I was watching "Grey's Anatomy" last night. I’d missed the last five months of TV America thanks to a stint in Paris where my entire life fell apart. I promptly returned home to California, divorced, with two kids, and plenty of television to catch up with.
"Grey’s" had been with me in New York, while I waited out the 2008 hype elections, my impending move to Paris and for "Mad Men" to return. Even though every line out of the characters’ mouths is a cliché taken from a "Chicken Soup for the Soul" book, it had always appealed on an empty Thursday night.
This particular episode focused on the eternal debate of what mattered most; the love of surgery as your life or your love? And which would go if you had to choose? Obviously, the surgeons in the show had to come to the conclusion that their real passion for saving lives surpassed any other form of love, and hence, their personal sacrifice was justified. Peppered into the storyline were moments where the characters had real "love" issues, testing these limits. In spite of his wife's protests (post-it's they call them), McDreamy still finds a way to betray Meredith’s pillow talk by outing the chief, hence getting what he wants, etc., etc... All of which in my current state of mind had me saying, "You selfish prick. Meredith drew the line at what she told you as a wife not a colleague and you fuck her over anyway."
My now ex husband chose his job, too. Well, he got a new ambitious little girlfriend thrown in like a combo menu, but essentially his job took priority. Saving lives wasn't his thing, but writing about the lives of others was. The thrill of the adventure of war, death and destruction, human failings and joy were his bread and his butter.
Before we'd left Paris in 2003 (to move to New York), he'd visited 26 countries in 3 years. We, his family, were the 11 o'clock news bumpers of reality, brief moments, interspersed with numerous trips away. The hero would return, safe and sound, play Don Draper daddy for a moment while Betty was quietly losing her marbles trying to hold up the fort.
I'll always remember the moment in last season's "Mad Men" when Don accepts an award, and Betty looks on proudly but at the same time aware that the guy on the spot wasn't getting an award at home. That was a TV moment that struck me as I streamed the show alone in a Paris apartment wondering what the hell was about to happen to me.
Four months after moving to Paris, now safely back, this time in California, the fluff of "Grey’s" bothered me because it was exactly the Don Draper version of things. "I am important to the world and everything else is just piddle." It is the image of what should be right but an image that isn’t telling the whole story.
Everyone knows that life's a bitch and then you die. But when you get old, the job stops, the curtain falls, and you're supposed to fall into line and look back and hopefully laugh at the bad times, watch kids bicker, grandkids grow, yada, yada.
For many people, this dream is going to happen. We collectively make choices for our families, and at times that means biting hard on our lip when we meet someone or something we'd like to pursue but have already taken another path.
Then there are those who don't bite and kiss instead – opening up a variety of outcomes. Some are more discreet, some stop, and then some say, I like the way it feels and I'm going to chuck out the old and go for the new after 15 years of marriage.
This isn’t true only for affairs. It’s also true for the job, kissing the job and taking it over the 15 years. Well, it depends on the job.
Joe Schmoe the contractor doesn't have to face the choice of Betty's wrath because he went to install a new type of toilet and it'll fuck up the morning school run. However when the husband’s choice involves wars, natural disasters by choice, you can bet your ass that nine out of ten wives would at the very least roll their eyes, and at the very most, lose their temper.
Yes, it's a job...yes, you are paid to do it, yes, you are good at it, but how many times have you been there to put the kids to sleep in the past two months? How many dinner invitations did we have to turn down because of a last minute call out? How many nights alone? When was the last time you attended a teacher-parent meeting for your kids?
What are your priorities?
In the end, my ex chose the job. A new life in Paris with a big shiny promotion. We were excess baggage; our cost to his established career was too much.
Hence in this life episode, we see behind the scenes of the characters of "Grey's Anatomy," and we get "Mad Men." We explore the uncomfortable underbelly of what it's like to be standing next to McDreamy but feeling like McNothing and the knowledge that McNothing is going to happen unless you get the fuck out of there. Betty waiting for the moment of truth, divorce agreement and plane tickets. "The Sopranos" touched on it with Carmella. I'm convinced, like others, that Meadow, Tony's daughter, shall return to the small screen as a modern day La Femme Nikita to head the family after the fall, perhaps giving us perspective into what those kids were doing the whole time Tony was smoking peyote in the desert with a whore.
