He-Man Woman-Hater's Club

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at Mass minding my own business when the priest, a priest whom I have always liked, decided that “Catholic marriages would be so happy if you women could stop being bitches for five hot minutes” was a good theme for a homily. I am exaggerating, of course, but only slightly. He scolded us, all of the Catholic married women sitting quietly in our pews, for never letting things go, for throwing things in our husbands’ faces that happened years ago. “Maybe he forgot to pay a bill,” he said, by way of example. “Or maybe he forgot a birthday. Or maybe he cheated. Love is forgiving - if he’s doing his best, you should forgive him and move on.” 

Yes, let’s do that shall we? Let’s be more forgiving. And let’s agree that a married man who is having sex with another woman is “doing his best.” Let’s also agree that forgetting a birthday or forgetting to take out the trash are offenses of exactly the same magnitude as infidelity; and that we women, bitches that we are, will react in exactly the same way to all three. And let’s further agree that it is the women, and only the women, who make mistakes in a marriage. The men always do their best and their best should always be good enough. Got it. Thanks, Father. 

*****

I was just about over this routine Sunday morning misogyny, and then my news feeds started to fill up with stories about an NFL kicker named Harrison Butker, who was the commencement speaker at a small Catholic college. 

First of all, I won’t make fun of this guy's name (although my gosh silver platter amirite?) but I will make fun of his smug pious Catholic punchable bearded millennial face. What is it with young traddy men and their glossy beards? Are you emulating Jesus? Because I'm pretty sure that He didn't spend much time grooming and trimming His beard, nor cutting and styling His hair. 

But really, Mr. Butker, that's none of my business. It's your face. You grow whatever you want on it. And that applies to everything else in your life that doesn't hurt anyone else. You want a million kids? Great. Enjoy, and I wish nothing but good health and happiness for as many children as you have. Mrs. Butker wants to stay at home and take care of you and the children, and forgo a paycheck and a career? Good for her. As long as she is happy and the children are well cared for, then I applaud her decision and wish her only the best. I know many brilliant SAHMs. I was one myself for a short while. 

The whole “you do you” thing breaks down for me a bit in your public utterances about what women other than your wife should do, and how people other than yourself should live. Let’s discuss, shall we? 

*****

First, though, a quick digression. Who decided that a person who kicks a ball for a living is qualified to speak at a college commencement? I understand that Mr. Butker is among the very best at this particular job, but it IS a very particular job, with skills that don’t really translate to any other endeavor of life. What is it that conservatives on the Fox News always like to say? “Stick to dribbling?” Let’s adapt that advice for Harrison Butker. Stick to kicking.

And let’s further digress. Who at Benedictine College, an apparently very religious Catholic institution, decided that a representative of the NFL was the best person to speak to Catholic life and morality? Is anyone at Benedictine familiar with the National Football League’s relationship with organized professional gambling? Is the learned administration of that institution aware that domestic violence and scantily clad cheerleaders are the NFL’s main exports vis a vis women? Is there NO ONE ELSE who could come speak to your graduates? 

But fine, let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the very selection of Harrison Butker was not problematic in and of itself. Let’s assume that it’s perfectly reasonable to invite a guy who kicks a ball for a living (nothing else - no throwing, no catching, no running - just kicking) and who represents a famously greedy and corrupt organization to address the graduates of Benedictine College, a college whose student population is over half female. Would it not then be reasonable to expect Mr. Butker to deliver a simple commencement speech, which is supposed to be about the graduates and their accomplishments and their futures, and not about the speaker and his stupid hot takes on a “woman’s vocation?” 

*****

This is the part that really bothers me most; or rather, it would bother me most if I was in that audience as a graduate or a parent. That speech was disrespectful and downright rude. Instead of allowing these young women five damn seconds to enjoy their accomplishments and their moment in the sun, this MF-er saw his opportunity to record a Newsmax audition tape, and he went all in. Watch the video and you can just see how proud of himself he is, out there owning the libs. “Bouta go viral in five, four, three, two, one...the feminists are going to lose their minds.” Yes the speech was misogynist and homophobic and hateful but it was also predictable, boring, and tiresome. And rude - just plain rude. 

