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• It’s Not That Leo DiCaprio Is That Great, Everyone Else is Just Insane!

  

  Leo DiCaprio finally won his Oscar, and admirably dedicated his speech to bringing awareness to climate change. Leo has been a longtime ally of the environmental movement, and his efforts have been undoubtedly commendable. But I don’t think we should be worshipping him for being eco-conscious, because to NOT be talking about global warming is FUCKING CRAZY!

  Leo isn’t great for bringing up the MOST IMPORANT threat facing humanity – everyone else is an asshole for NOT talking about it. I think at each and every award show the nominee should thank their manager, thank the fans, thank god, and then end with, “by the way the world is coming to an end so maybe we should do something about it!”

  I am pretty sure climate change is ALL WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT! Including ME and YOU!

  The super rich are going to be fine during Armageddon. They can just fly their helicopters to their secret fancy bunkers on the top of the Himalayas. Leo DiCaprio will be popping bottles with models in the Andes when shit hits the fan. I’m pretty sure most of Hollywood already has a personal chef preparing gluten-free free-range gluten while Sherpa carry up their Louis Viton bags. It’s all fine and good that fancy people remind us that we are currently cannibalizing ourselves at a rapid speed, but the lunacy that we have to be reminded is the real problem.

  We shouldn’t be clapping our chubby little hands because really rich successful people care about the future of humanity, we should be doing everything we can to be caring about the future of humanity. We are the ones who are going to be downing in the rising seas as Tsunamis take out the entire coastal regions of this country. We’re not going to have life vests made of money and Moet. We are going to be wishing that rather than watching TV and dicking around on Facebook, we were doing something to stop this inevitable mayhem.

  People are comparing the ascent of Donald Trump to the rise of Hitler based on his hateful ethos. Yet regardless if Trump wins the presidency, we are all complacent to a mass genocide that is the making. Just as I asked myself “how did people stand by and do nothing during Nazi Germany?” – I am SURE history will soon ask the same of us. If there are any people left! I can see it now. Little kids will be sitting in their underwater schools, with desks made of trash, and their GMO gills flapping in the nuclear sludge. They will read their texts books and wonder, “how did those people stand by and watch as the planet was destroyed by an insatiable industry of mass consumerism?”

  Of course we don’t talk about climate change everyday because it feels too overwhelming and depressing. Yet what if we did talk about it every day? What if every time you participated in this consumer culture you asked yourself “how will my decision effect climate change?” We are the ones who shape the capitalist system. We can choose not to economically support the companies that rule Wall Street. We can stop big business by refusing to give them our money. At least we can start trying. (Pretty sure the cable, Internet, and phone companies have us on lock down… but you guys we can do this!)

  Yes there are roadblocks when wanting to be a conscious consumer, yet part of the problem is that we aren’t constantly discussing what we can do. We need to be asking ourselves the right questions. Where we can buy affordable products that are eco? How we can support community-supported agriculture that is competitively priced and empowers local farming? Do we have to buy clothes treated with toxic chemicals? Must we brush our teeth with cancer causing agents? I don’t know about you, but I would rather a world of smelly armpits that are free from carcinogens than continuing to blindly enable companies who are putting poisonous products in our deodorant.

  There are alternatives, and the more we discuss them, the more we will feel emboldened to commit to change. There are 19-year old kids who are developing ways to clean the oceans. There are solutions. If a goddamn child is coming up with ideas, I am pretty sure that the grown men who are milking the teat of our planet’s resources can too. We can’t shy away from obsessively talking about this issue, because I would feel PRETTY FUCKING BAD being part of the generation that stood by as we faced mass extinction.

  

  February 29, 2016 • Current Events • Views: 3300

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• The Goddess Journey From Divinity to Salad Dressing

  

  The other day I was going to hang out with my friend, and had the bright idea of bringing us lunch. I stopped at one of our favorite organic new-age yoga-hipster pretentious restaurants, and picked up two “goddess bowls.” When I got to her house, we were debating when to eat said “goddess bowls,” because she had also made popcorn we had to ingest… along with tomato mozzarella bruschetta, and some cookies. Oh, we were super high obviously.

  Toni: Do you want to have our goddess bowls now?
  My Friend: Sure, let me go get them!
  Toni: Will you put my goddess bowl in an actual bowl?
  My Friend: No problem.
  Toni: Isn’t it kind of insane that it’s totally okay to call some rice, veggies, and sauce a goddess bowl? In what context would you ever make a meal, and refer to it as a “god plate?” That would be considered seriously sacrilegious to use God as the logo for your product, yet it’s completely acceptable for the Goddess to sell sprouts and tahini?