My episode kept on rolling, past the Journey song, past the Betty Eureka moment, and past McDreamy and McSteamy's vacant looks of shock when their own games gets flack. We rolled out of a taxi, into a hotel next to Charles de Gaulle and quietly but violently flew back to the United States, leaving the "priority" to his "priorities." Here, we will start our own series. Emmy-winning, of course.
Back to
New York just in time for the cold weather and for TV’s worst addiction to play out in the privacy of my living room.You see, I am a junkie for Bret Michaels and VH1’s Rock of Love.My husband groans when I turn the shit on, but really…who can beat a good two hours of watching an over the hill rocker with a bad weave stick his tongue in the mouth of at least 4 or 5 skanky girls per show?It grosses me out, and yet I can’t turn my head away from it. Heck, last night I even watched the show with the new Time Warner Cable instant “start from the beginning” option, not knowing that by doing so, I eliminated the function of fast forwarding through the commercials! Good thing I did because I learned that I can order the Flirty Girl Fitness DVD for 20 bucks. It will take 25 inches off my body (accumulated I suppose) and, here’s the point where you dive at your telephone to order, I get my own home stripper pole!!!Imagine my excitement of reenacting the latest Pussy Cat Dolls video moves right before bed!The turn on as I execute flawless upside down pole flips in my daughter’s Barbie Slip-on Dress-up Clear Hooker heels!My back pains just imagining, but it’s the thought that counts.Right?
Somehow, some way, by some act of angelic glory, I manage to make it through the commercials without ordering Flirty Girl Fitness, or any of the other blatantly misogynistic, fourth-wave feminism, screw-equality-let’s-make-everyone-whores products darting at my retinas, and I rejoin Brett and Bad Hair on the other side.
This season, Bret is on the road.I suppose he’s figured out that perhaps, if he has a steady screw on the road, he can avoid screwing up most of his stable relationships. (Note to Bret: this does not work, sex addicts are like crack addicts, they are never, ever, monogamous or, um, satisfied.)He’s taken his circus freaks on two special buses.For some insane reason we have a pink bus and a blue bus.I can only think that perhaps this is to help indentify and keep track of which slut licked Brett’s ear and which slut licked Brett’s forehead – since they all look exactly the fucking same: slutty.VH1 must have understood that the IQ of the average viewer goes down 20 points while watching (case-in-point: I wrote this right after the episode ended), so by differentiating the bus color we can easily digest the…er…plot(?).
Well, shit has it that the party blondes went to the pink bus and the more subdued (haha) women opted for the blue bus, with very, very few exceptions.I am sure that some enterprising undergrad will be writing up a psych analysis of this in due time for her senior thesis, but for now I am calling it the Difference Between the Crazy Ho’s and the Not-so-Crazy Ho’s (feel free to borrow that, all you smirking psych majors).Jump past Bret’s beginning pleas for finding true and everlasting love and the really crazy sluts are going at it within 20 minutes of hitting the road.Twenty minutes!They even fought over packing the friggin’ luggage before they set out, while the more ‘mature’ blue bus gang got to know each other and seemed more like marathon runners with a plan: don’t show both tits right now or you’ll never have enough energy for a strong finish.
Yes, there’s strategy involved with the ROL Bus.These women can’t outdo Hillary in the brains department, but they have some visceral ability to strategize with high amounts of silicon in their breasts like enhanced lab rats. Let’s face it, they scheme like the rest of us, but in bad clothes.Or no clothes. Some are painfully mentally unstable, like Nikki, while others look like they could take Bret with a huge black strap-on at any moment. Bret even seems to like that idea….hmmmm.
Meet Nikki: One of the crazier Ho's
Whatever visual crack substitute this show has, I am indeed hooked. I don’t know if it’s the desire to live out some sick fantasy in the life of an über-hot porn star, or if it’s like the curiosity of watching apes fornicate at the zoo, but I feel ashamed and somewhat haughty watching it all play out.Not since Sarah Palin’s glorious entry to the world political forum have I felt such a rush of emotional contradictions. “I’m smarter than she is…How can she do this? She’s got to be out of her mind, saying that!What the heck is she trying to do for women?”All familiar phrases uttered in the Fall of 2008, coming to my lips again in such a so-bad-but-yet-so-good moment of television bliss, in the middle of an economic catastrophe and a fresh new war from our friends in the Middle East.While I hope both problems are resolved, my greater hope is that my daughter doesn’t notice that I’ve been stealing her Barbie heels.But that’s understandable.Right?
