at the big fancy art museum opening for the sculptor in oakland, the film i made was the highlight of the evening and had people reeling, including the photographer who inspired me to make the film... the sculptor's wife told me people were sitting in the auditorium watching it loop 8 or 9 times ~ i did not attend the event, but have since received an invitation to attend an Art Table Meeting with the same racist, narrow minded bitch ass snobs that would instantly give me Stink Eye before they saw that film at the exhibit.
*pfffft*
for MONTHS in preparation for this exhibit & corresponding book on his work, i was made to feel like everything i do is just amateur bullshit by upper class art hags who then went about REDOING all my work by paying a "professional" 8x the amount of money i make to take the IDENTICAL photographs and redesign an IDENTICAL book. so this is indeed POETIC JUSTICE, that i STILL MADE SOMETHING they couldn't ERASE ME FROM, something that they COULDN'T REMAKE before the exhibition, and it turned out to be the "Best Part of The Show".
the bittersweet guts inside : when i recorded the "music" for this soundtrack last summer, i was alone in the studio working while the sculptor and his wife were on one of their biannual holidays at the studio in the south of france. suddenly, i decided to try an experiment and pushed my face up against one sculpture that i liked the best, pushed record on my android phone and emitted random frequencies that reverberated through the steel. i did 3 separate takes, then, with audacity, put the 3 recordings on top of each other randomly.
i thought of him as a mentor after working for him these 20 years. i thought he had some respect for me in return as an artist, as a woman, as a human being. i was so grateful for his presence in my life...especially since he was now one of the only people i ever saw or spoke to on a regular basis. he was the last thread i was holding onto, he was the last semblance of this life i was living in california.
so while singing these notes, i was OVERFLOWING with gratitude & the sadness one feels for the passing of someone they love ~ at the time, i could not imagine my life without the sculptor being a part of it, but he's 80 years old, so i had to start imagining life without him... after so much loss experienced during the last 5 years, i did not think i was ready for more. i thought i couldn't handle more death, more grief. i thought wrong.
that would be the last time i'd feel this bright shiny way about him because upon his return, his friendly pats on the back gradually began slipping further down to the small of my back and once, even reaching under my clothing. that's where my deluded loyalty to him ended.
i've often said to him that making art is so difficult, but more so for a woman because EVERYTHING you do is considered for it's artistic merit only AFTER considering the fact that it was made by a woman, and that a woman has a CUNT. duh. whenever you lose yourself in the creativity itself while making something that is Not About Being A Woman, people who see that work Always Assume You're A Man...wtf? he and i spoke on these issues Deeply Ad Infinitum for Years... you THINK you know a person...
and yet, he KNOWINGLY paid me far less than i was worth, saying to the woman i was training in the office to do my job, "Why should I pay a designer or photographer thousands of dollars to do work for me when I can get Tena to do it for free?"
$20/hr is ""free" in his mind, i guess. in comparison to all the other photographers' $150/hr fee, i guess it is nothing. but it was more than i'd ever made, and i was happy being around the art and ideas, so it's partially my own fault for not knowing my own worth or for not being completely concerned with money as if it were life itself... but a discrepancy that massively huge is not easy to overlook, it's just insulting. these are people who spend $25,000 on a 3 day hotel stay on a regular basis for christ's sake.
it's not like they couldn't afford to pay me more.
but it no longer mattered, i was done.
all the love was gone.
i always knew in the pit of my stomach that something was not right here, that something was being hidden from me, and once i was ready to see the truth, it revealed itself to me ~ on paper, in emails, in receipts, invoices, even in words said directly to my face, and then i could no longer feel any of that former love or gratitude or loyalty to someone who essentially just saw me as a cheap weekly entry in his jerk off bank, but who also just so happens to have a good eye for design.
ironically, the sculpture i sang all those grateful and sad notes through was called ELEGY, and it's one of the most prominent pieces installed at the exhibit.
so i say FUCK YOU to the art world that is no different from the pathetic 8th grade corporate world with it's unequal pay and discrimination in all ways across the board.
i say YOU'RE WELCOME to elitist art fags for giving me the chance to prove to myself that i do exist and that i am worth something, or at least worth as much as you poncey prats.
i say THANKS BUT NO THANKS to the sculptor for not having my back, especially since it was not going to give him access to the only thing he was really paying any attention to, my fucking ass crack. i'm sure i'll forgive him for all of it when there is no longer an older man in my life making decisions about where i will live or how i will pay my rent or how much i am worth to him Without Putting His Money Where His Mouth Is and/or Without Also Consulting Me In That Decision-Making Process About MY FUCKIN LIFE.
then i borrowed the camera with which i took over 5000 pictures of his work; pictures that were always credited to him in publications, even though he never took the photos or even knew how to work the camera, until the last set of three pictures on the exhibition invitation, when i was finally "allowed" to receive a photo credit in print, after a week-long argument with his tight fisted control freak of a wife. then i cashed my "little vacation" non-employment compensation pay that is, in fact, and unbeknownst to them, my Final Severance Check.
MORAL OF THIS STORY:
please world, don't force me back into that corner, cuz I WILL FIGHT BACK, I WILL LASH OUT, AND I WILL CUT YOU A NEW ONE ~ I HAVE NOT LIVED THROUGH THIS FULL BULLSHIT LIFE WITH OPEN EYES TO JUST END UP ON MY KNEES SUCKING OFF SOME RICH MAN BOOBS BEARDED DICK FACE CUNT.
