nothing to do with the fact that he is the most odious, repellent orange swamp creature ever to emerge from the burbling cesspool of humanity. 

Nor is it the fact that he's a mendacious, self-obsessed, morally, ethicially, and financially bankrupt charlatan. One who is determined to tweet the globe into a nuclear holocaust and bend American democracy to the breaking point with the help of a sociopathic white supremacist alcoholic, all to serve his fathomless need for adulation, television ratings, and elusive "deals."

Nope. It's the fact that we all want to tap that ass. 

That big, juicy, Baby Boomer ass in khaki golf pants and a #MAGA hat. None--NOT ONE!--of our vaginas is shriveling up like a raisin in the Sahara at the thought of that little "O" shaped mouth leaning in for a sloppy kiss or those tiny, orange fingers grabbing our pussies without asking.

That's just FAKE VAGINA NEWS.

I mean, how could we resist this BEAST of a man? His very own wife can't seem to get enough of him! After all, she's only put 200 miles between her and his enormous manhood to the tune of a bazillion dollars a day in New York City's taxpayer dollars. 

That's right, folks: my oldster parents are subsidizing Melania Trump's need to sleep in a different zip code from this flaming hot ember who, until very recently, was just an open faucet of Coach bags and diamond tennis bracelets but has now become a serious liability to her mojo.

It's not actually that there are 7 billion people on earth, and that most women--myself included--would gladly choose to have sex with 6,999,999,999 of them in a heartbeat before they would voluntarily let Donald Trump come within 87 light years of their lady parts.

But hey. Who am I to question science? What do I look like, the President of the United States?

 

Play Ball

“Do you know what today is?," Geoff asked me conspiratorially on Sunday. Certain I hadn’t neglected a birthday or an anniversary (this time), I knew the answer before he said it:

The first day of that seemingly interminable, seven-month-long slog to the pennant otherwise known as Opening Day of Major League Baseball.

Look, I’m not one of those women who’s going to sit here and pretend to love professional sports just to sound like a sexy tomboy. My favorite outfit is yoga pants (minus the yoga) and a hoodie; not my boyfriend’s Twins jersey and thong underpants.

I’m bored to tears by almost every minute of almost every professional sport, with the exception of post-season baseball, and even then I’m only a reluctant fan. In fact, I’m what you might call a “conscripted” fan. Everything I know about baseball (which is a lot, considering my overall lack of interest in the game) has been foisted upon me against my will.

I was born and raised in the Bronx, where it’s practically sacrilege not to root for the Yankees and attend as many home games as possible. My dad is a YOOGE baseball nerd, having written at least one book and many newspaper articles on the subject. He dutifully toted his only child along to more games than I can count in the now-demolished "old Yankee Stadium"--The House That Ruth Built.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun.

I liked the sticky, metal blue nosebleed seats whose bottoms sprang up to reveal a gallery of masticated chewing gum underneath. I liked the gritty cement floors with staircases at 75 degree angles and the sleepy ushers who looked more like zombie corpses than anyone prepared to enforce a seat assignment.

I looked forward to the vendors hawking hot dogs and saran-wrapped beer in loud, booming voices, because cotton candy was my sixth inning entertainment. I spaced out on the giant Klieg lights illuminating post-war, walkup apartment buildings lined with steel fire escapes behind the outfield, and wondered about the lives of their occupants and whether they were watching the game, too.

Bob Sheppard—who started with the Yankees in 1951 and definitely sounded old in the 80’s—had a gravelly, thundering voice consistent with his nickname, “The Voice of God,” which for me was synonymous with this sentence: “At first base, numbah 23, Don Mattingly, numbah 23.”

All of this was infinitely more interesting to me than any action happening on the field.

In modern times, when the players keep getting younger and we keep getting older, Geoff’s moods rise and fall on the Yankees' state of play. A favored topic of conversation between Geoff and my father is the Yankees' shaky pitching staff, which aging sluggers "stunk up" Yankee Stadium this week, and what terrible trades the team made in the off-season. 

