IKEA Monkey

Being a good father is attracting attention these days. Consider: A&E Network plans a new reality show this fall about dads who work at home, called "Modern Dads." The Fox network has ordered a new series co-written by Seth MacFarlane called "Dads." NBC's "Parenthood," which features some dads at home, has been renewed for a fifth season.

CHICAGO—After seeing yet another anemic, lifeless display in the stands, sources confirmed Tuesday that frustrated Chicago Cubs players began heckling the team’s lackluster fans at Wrigley Field.

Jesus Christ, Christians. You know this whole ban-everything-that-makes-my-penis-confused thing is not going to pan out for you in the long run, right? I mean, respectfully, you can keep marching around and making YouTube videos about carnal wickedness, but the sticking point you're always going to hit is that people are, like, really into carnal wickedness. Like really really into it. Like a lot. (Surprise! EVEN YOU.) So your attempts to shut down pornography and ban spaghetti straps (better ban spaghetti too, because SLIPPERY SLOPE) are a pretty colossal waste of time – time that you could be using to, I don't know, feed homeless babies? Be nice to prostitutes? Other stuff on that to-do list Jesus left for you? (And no, I do not mean all Christians. I mean the ones that I mean, and you know you know the ones that I mean.)

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As part of his insane “Man In The Moon” event in Salt Lake City that will save America yet again this weekend, Glenn Beck has some art for you all to enjoy. It’s hardly the earth-shattering game-changing revelation that he promised within 24 hours, three weeks ago, but it’s still art.

We like Art, especially if we call it “ort” like Molly Ivins did. It’s purdy. And after you visit this collection of what TheBlaze pitches as “Stunning Paintings Intended to Restore Americans’ Confidence in God, Morality and the Declaration of Independence,” we are certain that you will agree: Utah produces Ort like Texas produces pregnant men. There’s just so much to say about this gallery of inspirational schlock, starting with, “Nice try, guys, but you’re still no Jon McNaughton. This piece, “Covenant Makers,” by Mike Malm, comes close, but while it’s McNaughtonesque in its deployment of emotional images and totally subtle symbolism, it lacks the bugfuck craziness that makes McNaughton without peer in the Wingnut Art world. Buckle up, because we are about to submit you to several wastes of perfectly good black velvet.

To start with, we should probably mention that this is the second half of diptych, and the two should be considered together. The first half of “Covenant Makers,” she is here:

We are going to take a wild guess that this piece’s theme is “One Nation Under God,” especially since that’s what the slideshow insists it is. You got soldiers in each, and all sorts of iconic True American things, like a legless Kevin Spacey taking the oath of office in the middle of a graveyard, a soldier advancing on the Supreme Court while carrying a 60 pound pack as well as a midget firefighter who’s holding an injured child, and the lady from Reno 911 inducting a boy into Furrydom. And on the other side of the picture, you have giant colonial soldiers about to clumsily knock down a church steeple while NON-GAY Boy Scouts go on a hike to help a white family pray for more white babies. This, to us, is America. Glenn Beck (? — we assume it’s meant to be Glenn, since this is his show?) says he “loved the haunting eyes of the child,” possibly because they remind him of the girl he has yet to deny murdering in 1990.

This next one is called “God Protects the Covenant,” and is by Lee Griffiths. The commentary says that the statue of George Washington represents the legacy of all the miracles that led to America whuppin’ the British, which is a running theme of the presentation. But the garden shows that the ”legacy is alive and growing but neglected and parched, [and] the storm is representative of the intense national storms we currently face.” If you look closely, you’ll see that the lighting is Benghazi and the clouds are made of IRS application forms being given extra scrutiny in Cincinnati.

Jon McNaughton probably can’t sue Albin Veselka over this painting titled “The American Covenant” — hey, do you see a trend in these titles? — because this Jesus is in the air and isn’t actually handing anything to the Founders, also the document is the Declaration of Independence, which unlike that filthy pagan Constitution in McNaughton’s painting at least has the decency to thank Jesus in it at least 97 times.

This Glen Edwards painting of Benedict Arnold as Judas simultaneously makes us want to read Oscar Wilde and go burn down a synagogue.

And finally, one more miracle, complete with screenshot of its actual catalogue description, Warren Neary’s painting of General O’Hare from “Great Brinton” surrendering to the Americans after his crotch exploded.

[TheBlaze / The Online Covenant America Diorama]

Doctors sterilized nearly 150 female inmates in the California prison system from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, with many of these women reporting that they were coerced into receiving the surgery, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

A review of state documents reveals that doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation may have performed as many as 250 total tubal ligations dating back to the 1990s, according to the center.

More from CIR:

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Editor's note: Each Saturday morning we bring you a Sunday Brunch recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

[Photograph: Sydney Oland]

Grits are one of my favorite breakfast staples. Here, I've added eggs and a quick sauté of tomatoes and bacon for a quick and easy brunch. If you'd like, you can prepare it in individual serving bowls so that each guest gets their own dish—it makes for a striking presentation, (and makes serving much more simple).

