Do you hear what I hear?

The holidays, continued.

Amazing isn’t it? This little season from Thanksgiving ‘til December 25th (Christmas, if you will) has its very own segment of the entertainment industry. The music alone is staggering. In an industry that has been suffering for several years this little season can still generate big piles of cash. Just about everyone manages to eek out a holiday song or re-make a well-known holiday song and someone will buy it. I admit that I am a blatant holiday music whore. I’ll listen to it all no matter how cringe-worthy; matter of fact the more cringe-worthy the better.

There are touching songs and raunchy songs and funny songs. There are songs about snow and songs about no snow. Songs about love and joy and Santa and toys. Certainly there are songs associated with other seasons. Sure there are songs we hear that make us think of a particular Summer, but Summer songs aren’t really specific to Summer, they’re just songs that happen to get played a lot during a particular Summer. They don’t even come back around every year they just fade away from a current song to a heritage classic and then a golden oldie.

Not Christmas tunes though, nope. They come back around every single year with a few (hundred) to add to the heap. Let’s face it, that Bing Crosby version of White Christmas sounds as good today as it did when ol’ Der Bingle was still alive and being a crappy father and husband while putting on the image of the all ‘round great guy.

Speaking of snow…we were speaking snow, right? Notice that most or many of the holiday songs are focused on something to do with snow? All that hearkens back to the origins of the Yule season up in those Nordic and Germanic countries where snow in December and January would be pretty common. Basically holiday music disregards anyone living south of the snow line as well as south of the equator . Good ol’ Santa in his many guises is definitely dressed for some wintery weather. You don’t see Santa in a nice pair of cargo shorts and a Summer shirt. Snow, it’s all about snow. It’s about building snowmen and riding in horse drawn sleighs over the river and through the woods.

So yeah, there’s an entire sub-music industry built around one day of the year and a season that spans no more than four weeks. It’s shocking, fun in many ways but shocking that so much (mostly bad) music can come out of this season.

I admit that I have a huge collection of holiday music but I’ve kinda slacked off in recent years, I think the redundancy of it all made me lapse into bored apathy.

Holiday movies and specials are another sub-industry unique to this season. There aren’t nearly as many holiday specials on TV as there were when I was a kid. When I was a kid there were tons of variety show style holiday specials. Andy Williams had one, The Smothers Brothers, Bing Crosby used to ALWAYS have a holiday special, that’s where that awesome version of Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie came from. Now holiday TV programming is more along the lines of truly awful holiday movies primarily focused on a variation of “A Christmas Carol”. To mix things up a little there are the standard tearjerkers with touching endings; single moms who meet the love of their life where they least expect it or families reunited by the magic of the Christmas spirit.

Just like with the music, the TV shows are completely unrealistic and inappropriate at any other time of year. No one would believe that you could handcuff a guy you were waiting on in a luncheonette and end up marrying him by the end of the two hour movie (“Holiday in Handcuffs” complete with Mario Lopez AND his dimples) but in this season clearly ANYTHING is possible. I can’t get enough. It makes Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies the rest of the year pale by comparison.

Have ya noticed that they seem to recycle the same actors through most of the awful holiday flicks? There’s a crop of actors and actresses, C, maybe D listers who seem to show up over and over again in the same roles with different names and backdrops. It’s usually actors on their way back down the food chain, hey at least they’re working as actors and not waiting tables (I suppose).

When I was young television choices were limited to the major networks and a few peripheral channels so it did limit the outlets for holiday programming. With cable and satellite TV those limits have been blown out of the water. Now there are food and style networks that have their very own special holiday offerings with their very own level of awesomeness. The Food Network has all kinds of tips and tricks for holiday foods offering hours of overeating inspiring programming. HGTV and Style offer ways to dress up yourself or your home to reflect those fabulous holiday myths celebrated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By now you must be wondering if I’m for or against this glut of weirdly bad entertainment options four weeks at the end of every year. I’ll end that speculation right now. LOVE THEM. Of course the only reason I love them is because they are weirdly bad and maybe even because they are a tad out of reach. You’re usually not treated to a heavy dose of Christmas movies in March so just the fact that I have to wait for them makes them just that much more desirable.

Now, back to watching some holiday decorating tips on HGTV.

It’s the MOST … time of the year.

Warning: This may be a multi-part post…or not.

Disclaimer: As with everything on this blog, the views expressed here are my own if you disagree that’s fine, just like its fine for these thoughts and opinions to be mine.

There’s no denying that it’s officially the holiday season here in the USA. It’s been creeping up on us for months but now the full court press is on. Nearly every commercial is holiday themed; wait, why am I saying holiday themed? Nothing is “HOLIDAY” themed, they are all CHRISTMAS themed.

The American Atheists Organization(http://atheists.org/atheism/Christmas) put up a billboard outside the Lincoln Tunnel, the major entry to New York City from New Jersey. It went up the day before Thanksgiving, the “official” holiday, ummm, Christmas season kick-off. The image is a familiar one, three wise men guided by a star to a nativity scene, the message is much different, “You KNOW it’s a Myth, this season, celebrate reason”. I admit that I haven’t heard much press about this just yet but I can’t imagine it will exist there without scandal for the next four weeks. If it does then there are more reasonable people out there than I’ve thought possible. For years I’ve been inundated with billboards and bumper stickers telling us to “Put Christ back in Christmas” which is really far more offensive than what the American Atheists are putting out there.

Christians had to put Christ into Christmas in the first place. Yule or Yuletide (sorry, I just took a break to do a holiday movie trivia quiz online) was a celebration in the northern hemisphere with some pagan and cultural roots. There’re plenty of sources for info about the various traditions out there on the internet and because this isn’t a scholarly paper I’m not gonna hunt down references, you’ll just have to take my word for it and do your own damn research.

Yuletide was a big ol’ feast. The countries that celebrated it, places like Norway, Sweden and other cold places up north killed the necessary livestock for their winter meals and generally partied hard to get through their harsh and DARK winters. Evergreen trees were common in the forests of the Nordic and Germanic countries and so was darkness. That said, you’ve got forests of trees that never lose their greenery in winter and you have something that can symbolize endless life and re-birth…not necessarily the physical re-birth of a religious savior but the re-birth of more basic stuff…like plants which happens in the spring and plants equal food which equals LIFE. So if you light up those evergreen trees with some candles you bring light to the darkness (I’ve been up in those countries…it is DARK this time of year) combined you have a symbol that life will eventually return to the earth in the form of spring and also light will return as the seasons change. Now all you Christian folks are welcome to co-opt that stuff for your own needs but let’s not tout putting Christ BACK in Christmas because I’ll be responding by saying let’s put Yule back in ol’ Yuletide.

The twelve days of Christmas, that would be December 25th to January 6th, oh yes it is. I did my research on this many years ago because my birthday happens to be twelve days before Christmas and people would make a point of telling me I was the first gift of the twelve days of Christmas, I had to know so I looked it up (long before the days of the internet I might add). They were wrong. Yule straddles the end of December and the beginning of January and the festival would last twelve days generally the darkest days of the year. Again our Christian buddies liked it so they decided to attach their own meaning to it, January 6th is often referred to as Little Christmas or Epiphany. The myth is something about it being the day the Magi reached the baby Jesus in the manger which works quite nicely to marry up Christian myth with pagan traditions and end all that overeating and overdrinking and hunker down to get through the remainder of the cold, dark winter months.

You get the picture, Christianity was spreading but they needed to sell themselves to the masses and the best way to do it was to glom onto an existing celebration.

Flash forward lo these many years and the whole mess has turned into, well, a whole mess. I have to wonder if those ol’ Yule feasts were also fraught with family drama the way today’s are. They must’ve been, right? I mean nothing says family drama like downing a few too many pints of mead?

A recent article I accessed through CNN.com bashed Christmas TV ads like Lexus and DeBeers because of the sheer extravagance of it all. I don’t know a single person in my half century + on planet earth that has ever walked outside Christmas morning to see a shiny new luxury car in their driveway with a big red bow on top. I don’t even know someone that has walked outside to see a used Chevy in their driveway on Christmas morning no less a friggin’ Lexus but there it is, every year, this ridiculous commercial put out there to make all other gifts seem pale and inadequate. I don’t even know what I’d do if I walked out and saw a new Lexus in my driveway. Honestly, if we had enough money to do that wouldn’t I want to go with hubby and pick it out myself?

