RIP George Carlin, You Old Fuck

It's funny the way things happen without us even being aware of them. When I was a senior in high school my friend Ed introduced me to George, who quickly became one of the most powerful influences in my life, though I didn't know it at the time. I listened to Ed's "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" tape until it broke. For months I played it on a loop, flipping it over again and again, to the point where I knew most of the act by heart.

It's not just that Carlin is funny or even that he's clever; it's his brutal honesty about the world around us that makes his voice so powerful. I had never heard such a cynical point of view before and I really, really liked it. He articulated thoughts and ideas I was barely aware I had but when he spoke, I knew he was right about EVERYTHING.

My world view was formed in large part by my father, beginning very early in childhood. While I wouldn't describe him as a cynic, his views on government and the church certainly lean that way. I very clearly remember him saying to me, "Do you know how many homeless people they could feed with the money they'd save on heating bills if they put a drop ceiling in one of these fucking churches?" How could I NOT be a Carlin fan with a dad like that?

A few days ago I saw that his show "Doin' It Again" was on HBO, so I sat down to watch and lo and behold, it was the same show I listened to on tape 15 years ago under a different title. His material is just as funny and relevant now as it was then and I could still recite most of the lines, but what was totally and completely shocking was the direct correlation between his world view and my own, particularly in terms of language and the way we use (and abuse) it.

After reciting a string of racial slurs, he makes the point that there's nothing wrong with any of those words:

"It's the context that makes them good or bad. For instance, you take the word 'nigger'. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the word 'nigger' in and of itself. It's the racist asshole who's using it that you ought to be concerned about."

To my mind, that is a completely logical argument. I might not have been able to articulate it at 18 but I recognized its truth when I heard him say it. Hearing it again all this time later, it's amazing to realize that he really taught me something, he pointed my brain in a new direction, he contributed to the foundation of my blossoming adult perspective.

I had no idea his influence on my life was so profound until I heard those same ideas and arguments again across the distance of time and experience. That was also the moment I realized that this blog owes its title to George Carlin, because his demystification of language is directly related to my embracement of the word "fat". It would be a couple of years before I could actually say the word out loud, but he planted the seed.

When I first started using the word "fat" it did not trip lightly off the tongue. I was embarrassed to say it but also pissed because there's nothing wrong with the fucking word - it's just a word! How is "fat" worse than "overweight", "heavy", "chubby", or "big"? The truth is, my problem was not with the language, my problem was with ME. I didn't accept myself as a fat person so I used any other word but the actual definition of my body type to describe myself because I DIDN'T WANT TO BE FAT. By using euphemisms I was lying to myself, distancing myself from the truth. As the man said:

"I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. 'Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it."

It's not like I was hiding anything from anyone, least of all myself; changing the language didn't fool anybody into thinking I was something different than what I was. Not that my weight defines me, though I've let it do just that for most of my life. I started using the word "fat" when I was ready to stop deluding myself.

As a culture, we're pretty good at deluding ourselves, particularly when it comes to body image. Think really hard: when's the last time you heard someone use the word "fat" as a descriptor when there was a fat person within hearing distance? I love the pause you sometimes hear as they desperately grasp for a euphemism midway through their sentence: "You know who I'm talking about, the...big girl from two doors down." "So Phil, have you always been...overweight?" "It's too bad you're so...heavy, you've got such a pretty face!" What other subtext is there to a statement like that other than, "Too bad you're such a hideous, fat-assed monstrosity."?

Life's too short for that kind of bullshit. Carlin knew that, it's what his life's work was all about, revealing the truth buried under the bullshit. The greatest lesson I learned from George Carlin was this: "You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth, even if it's an unpleasant truth." Who's gonna tell it to us now, George?

On Writing

I've always loved to write but it wasn't a serious pursuit until this year. I've been talking about writing a romance novel for years but that was a vague, one-day-in-the-distant-future kind of plan. Having crashed and burned on the grad school front, I've been plodding along these past two years, trying to figure out what to do next. When I started getting my shit together in January I realized that of all my interests, writing was the big one, and if it was something I wanted to be serious about, I needed to get serious and start, you know, WRITING.

