Phony Baloney

WHY DO PEOPLE 

FEEL THE NEED 

TO BROADCAST 

THEIR INNERMOST 

FEELINGS 

ON FACEBOOK? 

DOES EVERYONE YOU EVER MET 

(AND NEVER MET)

NEED TO KNOW 

HOW MUCH YOU LOVE SOMEONE, 

OR IS IT THAT YOU NEED PEOPLE 

TO THINK THAT?

Airline To-Do List

An article in today's Wall Street Journal tries to be helpful by tackling the subject of how airlines could improve the experience of flying. It cites lessening change fees, cancellation policies and blah, blah, blah. All great for your pocketbook, but none of it will make flying more palatable. Following are some ways to achieve that goal.

1. Instead of those mini-bags of pretzels, yogurt-covered raisins and corn chips, flight attendants should dispense doses of Valium, Dramamine and Zzzquil.

2. Until 1988 there were Smoking Sections on airplanes, usually the last ten rows. This outdated practice should be modernized as the Obesity Section, since while smoking is now frowned upon and illegal in many places, obesity is quite popular and growing more acceptable every day. With extra-wide seating, never again will an average-sized person stuffed between two fatties (you heard me) be denied an armrest. And hefty travelers could finally relax and revel in their girth. (They could also be given the pretzels, chips and yogurt-raisin snacks.)

3. Bring back those blankets! What else are we supposed to put over our heads during turbulence?

Watch Your Mouth

My funny, sweet, kind, adorable father died 31 years ago. I remember because I was pregnant with my only child at the time, who today is 31. I loved my father very much and was heartbroken, especially after caring for him during his final months of suffering with advanced colon cancer.  Just as I was preparing to leave his empty apartment to attend his funeral, I received a call from a family member who, after explaining that he "had an important business meeting" and thus would not be attending the funeral, laughingly added, "I'm sorry your daddy is deady."

I guess it was supposed to be funny, but instead the comment stunned me, and the passage of time hasn't lessened its sting. While I have forgiven the speaker for his poor judgment, I have not forgotten those words. In fact they come to mind every time I see him, which is quite often since he's my husband's identical twin.

Conventional wisdom advises that one should not hold on to grudges. But what about when grudges hold on to you? My advice to everyone: You better watch your mouth, since you never know which of your words will leave a permanent scar.

Celebrity Rip-Off

Me too.

I just finished writing an article about the films of Meryl Streep for a local Portland paper. I will receive $50 for my efforts, which took about five hours, or $10 an hour. During that time I did some research on the actress and learned that her current net worth is $90 million.

That seemed like a lot, but less than I expected since I remember reading many years ago that actor Tom Hanks commands $20 million per movie, and she is certainly in his league. That got me wondering about the net worth of some other celebrities. Jerry Seinfeld is worth $950,000,000. That's nine-hundred-and-fifty million, in case like me all those zeroes stumped you. But that's pocket change compared to Oprah Winfrey, who's got $2.6 billion, a figure I cannot even write using zeroes.

What gives? Why are celebrities so rich when they do little but "amuse" us, and likely have a ball doing it? What about nurses? The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the average pay for registered nurses at $64,690 per year, or about $31.00 per hour. That's better than my ten bucks an hour, but nowhere near the average movie star's haul.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be stuck in an elevator or a mine shaft or a collapsed building or a flu epidemic with a nurse than with Meryl Streep or Oprah Winfrey, or in fact any actor or actress except maybe one from Grey's Anatomy who might have picked up some helpful information during all those years of pretending.

Big Fish, Little Fish

Flying is safe; everybody says so. But still I assume that any airplane carrying me or someone I love  will crash, either into the sea like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, or into the jungle like in Lost. I maintain this belief even when the air route is Oregon to Massachusetts over land only, which is the path my son will follow later today and which causes me anxiety. Yes, I'm nuts, but only when it comes to flying; in all other ways I am too sane. (In fact, a little more crazy in my life might help.)

