I stopped smoking around 2002. It was a simple gesture, me standing there at work, willingly giving my pack of Camel Lights to whoever wanted them. There was no real craving, no want to smoke again. But there was one thing I couldn’t drop, my lighter.
I carried my lighter after that pretty much everywhere. Leaving the house it was the first thing in my pocket and after the day the last thing I counted along with my wallet, keys and loose change. I carried to to bars, to my parents house, checked it on flights. But when people asked I smoked I said no, but always produced a lighter just in case. It was a strange thing being able to let go of something that’s proven to have a grip on the public.
Honestly, I still love the smell of smoke. I smell it in people’s hair, on their jackets. The waft when you leave a building or lingering in the stairwell on your way out. To walk past buildings and see a group huddled on a street corner. It’s just the love of the faintly sweet scent that gets me. There’s no Proustian memory associated with it, no relative moment, and I still carry a lighter with me.
We really wanted to make a work out video, but after careful thought and two days of filming… lets just say working out is personal and should be done alone?
In this video we continue our series of hanging out with interesting people as we attend a book club.
The weekly topic of body image is also discussed.
If you would like to share something you enjoy with us we would love to come out to you. please e-mail us at boumvoyage@gmail.com
-Bradford, Ben, and Travis.
Beth Ditto Grosses Me Out
Beth Ditto is an egotistical cunt in a terrible excuse for a band. That being said, shes got it right. Pushing a quarter of a ton shes made it in an industry in which success is based not solely on talent but goes hand and hand with beauty. Shes made a name for herself by getting on stage, singing her lil heart out(errr just a saying, its probably large and clogged) and doing all the sexual things youve gotten so used to seeing Xtina and Brittany do. Is it a gimmick, possibly, but she honestly seems comfortable “in her own skin.”
Were constantly bombarded with the idea of a standard of beauty and its often portrayed as a problem. The idea that we have to look a certain way to be comfortable with ourselves. Im calling bullshit, were a society that cant deal with itself, something is always wrong. Ive seen some of the most beautiful girls I know say theyre too fat or ugly. No one is telling them that but perhaps they need to hear it or be told. I think body image is more the way we learn to be comfortable with ourselves. Some people work out non-stop, not to reach an ideal of beauty but to feel right, it just works. Same way some people just love to eat. The media touts all these ideas, but do we blame our obessity problems on fat people we see on tv?
Often times we look down upon the overly fit bodybuilder type as much as we look at fat people. “The Situation” from MTVs Jersey Shore has probably undone about 20 years of infomercials about “perfect abs” in 6 episodes becoming a joke about what we see as fit. When people stop buying The Ab Slide/Glide/See-Saw/Whirlydoo and sue “The Situation” for ruining our perception of abs thatll be a situation.
We need to stop blaming models, infomercials, movie stars etc and become comfortable with ourselves. Whether youre skinny, fat, chubby, hot, or ugly you need to look at yourself and learn to be confident with it. Can you lose a few pounds, probably, but some of you might need to gain a few. Were never gonna be perfect but weve got to learn to be confident and happy with ourselves regardless of what we think of Mike Sorrentino or Beth Ditto.
Body Image issues are for the insecure, either you own own yourself, or yourself owns you. Unless you’re Billy Corgan, then you should be worrying about your loss of hair correlating with your loss of talent.
Hug & Kisses,
Jaime-Paul Falcon
Managing Editor
www.daybowbow.net
Let me clarify.
In the days when I was sure my life’s calling was to be a stand-up comedian, I was most proud of the following joke:
“Why do gay guys and fat chicks always hangout? Because straight guys don’t like to brag about fucking either one of us”.
I was really proud of this joke mainly because it was standard hook and punch-line delivery, slyly self-deprecating and that it was extremely, painfully true.
I used to feel bad. I used to think, “Oh, poor me. I don’t fit into the narrow minded view of the modern aesthetic of what is deemed fuckable”. Boo hoo. In this culture, we as women are essentially programmed to think that our entire selling point, value and contribution to this planet is our looks. And yes, that is probably very true. I mean, when I turn on the TV, I only want to see the fuggos on Jerry Springer. Call me a product of the times.