Tomatoes add sweetness and acidity to the creamy grits and smoky bacon. If you have a few peppers in your fridge, they make a great addition to the mix. Best of all, the whole thing's ready to be eaten in about a half hour.

About the author: Sydney Oland lives in Somerville, Mass. Find more information at sydneyoland.com (or read eatingnosetotail.com)

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Charles Saatchi announced on Sunday that he intends to divorce his wife, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who, only four weeks ago, was photographed being violently grabbed around the throat by Saatchi.

In a statement released to the Daily Mail, Saatchi says that he and Lawson had grown "estranged" over the last year, and that he was "disappointed" when Lawson did not publicly defend him after photos of the alleged assault went public:

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I'm pretty sure that we as a society have just officially beat our own record of "youngest age to expose a child to daft and absurd gender policing." We've done it, guys. We have all contributed to a world in which something like "the baby wig" can exist.

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Photographer: Alright, Vin, let me get a shot of you eating spaghetti while you’re on stilts.
Vin Diesel: Of course.
Photographer: Get in there, Harvey.
Harvey: OK.
Photographer: You guys ready?
Vin Diesel: Ready.
Harvey: Ready.
Photographer: OK! Hmmmmm…
Harvey: You got, the lens cap is on.
Photographer: Oh shoot. Haha. Thanks Harvey. Sorry, Vin.
Vin Diesel: No problem.
Photographer: 3…2…Cheese!
Vin Diesel: Haha. You got me.
Photographer: Your eyes are closed.
Vin Diesel: Whoops, my bad.
Photographer: OK, ready?
Vin Diesel: Ready.
Photographer: You look great, by the way.
Vin Diesel: Thanks.
Photographer: Very strong.
Vin Diesel: Thank you.
Photographer: Healthy.
Vin Diesel: Thank you.
Photographer: Handsome.
Vin Diesel: OK.
Photographer: I think we got it.
Vin Diesel: Did you get it?
Photographer: Yup, got it.
Vin Diesel: Great.
Photographer: Thanks for your patience, Vin. My mom is going to love this photo of you on stilts eating spaghetti.

(Image via LindseyWeber.)

Here’s a cautionary tale in what can happen when setting off your own fireworks goes wrong. [ more › ]

Weddings are such complicated business. Entitled people want cash, not gifts! Or, as this terrible Facebook message from a bride/horrible mean person demonstrates, sometimes people (perplexingly) do not want cash. Or at least, they do not want a paltry amount of cash. Like $100. $100 is not enough for some people.

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Mike Diana has been drawing depraved stuff for about 40 years. (He's 44 now, and we figured it took him about four years from his birth to learn how to walk and use his hands and stuff.) His work is funny, strange, shocking, and deals with many modern topics like sex, violence, drugs, and religion—you can find a lot of it in his comic, Boiled Angel. Mike's main claim to fame comes from back in the early 90s, when a Florida prosecutor saw some of Mike's work and decided that he might have committed a murder. Mike got investigated by the FBI, had his house destroyed by the fire department, was blamed for a string of serial killings (seriously), and was sued for about six times more than his worth. He was the first artist to ever be convicted of obscenity in the US. After all that, he kept on drawing.

Tonight Superchief Gallery at Culturefix will present Mike Diana’s new book of comics, America, along with an exhibition of the work he's done over the past 20 years. On Thursday, in celebration of the country that has gone to such great length's to suppress his creativity, Mike will be having a party at the gallery—there'll be live drawings and he'll sign stuff for the masses. Come down and see what all the fuss is about. We would show you more of Mike's pictures, but we don't want to get in trouble, too.

Mike Diana's America Book Release and Independence Day Party
July 3-4
Superchief Gallery
9 Clinton Street, New York City
 

 So, it’s blistering summer in the US, and Sandra wore all black and leather and stuff to her premieres; it’s winter in Australia and Sandy showed up looking like an Old Navy commercial for a July tunic sale. Having said that, this is actually a very NICE Old Navy tunic, the likes of which they Read More ...

If you watch a TV show aimed at the ladies, you most likely saw 15 yogurt ads, three for Diet Coke, and then a few telling you to lose weight, frumpy fattykins. Because that's what the ladies like to hear, right?

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Here's Sam the Eagle, to wish you a happy (and safe!) Fourth of July! [ more › ]

From Sweets

[Photograph: Miana Jun]

Looking like little pansy-sprinkled purses, these galettes from Cooking With Flowers combine tart rhubarb with flower-flavored sugar. They bake up individually, so you don't have to share.

Tips: The same tip holds true for every recipe in the book; purchase pansies from a purveyor that has organic blooms, or ones otherwise not treated with pesticides. Also, the recipe calls for either homemade or store-bought pie crusts; go homemade!