  Yeah, fine, there is no current western religion that acknowledges the goddess as their spiritual icon, but the historical significance is still vastly relevant! At the inception of our human journey the goddess was the object of divine worship. The history of religion begins with a reverence of the female life-giving principle. Fertility of crops was crucial to survival, and early man saw the connection between what sustained their life, and mother Gaia female energy. So how the fuck did the Goddess become a notion that is so devalued that it is totally okay to use as a marketing ploy for hippies to buy salad dressing?

  I’m not saying that every woman has to become a Wiccan, and gather the uterine lining of a wolf and paint her face with canine blood ancestry to dance naked under the full moon – but we can hold the concept of the Goddess to a higher standard! In order for the feminine counterpart to regain her significance, we can’t allow her identity to be so flippantly used.

  This Goddess comes in “light” so your fat ass doesn’t get any fatter

  (PS I actually love Goddess dressing)

  

  August 31, 2015 • Musings • Views: 3662

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• The House You Grew Up In

  

  The house you grew up in is almost as profound as the people you grew up with. It is like a character in the story of your life. The building that housed your youth serves as a porthole into the nostalgia of days gone past. It is a place where you can transport yourself into memories vaguely recalled, yet still so familiar. When you return to the rooms that contained your childhood, visions will flood your brain as you try to connect to the person you used to be when you were still forming into the person that you have become.

  It is some deep shit!

  Of course not everyone has access to the home of their younger years to mill around searching for relics. Parents move, and new homeowners don’t always allow strangers to come over to talk about how this room used to be smaller before the walls were ripped out, or shed tears at the site of a old tree with rotten branches they used to climb. Yet sometimes you have a chance to go back to a house that is no longer yours, but forever will be anyway.

  My childhood home is unique because I grew up in a Harvard dormitory, so even the sight of pizza boxes in the trashcan of the parking lot made me tear up. I went to this place I once called home to take pictures for a project, and realized it had been 22 years since I last roamed those halls. I immediately yearned to be like Benjamin Button so I could age backwards and return to that innocent time of trying to steal beer from 18-year old boys.

  I had brought The Munch on this tour so she could see where her mom grew up. She was somewhat amused, by maybe more so because a nice lady gave her a Tootsie-pop, which was her first exposure to high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. I pointed out to Munch every space in the building that had meaning to me, while she nodded her head and drooled orange bio chemicals.

  Toni: Look at these corridors! This is where I would roller skate with my bird on my shoulder. Check out this dining hall where I would eat nothing but burgers. Do you see this vending machine? This is where I would eat candy for dinner. Check out this elevator. My friend and I once pooped on this elevator as a joke… and now that I have said that out loud it is clear how disturbing that act really was.

  There was something so emotionally satisfying about being in the place that helped remind me of little Toni. That girl who wore yellow stirrup pants and survived on Reece’s Pieces. I was getting high on all the information inundating my consciousness.

  I saw a couch complete with beer and cum stains that would provoke most people to say “ew” – but to me it was beautiful simply because I remembered it. I sat on the white parts while lovingly running my fingers across the wood.

  Toni: Munch! Look at this couch! I used to sit here when I was a little girl!
  Munch: Are you sure you want to be sitting there now?

  

  August 12, 2014 • Adventures, Old School Stories • Views: 6951

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• My Murderess Family

  

  It is not everyday that your mother tells you that you are the direct descendent of a mass murderer.  Especially under the context of bragging to someone at a dinner party.

  My Mom: “You know Toni is Hungarian – from her father’s side.  She is actually related to Elizabeth Báthory.”

  Party Guest: “Oh really? Well isn’t that delightful.”

  Toni: “Who is Elizabeth Báthory?”

  My Mom: “Oh you remember.  She was that famous countess who murdered hundreds of virgins to bathe in their blood to retain her youth and beauty.”

  Toni: “What? How did I not know this?”

  My Mom: “I have told you this before.”

  Toni: “Well strangely enough I blocked it out.”

  My Mom: “Well don’t worry, according to your grandmother it was all blown out of proportion because she was a protestant.”

  Toni: “Right. Of course.”

  I decided to do a little research on my ancestor, and I am not sure I am glad I traveled down this sinister path.  Here are some of my reactions to her Wikipedia:

  “Elizabeth Báthory (1560-1614) inspired numerous stories during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most common motif of these works was that of the countess bathing in her victims’ blood to retain beauty or youth.  She has been labeled the most prolific female serial killer in history, although the number of murders is debated, and is remembered as the “Blood Countess” and Countess Dracula.

  MOST PROLIFIC FEMALE SERIAL KILLER IN HISTORY!  Although I don’t exactly think murdering is a fantastic pastime, if you are going to go for it, you might as well be the best right?  And Countess Dracula sounds kind of badass.  But call me old fashioned – doesn’t wanting eternal youth and beauty sound a little vain? I would almost rather she murdered all those girls because they told her that her thighs were chunky.