The thing is, I was wrong. A lot of men ARE into us (Us herein meaning the Biggums) they’re just in the closet. I don’t want to make generalizations and sound like some lady on a power trip ” OH BABY, YOU KNOW YOU WANNA PLOW IT BETWEEN THESE CHRISTMAS HAMS, SHOOOO YOU DON’ KNOW WHAT YOU MISSIN’…shawty” and declare that all men secretly wanna get with a Boticelli babe. However, there are a lot of men who do. Maybe they don’t directly zone in on plumpies -though some of them most certainly do, but maybe there was once a girl they thought was cute who happened to be on the grounded side of the see-saw. There are a lot of guys who want, or have wanted to pursue a bigger chick, but for whatever reason (and I’ll get to that in a bit) they won’t do it.
Well, at least not openly. (Ah, the plot thickens like a ripe Rubenesque rump!)
Through my varied and educated studies into the realm of the chubby chaser (which, by the way is the gay colloquialism, the straight variant is “fat admirer” but c.c. sounds so much cuter so I’m claiming it for women as well) I have come across so many different kinds men willing to break this strange, sad taboo. However, because the taboo exists, there seem to be a lot of men whose would-be preference has turned into a late night fetish.
Perhaps they’ve been poisoned too much by friends, family or the media, I don’t know. Allow me to explain instead of being cryptically vague. The Big Bad Wolf in question is typically an Adonis. Blonde, tan, buff. A gym rat. A ken doll. They’re the center of attention. They listen to Jack Johnson. They wear Abercombie vintage shrunken t-shirts. They hang out with their denim mini-skirt/ugg boot combination female counterparts by day…but by night. They send me text messages like this:
“R U Hankerin’ for a spankerin’?”
” I always wanted to get up in dat big ass”
“I bet you are secretly really sexy”
These are all real examples of text messages I’ve received from Big Bad Wolves lookin’ to blow away some piggies. I’ve received detailed facebook messages, IMs, voicemails regarding how much they want to see me naked. These are the same guys who jager-bomb toast to “NO FAT CHICKS”. Maybe these guys wouldn’t be total douchebags if it was somehow socially acceptable to be attracted to bigger women. Maybe they wouldn’t try to get me on the sly at four o’clock in the morning if their fathers wouldn’t ask them if I’ve ever taken home a blue-ribbon at the fair (I have, and it was for an elementary school art show). In the mean time, I don’t exist on planet Earth to be someone’s experimental tryst. Especially when I know they wouldn’t even consider taking me out on a date or be seen canoodling with me in public. (I know this because whenever these creeps requested my elicit company, I replied with “Gotta take me out to dinner first”…and they pushed the three AM meet up time). In high school, I had zero interest in these guys (I was always eyeing the quiet boys in the back of class, drawing violent cartoons or carving anarchy symbols into their desks) but I know a lot of girls in positions similar to my own who did. If you like a chick, take her to prom. Don’t wait three years post-graduation and try to solicit her to give you vehicular sex.
Body Image.
I’m a Mexican girl with small boobs, a slight belly, and a big ass. Although this has not changed much in the past 5 years, I find it interesting how my body image has been affected by the varying standards of fat in the last two places I’ve lived.
When I lived in Austin, I was always really aware of my size. If you want to feel bad about yourself, hang out at Town Lake for five minutes. Watching chiseled midriff after chiseled midriff jog by as you pant your way through your bi-monthly jog will get you motivated real fast.
The last guy I dated in Austin managed to only make friends with people over 5’9″ and under 115 lbs. Anyhow, for about the first year we dated I felt bad about myself every time we hung out with his friends and their modelesque girlfriends. Somehow these girls got shit-faced as much as I did but managed to continue looking like hot twelve year old boys with breasts. Maybe they didn’t eat during the week. I used to rationalize with myself, blaming genetics. I became convinced that skinny equaled white, which I was not. Clearly, I had not been paying attention to the mountains of cocaine that was being snorted all around me. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I would never look like these aliens and invested my energies elsewhere, namely, delicious food.