The DeBeers diamond commercial was also specifically razzed and as one of the commenters pointed out, getting engaged on Christmas is NOT all that original of an idea so DeBeers is just pushing the buttons on the least creative members of the male population. Kay Jewelers can get lumped in there for the same lack of originality. I saw a commercial just last night for some other diamond ring that was a specific style, an endless knot or something like that. Now here’s my thoughts on that…do you really want an engagement ring that anyone else could also have? Seriously, don’t you want your engagement ring to show some small degree of originality and not be a mass-produced style from a chain jewelry store?

The Folgers coffee commercials make me crazy (and not in a good way). To be honest that sister and brother creep me out a bit if ya know what I mean. She’s just a tad too excited to see him and she greets him in that weird way, “SISTAH?” I don’t get it, she’s the sister, is she reminding him who she is? She says it in this weird questioning way that is just odd. I also don’t know why the brother is traveling from West Africa, where did they get THAT from? Were they just trying to find some faraway exotic place to toss into the commercial?

Any commercial with the lovely Budweiser Clydesdales works for me. Love to see them prancing through fields of snow with the jolly sound of jingle bells in the background. I never get tired of seeing those. I’m not sure I understand the Tommy Hilfiger commercials and I don’t think they even advertise most of the year except for Christmas but there they are bounding out of some artsy-sporty vehicle in a field somewhere dressed in artsy-sporty Hilfiger clothes, pointless.

I can’t call this anything other than the Christmas season…not because I want it that way but because the commercials I’m talking about either flat out pander to Christmas or they imply Christmas so strongly that it’d be foolish of me to pretend that they’re holiday commercials. There are the Pillsbury commercials with the slice and bake Christmas cookies or the crescent rolls, there are the 3M commercials for the various tape and wrapping products. I have to give 3M credit for doing really excellent line extensions for their products. They now have a little tape dispenser that goes on your wrist and doles out precut pieces of tape to make gift wrapping easier, NEAT. They have those hanger things that are temporary and don’t leave marks on your walls, doors or mantels, again, NEAT. They have found a way to take some truly boring products and made them into something pretty useful to serve Christmas decorating needs. Kudos to their development and marketing departments (seriously, no sarcasm here, I love what they’ve done with their product line).

I’ve touched on the American Atheists (and in case you were in any way confused…I’m 100% in favor of what they’ve done with that billboard), they tout reason and they actually seem to mean it. Here’s how I feel, if you derive some sense of comfort or community by believing in a specific deity and worshiping something in a specific way then I say “go for it” with the caveat to not bother me with it. Don’t try to make me follow what you believe and please be kind and respectful to me and others who choose not to believe what you believe.

Now that I’ve put that out there I have to say that there are definitely some serious extremists who just won’t do that, who won’t play nice in this big ol’ sandbox known as earth. The American Family Association is one of them (http://action.afa.net/ ). They compiled a list of “naughty or nice” retailers, what, you may be wondering makes them naughty or nice? I was surprised to find out that what made a retailer naughty or nice was whether they said "Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”! Really? How FUCKING INTOLERANT; how completely EXclusionary. They think that if they have a holiday shop with ornaments and other decorations that it MUST be called a Christmas shop not a holiday shop! Why? What if they include in that area some Mennorahs and dreidls? What if you celebrate yuletide and put up a tree and decorations in honor of that? Nope according to the AFA it’s Christmas and nothing else. It’s because of folks like this that my Atheist buddies (of which I would say I am one) feel compelled to put up a billboard outside the Lincoln Tunnel pointing out that IT’S A MYTH. It may be a lovely myth. It may bring comfort and joy to millions of people, I get that. But please, please, please don’t shove your myth down my throat along with the turkey and cranberry sauce. Hell, Harry Potter is a myth too but the books are a lot easier to read.

NEXT UP: Holiday entertainment

Lit

It creeps up on little kitten paws. You don’t really see it at first. One minute it’s Halloween. There’s faux tableaus of haunted houses and fake cobwebs stretched over shrubs. I don’t really know why anyone needs fake ones…we have plenty of real cobwebs but they aren’t as dense and lush as the fake ones.

October 31st comes and goes. The haunted houses slowly fade away just as the light fades to a protracted night. Pumpkins go from tight, leering grins to rotting pouts reminiscent of old men without their dentures.

Driving home in the dark you start to notice a colored strand of light wound around a stair banister. Then there’s a bush or two draped in soft white lights. Before you know it the winter holidays are in full swing. Santa is bouncing on a front lawn. Faux icicles dangle from the eaves of a McMansion. A menorah graces a window ledge with blue light bulbs marking off the days.

The holidays seem to wind up slowly but steadily now. There’s an artful way of dragging out the season that escalates as it looms large and grows closer.
You’ll be getting ready for work one morning with a slight chill in the air and see a TV commercial hinting at colder days and holiday gifts. Nothing blatant yet; no C’mas tree in the picture, maybe some kids in feet-y jammies or a mom making hot chocolate. Hints, of what’s on the horizon. You know it’s there. You know the season is right within reach but not quite there yet.

There’s only 55 days between Halloween and Christmas. There are usually about 100 days or so between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Fifty-five days isn’t really very long when you think about it. When you’re a little kid those 55 days are endlessly long but as an adult it doesn’t seem long at all. A lot of people bemoan the sight of their first string of holiday lights after Halloween complaining that there’s plenty of time for that…but is there? Just 55 days.

I admit. I’m not a fan of the holidays. I’m a Summer chick m’self. If anything I’m looking to countdown for it to all be over. Despite that I admit to being fascinated by the ritual associated with the entire season. I know that every night as I drive home I’ll see yet another home lit up for the holidays. Suddenly there will be a giant bouncing Santa on a lawn or a white-lit reindeer tableau. I saw the local Jewish center assembling the community menorah in the dark last night on my way home from work.

Despite whatever anyone may think we’re really doing this to brighten these suddenly dark and dreary days. In the Spring and Summer I’d never notice driving through neighborhoods dripping in lights because daylight would outshine those manmade light sources. Not now, though. Now every bit of light in the darkness stands out and makes you notice it. I find my eyes drawn to the lights now on my way home. There’s one house, a McMansion really, that has been in full holiday light regalia now for a while, I wonder if they get bored seeing their holiday lights for such a long time.

Just as these lights and decorations pad in on kitten paws, the same happens after December 25th. Everyone has their own rituals. For some people they get that tree down right away (not many, I suspect). Others take it down by January 1st, no doubt to have it all done before hunkering down to the hard work of another year. Most people I know believe the tree and associated decorations come down on January 6th, Little Christmas, Epiphany to some. Others have no timeline in mind. Some outside decorations stay up all year. Depending on the snow and ice some may need to stay up until the Spring thaw.

I don’t decorate much anymore. The first year in our current house I was so happy to finally have a decent sized house that I went a bit crazy. I put up two trees; begged the husband to hang outside lights and generally decorated every room in the house.

I remember how much I loved it. I thought it looked like a wonderful holiday card (despite the fact that our house needed TONS of cosmetic improvements). December 26th dawned and suddenly I couldn’t wait to put everything away. The house felt overstuffed with crap. Things suddenly looked dingy. As quickly as everything went up (I did it in one Saturday top to bottom, I was on a tear); down it came. By January 1st it looked like Spring was just around the corner in our home. I felt tremendous relief to have all that space back.

Each year since then I’ve scaled back more and more. From two trees to one; from that one six foot tree to a tabletop three foot tree; from that tabletop tree to no tree. From swags of faux evergreens on the stairs topped off with a giant C’mas stocking to just the stocking; to nothing. By this past year I put out a few of my snowpeople items in a few places. That was it.

I’m not a humbug (or am I?) I just realized that it was a lot of work putting the stuff up and even more work taking it down. I like to look at other people’s decorations I just no longer feel the burning need to do the same.

So once again I’ll watch as front lawns and windows morph from nothing special to magical wintery delights and then I’ll watch again as they slowly fade to black. The only decoration, if we have another winter like last year, will be piles and piles of ice and snow, melting to a mushy gray before accepting another winter coating to cover up the dreariness.

