Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

July 29, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

“Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.” ~ Glen Beaman



Hi there!

 

Thanks for stopping by Patricia’s Opinion Dot Com.  Due to time constraints and other considerations, there have been a few necessary changes around here. Beginning August 1, 2011, I’ll no longer be posting at this site. But if you’d like, you can find my articles, essays, podcast interviews and “Expert in Failed Relationships Advice Column at:


HS Radio e-magazine: www.harlotssauce.com

 

For press releases, press photos, events, workshops and other appearances, please have a visit over to my personal author website at:

 

http://www.patriciaVdavis.com

 

To request my consultation, interview, or speaking fees, please contact my author liaison, Jane Hunter at:

jh@johngalvisagency.com

 

And if you just want to say hello, please send me an email:

patricia@patriciaVdavis.com


or visit my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/patriciaVdavis


or find me on Twitter:

@patriciaVdavis


or Google +1

..or heaven knows what else by the time you read this!

 

Thank you for your interest in my writing.  I look forward to hearing from you!

 


Arts Critic Jan Wahl from KRON 4 News with Patricia V. Davis at "Diva Doctrine" Launch

 

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Podcasts and Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Scratching That Tickle

June 1, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Scratching that Tickle

Summer is upon us, and though many of us see this season as our opportunity to get frisky in the sun, it’s also the season for bug bites and… other nature-induced itches. The handy guide below will help you decide when, or even if you should “scratch”:

Poison Oak

If you’ve got a poison oak rash, it means you’ve been crawling around in a wild place you shouldn’t have, with your naked limbs exposed, and shame on you. Poison oak rash is oozy and scaly, just like that bloke you almost let pick you up at that sleazy bar your friends dragged you to last week. It’s a contamination that will spread over your entire being the more you touch it. Definitely, definitely do not scratch that tickle. Even if you have had too many shots of watered-down Jack.

Flea Bites

A flea bite is a prickling, burning bite that hurts longer than a lover’s betrayal. And just like a Cheater, fleas are hard to spot, so you really can’t do much to avoid getting bit. Do not scratch this tickle either, once it happens; you’ll only exacerbate the intensity. The only thing to do is let that flea bite burn, until the toxins dissipate and you no longer feel the pain. But it will always leave a little red mark on you which remains pretty much forever.

Mosquitoes

Any woman who believes “size matters” has never had a mosquito in her bed. These little guys have egos bigger than Rod Blagojevich, and they make even more noise than he does, too. Their incessant drone is the only foreplay that you get before they finally settle down for a nibble. And when they do, they catch you by surprise. Yet, their prick doesn’t sting much, nor last long. It can be fun to scratch their itch once or twice, but not too hard, or you’ll swell up with infection. By the time that happens, the mosquito responsible is long gone.

Prickly Heat

Prickly heat is a little red rash that shows up on your skin when you get too hot. It’s suddenly just there, like that new man you find so intriguing. Where did it come from? Will it last long? And most important, will it harm you if you rub? It’s usually pretty safe to scratch this tickle…for as long as the heat rash lasts.

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Love and Sex, Satire and Humor Tagged With: , ,

Part II – I am No Longer A Person, Now I am Officially a Writer: Getting The Literary Agent

May 21, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Now that you have your newly-edited manuscript down to 143,122 words, (not including the 36,310 words of the ‘Back Section’ which includes recipes, a guide to additional reading, a history lesson, a wine list, and other information you deemed pertinent to your readers as addendums to your manuscript), you start looking for a book publisher. The only problem there is that you have no idea how to find a book publisher. Someone wiser than you, or maybe someone who just overheard someone else talking to another someone about this, suggests you get a “literary agent”. But you’ve no idea how to find one of those, either.  So:

1) You go into your husband’s office and ask him, “Have you any thoughts on how I can get an agent for my women’s empowerment memoir?”

Your husband, a stockbroker who reads the financial pages, baseball biographies, and P.G. Wodehouse, and is at that very moment trying to make an important stock trade, replies (quite flippantly, you think), “None whatsoever.”

2) Unreasonably irritated, you leave his office, go back into your own, and type, “How to Get A Literary Agent” into the search engine on your computer. This is when you discover that Google has approximately 818,000 articles on how to find a literary agent, and amazon.com sells more than 50 books on the subject.

Surely you don’t need to read a whole book and all those articles? After all, how hard can it be to get an agent? Aren’t they like realtors? Don’t they want to sell your work? That’s how they make their money, after all, isn’t it?

Thus, assuming that selling a work of literature is like selling a house, you choose to follow the directives in a concise, one-page article you find on ehow.com.

3) The ehow.com article says that you need to first write a ‘query letter’ to an agent. Again, you are clueless. So again, you rely on Google, typing in, ‘what is a query letter?’ to find out on Wikipedia, another of your ‘unfailing’ information sources, that “a query letter is a formal letter sent to magazine editors, literary agents, to propose writing ideas.”

This seems simple enough, so you sit down and write your first ‘formal’ query letter, which goes something like this:

Dear ____________:

My name is Patricia Volonakis Davis, and I have written a women’s empowerment memoir called, “Amerikanaki”, which is my story about being raised first generation Italian-American, marrying a Greek national, and moving to Greece with him.

