Certain Things I Just Don't Understand

I'm not a hatemonger. Nor am I a country music fan. But with the return of Mann C^#tler to television, I found myself asking: How is that tacky broad allowed on the airwaves after all the lies and despicable things she has said over the years, but poor Natalie Maines utters twelve little words and the Dixie Chicks were made pariahs?


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Sure, that happened in a different place in time. But so did this:


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Haven't we moved beyond this type of hype? Didn't November show that we have had enough of that? And yet, there she is.

I suppose the Left has better things to do than boycott "The Today Show" and "The View" or picket the bookstores who bring that thing in to promote her particular brand of ignorance and hate. I guess all those who chose to vote for a man of color with the middle name of Hussein are able ignore the rantings of a loon and accept her freedom of speech, no matter how offensive it may be. Maybe that's the difference between the Right and the Left. We have better things to do, like bring down Proposition H8, welcome in a new President and era, focus on solutions to our economy and environment, and work on coming together rather than dragging us apart. And Mann should be most grateful for that.

Karma, however...well, that's something we can't help her with.

Mad Ave Indeed

I went to my PMB the other day. Something I only do when I'm expecting a check. Hey, all of my bills are set up on auto-pay, and I've completely given up the idea of ever catching up on the magazines I've subscribed to, so the need to fetch mail is reduced to about two or three times a month. I always feel bad when someone has secretly overnighted something to me thinking I would get it right away, then understand the ice in their voice for the past week, caused by my failure to acknowledge their thoughtfulness. I'm difficult to surprise. I'm difficult in a multitude of ways, I'm sure. However, as a creature of habit and one of limited means, I easily fit into a certain set of demographics. Even with that, somehow Madison Avenue hasn't figured me out.

A few years ago, over the course of ten days, I received the oddest group of mailings:

1. An Olivia Cruises brochure
2. Samples and coupons for Enfamil baby formula
3. A Robbins Bros. engagement ring catalogue

Somehow, I seemed to have come off as a pregnant lesbian longing for a vacation and a commitment ceremony. So, perhaps I should not have been terribly surprised when I pulled from my mailbox a copy of "Bridal Guide".

I kept staring at the address tag. Yep. It had my name and box number. This was not a mistake. I mean, it was certainly a mistake, but not one of the ladies who put mail into my slot. Jeebus. That sounds pervy.

Anyway, I figured one of my friends sent me the ultimate gag gift. Many of the people I know have twisted senses of humor. And this certainly fits that bill. If it is indeed a promotional copy, they didn't really send it out in style. No plastic covering. No charming letter from the editor with an invitation to subscribe. If it's a sign from God, He and I have to have a little chat. Bridezilla I shan't be. Very little tradition or planning will go into whatever I do whenever that day comes. Besides, there's a whole lot of tacky on those pages. It's enough to make any girl stay single, or at least elope. I don't know that I could torture my girlfriends with those bridesmaid dresses. Unless one of them is responsible for the subscription. Payback may end up being a bitch in purple taffeta.

At the end of the day, though, it seems that Madison Avenue has gotten me all wrong yet again. I almost look forward to seeing what they come up with next. Almost.

Who Gives a Twit?

By now, you must know that I'm addicted to the Twitter and the TiVo. Life is a little less real without them. Well, that might be taking it a bit too far. But it is certainly more convenient and fun having those two Ts around.

Twitter seems to be a mystery to a few. It's rather malleable and deeply dependent on who you follow. It can be kind of lonely in the beginning. Who do you follow? Where do you find them? I got lucky. At the time, I was testing out BlogHer and announced I was on Twitter. Immediately, I got a response by other groovy chick bloggers (not that I'm a groovy chick or a groovy blogger, but I do have a uterus and a blogspot). I got the gist following their tweet leads, then I did the unthinkable...I cruised the people they were following. I followed a few of them. A few of them followed me. And the next thing you know, I've got nine pages of tweets to catch up on when I get home from work. They are a prolific lot, and I adore them so.

In case you aren't a Twit, tweets are what you post on Twitter, and they are broadcast to all of your followers, and the public stream unless you opt out. You can let people know what you are up to, what you're thinking, share news, announce you're latest blog post or re-tweet (RT) someone else's tweet to share with your followers. Confused? Don't be.

There are various ways to use the big T. I prefer information and entertainment. I want to get the latest on the news front (which was very handy during the campaign), updates on the film industry and social media, some tech, and the brain droppings of my blogosphere friends. I actually read all of my tweets, and feel like I'm missing something if I don't.

