Category: Opinions I Have That You Probably Don’t Share

So, over the holidays I started seeing this sign "CALL 911 FOR DRUNK DRIVERS."  Granted, maybe I saw it more because I was driving around more during the holidays (like, transversing the length of the state of California to give out and receive presents, as well as eat dinner with everyone we know).  Now that I research it a little more, I come to find that the California Office of Traffic and Safety is doing a huge crackdown on drunk drivers, so they started really pushing this campaign during the month of December.  They even have this catchy little sign.  Nice, huh?

Now, here’s the thing.  It’s not like I’m all "pro drunk driver" or anything.  I mean, generally speaking I think drunk driving is a bad policy, and I’ve had a couple of friends who have really paid the price (and I do mean literally) for this, and will never do it again.  I have never done it, and Stephan and I have a strict "no drink when driving" policy. But…..911 for a drunk driver?  Seriously?  I have several issues with this.

For one thing, aren’t enough people already calling 911– for legitimate reasons, like because their HOUSE IS ON FIRE, or because they’re CHOKING ON A SANDWICH, or HAVING A HEART ATTACK, or because a TIGER IS BITING THEM IN THE FACE?  Adding a bunch of cellphone-happy drivers reporting what they THINK might be drunk drivers (but honestly, who might just be idiots trying to text message while they’re driving, causing them to weave through lanes of traffic) does NOT sound like a good idea to me.

How about this?  If you see a drunk driver, GET AWAY FROM THEM.  Clear the way for the CHP to catch them, because that’s what they’re there for, and let’s leave the 911 lines open for things like TIGER ATTACKS, or things that really do belong in capital letters.  Again, I’m not saying that drunk driving isn’t a serious crime.  I’m just saying there’s only so much 911 to go around, and I don’t think we should be using it all up on people "weaving and braking erratically," which is how the CA.GOV website is defining a "suspicious or drunk driver."  Also on this list?  "Following too close," which means I’m pretty much going to have to report every single person in the municipality of Los Angeles, dude.  People are bad drivers, and I don’t believe all of them are drunk.  I mean, a guy seriously wove into my lane today in Malibu, and he didn’t seem drunk– just stupid.  What if I called 911 and had a police task force deployed to investigate this young and careless gentleman, only to take those officers away from an elderly person getting robbed?  THEN who’s the asshole?  I’m just saying.   My mother always taught me that 911 was OFF LIMITS, only to be used in EMERGENCIES, which are things you might use capital letters for.

This got me thinking– New York City has developed a very effective system for non-emergent things that you might still want to to report to the police.  They use 311, and it works like a charm.  Of course, this also brings up alot of questions, like I wonder how many years of crazy phonecalls they had to get before they were like "Um…..ma’am?  A man in your apartment building with a chicken is not a 911– it’s a 311," but that’s beside the point.  My point, really, is that 911 is for emergencies, and while an actual drunk driver might be just that, people reporting what they THINK is a drunk driver is just going to deluge the 911 system with nonsense, thus rendering it totally useless.  Like, we should be grateful we HAVE 911, and not abuse it– that’s all I’m saying.    We just got past the whole "911 is a joke" era.  We don’t want to set ourselves back as a society to the point where Flava Flav is going to feel the need to write some biting social commentary about us again, do we? 

That is all.

We’re leaving for New York on Sunday, so I’m trying to get all my funny in before we do, since when I travel I end up writing all my blog posts in a black composition book, then transcribing them when I’m back in the office. 

Again, this is something that probably only I notice. The holidays bring up a lot of mixed feelings
for people, and I think those feelings are well reflected in a number of songs
that SOUND cheerful, but in reality are far from it. Think of me the next time one of these gems
pops up on your Holiday Compilation CD you got from Best Buy.

 

1. I’ll
        Be Home for Christmas. I think the
        Frank Sinatra version is probably the most depressing. This song is clearly told from the
        perspective of someone who is fighting in an overseas war, so they will
        decidedly NOT be home for Christmas. Thus the biting “if only in my dreams” tag at the end. Ew! It burns! He’s probably
        holed up in a hospital somewhere with no legs, eating MREs (Meals Ready to
        Eat, in case you’re not a military kid like me) and reminiscing about when
        things didn’t suck so much.
       
       
2. Baby,
        It’s Cold Outside. The original
        date rape song. “OK, thanks for
        dinner….I’m just going to go home now” “No….baby it’s cold outside, why don’t you stay for awhile….take
        off your coat…..” Translation: we’re snowed in, I’m certainly not
        putting the chains on my tires to get us out of here, and so, frankly, you’re
        not going anywhere.
       