Tweaks: The second step of the recipe says to toss in a "nonreactive bowl". Here, you're best off using glass or ceramic. Reserve a spoonful of pansy sugar to sprinkle on top while baking, giving a nice crunchy crust.

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Pansy Rhubarb Galettes »

As always with our Bake the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Cooking with Flowers to give away.

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The case against Public Marriage Proposals is, for the most part, a case against making a private and intensely personal decision public — turning it into a spectacle rather than a decision based on love or the joining of two houses for political gain (Game of Thrones). (Is that what happens in Game of Thrones?) (I just started watching it and there are so many characters and they all look the same and I only listen to what they say about 1/4 of the time. It’s a show about marriage and puppies, right?) There is no such case against Maid of Honor toasts because Maid of Honor toasts are, uh-no doy, public already, and don’t include putting someone on the spot about whether or not they want to look at you for the rest of their life while you and your friends dance to Bruno Mars in the nightly Disney World parade that is being broadcast live on ABC or whatever. BUT SURELY THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF CASE TO BE MADE AGAINST THIS SPECIFIC MADE OF HONOR TOAST, IN WHICH THIS NICE LADY REPLACES ALL OF THE WORDS TO EMINEM’S “WITHOUT ME” WITH WORDS ABOUT HER SISTER AND HER HUSBAND?!

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When it snows, it snows kitten snowflakes from heaven.

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Full disclosure: I am a fan of the humble grilled hot dog and will ingest it on sight in  matter of seconds. But if you’re lucky enough to have a grill it could be time to upgrade from your standard meaty fare, lest you get stuck in a cooking rut and start ignoring your outdoor equipment altogether. Thank goodness the Internet has provided more than enough food fodder to alleviate even the worst grill fatigue this summer.

We’re sure plenty of our readers are culinarily crafty in their own right, but for those of you who need a little help thinking outside the realm of meats and basic veggies, we’ve rounded up a bunch of mouth-watering ideas. Warning: If you’re not eating lunch this list might produce a rumble in your tumble.

Stick the word “grilled” in front of each of these and voila, summer eats:

1. Grilled Polenta & Balsamic Mushrooms
2. Breakfast Pizza
3. Clams with Herb Butter
4. Cabbage Wedges with Spicy Lime Dressing
5. Guacamole
6. Cast-Iron Honey Cornbread
7. Shrimp Cocktail
8. Eggplant and Olive Pizza
9. Pineapple
10. Watermelon and Feta Skewers
11. Grilled Cheese Wheel
12. Grilled Romaine Salad with Blue Cheese

I am powerless in the face of a grilled cheese wheel.

Baby-having time is a time of mixed emotions for most families. This is because they are excited about becoming parents (or becoming parents again, as the case may be), worried about preparing in time for the baby (or babies) and sad about the fact that Americans spend more per baby than just about any industrialized country but get poorer outcomes.  See, American babies cost anywhere from $4,000 to $45,000 for a complication-free delivery, depending on which insurance company you have.

Our nephew, for example, cost around $7,000 in copays and $30,000 in hospital bills, making him a very expensive baby who is only appreciating with every doctor visit. Can any of you beat that? Probably, which is sad.

Anyway, let’s catch up with this via the New York Times, which  accidentally filed this article in the “Health” section rather than where it really belongs,  the “Money” section:

Ms. Martin, 31, and her husband, Mark Willett, are both professionals with health insurance, [but] her current policy does not cover maternity care…

When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. “It was unreal,” Ms. Martin said. “I was like, How could you not know this? You’re a hospital.”

What a silly lady! For some reason she didn’t know that insurance companies, not hospitals or doctors, set the price of care. And since she had no insurance company to set the price of care on her behalf, she and her husband were given the greatest gift of all: getting the best price for care in what seems to be a highly unregulated, for-profit marketplace. This is why our health care system is a model for the rest of the world, except for backwards nations where “patient care” seems to take priority over “return on investment”:

…New mothers in France and elsewhere often remain in the hospital for nearly a week to heal and learn to breast-feed, while American women tend to be discharged a day or two after birth, since insurers do not pay costs for anything that is not considered medically necessary.

Only in the United States is pregnancy generally billed item by item… There are separate fees for the delivery room, the birthing tub and each night in a semiprivate hospital room, typically thousands of dollars. Even removing the placenta can be coded as a separate charge.

Maybe this is why French people are such effeminate losers, and American babies kick so much ass. We maximize profit!

After her daughter was born five years ago, Dr. Marguerite Duane,  [a former gynecologist who is now an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown] was flabbergasted by the line items on the bills, many for blood tests she said were unnecessary and medicines she never received….

Though she delivered [her second child] with a midwife 12 minutes after arriving at the hospital and was home the next day, the hospital bill alone was more than $6,000, and her insurance co-payment was about $1,500…“Most insurance companies wouldn’t blink at my bill, but it was absurd — it was the least medical delivery in history,” said Dr. Duane, who is taking a break from practice to stay home with her children. “There were no meds. I had no anesthesia. He was never in the nursery. I even brought my own heating pad. I tried to get an explanation, but there were items like ‘maternity supplies.’ What was that? A diaper?”

