September 2009 Archives

I was tagged over on Facebook to do this meme by SereneBabe -- I believe she listed her current favorites. Paula, who no longer blogs, responded on Facebook doing all-time favorites. I'll follow Paula's lead and list my all time faves. While I will not list F-Troop in my all-time, I totally agree with Paula that it was a hilarious program; the interactions between the characters was superb.

The Simpsons: OMG, ground-breaking in the same way Groening's print cartoon "Life In Hell" with its irreverent one-eared rabbit Binky was ground-breaking. It mocks everything. No religion is sacred, and even atheism takes its licks. Corporations, tree-huggers, punks, rebels, authority figures, politicians, families, television shows -- nothing escapes the scythe of Groening's wit. Lurves it.

Family Guy: As long as I'm on the topic of animated television shows, I have to list this one. MacFarlane admits that Groening was a role model and since his college days at the Rhode Island School of Design has more or less striven to follow in Homer Simpson's footsteps. His thesis film serves as the predecessor to Family Guy. The mockery is similar in scope, but different in execution, however it is MacFarlane's voices that give it additional pleasure for me.

Gilligan's Island: Dunno why this goofy sitcom made such a deep impression on me, but it did. I have seen every episode more times than I can count. I'm not nutter enough to be able to quote lines from the program, but let me just say that G.I. filled up many otherwise boring afternoons. I was one of those insufferable A student types who never had to do homework at home because I did it all while at school, half paying attention to class, half doing the homework for the previous class. Since all my friends were stuck doing their homework and chores, well ... Hello Gilligan!

Star Trek: The original. I enjoyed The Next Generation, but nowhere near as much as this corny, predictable, entirely beloved series. I did not see it when it originally aired, catching the afternoon reruns, but I developed a teenage obsession with Spock and Kirk. Shatner -- before he got pudgy, and in spite of his overly dramatic approach to the role -- made me dream moist and girlish dreams. Spock was beyond cool, though. So in my dreams I was a hot, strong-willed, impulsive, yet entirely rational and intelligent star ship captain; the perfect blend of Kirk and Spock, with Yeoman Rand's and Lt. Uhuru's beauty.

NCIS: I was first introduced to this show while it was in its fourth season after a years long hiatus from television. I developed a strong attachment to crime shows, especially those that portrayed some level of forensic science and deductive reasoning. (This is why I am not a fan of the Law & Order shows, as they just set up situations and plow through them without really showing us the science or solid deduction). And along the same lines as my girlhood sighs over strong male leads, Gibbs is totally to die for. I would totally not throw him out of bed. I am going to also toss CSI (the original, Las Vegas one), Criminal Minds, and Numb3rs in here for the reasons I list above, sans Gibbs.

Dark Shadows: both the old original soap, and the brief revival series in the early 90s. Mostly the original soap with Jonathan Frid as the romantic and dangerous Barnabas Collins. I am also a fan of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, so it was with interest that I read the following in Wikipedia:

Director Tim Burton and pop icon Madonna have both gone on record as fans of the series. As a child Johnny Depp was so obsessed with Barnabas Collins that he wanted to be him. In fact, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are collaborating yet again to bring this series back to life. Johnny Depp will play the lead role of Barnabas. It will be director Tim Burton's next project and eighth collaboration with Depp.

Cool.

Dr. Who: The portion of the original series featuring Tom Baker, (the fourth Doctor) and then the more recent revival with Christopher Eccleston (who briefly appeared in Heroes) and especially David Tennant. Baker and Tennant both filled the role deliciously. A beautiful, yet natural seeming mix of arrogance and twisted humor that I do not feel the other Doctors quite had. I'll admit I've not seen any with Doctors six through eight. What made this series worth watching was its total campiness. It made no apologies for its cheesy aliens and technology on the cheap. In fact, one might argue that it strove for low-end in order to capture camp. Was it the illegitimate child of "Lost In Space" and "Star Trek", I wonder? I later came to enjoy the film "Brazil" for the same reason. I would like to see "Torchwood," which is a spin-off from the later Who.

