I always post pics of Beth when I come across them. She is so colorful and “in your face”. I love her!
[Photos: ©BAUER-GRIFFIN.COM]
I still find it SO amusing that celebrities want to hang out with him. He draws penises on people’s faces! And they aren’t even good penises!
Oh well, enough about the Baby Huey blogger, onto Beth. I always love it when my photo agency has new Beth Ditto photos. She’s like a box of chocolates . . . .or one really big chocolate bunny. Solid of course. With the ears bitten off. This time Beth is rocking a flame red pixie haircut (yeah, I just used “pixie” and “Beth Ditto” is the same sentence) and a zebra print dress.
[Photograph: © Greg Tidwell, PacificCoastNews.com]
Hello Beth Ditto. Have you had a bit much to drink?
[Photo: PacificCoastNews.com]
She’s curvy, plump and proud.
Ditto, lead sing of Gossip, has long been outspoken about body image and society’s expectations of women and their weight. In the issue of Love, Ditto points the finger at those she feels are responsible.
“If there’s anyone to blame for size zero, it’s not women. Blame gay men who work in the fashion industry who want these women as dolls. Men don’t know what it feels like to be a woman and be expected to look a particular way. The Beckhams are part of the machine; Paris Hilton is part of the machine.”
“If you’re out there, gay boys, tell that fat girl following you around, laughing at all your jokes that you think she’s beautiful! Tell her she’s fat and beautiful, and she’ll think sweet about you well into her 20’s…eternal.”
- Gossip’s Beth Ditto on her MySpace page
So what, she’s fat and sometimes a little crude, but I love the bitch, and she has talent.
Here’s Beth Ditto and Gossip performing Standing in the Way of Control last night on The Late Show with David Letterman.
“Britney’s so rad. She’s just trash – and I mean that positively. I was trash too.”
- Beth Ditto says Britney Spears reminds her of herself.
The Gossip’s Beth Ditto did a Public Service Announcement against online bullying.
She said she was once the target of bullies and she can relate to what kids go through these days. She said,
“As a big girl, I was bullied quite a bit, made fun of quite a lot. It would have been really easy for me to turn out to be a huge bully, and be really mean to people. But its actually turned out far more empowering, far more helpful to be a little stronger about it and not treat people the way they treated me. It’s probably the best rule in life to treat people how you’d want to be treated.”
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Beth Ditto
Friday November 9, 2007
The Guardian
Today’s dilemma: My flatmate’s habits are so annoying that I want to take revenge. Should I?
Beth says: Revenge comes in many packages. For me the greatest revenge of all is having a happy adulthood, waking up in my gorgeous turquoise bedroom in the morning beside a person who really inspires me. That’s the best revenge a girl-loving-girl from the Bible belt could possibly have. And, importantly, it’s healthy. I’m a great believer in karma and the vengeance that it serves up to those who are deliberately mean is generally enough for me.
I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought of putting hair-remover in a shampoo bottle, or eating the last piece of pie belonging to a flatmate who never put the toilet seat down. Usually, though, acting on these urges only perpetuates the situation and sends you along an unhealthy path.
That said, I have experienced a few situations where a little cold, calculated retaliation seemed appropriate. For instance, I once purposefully puked on some homophobic boys on a boat. This probably wasn’t the healthiest approach, but I considered it a political tactic more than a revenge per se, and it was certainly effective! Even in that situation, I’d still say the question – to puke, or not to puke? – was up for debate, but it did give me an instant feeling of relief, and I can’t say I’ve ever regretted it.
In that instance, the boys weren’t friends of mine. Your flatmate is presumably someone you once liked, or indeed still like – it’s just that some of their habits have riled you. The truth is that thoughts of revenge stir only when irrational feelings have taken over, and, frankly, you’re not going to resolve your problem any more quickly by making reactionary jabs at the culprit. If this is a person with whom you have daily contact, then the ultimate goal must surely be to get along. Revenge can feel great, momentarily, but it is a simple reaction to a complex emotional situation and can provide only a bittersweet, temporary fix for your hurt feelings.
After all, if you do take your revenge, what happens when the deed that got you into this predicament recurs? And, let me tell you, it will. Maybe it won’t be the same person who annoys you in this way, but someone else will. Are you just going to keep eating other people’s pie or keying cars your whole life? No way! Why should you be stuck with type 2 diabetes and a criminal record just because someone else can’t learn to put the toilet seat down or keep their mouth shut? If there’s a hole in the bucket you don’t refill it and run from the well faster – you mend the hole and carry every last drop safe and sound.
You need to make the choice now to be an adult about this. Rather than spending time thinking of ever more malicious ways to get back at your friend, use this energy to clear the air. Prepare what you want to say, and how you would like to hear this sort of news yourself, and then carefully bring up the problem. If you have laid the foundation for an adult conversation, it should go well and, hopefully, the problem won’t arise again. No revenge necessary. Remember, the most important thing is always to keep the lines of communication open – however funny it might sometimes be to imagine your friend/enemy brushing their teeth with hemmorhoid cream!
*Beth would love to answer your one-line questions or dilemmas in her fortnightly column. Please email them to beth.ditto@guardian.co.uk