There's another way to use Twitter -- a much more annoying way -- and that is to chat amongst followers, having 140 character exchanges. These are called @Replies and are typically used to respond to a tweet (give information requested or to give an attboy/girl). However, some have misconstrued the purpose and feel the need to @Reply to every tweet that comes their way. That would be a tw00b move. If you want to have an exchange you can DM (direct message) that person (if they follow you). But the endless @Replies finally led me to un-follow a very sweet blogger who would blast out twenty or more @Replies about three times a day. C'mon. That's what Facebook is for. Flip open your SideKick and text away. AIM someone, but I don't want to have to weed through a plethora of Right on!s to get to something more substantial. But that's me. I can build my Twitter any way I like. And, when I find a part that just doesn't fit, I un-follow it.

She un-followed me, too, for un-following her. Whatever. Which leads me to another question: When you follow someone, are you doing it because you are interested in what they have to say, or are you in it for the numbers?

If you look at my stats, I follow a mere 23. Of that, about 16 follow me back (some of the twilebrities don't always do a reciprocal). The other collection of my "following" are some nice people who tune in for whatever reason (cheers!), then there are random individuals and companies who seem to join and follow a bunch of folks hoping they will follow back. That was the Twitter etiquette from the beginning -- follow me, I follow you. But, as Twitter has grown, spammers and other forms of "promoters" have infiltrated, and that has made me think twice about doing a reciprocal. You usually know who the numbers people are because, if you don't follow them within an hour or a day, they un-follow you. Which can be rather funny. Because I actually take a few days to see what a follower posts and how often (including how may right-on @Replies they do) before deciding if I will follow them. And, even the followers I don't follow, I will check out their tweets from time to time, visiting them like extended family. But, for those who want the numbers, I'm not the gal for you. I like quality over quantity. But, that's just me.

So far, I've only un-followed the over-@replier and the Today Show (@Today). The Today Show had some pretty weak tweets. Let me know if Lauer joins Twitter. I'll be all over Matt that. Instead, I've got @RickSanchezCNN, @RachelSklar, @RachelMaddow and my friend @SuBu28 serving me up news. In addition to that, I follow a stellar lot of bloggers. They are informative and witty and rather provocative. Sometimes I have to be sure to swallow that swig a wine before reading a tweet because it could end up being sprayed all over my laptop.

Oddly enough, I only follow three personal friends on Twitter (though, I consider the network of bloggers I follow as buddies). For me, in most cases, friends are better suited for Facebook. Twitter is a little different. I think I actually enjoy it more that Facebook. There are no applications to deal with.

Then there's the other T in my life. The TiVo. I couldn't live without it. Seriously. I live on the corner of a busy intersection that is on the main drag to head East after a day at the beach. I cannot tell you how many crucial movie moments have been ruined by the thumping stereo of someone waiting at the light. Or the sirens from the firehouse a couple blocks away. Now, I can replay when interrupted, or pause when I need to pee. I keep up with the O-ster and have a stash of movies saved for when there is nothing good to watch on real TV. But, as my free time has diminished, so has my patience for meh shows. I'm un-following cancelling my Season Pass to "CSI Miami" and "My Name is Earl". I know. I loved the first two seasons of Earl. I'm just over it. And Miami was harmless mind candy for a bit, but now it bugs. Way too much filler, if you know what I mean. I think that leaves the original "CSI" as the only network show I watch. No, wait. There's "Biggest Loser". Duh. It's hard for me to give up on a show I've followed for so long. It's a loyalty thing. I want to support the effort. But, at the end of the day, I find that I'm deleting instead of watching...and that just means it's time to part ways. Besides, there's always a few episodes of "True Blood" saved I can replay instead.

You Twit?

I wonder if you Twitter about blogging and blog about Twittering, will you end up getting tangled in the World Wide Web? Come down with virtual vertigo? Spin out on the information superhighway? I guess we shall see.

I've become a bit of a Twitter addict. I'm still new to it, so I'm still trying to figure it out. I have gotten myself on Twellow and figured out how to get my "tweets" to update my Facebook status, too. (That would be through the Twitter app on Facebook, and, yes, I can hear the resounding "Duh" coming from a few of you.) I'm sure you've noticed the Twitter feed right there to your left. So, now, if I ever end up doing anything interesting, you will know immediately. (And I hear the resounding yawn there, as well.)

For as long as I have had RUAWAKE (nearing year eight), I've not been what you would call "in" with the internet. I just sit and post. Email friends. I'm not a regular visitor to YouTube. I don't know all the cool sites and blogs. I mean, I get DailyCandy, know how to Google and subscribe to Salon, but that was about the extent of my internet life. Getting on MySpace took years. Now, I live on Facebook.