       
3. If I
        Get Home on Christmas Day (Elvis)…notice that the operative word in the
        title is “If,” not “When,” implying that while he’s going to do his
        darndest to tear himself away from the drink and the dice, he is probably
        not going to be successful again this year. Elvis also gives us the stunningly
        depressing “Blue Christmas,” where he knows you’re going to have a good
        Christmas, but without you he’s never going to smile again. So, put that in your cranberry sauce and
        smoke it.
       
       
4. Do
        They Know It’s Christmas? Remember
        this one? Um, I don’t know about
        you, but when I’m getting my turkey and stuffing on, I definitely do NOT
        want to think about starving children in

   Africa

   .
    

5. The Christmas Shoes, by NewSong. This one is about a little boy who’s trying
   to raise money to buy his mama a pair of shoes for Christmas—because she’s
   DYING, and he wants her to look nice in case she meets Jesus tonight. Not surprisingly, this one doesn’t get much
   airplay anymore.
       
       

 

You know, those Dove individual chocolates are really good.  First I started eating the dark chocolate ones, because (I can’t believe I’m admitting this) I read in a women’s magazine that if you eat a few of them after dinner, it tricks your body into thinking you’ve had dessert.  This is a textbook eating disorder thing to do, but it actually works.  Anyway, then I got a box of the Milk Chocolate ones for free (at the Emmys, actually– the box of chocolates had an Emmy on them, if you can believe it).  And those things are just really, really delicious.   It was when I was in the midst of eating one of these that I noticed that every one of them has a clever little saying inside, like "Life is Short….Eat More Chocolate." These are called your chocolate moments, you see. This prompted me to go to the Dove website, which led me to this spectacular piece of copywriting geniosity:

We know you treasure your chocolate moments.

That’s why we at DOVE® are passionate about chocolate. Whether it’s our buyers in search of premium cocoa beans to the chefs who prepare and taste our chocolate each day, we are dedicated to creating the most luscious, silky, creamy chocolate experience for you.

From our silky chocolate pieces to our new ice cream and cookies, DOVE® creates a chocolate moment like no other.

So, maybe I’m the only person who thinks this (I seem to start an awful lot of these posts this way), but when I see a piece of writing that’s obviously meant to be faux-profound, it always makes me think of the copywriter, sitting at their desk in their ad agency, chin resting in hand, noodling around on a piece of paper, trying to make words into something that sounds deep.  Because someone has to write those words, you know.  A real writer, who goes to work every day (or maybe works from home), and they get an assignment, and the assignment is always something like "write us a series of clever haikus that reflect our corporate equity while using the word "leadership."  I’m actually not making that up, because that was a project I got assigned, and spent two weeks working on in 1999.  The assignment after that involved writing a narrative of a character called <CORPORATION> Man, only the characteristics of the man were those of the corporation, get it?  Like, <CORPORATION> Man is trustworthy and brave!  He climbs the mountain and surmounts obstacles, rather than taking the easy way out!  Through insider connections, I managed to get myself transferred onto another project that made me want to kill myself a little bit less, and pass this gem on to a more junior writer.  Now, before you go all "that’s cold– no one deserves a crap assignment like that," understand this:  I paid my dues.  In fact, one of my very first paid jobs as a freelance writer was to write summaries of catalogs.  Yes– summaries.  Of catalogs.  But, the summaries had to sound catchy, like "This clever catalog incorporates the best of baby clothing with a variety of products for your pampered pooch!"

Yeah, makes you die a little inside just to read that, I know.  How do you think I felt?  I got paid BY THE CATALOG.  Sometimes getting paid to write is a weird thing– it makes you feel a little like a creativity plumber or something.  Like, creativity is something you’re supposed to reserve for your "hobbies," or your "off hours," and yet here we are, trying to be profound on cue.  I suppose graphic designers have this problem as well, and fashion designers, and really anyone whose job involves getting a paycheck to pull something (hopefully something deep) out of your mind.  I’m just saying it’s different than adding numbers to a spreadsheet is all.  And so whenever I see a piece of ad copy where it’s so clear that someone was standing right over the copywriter’s desk, pressuring them to "turn on the creativity faucet and let it flow!" I pause for a moment, because you know, I feel for that person.    Sometimes you get to work and you don’t feel like writing about chocolate, but no one cares.  They need their words by 3pm, and they could really care less if you feel inspired, or if your muse is speaking to you.  Pen to paper, man!  Let’s have 150 words on the chocolate moment, and make it snappy!

On the other hand, I don’t get writer’s block ever, because I’ve learned to regard my daily output of words as my utilitarian contribution to society, like being a word plumber or a word UPS man.    Because of this training I CAN actually sit down and write something that sounds decent about almost any topic, which has served me well in my life.

