Saint Bernadette

As promised, let us begin our examination of the Top Three Things that your fat ass requires YOU to do for IT, when it should always be the other way around.

1. You have to cover it.

One of the biggest problems with your fat ass is that it must be hidden from view. You, of course, will never ACTUALLY see it, since to do so would require your head to spin around like Medusa’s, but also akin to Medusa, if your fat ass is seen by others, it will stop short of turning them to stone, but will most certainly keep desired attention at bay while simultaneously attracting undesired attention in many varieties. Do I need to describe these many varieties? I bet I don’t.

There are many practical examples of the change in clothing since, let’s say the 1970s, as an example. A study of men’s basketball shorts from the 70s until now is a clear example of the evolution of clothing from styles that exposed most of the body in a way that was not considered inappropriate or vulgar because most people were in shape. Even though the evolution of basketball shorts is more about function and style (male basketball players are not carrying fat asses), the change in athletic clothing certainly has engendered a change in non-athletic style that makes it far easier to carry a fat ass. If you know that you might have to wear tiny shorts and crop tops, you are more likely to instinctively regulate your eating patterns to make this comfortable. Today’s young men expect to wear giant t-shirts and humongous pants and their eating patterns have adjusted accordingly.

And even out of the athletic arena, clothes in general are bigger, baggier and use more resources to create, yet are more quickly disposable. A history of baggy clothing illuminates this. In addition, clothes are created in standard sizes instead of custom-made per individual as in the past. Standard sizes instead of custom-sized clothes results in: extra clothes. In addition, these standard sizes have also been manipulated to prevent us from realizing how truly fat our asses have become. “The downward evolution of sizes illustrates the extent to which retailers, apparel manufacturers, and designers are conforming to American women’s obsession with wanting to be thin — even if it’s only in their minds, said Natalie Weathers, an assistant professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University.”

Growing men’s basketball shorts, manipulated sizes, trendy fashions in “plus” sizes, the constant availability of cheap, sweat-shop made clothes? What do they all add up to?

I’ll tell you what – not only does covering your fat ass contribute to world-wide wage inequity and exploitation and endless piles of used, disposable clothes that end up in landfills when they are rejected by the GoodWill, but it exponentially multiplies its own capacity for growth by perpetuating the very eating habits that created it in the first place.

2. You have to feed it.

The kind of food that feeds your fat ass and that your fat ass causes you to crave is not only unhealthy, but disastrous for the domestic and world economy according to Michael Pollen, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Other, bigger hidden costs are associated with corn-based cheap food. “We pay with our taxes, because it takes heavy, heavy government subsidies to produce food that cheaply,” he says. “We pay with the public health system, with failing antibiotics [whose overuse in cattle has given rise to new antibiotic-resistant strains of 'super-bugs']. We pay with the miles-wide dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico [caused by nitrate-dense agricultural runoff carried out by the Mississippi River]. We pay by having to defend our high-energy food system by fighting wars in the Middle East.

The fact that most of the foods for sale these days don’t even resemble food is very discouraging. And the fact that repeated processing creates profit for companies is really a problem for those of us who promote real, whole food. Bringing together the environmental movement and good nutrition will be a key factor in improving our food in the future.”

And the final, soul-crushing truth about your fat ass.

3. You have to make up for it.

What does this mean precisely? Well, it means many things to different people but one thing that can’t be denied is that whatever you are doing – sitting, standing, walking, dancing, making love – your fat ass causes you extra effort.

When your ass gets fat, it interferes with the motion of your hips and you lose flexibility. Notice how your fat ass gets in the way when you try to sit down and stretch your legs in a v-shape? Some of you are probably saying, “I never sit down and stretch my legs in a v-shape”. Exactly! And while this is a problem unto itself, the real world consequences are myriad. The change it causes in your body is visible: rounded shoulders and upper back, weak and inhibited butt muscles (glutes), short hip flexors and usually a regular history of back pain. I can google all day to find you links about how a lack of exercise contributes to virtually any health problem you can imagine, but my favorite is from this site – healthystud.com.

What this article at healthystud makes clear is that exercise is absolutely crucial to health. Your fat ass gets in the way of exercise AND makes it harder for you to exercise, decreasing the likelihood that you will exercise. It gets in the way of your desire to exercise, again compounding the effects of itself exponentially.

The health problems associated with obesity and lack of exercise are substantial. As the health care debate rages on, how much of the debilitating costs of health care could be eliminated by just eliminating the fat assess of so many Americans?

But while we’re at it, why don’t we get even farther away from my point – what about what it does to the way you dance? Dancing is a critical part of any successful society. When people don’t dance, they go crazy in various ways. Though I have virtually no evidence to support this theory, I believe that the near epidemic problem of overweight women, women who suffer and are dissatisfied with their bodies or who have simply given up on their bodies, is in direct proportion to the extent which dancing has been removed from their lives. When a woman dances regularly, she exercises regularly in a way that shapes and tones her body. It does not take a rocket scientist to see this. Why do you think Madonna made herself a legend promoting the idea of women hitting the dance floor as integral to female empowerment? Because it does empower women. When you don’t feel proud or comfortable with your body or when your body is weak and slow, you are weaker and slower than you are capable of being.

Okay, so before I launch in to what your fat ass means in the evolutionary context, why don’t we just stop here just in time for your usual 4 pm coffee and snack?

Tune in tomorrow for the final installment, when, I promise, all loose ends of this multi-facteted theory will be neatly tied like tonight’s pork roast.

xo
Saint B

I mean no disrespect.  Mine is too.