See, the problem is that politicians are just people. We forget that. We elect them, and then we want them to be more than people. We want to hold them to a higher standard. We are aghast when they cheat on their spouses -- moreso than when it's your neighbor. We're shrill -- Jesse Jackson fathered a baby with a young woman! John Edwards had known all along that baby was his! Bush lied! Obama lied!

But they're people. They're human, and so they are frail, and they lie, cheat, connive, take risks, are arrogant, jingoistic, bloated. Just like pretty much all of humanity as a species. And just as individuals among the species vary, so too do politicians. Some are kind of good. Some are not so bad. Some are worse.

This is nothing new, nothing surprising, but we forget it. We expect -- demand -- our leaders be better than merely human. We find it difficult to forgive them when they end up being merely human.

A few days ago in some lost conversation I mentioned that I dislike politicians. A friend said she actually liked them, which, of course, got me to thinking. Why do I not like them? They're human. I like humans. Should I not like politicians, just as a matter of course, and let the bad individuals among them stand out as not like-worthy?

Well, no. See, I form likes and dislikes based on behavioral characteristics and how it affects me. It seems to me that the very behaviors a politician requires in order to succeed as a politician and a statesman are the behaviors I find least like-worthy among humans.

For example, we all lie to varying degrees, and I am no exception. It is not a behavior to celebrate, and yet, a politician, in order to succeed in getting elected, must hone and refine and embrace the lie. He must lie without seeming to lie. He must shade, and evade, and spin. Deceit is one of the tools of his trade. Once elected, that tool is again essential as he deals with other elected officials, and with foreign statesmen. It behooves the elected official to do the best he can for his constituency. I can't really fault the politician for being an accomplished liar. We would not do well as a nation if our leaders could not or would not do this to some extent. But I don't like it.

We all manipulate. We all try to get the best for ourselves and ours. Politicians, again, must excel at manipulation and taking tactical advantage of situations, even at cost to others. Politicians must succeed more than they fail at amassing the goodies. I can't fault them for being good at it. But I don't like them, because they are good at it.

Does that make sense?

So I am unsurprised when a Joe Wilson type plots to gain notoriety and improve his campaign chances by shouting "You lie!" during a a televised address by President Obama. I figure, that's what he and his ilk do. Grandstand and make themselves known. I don't like that he did it. I don't like him, for many reasons beyond his politician-ness. But I feel pretty much the same way about President Obama, and President Bush before him, and Senator McCain and, well ... politicians in general.

They're too good at being human.

As I peered deep into my navel yesterday, the idea of "relationships" wove in and about my consciousness. Specifically, I pondered changes to relationships. I hardly covered any new territory, yet I feel compelled to write about it. I'll warn you: I am tending toward the melancholy. I do that. I am, after all, a girl

What spurred this was the revelation of the end of a relationship, in this case the death of a marriage. This was made by a person I think of as a friend, although we've never met. These things seem to me to be happening in increasing numbers and perhaps it is simply an artifact of age. Our kids are mostly grown and we find ourselves staring at one another and maybe thinking "what next?" Or perhaps the ravages time cruelly bestows as we wend our ways through life begin to overwhelm us. Perhaps it is that we are a spoiled bunch, too absorbed in ourselves to want to invest in the effort needed to keep a marriage alive.

My grandparents never parted until death, but they did not seem to be very warm toward one another as they reached their lives' ends. They spoke to one another when they needed information. What to eat. What to do. Assistance, please. They did not smile at one another. There was little laughter. I did not hear words of love pass between them. They bickered, mostly. It seemed as though they grimly clung to their relationship, determined to see it through because that was the expected thing to do. Or perhaps they did not want to overcome the inertia of their lives together. They had spent so long together, it made little sense being apart. They lived, then, in a state of individual togetherness.

My parents split when I was young. I was in grade school, living a Beaver Cleaver existence, and while I cried when Daddy told me he would be moving out, I moved on quickly. Each parent dealt with the divorce in a different manner. Mom grabbed the first solid bit of land that loomed. She is still married to her second husband, but miserable in that relationship. She bides her time, waiting for and fearing another change. Dad, convinced that he had found the happiness he sought, married the much younger woman for whom he left my mother. A few years later, a bitter divorce, then Dad married a third time. It was with his fourth wife that he finally learned he could not keep the thrilling feeling of new love forever. Perhaps he has also learned to find satisfaction, maybe happiness, in the changes that take place between two people who grow comfortable with one another.