Yes, these are the things I spend time thinking about, because I don’t have children.

In honor of the fact that I am going to see my friend Joe Henry in concert on Friday with Loudon Wainwright III, and also because I have been asked to audition for "Don’t Forget the Lyrics" next week, a show on which I would be great because if you know me, you know that I know way too many 80’s and 90’s lyrics and have absolutely no compunction about sharing them, I thought I would compile a list of ten great "story songs."

You know story songs, right? These are songs that AREN’T allegorical or representational in any way. They are intentially ironic at times, and this is why I find them funny. These are actual stories, about people, and you better sit down, because most of them are long and they have a point to make. I’m not saying they’re all bad– in fact, some of them are good. I am saying, though, that you know one when you hear one. This is no plaintive Robert Plant wail about how "a woman done him wrong." No, this is a story, about a guy, named Mr Bojangles, who gets paid to dance for you even though he’s old and that is sad.

Granted, most of these songs are from the 70’s and 80’s– maybe there was a "story song" phase going on back then which has since died out. I actually thought I was the only one who called them this, until I did a Google search and found this list. Go figure! There’s even some overlap.

Anyway, here are some of my favorites.

1. Mr. Bojangles, as performed by Sammy Davis Jr. (apparently written by Jerry Jeff Walker). Quite possibly the saddest song in the history of time. So filled with pathos, I’m surprised he can even sing it without melting into a puddle of angst. "Silver hair and ragged shirt and baggy pants….he could jump so high, then he’d lightly touch down." Ouch! Stop! It’s too sad! Mr. Bojangles is essentially an old alcoholic with no pension and no hope. All he can do is dance the old soft shoe for his supper, even though his arthritic knees will barely hold him up. Mr. Bojangles…..daaance. It hurts!

2. Escape (The Pina Colada Song), by Rupert Holmes. This is the song where the guy is fed up with his woman, so he responds to an ad in the paper looking for the perfect mate, and they have to like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain, and then he responds to the ad, and they meet at a bar called O’Malley’s, and – surprise!– just happens to be his same girlfriend that he was tired of, so they have a good laugh and you want to kill yourself. To me, this is the musical equivalent of a gigantic ball of frosting. Once you hear the opening bars of this song, you know you’re going to have to sit on down, because this is going to take awhile.

3. Operator, by Jim Croce. This is actually a good song, in my opinion, but you do have to admit that it sticks a little too closely to the narrative, like "OK, now he’s getting out his money, now he’s telling the operator the story of his life…..let’s forget all that, and give me the number if you can find it, so I can call just to tell her I’m fine and to show….." I always pictured the operator on the other end of the line, like "Sir….are you going to place the call or not? I’m not a psychologist. Sir…I’m disconnecting you." I love the end where he goes "you can keep the dime." Thanks!

4. Copacabana– Barry Manilow. Again, not saying it’s not a good song, but by the end you do know an awful lot about Lola, and Rico, and the Copacabana, the hottest club north of Havana. I love how these songs always circle back to the inciting incident of the relationship…..they fell in looooove. I think this one is on the A.V. Club’s list too.

5. Rocky Raccoon, by The Beatles. Rocky raccoon | checked into his room | Only to find gideons bible
Rocky had come | equipped with a gun | To shoot off the legs of his rival. No real mystery here– you pretty much know what the song is about, which to me is the hallmark of a true story song. This song is probably a riff on an American story song, because The Beatles were just cool like that. Some say that this song is a parody of a Bob Dylan song. Did you know that Phish recorded a cover of Rocky Raccoon? Yeah, I didn’t care about that either.

6. Cat’s in the Cradle, by Harry Chapin’s wife. This isn’t just a story song. It’s a story EPIC. This song covers, like FORTY YEARS of this guy’s life– during the span of one song, you see him as a kid, growing up with an absentee father, going to middle school, having all of his formative experiences, and then– lo and behold!– BECOMING an absentee father himself. When you comin home dad, I don’t know when– we’ll get together then, DAD. We’re gonna have a good time then. Indeed. This song is included on an album called "Verities and Balderdash." Enough said. 

Update:  After I posted this list, I got a few comments from someone named "Amos," who wanted me to get my facts straight.  As far as this song goes, he wanted me to know that it was written by Harry Chapin’s wife, about his life on the road and how he never saw his kids, which frankly, is what I thought I was writing.  So, to clear up the confusion, yes– that’s what I meant.  It’s about HIM, and that’s why it’s so ironical.

7. Hotel California, by The Eagles. I’m sure some people think this song is a metaphor for something, but to me it’s a song about a guy….on a dark desert highway, cool wind in his hair, blah blah blah. Not that it’s not catchy. It is. But it is also very, very literal.

