Monday linkage, with Joe Pye weed

Some random linkage, starting (of course!) with my own radio show: Thursday, Friday and today.

We were a bit off our game today, since Gregg and I had to soldier on without Double A. Next week, I am going to Texas, and they will have to soldier on without ME... so I am not complaining.

I just get nervous when we change anything.

~*~

Just back from Atlanta, where I caught a very personal story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (unfortunately, behind a pesky paywall, or I would link it) about the former Miss Georgia, beautiful Leighton Jordan. In the AJC account, Jordan's eating disorder is presented in stark, primary colors. It was harrowing; the unending treadmill of ballet, pageants and thinness seemed less like the life of a princess (the fairy tale we all hear about) and more like being caught in a trap.

In her work as Miss Georgia, Jordan describes a personal appearance wherein she spies a 13-year-old girl, very thin and obviously "jittery" as she is confronted with a table full of food. Jordan takes the girl aside and tells her that she needs to hear her story.

It was an amazing moment of sisterhood, self-sacrifice and love.

I promise never again to be mean to the pageant-participants. Jordan has redeemed you all.

Namaste.

~*~

At left: Joe Pye weed, from Linky Stone park. Ain't it just so purty?!?

I used this photo as the background for my new Tumblr, which you should all check out.


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Other stuff--

6th big cat dies at Texas animal sanctuary (USA Today) -- I did not know that big cats caught feline distemper, as domestic cats do. :(

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Also covered on our show today, CNN doctor-on-call Sanjay Gupta reversed himself on the weed. And yes, we are now waiting on the rest of you 'experts' who have said stupid things in the past; you too may be regarded as respectable once again! SAVE YOUR REPUTATIONS NOW! FREE THE WEED!

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[Attorney General Eric] Holder seeks to avert mandatory minimum sentences for some low-level drug offenders (Washington Post) Better late than never.

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Speaking of marijuana (doing radio has taught me the importance of a good segue!), Erin Tatum's feminist review of "We're the Millers" at Bitch Flicks accurately articulates my concerns about the movie, which I haven't yet seen (but I have been subjected to oodles of trailers):

Really, you are lying to yourself if you thought the powers that be would waste any opportunity to showcase Jennifer Aniston's legs. The ensuing montage is pure wet, slow-motion fan service. The dance ends with Rose releasing a steam valve, disorienting their captors enough to let their "family" escape. I'm torn about this scene because although it's trying almost too hard to show that strippers can be smart and intuitive, Rose’s most valuable asset is still her body and her ability to be objectified. I take issue not so much the objectification itself so much as the fact that the definitive aspect of Rose’s character seems to be “LOL WHAT 40+ and still hot?!?”. Certainly Aniston's boldness and athleticism are praiseworthy, but given the amount that the actors talk about it in interviews, you would think the strip routine was her sole appearance.

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I am greatly looking forward to Elysium, a new film containing one of my very favorite scifi plots ever: Earth evacuated by the rich as a festering shithole, while only the poor, sick and unlucky are left behind. This was a favorite theme of my beloved Philip K Dick, as in his great masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became the film Blade Runner. (It is also the scenario in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a novel of obsessive importance to your humble narrator.) Elysium was directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director of DISTRICT 9.

Unfortunately, Elysium is getting rather mixed reviews, even though it easily won the weekend box office. I still intend to see it, so stay tuned.

The Conjuring got on my nerves, because I really wanted to like it.

~*~

And for you musically oriented folks: I finally "cleaned up" my infamous three-year-old instrumentals post... I profusely apologize to the people who Googled "instrumentals" (which are notoriously VERY HARD to find, since there are no lyrics to look up) and came upon my post with so many songs missing. I blame YouTube! (Again, time to plug the invaluable YouTomb, a fascinating website that chronicles the whys and wherefores of various videos getting the plug pulled.)

I especially got a chock full of searches after MAD MEN used "Love is Blue" over their closing credits in one of this past year's shows.

And so, here it is.

Love is blue (L'amour est bleu) - Paul Mauriat (1968)

News flash: People on TV live better than we do

At left: Audrey Meadows and Jackie Gleason as Alice and Ralph in THE HONEYMOONERS.




I was looking at Ralph and Alice Kramden's tiny, dingy apartment last night, flipping channels and feeling some 50s nostalgia. And then, jarringly, I landed on some shiny new sitcom, and the same supposedly middle-class people are living in $350,000 homes.

