For the last handful of years, I’ve been writing tiny little comedies – melodramas – for local not-for-profits. I also direct these plays, and for the most part they’re a lot of fun for everyone involved. There have been several constants, tiny quirks, through-lines in these play-lettes among which is a slight, very slight, animus toward blonds, people with blond hair, and why not? They don’t have more fun, and are grossly overrated, imo, especially given the vast majority of blonds are not, actually, blond. It’s a tiny passive aggressive dig I enjoy shoveling. So sue me.
I also tend to express a few other of my often silly yet entirely reasonable – to me – pet peeves in my writing; if you follow this blog, however, you probably know this about me already. So, yes, blonds and… persistent references and tiny little digs are applied to the town of Colchester. Colchester? Yes, Colchester. Colchester is a town at the other end of my county, although it’s also the name of a much larger city in the UK, and town near Burlington, VT. The Colchester I enjoy trolling in N.Y. has a population of under 2000 (Colchester, VT has a population just under 20K), and is also very rural (14.9 souls per square mile) and, yes, because it’s an election year, I can confidently say it is pretty durned red down there in Downsville. Yes, Downsville is the name of the largest and main hamlet in the town. Downsville.
Over the years, I’ve been asked more than once by cast members why I choose to pick on Colchester, and in response I have lied. Well, I’ve told half the truth, answering that I continually pick on Colchester because it makes me laugh, which is absolutely true. It is also true that there is a whole other, deep down, ancient back story about why I have a grudge against Colchester, and now, I am finally ready to ‘fess up and come clean. This reason also, by the way, totally makes me laugh, because it is so who I am, which is still a child, every day, almost all the time.
Many years ago, I was in a wedding, my first wedding in fact. I was six. My little sister was also in the wedding; we were flowers girls. Our grandmother made dresses in grass green for us to wear; I cannot speak for my sister, but oh, I loved that dress. It had a train, and I wore my hair in a bun on top of my head. We carried baskets of flowers and had garlands in our hair. The maid of honor also wore green, and the bridesmaids wore orange, orange; it was glorious (orange is one of my favorite colors). It was also glorious because I loved the bride. She was my favorite person on the planet almost, kind, sweet, patient, loving – omg, she was blond lol, oh well! – regardless, she was perfect. She was also, along with her mom, my family’s baby-sitter. Her name was Sue Murphy, and in marrying Gilbert Close, she became Sue Close. It was an adjustment, but one I was willing to make because she was in love and according to everyone love and marriage were everything, or almost everything.
But then. They bought a house in Downsville, Downsville. In the horrible, hideous, terrible – because it took Sue away – town of Colchester. Sue moved away!! And yes, it was crushing, like a trick almost: this is what I get for being a flower girl??! As a result, digging deep to get to the truth of why I trash Colchester, I admit I have never forgiven the town for taking Sue, sweet Sue, away from me. It was like poor Persephone getting pomegrate-ed into the underworld, except it was permanent. Downsville. Why?!! It was too far, I was only 6, how was I supposed to see her? Sue was nice to me (she was nice to everyone but), and when she was around I felt better about myself, and safer. Her mom preferred my little sister, which was fine, but we all need at least one person in our lives who thinks we’re golden. For me, that person was Sue.
Downsville was far, impossible to walk or bike to; Sue had always lived just two blocks away. It was also too far for my mother to drive, because my mother didn’t like driving on country roads even on good days, and none of her favorite ice cream places were located in any Colchester hamlet. My heart was broken, and I still resent Colchester and the aptly named Downsville (what a downer) for it.
So, yes, Colchester. A sample of my trolling follows. Heeheeheeheehee…
Luce (Lucinda Bodice, known as Luce)
The truth is, I was pulled from the swirling waters by a group of…(Rev: Go on!!) itinerant barbers (Rev: Barbers!), in Colchester!
Rev. (gasp!!)
Colchester!!?!! Barbers!!?!
Luce
Oh, it’s not as bad in Colchester as they say! But – it’s pretty bad…
*My progressive newspaper column from the 28th of September, published in print first because we respect print journalism, which is in peril, and then, giving it a few weeks, we put it up here. Dos it make a difference? Probably not – but it does, to me.
Every time JD vance opens his mouth, he doubles down on his idiocy and insults (eating cats and dogs, anyone?). I cannot wait for this election to be over, and to knock wood never, ever have to hear about or from Orange Nero, and this other entitled, angry white male prick, again. #VoteBlue
The Republican running for President is the oldest candidate ever nominated by a major American political party. That makes the choice of J.D. Vance notably important, much more so than that of Governor Walz by V.P. Harris given they’re both barely sixty. The Vance choice is also particularly consequential because the GOP nominee has been performing exceptionally poorly on the stump, rambling nonsensically in speeches laden with lies, insults, and race-baiting, demonstrating yet again his questionable fitness for any position of authority, let alone the highest in the land.
So who is J.D Vance, and what does he stand for, if anything? I ask because a sad amount of flip-flopping is to be expected from opportunistic politicians, but Vance’s flip-flops are off the charts, particularly regarding the individual at the top of his own ticket. Also, as someone who actually did grow up in the Appalachians, where a lack of infrastructure and opportunity, where poverty and low expectations are endemic, someone please tell Vance to stop representing himself – to quote the late, great Freddie Mercury – ‘as a poor boy from a poor family,’ born and raised in Appalachia? Thanks.
