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MY WEEK AND WELCOME TO IT
_POSTEDON 2002-05-03 10:54:18 by jimmyd |
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 jimmyd _writes "
It's been a busy week for me. I thought I'd ramble on with some of the highlights. I'll begin with Monday. (Just in case you didn't know, that's VCA's contract girl, Tawny Roberts, pictured at left modeling the mock-up prototype for the new jimmyD bumpersticker I'll soon be offering.)
On Monday I shot camera for VCA's uber-DVD-master, multi-AVN-award winning, Wit Maverick (it might be Whit Maverick, I'm really not sure).
Industry vet Toni English was manning, uhmm, womanning the other camera on Wit's set. This was the first time she and I had worked together, and she was a kick to work with. She's a smart, talented, sexy, vegetarian, new-age-kinda, camerman (I guarantee I've never said that about any other cameraman, especially the 'sexy' part). Anyway, Toni told me of a problem she'd been having: a racist problem. No, it wasn't Toni who was the target of the racism.
It was Toni's racist feelings that were getting out of hand. And the focus of her racist thoughts? Armos. Yep, Armos. There, I said it, the "A" word, Armo. I know I'm taking a risk here just saying it, but taking risks is what we do here at simplyjimmyd. Fucking Armos!
Seems these Armos...what? Wait a minute. You don't know what an Armo is? Well, I gotta confess, I didn't either.
"What the fuck's an Armo?," I quizically inquired of Ms. English, "A missing Marx brother?
An Armo, according to Toni, is a person of Armenian descent. You know, like that one California Governor we had, Dukemejian, or however you spell his name, he was a freakin' Armo. But personally, I didn't even know there was a derogatory name for Armenians until now. And to be honest, Armo doesn't really sound too derogatory. I mean, it certainly doesn't have the kind of punch the "N" word has. To say something like, "Those lazy fucking Armos, I wouldn't let one date my sister!" It just doesn't sound overly racist--insulting maybe, but racist, no.
There is, of course, a positive side for Armenians now that there's a racial slur to tag them with: Armenians are now more important. Ya see, if you're nobody, then nobody's gonna bother giving you a derogatory name. As a race, or an ethnic group, you have to be somebody to get called a bad name. Someone's gotta really love you or really hate you to bother coming up with bad names for you. Example: Everyone loves the Irish, but we still call them micks; everyone hates the French so we call them frogs. So I guess there's a lot of people who either love or hate the Armenians. This is why there's no really bad names for people from places like Sardinia. Why? Because they don't matter. Who gives a shit--one way or another--about Sardinians besides Sardinians, right? And even if they did matter, what would you call them? Sardines? Oh, wow, that'd hurt. But I'm getting off the point.
My family, as some of you already know, is mostly of Italian descent. Calling me a wop, or a guinea, or a greaseball, or a dago...I don't know, with the right intonation, those words sound like fightin'words. But Armo? I can't even say it in a way that sounds ugly and racist. But apparently, Toni can.
And Toni, being the kind of person Toni is, it really played on her emotions. She's been ashamed, she told me. She always thought she was above these sort of base thoughts and feelings, but living in a heavily Armo-populated town, for some reason, took a racist toll on her psyche. And the more she was exposed to Armos, the more her anti-Armo, racist thoughts got out of hand. Personally, I know exactly how she felt. I used to live in a town that was heavily populated by people of Scandinavian descent and let me tell you, those fucking, toe-head Scandos took the property values right into the basement. To this day, I feel like lighting a cross in front of every Swedish Smorgasbord I pass, but that's another story.
So Toni tells me she decided to take the cure.
"There's a cure for racism?" I asked.
"Yep," she tells me, "Acupuncture."
Acupuncture! I shoulda known! Here I'm thinking she's going to tell me about some hypno-therapy, or a weekend, touchy-feely, seminar retreat sponsored by an organization with a name like "Friends of Armenia." Nope. Acupuncture. Who woulda thought? Crazy inscrutable Chinese pin sticking fuckers do it again! Back pain, migraines, quit smoking, and now racism. Somebody line up those KKK guys and stick them with a few needles!
Then I asked her if it worked.
"Yep," She says, "Plus I'm moving to another town."
"
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