This morning I awoke in a decent mood despite the flying thing, having put in a prayer to God late last night and early this morning that He bring my son home safely. As usual, I felt confident He would take care of it. That confidence was quickly shattered by the front page photo of the Wall Street Journal, its caption recounting a burst dam in Brazil that wiped out a village and killed 58 people for sure, with more than 300 still missing. This event made my pathetic little prayer seem selfish, and more importantly, likely to be overlooked since it appears God's got bigger fish to fry.

Who's a big fish and who's a little fish is hard to tell, with perspective in short supply these days. The burst dam in Brazil must matter since it's "front page news," but I'm guessing that as you go about your day, nobody will mention it, those dead Brazilians all being little fish. Instead you'll hear about that horrid Donald Trump (big fish) and "the wall" and impeachment, and maybe, if some eager young editor strikes gold, Melania Trump's (big fish) latest sartorial faux pas. Meanwhile, all I (little fish) care about today is Zack (special, bigger, exotic little fish) getting home safe.

Sunday Afternoon Cultchah

 

My husband and I went to the symphony this afternoon and had a two-hour respite from the festering cesspool known as American politics. It was heavenly. Sitting with eyes closed, I enjoyed a powerful rendition of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture presented by the Portland Symphony Orchestra, which is a lot closer to a real orchestra than the Portland Museum of Art is to a real museum. In fact, it's damn close.

It was dreamy to just sit there and let the music flood into my ears like a healing syrup. It was all quite stirring. When it ended the musicians received a standing ovation that lasted long enough for the conductor to leave the stage and come back on three times, returning to still-thunderous applause each time.

Then we drove home, where I attempted to make a dent in the Sunday New York Times but found it to be so biased and smug that I didn't get very far, try as I might. And considering it costs us $12.00 a week to have it home-delivered here in Maine, you know I tried. But those liberal columnists are impossible to stomach, which is another way of saying they make me sick. It's either their way or the highway, and since their way is tone-deaf and closed-minded, I find the highway to be far preferable. (In this case, "the highway" turned out to be Words With Friends on my iPhone.)

At least we don't see much of Hillary anymore. That's something.

Who Needs Hitler?

This being International Holocaust Remembrance Day got me thinking. Growing up in the 1950s, I was always fascinated hearing how my parents, a young married couple living in Brooklyn during the years of the Holocaust (1941-1945), first heard about it and didn't believe it, so did nothing. Not that there was much they could do. I often asked my father to recount his skepticism over the tiny news stories tucked away on the back pages of the New York Times alleging evil doings in Germany and Austria. Eventually the stories got longer and moved closer to the front of the paper until they consumed the front pages of every newspaper in the world. By then it was too late -- the deed was done!

I am reminded of that each time I come across a news story alerting us to the inherent dangers of our dependence on cell phones and how those habits will ultimately rain chaos down on us all, individually for sure and possibly all of Mankind. There's one of those in today's Times, relating how Steve Jobs never intended for his invention to overtake our lives but rather to enhance them.

This was perhaps the tenth such article I have read in the past couple of years, detailing how our relentless interaction with social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, in combination with texting, mapping our rides, taking selfies, checking our stock portfolios, looking at pornography, listening to podcasts, playing silly games and occasionally calling our moms, all the while rejecting face-to-face interaction with others, is slowly eroding the fabric of society, not to mention changing our posture from that of Homo erectus to Homo slumperus.

Isn't it time to heed to these no-longer-early warning sirens? I suggest we change our behavior now to avoid a horrific front page story with banner headline, "SMART PHONES FINALLY OUTSMART HUMANS!" -- written by Siri and Alexa.

Get Off My Tail

IMHO, the death penalty is greatly underused in our society. One particularly heinous class of lawbreaker goes unpunished hundreds of times daily, in every city in every country of the world. Anywhere there are roads, these human vermin sitting behind the wheel of an almost 2-ton (the average mid-size sedan weighs 3,351 pounds) killing machine are getting away with murder. Okay, so it's not  murder in the sense of a dead body left behind; more like a dead soul.

Some people choose to go even slower, requiring nerves of steel.

