Man Talk, Sweetie
Now Playing: Holly Golightly--"Stain"
I'd volunteered a while back to help man the Planned Parenthood booth at the U-M Take Back the Night rally on the evening of April 8 and began to regret doing so as I trudged home from work. It had been another long day, and I'd been given the shaft by two members of the motorized community--the AATA busdriver who'd driven past my stop as I stood there in full view, and the jackass who almost ran me over at the intersection of Geddes and Observatory. He wasn't even talking on a cellphone!

I ended up going, and was rather glad I did, even with the drum circles (for which I think I'm temperamentally unfit) and being harangued to withdraw from the cult of masculinity (I think I know what that is, but I'm not sure). There were musical performances and a number of speakers, some of them survivors of sexual violence themselves. That part was pretty inspiring, even if I was too exhausted from work to join the rally on the march, which took in a good chunk of the downtown area. The evening made me think about what it means to be a male feminist, especially one like me (and this is starting to sound like a really bad Michigan Daily editorial, for which I sort of apologize). Usually, males describing themselves as feminists are seen as granola-huffing hippies or completely emasculated drones desperate to prove their worth to their girlfriends. I'm neither, am proud of being a feminist (which I generally interpret as being in favor of gender equity), and if you have a problem with that, that's just too damn bad.

On a pretty unrelated note, I finally saw Psychomania, the 1971 Don Sharp classic that British Horror Films accurately describes as "the best film ever made about zombie bikers in Surrey." Bonkers from beginning to end, and a hilarious screen swan song for poor George Sanders, who committed suicide a year later. A must-see; I mean, if you can't have fun watching a movie about an undead motorcycle gang, how can you have fun?

"Oh maaan! What are we waiting for?"