Starf**ked

I’ve had it with Starbuck’s. My favorite freaking coffee shop has been Starfucked.

This once was a pleasant enough, genteel sort of place. The kind of place where they did not discriminate hiring on the basis of body art. They would hire people who looked like they bathed, and who could hold five orders in their heads at a time.

But no, it’s been Starfucked, as in bought out by Starbuck’s.

Now you can’t even get a Pitch Weekly. They don’t allow them in the store. They’re FREE for the luvva Fudd, but they’re not allowed to be distributed in the corporate death hole that is Starbuck’s.

Worse, they don’t sell a medium cup of coffee. I walk in, smile my crooked smile and ask for “a medium cup of coffee, please.”

“A Grande drip?” asks the perkyguy.

“No, thank you. I’d like a medium size cup of coffee.”

“We have Tall, Grande and Venti.”

“How horrible for you, that they make an intelligent young man like you say that to college-educated people with a straight face. I want the medium-sized cup of coffee. To go. Please.”

Vente is Italian for twenty. Grande is the name of a rio in Texas. And Tall - Why is the smallest one named Tall? for the same reason 350-lb. bikers are named “Tiny?”

I guess I have to elbow my way up to the counter at Muddy’s from now on.

wanted: boyfriend. Mine.

I haven’t had much time for him, either, but I sure as hell am not hanging out with loser friends instead of him.

If it were my ex-boyfriend I was hanging out with in bars, with a group of jerks, he’d go ballistic.

I don’t mind her so much, especially since she’s with another guy who is a friend of hers. She’s just so skanky, and her boyfriend (who is Scott’s friend) is so loser I just can’t get it out of my mind.

This all sounds so high school. I should be glad one of us has a social life. But I’m not. I’m envious.

Sublime, yet overstated…

Yes, the Yearning Heart certainly is all woman - strong yet still sensitive, assertive yet still caring, powerful yet still fragile … drunker than shit, yet still standing!

Mae goes to Lady Ann's

I was talking to “Maggie” about Mae. I don’t sound “urban” in my voice characterization and she was saying that it didn’t seem that important to the character. She doesn’t have to be so urban and I had never considered that before. The important thing, we finally worked out, was that she thinks that she’s in control of her destiny, not very well-educated, and she ends up being pushed around by events that are not in her control.

She doesn’t hate “the life”, she rather likes it. She isn’t a “victim” because she’s a prostitute. She’s a victim because she’s poor and illiterate. She didn’t get into it because she drinks; she drinks because it was easier to face the world and it gave her that feeling she once got when she was a teenager and a cute guy looked at her. I can relate on that level.

I mentioned to “Maggie” that I needed to interview more prostitutes that actually like what they do, and don’t feel like they’re victims.

Long pause on her end.

Then she said, “Why don’t you get on Yahoo, and then come check out this online chat room brothel role-playing thing we got happening?”

“Do whut huh?”

It’s called Lady Ann’s Brothel. So I did, just to look. You can check out http://www.ladyanns.com

Oh. My. God.

It’s a chat room. “Maggie” says it’s a game, but these people really get into the game of it. “Maggie” is “Maggie”* and she is a manager, like a Madame, and also she’s a piano player and … oh my god … she’s a working girl!!!

I should mention that, it’s not real. It’s all role-play and chat – you’re not allowed to ask a girl for webcam – you’re not even allowed to ask for voice chat. It all happens in the conversation box.

A client (there are male and female clients allowed) does not just enter the chat room and ask for a woman. (Only women work as prostitutes.) It’s controlled by the list. The Manager runs the list.

The Manager will say something like:

If you want to be one of the 5 people on this list, please type “I need a lady!!! J”

And the first 5 to type that gets on the list.

Then the Manager asks if there are any ladies “on the couch”. The ladies on the couch change their font to Bold, Blue, and say that they’re sitting on the couch.

Then the Manager says, for example if Roger is the first one on the list, “Kristi, please take Roger upstairs for 20 minutes.”