Yes, probably! Your Wonkette has been charged around $20 for a bag filled with gauze. But we got off easy, since our friend Chris was charged $25 for a single Tylenol and our other friend Jim was charged $25 for a Kleenex (we think. He still hasn’t figured out exactly what that charge was for.)

But thank goodness we live in a free-market society and not in a socialist hellhole like France, or Sweden. Our babies are more expensive probably because they are BETTER and our women need less aftercare because they are so much tougher, most likely, right?

We polled our friends, and the most expensive baby we could find was actually our nephew, the aforementioned little whippersnapper that cost around $7,000 in copays plus around $30,000 in hospital bills. Can any of you in the commentariat beat that? Who has the most expensive baby? Remember, “expensive” is code for “better!”

[NYT]

I KNEW IT. I knew you flat fluffy dicks were up to zero good. New research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that refined carbohydrates (like white sugar, white flour, corn syrup, and your dirty mistress PANCAKES) trigger intense cravings in the brain not unlike those that drug addicts experience. Awesome. Great. Thanks again, food.

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Childbirth, typically a pretty straightforward (in-and-out, you might say) procedure, costs a staggering amount of money in the United States because pregnant women, uninsured or otherwise, are billed item by overpriced and often unnecessary item. Meanwhile, citizens in other developed countries enjoy the same access to high-tech care as we do for a fraction of the price — and record lower infant and maternal death rates. American patients have no agency to stop rising costs when they're forced to pay up in order to procreate.

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Next time you’re watching a college graduation, as you look out over the sea of caps and gowns, make sure you notice the ball and chain most graduates are wearing as they march onstage to receive their diplomas. That’s student loan debt, which at over $1 trillion tops credit card debt in the U.S. today. The average burden is $28,000, but add in their credit cards and they’re graduating with an average of $35,000 in debt. It’s no wonder that people who’ve paid off their student loan debt are 36 percent more likely to own homes than those who haven’t, according to new research by the One Wisconsin Now Institute and Progress Now.

What kind of society sends its young people from higher education into adulthood this way? I’m aware I’m only talking about those lucky enough to go to college, when roughly one-third of high school graduates don’t – but if this is the way we treat our relatively lucky kids, the rest of them don’t have a prayer. For many, the school to prison pipeline functions much more efficiently than the school to college one; California is one of at least 10 states that now spends more on prison than education (all education, not just higher education). According to the Federal Reserve Bank, two-thirds of college graduates leave with some debt, and 37 million Americans are repaying a student loan right now.

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Photo by C_Pichler, via Flickr.

I only had to walk one avenue, but in New York City one avenue block can feel like a very long distance.

It was a little after one in the morning and I’d just done a show at the UCB Theater at the corner of 26^th Street and Eighth Avenue. I had to make it from Eighth to Seventh and I would be a half block from the one train stop I needed to start my journey home. I’d performed at that theater for a decade. I’d walked that block thousands of times. There wasn’t much to it. A few quiet restaurants, a parking lot, the entrance to an underground S&M club, and not much else.

I’d been on that block late at night so many times that it was easy for me to sense when something was wrong.

I first noticed the man was following me before I even finished crossing Eighth Ave. He’d been slouching on the ground along with a few other homeless people in front of the Duane Reade on the corner. There were a few of these guys who made this corner their stomping grounds, and I’d never felt threatened by them at all. But on this night, as I shuffled east across the avenue, I saw one of the guys stand up, look in my direction, and step towards me. This guy had been sitting apart from the gang of drunks. He’d been using them for camouflage. He wasn’t of their tribe, he rose out above them, and he made me a target. I felt it from half an avenue away.

I picked up my pace and glanced back as he turned the corner. He saw that I was hustling and sped up as well. I abruptly stopped, looking into the window of a closed down restaurant, pretending to read their menu. He stopped too, and pretended to be looking into the window of the shuttered business he was standing in front of.

Fuck, I thought to myself. He isn’t just trying to mug me. He’s waiting for me to get someplace specific.

Is there someone else waiting halfway down the block? My mind raced. Maybe they’re trying to trap me in? I looked to my right, but couldn’t see anyone in the darkness. Do I cross the street and double back to eighth? Do I try to find safety and comfort inside the S&M club? When an unexpected 1 AM visit to an S&M club feels like the safest possible option, you know something has gone wrong with your night.

I resumed my walk, going at a very slow pace—by any reasonable measure, in New York City when someone walks as slow as I was, people behind them will pass them. He didn’t. I was positive—there was someplace or someone this guy was herding me towards, and if I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the situation before I stumbled upon that trap, I was in deep trouble.