*****

I almost hate to post this now, a week later. This bearded little ball-kicker has dominated the discourse for days, and he’s had just about enough attention, as far as I’m concerned. We are now in the backlash to the backlash stage, with the usual suspects screaming as loudly as they can about this tiny tiny tiny little man’s “First Amendment rights” as though the First Amendment is some guarantee that the world owes you a platform for all of your dumb-ass opinions and as though anyone who disagrees with you and says so is somehow infringing on your freedom. 

And at this point, what else is there to say? OK, just a few more things. First of all, wife and mother is a vocation, but so is husband and father. Why is it that only a husband and father can “fulfill his vocation” while also using his God-given talents and making money and generally contributing to the life of the world, and a wife and mother can’t? 

And one other question for Mr. Butker: Did Mrs. Butker’s life really only begin when she married you? Because I thought it began at conception. 

*****

I’m a Catholic - a faithful, believing, Rosary-praying, Mass-going Catholic. And I know that Jesus loves women. I just wish that Catholic men did, too. 

Fast Car

 “Who the heck is that?” 

“Get the hell out of here. You know who that is.” 

“Hand to God I have no idea.”

That was my husband and me; him learning that the elderly hippie with the cane is Joni Mitchell and me learning that my husband managed to reach his mid 50s having never heard of Joni Mitchell. He wasn’t kidding. My husband is Korean and his parents only ever listened to classical music at home, and so he has no clue about any American music recorded before 1980 or so. I sang a little bit of “Big Yellow Taxi” for him, and now he knows that Counting Crows didn’t invent that song. 

*****

Yes, I watched the Grammys last night. I never watch the Grammys but apparently, I have become a Swifty; and I had to see Taylor perform. I didn’t see her perform (and I haven’t read recaps so I don’t know if she did) but I did see her accept one of her Grammys. And as much as I love Taylor now, she was not the highlight of the show. She wasn’t even close. 

“Fast Car” has been one of my favorite songs from the moment I first heard it in 1988. It stopped me in my tracks - it was so different from anything else on the radio in that Madonna and Michael Jackson dominated era. I never get tired of hearing “Fast Car.” That song never gets old. 

I’m not a country music fan and by that I mean that I actively dislike most non-Johnny Cash non-Patsy Cline country music. Don’t @ me. And so no one was more surprised than me when I heard Luke Combs’ cover of “Fast Car” and liked it immediately. I liked the cover for itself and I loved Luke Combs because he so obviously loves Tracy Chapman and he was so happy to have revived her song for a new generation of listeners. 

It’s so rare that you get to see a perfect performance - filled with love and joy but also musically flawless, but that is what Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs did last night. Combs was obviously in awe that he was on the Grammy stage, singing with Tracy Chapman, who beamed at him throughout like a proud mother. Everything is trash right now; only it isn’t, not when you get to see Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs sing “Fast Car.” 100/10. No notes. 

Bravely facing the applause

Lent: 3 days (almost) down.  400 to go. Sigh.

*****

I don't write about pop culture very often. I wrote about the Oscars two years ago, here, and one other time on my old blog--2008, maybe.  Most pop culture bloggers would think it necessary to post an Oscar recap sometime within 24 hours of the actual event, but I just don't roll that way.

I was kind of dreading the telecast; in fact, I almost didn't watch it at all.  Anyone who's been here for five minutes knows how I feel about the 45th President, and I'm also not one of those people who thinks that celebrities shouldn't express political opinions.  I'm just getting so kill-me-now bored with all of Hollywood, and the entire Internet, falling all over themselves to be the biggest of all resisters.  Newsflash: It doesn't take that much courage to stand in front of an auditorium containing the whole entertainment industry, and express your dislike of Donald Trump.  But to my surprise, the stick-it-to-the-man Trump outrage and tedious identity politics were more subdued than usual.  And the show, even without Lady Gaga, was very good.