I hope you will be interested in reading my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

Patricia Volonakis Davis

Address

telephone number

email

4. After formulating your concise query letter to match the concise instructions which you followed to write it, you make a list of the top ten agents in the United States, finding their names through Google, too, of course.

You go to the agents’ individual websites and discover the particularized instructions on each. Some want you to post your query letter, along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Others will only accept queries submitted by email. Some ask you send the first 30 pages of your manuscript, to also be included in email, pasted, not attached, in “WORD format only”, or “RTF format” (a format you assume is an anachronism for RUT the F*ck?!). Some want you to include any three random chapters, to be sent along with your SAE. And yet others ask that along with your query letter, you send the x-rays of your teeth your dentist took during your last exam.

Following all these instructions diligently (you were a teacher, after all) you send out your ten query letters/emails to your ten top choices of agents, and expect to hear from them all within a week or two at the most.

5. Three months later, you’ve written and emailed over fifty literary agents and received two replies detailing further instructions, and after having complied with those, you never hear from those two again. You now have six of those fifty available books sitting on your desk, with one more on order from amazon.com, and have taken five writing courses. One of those includes a three-day class given by a literary agent, (who shows no interest in your manuscript at all, by the way), simple titled, “How to Write a Query Letter”.

It was during this class that you learned how pathetically inadequate your first query letter was,  and you rewrote it so many times that it actually took longer to complete than the manuscript itself.  You also learn that apart from your manuscript and your query letter, you need to write something called a “book proposal”, and you have a new list of books written down and ready to order on how to write one of those.

You’ve spent hundreds of dollars on postage, photocopies, books, and classes. Additionally, you suspect your husband is seriously considering moving his office from home, so that you can’t barge in every day to cry over the latest rejection or out-and-out disregard from literary agents. You know these suspicions are well-founded when he suggests that you go to a writers’ conference where you can meet agents in person.

“But, writers’ conferences are very expensive,” you point out to your beleaguered husband.

“True, but a lot less expensive than my having to move my office,” he replies.

(You see? You were right.)

6. And so, you register for BEA (Book Expo America) in New York. You need to pay the conference fees, flight, hotel, meals, and transport to and from BEA, so that once there, you, along with hundreds of other hopeful writers, will have two hours to meet with as many agents as you can, who will give you three minutes each to pitch your manuscript to them. You have no idea who any of these agents are, you only read a short blurb description of them, and of whether they are looking for ‘fiction’ or ‘non-fiction,’ ‘children’s’ or ‘adults.’ You can also clearly see, as you stand on a queue waiting to speak to them, that all of the ones you’ve chosen are already annoyed at and/or bored with the writer who’s talking to them at the moment. And you’re up next.

7. You’ve spent thousands of dollars and another three months up to now, but guess what? ─ you walk away from the conference with seven business cards from agents who have told you to send them your manuscript! A month later, of the seven, two actually offer you a contract! Once again, you have no clue which of the two you should choose, so you go with the one who shows the most enthusiasm for your work. She turns out to be the less experienced of the two; as a matter of fact, you learn that you are her very first client, but no matter. You have an agent! You’ve done it!

8. You run into your husband’s office again, this time with excitement, kiss him and thank him for his brilliant suggestion. You then ring your best friend joyously, informing her that you finally have a literary agent! You will be published within weeks!

Or so you think.

(To be Continued.)

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

…. But, the Story Could Have Also Gone This Way…. (Satire)

January 27, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Chicago, 1976

The 15-year-old boy was tall for his age, very dark, and rather skinny. Wearing a cheap, ill-fitting suit that only emphasized his gangly frame, he stood in the courtroom facing Judge Joseph Gary’s bench. His court-appointed public defender, Robert Klein,  of the law firm Fielden, Neebe and Scwab, stood beside him.

The judge spoke, “Mr. Klein, your client is accused of armed robbery at Giordano’s Pizzeria downtown. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, your honor,” replied Mr. Klein, “but with a request for a commuted sentence.”

“On what grounds?” demanded Judge Gary. “He shot Leo Spizzirri right in the leg. Leo dropped a five gallon container of tomato sauce. It splashed all over the red checkered tablecloths. They were cleaning that stuff up for weeks. Leo’s still walking with a limp.”

“Your honor, this is my client’s first offense. And he’s had some mitigating circumstances,” continued Mr. Klein, smoothly.

The judge sighed, “Let’s hear ‘em.”

Clearing his throat, Klein began his impassioned defense. “Just look at this kid’s skin, your honor. It’s black, but not really black. His mother was white and his father was a foreigner, born somewhere in Africa. Not only that, his father left him. And then his mother married some Indian guy or something, and dragged this poor kid to another godforsaken foreign country. And he suffered there, your honor. He was poor. To top it all off, his mother left him to live with his white grandparents. What must that have been like, for a black kid to live with two old, white people? He could never belong. What kind of a mother would do that?”

Mr. Klein looked at Judge Gary pleadingly and continued, “Your honor, my client didn’t have his mother’s love, and hardly knew his father. He’s a half-breed. A mutt, really. He doesn’t know where he fits in society.  He has low self-esteem because his parents abandoned him. No wonder he committed a crime. It was a cry for help. This kid needs our assistance, not our prisons.”