I walked fast and heard the guy speed up behind me. My options were running out. I was alone with a predator in the middle of a dark and sleepy block in New York City. I hadn’t turned back in time. I hadn’t ducked into the S&M club in time. I was alone with this guy and his intentions.

That’s when I saw her sleeve sticking out of the window of a parked car: her uniformed sleeve.

I saw that the woman in the driver’s seat of that unmarked parked car was a cop, and I leapt in her direction.

“I don’t want to startle you, ma’am,” I hissed in a whisper. “But that guy halfway down the block is following me.”

“Are you positive?” she asked, glancing back at him in her rear view mirror.

“One hundred percent,” I replied.

“OK,” she smiled. She then reached up, flicked a switch, and a loud siren erupted from the car, shattering the silence of the sleepy block.

The guy turned and sprinted.

“Have a nice night,” she smiled. I glanced down the block nervously. “I’ll keep my eye on you.”

Cops are everywhere in New York City. Cars drive by every few minutes. Uniforms stand nonchalantly at street corners. Anyone who’s ever been around an emergency in Manhattan realizes that there are plainclothes officers on these streets walking past us more than we ever realize.

Cops in New York City don’t have the best reputation. It’s a fast paced city and they deal with a lot, and many people have seen lots of cops interact with the public utilizing what can be gently called “not the best customer service.” The many highly publicized abuses of power by police officers over the years don’t help many NYC citizens trust boys in blue. From what I can tell, most New Yorkers don’t hate cops, but they don’t love them, and generally look towards them with a healthy respect for what they do and an omnipresent fear that they’ll ever have to deal with them personally in any way.

I’ve had a few encounters with cops in this town. The above was by far the most pleasant. Others have ranged from strange to terrifying.

When I lived in Woodside, my apartment was off of Roosevelt Avenue. If you’ve never explored Roosevelt Avenue at night, I sincerely encourage you to hang out for a night along it in the Jackson Heights/Woodside stretch. That area is one of the most diverse in the whole city—Little India buts up against Little Manila, which heads down Roosevelt Avenue into the Irish area. But at night, the Hispanic residents of the neighborhood take over Roosevelt Ave. and it’s beautiful. The 7 Train rides above dozens of street food carts, where little old ladies make the best arepas you’ve ever tasted and you can buy perfect tamales out of stolen shopping carts.

It’s a wonderful, alive scene but it can also be intimidating. There are numerous bars where ladies in bikinis will dance with you for a dollar. They’re not strip clubs per se. They’re comfort bars originally aimed at giving migrant workers companionship in remote locations, they’ve continued to spring up in areas with high illegal immigrant populations. The sidewalks of Jackson Heights are often littered with business cards advertising prostitution services, and it’s not uncommon to walk past a corner where a man will offer to sell you a counterfeit social security card. I list none of this out of judgment; it’s just stuff I’ve seen and that I bring up to note that Roosevelt Avenue has a hidden and intimidating side.

My schedule as a performer often meant late night walks down Roosevelt Avenue from the Jackson Heights station to my house in Woodside. One evening I was walking home with my headphones on and was in that tired, hazy state one enters when walking the same route they walk a dozen times a week. I was off in my own world, on autopilot, just making my way home.

But my routine was smashed when a cop car careened over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and straight at me. The car screeched to a halt and turned a spotlight on me. I threw my back against the front window of the El Sitio Cuban restaurant and instinctively threw my hands up. My headphones tumbled from my ears and I could hear the click as the cop turned on his PA address system.

“Are you Chris Gethard?” he blared over his loudspeaker.

“What?” I shouted. “Yeah. That’s me.”

There was a long pause.

“I saw you do stand up once. You’re really funny,” the cop continued.

“OK,” I said. There was a long pause. “Thank you.”

“Stand up seems really hard,” the loudspeaker blared at me. “I don’t think I’d have the balls to do it.”

“It’s pretty intimidating,” I admitted, “but when it goes well, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

“That’s cool,” the loudspeaker responded. “What the fuck are you doing on Roosevelt Avenue at night?”

“I live on 67th Street,” I informed him.

“Oh shit,” the loudspeaker laughed. “You should take the 7 to 69^th Street at night. Roosevelt Avenue can get kinda rough. Lots of bars.”

“I know,” I shouted into the light. “The 7 was just taking too long, so I took the E.”

“I saw a white guy on Roosevelt,” the loudspeaker informed me, “and I was like Is he looking for pussy or drugs?”

“Neither,” I said. “I promise. Just heading home.’

“Cool,” the loudspeaker said. “Good luck with the stand up. I give you a lot of credit.”

The car backed off of the sidewalk and into the street, then drove off. I was left knowing that at least one cop whose face I’ve never seen is a fan of my work.

While that was jarring, it wasn’t a truly scary experience with the NYPD. I’ve only had one of those.

It was 2002, and I’d just graduated college. Strangely enough, four other performers at the UCB graduated that same month. Three of us were from Rutgers, one from NYU, and another from Hofstra—we all decided to throw a joint party.