Or if this Winter is like many other years those lights and magical fairylands will fade to nothing more than dreary gray days and long nights filled with cold, sleet-y rain. One day the weather will take an unseasonable jump in temperature and we’ll all notice that the night was a little less long. Some weeks will pass and we’ll notice that the earth is thawing, the dogs are once again tracking their muddy paws through the house instead of limping in holding their paws up to be gently de-iced and warmed up.

Just as silently as the holiday lights and decorations appeared they’ll disappear.

She’s a witch! Burn her!

I have two questions for the tea party today. I’m sure I have more but these two just make me twitchy.

From what I’ve heard in some random news bytes there is at least one candidate running that would make abortion a criminal offense even in the case of rape or incest. I’ve heard that there may be as many as four or five candidates with this same mindset. Now my broad understanding of the whole tea party platform is that they want less government. They want the government out of their business. They don’t want government bailouts for businesses. They don’t want taxes to cover healthcare costs. They want the government to be as minimal as possible.

If you want less government regulation then how could you want to make a medical procedure a criminal offense? It seems to me that they are selective in where the government control would lie. In areas that they want control then allowing the government to step in would be fine but in other cases it wouldn’t be fine. Somehow that doesn’t add up for me. Can anyone explain this to me? Rationally?

My second question is about the candidate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, who was accused of “dabbling in witchcraft” at some time in her past. Now in the case of Ms. O’Donnell the question is complex and multi-faceted. Let me start out by saying that I don’t support her politics but I DO support her right to practice Wicca.

Here again we Americans can’t quite face reality. We have freedom of religion here. We are allowed to practice any religion we choose; or no religion at all. Wicca is an actual belief system and the reality of it in many cases is that it is very spiritual that respects the natural world and tries to find where us humans fit in that world. There is no crime in being Wiccan, in fact it’s my understanding that Arlington National Cemetery now allows Wiccan symbols on grave markers there.

So if Ms. O’Donnell was or is a practicing Wiccan so what? Really, so what? There seems to be some underlying belief that although we are granted freedom of religion in the constitution that the founding fathers didn’t really MEAN that. They really meant freedom of religion as long as those religions were Christian or maybe Jewish but all that other stuff, nah, they didn’t mean those religions. Or maybe the people who believe this don’t believe that there are any religions that don’t fall into the Judeo/Christian categories hence if someone claims to believe something else it isn’t a “real” religion anyway.

So I have multiple issues with this. First, I don’t think that Ms. O’Donnell’s religious affiliation should have been a campaign issue. I think her opponent dug it up and aired it, bad form there. But then her response in many ways supported the slur campaign against her by having her frantically try to deny it in some fashion. The real response should have been that her religious affiliation, whatever it may be, is supported by the constitution of the country she is trying to serve by running for public office.

We’re nuts here in the US. We really are. Political campaigning is now not much different than any other form of bullying. It’s no longer about the issues but about how much you can tear down your opponent. I care what you’ll do to keep my taxes within reason and what I’ll do about healthcare if I lose my job. I don’t care what your campaign workers dug up about your opponents in their far distant past. Once we get to a certain age we’ve probably all done a few things in our life that we’re just not too proud of, we’re HUMANS, WE’RE FLAWED, deal with it!

Remember US citizens go out and vote tomorrow it’s a privilege you should use.

Yummy Good Fun

My fascination with the abstract, righteous morality in this land of milk and honey simply knows no bounds. We boast of our many freedoms here and yet when we try to enjoy them we are blasted for it. Currently the actors from GLEE are under fire for a “steamy” photo shoot they did in GQ. Let’s get something straight here. These people are (a) ADULTS and (b) ACTORS. They play high school kids on a TV show. TV shows do NOT last forever. I’m guessing that these adults would like to enjoy lucrative careers long after GLEE fades into cable reruns. They are young and attractive, hell I wish I were still young and even half as attractive as they are. Some have said that they are promoting the objectification of women by being photographed in undies others are saying that they are sending a bad message to the kids that watch the show.

PUHLEASE people.

The two women in the photo shoot are both talented actresses and singers…AND they look great in their undies. And here’s another question for all of the silly naysayers out there…the first season of the show focused on Quinn’s (Dianna Agron, the blonde in the photoshoot) teen pregnancy. It swung from her conniving ways of making Finn (Cory Monteith…the man in the photoshoot) believe he was the dad, to considering “selling” the baby to someone else. Do all these howling prudes think that Quinn’s pregnancy was an immaculate conception? What about the episode about virginity…it didn’t PROMOTE virginity, oh no, it showed the possibility of at least three characters losing their virginity (I think only one actually did).

In other very civil countries sex is not treated like a dirty little secret but like a part of life. Newsflash folks; sex IS a part of life…hell, we need to have sex to MAKE life. Go figger.

A journalist friend of mine was interviewed on CNN about this Glee/GQ flak and he solicited comments from friends on Facebook. Why would a supposedly respectable news outlet even CARE about this photo shoot? Are we not still at war? Are people not losing their homes? Does everyone suddenly have good healthcare? This was really something worth the time and energy of CNN? And by the way, who even BUYS GQ? This magazine isn’t marketed to the teen audience, it’s a men’s magazine marketed to adult MEN, of course there are scantily clad women in it and on it.

We are a nation of sensationalism. We make non-stories into major events. We make everything our business. Every celeb divorce, every baby bump, every tabloid hook-up is somehow destined for public scrutiny.

Why can’t we (maybe even me included) shut up and focus on our own lives. If we spent as much time doing good in our life as we seem to spend speculating on which celeb is carrying whose baby imagine how many positive changes could take place.

What if you took the time spent reading tabloids or watching E! and did something positive? For heavens sake make LOVE instead of pandering to yet another tabloid tale of lies and misinformation at least that would keep you busy and keep your mind out of the gutter 

Slippery Slope

I know I keep telling others to just shut up already while I blather on here but here’s the deal, if they shut up maybe I’ll shut up (or at least move on).
Today’s juicy little news tidbit is that the parents of Miley Cyrus are divorcing (that would be Billy “Achy Breaky” Cyrus and the Mrs). Divorce is sad. No matter what it’s always got a tinge of sadness to it for everyone involved. Because they are a fairly public family it’s not surprising that their split made the news but that wasn’t enough for CNN. On my way home this evening I was treated to a CNN “news” story speculating on how this divorce will impact 17-year-old Miley’s future. Will she end up like Lindsay or Brittney? Oh we don’t know but that sounds like a possibility. The fabulous “news” team actually tossed into the mix the “what if her dad dates someone almost as young as Miley?” Huh? Really? To the best of anyone’s current knowledge neither Mommy Miley nor Daddy Miley are currently dating anyone so why would they bring up this line of thought?

It seemed like the objective of this team of reporters was to actually make news where there was none. The only news was that Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus had split. That was it. But without anything else to go on, without any other juicy little nugget, they had to make up some speculative tales to get the juices flowing. It’s repulsive. It really is. I don’t really know much about Miley Cyrus and to be honest I don’t really care much but I do care enough in general to know that speculating wildly about her dad’s future dates is just fucking wrong.

I’d like those “news” folks to put themselves in that place. Imagine themselves in divorce proceedings. Imagine people publicly contemplating the age of their next date. Imagine their kids and their families hearing this. Imagine how shitty they’d feel…

So once again…I beseech you oh great beast known as the media in the US…PLEASE SHUT UP.

Dirty Laundry

I listen to Howard Stern. Not because I think he’s the King of All Media or even because I think he’s especially funny. I have a long commute to and from work and he’s a familiar voice after all these years. Many times he gets things completely wrong. His knowledge of pop culture and music often makes him sound like someone’s crotchety grandpa. The man’s been in radio for most of his life but never heard of Solomon Burke? Really?

But sometimes he does get it right. Or sometimes he just allows “right” to happen. That happened this past week. Living in America I can’t seem to escape the bizarre cult of celebrity that surrounds us. Really it’s shocking. News programs are being replaced by tabloid shows. You can’t escape a store of any variety without encountering shocking cover stories of celeb infidelities and bad hair choices. It makes me yearn for the days of two-headed alien Elvis babies…at least we KNEW those weren’t real (were they?).