After Klein’s defense, Judge Gary had tears in his eyes. Even Leo Spizzirri, despite himself, was moved. He sat in his courtroom seat, shifting his bad leg uncomfortably.

The judge looked at the defendant silently for a moment, thinking.

Finally he spoke directly to him, “Okay, kid, I’m gonna give you a break, because I see something in you. You get a second chance and I hope you use it wisely.”

He banged his gavel down. “Sentence for Barack Hussein Obama commuted. Court adjourned.”
———————-

Obama was smiling his megawatt smile as he left the courtroom. He couldn’t believe his paid-for-by-the city attorney had managed to pull this off. He thought he was a goner, for sure. But that ‘victim’ act had worked great. Though that bothered him on some levels he couldn’t figure out, he’d remember that in future. Just in case.

Since he was just shy of his 16th birthday, he was still a minor, so the court set him up to live as a foster child.  They found a family for him in Marin City, California, which was one of the most exclusive areas on the west coast of the country. He got an upscale education at Tamalpais High School, taking many poetry and literature classes. He had teachers who cared about him and nurtured his talents, which he discovered, were in the area of writing lyrics and performing. His musical abilities eventually led to him being signed with an up-and-coming rap group.

Despite this success, he still felt like an ‘outsider,’ still felt cheated. Instead of reveling in his talents and his good fortune at being placed with the Shakur family, he resented everything about himself and his upbringing. He changed his name from Barack to Tupac, and performed onstage as Tupac Shakur. He made his first album, the lyrics of which were aimed at the problems facing young black males, but it was publicly criticized for its graphic language and images of violence by and against law enforcement.

Though he’d never actually lived the ‘ghetto life,’ he embraced the lifestyle of the real underprivileged and uneducated. He had himself tattooed with street gang symbols. He got in trouble with the law, sometimes severely, but always managed, as he had that first time back in Chicago, to find a white, liberal lawyer who felt sorry for him, and pleaded his case in court as “a victim of society.”

In fact, Tupac glamorized victimhood to the point that many of his worshipful, young male fans, who’d been truly forced by circumstances of birth to grow up in the ghettoes, began to believe poverty, violence, and criminality was the preferred existence to which they should aspire. Not only that, but since Tupac had moved from Chicago to the west, it’s believed that he may well have been one of the defining forces in the so-called “East Coast –West Coast” rivalry that still exists in the hip-hop industry today.

(Fans insist that it wasn’t that Tupac didn’t like the extra sunshine and healthier lifestyle that he was able to enjoy in his new home in California, it was just that he never got over the fact that he had to leave behind that really fabulous Chicago pizza.)

Shakur made album after album, with names like Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. and Thug Life: Volume I. He became enormously popular, so much the dangerous, yet dashing face of the outlaw, that he dated Madonna, as every man who is famous in this sort of fashion eventually does.  She is reported to have wanted to bear his child. (And that part’s not a joke.)

Not even 25 years old, Tupac sank deeper and deeper into a life of too much fast money, too many drugs, and crime after crime. He was surrounded and encouraged by an entourage of men and women who wanted that same exclusivity that he did, and were willing to sell their souls as hangers-on or sex-objects to be near it.

And always, always, he maintained that his race and his circumstances of birth should excuse him for his desires and activities. He went to prison several times on charges from sexual assault to manslaughter, always insisting on his innocence, always managing to get through, and always remaining the most successful rap artist of all time. Shakur is the only artist ever to have an album at number one on Billboard 200 while serving a prison sentence. The album stayed at the top of the charts for five weeks, selling 240,000 copies in its first week, setting a record for highest first week sales for a solo male rap artist at the time.

His bad habits eventually caught up with him, however.

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur attended the Mike Tyson – Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After leaving the match, one of his associates spotted 21- year-old  Orlando “Baby Lane” Nelson, a member of the Southside Crips in the MGM Grand lobby, and informed Shakur. Shakur then attacked Anderson, with his entourage assisting. The fight was captured on the hotel’s video camera. A few weeks earlier, Anderson and a group of Crips had robbed a member of Shakur’s entourage in a shoe store, precipitating Shakur’s attack.

After the brawl, Shakur went to meet up with some friends, riding as a passenger in a black sedan.  At approximately 11:15 p.m., a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac, with an unknown number of occupants pulled up to the sedan’s right side, rolled down one of the windows, and rapidly fired  at Shakur. He was struck by four rounds, with bullets hitting him in the chest, the pelvis, and his right hand and thigh. One of the rounds apparently ricocheted into Shakur’s right lung.

While in Critical Care Unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Shakur died of internal bleeding; doctors attempted to revive him but could not impede his hemorrhaging. The official cause of death was noted as respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest in connection with multiple gunshot wounds.

Shakur’s body was cremated. Some of his ashes were later mixed with marijuana and smoked by members of his band.

Throughout all his misspent life, not anyone could deny that Shakur was full of talent and intelligence. He remains one of the best-loved artists, and sales of his records continue posthumously. We will all always wonder, especially his lawyers who defended him, and others who emulated him, what his life achievements could have been.

