"I'll take Death, and make it a double"

Just the other day my husband and I passed a Liquid Death truck for the first time. I did a triple-take and snapped a picture, all the while exclaiming to my husband (don't worry, he was doing the driving), "What was THAT? Who would name a beverage Death? Not very assuring for the consumer." 

So of course I looked up this bold product when I got home only to find that it is a wildly successful new beverage (hence the huge delivery truck we passed). Maybe these drinks are downright delicious, but I won't be ordering one. 

 I myself have grown tired--not to mention somewhat alarmed--at the growing popularity of death and damage in fashion and personal "style." Since when did a handshake with the Grim Reaper become something to celebrate ahead of time? Are we supposed to be growing more casual about dying as about so many other things?

 Don't get me wrong--it's all right to joke about death as we humans do about most serious things ("Two guys walk into a funeral parlor ..."). Humor helps us process and prepare for scary aspects of life.

But in general we're supposed to avoid death. That motivates us to keep living, to keep getting necessary things done in society and for our families, to enjoy more beautiful experiences that this life offers, and to grow in wisdom before we have to leave Earth. In other words, while we are alive we are meant to embrace life.

Death is monumental. We pass from one way of living into a totally different one, one most of us cannot picture clearly enough to feel completely comfortable with that mysterious crossing over. And we traditionally have little to no control over when death comes for us.

However, for those who deeply doubt the existence of an afterlife, death becomes terrifying, and no one likes to live terrified. I suppose the antidote for those who see nothing after death is to feign an embrace of it, almost to the point of mockery, and try to control its parameters. Some modern ways to do this involve:
--Decorating your clothing and even skin with skulls ("See! Death does not scare me!").
--Holding your own faux funeral, maybe on your birthday, as a sort of dress rehearsal, where you control everything from your gown to the refreshments and even get to hear the eulogies about yourself (read more about this in the New York Post article)
--Starting a beverage company that adopts death as a branding strategy

Once upon a time, skull and bone images meant something very concrete. A pirate ship of the late 1700s flew the skull-and-crossbones flag to announce that they were willing to kill you for a mere barrel of hard tack. The flag also shouted that they, the pirate crew, had no fear of death or judgment, so you could never tell what awful and reckless things they might just do. To wit, they deliberately inflicted pain on themselves with body piercings and tattoos. But today we apparently are expected to ignore the darkness of such symbols and treat them as mere emojis.

But death demands respect. It is bigger than you and more deeply meaningful than we can properly put into words. Consider saving your black wardrobe for important occasions and times of mourning, when people you love are suddenly gone--not for your every-single-day-of-the-week outfits. Take death seriously and give it the respect and distance it deserves until its time comes around, as it naturally will. 

In short, it comes down to preparing rather than posturing. That is no small task, and you have my best wishes.

 

Drag Queen Shows: The New Blackface

[First of all, let me mention that we are back home in northeast Florida. Let it suffice to say that Arizona did not work out for us. Who knew that an elevation of 5,000 feet can wreak havoc with us high-blood-pressure people? Or that they often let forest fires burn in the Arizona mountains, blanketing little towns with particulate that can revive a person's asthma after 40 years of dormancy? Ah, the things you don't know until you actually move all your kit and caboodle to some exotic place.]

Okay--Naples, Florida. Just the other day the city won a case brought against them by the never-resting ACLU on behalf of the group Naples Pride. As part of "Pride Month," these people wanted to entertain their town with a drag queen show outside in a public park. The City of Naples said no; as in past years, you'll have to do that show indoors and restrict it to adults. Now this makes some sense, especially given the overt sexuality displayed in a modern drag queen routine. 

But I see another towering problem with such performances. For what is a drag performance but an outlandish mockery of women? A person who is a man pretends to be something he certainly is not (a woman) with the help of heavy makeup, wigs, and harlot-style clothing; he then "entertains" the audience with an absurd impersonation of something approximating a female that is at best laughable but in fact disturbing and offensive.

Compare this to the now universally banned blackface routine. In a blackface show, a white person pretends to be of a race he is not (that is, black) by smearing his face and all visible skin with heavy black makeup, outlining his grinning mouth in bold white paint and donning a curly wig. He then struts or dances about the stage in grotesque imitation of some type of black person that simply does not exist--just as the bizarre rendering of a woman portrayed in drag queen shows is a complete mockery of real women.

I hear no one expressing outrage at these degrading caricatures of women. It is about time we did. I have written about this before but people don't seem to be catching on. Women are very special and complex creations. We come loaded with a challenging biology that demands extra attention each month and also makes us the bearers and caretakers of children to keep this race going. We are by nature teachers and nurses and the ones who keep track of birthdays and dreams and unspoken needs. These great and arduous tasks deserve honor and respect rather than the derision of a carnival side show. 

For a man--who labors under none of a woman's constraints and responsibilities--to play exaggerated dress-up and pretend to be a woman in the most sex-saturated and nonsensical way possible is a deep insult to all women. Permitting such shows makes women again the butt of the joke and denies them the respect that they richly deserve. It is time to shut down such public mockery, just as we did long ago with blackface. Who's with me?

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Photo by unknown photographer, source not available.