The crime of which I speak is rampant in today's speedy, needy world of "me first." (In fact, MeFirst makes the #MeToo movement look like child's play.) Can you guess what it is that causes more people, including little old ladies, to roll down their windows and flip the bird at a passing vehicle, willingly courting road rage that could end in their own death? It's tailgating, and I don't mean the football kind where you park in a giant parking lot and get drunk on beer and gorge on unhealthy foods involving Cheez Whiz, getting fatter and sicker every second.

No, I mean the other kind, where the guy behind you drives right up your butt, even when you are in the slow right lane going the posted speed limit. It's just that you're not going his speed limit, and so he torments you by coming up real close, maybe even tapping your bumper, and making you pray he will die of cancer, the most painful kind that has no cure or even any treatment. Or else you hope you come upon him trapped inside a fiery crash a mile up the road, where even the Jaws of Life can't save him.

I say kill them all. It's easy: after a cop nabs one, just drag him down to the station, make sure you've got witnesses, notify the next of kin, throw him a taco or whatever he chooses from fast food, then take him out back and put him down like the rabid dog he is. The Nazis did it for absolutely no reason, to perfectly lovely people -- actors and musicians and artists and of course Jews, back in WW2, so it's not without precedent.

My husband says this plan is another reason I should not be President. But hey, wouldn't driving be a lot nicer without them?

Big Brother Is Still Watching

These days you can't do anything without risk. It's best just to stay in bed with the covers pulled over your head. Do not -- under any circumstances -- act silly, get drunk, or behave like a frat boy. And while you're hanging out under those covers, you might thumb through that old copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four and brush up on what happens when you incur the wrath of the State.

The most recent example of how letting yourself go can get yourself gone is Florida's newly- appointed and just-resigned Secretary of State Michael Ertel, who foolishly dressed up as a "Katrina victim," which involved painting his face black, commonly known as "blackface," for a Halloween party 14 years ago. Someone snapped a photo, posted it on the Internet, and the rest is Nazi-Germanesque history.

Surely the man cannot do any sort of decent job today, we can all agree. Or can we? Is there anyone out there who has not done something foolish or irreverent in the past? I certainly have, although none of my questionable activities were photographed. Lucky for me there there were no cell phone cameras at Woodstock.

Dummies for President

No matter where you look it seems that things in America keep getting worse every day. This makes me sad for my young son who will live out the remainder of his life -- and I pray it is a long and healthy one -- in a cultural wasteland where political correctness has replaced what was formerly known as "basic intelligence."

Our leaders are growing steadily dumber. One day people will look back and regard Trump as our last effective President, and believe me, I'm no fan of the man. But it's slim pickings out there concerning our next election, as is evidenced by the group of empty-headed tweeters in the Dump Trump Party who have already declared their candidacies. Don't get me started on naming them, let's just say that platitudes rule the day: If you profess to love the poor, the homeless, the unskilled, all people of color, immigrants (legal or not), the sexually confused, the morbidly obese, and anyone saddled with any sort of handicap, you will be regarded as a clear-thinking, fair-minded savior, despite lacking any clue as to how to fix our broken country.

"Vote for me, I'm female and part Puerto-Rican!"

One example of such a person is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, who is fuzzy on the difference between her ass and a hole in the ground but nobody cares because she is female and not white, and definitely owns one, if not several, of those knitted pink pussy hats. Despite citing our "three chambers of government: the House, the Senate and the presidency," she has catapulted to the top of the hopeful heap, mostly by doing things like going on social media in support of charities for transgender teens in Great Britain.

So after careful study, and hearing Sen. Elizabeth Warren's vacuous stump speech on CNN the other night, I've determined that if you'd like to live in a palace and have your own private airplane with a shower and a dining room on it, just repeat the following things as often as possible to as many people you can find:

"I promise to make America fair for all people, except Republicans who are dirt and should rot in Hell."

"I will insure that every citizen receives free health care, free access to higher education (but not at any of the Ivies), free food, free housing and a guaranteed income, paid for by the rich white Republicans who made all the money and spend it on their own face lifts, yachts and multiple oceanfront homes."

"Embracing hundreds of thousands of unskilled, unemployable immigrants who don't speak English will make each of us feel better about ourselves."