If only he hadn’t had the misfortune to be born Black.

Barack as a young man

Filed Under: Bigotry, Food for Thought, Political Satire Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Make Harlot’s Sauce….

January 1, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQtfzwWm2k4&]

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Italian Culture, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog Tagged With: , ,

An Alternative Universe* (Satire)

October 3, 2008 By Patricia Volonakis Davis Leave a Comment

I’ve been away from my blog for more than two weeks because I was in an alternate universe. No, really. I got there by spaceship. I wish you could have been there. It was very intriguing.

Because in the alternate universe I visited, Barack and Michelle Obama had white skin and John McCain and Sarah Palin, along with their spouses, had black skin.

My goodness, you should have seen the change in perception by the alternate universe American people.

Instead of saying that Obama’s name was “too radical and Muslim,” the newspapers, TV and radio announcers in the alternate universe praised his name for its spiritual meaning, which is “Blessed.” They marveled at the determination and hard work it took for (white) Barack Obama to graduate at the top of his class at Harvard University. The fact that he grew up in Hawaii, was not seen as making him “too exotic and different,” but as giving him a “broader perspective on all the various lifestyles of the three hundred million American people.”

The praise for (white) Obama went on, for how he spent three years as a brilliant community organizer working to help poor people,how he created a voter  voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters and how became President of the Harvard Law Review. (The title “First Black President of Harvard Law review had to go to some other guy, because in this alternate universe, remember, Barack Obama is white.) .

The pundits on alternate universe FOX news said that (white) Obama showed “real leadership qualities”, because he spent twelve years as a (white) Constitutional Law professor, eight years as a (white) State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, and became (white) chairman of the State Senate’s Health and Human Services committee. What an achievement of (white) Obama that he spent four years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees.

In addition, everyone on FOX agreed they were in awe of him for beating the heavily favored candidate, Hillary Clinton, and winning the Democratic nomination, while raising more money than any other Presidential candidate in history.  All of these accomplishments proved that he would be “a great (white) president,” they did report, on that alternate universe FOX News.

And his family morals? They went rhapsodized about them, too. How he’s been married to the same (white) woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful (white) daughters with her. That they were “true (white) Christians,” because they did all this while attending (white) Protestant churches.

And the ‘alternate universe Katie Couric’ practically kissed the (white) Michelle Obama’s feet, because not only did (white) Michelle, just like her husband, graduate from Harvard law school, she had such “great family principles” that she gave up her position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community. And then, she even gave that up to raise her family.

“American women everywhere can identify with (white) Michelle, because she buys her clothes off the rack, puts her (white) husband and (white) kids first, and has true, down-home, (white) American values,” is what that ‘alternate universe Katie’ stated for the news cameras, while smiling her very pretty smile.

On the other hand, in that same alternate universe, the unfortunate (black) Sarah Palin, was widely criticized for being the “typical black woman who gives her children outrageous, ‘anti-American’ names, like ‘Bristol’, ‘Track’, ‘Willow’, ‘Piper’, and ‘Trig’.” The same was said for her husband’s nickname of ‘First Dude’. Way too black.

And the fact that said husband didn’t register to vote until he was twenty-five, and was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, was not ignored as it is by the media in our universe, but was being perceived as an example that he’s the “typical” black man who lacks responsibility, while at the same time, trying to lead a half-assed rebellion that would result in ethnic chaos the likes of which the country hadn’t seen since the U.S. Civil War and the race riots of the sixties. 

It was described on television in that alternative universe that the American people believed that, “It was just like a Black” to eat something peculiar like ‘mooseburgers,’ and shoot wolves from an airplane. “Just like a Black” to be so shiftless and irresponsible that she attends 5 colleges in 6 years before graduating from the University of Idaho, and then tries to run for Vice-president, by saying that all this had made her “well-grounded.”

And the alternative universe Katie Couric reported that the alternate universe American people perceived (black) Sarah Palin as just the usual, nervy, “uppity” black woman to also state that even though her total resume is being a beauty queen, a sports announcer at a local TV station, then a PTA President; then serving only four years on a city council and six years as the mayor of a small town (which she left in debt), and then only 20 months as the governor of a small state, where she wasted 400 million tax dollars on a bridge that was never completed, makes her qualified to be a 72-year-old heart-beat away from the most important job in the world.

And also that, while (black) governor Sarah staunchly advocated abstinence only, with no other option for sex education in her state’s school system, her unwed (black) teenage daughter became pregnant, an “outlandish and very typical of ‘Negroes,’ thing to happen”, is what the alternate universe FOX News said.

But the most criticism by the press and the Christian Right in that alternate universe was heaved on the (black) John and Cindy McCain. “(Black) John McCain cheated on his first wife with a rich heiress. He left his disfigured wife and married that heiress the next month,” said one leading TV evangelist.  “He’s no family man.”

“(Black) John McCain was knee-deep in the Keating Savings and Loan Scandal more than twenty years ago, which caused the same financial crisis then that the country is in now. Because he’s Black, he’s lying about it. Furthermore, he’s no war hero, either. In typical wasteful, Black fashion, the military lost five planes because of him, and he was shot down by the Viet Cong infantry because he couldn’t fly a plane properly,” reported The Conservative Times.