Of the many celebs roaming the planet I always kinda had a warm spot in my heart for Courtenay Cox and David Arquette. Now maybe that stems from the fact that Courtenay went on from her Dancin’ in the Dark with Brucie days to being one of everyone’s Friends. And David? Well he’s a member of that cool Arquette family and who can forget his sister outshining Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan (I see my ‘80’s references are a bit pervasive this fine morning). If you don’t live under a rock (and I’m sure even the Chilean miners who WERE living under rock for 70 days heard about this) then you know that Mr. and Mrs. Cox-Arquette are “legally separated”.

As is normally the case the media jumped all over this with hints of cheating and other horrors. David Arquette is a Howard Stern fan. Because of his celeb status he’s been on the show every chance possible. He’s become a bit of a friend of Howard’s I suppose. Earlier last week, a day or two after the split was made public David called in to Howard’s show to set the record straight. He sounded truly sad. He sounded honest. I’m not sure that “honest” has a sound but if it does that’s how David Arquette sounded on the air. He wasn’t his usual joking self. He made it clear more than once that he wanted his wife back. He understood what was wrong. He talked about the woman he slept with while he was separated from Courtenay and stated that it was not a relationship. If you listened to the whole phone call…if you didn’t take anything out of context or even read it as a transcript (it was important to the message to actually HEAR him talk) you couldn’t help but feel like the guy was just looking for one honest outlet for him to tell celeb stalkers what was going on and hope they’d just go the fuck away.

Alas that was not to be. It turned into an interesting exercise in media mash-ups. Some of the most offensive people that I heard were Billy Bush and Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. They took everything David said out of context and twisted his words and emotions and then added to that by somehow holding Howard Stern responsible for…well for being Howard Stern.

Sadly, had any of these “journalists” gotten this same scoop from David Arquette they would’ve exploited him and the scoop to the Nth degree. There would’ve been promos and teasers and they would’ve cut and edited it into something different entirely, they would’ve edited out the honesty.
Now I admit that I haven’t given much weight to these types of shows but they are mild entertainment. I don’t know any of these people personally. I certainly don’t know David Arquette or Courtenay Cox but after actually HEARING David on Howard Stern and then hearing what these so-called “journalists” think he said it’s rather shocking. They clearly didn’t hear the live piece on Howard. They may not have heard any of it but instead got transcripts of key pieces from their associate producers or “researchers”. What they “reported” and what I heard were about as similar as a banana is to a live chicken.

I would hate to claim to have been the fourth grade teacher of Billy Bush or Kathie Lee because I think it was somewhere around fourth grade where we learned to do book reports where we had to report accurately about a book we read. We learned to do simple expository explanations of facts. We learned how to do that exercise of standing in front of the class and explaining in detail how to make a peanut butter (I know, I know, no more peanuts in schools…don’t get me started) and jelly sandwich. Had I been Billy Bush’s or Kathie Lee’s fourth grade teacher and heard their retelling of what David Arquette said on Howard Stern I’d be saddened to find that my hard work of teaching these morons was in vain.

I’d love to start an anti-celeb movement. Stop buying People, US and OK magazines. When those tabloid shows come on TV, shut it off and play a game with the family. I’m not saying don’t read or don’t watch TV…I’m saying let’s stop pandering to people whose only purpose is to create a false sense of urgency over who someone had dinner with and where they ate.

Howard and David…I’m sure you’re not reading this but if, perchance you do…I appreciate the honesty. David, your effort to put an honest account out there only proved the statement that no good deed goes unpunished.

Billy Bush, Hoda, Kathie Lee and all you other people. I’m sorry you get to make so much money for pushing such shit out there to the public. You’re all a bunch of creeps.

Does anybody remember LAUGHTER?

Didn’t Led Zeppelin scream that out at some point? Good question. Does anyone remember laughter? A friend just asked me to go with her to a comedy class she’s taking. I’d just be there as an observer but it got me thinking. My corporate job is completely humorless. How many times a day do I laugh, smile or giggle at work? On the rare occasion that I do engage in one of those behaviors is it deemed inappropriate by anyone around me? We’ve become mostly humorless in the corporate world. One reason, of course, is that humor can be offensive which then involves those fun folks over in HR. It’s all so SERIOUS.

Funny is so many things to so many people but no matter what you think is funny it feels real good to laugh. I’m pretty comfortable with all sorts of humor. Fourth grade boys (and some girls) can’t seem to resist fart humor and silly titty humor. Teens overall seem to like humor that offends or makes fun of others. Andrew Dice Clay used to say that he didn’t discriminate, he offended everyone equally…but in his heyday he sure was funny. Sam Kinison, oh how I miss Sam Kinison with his screaming tirades. He could be offensive but damn he was funny. There was one routine he did about fighting over land in the middle east and he just kept screaming that it was SAND, SAND, SAND.

Sitcoms aren’t very funny anymore (and maybe they never were, I was just younger and less jaded); I think many of them are victims of political correctness sucking dry the laughter from the airwaves. We need to be a bit less politically correct. Let it all hang out. Laugh it up.

I can’t stand it anymore I want a good laugh. I want to laugh until my sides hurt and my head aches. There’s even a cult of laughter that has been growing for years (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200502/therapy-the-laugh-track).

Is anyone laughing? Can anyone take or MAKE a joke anymore? The world is in serious trouble. There is some truly serious shit goin’ down. Maybe if we open our hearts and minds to the funny again, just a little, we’d be able to climb out of the sad little place we’ve found ourselves in.

C’mon people laugh. Laugh at yourself, laugh at that stupid thing you did or said. Let it all out, if you can’t find the funny then you’ve got some pretty serious issues. Maybe we need a laugh time in our day. Maybe in the most boring of meetings a good silly joke could break things up a bit.

It hurts to see you go

This Summer has been one for the record books where I live. Day after blissful day of heat and humidity. Cooking outdoors every night, sipping cocktails on the deck as the moon rises bright orange into the not-quite-dark sky.

But now it’s coming to an end. Not quite yet but soon, all too soon.

I drive through nice (upper) middle-class neighborhoods on my way to work each day. The homes and lawns are well-kept without being pretentious.

It occurred to me this morning while driving in that we don’t decorate our homes for Summer. Every other season seems to evoke the need to drape something along our awnings or set-up a lawn tableau but not Summer. Summer stands alone. It offers up it’s own ornamentation. The trees are heavy with rich green leaves the sun and shade create a dappled affect on lawns and porches. We don’t put decorations in our windows in Summer because even better than taping up faux leaves or pilgrims and turkeys we get an unobstructed view of the great outdoors. We see our neighborhoods alive with activity that will taper off as the daylight dwindles and the trees become bare. Sure there’s the random “occasional” flag with a beach scene on it or the doormat shaped to look like a random row of flip-flops but these don’t jump out at you, they aren’t staring at you from windows or dancing on the lawn in the breeze.

Is that why we do it? Is that why we voluntarily start to obscure our view as the seasons change to Fall and Winter? We know there’s nothing more to look at when we get home from work in the dark. The lawn dies off, the trees are bare, the decorations manage to lift our spirits until Summer comes around again.

This need for ornamentation starts in September and doesn't end until the days start to become noticeably longer. We decorate through the Winter holidays with lights and wreaths and snowmen. We hang sparkly hearts in our windows as February 14th nears and Spring brings bunnies and pastel eggs in windows and on lawns. Only Summer stands alone.

This morning on my way to work, despite the heat and humidity pressing down around me, I found myself looking at the houses for signs of seasonal change. I wasn’t looking for the leaves on the trees to have changed I was looking for those stupid blow-up lawn ornaments of football players or some kind of silly window decoration of fall leaves or school buses. There were none to be found. Not yet, not today but I know that in the next few weeks they will start to creep up. School starts this week, there will probably be a few decorative school buses taped into windows as some little ones go to school for the first time and the parents want to make it fun, maybe there will be a few fake leaves in gold and magenta framing those cardboard school buses. Front doors will start to sport autumnal wreaths with gold leaves and mini-pumpkins. Mums, already on sale at Home Depot, will line porches and stairs in rich colors like purple and burgundy.

Within weeks those generic seasonal items will be joined by Halloween specific décor, skeletons leaning into door frames and bouncing, blow-up haunted houses on front lawns.

I’m not a huge fan of those “other” seasons. I’d love to have endless Summer, long, hot days and short, warm nights year after year would suit me just fine. I know most people love the change of seasons. Each season brings something else to love but I can’t help but mourn the end of Summer every year. I don’t want the leaves to change color; I don’t want the days to get shorter. I don’t want to bundle up in sweaters and scarves. I hate being bundled up for any reason.