I'D RATHER DIE.
*u can call me ph!*
WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
almost every job i've had, i've been forced to "put up with" some form sexual harassment. in most cases, icing out that person and not laughing it off helped. in some cases, i brought the issue to management, which though it would be backed up by other women upon voicing the issue with coworkers, they would then be unwilling to take the next step with me. in more serious cases, a lawsuit ensued, in which one other worker and myself won the case and the offending person was fired.
it seems strange now, that the actions for which that one manager was fired turned out to be the most prevalent behavior behind every job i was hired for: because men viewed me as fuckable. that statement was actually aired, along with it's hilarious physical gestures to a group of coworkers immediately upon my leaving the scene of the interview.
the last job i was fired from was actually due to the non-fulfillment of that fuckability, so other minor infractions were blown out of proportion in order to get rid of me, as no one wanted me around if i was not willing to participate in the incestuous activities of the employee-after-party.
time is the only true loss as it is irretrievable.
generally, in life everyone makes the choice of either time or money.
clearly, i chose time and therefore view it as extremely valuable, not something to be wasted attempting to please men or avoid the unavoidable loneliness of being a single woman with little to no friends. instead, it was spent on the only true love in my life: art and music.
but one has to survive, doesn't one? so i work as much as i have to, but that is all.
after that, my quota for pleasing and putting up with others is full and every thought and activity turns directly to my true love.
often, i find myself asking "what year is this?", not only due to the overwhelming frustrations of being taken seriously as a human being with thoughts and opinions that also happens to have a pussy, but when i am confronted with the victorian era thinking of other women who behave as though they must always appear to be the most desired woman in the room to all men present so that she will be taken care of. even when not aware of this type of behavior, that is usually what is behind the malicious type of girl-on-girl assaults women regularly commit upon each other by spreading false rumors and gossiping in group scenarios.
it's almost as if, on some unconscious level, women do not understand or fully accept that they are able to work and support themselves and no longer need to be sold like merchandise to a man that will have them because it would seem as though we still view ourselves as second class citizens if we continue to treat other women as obstacles in some deluded competition for whatever it is they are thinking they're gonna win.
it's sad, but now that i understand where it comes from, i try not to feed into it, and instead take the stance of the black wolf, choosing instead to remain on the outskirts of any group scenario, having felt the full brunt of false rumors that have followed me around for years, thanks to having come in contact with several women who get great pleasure hurting other women that they mistakenly view as some kind of threat. a threat to WHAT?! i always wonder aloud to myself... a threat to achieving that great big gold medal made of shit hanging from the sky, perhaps. now that i have embraced hopelessness and am no longer participating in sexual or romantic notions with others, i stay on the outer ring with the black wolf.
PUT THAT IN YER CRACKDOWN AND SMOKE IT.
i've always wondered why more murders, rapes, and violence of that nature is committed by men than women. statistically, over 80% of violent crimes are committed by males, upon females mostly, but also upon other males.
recently, a neurologist in germany was wondering the same thing, and discovered after years of conducting research on test subjects, that the male frontal lobe is CONSIDERABLY smaller in size than the female frontal lobe. this region of the brain is responsible for controlling our impulses, so when a man has the impulse to hit something, there is very little gray matter in the form of reasoning that stops him, and he hits something. women, on the other hand, want to hit something, but go through a lengthy mental process that diffuses that impulse, and they don't hit anything.
it makes sense, cave man: men kill animals to drag home and eat while women have to put up with all the irritations of raising children without reacting violently.
since having learned this, it has made the act of communicating with men completely different.
less often, i come home seething with rage after having my opinions, ideas or abilities ignored, interrupted or invalidated.
now i see the male brain reacting to my face talking as it fights itself between the impulses to either fuck me in the ass or punch me in the face, and that battle is so loud - "fuck her in the ass! punch her in the face! fuck her! punch her! FUCK! PUNCH! FUCK!PUNCH!FUCKPUNCHFUCK!!" - it's no wonder they can't hear a word i'm saying...
for once, i agree with my browbeaten mother's complaint that i expected too much from others. but also, i feel a great sadness for all the things that society has done to women based on their brain size. let's not forget the theory of relativity was a dream that Mileva Maric had, which she then brought to the chalkboard to work out with her fiancee Albert Einstein. of course, her name was erased from later versions of the publication.
i don't have any close friends, obviously, but conversations with men who do not have those fuckpunch impulses toward me, the ones who are actually listening, are usually gay - both in and out of the closet. with most straight male friends over the years, i end up discovering that they will never view me as a person of equal value to their best friend from college, and when i break through the i'm-a-feminist-too display, i'm still viewed as simply a vessel or trophy in reference to them. always in reference to them. never as individual. never as an individual who does something well in their own regard. something to be won and possessed, and then, inevitably destroyed. strong women are of no interest to men, as these victorian era social standards still make men abhore being viewed "as a satellite" to a woman. just ask venus.
when you feel like people are performing their mating calls and strutting around you to win your affections, it is in fact, in their greater interest to win against the other competitor, and you are just the pawn in the middle of a massive pissing contest. and is it just your orifices they want to win, not YOU as a whole human being? without then imposing controls on what now belongs to them? i've discovered this sad fact with both men and women.....so....yeah, no more for me ma. there are more important things in life i'd like to concentrate my efforts on, like basic human rights....
and leaving california.
*u can call me ph!*