“He might have even done it on purpose, because he’s in league with terrorists. Maybe he wasn’t a prisoner of war at all. Maybe he was a spy,” that article stated.

“(Black) Cindy McCain spent three hundred thousand dollars on one outfit, and is a drug addict,” said one PTA, Christian, hockey mom in that alternative universe, “and those are not the kind of values I want passed on to my children.”

The funny thing was, with this totally different perception of facts going on in that alternate universe, the outcome of who the winner of the presidential race would be was still not so ‘black and white.’ It was still very, very close.  Do you know why?

Because in the alternative universe I visited, Joe Biden, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate running with Obama, was gay.

And, since nobody, in any universe, apparently, thinks a gay man or woman should be allowed the same inalienable rights of, “all men are created equal,” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” then of course, nobody would want one to be vice-president.

* Many thanks to Barry H. for forwarding much of  the political information in this blog. It’s been researched and is accurate. (And I’ve just learned that a parady similar to this was presented on the Jon Stewart Show. But it is too late, I’ve just spent two hours writing it.

And many thanks to Michelle Solange for her rendition of “Black Sarah.”

Filed Under: Bigotry, Food for Thought, Satire and Humor Tagged With: ,

Why Do You Have So Many Kids?

September 15, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis 127 Comments
Sons 1
Sons 1

Uber-Liberals can be just as off-putting as uber-Conservatives. I’m not talking about the type of Liberals who look at you with disappointment as you discreetly try to eat your cheeseburger, while they’ve ordered the veggie platter. I’m talking about the kind of uber-Liberals who, after you’ve invited them to dinner, respecting their beliefs enough to serve them up ‘Tofu Surprise,’ they still look at you as though you’ve handed them nuclear waste to consume because you heated their food in a ─ gasp! ─ ‘energy-bleeding, cancer-causing’ microwave.
I’m talking about the kind of Liberal who wanted to hang Michael Vick publicly by his…well, rhymes with ‘Vick’, and cut out his bowels, because of his mistreatment of dogs, but yet picketed San Quentin State Prison in order to save Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams from execution. Not because they were at San Quentin protesting every execution of every inmate on death row, opposing the death penalty in general. That I can respect. However, Clarence Allen’s execution went virtually unnoticed in comparison to Stanley’s, because Stanley, who was the co-founder of The Crips ─ a Los

Sons 2
Sons 2

Angeles street gang that still exists today ─ had written some children’s books while he was incarcerated, books against street gang violence. Oh, and he also apologized for his brutal murder of a family of Chinese immigrants who were running a motel that Stanley robbed, and additionally for the shots at point blank range he put into the back of a 26-year old convenience store clerk during another robbery.


Yeah, you see, even though Stan refused to aid police investigations with any information against his gang, and was implicated in attacks on guards and other inmates, as well as in multiple escape plots, he and his supporters still maintained he’d had a change of heart, albeit too late for the people he slaughtered. Nonetheless, a battalion of lawyers was utilized, and piles of state tax money were spent on stay after stay of execution for Tookie. Tookie’s death sentence was protested because he was a celebrity in his own right. But Clarence Allen, a 76-year-old heart patient and diabetic when he was executed at the same prison, went pretty much unnoticed by the press and any uber-Liberals.
So, this is the sort of Liberal I’m talking about.

In fact, I’m pretty sure my husband and I came across a husband and wife team of this precise type of person the other night. And the husband part of the set, with the wife nodding along her agreement, asked us this in exactly these words:


“How come you have so many kids? Doesn’t it bother you the impact they have on the environment, and the adding to the problem of overpopulation?”

Now, my husband, bless his heart, took that as a genuine question, and not as the two-part accusation framed as a question that it actually was. That’s why he proceeded to answer it genuinely,too, explaining at length how much we love kids, etc. Heck, he practically whipped out his bank book to assure this fellow that, not to worry, we can indeed afford these offspring. In fact, we pay handsomely, to the tune of forty-percent of our hard-earned income in taxes, to offset any harmful consequence our children have had on our planet, based solely on their existence.

But, while he was doing that, I was looking at this couple who were looking at my husband while he was explaining himself, thinking, “Would you have posed that pseudo-question to us if we were covered in black skin instead of white?”


Probably not, would be the answer, because that would be an uber-Liberal “no-no” for so many reasons. But it’s okay to say it to us, because not only are we white, my husband is really, really white. My background is Italian, but my husband has roots that go back as far as the next boat after The Mayflower. And, between us we had five children, all sons.


Yow ─ five white males. Not good. It almost sounds like we’ve birthed a clan of neo-Nazis, doesn’t it? But we are a blended family, so only four of our sons are just as WASP-y as their father, while my one biological offspring ‘sprang’ from the loins of a Greek.
Now that I’m thinking about it, that particular son doesn’t even look all that white. He’s got very dark eyes and his hair, in long dredlocks now, is also dark. In addition, as far as his politics go, in the few short years he’s been old enough to vote, I’m fairly certain he’s voted Democrat every time. He’s also a musician and film major at university, two other aspects about him I’d imagine uber-Liberals would embrace.