8. Same Auld Lang Syne, by Dan Fogelberg. Don’t remember this one? Here, let me refresh your memory:

Met my old lover in the grocery store,
The snow was falling Christmas Eve.
I stole behind her in the frozen foods,
And I touched her on the sleeve.

She didn’t recognize the face at first,
But then her eyes flew open wide.
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse,
And we laughed until we cried.

Just the mention of the frozen foods section gets it a place on this list. Pure exposition, this song. I’m surprised he doesn’t start talking about how he’s "singing in a microphone, a little hungover from last niiiiight." That literal. Stephan has this to say about Dan Fogelberg: "Dan Fogelberg wears ladies underpants. He is the kind of guy who cries when he "makes love." Dan Fogelberg should get a sex change and get it over with, for he is a woman."

9. Don’t You Want Me, Baby, by Human League. A "he said, she said" story song. Better than the Odyssey, really. "I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar!" "No you weren’t!"

10. Splish Splash, by Bobby Darin. He’s taking a bath, ok? He’s in the bath. Then he gets of the bath, puts his towel on, and discovers there’s a party goin’ on in his house. That’s all there is to it, really. Does he have to spell it out for you? Well, apparently he does.

11. Ziggy Stardust, by David Bowie. This is a special bonus story song, because while I’m sure it’s a story, I’m not sure what the story is about exactly. Spiders from Mars, playing guitar left handed….it SEEMS like a narrative, but it’s so far in the depths of David Bowie’s mind, you’d need a decoder ring and some Cliff Notes to find your way out of there. Great song, though.

Stephan also wants me to include some songs by this guy, Red Sovine.  This are less real songs and more of an old guy with a geetar, just talkin’ about a dawg named Little Joe, and how Little Joe saved him from a burning big rig, and how a crippled kid named Teddy Bear gets lonely and it helps to talk over the CB radio .   

And with that….have a nice weekend!

Top Ten Most Smug Celebrities

I started this list after seeing this photo of Elizabeth
Hasselbeck that made me, for some reason, want to punch her in the face. It’s not that I’m usually the violent type—it’s just something about that woman that makes me want to
hit. I added her to my list of “the
world’s most smug celebrities”—a list I will share with you now.

By smug, of course, I mean that these are the people who do NOT seem down to
earth, like they’d be your friend if they weren’t a famous person. These are the people who, if you ran into
them, would seriously be like “Hi—I’m better than you.” I think this kind of attitude is very wrong,
since basically these guys just have a job that pays a little more than yours
and is a little bit higher exposure. And
while I get the whole “need for security against the paparazzi” and “want to
have their own private lives” thing, I think there is a way to handle this, and
I don’t think it has to do with telling people what to do, and smiling like you’re
better than everyone.  Over the weekend, someone mentioned adding Al
Gore to this list because of that way he has of talking, like he’s
condescending to you, but I don’t find that to be true about him—and hey, he
did just win the Nobel Prize, so maybe he knows something.

Top Ten Smug Celebrities

# 1 & # 2 Michael
Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Just…..so…..smug. Everything about them says “we’re better
than you! We’re rich and you’re not!” Sarah Vowell had this great quote in one of
her essays about how it would never even occur to Michael Douglas even play a
poor person in a movie. Both of them
seem like they’ve had a huge amount of plastic surgery, but they’re going to
insist that they just look that good. Also, I completely believe the rumor that she’s at least 10 years older
than she admits to being. Just….come on.

 

# 3 Elizabeth
Hasselbeck. Not only is she a
Republican, she’s like a housewife from the 1950’s. She was on Survivor for five minutes, then
got married to a football player, immediately changed her name, and soon will
have two little kids—and she’s not even thirty. This look on her face says it all—“I have everything figured out. My values are in place. It’s what women are SUPPOSED to do…..I’m better than you.” Women like this set the women’s movement
back. 

# 4 Anne Coulter. She’s probably doing this whole “I’m a
flaming conservative” thing on purpose, and probably the best way for me to
make her go away is to just ignore her. But…she bugs me. She says
inflammatory stuff just so she’ll get press, and this is the opposite of making
the world a better place. She just has
this look on her face like she’s about to tell you how wrong and stupid you
are, and that pisses me off.  I can’t put up her picture, because….I just can’t. 