  “She was an educated woman who could read and write in four languages. There were several instances where she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated.  1578, Her husband Nádasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war, Elizabeth Báthory managed business affairs and the estates. That role usually included providing for the Hungarian and Slovak peasants, even medical care”

  Okay so she wasn’t all bad… She didn’t brutally slaughter everyone.  Reading and writing 4 languages! That is pretty impressive!  Not to mention that she had her own version of Obama- Care. Probably branded it “Báthory-Benefit for those I have yet to massacre.”

  “According to all this testimony, her initial victims were the adolescent daughters of local peasants, many of whom were lured to Csejte by offers of well-paid work as maidservants in the castle.  Abductions were said to have occurred as well. The atrocities described most consistently included severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death. The use of needles was also mentioned by the collaborators in court.”

  Oh dear… that’s pretty bad.  Did she really need to mutilate hands?  Seems a tad unnecessary.

   

  “The exact number of young women tortured and killed by Elizabeth Báthory is unknown, though it is often speculated to be as high as 650, between the years 1585 and 1610. The estimates differ greatly. During the trial and before their execution, Szentes and Ficko reported 36 and 37 respectively, during their periods of service. The other defendants estimated a number of 50 or higher.”

  That is a pretty huge discrepancy.  And who has the time to kill 650 people?? That is a full time job.  Your jaw would get exhausted from all that face biting.  650 seems like a bit of an exaggeration to me.  But even the low-ball number is still a lot of girls to kill.  This chick seems like kind of a cunt.

  “László Nagy has argued that Elizabeth Báthory was a victim of a conspiracy, a view opposed by others. Nagy argued that the proceedings were largely politically motivated. The theory is consistent with Hungarian history at that time. There was great conflict between religions, including Protestant ones, and this was related to the extension of Habsburg power over Hungary. As a Transylvanian Protestant aristocrat, Elizabeth belonged to a group generally opposed to the Habsburgs.”

  Okay Laszlo… I hope you are right because I am feeling pretty uncomfortable right about now.

  “Thurzó debated further proceedings with Elizabeth’s son Paul and two of her sons-in-law. A trial and execution would have caused a public scandal and disgraced a noble and influential family (which at the time ruled Transylvania), and Elizabeth’s considerable property would have been seized by the crown. Thurzó, along with Paul and her two sons-in-law, originally planned for Elizabeth to be spirited away to a nunnery, but as accounts of her murder of the daughters of lesser nobility spread, it was agreed that Elizabeth Báthory should be kept under strict house arrest, but that further punishment should be avoided.  King Matthias requested that Elizabeth be sentenced to death. It was also determined that Matthias would not have to repay his large debt to her, for which he lacked sufficient funds.”

  Well… this seems kinda shady King Matthias.  But she still did seriously get away with murder.

  “During the trial, dozens of witnesses and survivors, sometimes up to 35 a day, testified. All but one of her servants testified against her, and the one who refused had her eyes gouged out and her breasts removed before being burned at the stake. In addition to the testimony, the court also examined the skeletons and cadaver parts found as evidence.”

  Okay so it may not have been in good form for Báthory to savagely annihilate all those virgins, but seems like a pretty twisted society that would gouge out some eyes and cut her boobies off.  Maybe she wasn’t in the best of company?

  “Three of the defendants – Semtész, Jó and Ficko – were condemned to death. The sentences were carried out immediately. Before being burned at the stake, Semtész and Jó had their fingers ripped off their hands with hot pokers, while Ficko, who was deemed less culpable, was beheaded, and his body burned. Benická was sentenced to life imprisonment, since recorded testimony indicated that she was dominated and bullied by the other women.”

  What’s with ripping off hands and mutilating them?? Do we still do that?

  “Báthory was never brought to trial, but her family had her imprisoned in Čachtice Castle for life. She was kept bricked in a set of rooms, with only small slits left open for ventilation and the passing of meals. She remained there for four years, until her death. On 21 August 1614, Elizabeth Báthory was found dead in her room.”

  Okay this is all really awful.  But she just wanted to stay young and alive for eternity right? At least she had a purpose and wasn’t just killing for the fun of it.

  “This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi’s Tragica Historia, the first written account of the Báthory case. At the beginning of the 19th century, this certainty was questioned, and sadistic pleasure was considered a far more plausible motive for Elizabeth Báthory’s crimes.”

  Oh.  Huh.  Yeah.  Soooooo

  Although my mom can flippantly say I am the distant spawn of this beast of a woman, I have to admit this is all quite disturbing.  I hope that Laszlo and my grandmother are right…. that this is all just a Protestant propaganda conspiracy theory.  But I am not so sure.  So to all those virgins who were murdered by the evil of Báthory’s hands… SORRY you were killed and SORRY you never had sex!!!

  

  May 28, 2013 • 2 years old, Family Drama, Musings, Talking and Not Talking • Views: 7038

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