So, do we get a ‘pass’ on him? I think we should, from a Liberal’s standpoint, anyway. The other four are likely more problematic, though, given their background and occupations.


Let’s start with the twins. One of them is a long-haul trucker, trekking people’s furnishings back and forth across the U.S. as they are forced to move because banks are repossessing their homes.


Ick, a long-haul trailer truck ─ that’s a huge carbon footprint. That son might have to go.


On the other hand, if there were no long-haul trucks, there’d be no way for people to move their possessions which are made from various materials, including, probably, plastics. What would happen if we forced everyone to abandon their possessions along with their homes? They’d have to get new stuff wherever they moved. That would cause twice as many non-recyclables per repossessed family to be present on the planet, causing that much more pollution.


Therefore, on second thought, that son is probably a necessary evil. So, I think we should get to keep him, too.

(Sigh) I wish I could come up with a reason to keep the second twin, but unfortunately, I can’t. The second twin builds houses for a living, and that occupation is naively optimistic, given that the housing market has gone to hell in a hand basket, and is not going to get better any time soon. So really, he’s just wasting trees. Also, even though he bought my husband and me both Al Franken and Barack Obama books for Christmas, I know he’s voted Republican now and again. And, I must confess, he owns guns. You can see there’s just no good reason he should be on the planet, despite the fact that he’s really rather sweet, has never been out of work, pays all his taxes, and even has a very liberal Poli-Sci degree.We’d be sorry to see him go, but he was part of a two-for-one, so I suppose it’s okay, as no one had really planned on him originally, anyway.
Oh wait ─ I know! ─ we can offer him up as an exchange. We lost his younger brother in a car accident several years back. Now that son wasn’t even 19 when he left us. He didn’t have much of chance to “add to overpopulation,” and unless you count playing some really badass baseball as having a “negative impact on the environment,” he didn’t get a chance to do much damage in that way, either.

So, the way I see it, is we have four surviving sons, who came originally from two sets of parents. That’s four for four, so doesn’t that make us even?

I also think there’s no way anyone would want us to get rid of the only one I haven’t mentioned, because he’s an accountant. With trillions of dollars in federal debt, trillions more being spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, and trillions additionally that the banks loaned out so capriciously, and which we are now having to give back to said banks with even more of our tax dollars, the country needs as many accountants as it can get to keep track of all that money as it slips through all our fingers.


You know, after careful consideration of all the combined factors, I think people should lay off us and our sons. So, the next time someone asks us how come we have so many kids, I know exactly what I’m going to say:

“My husband used to sell birth control pills. These boys are customer complaints.”

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Filed Under: Family, Marriage, Parents and Children, Social Satire Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Declaring Myself

September 2, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

As I roam around various blogs, I notice that though I don’t know many of my blogging friends’ real first and last names, I do know that they are “Christian” or “Atheist,” “Conservative” or “Liberal.”

It seems important to many that others know what bunch they’re part of, and certainly that they are part of a bunch—any bunch. It’s also important to many to know which bunch others are a part of, because in this way they can gauge that other person based on whatever that other person’s particular bunch signifies to them.

For example, if someone states, “Hi, my name is Such-and-Such, and I’m a Christian,” or, “Hi, my name is So-and-So, and I’m a Liberal,” there’s bound to be someone hearing either of those introductions thinking, “Uh Oh,” or, “Thank goodness.” So, without knowing anything else about this new person, we experience either a warm mental welcome towards that person, or an uncomfortable wariness.

Declaring oneself part of faction serves two other purposes for some, too: It allows them to cheer for their particular faction, just like we do with sports teams. Most of us, when we have a favourite sports team, don’t really care much about what that team does to win. As long as it does. After all, that’s the one purpose of team sports these days, isn’t it? To win… regardless of how that’s achieved?

Choosing to be part of a group also means to some that they can let their group do their thinking for them. Let’s face it ─ mulling over our country’s foreign policies, or which candidate we should vote for, or where we stand on each individual issue is hard work. To start, we have to find the hour in our already busy days to read about what those issues are, and from more than one source in order to get a balanced view. Then, we have to analyse all that information and decide what we believe regarding every issue on a one-by-one basis. But, most of us have to work eight hours a day, at least, then come home and take care of chores, houses, kids, maybe even a pet. Much easier to let our group simply tell us what we think. That saves us a lot of trouble, doesn’t it? At least in the short term, it does.