# 5 Tom Cruise. I
hate to put him on this list, because a) Katie Holmes is my best friend, and b)
I really liked him in Jerry Maguire, but Tom Cruise really thinks he knows how
to live your life better than you do. The whole anti-depressant thing really turned me off—like, why is this
his business? Actually, I think it’s
just that he’s so vocal about Scientology now. I really feel like religion should be your own private business, even if
it’s really helped you live your own life better. Good for you, but the minute
you go trying to tell other people what to do, then you’re on the smug list. I will say, though, that he and Katie Holmes
(my best friend) seem like they have a very nice relationship, and that Suri
Cruise is just precious and seems like a well-raised child. See? I
can say nice things about smug people.

# 6 Simon
Cowell. Again, I think he’s doing this
on purpose, as a brand, but sometimes he seems to enjoy insulting those kids on
American Idol a little too much. When I
see clips of him on “The Soup,” I just find myself wanting someone to give him
Rohypnol, take him to a casino, and make him bet his entire fortune on unlucky
hands of blackjack, just so he’ll be humbled and have to work his way back up.  I really respect him as a businessman and entrepreneur– I just think he goes a little too far with the "mean guy" persona. 

# 7 Martha
Stewart. She used to be # 1 until she
went to jail and knitted that poncho, then I decided to give her a break. But, to this day, she seems like she would
come into your house that you just cleaned, look around slowly, and just
sigh.  Her demeanor says to me “Oh—do you not know
how to make a crisp onion tartlet and put it on a plate garnished with a
gingham napkin and a sprig of paprika that you grew yourself?  Then you might as well kill yourself. And that’s a good thing.”

# 8 George Bush. I didn’t want this list to be all about
this, but just….my God. This guy has
seriously never been to a grocery store or pumped his own gas, but he puts on
this “aw shucks good ol’ boy façade,” and it totally fools everyone. He’s a rich kid frat boy who has always been
able to do whatever he wants, and now he’s doing just that, on a larger scale,
with real people’s lives. Get it
straight—he doesn’t care about you, or your kids, or maybe anything. He’s just a schoolyard bully who thinks he’s
better than you, and can do whatever he wants. And for some reason, the American public has agreed with him for eight
years. Yikes. That little grin on his face means he knows
what’s best for you, so just keep goin’ to work, and doin’ his biddin’ for him,
ya hear? Guess what? He hates you.  No picture on this one.  No no no!

# 9 Donald
Trump. Does it on purpose, so you kind
of have to respect it because it’s part of his brand. But….did you ever see this picture of him with
his supermodel wife, holding one of his kids? He totally looks like “yeah—that’s right. I have money and you don’t. Suck it.”

# 10 Jennifer Lopez. She is bugging me less now that she married
Marc Anthony, who she clearly must love, because while he’s got a killer voice,
he looks like the Cryptkeeper. Still,
the whole “stonewalling the press about your obvious pregnancy” thing is just
ridiculous to me. Jennifer Lopez worked
her way all the way up the celebrity ladder with mediocre singing, dancing, and
acting abilities, on the sheer force of an ambition so naked, early photos of
her practically scream “I’ll do anything for fame!” Now she gets there, and she’s all about her
privacy. Respect her privacy! She wants privacy now! Don’t ask about her baby! You’re insulting her! I get celebrities who want to just have their
baby in private, so they just stay out of the spotlight for a year or so (Jodie
Foster, etc). But….to be giving a ton of
press for your concert and new album, so to essentially put yourself out there
for public consumption, then to be a complete bitch to everyone who asks about
your totally obvious condition? Smug. Smugly. “Buy my shit, but I don’t want to tell you anything about myself” smug.

# 11 Barbra Streisand.  She should be further up on the list because of her insane smugitude, but I’d already numbered the entries, she’s down here.  I have a good friend who is a Streisand fanatic, and even SHE was turned off by Babs’ condescending political rant during her shows, which my friend paid, like $500 each for tickets to see.  Apparently the rant was rehearsed, right down to when Babs sat down on her little chair and spoke about what’s wrong with the government.  As Stephan says "Barbra Streisand makes me ashamed to be a liberal."

# 12 Alex Trebec.  Ashley put this one in, and I have to agree. Trebec is just SO condescending when the people on Jeopardy! get the answers wrong, you want to shake him and go "YOU HAVE THE ANSWERS ON NOTECARDS, YOU BASTARD."  It also bugs me when he overpronounces the French words in the answers so that you’ll know he’s French-Canadian.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post, where I was talking about people who are grateful to have their jobs.  This is the other side of the spectrum– the kids who are five minutes from losing everything, and are just going to have to learn their lessons, then end up coming back again when they can be grateful.  Because for me, this whole topic boils down to gratitude.  Get the door slammed in your face enough times, and the very moment it opens, you are IN, and you never want to pry that thing back open. 

These are the people who don’t even know there IS a door yet, have waltzed right in, and have had everything handed to them, only to throw it away.  I think when this happens to you, you end up becoming so jaded that you, for instance, camp out in the dressing room of Neiman Marcus, saying things like "Can we have my dog messengered over?" 