And hey--good luck! See you at the Inauguration, which is on January 3rd according to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, even though since 1937 it has taken place on January 20th, which is 72 to 78 days after the presidential election held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Instead of Thinking

Usually something comes to me, but not today. I'm fresh out of thoughts. What if you run out of thoughts? Then what do you do? Then you push globs of paint around on a piece of linen. That's what I did. Here's how it looks so far:

A Star is Tainted

Lady Gaga exhibiting her Christian values in Las Vegas, the seat of Christianity.

What if in your heart of hearts you believe that marriage is something between a man and a woman? Does this mean you will, or should, burn in Hell forever? Are you a piece of human detritus? Suppose if, like me, you accept same-sex marriage as perfectly fine but still always notice that one of the couple is the "wife," doing the cooking, cleaning and decorating, and the other is the "husband," filling the more traditionally masculine role, like fixing plumbing emergencies and cutting down trees for firewood? Should you too burn in Hell forever?

Are individual beliefs no longer permitted in our society? Is this Nazi Germany, with the Democrats playing the Nazis? I ask this because Karen Pence, the wife of the Vice-President, has taken a part-time job teaching art to youngsters (grades K-8) at a private Christian academy in Northern Virginia that requires its employees to agree that marriage is between a man and a woman, and because of that she is being vilified by the press and members of the entertainment world.

CNN reporter John King found the plan so heinous that he suggested Mrs. Pence be denied her taxpayer-provided Secret Service protection, as if every last taxpayer would agree. And superstar Lady Gaga stopped her performance in Vegas to announce that Mrs. Pence is "the worst representation of what it means to be Christian."

Apparently Lady Gaga is the worst representation of what it means to be a Democrat. Sure, she was fantastic in A Star is Born, but that was acting. (As for John King, nobody cares about him.)

All the News That's Hard to Believe

 Skeptical by nature, still I try my best to keep an open mind. Live and let live, I say. If someone wants to cut off his penis and get fake boobs and start wearing nail polish and high heels to feel better about himself I say go for it, even though deep down I think it's a manifestation of mental problems. But hey -- not my business.

About that skepticism. A Special Section in yesterday's New York Times called "A WOMAN'S RIGHTS" started off with an article entitled "Jailing Mothers for Miscarriages." This pushed me to my limits. Discussing laws in certain states that punish women for harming fetuses, the article contains the following two scenarios:   
     "Stomach pains woke Keysheonna Reed late one night in December 2017. She climbed into the bathtub, hoping she would not wake any of the other nine people living in her small home in eastern Arkansas. Within minutes she'd delivered twins, a boy and a girl. Both babies were born dead."   

      "Katherine Dellis felt dizzy one day in 2016, passed out and woke up on her bathroom floor to find her stillborn fetus beside her."

Having given birth myself the natural way, those two paragraphs made me laugh out loud. My own experience involved 23 hours of intense labor followed by two-and-a-half hours of pushing, after which the attending physician resorted to a pair of forceps to actually pull the baby out of my womb. A staff of nurses and a labor coach aided in the delivery, during which there was much screaming on my part, enough to cause one of the nurses to suggest that I should "get a grip." (She was quickly banished from the room.)

So you can see why I found it hard to believe that in the first instance, the young girl could deliver two babies without making a sound, and by the way why not wake at least a couple of the other nine people in the house? And in the second case, the baby, though dead, apparently delivered itself, somehow sliding out of the body of a totally inert woman and landing right next to her.

The fact that the reporter of that article swallowed these birth accounts hook, line and sinker, as did the section editor and the paper's managing editor, is why I steer clear of The New York Times, especially when it's pushing an agenda.

Peter Pan Was On To Something

And maybe a bedtime story too?

There are no more adults. I mean just look at our President: surely he is not what you would call a grown-up, yet still he was elected by our many, many citizens of voting age who allegedly are. In fact, it's hard to find any truly adult adults these days, especially since aging and being old are considered sins in our youth-obsessed society.