So, in the interest of fair play, because though anyone who reads my blog knows my name, my occupation and even where I live, they don’t know my affiliations, because I’ve never openly declared them. Now I will:

I am a follower of Patrichism, which makes me a Patrichist. Below, I’ll list the basic principles by which Patrichists live:

1. Patrichists strive to be pro-active, not re-active. Meaning, we don’t take action based solely on our emotions, we try to think rather than just feel. Let’s say that something ‘feels’ wrong to us, like, for example, abortion or gun control. I pick these two issues because Liberals are ‘for’ both, and Conservatives are ‘against’ both. But not all Patrichists have an identical opinion on either. What all Patrichists do agree upon, however, is how we deal with our feelings on these two issues. The first thing we do not do is re-act in a knee-jerk way, by issuing hysterical demands to deem them both unequivocally unlawful.
Instead, a Patrichist will think – what might happen if all abortions or all gun control were to be outlawed? What good could happen as a result? What bad could happen? What might the long term effects be? How would those effects spill over into other areas we might not expect or anticipate? Patrichists think the same way with, say, offshore drilling. Or declaring war on another country. Whatever the issue, a Patrichist acknowledges his/her gut feelings, but does not act upon those feelings, by immediately banding with a group that supports or opposes. A true Patrichist thinks everything through thoroughly before holding an opinion. A true Patrichist entertains all perspectives on every issue in his/her mind, openly and without fear of where his thoughts might take him.

Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a concept without necessarily accepting it.” Patrichists keep their minds educated by using them and holding their emotions at bay, until such time as their thoughts can be formed coherently.

2. A Patrichist never worries about what others will think if the stance they hold on any particular issue is different than theirs. She doesn’t worry about being ostracized, even from her own group. A Patrichist is unafraid to stand alone.

3. Patrichists are also not afraid to change their minds on an issue if new information comes to light. This does not make them ‘wishy-washy,’ this makes them intelligent. Since Patrichists believe that opinions should be formed based on knowledge and not emotions, it stands to reason that the more knowledge one gains of an issue, the more complex that issue becomes, and the more one needs to think it through, possibly causing a change in perspective. In simpler terms, Patrichists are not blinded to one idea and one perspective only, but are always open to new ones. This is what makes them so powerful. Politicians cannot manipulate Patrichists, because politicians can never get a consensus on what a Patrichist may or may not be thinking about any one issue. Since Patrichists’ thoughts are individually and not grouped-based, that means that the only way any politician has a chance of getting the vote of some Patrichists, (though not necessarily all), is to tell them what he really thinks. Which no politician will ever do, of course, for fear of losing the surer votes of Liberals or Conservatives, or whoever he’s after who can be counted on to have a more predictable mindset.


4. Patrichists use the word ‘faith’ carefully. They never say they have “faith” in a politician, as though that politician is God. Yet, a Patrichist can have faith in their God, if they choose to believe in one. That’s right—some Patrichists believe in God, others don’t; but whether they do or don’t, they recognize that blind ‘faith’ in a politician is the way to loss of free thought and will, but faith in a God is an acceptable choice, as long as it harms no one. No matter what any religious person or any atheist will tell you, there is no clear-cut proof that any god exists or does not exist, there is only each individual’s idea of such. And because religion is an idea, a Patrichist respects every human being’s right to a different one. Even so, all Patrichists recognize that there exists good and evil, and that any killing done in the name of any idea of any religion is evil, pure and simple.
5. Lastly, one of a Patrichist’s main motivations in life is to leave every place she or he enters a little bit better than it was before. But, Patrichists’ thoughts are global when they think in terms of ‘place.’ A Patrichist counts the entire planet, not just one particular state or country, as the place to strive to make a positive difference.


So, that’s the entirety of Patrichism. Five very good points. I try my damndest to practice these every day. In fact, I’ve practiced Patrichism for so long, that I’ve earned a PhD. in it. “Dr. Davis”, that’s me.

Of course, my doctorate is self-proclaimed. How? Because ‘Patrichism’ is my very own ‘ism’ that I made up myself, my personal ‘ism’ by which I try my best to live. This should explain the match of the first six letters of this particular ‘ism’ to those in my first name.

Up until now, I’ve been the only member of my “Society of Patrichists.” But today, I’ve decided to begin awarding ‘honourary degrees in Patrichism’ to those who, by reading their blogs, I’ve come to believe follow (or, like me, try their best to follow) the principles of Patrichism.

Those who receive an honourary degree are under no obligation to accept it, of course. In fact, they can even refute it for any reason at all, and no hard feelings. But for those listed below who feel they have earned a degree in Patrichism and would like to accept it, I’ll happily send you your diploma via email, signed, sealed, and flourished for you to place on your office wall, with my very best wishes:

Diplomas in Patrichism
Diplomas in Patrichism

 

Honourary Bachelor’s Degree in Patrichism Awarded To (Alphabetically):

iliask.vox.com

lightchaser.vox.com

schoonerhelm.vox.com

shushnow.vox.com

All of these ‘Under Thirties’ above have the wonderful ability to think outside the box or group of circumstances they happen to be born into. They are all, in their own way striving to do something special with their lives. I highly recommend their blogs. They have wisdom beyond their years and always teach me something or make me think.


Honourary Master’s Degree of Patrichism Awarded To (Alphabetically):

headwaves.vox.com/

paxblog.vox.com

With all the madness going on in politics these days, reading these two, knowing they’re out there, thinking and caring, makes me sleep better at night.

Honourary Doctrate Degree in Patrichism:

petermcc.vox.com

You know, there just has to be another Dr. of Patrichism out there, and this one feels especially right because he discusses so many issues and he’s (I hope he won’t mind my telling ) even older than I, thus earning ‘experience’ points. I could have picked snowy938.vox.com, too of course, but last I heard he’d already had a reader declare him a ‘Snowy God.’ And being a god beats earning an honourary doctorate any day.