And I’ve chosen this moment, the advent of what we in America collectively refer to as “the holidays”, a time when according to basically every source, Americans typically gain between three and five pounds and contrary to popular or their own belief, never lose it, but instead allow that holiday chub to compound on itself year after year.

First of all, let me clarify what I mean by “fat ass”.  Before anyone gets too upset that I am just buying into our celebrity-obsessed, beauty-obsessed culture, or going on a knee-jerk liberal tirade about the evils of capitalism, or going on a right-wing bender about personal responsibility in health care, let me assure you that I am not.    What am I doing is finally calling out for ridicule that big chunk of fat, big enough to grab in an average human palm, that hangs off the back of my/your ass doing nothing for nobody.

Are you familiar with this chunk?

Just yesterday, I grabbed mine and asked it, “what exactly is it that you do?”  It had no answer for me.

It had no answer, because the truth is that this lazy piece of ass just sits around letting the rest of my body do all the work.  You know those aches in your knees, that sore back, your tight shoulders?  They are just the side effects of these more noble body parts’ efforts to haul around your pointless fat ass.

In addition to fat, your fat ass is comprised of some large muscles called gluteus maximus.  As the name suggests, the gluteus maximus is one of the largest and strongest muscles in the body.  But if your maximus is anything like my maximus, it spends most of its time face down on a cushioned chair or sofa and if it does actually get up and move around, it does so by lounging, like Cleopatra on a palanquin, carried around by any number of over-worked, over-taxed muscles and bones in your body. The stress on these body parts shows in the way you carry yourself, in your every day aches and pains, in your sleep patterns,  in virtually everything you do.

Okay, so you’re with me on the way it might affect your individual body, but how am I going to make it responsible for the decline of society?

As follows.

What gives you the will and motivation you need to achieve your full potential?

I understand this is a loaded question.  Another part of the decline of modern civilization is the fact that plenty of people have no desire to achieve their full potential and would most likely laugh at being asked this question.

But still, for many, many people, this question lingers in the back alleys of the mind, springing up in a Saturday morning hangover or in a stream of criticisms from the boss or even in the reflection in the mirror.

Your fat ass could be your motivation.

The gluteus maximus has enough strength and power to help you run that extra mile, do those extra sit ups, those extra jumping jacks, even to keep you more comfortable in your chair for that final hour at the office, but does it engage?  Does it offer up its super-human strength when you need it most?  No, it does what it always does.  Nothing.

Instead, of working for YOU, your fat ass requires you to do things for IT.  In the next few days, we’ll examine three (3) central things you have to do to accommodate your fat ass and the effects these things have on the world.

It is my sincere hope that this examination, with its necessary digressions into quantum mechanics, Greek Mythology, feminism, psychotherapy, voodoo economics, ethnomusicology, and other holiday-like disciplines, will open a dialogue between you and your fat ass so that by next year it will require and deserve an extra helping of sweet potatoes that it can quickly burn off by sending you even further along your journey to greatness!

Stay tuned!

I remember when we first moved to Bridgeport, some of the first conversations we had were with frustrated people – everyone was frustrated and everyone was in competition with everyone else. What little money, resources, ideas, space etc that were available at that time, usually ended up wasted in purposeless battles of who should get what.

Of course, Saint Bernadette would never claim that this is no longer the case, but she can at least point to this fine example of what great things can happen when everyone works together.

Join the artists of downtown for TWO gallery shows this Thursday within blissful walking distance.

The Big Fall Show at Read’s ArtSpace.

Read's ArtSpace BIG FALL SHOW

A collection of new work, plus live music and performances from the
Resident Artists of Read’s ArtSpace

Opening Reception:
Thursday – November 19th
6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Complimentary wine provided by
The CT WINE TRAIL

Read’s ArtSpace Gallery
1042 Broad St. (corner of John & Broad)
Bridgeport, CT 06604

Coordinating with City Lights opening Reception, 5:00-7:00 of the Artful Gifts show at City Lights Gallery. Stay tuned for more info on the Artful Gifts Trail where you can buy one of a kind, locally made items for the loved ones on your holiday list.

Go Team!
xox
Saint B

You saw the posters, heard them on radio shows all over town, and if you are any fun at all, you did yourself a favor and bought a ticket to one of their consecutive Halloween shows at Fairfield Theatre Company.

Caravan of Thieves with special guest, Bruce Martin of Tom Tom Club

Early reports from the shows are telling us that they were packed, action-packed, and vacuum packed with special guests, including Rock n Roll Hall of Famers, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, of the Talking Heads, joining in for a special rendition of “Psycho Killer”!

Caravan of Thieves warms up with Tina Weymouth

Please, before, it’s too late – check out your homegrown heroes, buy their cd and earn the bragging rights to say you knew them when! Stay tuned for their Christmas mp3, which will appear here soon . . . .

And furthermore with regard hometown heroes poised for greatness, also appearing on Halloween night, in their own hometown of Danbury, CT was Saint B fav, Poverty Hash.

The evening started with Halloween themed band, Creepdust, fronted by Danbury’s most important citizen and local impresario, Anthony Yacobellis of Subrosa Party and anchored down by Poverty Hash sibling, Jim Roberto.

Taking the stage in total darkness were the superheroes of Saint B, who laid a foundation of mishaps and hijinks that set the stage for Poverty Hash’s blistering set.

Batman and Capt. America

Peep this vid of their Halloween appropriate opening song, “Blood Stained Hands”.

Trick or treats, lovelies!

Saint B