Women Roaring

The Wednesday post is normally only for paid subscribers, but I didn't write anything Sunday so everybody gets it today.

I did the thing and moderated 2 panels and all went well, though the audience in the robot panel didn't laugh at my jokes, which I deeply resent. I'm glad it's over, but even happier that I got back into the speaking saddle and want to do more of it. Spread the word: I am available to moderate your panel and/or deliver thoughtful orations on a variety of topics, as long as those in attendance acknowledge that I am funny.

It's been an eventful week all around. I saw Sleater-Kinney at arguably the best venue in Austin, ACL Live, and though they are now only a duo, they are the bad-ass-est rock duo you will ever see. It was a phenomenal show, made even better by the fact that the audience seemed to be under an unspoken agreement not to record the whole thing on our dumb phones. Devices were raised occasionally of course, but even the teenagers with us commented on how un-phone-ish the crowd was. We were all in a moment together and stayed there. It was lovely.

Then I got to stare at Pamela Adlon for an hour. Look, here she is:

Yes that's Ilana Glazer next to her, and sure Samantha Bee was the moderator but whatever. My Queen Pamela was speaking and no other voice mattered. She was hilarious and sharp and sarcastic and grew visibly annoyed with the whole endeavor by the time it was over and I was so happy I had tears in my eyes.

I'm also planning to see Jane Fonda speak tomorrow, so by the time this week ends my head is going to be so full of kick-ass women that I'll briefly forget we still live in a patriarchy so strong that I don't control my own uterus.

Anyway! If you didn't watch the Oscars Sunday, you actually - for the first time in a very long time - missed an entertaining evening of programming. Vox had a great write-up on it, accompanied by a header image with joy seeping out of its edges.

"But what is it?” Winslet said, her mouth full of pastry. I went on: It was a shot people took that dampened their interest in food. Winslet looked appalled — as if I’d just told her that millions of Americans were voluntarily injecting themselves with something that made them feel dead inside when they looked at a sunset. “Oh, my God,” she said. “This sounds terrible. Let’s eat some more things!” She made a show of eating more of her pastry, crumbs tumbling onto the blankets."
I don't know what's more delightful: Kate Winslet not knowing what Ozempic is or the fact that she brought a bag of pastries to an interview with the New York Times.

"John, like a lot of users I talked to in Phoenix, was slow. Very slow. Probably mentally disabled. In any functional humane society he wouldn’t be on the streets, smoking fake fentanyl laced pills and setting himself on fire. He wouldn’t be telling stories of trauma, real and made up. But that’s not us. We, for whatever reason, let this crap happen. Churn out millions of Johns, untethered, with no community to embrace them other than the community of drugs and homelessness. We let whole parts of our cities become public shooting galleries, drug traps, and camp grounds."
You knew this post had been too cheery. Apologies for ending on a down note but this story of a man's walk through Phoenix grabbed hold of me and didn't let go for several days. I don't know how things are in your city, but the desperation on the streets and under the overpasses of Austin seems to grow exponentially by the day. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a woman sitting completely naked on a mattress at a major intersection in the middle of the day. Even worse, dozens of people around her were just going on about their lives. I know there's a lot in the world that needs fixing, but America's inability to meet the most basic needs of its citizens should probably be at the top of the list.

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