More honourary degree listings coming in future months. And for anyone on this list who wants to accept his/her diploma, on my honour as a Patrichist, I promise I will send you one. To those who accept, I guess I can say, ironically, “Welcome to the bunch!”

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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Social Satire, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Thank Heaven for X and Y (I Don’t Mean the Chromosomes)

August 4, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Hoboken-generation-y
Hoboken-generation-y

It’s good to be back. My garden, after weeks of neglect, is once again blooming. Having a garden is just like having a life. You have to attend to it every so often, pull out the weeds, expose it to more sunshine and nourishment where needed, in order for it to flourish. I also had a remarkable visit around my growing blog neighbourhood. It was impossible to leave comments everywhere, but I so enjoyed reading about everyone’s activities, seeing all the photos and artwork, hearing the music and musing over the poetry and stories. I’ve said it before —what an extraordinary group of people, what a wealth of talent we have at our fingertips every day. It sure beats reality TV by a long ways.

Here’s something else I discovered whilst reading. Generations X and Y will save not only humanity, but the planet Earth itself. They are politically-involved and astute, they’re compassionate and global-thinking, they are street-smart and tech-savvy, environmentally-focused, entrepreneurial and optimistic. They have endless imaginations and boundless enthusiasm. They embrace their lives and their loves. They’re not easily defeated by the state of the world the way we’ve older generations have left it, either. I’m really, really thankful that we Baby Boomers didn’t completely screw things up for them. And let’s face it— we’ve sure come close.

I don’t know what happened to many of us after we hit 40. We suddenly stopped worrying about our legacy to the younger generations, and instead focused on not getting wrinkles. We focus on our weight and our portfolios and not at all on our children and what they might be missing from their lives– our leadership, our support, our encouragement and most of all, our respect for who they are and who they want to become. There is that portion of us who are that selfish and self-absorbed. The word “parenting” to many of us is a verb no different than “networking,” “exercising,” “investing.” We expect our children to be reflections of our achievements, rather than individuals with needs and dreams of their own.


Then there’s the group of us who sit around in metaphorical rockers and shawls, worn-out, remembering our youth and our one ‘big claim’ to immortality—Woodstock—wondering what happened to it all. That portion of us sighs and says, “We were so young,” as though having any values at all besides a longing for long-term health care and social security benefits, is naïve foolishness that disappears with the onset of menopause and swelling prostate glands.


What a picture we present to young people of their future —shallowness or uselessness. No wonder so many of them feel anxious or depressed. And instead of addressing what they’re feeling, we quickly and remorselessly diagnose them—ADHD, bi-polar, social-anxiety disorder, etc. etc. Then we medicate them and continue with our heads in the sand, just waiting to die, hoping it will be quick and painless.

X_time-mag-generation-x
X_time-mag-generation-x


We let Gen X and Gen Y down. A good portion of us stopped worrying about wars when it would no longer be us specifically who had to stand in the way of the bullets.

I remember asking my husband about the invasion on Iraq, “Where are the musicians this time around? How come they’re not protesting?”


It was a fair question, I thought. Some of the same musicians from the 60’s and 70’s were still commanding huge audiences, so why were they not rallying as they’d done back then?


His to the point response made me cringe, “Volunteer army, Clear Channel.”

And even though the older generation retain most of the financial power in the world, we’re the ones whinging the most about rising fuel costs and real estate busts. Yet did we do anything to prevent either? Or were we as myopic as ever? Did we ever take the younger generations seriously as they protested and tried to educate us on what we were doing to the environment and to the economy? And ultimately, to them?


Furthermore, if I hear one more old fart professor bleat on about how hooked up Gen Y is to technology and how adversely it’s affecting his university classroom, I think I’ll hit him over the head with my new laptop that I’m just now figuring out how to use.

What alternatives have we left our young people? Where else can they find answers to their questions? They’ve come to us in the past and we haven’t helped them. So they‘re seeking guidance elsewhere, using technological advances as they should be used, for the most part—for the greater good. Oh, there are exceptions. There is the occasional young sociopath who wants to use YouTube to record the beating of a classmate. But the youth I encounter on a daily basis through VOX and through interacting with my own children is seeking knowledge and/or creating their art through the internet. They, like my unattended garden, are finding their own way to grow, but with just a little encouragement from us, they’d be able to thrive.

And those of us older folk who acknowledge them and embrace them, not only for what they are doing, what they are trying to accomplish, and for what they can teach us, are earning their respect. Yes, that’s right- earning it. (Read this blog to see what I mean.)
Youth asks us, with open hearts and open minds, to be both their mentors and their friends, and I for one, am eternally grateful to be invited to do so. Because like this man, this man, and this woman, (all admittedly over fifty) there still exists a portion of us of ‘a certain age’ who will go to our graves believing that idealism is not just for the young.

The flame of a visionary never flickers with time. In fact, it burns taller and steadier the closer it gets to the candle’s end.

(This post is dedicated to all my Gen X and Y neighbours, my sons, and my writers at Harlots Sauce Radio.)

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Friends and Relationships, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

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