“Idealized new art insurrections. Awake all night so to plan The next actions. Though nay-sayers said.
Our attempts were not misled (to be) young & strange, to transform space, with new ideas to be dangerous
Some tactics change, yet the goals remain.”
~Zegota~
I have often mentioned my sister, Amanda, and how she has helped me become…well, me. When we were in school she hated me. She feared, I doubt she would ever admit this, no she was terrified that I somehow would steal her friends away from her. Once, when one of my older sisters got married Amanda and her best friend Robert were asked to preform Ave Maria. The whole family stayed in Ohio for about a week just for fun. Towards the end of our trip Robert and I just kind of got a kick out of each other. It was nothing. Just two kids having a good time. Amanda didn’t speak to Robert for a week. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of her senior year. When she moved away to Boone, NC I only went and saw her once, it was the week before I moved to CA by myself. She took me to a punk-lite show, it was in a book store so it wasn’t that impressive. She made me help her cook food for Food Not Bombs, which I was clueless to the meaning behind the name. She really tried to show me her real self, who she was becoming, and looking back now I know she was trying to push me to follow her–at least politically speaking. She was a full-blown Anarchist and hard-core punk-rocker. But I was so naive, truth be told I still am. I had just purchased my first pair of tight fitting Calvin Cline jeans, died my hair a normal shade of blonde, and was beginning to believe that in fact I wasn’t that ugly. So off I went to the Golden State and severed all ties with her. I don’t remember even phone calls between us, she traveled the world while I was being pigeon-held in the boushie life I was stuck in.
To understand completely what changed we have to look back before the “Five P’s” to really understand just what kind of an impact she has had on me. I had been in Santa Barbara for a little over 3 years at that point. I was a raging drug addict living off cocaine and Cold Stone Creamery frozen yogurt. I had somehow become the manager of the Goleta store, I guess because I was able to work everyday, all day and not complain is why. I came home one night to find a message on my answering machine from my sister. She said she might be coming to town, that she might need a place for her and the band she was traveling with to stay at, and that she might hang out with me. She left no number or even when this might happen. I didn’t give it a second thought.
It had been about 3, maybe 4 days since I had received that message. I was at work, it was maybe 5 o’clock when it happened. There was my sister and six young men standing on the other side of the bowls of brightly colored candies and chocolates. I didn’t really know what to say other than, “Do you want some ice cream?” They informed me that they were all Vegans and that they would ingest such garbage. Then it happened. They kidnapped me, literally, my sister demanded that I leave with her now or they would cause a scene. I tossed my keys to the shop to some 16 year-old girl and left. I followed them to a show space that I had only ever heard of but never went to.
There were two bands that played that night. The first was some crappy poser band…you may of heard of them, Good Charlotte, the other was the band my sister was traveling with, Zegota. The show space was packed when the first band played, but once they were done all the cool kids went outside. Other than myself there were just two other people who watched them play, my sister and the other roadie. My jaw was on the floor. I stood there staring at each band member as the played, I had never seen nor heard anything like this in my life. By the end of their set I was not only deaf but aw-inspired.
Amanda and I sat in my convertible VW Cabriolet, she drank a 40 and I drank a Zima (yep, I was one of those girls). She told me that she had something to give me but only if I promised to finish it, no matter what. I of course said ‘give it to me,’ but she persisted. “You have to swear to me Meridith. You will read every single page, cover to cover.” *I had a very serious LD, I had never read a single book cover to cover in my entire life. So this indeed was a very serious swear I was about to make.* I promised her that I would, it might take a while, but I would finish it. She handed me this well-worn paperback book. The name alone was enough to cause reservations. She flipped open the cover, on the inside were over twenty names and what state/country they were from. Amanda said that my name could only go below hers if I finished it, she then told me that I had to then pass it along to someone else who needed to read it.
CUNT: A Declaration of Independence, by Inga Muscio was her gift to me.
Amanda and the rest of the band left that night. It would be another two years before I heard from or saw her again. But the next day, between classes, I opened my book and started to read it. I found myself lost in these words, the statements, the “cunt lovin'” messages on each and every page. I sat on the bench on the bright green hillside that overlooked the gorgeous ocean. I missed the rest of my classes that day. For the first time in my life I read a book, cover to cover–and in one day.
I lived in Isla Vista, a one square mile of an annexed town of Santa Barbara. It was inhabited by a combination of college co-eds and the illegal immigrants, a total population of 100,000 people. On Thur., Fri, and Sat. nights the main street, known as DP, was shut down as–no joke–almost all of the 100k people took to the streets and partied their asses off. You weren’t allowed to drive up and down the street on those nights, the risk of running someone over was too high. We had our own police, the IV Foot Patrol, who were (as cops go) pretty cool. There was one part of the “Womanfesto” that really struck a cord with me. Date rape happened all–the–time. It was almost just to be expected, UCSB was at that time one of the most well known party schools, and Din’s International Keg Mart had been in Playboy that year for most kegs sold–what an honor, right? In the ‘festo Inga talked about watching out for your sisters. If you see that they are wasted and might be in a situation that could prove to be disastrous–then do something, anything to stop it.