Comedians will find any excuse to drink, and our mutual college graduation was a good one. Things went real late, and at three in the morning, I was actually one of the first ones to leave my own party. I told my friends Tarik and Katie that I was driving back to Rutgers and they should say their goodbyes. I headed outside, in need of fresh air after a long night of sweating and drinking with other people in their early 20s.

As I made my way onto the street, a guy off to my right stutter stepped, turned, then quickly made his way around the corner.

That’s weird, I thought, that guy near my car was being shady.

A few minutes later, Katie made her way outside.

“Tarik’s not out here yet?” she asked. I shook my head no. “Cool, I get shotgun.”

We sat in the car, waiting for our third friend, windows down since we were both overheated from the party. We were talking and I looked in the rear view, noting that a car was very slowly driving west up 22^nd Street.

Then it occurred to me that 22^nd Street runs east. Before I could process what was happening, I heard a car door slam.

Then I felt a gun push up against my head, just behind my right ear.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move,” a voice commanded me.

“I won’t,” I said. I looked straight ahead. I could hear Katie breathing heavy next to me.

“Whose fucking car is this?!” the voice barked.

“It’s my car,” I said.

“Don’t fucking lie,” the voice commanded.

I don’t know how I managed to stay calm. “I’m not lying,” I said. “It’s my car. I promise.”

“If you’re lying, you’re in real fucking trouble,” the voice continued. “I’m a cop, don’t fuck around.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said.

“Thank God?”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I thought you were carjacking me.”

“Don’t play fucking games,” the cop said, exasperated, pushing my head forward with the gun.

“I’m not playing any games, I swear!” I told him.

“OK. License and registration then. And nothing funny,” he said. “Lady, you get out of the car.”

Katie got out.

“My registration is in my glove compartment,” I said. “Is it OK if I reach for it?”

“It’s fine,” the cop said. I leaned away from the gun, but he kept it trained on me.

I produced my license and registration.

“This is my car,” I said again as he looked them over.

“Now this I don’t fucking get,” the cop said. “A neighbor said he saw a guy breaking into a black Nissan parked in this exact spot.”

I thought for a minute.

“Fuck, I saw that guy,” I said. “I didn’t realize he was breaking into my car.”

“Huh?”

“When I came out here a guy ran away from my car,” I said. “He must have been breaking into it. Then a neighbor called the cops. Then I scared him off. Then I sat down in the car. Then you pointed a gun at my head, because you thought I was him. It makes sense now.”

The cop laughed.

“Wait,” he said. “If you saw somebody being weird and running away from your car, how come you didn’t call it in?”

“Honestly?” I said. “It’s New York City, man. I figured he was just taking a piss on it.”



@ChrisGethard

Previously - Learning About Humanity on Public Transportation

 

One of my cartoons that, apparently, make me a less credible witness to my own rape.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one out of six American women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. I am one of those women. I don’t think my story is particularly rare or special. It happens all the time—according to RAINN, a rape occurs in the US every two minutes. And just like 97 percent of rapists, my attacker walked free. I would like to share my personal account of what it is like to file a rape accusation, so if you haven’t gone through the process, you can learn about all the fun that comes with it. (I’m sure a lot of people, unfortunately, already have a pretty good idea of what it’s like.)

I’ll start at the very beginning: In early October of 2010, I went to meet my friends at a bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It was around 10 PM. There was a guy hanging out in my little cluster of people who I wrongly assumed was a friend of my friends. He was socializing pretty well with the group, as if he knew a few of us, and I didn’t give it a second thought. I was drunk. There was some cocaine use going on. While I was outside smoking a cigarette, the guy came out for a smoke too, so we talked. I didn't flirt with him—I don’t really know how to flirt, and anyway, I wasn’t attracted to this guy in the slightest. He was about five nine with a thin yet muscular build and looked like he might be of Hispanic or Italian descent. Later, I’d describe him to the cops that way.

There was a disconnected look in his eyes, and at first I figured he was just shy and trying to connect desperately to others through drugs, as many people do. He didn't flirt with me either, nor did he show any romantic or sexual interest in me. He did ask me if I wanted to do a bump of coke in his car, rather than waiting in line for the bathroom inside. His car was right in front of us, and even though I was nervous, I climbed in. As soon as the doors were shut, he locked the doors and started the car. I demanded to be let out, and as he started driving, I told him to turn back and that my friends were waiting for me. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m turning back,” with a stoic expression carved into his face. He didn’t turn back. I kept asking where he was taking me, and soon he stopped responding.

He brought me into his spotlessly clean and creepy apartment where porn was already playing on multiple monitors placed around the room. I told him repeatedly that I didn’t want to have sex with him and that I wanted to go back to my friends. There was no ambiguity about the situation at all. I spent a lot of time pushing him off me. He threatened to kill me. He punched me. He pulled my hair when I tried to get away. Every time I told him to stop, he slapped me in the face. He repeatedly called me a "bitch" and a "whore." He ordered me to shut the fuck up. I ended up begging for my life. I even offered him money if he would just please not hurt me. The worst part of the ordeal was having to look at the massive “666” tattoo on his lower abdomen. I ran away as soon as I felt I had the opportunity to do so. He chased after me.