Despite the fact that there were no real outward signs of the change of seasons on my commute to work I could still sense the change. The sunlight is different already, too low in the sky, too slanted for the time of day that I’m on the road. A few short weeks ago it was high in the sky and burning bright at the same time.

Oh Summer, I miss you already and you haven’t even turned the corner yet to go.

Have you nothing better to do?

Really. There is a whirlwind of controversy in the NYC area about the owners of the Empire State Building refusing to light up the building in blue and white in honor of what would be Mother Theresa’s 100^th birthday.

The building owners have said that they don’t honor individual people and they won’t do it. Fine. Guess what. Try to figure this out on your own folks…it’s THEIR FUCKING BUILDING. They don’t need to light it up at all; for any reason; ever. They light it up in red and green at Christmas, blue for Chanukah and a variety of other reasons and color schemes.

Major politicians in the state of New York are being interviewed about this on news shows and actually taking it seriously but no one, not a single one (not that I’ve heard anyway) has been bright enough to do what their supposed to do and point out that it’s a privately owned piece of property and what they do with their damn lights is no one’s business.

This is absolutely ridiculous. This country has gotten ridiculous. Where are our freedoms going? No one even hears themselves anymore in the constant chatter to make their own dopey point and then group think grabs everyone by their respective genitals and squeezes the smarts out of them.

The government of the state of New York is at risk of being shut down for lack of funds but somehow state officials have the time and INTEREST to comment on what the owners of privately held real estate are doing with their lights. WOW. WOW.

People making the facebook pages and spewing ridiculous statements about this should really take a moment to think how they would feel if someone came along and told them what they should do with their porch light. See how indignant they'd be then.

It’s only Words…

Now that I’ve ranted about leaving my fucking words alone. I’d like to sing the praises of words. Well, the BeeGees actually HAVE sung the praises of Words (look it up, I don’t feel like it, I KNOW the damn song).

Words can be rather awesome. With words I can create something else. Novels are made up of words that were strung together with someone who had an idea. J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien created whole other worlds that existed outside or in parallel with this one. Steven King creates worlds of terror with words.

When you read a novel anything can happen. A novel can be about anything at all with any outcome. Not the outcome that might happen in real life but ANY OUTCOME. A homely woman could walk away with the prince. The world could end. Everyone in need could be rescued, bad people punished, good people rewarded. Words can do all that. It’s called fiction.

Didja ever look at a real life situation and giggle secretly at how it would look if you could write it as fiction? Every interaction with your boss would end up in your favor. Every lottery ticket would be a winner. Every dog and cat would get rescued from a shelter. It’s nice.

Mindy Klasky, Alice Hoffman, Shanna Swendson and of course Jo Rowling all make magic with their words. Literally. They ‘ve created places where magic is real in their books because anything can happen with words.

Words are fun. We should read more words…there’s certainly no shortage of written words but who’s reading them? Get with it people. Go somewhere magical.

Soul Sucking Pit of Hell

When I started blogging here I was ranting and raving about how much I didn’t belong in corporate America and sure as shit didn’t want to be there. I stated over and over how much I felt I had become soul-less because they had sucked all of the soul out of me.

That’s all well and good but now I feel like the teacher is telling me to show how I got that answer. Anyone remember 4^th grade math when you had to show the steps to get the answer? I realized that for my whining to be valid I needed to dig deeper than just mentioning the departure of said soul.

I didn’t even know this was required of me until I wrote about business casual. That made me see what was missing from me. I don’t mix things up, or rarely anyway. Something bought for work is worn for work…other stuff isn’t. Those four inch high heels of which I spoke with love and adoration…those will never see the inside of an office building but I love them, oh I do.

What else left me when my soul slipped away? Swearing. Cussing and swearing like the proverbial dockworker or sailor. Dirty talk. Potty mouth. Look, I love to do it. I like to curse loud and long or utter stuff under my breath.

The hallowed halls of the corporate world are robbing us of our American right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Many organizations make their employees sign “ethics agreements” that cover all sorts of things. Frankly it’s wrong. My American freedoms say that I can get drunk and dance on a bar as long as it doesn’t break any law but there’s every possibility that my corporate agreement doesn’t permit this behavior.

Teachers, athletes, medical professionals, and corporate geeks have been wedged into a mold that may not be appropriate. Here’s a news flash. If cheating isn’t illegal, then let’s not judge. It’s sad, yes but we aren’t living their lives. As far as other behavior goes. Look someone could be the best teacher in the world. Dedicated, hard-working, passionate about his/her subject matter and students and that same person may just have a little kink in them that enjoys anonymous internet sex. Guess what. If it ain’t illegal, it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Seriously, back off folks. To get a tad biblical on you folks…he (she) who is without “sin” step up and toss the first stone.

Look if you have no personal quirks then I’m a little more concerned about you than the rest of the population. There’s nothing about YOU that might be considered “odd”; “unsavory”; a little “off” by someone else? Think about it.

I admit I haven’t been really following this whole “Tea Party” thing but it seems they want some kind of change and they want their rights back. Newsflash kids…it’s not the government we need to be worried about. I’m not worried about losing my rights to get healthcare…I AM worried about losing my right to dance on a bar in my bra. Yeah, I am. I don’t think I’ve ever done that (I have danced on bars but not in just my bra) but I certainly want to preserve the right to do that and not risk my job or career. I don’t want to be judged in a court of personal opinion that I otherwise couldn’t give a crap about.

I may not be allowed to use language deemed inappropriate at work but I absolutely will NOT be judged by the corporate machine for using it elsewhere. And by the way, if George Carlin were still alive he’d probably have to add a whole pile of new words to his “7 Words you Can’t Say on TV”. He’d probably have to add all those racist and nationalist terms that were long in common usage and are now too damn offensive to utter. My husband used to be referred to as “The Skinny Guinea”, that would now be offensive (and incorrect since, well, he has put on a few pounds).

What about people who are into porn, or swinging, or who knows what? That’s private but what if a corporate guru, or school board, or whomever found out? Is it their right to say that behavior is inappropriate for you to perform your job? Sweet LORD no it is NOT. Look, humans are weird and diverse critters. Far odder than any of our mammalian counterparts. We’re individuals. Please leave us alone. People should be able to go to work. Do their job. Go home and do whatever. Yes, the internet has certainly invaded our privacy and much of it is voluntary…but that doesn’t mean it gives any entity the right to judge.

If it isn’t illegal then it isn’t an issue.

People, people, get over it. Really. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Call me a cunt, a bitch, go ahead. I can take it. I really don’t care. Say it if ya mean it.

Okay. Soul-sucking points so far:

1. Business casual.

2. Your “ethics” may not be my ethics.

I can only guess this list will be growing. Feel free to add your own.

And for the record…shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

In These Shoes?

Ahhh, I feel new and fresh and clean now that I’ve come “out” about business casual. What I didn’t realize was that I put the “me-ness” on hold for something like the past ten years while I negotiated every clothing purchase to fit either biz casual OR “hey, I can walk the DOGS in this”. Umm, yeah that doesn’t work for me.

My buddy Geoff may dispute my use of “old” and that’s cool ‘cause he can do that but the fact is that sooner or later (probably SOONER) I’ll be too old to really “work it GIRLFRIEND”. That being said. I haven’t bought something that really made me swoon in a very long time.

Tonight I felt the need to walk that walk…and walk it in a totally inappropriate pair of shoes.

It’s Friday. I couldn’t resist hitting up a few stores on the way home. This little side excursion resulted in the hottest pair of shoes ever. HOT I TELL YOU HOT!!!! FLAMING HOT! I love them with unbridled passion.

They’re ivory and gray. They’re from the J-Lo label (I hate to admit that but at least they aren’t Jessica Simpson shoes). Oh they made me swoon. They’re soft and supple but tall and trashy.

They scream FUCK ME.. . as in “FUCK ME PUMPS”. Is this what I’ve been missing by adhering to business casual? Oh yeah.

I want to wear these shoes to take out the garbage. Yes I do.

Look. At my age, I’ve got limited time left to even PRETEND to think it’s okay to buy these so let me love while I can.

Ladies, dispense with business casual and go the distance. Buy that pair of shoes that make you swoon. Wear them to do the laundry. Oh my, this is bliss.