Then she role-plays going up to him, usually in a very suggestive way, and then they go to private message and I assume, have cybersex.

(My spell-checker suggested “cabers” and “cabernet” for “cybersex”.)

They can only go for 20 minutes, then the girl as to “come back downstairs”. 20 minutes doesn’t seem nearly long enough but the room is always full!

OK the whole brothel chat room thing sounds silly when I describe it, but it’s really not that weird.

One of the reasons I like the idea is that women are thought of as prey on IRC and Yahoo. In this one room, they’re safe. No one can send them a personal message without permission. If anyone ignores that rule, then he’ll get warned, and it might happen that he can’t get on a list.

The benefit for men is that they can get a chance to hook up for at least 20 minutes.

“Maggie” says she has lots of fun and I believe it. She’s really sexy and very articulate.

Also – she uses the Room Voice Feature to play piano for the customers in the room.

How freaking cool is that?

The bad part is, she doesn’t want anyone to know that we know each other in real life. Which, I can understand. Doing this is somewhat dangerous if anyone finds out who you are and where you live.

I’m seriously considering becoming a “working girl” there. The idea turns me on, totally. And as long as I don’t get caught by Scott, who doesn’t even know I have a Yahoo account, well, what he doesn’t know and 6¢ none the richer.

I think the idea of working when “Maggie” is managing is what is getting me going. And also, I think getting me going would really help things with Scott. I’ve been falling asleep lately before he gets home – this chat room is all hours and it would keep me up at night.

[*Editor’s note 9/30/2005: A brief explanation is in order as to what I mean when I say «“Maggie” is “Maggie”». It has been brought to my attention by an avid reader of this blog that I should have NOT used “Maggie’s” real first name, since I provided so many details about her life, talent, husband, etc. It was an oversight on my part, and I have meticulously gone through and removed any reference to “Maggie” by searching for {“Maggie’s” real name} and replacing it with “Maggie”. Also D’s name has been removed here and there, as well as that of his sister, who is now referred to as “Mademoiselle D”. Got it? Good. No other facts have been post-edited. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.]

the girl's gotta have it

OK not complaining about Scott but, my gosh and golly if I don’t get to see him more I’m going to go insane. I know we don’t have time to date/go out, either one of us. I just need sex. Lots of it, all at once. A nice, gentle, loving, sincere wonderful kissing sloppy yummy … ok it doesn’t have to be gentle. If he doesn’t give it to me tonight then … well I’d never go outside of the relationship. But I’d think about it.

Where are the men of color on campus?

OK, so the Mae thing is kicking off. First hurdle was getting the part. Next hurdle was breaking to my dad that I’m playing a whore onstage. Next hurdle was convincing the author that a white woman can play the part.

This woman – the author (I won’t link to her because she may track back to this) – wrote it for herself; she wrote it with the idea that only a black woman would play the part; she says that anyone else would make it into something like a blackface minstrel show. I can dig that.

But what would she say to the people who said black people shouldn’t do Shakespeare? Or an Arab playing Othello? I don’t know.

I talked about this in an academic setting – actually in a black studies class. You could almost feel the seething resentment from other students. It moved to a talk about black culture, about the politics of diversity. I asked how come all of the black male students I’ve ever met on campus are either: 1) athletes 2) foreign, or 3) gay?

You could have heard a pin drop.

I don’t think anyone in the class had ever considered the idea that the culture of criminal behavior so prevalent today is any danger.

KB asked me “how many black men have you known growing up?” knowing I come from a small town in . I didn’t get into it with her – but my answer (“maybe six”) surprised her – I don’t think she thought there were six black families in SedgwickCounty outside of Wichita. I told her maybe she didn’t know as much about my culture as I knew about hers. (She grew up in St. Louis and lived in KC since she was in elementary school. She comes from a pretty middle-class neighborhood.)

I don’t mean that I don’t like black people or culture. I’m not going to get into that. There’s a lot I like and a lot I don’t. I’m not much for hip-hop since I like music to be something I can hum. “The day the music died was when they buried the melody,” says “Maggie” and I love that.