Middletown, Ohio, where J.D. is actually from, is not in Appalachia, and while his mother struggled with drug abuse and was married more than once during his childhood, J.D. graduated from high school in Middletown, not Kentucky as the film Hillbilly Elegy implies (I cannot make myself read the book). J.D has been through a lot, though, including multiple name changes; he began life as James Donald Bowman, then became James David Hamel during his mom’s second marriage, and in 2013 he became J.D. Vance, adopting his maternal grandparents’ last name. He was then 28, a vet and graduate of Ohio State and Yale Law School. For someone who seeks to legislate away other people’s ability to determine their own personal identity, however, Vance sure has changed his on a regular basis.
Vance has been a Senator for approximately 21 months after the same amount of time practicing law. The majority of his years since law school have been spent making millions as a venture capitalist, including a Kentucky-based vertical gardening agri-business infamous for horrible working conditions: AppHarvest (App for Appalachia). AppHarvest went bankrupt in 2023, stiffing Vance’s investors to the tune of $340 million. Don’t worry, J.D. made out like a bandit, so if you thought Vance and the GOP’s top nominee didn’t have much in common, you were wrong!
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has sponsored Vance’s brief yet meteoric political career, backing him with massive campaign donations; they met after Thiel gave a speech at Yale while Vance was in grad school there. Thiel later convinced Vance to convert to his brand of ultra-conservative Catholicism, one shared by judicial activists Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, as well as GOP mega-donors Leonard Leo and Tim Busch. Thiel is not just a richy-rich conservative Catholic, he’s a gay libertarian whose marrow-deep misogyny includes a belief shared by his arch conservative pals that capitalism has been in peril since 1920, when the 19th amendment granted voting rights to women. Women, they assert, foolishly and wastefully favor funding programs that protect and support children, workers, the poor and the elderly. Aren’t we girls just plain awful?!
But I digress. Back to what Vance brings to the GOP ticket, because he might be asked to step up into the shoes worn by a distraught and distracted old man. Distraught and distracted because Kamala Harris crushed him in their recent debate; her donations and poll numbers are growing, while his are comparably flat. To a former reality TV star, those numbers (a.k.a. ratings) really matter. The Vance choice might have helped shore up the ultra-conservative male vote, but You-Know-Who was likely getting those votes anyway. And if the Netflix series Don’t %*$@ with Cats is an indicator, Vance’s animus toward women generally and cat ladies specifically might be career ending for them both (fingers crossed).
And can anyone explain Vance’s comment regarding his wife, ‘Obviously, she’s not white, but I just love Usha.” But? Ouch. I predict, however, that Ms. Vance will survive this campaign with her dignity bruised yet still fully intact. She is, after all, a Yale Law School grad herself, a successful litigator most recently based in Los Angeles (how did that work, trad-family guy J.D.?).
On the Democratic side we have a qualified, experienced, young – and sane – top-of-ticket candidate, and a V.P. pick with years of elected federal and state government experience layered on top of 2-plus decades serving in the military and as a public-school teacher.
Another prediction? The GOP will fail to win the popular vote and electoral count this November, and the era of You-Know-Who will finally, thankfully end.
*I love these. Shannon Watts – total she-ro – published these without credit for the photos or origins on social media. Cannot love them enough.
Aha! Found the creators, a UK based group called Dad Shift, about which I don’t know a thing about other than what is in the article linked below, but it seems like a good group, working for positive change, not one of the noxious, misogynistic men’s rights orgs to which I am deadly allergic.
*I love this quote from scholar and feminist theorist (among other things, her wiki page is linked below) Marilyn Frye, because it is so true, so profound and so, so, so, so hilarious in the straight male culture is so deeply and profoundly homophobic – or, is it? LOLOL. Think about it. This kind of reframing is perfection; this kind of mirroring and truth-telling is necessary, essential – and I am 100% here for it.
“To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.” ― Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory
Other Marilyn Frye quotes worth noting below, because – well, because. And – because I’ve been thinking a great deal about power, and men, and how they wield power (badly). Last night (I’m writing this in late September) PBS featured a story about an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon that was (their words) humiliating for Hezbollah leadership and would, therefore, require a response of equal proportion to the leaders’ humiliation. This idiocy (to me), this tit for tat bullshit, violence begetting more violence, is the paradigm we live in and have forever been living in, and suffering under, and it needs to stop. Men as a gender, as a whole, are dick-led, are stupid, foolish, and testerical – and they weird power stupidly and foolishly, led by their dicks, testerically.
#PutAWomanInCharge#PutWomenInChargeEverywhere …More from Frye:
Men seem unable to feel equal to women: they must be superior or they are inferior,
Men’s need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are making no effort to discover it.
It’s strange how men feel they have the right to criticize a woman’s appearance to her face.
The view of life as a struggle for power generates a language in which life has no significance and only power matters.
The same men who are blind and deaf to feminism are acutely sensitive to what threatened their dominance and privilege.
For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one’s genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state.