I spotted a clear indication that many of us are just big kids, or aspire to be, while dining at a local bistro last evening. The "Happy Hour" sign placed on our table advertising cheap wine and beer from four to six pm had been been covered over by a new one suggesting cookies and milk. Three warm chocolate-chip cookies, to be exact. Okay, sure, I wanted some; who wouldn't? But I've been off dairy since my heart attack -- clear evidence of adulthood -- and cookies never helped anyone get healthy. I asked our server how many people went for them, and he said "almost everybody."

Childhood is nice, but fleeting. Still, signs are everywhere that it's making a strong comeback among the older generations. Like today, with a blizzard keeping me indoors, I feel like baking cookies. And maybe afterwards, we could have a neighborhood snowball fight. After all, who says we can't?

God vs. Death

I have recently concluded that God and Death are two separate people. Well, not so much people as Spirits, Forces or Powers. Anyway, my belief is that God is a totally good guy and Death is a twisted motherfucker. When God takes people he does it with dignity, through disease and suicide. Death, on the other hand, is into all the random accidents that comprise the content of all those online news purveyors. (He may actually work for AOL.) Just in the last few minutes, happily sipping my coffee despite the wretched head cold I got from a friend a few days ago, I was smacked in the face by the following stories:

In Pennsylvania, three siblings waiting for their school bus on Monday morning were struck by an SUV driven by a 38-year-old woman who claimed she was blinded by the sun's glare as she made a turn and did not see the trio. The oldest boy, 11, died from his injuries at the hospital. The other two, a 9-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, were badly hurt but are expected to survive. No word on the condition of the driver whose life is now totally ruined forever, or the parents of the three siblings.

Yesterday morning two male skiers in New Mexico were buried in an early morning avalanche. One of them died instantly, the other is in critical condition after being flown to a hospital.

In Arizona, a newborn baby was found dead in a trash bin outside the Amazon distribution facility.

According to my new theory, all of those people were taken by Death; God would never do such things. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. (We all need some way to cope.)

As for my cold, I'm wondering how to handle this: I have a hair appointment in a few hours but my stylist has Stage 4 melanoma and is in remission. Should I cancel so as not to expose her to any germs and wait weeks for an open appointment, or take a chance that she will be fine and go anyway? And what about me? God won't take me, but Death might. Hmmmm, what to do.....

Black Coffee Is the Best

If you're reading this, stop right now. Really, go think your own thoughts. Or better yet, don't think at all. A blank mind is a happy mind; that's what meditation is all about. Besides, there's just too much information out there, and you don't need any of it.

That doesn't mean I won't write this blog anymore. I'll still read it. I enjoy my own thoughts and feel most comfortable with them. Sure, I read a lot of other stuff, but so much of it doesn't really apply to me. That's why I keep reading the same books over and over: I figure if they worked once, they'll work again.

What got me started down this road was a quick look at my computer: there are short stories and long stories and scholarly articles and novels and novellas and essays and critical reviews and biographies and autobiographies and it's all just too much. If you are what you read, what should I read? And who should I believe? One guy says this and another says the exact opposite. Even recipes turn out to be wrong. And there is not one Hallmark Card in all of creation that I can send to my sister on her birthday that even comes close to anything I have to say to her.

So go think your own thoughts and write them down if you have to read something. Hey, don't listen to me.

Man's Folly

If you live in a warm climate and spend a lot of time in the sun, especially near an ocean or a lake where you go swimming or boating often, you likely will develop a tan unless you use a product that specifically inhibits it. But many people think being tan is cool, signalling to others a life of leisure funded by deep pockets, and so they opt for getting the look of a tan even if they are as poor as a church mouse and live nowhere near water and in fact don't even own a bathing suit.

This sort of tan is popularized by spray-on products, or even tanning beds which are found in tanning salons, often in suburban strip malls, where you pay money to look like you went to a beach in Aruba, or maybe a cruise through the Greek isles. It's hard to understand what motivates such people to use such products. Don't they realize that they can get as tan as they want but they will still die someday, and possibly sooner rather than later if they give themselves skin cancer? This is why I put fake tans on the list I like to call Examples of Man's Folly. It's a long list. Following is just a part of it:

Halloween costumes for dogs and cats
Starbucks "coffee" drinks with more than 1,000 calories
Botox injections
Commercials in movie theaters (Hey, we already paid to get in.)
Football players getting concussions and still playing
Transgender genital mutilation surgery 
The "Fat Acceptance" movement
Chewing gum that contains sugar
Purposely inhaling poisons (smoking cigarettes and cigars, vaping) 
Owning a pit bull when you have children
Taking selfies on the edge of a cliff and falling off and dying
Fake breast and butt implants 
Dressing twins and triplets alike
Expensive weddings where guests eat the money you need for essentials
Death Row (Just get it over with) 
Texting someone "Happy Birthday"
Vanity license plates
Lying to yourself

The Running of the Bulls(hitters)

IT SEEMS CLEAR that the Democrats don't really want to take back the White House. Maybe they prefer being able to complain about whoever is in the Oval Office, which right now is Donald Trump and apparently after the next election will still be Donald Trump. How else to explain the idiocy of all those political nobodies who have thus far -- and it's still way early -- declared their candidacy? I'll try to name them, despite never hearing of most of them before they decided to run for the highest office in the land.

There's a congresswoman from Hawaii named Tulsi Gabbard and a young man named Julian Castro who seems very earnest, although a bit wet behind the ears. There's that Kristen Jillibrand or however you spell it who is hateful to the max and called Justice Brett Kavanaugh a rapist as many times as she could during those hearings. And of course Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren: who alive hasn't heard of her and how she lied about being part Native American to get into college and then garner minority votes since then?

Also in the running are a couple of totally bland men I never heard of and whose names I forgot immediately so I looked them up. One is Richard Ojeda, a retired politician whose main platform rests on being a tattooed former paratrooper and John Delaney, a Maryland congressman who plans to be a "unifier." (Lots of luck with that, John.)

And let's not forget the Two Grampas: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, they should live so long. And that Beto guy who is the "cool" one in cowboy boots and rolled-up sleeves, sort of a combination George W. Bush and Barack Obama. A few others, like Kamala Harris, Michael Bloomberg and Cory Booker (oh please) are also making noises.

You'd think the party leaders, Ma and Pa Kettle (see photo), would circle the wagons and come up with a plan, but instead it's a free-for-all stampede of presidential wannabes.

Those political debates are truly going to be some "must-see TV."

Virginia Woolf's Facebook Status

It seems that in these troubled times, with wars spreading across the globe like the California fires that obliterated an entire town, ironically one called Paradise as if God had planned the whole thing just to let us know He is paying attention, Britain's Prince Harry and his pregnant, mixed-race, ex-actress wife are actually of considerable interest to the bumbling masses who sadly have lost their way and, instead of living individual and productive lives, feed en masse solely on the comings and goings of the rich and famous. Personally I have nothing to say about the couple, caring not one iota for the Royal Family (since the death of Princess Diana who was at least charitable and kind) despite my British roots, although I will take this opportunity to clarify that I was born in India, albeit to English parents. Similarly, the now-deceased yet currently celebrated musician Freddie Mercury, exhumed from his long-cold grave by a popular film that glosses over all truth about his life yet claims to tell it, is assumed by many to be British yet was born in Zanzibar to Indian parents and given the name at birth of Farrokh Bulsara. I find the dead singer far more interesting than the living Prince.

Too Much Information

I thought of changing the name of this blog to How People Suck but my husband thinks that would cut my readership to approximately zero. I may yet do it since readers of this blog haven't lessened my depression over world events, helped me lose even half a pound of ugly fat, or lowered my blood pressure one point. Still, since not all people suck I've held off, but be on alert that the name change could happen any day, and without further warning.

An example of people sucking is the fact that a 36-year-old Canadian man, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg (see photo), has been sentenced to death in China for alleged drug smuggling, although it's really because he is a pawn in a political chess game between Canada, China and the U.S. He has already been held captive for four years, meaning since he was 32. My own son is 31, and I imagine the daily horror this man's parents wake to each morning, and it makes me sad -- almost as sad is if he were my own.

With the Internet everywhere, there is simply too much information available about the lives of others. I need to cut it back to a more manageable number. My aforementioned son majored in anthropology in college and tells me that 150 is the number of people that each of us can handle emotionally. To that end, I'm going to have to cut most of the world loose and focus only on my family and close friends, and of course my other Friends -- Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, Monica and Ross. I'm gonna have to let that guy rotting in the Chinese jail go.

