From: "Kathleen J. Kramer" Newsgroups: alt.music.counting-crows,alt.fan.courtney-love,alt.music.alternative,alt.society.generation-x,alt.music.pearl-jam,alt.fan.dirty-whores Subject: raise your hand if you're cool Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 18:52:21 -0500 Organization: Sponsored account, H&SS Dean's Office, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Message-ID: okay, keep those hands in the air. now, put your hands down if you think you're cool but know inside what a little dicky-head you are (think back to your high school days, you know, when you tortured truly cool people whom you now clone? and you clone them because they never became as insipid as you always will be, doing what you're told, fucking only girls with clean fingernails, telling a man to get his tonuge away from you because he smokes. i have no patience with this anymore, free me from parenthesis, let me ramble o'er amber waves of pain little amber bottles of prescription relief. oh no! look at me. one trip to congress and i'm spent. where do i start. oh, i've missed some of you. i have a wierd life. anyway, you know, well, it's warm again. for the past two days it's been freezing oh, i just want to bust a hole in the world, bring down the bullshit. but i feel this incredible joy knowing i have a chance to change things. so where to start. yes, sen. kennedy was there. (oh, i went to a roundtable discussion on raising the minimum wage. the mayor of baltimore was there. their city just raised their's to 6.10 an hour. isn't that excellent? anyway, so i got to go with one of the political groups i am now involved with. i do all the information stuff on the www for them now, it is so cool. getting voting records and all. for one group, i had to submit a resume. but the government will pay me to go to D.C. and lobby for them. it really is exciting for me. i couldnt' believe it was there. until i'd see the gilded ceiling. funny. you can smoke in the halls of congress. that is funny, eh? okay let's start with now. i feel like a completely different jo. so much stronger. but i lost my mind and was screaming at madge and was walking late at night through bad parts of pittsburgh listening to courtney love, feeling like i wanted to whip the shit out of something. i decided i wasn't going to do it to myself this time and got on a bus instead of walking up throught the hill district. which makes my neighborhood look like norman rockville. hey, norman rockville, for the name of a town, funny, eh? anyway, right now the sky is a tight blue, no clouds. but it's funny, it's so blue, like silverish, like a mirror and it looks like there are clouds broke free of the sky and are laying all over the grass as the snow melts. such a beautiful world it can be. but man, i feel so frustrated knowing how much better it could be. i feel so wild, like a caged animal. i wanna fight or fuck, the old fight or fuck mechanism. oh i'm being so blunt. but man. i'm so sick of bullshit, especially over sex. if men would act normal and not try to get sex, they'd get spanked every night. or maybe not. i am a bad jo with men. but they force you into a corner when they start their shit. oh well. i am always funny and nice but it's a drain. becuase i have to be funny and nice because if you wound a man's ego, he'll take sex whether you like it or not. or they get real violent. and, well, you know how funny i can be. i'm lucky i didn't get pounded more than i did. so i just try and avoid it. but man, my frustration levels are peaking. oh shit i swear to god i saw adam durtiz' evil twin lawyer cousin in D.C. yesterday. he had no dread locks but was wearing a gray barret and a long gray wool coat, but a cool one actually and shiny, shiny gucci shoes. i know the shoes because i locked eyes with the dude and swore to god i was looking right at adam and looked down because i thought i was having a real hallucination and when i looked up, he was gone. and of course, when i went to see where he had gone, a spilt a huge cup of water on my coat. we were in the food court of union station. which was right across from the russel building where we were, in 325 A, the caucus room. and secretery rice was there. but man, so it was cool and i know i'm a whore but my nipples were hard the whole time i was in the damn place. because it was so chilly. and intense and crazy and i kept looking at the red gold and blue ceiling and the carpet matched and was immaculate and i couldn't believe i was there. hadn't slept all night. so the white house is so damn small. fuuuunnnnnyyyy. i pictured this megahuge place. i'm glad it's small. anyway, there was no snow down there but it was still freezing when we got back here at 6:30. so i said i'd wait for a bus to go home (well to oakland to meet madge) and couldn't believe no one offered me a ride. so i was almost crying, waiting for a bus on business 22 and traffic and it was freezing and i didn't even know if a bus would ever come. it was horrible. ahhh...but then the bus...and then the counting crows and looking out the window. i love being on streets i've never been on. love looking at cute houses, and at night, you can see right into there lit homes. and some crazy looking dude who i loved immediatly got on the bus and i sat in the corner playing with my split ends, singing softly to myself so he could hear me and he got off the bus in this ritz neighborhood. funny. so then to madge to madge. drank in her little store, had a blast. oh, i was drinking jack daniels and started with a little coke and then just drank it straight up. no ice, nada. so i was in a wild mood. but i got so pissed at the show because megan was with these people who talk the meanest shit about me and it just really hurt. so i left. and i was listeing to courtney over and over "go on take everything take everything i want you to..." and i had my combat boots on and was walking like a million miles an hour, my boot's low hard thud, and it was cold and the wind blew tears in my eyes and i didn't even try to wipe them off, my fingers were freezing, i was so cold and refused to let the cold effect me so i unbuttoned my fucking coat. and was only wearing a real thin t-shirt that says (i am so funny) "if i don't get respect, i'll settle for fear" and "respect" is huge and stretched across my luscious pineapples. now what do you want me to do, your dishes? clean your car, bear your children from my ample loins? oh my, D.C., seeing adam duritz as a lawyer. it was traumatic. but it sent my heart a singin' whoever he was, he looked so much like him and was sooo cute i just was delirious. but then madge came home after i got home last night and i was screaming at her at the top of my lungs