For instance, only one day into the 2017 regular season, I was treated to plaintive wailing about Masahiro Tanaka’s shellacking on the mound in which he gave up seven runs against Tampa Bay and lasted less than three innings.

Bottom line: It's April, and my fate is sealed until November.

Play ball.

Please Help Me Understand Pee Wee Pumps

No, I'm serious. 

I honestly need to understand WTF Pee Wee Pumps is all about and how this is even a thing. A quick visit to the website of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania baby-girl attire company fails to adequately answer the question. 

To show you what I mean by that, I'm just going to copy and paste the story of Pee Wee Pumps without comment, because it is way, way, WUUHHHAAAAAAY better than anything I could EVAH write describing it:

Fashion-forward moms love to dress up their little girls with the cutest bows and outfits, and are always looking for the perfect pair of shoes to complete any outfit. Now they’ve found them with Pee Wee Pumps – infant crib shoes with a collapsible heel! They’re just like mom’s favorite pair of pumps only in a miniature size. Pee Wee Pumps will be your daughter’s first fashion statement.

The idea for Pee Wee Pumps first originated in 2009, when founder Michele Holbrook first came across a pair of high heel infant crib shoes. After telling herself that if she ever had a baby girl that she’d buy them, she was blessed with a beautiful daughter in 2012.

However, she wasn’t able to find the original infant crib heels, and after searching endlessly for a pair, she finally found one on an online auction site. But to her dismay and disappointment, they were flawed when she received them. They just wouldn’t stay on her daughter’s foot!

Determined to fix the problem, Michele went right to work modifying the structure of the tiny and fashionable high heels infant crib shoes. After two years of brainstorming, she finally came up with a totally new design that caters to your baby. The flexible soft shoe will form to your daughter’s foot, whether it’s narrow or wide, while its adjustable strap allows the shoe to stay on and provides a comfortable fit.

Our first model is the Diva, which is an all-black high heel infant crib shoe that’s essential to any baby wardrobe. But we also have 6 different colors and patterns for fashion savvy moms looking for shoes to match all of their baby girl’s outfits. We’ll soon be adding more styles to the shop, so your baby girl can be the best dressed baby in your mom’s group!

Okay, I lied. I have a few comments after all, but first, the question that remains unanswered: "Why in the name of alllllll the fucks would you want to dress your infant daughter up like she's in a baby version of the Victoria's Secret or Frederick's of Hollywood catalogs? 

Someone must want to, though. A lot of someones, in fact. Enough for a whole successful company. It sounds like Michele put a lot of thought and effort into this. She spent "two years brainstorming" after searching "endlessly" only to be "dismayed" by the inadequate number and quality of infant stilettos in the world. 

Basically, this was the Kim Kardashian version of searching for the Higgs boson particle.

Yes, Michele put a lot of thought into this. A LOT of thought. AND determination. Into fixing "the problem." THE PROBLEM OF NOT FINDING A HIGH HEEL SHOE AND OTHER SEXY ADULT CLOTHING FOR YOUR SIX MONTH OLD WHO CAN'T USE THE TOILET MUCH LESS WALK.

I get that the answer to "why do some moms want this" is "because they think it's cute to turn their human child into a living doll and play expert-level competitive dress-up with their friends and their friends' living dolls." 

But WHY?! I know I sound like a snob or a Debbie Downer, but I'm honestly not trying to be either. Please someone just explain this to me. This is SOOOO much weirder and creepier than it is cute. It is beyond weird and creepy, and I seriously don't get it. 

Spring in Juneau Means One Thing

Here in Juneau, spring is an awakening for bears in their dens, eaglets emerging from their eggs, salmon returning to rushing streams, and wildflowers bursting forth from the muskeg to greet a new season of life on the damp, life-giving mossy floor of the Tongass National Forest.