At this time in my life I didn’t really drink, I never really have been much of a drinker, I did a whole lot of coke but didn’t ever do a keg-stand. So I went to the Foot Patrols office and told them what my plan was. I told them that the needed to let me drive up and down the street and to not stop me every 20 feet to see if I was driving under the influence. To my amazement they agreed. What I did was just walk in and out of all of the parties. If I saw something that looked like it was wrong this is what I would say and do, first I would tap the girl on her shoulder and then I would say, “Hey! There you are, I’ve been looking for you all night. Are you ready to go?” Fifty percent of the time they would tell me to get the fuck away from them…but the other fifty, well they would look up at me with their glassy eyes and barely eek out a yes.
Three weeks had gone by since I had started doing this. I had made a name for myself and was not in good favor with the Frat houses, but I kept up my “cunt lovin'” duties. I was at the tattoo shop when this very tan, very blonde, very beautiful young woman walked in. She gasped when she saw me. The whole shop froze, a week before we had just won a lawsuit for tattooing a Jewish girl by her grandmother (she was over 18 so that is between her and God, not our shop). But still, we all had the same ‘oh my God, what now’ feeling come over us. I could tell she was about to cry. She asked if I remembered her, to be honest I didn’t, I saw thousands of girls just like her every week. Then she said this to me, “Three weeks ago you took me home. Do you remember me now?” Yes. Yes I did. I remember finding her thrown across a trash can while some asshole was pulling down his pants. I remembered threatening him with my beloved pig-sticker that Poppy had given me. I remembered her hanging out my window throwing up all the way back to her Sorority. I stepped outside with her. She just sobbed, telling me thank you, and that she wished that I had been around the last four times that had happened to her. Jesus, what a mind-fuck. All of this because of a book. The BOOK! I had not passed it along yet. I went to my car and pulled it out of my book bag. I told her the same rules that my sister had told me, I knew she was the right one to receive this gift, just as I was–at the time I received it.
My English professor had informed me of a scholarship that was available and that I should take advantage of it. The prize money was 6,000 dollars, 1st would receive 3,500, 2nd got 2,500, and 3rd got 500. It was a state-wide scholarship so I would have to write something brilliant to get the 500$, which I would have been more than happy with. The topic: What piece of literature has changed your life, and how? Are you kidding me was all I could think. How much more apropos could this be? So I wrote my story, similar to what I have written above, and when I showed it to my English prof. she refused to give a letter of recommendation, my film studies prof as well as my music director refused to help me edit let-alone give a recommendation. According to the guidelines of the scholarship I had to have two of my current instructors give a letter of recommendation to be considered for the prize. None of my professors would touch it based on the title of the book. Somehow they thought that Cunt was just way too provocative and/or offensive for them to put their names/reputations on the line.
So, I added a caveat at the beginning. Something along the line of, ‘I would assume that since this is a literary scholarship that you will be able to look past the name of my book choice. That you will read the content and see that my life has been irreversibly changed by how I came to read it and what I have done to change not only my life but the lives of others. I am sorry that I have no letters of recommendation, but unfortunately my professors were unable to see what I had to say, they could only see the title. It was their recommendation that I not submit my story at all.’ I mailed it in and pretty much gave up the ghost on even placing third.
About two weeks went by. I was opening my mail as I walked toward my apartment. There was a really cool courtyard just before my door. When I opened a letter with an address from the scholarship commission on it I stopped in the middle of the courtyard. I read it, then I reread it. I fell to my knees and began to half cry and half laugh. It was the boards decision that the prize money was not to be divided into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. That there was going to be only one recipient of the entire scholarship. And looky-here; ‘Congratulations Meridith A. Smith, your determination and true understanding of the meaning of question asked has impressed upon the review board that there is to be but one recipient of the full scholarship.’ There was an award ceremony, I was presented with one of those oversized checks by the Governor of CA for 6,000 dollars. I received a plaque that was hung in the main office. And best of all, my English professor had to eat a giant piece of humble pie.
All of that happened because my sister kidnapped me and gave me a book. It might be cheesy to say this, but it’s so true, words have power. The power to change lives, to save lives, the power to empower those who read them. I don’t care if you are a woman or a man, I implore you to read Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. I give that book out probably five or more times a year as gifts, always there is a note tucked inside with directions on writing your name in it and passing it along. I hope you do the same once you have read it for yourself.
nakedgrits 
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