because i can't take being responsible for the bills and the laundry and and groceries and shopping and making sure we don't run out of toliet paper and cleaning and fixing and plants and garbage and snow shoveling grass cutting. man. i can't. so then i collapsed and was crying so hard telling her i was so sorry but so many people are brutal to me and it all just adds up 'till i can't take it. these people she was with didn't think it was right that i went to carnegie mellon with tax money. why couldn't i just go to a state school? i mean that is so brutal. i excelled at that shcool. cmu paid half of the 20K per year tuition. but it's okay for megan. so i was just, well usually when i know people are dicks, i just will still be congenial and say 'hi' and smile, but last night i couldn't do it. i just couldn't fucking do it and told madge. oh, so then i see dave losi who was in bob's band. but that was nice i guess. but he always was scared of me. anyway, so then this crazy man starts talking to me and i tell him my name and he knew who i was and reads me and he starts getting really loud telling me i'm crazy. and why....because of the shit i say about adam durtiz. and i need to date a normal man. and yeah, he just killed his parents because his older brother was always better than him. no, but he was headed in that direction, telling me about his brother on and on. man. man oh man. and he's telling me i'm crazy. it's scarey. but as i walked, as i moved under the power of my own feet made bold by courtney's excellent songs, i just knew i could not be killed. and i wanted to test the theory, walk down fifth avenue through the hill district, the whore district. and i sat on the bus with tears streaming out of my eyes and no expression on my face, blasting tunes in my head. oh, and my column, all kinds of people are calling, telling me how excellent they think it was. man. so maxine kumin and all these writers are in town for this awp convention so we'll see what comes of it. but the lawyer that the mon valley unemployed committee hired to help us 'in" loved me. so i'll be back there. well i'll be at the big NOW rally on april 9th. maybe i'll see adam the lawyer again. he was so fucking cute i thought i was going to die, shiny shoes or no shiny shoes. there should be a new sumptuary law regarding ponytails and ties though. you should not be allowed to "sport" both except under certain situations, job interviews, funerals, wedding, etc... but he was so excellent and locking eyes with him as he walked down the stairs, me poised against a trash can with a little black skirt on and milatary boots. in congress. i loved being there so much. hard nipples and all. so now look at me. no more. i used to think, and still do but to a lesser degree, that some self-doubt is essential to keep an open mind and to remain honest. no one ever totally is void of negative feelings aimed at self. anyway, i had too much. i re-read my column and thought man, it really, really is excellent. very touching. and i have to stop being so insecure. i have got to learn how to smile for the camera, i have to understand what it is i need to do and do it and quit worrying about stupid shit like selling out because i feel like i start selling out just thinking about it. i just can't see it happening if it hasn't happened already. but see, i*had* sold out, was born again and did what i was told and got a permed and did my nails and wore mary kay. and i was born again and again and again and couldn't stop getting high. but finally did when i realized god wasn't going to do it for me. anyway, there really are many caring people out there and i have to remember and let that make me strong. i'm going all the way and refuse to mess around. i want my salary doubled at my paper or i'm going to be getting a job at another paper where i can make money until i can get a book deal. what i want to do is write books. books, to spend months in another reality and get to share it with the world. a land in my mind. i *love* that, long, long, long, such a long, long form. very good for jo. short stories are too weird. i always get to the end and am like 'yeah, and..." but i do love good poems. okay, i have tons of mail and have www page things to get to so, well hey, are there some new folks out there? feel free to heap complements on me but i can't promise to be like someone who would be able to write all the time. the rest of you just dig the trip into my skull, silly little voyeurs. of course i love knowing you're watching. it makes my nakedness all the more alluring to myself as well, you know? and i know most of you are men, computer programmers. but civilians are coming on line at an alarming rate. and i know really cool women think i'm hilarious. hey, i keep losing wieght. i can fit into my old clothes. and am now what i weighed when i met that bastard bob. man, hey courtney love fans (but if you're reading with a puckered nose going 'huh?' well just keep wondering) anyway, me and madge sing someday, you will weigh what i weigh (you know, instead of 'you will ache like i ache'?) okay i gotta go. oh yeah, pearl jam fans, i saw some girl working at the uni-mart wearing a pearl jam shirt on when i went in to get a slim jim and told her i would say 'hi.' man, do you know that they don't make eckeridge cheese dogs anymore? and i got like boil-in-a-bag indian food in D.C., this lamb curry that should have been served on taost with a slice of pickle, you know? why do rich college students look like they want to be poor? but then they fucking hate welfare recipients and drug addicts, anyone out of control. being poor is a state of constant chaos. why don't people see that? i swear to you, i get to do public speaking, meet senators, secretery rice, man, i am so lucky and i swear i will honor my providence by changing as much as the world as i can, by changing it more than it ever dreamed, more that it wanted to. because i believe we all know in our hearts to be nice. i have to show how altruism is the highest form of service to self, you know? okay, well, generation ex, i'll be back after i write my next editorial about you guys and the contract on america. i am really pissed that you all don't walk your talk. bye and thanks for reading, kathy jo aw, and, well, i really miss my son. it's not something i can focus on, i mean i feel so powerless knowing i'm not taking care of him. and i miss smile and funny wonderfulness and spirit and love and angst and joy. i just miss him. man. but it is a new life. and i lift my glass to it instead of cursing it. that doesn't mean shit don't hurt. man. people think i'm heartless if i don't collapse. well i do collapse. but i get right back up. go rocky jo