Me’shelle Ndegocello (help me with that, spell checker!) talks about the ‘pimp and thug’ mindset in music.

I read something once that a black man wrote – I think it was Stanley Crouch and I’ll look for the link: “Why is it OK for young black people to accept the idea that the more crude, inarticulate and criminal a person is, the more ‘real’ he or she is as a black person?” I can’t even ask that question in a Black Literature class. Hell, I can’t even talk about the bisexuality of the some of biggest names in black literature.

I don’t always agree with Stanley Crouch but he’s right about some things, especially that America is getting more and more balkanized.

Men, women, black men, Hispanic women, gays, Reeps, Dems & Greens, artists, engineers. This globalization thing was supposed to bring us together and we’re flying apart as fast as we can spin.

what IS that smell?

There’s this … stench … permeating our apartment. It’s very difficult to describe. It’s somewhere between burning plastic, and broccoli gas. It’s not that meth lab smell, which as someone who grew up in a farm community I have an intimate familiarity. It’s awful. Scott is not really bothered by it as much. I envy him.

What's So Funny 'Bout

I woke up and realized it was 3 years since the WTC was destroyed.

Now I think of the anger-baiting that the elections are becoming, on all sides, red, blue, green, and between. The Reeps (OK, the Dick and his Staff) think the Dems want to win “the war” with caseworkers and therapy. Of course they don’t, but the charge is there, and no one who votes red knows enough Dems to think twice about it. Makes me want to tell the Dick to get Dicked.

Kerry says we went in to Iraq without a plan, which probably isn’t true either - the plan was probably kinda like the plan that the western Allies had for liberating Germany, only without the Soviets. Pity it’s not working…

“Maggie” (oh she’s my idol!) has three (!) cousins Over There; she hopes that they change the rules that qualify who can run for president (no foreign-born and she’s born in China … or Korea? I need to ask her) when the obvious happens and they try to push Ahh-nold for Reep president, maybe by 2012. In 2012, MM will be 40 and old enough to run; she’s quit epossibly the smartest person I know. (She’s the kind of person that if you wake her up by whispering the word ‘Mesopotamia’ in her ear, she can jump out of bed and immediately give a fascinating 10-minute improvised speech on the history, culture, and relevance of Mesopotamia. She should have been a news anchor but she hates how she looks on camera. And she’s beautiful. I’d give my legs for her eyes.)

If she runs, in any party, I’m voting for her.

Who says we can’t win the “war” with Peace, Love and Understanding? we’re not winning with guns, butter and regime change. We’ve created more enemies in the past 2 1/2 years than we did in the previous 10.

Bush in Lee's Summit

The Child Prince is coming to MetroLand, and it seems that not only is attendance required for all Lee Summit high schoolers, anyone wearing a Tshirt critical of our Village Idiot or in support of his opponent will not be kicked out, but forced to change clothing.

You have to have signed permission from your parent to skip the event.

Nurenburg, anyone?

I wasn't so political before, but now that this stuff is irritating me so much, I can't help myself. I really hope he goes down, and my classmates come home. It's criminal the way we have ruined our schools, our security, our standing in the world, our arts.

One chance to make an entrance

You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes.

After that, you’d better know your lines or be prepared to seriously put out.

Which brings me to MSL – she is lovely, charming, and untalented. I also have reason to suspect that she’s a whore. Nothing wrong with that. She just imagines herself to be a great talent and it wears me out to sit in class with her.

I have a great respect for whores as they provide a valuable service to the community. I actually auditioned for the part of a whore in an exciting new play. The part was written for a black actor but I think it’s relevant regardless of race or ethnicity. I also think I am a better actor than anyone else who is willing to take on the role. We’ll see how it goes.

S is back to the night shift, since it’s better money and he can’t make his rent if he works mornings. I understand – if you want to make money in a bar, and you don’t own it, you have to be bartending at night. But poor me – I’m going to go nuts if I have to only see him two nights a week.

Love is everything.