Sadly, these people need time and perspective to learn the error of their ways.  And by the time they get that, they’ll probably be irrelevant.  If what yesterday’s group had in common was an amazing defiance of the Odds of Hollywood and an appreciation for what they’ve got, these guys have "too much, too soon" syndrome.  This is how Whitney Houston goes from being the next Aretha Franklin to being a segment on "The Soup."

1.  Lindsay Lohan — needs to go to college and eat Ramen noodles.  She has lost all of her perspective.

2. Britney Spears.  Seriously?   I know it’s mean to kick someone when they’re down, but….seriously?

3.  Winehouse.  If she’s not dead by the magical Dead Musician Age of 27, I’ll eat a bug.

4.  Mischa Barton from The O.C.  — quit before the show ended, to do movies.  Now just unemployed.

5.  Joss Stone.  I know, everyone thinks she’s so level headed, but did you read this?  Oh yeah, she’s going full speed down Irrelevance Road if she keeps up that crappy attitude.

6.  Michael Vick.  It really would have been better if he’d had a HUMAN fighting ring at his house.  Because…animal cruelty?  Those PETA people are never going to let up now.  It’s too bad, too, because he’s a really good quarterback.

7.  Michelle Rodriguez.  She’s not even on LOST anymore, and she’s going to jail for violating the terms of her DUI.  Plucked out of obscurity for Girl Fight, only to return to obscurity….in the Los Angeles County Correctional system.

8.  Nathaniel Marston, who you might not have heard of yet, and who you probably never will, because he’s about to be fired from One Life to Live after ATTACKING THREE PEOPLE WITH A CRATE in New York the other day.   Some really famous people got their start on soaps (Julianne Moore, Kelly Ripa, Josh Duhamel from Las Vegas, to name a few), but I GUARANTEE none of them attacked people with a crate. Smooth.

9.  Pete Doherty, who frankly I had never heard of before he was a bad influence on Kate Moss.  That guy looks like he smells like feet, and is moments away from his fatal overdose.

OK, so Amy Winehouse is a total mess– has amazing talent, but can’t stay off the drugs.  Same thing with Lindsay, Britney, and whatever other self-sabotaging idiot that’s in the headlines this week.  I’m even going to put Michael Vick in this category, because running a dog fighting ring at the height of your multi-million dollar quarterbacking career with the Atlanta Falcons?  Stupid.  Same thing with drinking and driving , showing up late to work, or quitting a show or a movie because you think you can do better.  I’m just pointing this out because, um, it’s HARD to get to the top of the mountain, and it’s just amazing to watch people totally throw it all away because they just don’t know any better. 

On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find a smattering of people like Kyle Chandler from Friday Night Lights.  This is Chandler’s first big series since 1996, unless you count his big "Gray’s Anatomy" storyline.  I don’t know him, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’d have to kill that guy to get him to leave that show.  He’s 42 years old, and he is not.  Fooling.  Around.  He’s been waiting so long and has had so many no-name acting jobs, he’s probably early to work every day, like "How much press do you need me to do?  NO PROBLEM, man!"  He’d probably help with the lights if they asked him to.

I guess the point I’m making here is that success in your teens/ twenties can be hazardous to your health, AND your career.  It’s a sad irony that, while youth and beauty are really the commodities that are most integral to the making of a superstar, few if any of them have the temperment to have a (more than) full time job, and to maintain their composure when put under that kind of pressure.

It is in honor of Kyle Chandler and everyone else who never gave up that I give you:

Nine People Who Are Never.  Going.  Anywhere.  Planted in the ground like the mighty oak.  Been around the block, never going back.

1.  Vanessa Williams on Ugly Betty.  Remember the Miss America scandal?  No?  Well, Vanessa Williams does. 

2.  Naomi Watts. Do you know how long it took her to get that Mulholland Drive role?  How much do we imagine it sucked to be Nicole Kidman’s best friend for thirteen years while she married Tom Cruise and was the biggest star in the world?   I’m guessing she’s never complained about long hours on a movie set or an early call time.

3.  David Caruso on CSI:  Miami.  Remember when he quit NYPD Blue to make movies like Kiss of Death and Jade?  Oh, you don’t like his weird acting style?  Well, he doesn’t give a shit.  He’s employed, dude.  You’d need a tow truck and a winch to get him away from that show.

4.  Alyssa Milano. Laugh if you will, but that woman is 34 years old, and has been employed almost continuously since 1984.  Yeah, that’s not a typo.  That’s almost 24 years of work!  If she worked at G.E., she’d get a gold watch and a pension!   Also, she was an Executive Producer of Charmed, and is getting a gazillion dollars from DVD sales and syndication, and designs clothes.  Damn!