I live in El Paso now. In addition to having the country’s ugliest men, my hometown is full of fatties. When I first moved back, I couldn’t help but be judgmental about the sedentary lifestyle and large amount of fat young people.
Being thin in a place where larger people are the standard gives me some flexibility. I’ve gained almost 10 lbs since coming back. Under other circumstances I would be pretty devastated, but in El Paso I let myself have another beer and remind myself that I could gain another ten and probably still be considered one of the fittest people in the room.
Most people here assume I’m younger then I actually am because I’m not fat yet. Nearly everyone I have run into from high school has gained at least 30 lbs. My friend Jason calls this regional phenomenon the “tortilla time-bomb” and assures me that in time, I too will fall victim. Luckily, I plan to escape to Brooklyn before this happens. I hear that place is a real image booster.
Eating healthy is a major concern of mine. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most difficult things to do consistently if you are broke or in a very small town. With limited access to organic produce and other foods I’m pretty much stuck with Jason’s Deli and Kroger’s weak produce section. At least that’s what I used to do when I lived alone. I made the mistake of letting a roommate slightly influence my diet in a negative way. I am still health conscience but it’s amazing how you can “cheat” and eat at McDonald’s for the first time in years and a few months down the road you realize you are eating fast food 5-9 times a week. That just happened to me. Thinking back on the past 2 weeks I’ve eaten at Taco Bell, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, KFC, and worst of all CiCi’s Pizza. I’m actually sick right now and I’m holding CiCi’s 100% responsible. It’s a good thing, I needed a food reality check. I’ve been letting myself go. I even started to get loose and drink soda again. NO MORE! It’s back to water, milk, and juice for me and that’s it. Beer counts as juice by the way.
Filed under: Diet Choices
Bradford and Ben explore what it is like to cook a meal. The topic this week is diet choices. Ben and I are not nutritionists, but we wanted to share with you a little bit about our own dietary habits.
Special thanks to Sara Button for filming us!
- Bradford & Ben
Also, if you are passionate about something and would like to share it with Ben and I, email us at boumvoyage@gmail.com, we would love to meet you and film a short episode hanging out with you.
I grew up an only child in a traditional meat-and-potatoes kind of family; my mother’s family is all from Kansas and my father’s is from rather rural Missouri. So by the time I hit high school, and rebellion, one of my most logical outlets for adolescent bullshit was veganism. I was vegan (though rather sloppy about dairy and rather focused on French fries, let me get that off my chest) for two years, and for the next two years I maintained a much more healthy vegetarian diet.
Two weeks before my 7 AP tests senior year of high school, I was diagnosed as a type I diabetic, and the doctor told me that my then-current diet was much too carb-heavy and that it would be a health hazard for me to continue. As a vegetarian, you always imagine that first meal after your meat-drought as a glorious gluttonfest, yet mine turned out to be…the worst hospital turkey sandwich I’d ever had. I still remember looking down at my tray in the hospital bed, already very angry, the sort of anger that kills you because the only person you could possibly direct your feelings toward is the God you don’t believe in. I cried when I ate that sandwich. I cried hard, and I implore you in that position to do any different.
Aside from my carnecephallic mother, I can’t really remember encountering much opposition to my choice in what I ate. Whether we believe it or not, we live in the most tolerant of times for American culture and vegetarianism is more accepted today than ever. Yet, when I left the hospital to return to my life, I received much more criticism from my vegetarian friends for “abandoning” the “lifestyle”. Maybe I placed more stock in their opinions, but that really hurt, hurt in the same way my friends with drinking problems hurt me whenever I’ve tried to curb my alcohol intake, another dietary imposition of the diabetes.
I’m a strong enough person that I can ignore ignorant chatter, but in my mind, if you’re a friend, you’re a friend no matter what a person eats. No bullshit.