I actually have a pair of “spectator pumps” because of biz casual. Okay, I guess all chicks should end up with spectator pumps at some point but now that I have my J. Lo’s the spectator pumps seem pretty lame.

Let’s all re-think business casual. Let’s go for business inappropriate; I know I am.

The title of this blog post is a tribute to Kirsty Macoll, the best singer/songwriter ever and gone from this planet too soon. Listen to “In These Shoes” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISzoUdtMSH4&feature=related. Kirsty, I miss you and your music every single day. Thanks for what you left us with.

What Not to Wear

Business casual is NOT a fashion statement. I HATE business casual! Hate isn’t even a strong enough word for it. Here’s the deal. If you are too fucking stupid to know how to dress appropriately for a given situation then maybe you shouldn’t BE in that situation…and that just might mean a JOB. Some people carry off a pair of jeans better than they will ever look in a pair rumpled pleated khakis.

I’m a jeans and tee-shirt type of gal. I am. Not in a sloppy way, not all the time anyway. I wore jeans, a tee shirt, a scarf and denim jacket to dinner on Saturday night. I thought I looked pretty nice. I don’t look good most days at work but damn it I am within the dress code policy. Where I work the dress code is basically anything but jeans and sneakers 4 out of 5 days of the week. That means I could put my sorry ass into an ill fitting pair of cargo pants and some rundown loafers and not get sent home from the office but if I slipped into a stylin’ pair of skinny jeans, a nice fitting silk tee, a scarf and jacket I’d be talked to by HR and sent home. Oh the horror.

I work with people who look like they raided the sale racks at a super discount store. One guy wears khakis and fleece pullovers every damn day and the fleece all have some slogan from his native land down under on them. He’s a manager. He does NOT look good but somehow he squeeks under the dress code police. More than a few other co-workers make their fashion statements by wearing rundown shoes paired with pilling polyester “suits”. Does this look good? TO ANYONE? No. No it does not look good but again. Technically, it satisfied the constraints of the corporate dress code and is stamped with a seal of approval.

BUY A MIRROR PEOPLE. Really, fork out that $20 at Home Depot and BUY A MIRROR, the long one that shows ALL the fashion mistakes in one sweeping image.

I’m on a crusade to not ever buy anymore business casual clothes. I don’t wear them except to work. I have a lot of clothes in my closet that are only there because I need something to wear to work 4 days a week (the fifth day being jeans and sneakers day). I don’t want to fritter away any more money on clothes that I just hate; that I feel icky in. Icky is the only way I can describe the way khakis or other biz casual stuff makes me feel.

I know it seemed like a good idea when the whole business casual thing started. Biz casual is certainly better than wearing suits to work, I’ll have to agree with that but the real issue is that it just isn’t necessary anymore. Steve Jobs seems comfy in his “uniform” of dark jeans (black I think) and a turtleneck and no one is gonna be offended to sit down in a meeting with Mr. Jobs if he isn’t wearing khakis.

If I’m doing the job why does anyone care what I’m wearing to do it? Oh I hate, hate, hate, HATE business casual. Please rally ‘round me and encourage me to make it to retirement with the same hideous crop of biz casual rags that are currently hanging in my closet. I can say that since I’ve started this project I feel that I’ve already started saving more money because despite the fact that I know I won’t wear something except for work I would still buy stuff. I’d still find myself buying some awful thing and saying, “oh, THIS might be nice”. Nice for WHAT? Tuesday? Nah. If I hate it anyway…then let me hate what I already own and look towards a jeans and tee-shirt retirement.

And you kids out there…as you enter the business world think focus on the work at hand not the fashion statement made by wearing business casual. We have a lot of clean up to do in the business world these days, let’s dispense with bad fashion and focus more on ethical business practices.

Cheater!

Oh so much to say. Really I haven’t blogged much lately because I have so damn much to say I don’t know where to start.

Let’s start with cheaters; specifically celebrity cheaters. Oh to get into the minds of celebrity cheaters. Clearly if you’re a celeb in the celeb-crazed USA the world is your oyster. That being said, yeah, maybe women will toss themselves at the feet of celebs. Yeah, I get that. I do. What I don’t get is the celebs that cheat. Yes, you can have them. But why get married or even couple up? Don’t do it. Just put yourself out there and have a good time. If Tiger Woods hadn’t married Elin and had been a happy-go-lucky playah then all those women wouldn’t have surprised anyone. Who cares if you sleep with anything that moves just don’t put forth a public image of a family man (or woman for that matter) and then have to be unraveled in the court of public opinion.

Jesse James, he’s another one. Hey he landed “America’s sweetheart”. Everyone collectively shook their heads at her but she talked about how grounded he made her feel and how very “real” their love and relationship was. Great, too bad he couldn’t manage to keep it in his pants.
Do the cheaters really think that no one will ever find out? Do they really want to be exposed? That can be the only answer in this 24 hour news and gossip climate. C’mon kids, are you that starved to be in the news that you’ll even cheat like an unstoppable sex machine just to get more coverage? Really folks, seek help, you’ll feel better in the end and we’ll be spared the gory details hitting us in the face on TMZ.com.

Why can’t you people just do whatever it is that you’re good at and if it happens to be sex then make porn. Tom Hanks, he’s a nice boring celeb. Ron Howard…BORING. You don’t hear about them doing much except being treated to the occasional boring photo of them leaving their local Trader Joe’s or Starbucks. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck…handsome and mercifully…BORING. Seems like the only thing they do is knock up the women they’re married to. SWEET!

The rest of you swashbuckling swordsman, get over yer bad selves. Grow the fuck up boys (and girls, I just can’t think of any offenders right now).

Mother’s Day Rant

As you may or may not know I am not a mom to any human offspring. Yes, I refer to myself as “mommy” to the three (count ‘em THREE) rescued canines that share our life and, hey, I adopted them and they ARE mammals, right? So “mommy” it is.

I do happen to have a few friends with human offspring (odd, I know). Here’s the thing that drives me completely batshit crazy.

Me: “Hey, wanna get together for lunch on Saturday?”
Friend/Mom of human offspring: “Let me check to see if (insert spousal unit’s name here) can watch the kids”.

See anything wrong with that statement? In these so-called enlightened times where it has recently been reported that more and more women are the primary breadwinner in an American household these same women still need to arrange for childcare with the father of their children. I’m not talking about someone’s baby daddy that doesn’t live with the family I’m talking partnered, MARRIED people.

To further support this situation there is currently a promotional ad running on New York TV for a lifestyle type of show and all of these women are making random statements like “all I wanted was for him to watch the kids for an hour so I could do the laundry”. HUH? She’s trying to wash his stinky drawers and he’s not willing to watch his own kids while she does it?

What is up with this situation? These are the same men that now proudly say dumbass things like “WE’RE PREGNANT!” No you’re not. SHE’S friggin’ pregnant. She’s the one who’s body is changing beyond belief (and often beyond repair); she’s the one who’s hormones are all over the map all you did was get it up and do the deed.

Men, step up! Don’t ASSUME that the kids are HER responsibility. She did her part when she squeezed the little bugger out. And please don’t make a big deal out of it like you deserve an award for watching YOUR OWN DAMN KID!

Women, TELL your darling spouse, “I’m doing, this, that, and the other thing on Saturday and won’t have the kids with me, either plan to care for them or make a plan for someone else to.” Really, time to stop putting your life on hold to raise the kids while he still gets to putter around on the weekends, play golf, go fishing or even mow the lawn. Guess what guys, somehow we’re supposed to clean house and do laundry and cook meals with those little critters hanging off of us so figure out how to get the kid to take a nap so you can hurry through the lawn mowing.

Oh this irritates me like you wouldn’t believe.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Radio, Radio

I was one of those kids that listened to my transistor radio to fall asleep at night. Yeah, I’m old. Yeah, it was the 60’s. Deal with it. I love music. In my late teens/early 20’s I was friends with the overnight deejay at the station I listened to. I wasn’t friends with him because I called the station all night (honest). I was friends with him because our paths intersected on more than a few social levels. I would fall asleep listening to his show. It was eclectic, it was free-form, it was the 70’s/80’s.