My battle with my own body has gone on since I was a child. Growing up in über health conscious
Manhattan Beach, California, I understood when I hit puberty that unlike my scrawny friends I was going to be in a continuous uphill battle for the rest of my life.
My Wisconsin-homed hugely hefty family was an ominous reminder of excess and I cringed at the sight of them at family free-for-all eat-fests.When I grew up, quickly out of Los Angeles and to
Europe, I tried my best to make due with my genetic make-up to scarf down.I adopted a moderate way of eating, sometimes with great success, and then, other years (or certain nine-month spells), I kind of let it all go.
Five years ago, I moved to
New York and started running again. It has become the only way to manage my love for food, my desire to keep fitting into my clothes I work hard to buy.I banished the scales to a corner of the bathroom.Unless I really had to, I refused to be weighed at the doctors.I knew this was an anxiety trigger to me.After 34 years, I needed to let go the numbers and start reading my body from my clothes and my own feeling rather than that (sorry) stupid fucking number on a scale. Looking at calories became “just a game,” just a measure to occasionally keep my own internal scale regulated.Things like the dreaded (oh the beloved!) Girl Scout cookies, shocked the hell out of me: 4 tiny thin mints added 190 calories, nearly 50 percent of that being fat. I could eat one of those sleeves in ten minutes if you left me to it.
America is having a serious wake up call with their overall excesses. The nation of the fat and the rich is hitting a wall. Eventually (today probably), the federal government is going to bail out America’s overindulging financial institutions, outdated car makers, airlines, and so on.For years, America has been bailing out America
with little or no success, because what we thought was progress was not. Listen, giving an overweight person a bacon cheeseburger when he's gained 10 pounds between scale visits isn't going to help the situaion -- neither is $700 billion.
The economy is the same as eating. We’ve regulated. We’ve instituted mandatory calorie listings in fast food chains and other restaurants. We’ve spent millions in obesity awareness programs. The result has only ruined the spinach artichoke dip at California Pizza Kitchen. As with any regulation, there are those whose abuse the system. A recent study at Applebee’s found the weight watchers menus were totally off in nutritional value posted.So, how does regulation work?
It’s only a guise of regulation.I see the look the on guy’s face who thought he was ordering that lovely ‘healthy’ salad, thinking he was staying within the lines, only to learn after thousands of calories that he’d perhaps over done it. That guy looks like the guy who’s just received his new stratospheric variable interest rate in a statement from his mortgage company.
Last week’s Newsweek article “ Five Ways to Trick Yourself Into Eating Less” by Tina Peng provides the answer to both our financial and physical ailments. Basing her article on the findings of Brian Wansink’s book, “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” (Bantam, 2007), Peng says that we need to simplify: Buy Smaller Plates, Don’t Clean Your Plate, Don’t Eat Straight Out of the Bag (including Girl Scout Cookies, damn), Watch out for Group Grazing, and finally, Don’t Trust Your Own Judgment – meaning your initial judgment, meaning research what you think you know.
If we continue to blame the growth of fast food chains and overzealous bankers in the same sentence, we overlook the bigger issue. We play blame game with something that ultimately comes down to the abuse of our own ability to self-regulate.On one hand, we fight for the ‘freedom’ to choose what we want to do and when we want to do it, in true entrepreneurial spirit.On the other, we look to our governing bodies to control us when we’ve stepped out of line. Our country, it seems, has lost the ability to make those harsh self-evaluations; we’ve gone to the trough way too often in search of a size zero that’s way out of reach.
In the small words of Dennis Kucinich: Wake up America.
Instead of having a hissy fit over the state of our economy, treat your money like your food.Don’t eat so much. You may have to forego the extra whip cream on that mocha at Starbucks, and you may not have the cash to trade in for a new car just yet, but you’ll pull through and may still fit in your jeans.