Wait, what? How could they afford THAT? Alice and Ralph barely scraped by, and they didn't even have a car. They talked about not having a car, too. They talked about money. They talked about affording things and not affording things. I suddenly realized that modern TV characters do not talk about whether they can afford things now, unless it is something obviously expensive, like tuition to particularly-pricey colleges or spiffy sports cars or extended vacations to Paris. I also realized something else: Ralph and Alice didn't have credit cards. After all, they still bought ice for their actual ice box.

They didn't have much. No nice clothes, no nice furniture. People loved them because they identified with them.

When did that change? When did regular, just-folks TV characters turn into imitation-rich-people? Even though the characters are given simple occupations, they are clearly living way beyond their means and above their pay-grade.

I first became aware of this back in the 90s, when some wit (possibly in the Village Voice) wrote an article about the then-wildly-popular show "Friends"--suggesting that their respective apartments would cost ____ (something outlandish) that unemployed actors and waitresses (the "Friends" occupations) could never possibly afford.

This TV Trope became known as Friends Rent Control, which was the official excuse for this luxurious apartment-dwelling:

Besides appealing to audience fantasy, this is usually done because large sets are easier to film in. If Monica or Chandler's apartment on Friends had been realistic, the entire apartment would be the size of an average living room, rather than the entire first floor of a house. Doing a scene with all six main characters would have been a total nightmare for the cast and crew. It's for this very reason that Angel changed its primary set from a cramped basement office in Season 1 to a spacious hotel in Season 2. In some cases, though, the reason is that the writers and producers have either forgotten or never known how normal people live; born into prosperity with parents able to afford the best universities and pampered by the entertainment industry, they actually have no clue of how the majority of people live.

Ah, we get to the heart of it.

Jackie Gleason came from Brooklyn, and actually grew up at 328 Chauncey Street, the address he used in THE HONEYMOONERS. His parents were both from Ireland. He WAS Ralph Kramden, except he didn't drive a bus (but you could certainly imagine him driving one). Jackie Gleason was poor and never even graduated from high school. He hadn't forgotten how it was to live with an ice box that used real ice.

There is a similar TV trope called Living in a Furniture Store, the title of which sums up how these TV-homes are designed and arranged.

Speaking of furniture stores, does all of this STUFF in TV shows (which we are to believe is owned by regular people like you and me), cause viewers to crave more STUFF? I think it does. I was just admiring some of the bed linens and coverings in an EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND rerun, and thinking idly of my tacky, ancient quilts and how I fall short. I see no reason to have new quilts when I love my old ones, but... well... they ARE old, and I am suddenly conscious of it.

In fact, these thoughts started me thinking about this post, and got me wondering how other people feel about this phenomenon.

What do you think when you see dental-hygienists and waiters and other low-income people living like kings on TV? Do you laugh at it, or does it annoy you?

Have you ever craved something you saw on a TV show? And let me clarify: I do NOT refer to commercials and advertising; it is the JOB of a TV commercial to make you crave something, but it is simply a symptom of viewing that makes you crave something you saw on EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND. (It is also a by-product of wanting to be like the characters, as when millions of women cut their hair like Jennifer Aniston back in the 90s.)

Your thoughts?

The Politics of Flair

Jennifer Aniston's boss in OFFICE SPACE asks her if she wants to express herself or not?


Saturday evening, our restaurant server took a crayon and wrote his name on the paper tablecloth, upside down. He wrote it that way so we could read it. Some trick, I thought. And then I wondered, okay, whose cute idea was this?

Some waiter or waitress somewhere in this middling-expensive restaurant chain decided to do this once, and now everybody has to.

Maybe she just wanted to have some fun or be different and unique. So, she took the crayon that you check off your order with (another cute idea?) and wrote her name, upside down. This was part of her shtick, so she could get more tips and try to enjoy her job a little more. And then, some boss said, hey, Suzie here has TEAM SPIRIT, and you ALL must do this dumb thing that she finds enjoyment in, or that she has made uniquely hers.

In short, management STOLE the idea from some waitress and then forced everyone else, even those not normally given to cutesy ideas (which worked perfectly well for Suzie, I realize) to write their names upside down. I imagine Suzie was not a popular character at her workplace, particularly with those people who didn't want to do this dumb thing that Suzie enjoyed doing.