5.  Kyle Chandler.  See above.

6.  Kathyrn Morris from Cold Case.  Because it took her 14 years to get that job, I hate to say it, but I can kind of understand why she doesn’t eat.  Did I mention how totally skinny she was at the Emmys?

7.  Jaime Pressley.  Again, she worked so long to get "My Name is Earl," you can hardly blame her for
losing her baby weight in eight weeks because (not making up this quote), "I don’t want to lose my job!!" 

8.  All those ladies on Desperate Housewives.  You are actually more likely to be killed by a sniper than be hired on a series if you’re a woman over 40 in Hollywood.  I know there are some rumors about how it’s all drama on that set because they’re all divas and stuff, but I think this is PR hype.  They may not get along, but I think you’d have to run over one of them with a truck to get them to quit.

9.  Sally Field on Brothers & Sisters.  See above.

Tomorrow’s list:  Top Ten People who are blowing away like the wind, possibly to resurface in twenty years…..

So, I’m a liberal (not a freaky liberal, but I definitely have some democratic-leaning-toward-liberal) ideas.  And, that’s probably all you’re ever going to know, because I really think it’s uncivilized to be all up in people’s grills about your political beliefs.  If you’re the one person left in the world who doesn’t know that people get uncomfortable when you try to push your politics on them, then there.  I just said it.  PEOPLE GET UNCOMFORTABLE.  Dude, I have a blog that people actually READ, and still, you don’t see me pushing political agendas.  Because it’s a free country, and I respect your right to believe whatever you want to believe.  Oh and also, because life is too short, and I really don’t think you should sit around obsessing about stuff you can’t control.

For that reason, it totally bugs me when people do this:

I didn’t even SEE this person, and already I know I won’t like them. Like, ok– you drive a Prius, good for you.  But, FIFTEEN bumper stickers?  Good God.  Not only is this defacing a perfectly fine paint job on this car, but this is sort of the driving around equivalent of the "in your face at the dinner table" guy, isn’t it?  Like, I’m sitting behind you in traffic– what do you want me to do about all these things you believe in?  You are probably not going to change my mind about the world just because you’ve plastered your personal beliefs all over the outside of your car.

I just think it’s pushy, that’s all.  I showed this picture to Steph, and he said "I bet that person smells like Patchouli."

I think we are going to start our own political party, called the ‘Leave Me Alone- Atarians.’  The only premise of this party is that everyone should leave each other alone about their politics, and no one should ever go out in sweatpants and talk on their cellphones too loud in public.  Because I think slovenliness and lack of manners on cellphones are two of the indicators of the decline of civilization. 

I am only partially kidding. 

A few days ago when I got home, there were two women
knocking on the door of the house next door to mine. Now, I know for a fact that the woman who
lives next door died two years ago and that now, her son-in-law uses the back
yard as an organic garden/ ranchero music blasting hangout spot for himself and
1,000 of his closest friends, but that no one actually lives there, so I called
over the fence “Excuse me—were you looking for someone? Because no one lives in that house.” Because I was trying to be nice, you
see? I thought maybe they were looking
for someone and had the wrong address. Or—I don’t know what I thought. I
thought they probably didn’t know that woman died, maybe.

Anyhow, they weren’t lost. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses. When they realized that it w
as too late to convert my now-deceased
neighbor, they pulled out a pamphlet and started toward me.

One of them said “Thank you so much for
letting us know no one lives there—now, are YOU interested in hearing about a
world where there’s no more suffering?”   

I don’t really go on for the whole “tell your religion to
total strangers” thing, so the look on my face probably approximated the look
when I tried Roastaroma!. I thought it
was a little odd that they were selling their religion door to door like
insurance, but I basically just said “Um, thanks—I’m fine with my afterlife
choices” or something weird like that, and they thanked me for my time and
left. I did take the pamphlet, though,
because it looked like it was going to be hilarious, and of course, it
was.

Two things:

1. These
   ladies were so totally lucky that Stephan wasn’t home when they came
        by. Whereas I feel like it’s maybe okay if people want their religion to include door-to-door recruitment (as
      long as I’m allowed to say no), Steph does not agree, and probably would
        have told them so. I know this
     because later, when I told him about the Jehovah’s witnesses, his head
        turned red and he said some things about how people should mind their own
   Goddamned business, especially Christians, because wasn’t organized
   religion the cause of most of the problems in the world? I’m sure those ladies were glad that
   they didn’t have to engage my husband in a whole “dialectic of world religion” throwdown right there in the driveway, because he totally would  have won.  He’s really thought this stuff out.