The sheer fact that Obama did his speech at 7pm in Berlin indicates that his target audience was the states (with a sprinkling of
Europe). The speech hit live late morning/early afternoon in the US giving all major cable networks enough time to jerk off to it and prepare a super segment for the afternoon news.Print papers also close most of their content by 3pm, so he ran right up to the finish line and upped his chances of being front page breaking news.If he'd done it earlier, he'd have given the whole day to the media and by the time evening rolled around most of the editors would have been “Obama'd out.” (Spitzer's ex hooker might still make the cover tomorrow…)
For the European press Obama basically did the same thing, but gave them even less time.Most news programs come on only once at 7/8pm, so the coverage (for example in France) would have been based on b-roll footage and a couple on-the-spot interviews.Limited digestion time.
Tomorrow—the Big O hits France, at 5pm French time, making it 11am EST/8am PST. We'll have all day to have those images of Sarko and Carla ooohing and ahhhing over O. Carla speaks better English than lil'Nico, so I think she'll be doing most of the talking.What will she say? From a woman who's been vocal about her love of polyandry, man-eating, cig smoking, guitar playin' ways, will she whisper sweet nothings in his ear? “When Michelle goes to sleep tonight, I hold private conzzzert in my chambers, you come?” Or, “I like men with power, you are taller than mine, I could finally wear my Louboutin heels.”
I see the headlines already, “Obama seduced by French Head Mistress—What's Next, La Revolution?” “French Friendly O Holds Court in
Paris.” FOX has been thinking about these for days now and I'm sure their choices will include words to be interpreted by the American public as “higher taxes, more social projects”…“Obama chooses Euro over Dollar in Tough Times”
Even though thousands of folks turned out to see him in Germany, and I fundamentally agree with his choice of reaching out to Europe, it seems a tad premature and perhaps offensive to a population who have little to do w/Germany other than the fact that they came from there waaaaaay waaaaaay long ago.
There is freedom, there is hope, there is a bit of each of us as Americans
in the Number 2, the value meal of change.
I read today that he's going to be spending a ton on ads during the Olympic broadcasts. I get it. Marketing, Branding. Strategy to keep him “all American”—perhaps this announcement comes a bit too timed w/his European tour. I almost mis-read the email and thought it said Obama was doing Olympic Game McDonald's commercials....well I guess anything seems possible these days.
I opened my New York Times Magazine out by the pool, en famille, on Memorial Day weekend.My eyes lit up at the article by Michael Tomasello – “How Are Humans Unique?” I've been bothering the author of this blog for years about my firm belief that we humans have forgotten, with years of social history and advancement, that we are just a couple genetic strands away from apedom.
In the NY Times article, the author showed through administered IQ tests that a human child’s collective awareness (reactions, etc.) is similar to a primate’s.I've been trying to look at my own life and see why we all seemingly scratch our heads at dumb behavior when that dumb behavior is found in primates.
No one should be surprised when they read about typical male behavior. Or female. We have a moral code we've become accustomed to of late but a hundred years ago certain things we thought were acceptable (like throwing our raw sewage out onto the street) are no longer practiced. We have made advancements in the name of comfort and convenience of our species.But so have other animals!They've adapted and our success as a species has likewise come with our inherent ability to adapt. Vive le Discovery Channel!
I felt somewhat vindicated reading this in the Times; my head has been coming out of a slight haze of depression, which has been quite annoying.
I was coming to the point (or am in the process of coming to it) where one sits back and evaluates things and then goes, what next?
I work in public relations, a field where results are hardly concrete, where everything is subjective, where one is supposed to be promoting something that either takes off or doesn't.For some projects I've been working on, I've reached that middle point where you define the lines in the sand and hope the tide doesn't come up too fast.
Some of the projects seem to continue. By grace of God, a career or a company has been able to stand the test of time to get itself from one point to another. Others have stopped because that line, drawn deep, was subjected to circumstances that are beyond anyone's help. Those are the ones that bother me still. Why? What could have, should have, would have happened that didn't?