I didn’t really know what to do about the whole thing. I was scared to go to the police because it’s common knowledge that rape victims are often treated like shit, especially if they aren’t as virtuous as the Virgin Mary. I knew I’d be made to feel guilty about my intoxication, I knew I'd be asked about my misguided decision to willingly get into the car, and I already felt guilty and stupid about those things. A friend of mine convinced me that reporting it would be the right thing to do. Her advice was to look “as broken as possible. Don’t wear black eye makeup or dress stylish like you usually do.”

Now, I think I look like I’m about 12 years old without makeup, and it makes me feel naked, but I went to the police station looking sad and makeup-less about 24 hours later. The cops were nice and cool about the whole thing as I filed a report, then I went to the hospital and got a rape kit. Afterward, I was interviewed by a detective who kept asking me about what I was wearing at the time and who told me that this case would probably never make it anywhere because I was intoxicated. Instead of focusing on what was done to me, most of his questions focused on why I didn’t fight back harder and run away sooner. The answer to both was because I was afraid and operating on a kind of autopilot—I never imagined anyone would accuse me of failing to get away.

I went to see the same detective at the Special Victims Unit (the division that deals with rape) a few days later to look through pictures of convicts on their database. I spent hours scanning photo after photo of criminals to see if I could spot my guy. The detective was extremely discouraging about it, saying that it was a waste of time. He kept commenting to his buddies about how I looked like so-and-so from some other police unit—I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment or an insult but my intuition was telling me it was the latter. I was probably being sensitive, but I really wasn’t happy about having my looks talked about, since I was literally searching for my rapist. I could barely take care of basic hygiene needs at the time, let alone look nice for the cops, and I told him to please stop talking about my looks. He replied that he was doing me a favor by humoring my iffy rape case, and that if I continued to give him attitude he would just drop it.

A few days later, I got a call from a much nicer detective who was taking over my case—it had become an investigation into multiple rape incidents. Through my description of my rapist’s tattoo, the SVU was able to not only figure out who he was, but also link him to two other women who had been sexually assaulted. Because each incident was months apart, my new detective was convinced that this man was a serial rapist. He seemed to have an m.o. that increased in viciousness and intensity each time. The perp was arrested, and I chose him in the police lineup. During this time, I talked a lot to one of the other girls, who looked like a dark-haired version of me. She even had the same mole above her lip as I do, and like me, she didn’t know his name, just knew that damn tattoo. She had a boyfriend at the time of her assault, and he broke up with her because he thought she had cheated and made up the whole rape claim out of guilt. That dark-haired girl and I testified before a grand jury, and they felt there was enough evidence to move forward with a trial. The third girl, who had filed a complaint months prior, just wanted to move on with her life and skipped the whole process.

Meanwhile I had to deal with the ramifications of my rape that didn’t have anything to do with the cops or the courts. I initially only told a few people I trusted about what happened—I wanted to keep the situation on the down-low, since I was worried people would react in all kinds of ways that would make me uncomfortable. Well, that didn’t work out. Within a few days 60 or 70 people knew, and nobody wanted to hang out with me, out of fear that as a “rape victim” I’d burst into tears unpredictably or whatever. One of my best friends at the time told me she couldn’t be my friend anymore and wouldn’t even listen to me when I told her details about the assault. She said it was too heavy to hear, and claimed that what happened to me had given her post-traumatic stress disorder.

A few family members told me that they were grieving over me, because rape is a “fate worse than death.” Another told me that they were not shocked this happened to me because I was a victim by nature. “Some people are victims and some are predators,” they said. “You are a victim.” Some people actually seemed straight-up jealous because apparently I now had a “valid reason” to be depressed. These were acquaintances who were generally unhappy and they probably felt insecure that they only had minor relationship hassles and shitty bosses to blame their ennui on.

The rapist turned out to be well-off financially, and this was a problem. He got, as my new nice detective put it, a very good defense attorney, who appealed the grand jury’s decision and claimed his client didn’t have enough time to prepare to appear before the grand jury. I was told to prepare to speak again before a new grand jury, and the case kept getting delayed. I called the assistant district attorney handling the case over and over only to get vague answers about why it was taking so long. I lived with this thing looming above my head for a long, long time. It wasn’t until March of 2012 that I was asked to come in and speak again. The dark-haired girl had given up at this point, and no longer wanted to deal with the situation.

It was just me now, and the sexual assault claims of the other women were not allowed to be brought up in court. When I arrived at the ADA’s office the day I testified, the ADA, who was a woman, had a folder waiting for me. It contained “incriminating evidence” about my character that the rapist’s defense attorney had “dug up on me”: cartoons I had posted on the internet, “racy” articles I had published, and photographs of me.