This whole Twitter thing was kind of a blind leap. None of my actual friends are on it. Well, one is, but she never actually "tweets". Most of my lot had the same initial reaction I did to it: One more thing to manage? But it's really not a hassle. It actually makes some things easier, and is a bit of fun.

On Twitter, I have discovered a really interesting group of intelligent, funny people. It really should be called Witter, because what some of these folks come up with in only 140 characters (and that includes spaces and punctuation) is pretty amazing. Some are there to promote their blogs, their books or their jobs. Others are just folks posting thoughts. Yes, there is some gobbledigook on it as well. But, you can stay away from it. You pick and chose whom you follow and can miss the rest. If only all of life were like that.

I'm still only in double digits with those I'm following. It's a fabulous array that makes up my dirty dozen, and I find them both informative and entertaining. I don't know that I could follow any more than that, though. It's hard enough keeping up with the ones I have as it is. That might be because the DNC is happening, and Rachel Sklar has a lot to say about it. But I appreciate that. See, now I don't have to watch it. Tah-dah!

It also has a broader purpose. In your "tweets", you can ask questions, request research assistance, make connections, announce a job opening, an event, that you are looking for work. It's not really about marketing though, which is what makes it so nice. Right now, it is a happy, little community of people. How long do you think it will stay that way?

Covering One's Funny Bone

I realize I'm throwing in my two-bits a bit too late on this whole New Yorker bad-taste-as-satire cover thing, but an article on Salon yesterday really got me irritated. It made two really offensive accusations: 1) Rush Limbaugh was right (about anything), and 2) Democrats have lost our collective sense of humor. Let me tell you, I can find the funny in just about anything. That cover wasn't funny. The more I looked at it, the more gobsmacked I became.

First of all, the cover does nothing more than serve up the Republican right a poster for their Anti-Obama campaign. Whether people in that Manhattan office realize it, outside their insulated bubble, bigotry is alive and well. The right uses nothing but fear to send voters to the booth. The cover decision was just an incredibly dumb act performed by some well-educated, supposedly cultured high-brows. And a perfect example of what kills me about the Democrats: We will shoot ourselves in the foot well before the other side can lob a Nerf ball at us. People, are the last eight years not enough for you? Jeebus. Give me a break even if you won't give one to Barack.

Secondly, but more importantly, the couple portrayed on the cover have children. By that, I don't simply mean "offspring" who will be doing some underage drinking in high-profile bars in the next week or two, but little girls. In primary school. In this case especially, satire needs to take a step back and become a bit more sensitive.

Imagine for a second that Ebony magazine did a "satirical" cover of, say, men donning yarmulkes dancing gleefully around piles of money? Or a priest convention taking place at a boys' school in Thailand? There would be one hell of an uproar if they went for that kind of "humor". Should the New Yorker expect any less? I'm certainly offended. And, had I a subscription, I would certainly cancel it. Fortunately for InStyle, Shape and Fitness, the closest they get to satirical humor is what they do with PhotoShop.

Certain things will just never be funny. I don't see a wave of 9/11 standup routines. Concentration camp humor hasn't made its way to the stage. There are no jokes about the day JFK or MLK Jr. were shot. If there are, I don't want to hear them. But if Pain plus Time really does equal Funny, then the New Yorker's biggest mistake was not waiting to do this cover after Obama takes the oath. Then all that cover would have said to the Republican right was: Gotcha!

So Sad

I don’t know about you, but the wind was knocked out of me when I heard the news that Heath Ledger was found dead. It wasn’t like I was a huge fan. I haven’t seen every film he made. I didn’t follow his career. Yet, it was a stunning loss. How very sad that someone so young and talented would be gone so suddenly. And sadder still that a two-year-old will grow up without her father, with few or any memories of him to take with her. But, perhaps the saddest aspect is that cameras, scandal and innuendo will be linked to his passing for the foreseeable future.

It’s a bit too Anna Nicole Smith, if you ask me. And this young man did not deserve that. Have we lost all dignity and sense of propriety when it comes to celebrity death? Why was Heath’s body bag newsworthy? Did TMZ need to stream live to catch it? The throngs of people gawking on Broome Street were not there with hats in hands, heads lowered to give a show of respect. They were there with cameras and craned necks to get a glimpse of his gurney. For what? Money, if they were members of the slimy media covering the scene. And, if not that, is it something worth noting in one’s journal? Dear Diary, Today I camped out in front of the apartment of an actor who died so I could see his corpse wheeled away. Is that something to tell the grandkids about? Loser much?

Heath Ledger had a public career yet he chose to live a private life. He deserved (and still deserves) our respect and for him to maintain that privacy. Unlike the Anna Nicoles, Britneys, Parises and Lohans of the media-whoring world, he didn’t court the cameras, didn’t ask us to watch his every move, didn’t beg us to notice him. Unfortunately, now the cameras won’t take their eyes away.