Highlights:

• Justin Timberlake, in possibly my favorite-ever Oscar opening number.  There's nothing I didn't love about this performance. 
• Jimmy Kimmel, to my great surprise. The Meryl Streep and Matt Damon roasts were hilarious ("Chinese ponytail movie" killed me), and the tour bus visit, though possibly not his idea, was brilliantly executed and so much fun to watch. 
• Sara Bareilles, to my even greater surprise. I'm not a fan of her singing or songwriting, but I loved that performance. In fact, all of the musical performances were very good. 
• Viola Davis!  Finally!  I believe every word that she says on screen, and every look, and every gesture. I'm so happy to see her brilliance recognized. 

Not so highlights:

• Anousheh Ansari reading Asghar Farhadi's statement after the Iranian filmmaker won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for "The Salesman." I hate almost everything that Donald Trump has said and done since January 20, especially the travel ban (both 1.0 and 2.0.) And of course, Mr. Farhadi has every right to say whatever he thinks, either himself or through his representative. But how is it possible that no one in the room recognized the irony of a human rights scolding coming from an Iranian?  Did no one who applauded Ansari's speech consider the welcome that many Hollywood people would receive in the Islamic Republic?  At the risk of sounding xenophobic, I'll just point out that if you're an LGBT person in Iran, uncooperative bakeries and florists are the very least of your worries.  And for women in that country, the term "slut shaming" takes on an entirely new meaning. 
• Denzel?  Kind of a jerk.  He seemed annoyed at the tourists, and would it have been so hard for him to crack a smile at Casey Affleck when Affleck acknowledged him from the stage? I'm not a Casey Affleck fan either, but that was a rather gracious gesture, and Washington didn't give him an inch. Maybe he's just getting crusty with age. 
• I'm glad I don't work at PWC.  Well, I was already glad that I don't work at PWC, but now I'm REALLY glad.  They had one job, as the hashtag goes.  

At some point, I'll comment on the latest Trump scandal. With any luck, he'll have already resigned by the time I get around to it, making yet another post irrelevant.

*****
4 days down, 399 to go. 

I actually love spunk

The 70s were a hopeful and optimistic time to be a little girl. Lots of things were possible. You could do anything--everyone said so. You could be an athlete, like Billie Jean King or Chris Evert. You could be a lawyer, or a politician. You could be a doctor or a businesswoman.  The world was a wide-open place.

I was a vague, bookish little girl, so I didn't have any one particular ambition. I imagined all sorts of things.  In most of my daydreams, though, I was successful, in some glamorous but undefined career. I imagined a life in which I dressed fabulously, drove my own car, and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries (and sipped Coke in a glass, with ice) in restaurants any time I wanted.

I was about 6 years old when "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" first aired (you knew where this was going, didn't you?) My mother and grandmother watched the show faithfully, and I watched with them, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wearing a flower-patterned quilted bathrobe that buttoned all the way down the front.  I didn't get most of the jokes, and I didn't realize at the time that any ground was being broken. I just loved Mary Richards, and I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I wanted to be smart and nice and pretty and funny and independent. I wanted a cute little apartment and a cute little car and an important job with a typewriter and a phone. And I wanted a best friend just like Rhoda.

So much has been written and said about Mary Tyler Moore and the show, especially since Mary's death on Wednesday.  Most of what I've read and heard has focused on her pioneering portrayal of women in the workplace and in the world. This is right and proper, and I'm happy to have seen so many moving tributes to MTM by women journalists and broadcasters, including Andrea Mitchell and Oprah Winfrey. Mary Richards was a pioneer.  And to little girls like me, she was better than any Barbie doll or Disney princess.

*****
So life happens, and most of mine up to now hasn't even vaguely resembled Mary Richards's.  That's OK.  Most of it has been better, despite my periodic bouts with depression. I was unable to sleep one night during one such period in my late 20s, and as I sat on my couch in front of my TV, flipping through the channels and looking for I didn't know what, there it was. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was on TV Land, late 90s small-hours refuge for the depressed and lonely. I watched it, hoping to feel for just a moment as I felt when I was a hopeful and happy 6-year-old.