One of the black marks on my record was a cartoon blog called Slutclock. The name is a vague homage to the 90s video game White Men Can’t Jump, which was filled with bizarre slang phrases like, “Catch you on the flip-flop, timepants!” According to the ADA, this would be used during a trial to insinuate that I referred to myself as a slut. Other things that were apparently relevant included a cartoon of a blob choking another blob captioned “Happy Violence Day,” photos of me at a shooting range, and a picture of my roommate holding a toy gun to my head. All of this, apparently, proved that I enjoyed rough sex. The toy-gun photo I had posted to Facebook because my roommate was making a joke about forcing me to write a summary about an art show that he was curating, and I didn't think there was anything sexual about the image, but the ADA told me that she found that one “particularly unsettling.” Also included were photographs of me in skimpy outfits at the Mermaid Parade and at Halloween, both occasions when nearly everyone in attendance is dressed sexily.

I was forced to defend what I consider to be pretty normal stuff that had nothing to do with that night. It’s not like I wrote a sadomasochism sex column—and even if I did, it shouldn't matter. I’d have preferred to be berated about my drug use, which was at least somewhat relevant. By way of prepping me for the trial we’d thought we’d get, the ADA also commented on my platinum-colored rocker hair and told me that I should have probably worn a wig or dyed my hair a tamer color. Then she added, “You do have a good job right now, so that will help give you credibility.”

As it turned out, after being grilled about this stuff by the ADA, it was ruled that the defense attorney couldn’t bring up the photos and drawings in front of the grand jury. It didn’t matter—they threw the case out anyway. They apparently thought I hadn’t fought back enough and I wasn’t bruised enough and I didn’t go to the police soon enough. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the result, but it left me feeling like the judicial system and society as a whole had let me down. I am a human being who wants to experience all that life has to offer and I feel I have the right to do so, as does any man or woman. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about expressing myself artistically or through clothing. I especially shouldn’t have those expressions of myself thrown back in my face as an argument for why I deserve to be violated. Sure, I put myself in a stupid situation. I get that. But let's say someone was stupid enough to pass out on my doorstep and I decided to stab them to death, just because I had the primal urge to and they were there—I’d be convicted of murder, and rightly so. The victim’s lifestyle wouldn’t come into play at all.

I refuse to feel marked as damaged goods because of this ordeal. I think that attitude towards sexual assault is archaic and absurd. I think many people who have been raped are afraid to talk about what happened to them, but rape shouldn’t be a taboo topic. Some people have accused me of being borderline sociopathic about the whole thing and say I speak of it like someone might talk about eating a sandwich. But I can’t think of it as a catastrophic event. It’s something that happened to me, and I had to numb down the intensity of its effects to make it more manageable—that’s an effect of PTSD. I’m sorry if this is disturbing to read about, but a lot of people have to go through this. To pretend that these kinds of things aren’t happening is a lot more disturbing to me than talking about it.

Gina Tron is the features editor for Ladygunn Magazine and the creative director for Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. She is currently in the process of completing a book. Follow her on Twitter: @_GinaTron

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So what we have here is a copy of the graphics from the Family Research Council’s “Call2Fall” campaign, which is set for this Sunday, June 30. The event’s FAQ explains that it’s “nothing fancy,” merely a pledge for Christians to take time on June 30 to “call your people to get on their knees and faces before the Lord in repentant prayer for God to reshape our lives and renew our land.” Is the hip, modern “call2fall” slogan biblical? Well of COURSE it is, you silly; in fact, it “comes straight from the pages of Scripture:”

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14).

See? The word “call” is in there! God sure comes up with some catchy branding! We would also like to think that He led the FRC to hire a graphics team that couldn’t resist giving trolls ideas. If that logo doesn’t just scream “Wonkette Photoshop Contest,” we don’t know what does! (It probably also screams “NSFW,” too, depending on your workplace’s opinion of ambiguously posed cartoon people).

FRC leader Tony Perkins plugged the event in an email following the Supreme Court’s decisions on DOMA and Prop 8, saying that “Every follower of Christ should be troubled by our nation’s continued rejection of God’s revealed truth” and calling on recipients to “join over 1.7 million other Christians on their knees this Sundaycrying out for the Church, for America?” Then Buzzfeed called attention to the comic potential of a campaign trying to save America from sodomites while using the tagline “on our knees for America.” And using this logo, “in case you missed it”:

Definitely time to unleash the trolls! And so: Photoshop Contest! Wonkers are invited to remix the images and text  from call2fall to their hearts’ content, and to send their graphical goodies to our tipline. Get creative! Surely you can top this crude MS-Paint production by Yr. Doktor Zoom:

As the treacherous old man in Catch-22 would have said if he’d had access to a graphics program, “It is better to troll at your desk than to die on your knees.”

[Buzzfeed / call2fall]