It’s troublesome that the masseuse chose to call another celebrity instead of 911, but it’s almost understandable if you think that a call to emergency services will go across the police scanners, which the media lives by. Paparazzi would arrive before paramedics. I am not saying this justifies that action. Not at all. But, knowing how some in the periphery of celebrity will go to great lengths to protect those they work with, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was why she made that terrible decision.

I couldn’t be more a defender of freedom of the press and First Amendment rights, but I don’t think the paparazzi falls under that umbrella. They aren’t journalists; they are freelance hunters stalking prey, baiting them, collecting trophies for prize money. What they do isn’t for the greater good of society. It’s for larger sales on the newsstands. And something needs to be done about them before Britney runs over something more that toes.

I hope that in the days to come, some respect will be shown to Heath Ledger and his family. If not for him or them, then for that little girl too young to understand that she won’t see her daddy again.

Where the Sun Shines

It occurred to me the other day that we are now seeing the effects of the first generation of “The Sun Shines Out Your Ass” parenting...and it ain’t pretty. Britney’s vagina, for example. Her knocked-up sixteen year-old sister for another. Mischa Barton’s sad mug shot, Paris Hilton weeping in the back of a cop car, and Lindsay Lohan having a little too much fun in Capri after how many stints in rehab last year? I lost count.

It’s easy to point the finger at these girls because they are infamous. They chose celebrity as a career. Not exactly an admirable vocation, nor are they particularly good at it outside of shopping on Robertson and courting the paparazzi. Yet, somehow, with all their access and assets, they seem to repeatedly not choose to take the sage advice of lawyers, drug counsellors or publicists. I’m all about making mistakes...as long as a lesson is learned from them. Perhaps they believe the sun still emanates from their backsides, they are bulletproof, or so damn cool that they can get away with anything and still be loved, admired and adored.

Not quite. Instead, they are mocked, maligned and bets are set on the outcome of their next faux pas or O.D. I don’t think the money is on Britney coming out the other side of this, do you?

It’s asinine; both their behavior and our attention to it. You just want to shake them and yell, “Grow up!” And then you want to shake their parents and yell, “You screwed up.” They aren’t the only ones. We are able to see their kids’ f-ups, but how many more parents are sitting there watching their twenty-somethings flounder thinking they did their kids a disservice? Too many! And they did do a disservice to them and the rest of us who have to deal with those spoilt, dysfunctional brats in the real world. Ugh. I dread going out in overcrowded public.

At the end of the day, those brats are adults now. At a certain point, they need to take responsibility for their actions and grab the reigns in their own lives to get it back on track. It is possible. We’ve all done it (well...most of us have). Take a look at the original, post-modern “Wild Child”, Drew Barrymore. Rehab at thirteen and fifteen. That was followed by starting over (hello, she did a TV movie and failed series) and paying her dues (hello, TV movie and failed series). With a steady climb back, she reached the top of her game, producing as well as acting in hit films. She may not be the Meryl Streep of her time (you never know, though; her career is far from over), but she is working and respected, and that’s more than we can say for the current crop of tabloid cover girls. Then again, Drew was from a generation who knows where the sun really shines.

These celebutards aren’t thirteen or fifteen, but in their twenties (except for the knocked-up one and that’s a column for another day...about birth control and the lack of prophylactics. Where are the rubbers, people?! HIV! Herpes! Hello?!). I have to wonder, when are they going to learn? When they overdose? Wrap their car around a pole? Kill someone? Their careers are on life support already. What is their bottom? As a clue, the sun does not shine from it.

You know, every snowflake is special, unique and beautiful, but that doesn’t reduce the likelihood that it will be trampled on, melt in a gutter or land on some poo. And I’m beginning to think that if one is raised to believe they are special, unique and beautiful, the likelihood that they will be trampled on, pass out in a gutter and end up looking like poo increases exponentially.

Parents, take note. Your kid is not special. Your child is not unique. Your brat is human and flawed and wonderful only for that reason. You have not raised a prodigy. Your spawn is not the next Einstein. Odds are your kid is annoying if not flat-out obnoxious and needs to really embrace the concept of NO. The world is not his or her oyster. The oyster is communal. It is to be shared. And the community should be respected enough not to have to hear your brat scream in public, bang its utensils in a restaurant, or run riot in a respectable establishment. I don’t like your kid when it behaves that way. I like you even less for allowing it. Take it home and let it know it proved my theory: Your kid ain’t perfect. It’s an obnoxious little creature that needs to learn some manners and respect. And the sooner you both embrace that, what a wonderful world it will be.