I fell asleep on the couch that night, probably halfway through a third episode of the overnight MTM marathon that I'd happen to stumble upon, feeling a little better, and not just because I had remembered for a moment what it felt like to be six years old.  It was because the show, to my surprise, was REALLY funny.

Mary Tyler Moore was already famous for her portrayal of Laura Petrie on the very popular "Dick Van Dyke Show," and she could easily have turned her own program into a showcase for herself.  Instead, she found the funniest and most talented actors and actresses--Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Valerie Harper, Betty White, Cloris Leachman--and put the spotlight on them rather than herself, often playing the straight woman to Valerie Harper's wisecracking Rhoda, Ted Knight's buffoonish anchorman, and Betty White's promiscuous Happy Homemaker.  Even the minor characters, especially Rhoda's mother, played by the gifted Nancy Walker, were brilliantly cast.   Yes, the show was culturally significant and the character was groundbreaking, but "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was also one of the greatest TV comedies ever.

*****

Right now feels like less than a hopeful and wide-open time for women. The rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism in countries everywhere from Western Europe to the Philippines has created conditions of intolerable oppression for women and girls.  Meanwhile, privileged women like me; white, middle-class American women who don't want for a thing, have only to contend with the fact that a self-proclaimed uninvited p&%$@-grabber is now the President of the United States.  All of this, though, will pass.  I'm sure of it.  I'm still hopeful and optimistic.  Love is all around.

Two peas in a pod

I didn't plan or intend this, but the first three books that I read this year were memoirs written by famous baby boomers (Bruce Springsteen, Ruth Reichl, and Carrie Fisher). I started this post as a comparison/mini review of the three books, but then I saw "Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds" on HBO, and decided to just write about that instead.

*****

I hate most fantasy and sci-fi books and movies.  As a Catholic, for example, I'm supposed to love Tolkien, but I don't.  Not the books, not the movies.  No Hobbits, no Towers, no Lords of the Ring, and ABSOLUTELY NO GOLLUM.  There are, however, two exceptions to my complete and utter disdain for science fiction and fantasy:  C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, and "Star Wars."

I love Star Wars, especially the original movie. And first among the many reasons that I love it is Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia.  I was 11 when I first saw Star Wars, and I felt about Princess Leia the way I felt about Billie Jean King. Like young Billie Jean, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia was adorable, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Like Billie Jean, Princess Leia could stand up to bullies, fight and win the good fight, and still look impeccable in an all-white ensemble. I loved her.

*****

I read Postcards from the Edge years ago, and when Carrie died, I tried to buy a Kindle edition. Shockingly, no such thing exists. I hope and expect that Amazon is working diligently to remedy that situation. Meanwhile, I bought and read the Kindle edition of Wishful Drinking,  It didn't surprise me that Carrie in her own words comes across as an old-time wise-cracking gum-snapping Hollywood dame.  She was born and raised that way.  What did surprise me was how much she really loved her mother.  Not just out of a sense of duty and not despite whatever her flaws might have been.  Carrie loved Debbie wholeheartedly, and vice versa.  They lived next door to each other, on a property that they called "the compound" (because of course it was called "the compound") and they seemed to never tire of each other's company.  Having read Postcards (and also having seen the movie version), I just assumed that Carrie was bitter and resentful about her mother, which seems to be the stereotypical attitude of old Hollywood children toward their movie star parents. Postcards is a novel, so maybe Carrie thought that the unabashed love and admiration of a daughter for her mother wouldn't have made an interesting conflict for a work of fiction.

"Bright Lights," a reality-style documentary with cameras and interviewers following Carrie and Debbie around, uses lots of the material that Carrie covered in Wishful Drinking, Having just finished reading it, I recognized some passages from the book in some of Carrie's voice-over narration. This is fitting. Carrie was a great writer, and there was no one better suited to write the voice-overs.  Great writer that she was, though, she didn't really capture the day-in and day-out relationship with her mother as well as the movie does.  Carrie and Debbie tease each other, interrupt each other, and break into frequent song and comedy routines that are at once impromptu and highly polished and rehearsed, because they spent 50 years perfecting their mother-daughter act.