Friends, contemporaries whose weddings I shared in, are undergoing variations of these types of relationships. Some grimly holding together. The "D" word passes between them occasionally, then dies. Or they are now living their separate lives, happier for having made the decision and endured the pain.

My own marriage ended formally more than two years ago just prior to reaching its 25th anniversary, although it had been on a respirator for some time prior to its end. There is blame aplenty to go around for that, and I won't dwell on it.

My point, I guess, is that I do not know of any couple that has lived together for a good length of time that is genuinely, truly, fully in love. Everywhere I look they give off waves of mere tolerance for one another. The best I can see is that they are comfortable with one another. They give one another space. They are roommates who sometimes have sex. Friends with benefits and a license. If even that. I know of too many couples where even the sex has died.

I want to think there are ideal couples out there. I want to believe that Julia and Paul Child were as in love with one another when they died as the movie "Julie & Julia" claims. I want to envision a couple who married young, grew old together and held hands every day just like the couple in Disney Pixar's film "Up" did. Why do I feel that does not happen that way in real life? More importantly, why does that idea fail to make me feel sad?

I am happy living outside of marriage. Don't get me wrong: for most of those nearly 25 years, I was content. I loved my husband, and I still love him, the Unit Formerly Known as Spousal. The marriage served a very important purpose: together we supported one another and we raised some wonderful amazing and beautiful children. But now, selfishly, I don't have to share my space. I don't have to consult before deciding important matters. I do not have to endure the rips and bruises time visits on souls sharing the same spaces.

I am alone, yet I am not lonely.

That is all.

Everyone is giving him exactly what he craved. The whole reason he did what he did -- self-indulgent piece of shit that he is -- was to get attention for himself. No, not for the gracious lady he spoke of, but for himself. His career may or may not be down the tubes, but he is SO getting attention. There are even Facebook apps about him. If the negative stuff goes on too long, or gets carried too far, a cadre of fans will crop up to defend him and will ensure his career is NOT tanked.

The douche bag should be ignored.

Facebook friends have started commenting, a few of them, on the decline in blogging. Most seem to be melancholy, and one person actually resurrected a defunct blog of his today.

That got me to thinking about my blogs, and the blogs I followed, and then updating my RSS feeds, and fixing some broken things in my own blog and ... It's a bit like when you go to fix a sandwich and notice that something smells in your fridge and next thing you know, it's hours later, all the contents of your refrigerator are strewn about the kitchen, you're elbow deep in suds and rags but you still haven't had a sandwich.

The reasons I have slowed way, way down on my blogging are many and include the time I now spend on Facebook. When I'm not working, or working out, or walking the dogs, or going out with friends for hot stone coconut oil Swedish massages, I can probably be found faffing about on Facebook. Nearly all my bloggy buddies are there. My old Usenet buds, too. Lots of real life friends. Family members. Cow-orkers, present and former.

Here's the deal: blogs are navel-gazing one-to-many deals. I write. You (might) come and read. You get to comment and maybe others will comment, but in the end, it's massive amounts of me versus little bits of you. While I adore that y'all're coming here to see me, it's not quite as fulfilling as it could be. If I want to go see you, I have to, well, go. See you. I maintain a "blogrole" of peeps to make it a bit easier for me to go over to where you all are, but I still have to go there. If you haven't written anything new, it's a bit of a wasted trip. If I use an RSS feed I don't have to waste the trip, but it's still something "outside" of my own blog. So my blog is contained and a bit lonely.

Facebook manages to retain that navel-gazing aspect, but becomes a many-to-many deal. I write smaller capsules. You are there already, commenting and your own capsules of self-indulgent information are all there. We have multiple conversational threads going. I get notifications of when someone has said something. The world has expanded manyfold. It's fractal living.

Nevertheless, the format is a bit restricting. My capsules of me-ness are limited. When I have lots to say, I have to say it in many takes. To edit, I have to delete the previous one and try again. Facebook has its downside as well.

Maybe there is room -- and time -- for both.