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about this copycat phenomenon in her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, in which she posed as a real live working class person (I can hear the NPR listeners gasping!) and worked at Walmart and a variety of other places, including restaurants. At one point, to curb her boredom during slow times, she starts freshening up the salads on the buffet. She is complimented for this by management, and feels a silly sense of pride. Another waitress then intervenes and tells her to STOP DOING THAT. Why? Because if management likes it, they will force them all to do it, even when they aren't slow. The reader can feel Ehrenreich's momentary surprise, even though I knew as soon as she did it, that she should ask someone first. (You know you are working class to the core, when you know the rules for jobs even better than the one writing the damn book.)

A good measure of identity in the workplace is whether you are forced to wear flair or do something equally dorky, such as greet the customer as soon as they enter! (book/video store rules) And if you are truly allowed to wear what you want? Anytime? You must be somebody important. Do you wear a dopey name-tag with a little pin affixed, letting everyone know how many years you have been employed at said establishment? Do you have buttons on your officially team-colored smock, vest or apron, advertising various wares for sale?

How about a button that instructs people to "ASK ME ABOUT"--blah blah blah?

In the movie OFFICE SPACE, Joanna the waitress (Jennifer Aniston) is admonished by her boss that she isn't wearing enough flair. She is confused, since she is wearing the regulation X number of buttons (the definition of "flair")--so she wrinkles her brow--what is the problem? Her boss replies, sighing heavily at her obvious lack of team spirit, see Brian over there? He is wearing 37 pieces of flair! Now if you think the MINIMUM is good enough, well--(the boss shakes his head, disappointed) and Aniston is still puzzled: "More then? You want me to wear more?"

The boss sighs. Poor thing doesn't get it.

"You want to EXPRESS yourself, don't you Joanna?"

And yes, there it is. Expressing yourself, for a working class person, is doing what management tells you to do, even the dopiest, dumbest thing.

The first person who ever wore the 37 buttons, or wrote their name upside down, or wore the cutesy name-tag with cutesy shit attached thereon, WAS expressing themselves, most assuredly. However, where do they get the idea the rest of us want to express ourselves identically to this other person? Would we all decorate our houses the same way, wear the same shoes? Of course not. So, why would we all want to deck ourselves out for work the same, or do showboat things like write our names upside down on a paper tablecloth?

Before evilll Walmart invaded my neighborhood, I occasionally shopped there. There was one older woman whose blue Walmart smock was completely covered in buttons and pins; some represented products sold by Walmart, but some were about Jesus, and some were about Star Wars. And some were about stuff like the American Cancer Society, pink ribbon-symbols for breast cancer and all that kind of fund-raising, do-gooder stuff. I used to get in her line, just to read all the buttons. I told her how much I liked them, and she beamed--this was obviously a collection of long-standing. (I have also collected buttons and pins for many decades, and I have one hat chock-full of them too.)

Some time ago, I saw the same woman still employed at the Walmart. However, she had been reeled in considerably... her flair, her OWN FLAIR, the flair she collected for herself, was mostly gone. She had a few buttons left, the ones given the green-light by management: buy this, buy that, yada yada. I was saddened by that, although I had long expected it. Individuality in the workplace, actually "expressing yourself"? Ha. This is permissible only if you make a certain amount of money. Not for us.

But they had really gotten too strict, I thought. Yes, I fully expected Jesus to be gone, but was surprised Star Wars was gone, too. I mean, aren't Star Wars toys sold in the toy department; aren't the countless videos and video games sold at Walmart, too? Why get rid of those? I felt sad for my sister button-collector.

I got in her line, that day, as always. And I said to her, "I remember, you used to have all the buttons and pins on your smock."

She rolled her eyes at me, "Don't even get me started," she said, explaining they made her stop wearing them.

"Was it Jesus?" I asked, conspiratorially.

Her eyes flashed, "I have only got compliments from people, it wasn't any customer complaining. My customers love me," she said with a pride I recognize. Yes, I thought, my customers love me too, they wouldn't try to get me in trouble. And I knew instinctively that they loved this warm, friendly, southern grandma-type person.

Some manager came in from the home-office, and had a fit, she said. "They thought it was some terrible thing, that I had worn them all these years," and rolled her eyes again.

I'm sorry, I told her, I loved the pins. I collect them, too.

"Lots of women do," she replied, "and they all liked them, told me they enjoyed the fact that there was some originality around here!" She shrugged, shook her head, and then asked me to key in my PIN for my debit card.

And I left, walking past the identical smocks, with all the identical flair. For some reason, I just wanted to cry.

"You want to express yourself, don't you?"

Indeed, wouldn't that be nice?