My husband actually saw "Bright Lights" first.  He found Carrie and Debbie's "schtick," as he called it, annoying. But I found their banter and silliness charming, and the genuine affection between mother and daughter is touching.  I teared up more than once.

Just as remarkable is the role of Todd Fisher, Carrie's brother, both in the movie and in their lives.  Although I liked watching Carrie and Debbie being themselves and performing together, I can also easily see that the relationship between them was a closed world, unwelcoming to outsiders, and Todd might have felt like an odd man out when he was with the two of them.  If he did, he concealed it well. Debbie's quirks and Carrie's struggles with mental illness and drug addiction are apparent throughout the movie; and Todd's observations about his mother and sister come across as truthful, but kind and compassionate.  The camera often catches him as he watches Carrie and Debbie doing their routine, both onstage and off, and his affection for both of them is obvious and moving.  Debbie raised a generous man.

Carrie and Debbie were also generous with their great personal and professional gifts.  There's a scene in which Carrie appears at a Star Wars fan fest where attendees paid $70 to stand in line and meet Carrie and get her autograph on posters and shirts and other memorabilia.  It's easy to criticize athletes and movie stars who charge for their autographs at such events, but what's most striking about this particular scene is how much of herself Carrie gives to each of the fans--hugs, pictures, and genuine emotional connection, however brief.  The punters got their money's worth.  Debbie, too, was generous with her audiences.  The camera pans the audience at one of her last Las Vegas shows, and every single face shines with love and happiness.  As I told my son, who watched with me, this was Debbie's great gift.  She was a good dancer, singer, and actress, but making people happy was what she did best.

*****

I saw "Rogue One" today, finally, and like last year's "The Force Awakens," it was a fitting continuation of the franchise's great tradition of fearless and beautiful female heroines (don't get me started on Episodes 2 and 3.  As much as I love everything Star Wars, I believe that Episode 2 is one of the worst movies ever made; some other time, I'll tell you why, at considerable length).  Young Princess Leia has the last word in "Rogue One." I'm sad that it's one of the last times that we'll see her on film (she finished filming Episode 8, which will be released later this year), but I'm happy to have seen Princess Leia one more time. Rest in peace, Carrie and Debbie. You'll be missed.

I'll have the usual

Oh my gosh, what has happened to me?  Do you know what I did yesterday?  I bought scented pinecones (scented pinecones!) and a scented grapevine wreath.  And then I went to Michael's and bought a shitload of scrapbooking supplies.

Well, no, I didn't.  Not the scrapbooking stuff, anyway, because come on.  But I did buy the wreath and the pinecones.  Scented.  Orange/clove/cinnamon scented, to be exact. So now I have a bowl full of pinecones on my dining room table, and a rustic pile of tree branches nailed to my kitchen wall.  Bonus irony points: I can't even smell them anymore. What the hell?

*****

I almost never abandon a book once I start to read it, but I made an exception this week.  I started reading another book of ostensibly hilarious life observations by another funny blogger, and I gave up on it almost immediately. I can only take a limited number of jokes about menopause and spandex and the various physical infirmities and indignities of middle-age before I lose my patience.  And that limited number is apparently zero, because I didn't even finish page 2.

I'm reading Ship of Fools instead.  I've read Ship of Fools at least a dozen times, and it holds up very well after 50 or so years (not 50 years of me reading it because that would have made me quite the prodigy, but 50+ years since its publication.)  If you happen to be feeling a little too warmhearted and optimistic about humanity, then just read a few chapters of Ship of Fools; you'll get over it pretty quickly.  Katherine Anne Porter is just like Jane Austen; that is, if Jane Austen had hated everyone and everything.  But oddly enough, a few pages of Ship of Fools puts me in a much better frame of mind, because I don't know anyone as awful as the passengers of the Vera.