Wonder Woman gave me the kick in the ass I needed. Pissed off that women keep getting the shaft when it comes to superhero movies (Aeon Flux? Really? That's the best they could do?) and distraught that Buffy & Firefly creator Joss Whedon was off the proposed Wonder Woman film project, I decided to take matters into my own hands. While the likelihood of my screenplay seeing the light of day is miniscule, if a Filipino kid with a YouTube account can become the lead singer of Journey, anything's possible. Besides, the point of writing isn't to get produced or published or rich & famous, it's to do what I love. So I started doing research, most of which consisted of buying comic books, and my first major writing project was begun.

It wasn't the first; I can't tell you how many screenplays and stories I've gotten five or ten or twenty pages into, only to abandon the next day when the adrenalin rush was over, or when it became difficult to get my thoughts and feelings across the way I wanted to. That's pretty much par for the course for me: get amped up about something, jump right in with all the passion in my heart, and work my ass off - until things get too hard or too boring, and the downward spiral begins. This leads to failure, then depression. It's happened with jobs, with creative projects, and most spectacularly with graduate school, and every time, there was that voice in my head whispering, "You knew this would happen, you never finish anything you start, what made you think this was going to be any different?"

Well this time it WAS going to be different. I was in therapy now, I was taking charge of my life, I was going to follow through and finish the things I start, and I was going to be a writer. Except I felt like I was play-acting. I walked into the office of a neighborhood magazine and asked the owner about their hiring practices. She asked if I was a writer and took me completely by surprise. I almost laughed out loud and stuttered incoherently for a moment before replying, "...yes?..." - not the best way to instill confidence in a potential employer.

So far, though, things ARE different because six months later, I'm still writing! It really is the only profession I'm suited for because I can go in twelve directions at once, writing about different subjects, in different styles, for different purposes, at any hour of the day, and I'm still technically doing the same job. Plus, because I actually AM getting my shit together, I'm finishing the projects I start! I'm not doing anything that draws an income yet, but that's OK; I've spent twenty years procrastinating, I need practice developing discipline. Once my footing is a little more steady, watch out - Wonder Woman, I'm coming for you baby!!!

Bathing Suit Season

From April 1:

Years ago, around age 19 or 20, I made a decision not to let my fear of other peoples' opinion prevent me from doing the things I wanted to do. In other words, if embarrassment about my weight was the only thing holding me back, then fuck that, I was going to do it - and that included going to the beach.

Up to that point, I was strictly one of those T-shirt-over-the-bathing-suit types. An oversize T-shirt is like a fat girl's binky; we act like it's a cloak of invisibility but come on, who do we think we're fooling? Trust me, the answer is nobody - except ourselves, of course.

I am not a sunbather; if I'm going to the beach, then I'm going in the water, and a clingy wet T-shirt isn't much more revealing than a bathing suit. So I took what was a huge step in personal growth and gave up the binky, which I still consider one of my proudest achievements because as silly as it seems - as silly as it IS - it was very hard to do.

Fast forward ten years and you would barely recognize me. Oh, I'm still fat - fatter, in fact - but I've got loads more self-confidence, I'm much less self-conscious around other people, and I'm no longer shy. So it was extremely disturbing to suddenly find myself begging off when my friends - my very close, loving, accepting friends - would go to the beach, knowing that the real reason was my discomfort at the thought of hanging out in my bathing suit. What the hell!! I already dealt with this shit, right?!

Apparently not. My theory is that my "big achievement" was not actually acceptance of my body so much as it was a "fuck you" to the people I perceived to be judging me, who were basically strangers at the beach. These weren't strangers anymore, these were people I cared about, whose opinion I cared about, and for some reason it's a lot more difficult for me to feel vulnerable in front of them.

So I never went. For two years I lived in a gorgeous house blocks from the beach; for three summers that house was "beach central" for my best friends; for three summers, I denied myself the pleasure of the ocean and their company, all because I was too chicken-shit to let them see me in a bathing suit.

That ends now. I still live blocks from the beach and by god, I'm going to take advantage of that. I'm done living in fear, and I'm done denying myself things that bring me joy, even if they make me feel uncomfortable. It's been easy so far because most of my beach-minded friends have moved away, so I've been going solo, but the first day I went this summer it was with the intention of meeting up with friends, and as far as I'm concerned, that counts as personal growth.