It also means one thing less remarked upon by poets and naturalists, but that is nevertheless as much a part of winter's departure as longer days and shorter nights.

The annual unveiling of the dog turds.

Be it your neighbor's backyard, the public trails and greenbelts of our fair Capital City, or even your very own driveway (whether you have a family dog or not), there's one sure sign of spring, and that's the dog turds.

All of the dogs big and small whose owners assumed that a winter turd deposited in a snow berm on the side of North Douglas Highway or the Airport Dike Trail would simply disappear into the ether receive a shock when, several months later, that very same dog turd peeks its little brown head out from a graying, melting mass of snow like an early bird trying to get the worm of someone's Xtra-Tuff sole.

Welcome spring, and all your glorious dog shit, with the occasional empty bag of Buffalo Ranch Dorritos and can of Rockstar energy drink. All of which--one hopes--is destined for community cleanup and one of those big yellow BP bags. 

Obvi,we do not want the cruise ship visitors and tourists who've spent thousands of dollars to come all the way to Alaska expecting breaching whales and glaciers to see a patty of beagle shit mixed in with vending machine detritus like Grandma Utz snack mix wrappers and melted Skittles whose green, red, and purple food coloring are bleeding over into a neighboring empty syringe and crumpled up ATM receipt.

Ah, take a deep breath, Juneau. Spring has sprung, and so have the unfrozen dog turds.

The Donald Trump Hierarchy of Needs

POTUS is Fully Losing His Goddamnt Mahnd!

Ever since a stalker wingnut tried and failed to get me fired for criticizing Donald Trump as if Alaska were communist Russia with no First and Fourteenth Amendments, I've only been emboldened to criticize him more, as often as possible.

Fortunately for satirists and unfortunately for everyone else, not a day goes by where POTUS doesn't showcase his clinical narcissism on Twitter. Each sunrise begets more brazen lunacy gushing forth from the anus-shaped mouth-hole and tiny fingers of Vladimir Cheetos. 

Check out the latest.

"Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd" now joins Goofy Elizabeth Warren (a.k.a. "Pocahontas"), Crooked Hillary, Fake Tears Chuck Schumer, Little Marco Rubio, and Lyin' Ted Cruz in the long parade of public figures whom Trump has graced with a mafioso-esque sobriquet.

This makes perfect sense for someone who's spent his entire life operating in a shady real estate underworld accountable to no one and nothing, least of all the law, and definitely not his non-existent conscience. 

To the extent Trump's not demented--and that's a big if--he's enraged because he's finding out you don't get to run the government "like a business." The government is not a business. It's literally the opposite of a business. Suddenly you have to comply with the Constitution. Suddenly you have to deal with a free press. Suddenly your executive actions are subject to judicial review. Suddenly there is a public to hold you accountable for your cheating, mendacity, and mental instability. 

And even if American democracy were a business, that would be a bad sign for all of us, considering its CEO had to go to Russia for money. For all his jingoism and amazing, tremendous, terrific, incredible, [insert superlative] "deal-making," no American bank would lend to him. 

Odd.

Which of course is how we all ended up here in the first place, and no amount of impulsive tweet-blaming Obama, Hillary, and the FAKE NEWS in all caps while promoting his Fox News propaganda arm will change that. 

Given the gelatinous backbones of our craven, self-serving Congress (whose membership has suddenly awakened to the civic bombshell that they work for the people who elected them), it's unlikely any misfortune will befall Trump as a result of "Russiagate." 

Nope.

He'll just continue to self-destructively use his unsecured Android and personal Twitter account to undermine an ongoing federal criminal investigation pending against him. More likely than not, he will emerge as he always does:  a huckster unscathed and unharmed, while the country he conned is left to pick up the pieces like we were one of his failed casinos or get-rich-quick "university" scams.

SAD.

And meanwhile, the whole world is watching this all unfold like . . .