*****
If you'd prefer to get your jaundiced view of mankind in a movie theater, rather than a book, then consider seeing The Girl on the Train.  I'd complain about the way the movie portrays women (crazy/desperate/pathetic OR manipulative/sneaky/promiscuous) but the men come off so much worse (controlling/violent/predatory) that it's almost a feminist manifesto on film.   Anyway, it was very entertaining, and because I never (and I mean NEVER) watch or read psychological thrillers, I didn't really see the ending coming, although I suppose it should have been obvious even to an idiot.  Emily Blunt is such a marvelous actress that she makes even a sort of predictable (for smarter people than me) suspense thriller a great movie experience.

*****

So I never buy things like scented pinecones and grapevine wreaths, and I never go to mystery/thriller movies, and I never stop reading a book until I finish it, and I never vote early.  Except in this very unusual and extraordinary November, when I apparently do all of the above.  Who knows what I'll do next.  Maybe I'll join Pinterest.  Maybe I'll go to Disney World every year, and post a "days 'til my next Disney trip" countdown on Facebook.  Maybe I'll run a marathon.  Apparently, anything is possible.

Cutting edge technology and young Luddites

Two 11-year-old boys are sitting on my family room floor; they have a card game spread out on a small, round, low-to-the-floor Japanese style wooden table.  The Capitals are playing, but the boys aren't paying attention to the game, although one of them is an avid fan—he’s even wearing an Ovechkin jersey.  The boys, best friends since they were 4, are convinced that something weird is happening, because they keep rolling dice in combinations that add up to six, or drawing combinations of cards that also add up to six.  I’m tempted to ask them if they know that President Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln and President Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, but that might be too much for them.  The Penguins just scored; cards and dice are forgotten for now.

*****

I can’t decide if I should buy a new phone or not.  My phone is fine.  But I want a new one.  I keep shopping for new phones; I’ve even had phones in my shopping cart, but I never actually complete the transaction.  Other things we need, I think; other things to spend money on.  Still, the phone keeps calling me (see what I did there?) 

*****

While I shop for the latest and presumably greatest mobile device, I spend Saturday evening with two young boys who love everything old.  They went through a typewriter phase a few years ago; now, they use giant garage sale purchased Clinton-era camcorders to document their adventures.  It's like Snapchat for the Stone Age. They disagree on which is the best Beastie Boys song; my son's friend favors "Fight for Your Right," while my son holds out for "Paul Revere."  Both of the boys agree that "Sabotage" is far inferior to their favorites.  "I liked their old stuff so much better," my son says.  

Now, during the intermission between the second and third periods of the game, the boys are watching old Harlem Globetrotters videos on an iPod, but they need a larger screen to see Meadowlark Lemon in his full glory.  They want to borrow this computer, so that's all for now.  Let's go Caps. 

Tous les jours

It's been so long.  In yet another supreme irony, I am now paid actual money for my writing skills, and I hardly ever write anything.  I've given up my amateur status, I suppose.  I'm going to return once again to daily writing, and whatever ends up on this page will be published.  Well, not WHATEVER.  I'll correct misspellings and incorrect uses of the semicolon.*

On Sunday, I was on my couch watching the last episode of "Mad Men."  I'd summarily dismissed the DB Cooper theory, but the Coke theory had seemed plausible, even likely.  So I liked the ending, and I scoff at the ridiculous idea that it exposed Don as completely cynical.  If advertising is intrinsically cynical, then so is all of commerce and by extension, almost all human endeavor.

And that's all, apparently, that I have to say about that.  I miss "Mad Men" already, both the show in particular and the absorption in a story in general.  I'm sure there's some other serial drama that I could become attached to available on Netflix, but the contemporaneous shared experience would be lacking, and that's the best part.  Binge-watching has very little appeal for me; even if I could overcome my belief that it's wrong to binge on anything, I just wouldn't have the time.

Memorial Day Weekend: Two days until the pool opens, five days before swim team practice begins, and just over a month before I start to panic about the fast-approaching end of a long-awaited summer.  Hyphens: even better than semicolons.  Discuss among yourselves.

* As if either of these would ever happen in the first place.  So unlikely.  Still, anything is possible.