Musings on Pop Culture and Media

... have you ever noticed that "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot has no chorus? It's just verse after verse after verse. I realized this when in a fit of nostalgia for a lost hit of my youth I downloaded this song into my iTunes library. A mistake.

... for pure, wicked summer reading, pick up the August 2005 issue of Vanity Fair. August is usually the dog days for mag publishing, but this is one August issue that's fun to read. I'll admit it, I picked it up to see how they treated Martha Stewart in their cover article. I mean, come on, don't we all want to know how Martha, She-Wolf of Domesticity, is handling her house arrest? I knew it was going to be a big valentine to Martha, as evidenced by the candy-pink flowers surrounding her in the cover shot of MS cuddling her adorable French Bulldog. I have to admit, Martha's time in the big house looks like it took about 20 years off her age. And in the Bruce Weber photo spread that accompanies the article, MS looks, quite frankly, beautiful. The woman looks like a 35-year-old MILF The article is a wet kiss, but not on MS's derriere as expected -- author Matt Trynauer can't resist throwing in the details that make Martha Martha, like the way she insists her draft horses be kept inside during the day so their black coats won't be reddened from the sun. She does this so they will remain color-coordinated with her farm. (A color called Bedford Gray -- look for it in the next Kmart line! -- is the basis of the farm, and MS only wants black animals on the property. Luckily her old red chow-chow made the cut and wasn't shipped off to another property!) All in all, like many people I know, I never particularly felt warm and fuzzy about Martha Stewart, but at the same time I once did my entire bathroom in MS colors from Kmart. I always thought her colors were just so good. Even so, I couldn't help feeling that she had been unfairly vilified by the press during her trial and then railroaded into prison. Good for her, she took her punishment like a man and came out the other side a (seemingly) better person. Are you listening, Bernie Ebbers, you blubber-like-a-little-baby-at-your-sentencing pussy?

... same issue, same magazine. Dave Hickey had me at hello in his article about Walt Disney World, simply by calling WDW "cracker Eden." So I started the article with a large grin spread across my face and I can't wait for the subway ride home so I can finish it.

... I somehow ended up on a subscriber list and I started getting free issues of a magazine called Paste. It purports to be a music review magazine. I call it a logrolling piece of shit. First, because the graphic style is clearly designed for the so-called MTV generation, they of the short attention span and hyper-graphic sensibilities. What it screams is "Look! I have a Macintosh and I can put twenty-five fonts on one page!" It made me wince as soon as I opened the cover, from a graphic design perspective. Overkill, overkill, overkill. Jesus, what are they teaching in design school nowadays? Send all these so-called graphic designers back to school and teach them some basics about layout. This magazine is an ADD nightmare of bad layout, bad font decisions, and bad writing. So as I read, I became suspicious when photos from articles started looking familiar to me. And I realized, for every review in the magazine, there was a corresponding advertisement for that artists most current album. And then I got to the free cd, which was chockablock with songs by all of those same artists. Well, hell, Ethel, this ain't nothin' but a big direct mail piece for singer/songwriters. That's what I mean by logrolling. Is there no cutting-edge music reporting going on any more? Give me the gonzo journalism of the old, brilliant Rolling Stone!

well, that's going to have to be all for today's musings. can you tell I'm a little slow at work?
Langendorff

But back to Jane

Oh, Janie, Janie, Janie, what can I say?

Your husband is a mess, truly. Apparently he ate not one, but two full lunches yesterday -- talk about eating your emotions! And yesterday was one of those days that he just looked so, so sad. I've come to realize that he frequently looks like that on Mondays. It's as if instead of being rejuvenated and rested by the weekend, it drains him even more than work.

I do understand why he gets so angry with people at work sometimes. It's really the only thing that he has, isn't it, in which he feels like he is in control. I believe at his heart he realizes how much his life is controlled by the belief systems and social expectations of those around him, and to a large part by his own beliefs and societal pressures that he puts on himself. He recognizes it and doesn't like it, but doesn't see any way out of it. That is where the sadness comes from, I think. Somewhere in his puny brain, he grieves for his authentic self who is denied day after day. And the anger comes out of that grief; it's the only way he knows how to express it.

Tell you a story, Jane...

After your husband left his office yesterday, he called me from his cell phone in the car on the way home, just to tell me how close he came to driving to Brooklyn yesterday morning after dropping off his carpool buddy. And how he thought about lying in bed with me in my crappy little apartment in Bushwick and how he had actually been thinking about it all weekend, but he wasn't sure how I would receive it if he called me at 7:00 on a Monday morning. (I'm a slow starter in the morning, fyi)

So I told him he should just take that chance and make those calls when he wants to. And I also told him that as a friend, I was worried about him because he seemed so blue. That I know his business is bad right now (most everyone in our business is slow right now, but your husband seems to take it personally when it happens). Ya know what? He really seemed to appreciate it -- in fact, now that I think about it, he seems so grateful when anyone is kind to him.

So this morning, as it promised to be a blazing scorcher of a day, I awakened at 6:00 and was enjoying a cup of coffee and my book and the peaceful quiet time, and my phone rang -- close to 7 it was. Your husband had just dropped off his carpool buddy and asked if he could come to my house.

I met him at the door wrapped in my "ohmigod it's so freakin' hot" sarong, little realizing that he would react to it (the sarong) as "ohmigod that's so freakin' hot." He loved it. This old thang?

We adjourned to my chambre, the only air-conditioned room in the house, and he took off his shoes and sprawled out on my bed. This, as you probably know, leaves very little room for me, due to his largeness. He's a big boy, your husband is. I lay next to him with my arms around him, and we just lay quietly for some time.

"Can't we stay like this all day?" he said wistfully. "Just lying next to each other? I like this the best."

Blah-de-blah-de-blah. You know what happens next, no need for details.

Except for an observation that's kind of funny. Your husband always narrates whatever we're doing. I think it's hysterical. "I'm kissing you." "I'm falling off the bed!" "We're making out!" "You're smirking again."

Appreciating small kindnesses, he seemed genuinely surprised when I offered him a cup of coffee, then after he sat in my big chair waiting for me to dress, I brought it to him. There's that way people say "Thanks!" as if they can't believe someone thought of them.

I don't know how you are with each other in real life; I only know what he tells me (every 8 to 10 weeks, Jane? That's grounds for divorce!). But I do believe I can draw some conclusions based on how he reacts to how I am with him.

I wonder sometimes, do you walk around with the same sad look in your eyes, Jane?

Oh Thank God

...that London, and not New York, will host the Olympics in 2012.

Nuevo California

Dear President Bush:

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the entire Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states finally pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. And of course, 31% higher unwanted pregnancies.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources to find them.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford and Cal Tech.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then us lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California.