I realized sometime in my teens that I would wake up from a sound sleep if a song came on the radio that had some meaning for me. This wasn’t the random teeny-bopper tune, nope, it had to be a song that truly held meaning for me or an artist that I really loved. I thought it was silly and great and a little scary. At one point I was in a relationship with someone who’s music might occasionally end up on the radio and that person would often be away from home on tour. Sure ‘nuff if my overnight deejay pal played one of THOSE songs I would wake up pretty much each and every time.

Well, I’m not young anymore, this ain’t the 80’s anymore and my friend is now on in the middle of the day (because, well, he’s kinda old too). I don’t sleep with the radio on anymore, my significant other wouldn’t be too thrilled with that. We sleep with an air filter/white noise machine which is very nice and never plays anything that tickles my psyche in the night.

This afternoon I was enjoying a rainy afternoon doing grad school homework and relieved to have all of my housework out of the way for the weekend. The significant other was off at work for the day, I had the radio on as I read school work (stay tuned, topic for another post, why are school textbooks and tech manuals the best cure for insomnia?) and off I drifted into a lovely afternoon nap.

And then it happened. I felt myself waking up and that familiar feeling came back. Before I was fully awake I could hear the music. It was the music that woke me up. Not because it was loud or thumping or invasive (except psychically) but because it was a song that my psyche has an attachment to. I love that even now that same part of my brain engages in the same exact way as it did at 14 or 15 or 16.

I wonder if other people do this. What wakes you at night? Not the things that wake you in a cold sweat of fear or terror but the thing that lulls you awake; the think that in wakefulness brings you an incredible feeling of peace and solace. When I wake up because of these specific songs I always wake up happy and with a smile on my face. I’d love to pursue some kind of research on how this works, what part of my brain responds in this way? If I could find that out I’d want more and more and more of it. What a wonderful natural buzz to be lulled through life with the music you love.

Let there be music!

Sit down, SHUT UP!

I recently sat in two long days of endless meetings. I have been in one room for nine hours a day except for a very few bathroom breaks. I am beyond bored. I am beyond stir crazy. I am near tears.

Here’s something that I’ve learned from these two days in living hell; you’re all boring. It doesn’t matter whether someone loves to take center stage or they’re the person always demurring from doing a presentation, once they hit the floor armed with a flash drive packed full of useless powerpoint slides there is just NO shutting them up. Really every person should have to sit and watch themselves on video after they present (me included). They should have to watch themselves over and over again on a large screen TV to get the full impact of their performance.

My personal favorites are the people who preface their talk with how brief they will be and then proceed to ramble on for nearly an hour. My, my how time flies, no? Don’t these people have the internet yet? As you can see if you’re stopping by here, anyone can indulge themselves on the internet. I indulge my need to write and rant. If you want to take center stage and present slide after slide of useless nonsense then feel free to post yourself on YouTube or Facebook. It’s like that old joke, “if a tree falls in the woods does it make any noise?” You’ll just never know will you? Same thing with posting your moment in the glare of the conference room lights, you’ll never know (well maybe you will if you check hits to your post and read any comments) who is watching or listening or caring but at least you can get it out of your system without holding a conference room full of innocent victims hostage.

People who phone into radio shows sprang to mind as my hostage situation dragged on. Those people seem to really believe they’re adding to the lively show banter and they just aren’t. I love when Howard Stern just cuts them off and says, “I’m sorry, they were boring”; most of the time he’s right about that. I’m not necessarily a huge Howard fan but he certainly does have his shining moments and cutting off boring callers is high on that list.

One of my absolute favorite tricks is when the presenter reads each of their powerpoint slides. They’re presenting to a room full of college grads and there they are reading to us. Sweet. Look if you’re gonna read to me at least make it something good that I can’t read for myself. It’s a pretty safe bet that I can read slides projected onto giant screens around the room.

Try something new. Shake up the system. Distribute your powerpoint slides as a reference then speak about your subject naturally. If you KNOW what you’re talking about then you probably don’t need those damn slides anyway. And then for GOD’S SAKE SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!

I’m almost there

I woke up this morning thinking about Target, yeah the retail store. I started to wonder why the cashiers and floor staff make so little money and then realized I have no idea what they make. I’m probably right. They probably don’t make much above minimum wage but still, I don’t know. That got me thinking about things (again). Cashiers are your frontline face to your customers. They aren’t some marketing wonk sitting in a cubicle in a corporate building, they’re the ones that are either smiling and making eye contact or mumbling and ignoring the customer. Jeez, shouldn’t THESE people be making the big bucks (or the BIGGER bucks anyway)? And that got me thinking further.

If you’ve been following along you’ve been treated to my musings on corporate life and my desire for a change. I’ve been pursuing the most middle-of-the-road path in making any changes. I’ve been checking CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com and contacting headhunters. I’ve been doing some networking and letting folks know I’m on the hunt but beyond that I haven’t let my mind wander much into untrampled paths. Bummer. There’s a ton of stuff on those paths.

I had a bit of a mind expanding experience last night while working on a school paper. I was looking for positive effects of the recession and came across a site about theme parks. Actually a site dedicated to the theme park industry complete with a newsletter and updates like who was installing the newest roller coasters for the coming season. Wow! There are people who don’t just WORK at theme parks they’ve made them their careers! If you’re reading this and rolling your eyes and maybe even ARE one of those career theme parkers, please be kind. I’m here to tell you I’ve been an ass.

Me of all people should have been more insightful. My spousal unit works in an equity theater, he does sound and lights, he’s done over hire stage crew work for concerts and events and when I told a co-worker (yes, a CORPORATE co-worker) what he does she was surprised and confused and admitted she didn’t know people DID that. I was surprised because I couldn’t figure out how else the stage got set, the sound got heard and all that stuff. In other words, it was second nature to me.

There must be plenty of people who don’t consider their retail jobs to be anything less than a career. They aren’t hourly drones they are people who really enjoy what it takes to get the product out on the floor, turn over product for each season (despite the fact that the seasons are usually MONTHS off from the actual seasons). I worked in retail in my youth. I’ve worked the register at grocery stores in the past. Honestly I loved those jobs but they didn’t pay and I wasn’t smart enough to consider them careers and stick with them until they DID start to pay.

There’s a grocery store near me, I worked there back in the 80’s part-time. I loved it, but I had to feed into the notion that it wasn’t a “career”. Had I stayed there, I’m sure by now I’d be a front-end manager or a department manager and I’d have a career. There’s a guy that works there. He worked there back in the 80’s too. He’s the store manager now. I always hear him being paged while I’m shopping. He works hard (from what I can tell) but he always seems happy. I always see him with a smile on his face. He always says hello to regular customers and former employees (I’d fall into both of those categories). What was I THINKING?

There’s a clothing store near me that I shop in fairly regularly. There’s one woman who seems to be there every time I go in. The store carries nice clothes, not fancy but nice casual clothes. This woman is always dressed in a way that is almost a walking advertisement for the clothes available in the store. She’s probably around my age. She is lovely to deal with. I don’t know if she’s a manager or not but she is most likely a full-time employee at the very least. She seems to love her job and the people she deals with. What a lovely feeling that must be.

These people have been under my nose all along. I’ve clearly given thought to them but never connected my thoughts to MY wants and needs. Most importantly I never connected those jobs to the word “career” before. I have a friend who works at Costco. I keep joking that I want to go work at Costco. It’s near my house, you can wear jeans to work (crazy but that’s very appealing to me) I hear they have good benefits and I shop there all time. Everyone keeps rolling their eyes and telling me that I don’t REALLY want to do that, after all I’ve got college degrees, I’m a “professional”. Why is my friend working at Costco any less of a professional than I am?

I was under the mistaken belief that a career meant sitting in an office all day. I’m not that person. I like to be up and moving around. I actually (at some level) enjoy dealing with people. (Those of you who know me, don’t roll your eyes, I’ll explain.) I always tell people that one thing I liked about my grocery store job was that you only had to deal with each individual member of the public for a finite amount of time. They were in and out of your line (and your LIFE) in a few minutes so that squalling brat became nothing more than a memory in a few brief minutes. The upside was that you got to see a lot very nice people or run into people from your circle of acquaintances that you didn’t normally see. “Hey, Kim, great to see you, we really need to get together sometime” that kind of thing.