We are dealing with HUMANS here. They error. Some of them error so badly that they don't even realize that they've literally sabotaged their entire life by making the same mistake over and over. The collective tribe comes in and swoops up the wounded leader and acts as if nothing happened, but it did.
At one point someone says something, then another, then another, and eventually that "leader" is cast aside – regardless of what they did. Trends, market place – call it what you want – it's no different than in a pride of fighting male lions where the older one finally loses out to the younger stud.
Then, as “The Intelligent Humans,” we analyze the downfall of something that is entirely natural. And our stupid sides, or rather the “uniqueness” that Michael Tomasello refers to in his Times piece finally comes to light.
Our friends the animals don't worry about it too much. They move on. They don't see the stupidity but more so the lack of utility and are seldom prone to depression.
But we are.I am.And the thing is that the very people I critique will most likely fall out of step on their own regardless of my actions.
Pretentious? Maybe. But realistic, definitely. The Eureka ! moment comes when you see it is what it is: Dumb animals. You just make your own little path, think big, progress and don't look back too often.
I'm telling myself this will make it all better. After all, we're only human.
Mariah wore panties on Saturday.Thank God because she was close to a Britney/Lindsay/your mom moment with her micro mini edging up her thighs. The silver slip of fabric would have been a head band on most folks, but Mariah wore it, owned it. Gesticulating, cooing, purring like a hormone on fire, she still seemed a little unsure of herself as if she was saying, “Do you (the public) still want me?”
Good question and thanks for asking; do we? Is the Mariah of our happy 90's and early 2000's still a sure thing since the net hit and threw a bone to every rising star with a set of pipes (and boobs)?
Maybe she was saying, "If I threw my album online, would you download it?"
Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails seem to prove that indie die hard fans will go for the music and set the price, but does that apply to R n' B? Rap? Hip Hop?
Don'tthese 'music cultures' pride themselves on parading the high-life? Ba zillion dollar houses and bling?Isbling compatible with the starving tortured artistry of Thom Yorke? I mean, Thom isn't hurting, but he gets that a zillion angst-filled fans like to hurt a bit for the sake of it all and respect the collective experience of sharing music.
Are Mariah fans the same kinda people that will autonomously seek out an album online (or elsewhere) without having it force-fed to them through tubes of record company publicity? Does someone like Mariah have what Thom Yorke and Trent Reznor have?
I don't think so, because music is about more than melody.It’s about lifestyle.
Fans like to see Mariah on Richard Branson's resort in a bikini; fans like to see Trent Reznor in a dark hate-machine.Jay-Z's fans admire his overpriced suits and diamonds; Radiohead’s fans admire the group’s defiance. Those who get Low with Flo Rida like his chain (it’s spinnin’!) and Chamillionaire’s rims (they’re spinnin’ too!); those who serenade Delilah with the Plain White T’s like their plain white t’s.
Nothing about hip hop is free; it's all about showing what you own, possess, scratched and clamored for.
Rap would be the most obvious genre where we could start to see the NIN trend on a big scale because it came from the streets. Alas, so far not one major player has stepped up to take the first swing of throwing their music to the public.
Eminem hides in Detroit, Snoop makes a reality show and Alicia Keys plays on every god-damn award show (twice in the same show). Omarian and Sean Paul rake in the bucks and Sean Jean makes perfume…
Let's cut to the chase. It’s bigger than that.It's not just the audience or the lifestyle that prevent this genre from applying the new model to their music.Like American Idol, Labels will milk that Hip Hop Cash Cow for as long as it's making a profit. They'll dominate radio, tour little (for reasons I'll maybe go into another time), and show up on the boob tube every night on MTV, VH1 and your late night shows.
Until we tell them it’s changed.We haven't changed the station yet so those execs will slap them tunes onto itunes and into stores until we've shown we don’t need them anymore.We don’t need the middle man to bring us our music.We want more money to go to the musician and we aren’t willing to pay more than 10 bucks for it.
Mariah's no Rhianna or Ciara; she's got a couple of miles on the odometer and she's one of those straddling (refrain yourself from the thought for just one second) artists who started out in the old school of thought and have to now pray to the music Gods that their stuff means something to the new school. A brief shot up her skirt proved to me she's absolutely willing to spread 'em for the sake of a good song.