2. I am so amused to see, from the pamphlet, the apparently everyone is multi-racial in the afterlife, and there is a sacred moose, a white pony, and a big giant Great Dane looking thing. Or
   maybe that’s an animal they only have in the afterlife. So many questions about the
        afterlife. Also, does everyone get
   to live in the Afterlife Log Cabin, or is that the rec hall or something? This picture is so bucolic—like, are we
   going to be making lanyards in the afterlife? Should I let someone know now that I don’t really like pumpkin? Because it seems like there is a bounty of gourd fruit in the afterlife, and I want to make sure I have enough to eat for all eternity other than a basket of apples.

3. Did
   the Roastaroma! people call the Jehovah’s witnesses and compare notes? Because I notice that they, too, are totally overusing the
   exclamation points. Though, granted, ALL SUFFERING SOON TO END! really does sound like a statement for which an exclamation point would be mandated, doesn’t it?

So, the extent of what I know about this religion is
basically limited to this amusing pamphlet, and these two girls that I was in
grammar school with, who could never participate in birthday or Christmas
parties at school, because apparently Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate stuff
like that because, I don’t know, they’re saving all their partying up for the
Great Rec Room/ Cabin in the Sky.

 All I know is, if I’d given up birthday cake and Christmas
my whole life, then I got to the afterlife and all that was there was gourd
fruit and apples, I’d be pissed.

PS  Speaking of Roastaroma!, I gave the rest of the box to my friend’s nanny, and no joke, she LOVES it.  She was like "I have it twice a day now– it’s so good!"  I was tempted to go "Did you make the face?  The Roastaroma! face?  The face that you think is never going to go back to your normal face?"

A few months ago at a little-kid birthday party held at a bowling alley, where 25 (or 10,000) 6 year olds, high on sugar, created a decibel level heretofore unknown to man and began to run around the adults in a circle.  I was scared.  Frightened for my life!  They could have turned on us at any time!  At a certain point, I turned to one of the parents and said "I think my tubes just tied themselves."  All the parents in the room thought this was extremely funny, and in fact, at a similar gathering on Saturday, someone who wasn’t even at the first party came up to me and said "oh– you’re the ‘my tubes just tied themselves’ person, right?  That’s funny." 

So, that’s cool.  Now I’m known among my friends for being brazenly childless and for making jokes about tubal ligation.  Honestly, I can’t think of a job that sounds harder or more terrifying than "Stay At Home Mom."

Alot (like, all) of my friends have kids, and since I’ve been married almost 9 years and am not getting any younger, people are always asking me when (not if) I’m having kids.  Well, I can say with some certainty, I guess my heart is made of stone and ice runs through my veins, because I just.  Don’t.  Have the urge.  Sorry.  No biological clock, no "me taking my baby dolls around with me when I was a kid," nothing.  Zip.  When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a grownup, and now I am, and I LOVE IT.  I don’t want to have to cater to someone else’s needs all the time.   I want a house that’s full of white stuff, modern art, and sharp edges.  I’m not saying they’re not cute. They’re cute!  I just wouldn’t want to have one, take one home with me, or get up in the middle of the night to change one’s diapers.   In fact, if you’ll click above, you can see a close-up shot of my God-daughter making a mural out of vanilla yogurt.  I will clean this kind of thing up, but only if I can go home and rest after. 

I think my friends and family understand this (or have just given up), but you would be surprised at the amount of flak I get from strangers, who, when they find out that I’m married and ABLE to have kids (presumably– I have never even tried), why I wouldn’t just go ahead and do it.  "There’s never a good time!" they say.  "You’ll experience a love like no other," they say.  I’m sure this is all true, and I respect their opinions, even if they are TOTALLY unsolicited (and frankly, a little judgmental).  Like, aren’t there enough people in the world without me doing something I clearly don’t want to do? 

Luckily, I am surrounded by people who are more than happy to loan their children to me for the day, or to let me come visit them.  And I’m fairly certain that our status as "cool Auntie and Uncle" is cemented, since our house is filled with Pixar movies and candy (that we have for ourselves), so I’m sure one of these kids is eventually going to come live with us, or at least housesit for us for an extended period. 

We have one ONE other couple who shares a similar distaste for having children–Alan and Jenn in San Francisco.  Get this?  Jenn WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT.  Actually, I shouldn’t say that– I think there are some people in the "have children" group who wish they didn’t, and a few married (or coupled) types, one of whom is holding out because they don’t want to (all are experiencing relationship distress about this important issue).  Oh, and at least one "surprise" for a couple who seriously wouldn’t have even entertained the idea had it not snuck up on them like that.

Yogurt mural, anyone?