I even like the more flexible schedules offered out there in retail-land. I don’t really like working Monday through Friday from 9AM-5PM. I don’t. I like the thought of working on Saturday from 10AM-6PM but knowing I’ll have off on Monday while the office wonks are at work. I like the thought that I could go out to breakfast on a weekday when the diners are less crowded and enjoy a leisurely breakfast and a good book (or my husband’s company if he’s off that day, too). Truth be told, I really HATE the regular predictability of office work.

Since the recession has hit and even before then, I’d have conversations with my husband that we don’t have jobs where we DO things anymore, we don’t MAKE things. We sit on our butts in offices and cubicles but what are we DOING? We’re going to meetings. My husband would generously point out that he DOES things when he goes to work. Yes, he does. I don’t. I really feel like I DON’T. Office work comes down to a lot of turf wars and projects to defend your turf and a lot of the actual work could be outsourced. You can’t outsource store personnel, even with those self-checkout lanes (which I hate) you still end up needing people to run some registers and to help out the folks bravely attempting the self-checkout. You have to WORK.

I’ve discounted these jobs for too long.

Of course my problem is finding a way to get into a job like this and still make enough money. Not a fortune, but “enough” and yes I do have a magic number attached to “enough”. For heaven’s sake what OTHER jobs are out there that I haven’t thought about yet?

As I ramped up my job search I kept saying that I wanted firmly “OUT” of the industry that I’ve been working in with the explanation that I didn’t want to do the same dance on a different stage. Silly me, the fact remains that if I stayed in a cubicle/office job I’d still be doing the same dance on a different stage. I want to do a different act altogether, what an AH-HA moment.

It’s funny but I credit my schoolwork for this ah-ha moment. How funny is that? I’m in a Master’s program for Organizational Leadership, very much the office gig type of degree. Who woulda thunk it would lead me down an entirely different path? I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull this off, I don’t know if I’ll find a way to get myself into a job that I actually WANT with enough money to live but I think I may be onto something.

Top 100

Forbes magazine does a list every year of the top 100 places to work. The list is very competitive, companies vie for a position on the list so they can recruit and retain the top talent in their desired fields. In these tough economic times and with the upswing of people trying out more flexible work arrangements since they’ve been laid off I’m proposing a new list.

The Top 100 Places NOT to Work in America!

This doesn’t mean these are bad companies to work for instead it means these are great companies to contract or freelance with. Many companies try the whole contractor thing but they just can’t measure up when it comes to doing it right. Companies want to be the parent and disciplinarian, they want everyone to show up for work each morning and put in a full and productive day. Most companies have not yet made it to an enlightened stage of development whereby they contract someone to execute a specific role on a project and then let them do it. America’s corporate environment is one of managing much but not actually WORKING.

Imagine that you have project management expertise. You are great at working with vendors, you can negotiate deals, meet deadlines, come in under budget and keep all the key players happy. You work best on your own delegating to appropriate team members and checking in once a week or so. In most cases corporations want your talents but they don’t want to relinquish their control over you. If they did that then perhaps all those middle managers would have to do WORK.

What I’m proposing is researching the top companies that can do this. They seek out experts to perform functions on a contract basis and let them do their jobs. Certainly there needs to be reporting and accountability throughout the project, it wouldn’t be a success if the project itself tanked in the end.

What would be required to make it into the Top 100 Best Companies NOT to Work for? Certainly fair pay would be high on the list since the person is basically self-employed and would need to provide their own benefits as well as paying themselves for days off. The proposed fee structure should also take into consideration that the contractor should use their own office space and office supplies as well.

The hiring company should understand that the contractor works for themselves, they are self-employed and as such shouldn’t be expected to be available Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:30AM and 5PM. After all, a successful contractor has other customers as well and needs to provide services to them so if your contractor doesn’t answer your e-mail immediately it doesn’t mean they aren’t working, it just may mean they aren’t working for YOU at that moment.

Here’s another item that would make a company good for contractors, if you offer your contractor a permanent job and they turn you down DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. It’s very likely your contractor prefers working for himself instead of a big corporation. Don’t take for granted that everyone is bucking for their very own cubicle. When you DO get turned down, hire the person back on another project, if you thought their work was good enough to make them permanent then they’re certainly still good enough to contract with again…and again…and again.

If the Top 100 Best Not to Work companies got their names AND their contracting techniques out there in the public view it may actually help other companies with more traditional mindsets to open up and change their policies to embrace changing times a bit more. It may not really be the best idea to try to recruit and RETAIN the best talent, sometimes new blood can bring positive changes to a project or department.

Let’s shake things up a bit. I bet there would be plenty of work to go around and people would really need to WORK and not just “manage” others to do the work. Contractors would actually eliminate the need for so many managers and make individuals more accountable for the job they do. Let’s face it if you work for yourself and you need to keep generating work you will work hard to get the job done. In a corporate environment shit just trickles downhill without much work getting done but with individual accountability more work, less shit.

Forbes or Entrepreneur magazine, I’m putting the proposal out there and I’m willing to do the work on getting the word out about the 100 Best Places NOT to Work in the US!

And the award goes to…

I do performance art and I make a living at it! I’ve done it for 10 long years. It’s amazing isn’t it? Who would think that a performance artist could stick to it for 10 years and make a living at it but it’s true and I’m here to tell you so.

Where do I perform? I have a running show in the halls of corporate America. Who would think that a corporation would hire a performance artist; I’ll bet they do it all the time. Oh yes they do. They don’t know they’re doing it, they just do it. My job title doesn’t say “Performance Artist”. I don’t get to sit in a shop window in a flesh colored leotard and pick my nose and stick it to the window; though that often seems more appealing than what I do in my routine.

I have to say that I hate my costumes but what can you do? Part of it being Performance Art is that it isn’t who I really am or what I really stand for so of course my costumes would need to reflect that. Performance Art for 8 hours a day is EXHAUSTING work. I think the nose-picking routine would actually be more believable but that’s not what I was hired for so I can’t switch things up now.

Despite the original nature of performance art there’s a lot of structure surrounding my act. It’s what the producers demand. They pay the big bucks to get the show they want. The first few years seemed okay but as the years slip by the rules become more restrictive and tougher to navigate. I hate when they make me take my show on the road, I’ve done the road show all over the world and it’s as painful elsewhere as in the confines of the day-to-day space.

One thing I can assure you of is when I leave this gig it will be to get very far away from this type of work. I need to stop the insanity and leave it all behind. I can’t say that I will look back fondly on most aspects of this gig but I will certainly look back on it from time-to-time.

Some of the other people seem to really embrace this work and all it entails. They are buoyed by their supposed importance and believe they are somehow making a difference in some odd way. Rest assured, they are not making enough of a difference to cause even the slightest shift in the direction of the universe but still, they do what they need to do to serve the master or demons they’ve created.

So I gear up each morning in business casual outfits and a neatly coiffed hairstyle; conservative make-up patted on my face. I trek out for the morning commute toting my cuppa joe and my briefcase; I slip on a magnetic ID badge (just can’t wait ‘til they find out these things have been giving women breast cancer for the past 20 years or some other equally horrible revelation) to let me into the theater I perform in every weekday.

There needs to be an end in sight for this gig. I need to know that somehow I’ll be able to leave this stage behind once and for all. Kick out the footlights with the toe of my beat-up Doc Martens and twirl out the door in a haze of relief and confusion.

I wonder if anyone else feels this way? I wonder what the reaction would be if someone from there read this, would they have an “ah-ha” moment, would they be surprised, angry, hurt? Would they think it was funny? I doubt that humor would be a factor. My findings tell me that the corporate stage is a mostly humorless environment. I can’t see my boss, or HR reading this and laughing out loud at my antics. I can’t see getting high-fived in the hallway by the VP, but wouldn’t that be fun? It might even be a little honest.

I know that if I were doing a job I loved and had meaning for me I wouldn’t be doing performance art anymore. It would be real. I would be alive and in the moment. I do share the current stage with some people that actually appear to buy the myth. I’m fascinated by them. They use the word passion when they talk about their cubicle lives and I’m baffled by it. I want to know what drives them. I hope they genuinely feel that way for some reason. They may not want what I want but I want to understand what they want. I hope that they feel a connection and a sense of meaning about what they do because if they don’t, well, they’ll keep performing on that stage like trained chimps.

I’m not done yet. My run continues in the theater of the absurd but I can finally admit to what I’ve been doing. I can own it now. In 12-step programs they say that the first step to healing is admitting you have a problem.