Film Review: GREEN BOOK

On the road with Tony and Doc.

After Green Book won the 2018 Golden Globe for "Best Picture, Comedy or Musical," I opted to see it after having chosen not to when I thought it would be a depressing tale of racial discrimination in the 1960s. So imagine my dismay when it turned out to be exactly that, and not funny at all, and not a musical. Still, it's a pleasure to sit through, especially if you are a fan of period pieces. And being based on a true story, it offers an interesting history lesson as well.

The title refers to an actual guide book published back then that listed which hotels, motels and restaurants would accept "colored" guests. It was a necessary tool for any minority traveler in America's southern states, which is where this road trip movie takes its two protagonists. Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) a tough, Tony Soprano-type night club bouncer, accepts a job as a driver/bodyguard for an accomplished, refined, world-class black concert pianist, Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), on a two-month concert tour.

Quite predictably, the two men start out as polar opposites and end up in a giant bear hug after going through a number of difficult mishaps involving racist cops in the Deep South. Along the way we see the beautiful countryside, hear some fine piano music, and see a lot of vintage cars, vintage clothes and vintage racism. A great soundtrack of old songs from the era plays throughout.

Green Book is quite sad in places, and there's only one funny line in the whole movie. Still, the director (Peter Farrelly) and both of the leads deserve Oscars.

Hiding in Plain Sight

One of my favorite authors, Eknath Easwaran, the wise Buddhist teacher who is long dead but whose writings live on, claims that we are not our bodies and we are not our minds, we are something else. Call it the soul or the spirit, it's our essence. He insists that we simply inhabit these bodies which allow us to move around in the world -- sort of like cars -- and we are at the mercy of these minds, which can make or break any situation. Our life's work is to master these unruly "things" we are gifted (or saddled) with at birth. We can all agree, it's no easy task.

This morning my body, which is not me, has thus far pestered whatever is me with the following, and I've only been awake for an hour: A headache, an odd itchiness on my right cheek, a throbbing pain in my left breast, and uncontrollable sneezing -- so far there have been about fifteen quite violent ones-- accompanied by a runny nose. One can only guess how it will terrorize me during the rest of the day.

As for my mind, it's pretty much been consumed with the aforementioned activities of my body, leaving little time for any productive thinking. Supposedly this is where meditation comes in. I need to wrestle my mind to the ground and get it to stop thinking about the sneezes and the itching and instead focus on a spiritual passage that will soothe the savage beast, meaning my body.

If only I could figure out how to contact "my essence," things might be a lot better. So far I've looked everywhere, but it's like trying to find my cat when he's hiding. I look in every closet and under every bed, behind the dryer, down in the basement, inside kitchen cabinets and behind the couch, but to no avail. I give up, and that's when Lurch saunters in and sits down in front of me like he's been there all along. Maybe that will happen with my soul. Maybe I should stop looking and let it show up when it's good and ready. (Is it right there in front of me now?)

A Solution to the Immigration Problem

"Hey, can you tell me how to get to the Pelosis' house?"

In the old days, immigrants wishing to come to America needed a sponsor: either the promise of an employer or a relative who would take them in. So why not haul that old rule out again, and simply end the requirement that the sponsor be a relative and let it be a friend? If every Democrat who currently opposes the building of a wall to keep out illegal immigrants would agree to take them into their home, everything would work out fine and dandy. For example:

Nancy Pelosi has a huge house in San Francisco and an estate at her Napa Valley vineyard. Put her down for 50-60 immigrants.

Oprah Winfrey has houses all over the United States, at least eight of them.  Two houses are located in Montecito, California, and another in Maui, Hawaii (for when she wishes to escape the fast-paced Californian lifestyle). Let's see, I bet she could take in about 150 immigrants.

Barbra Streisand owns three adjacent California properties.  Her 10,485 square-foot main house has eight bedrooms and eleven bathrooms, all on a 47,085 square-foot oceanfront lot.  The small guest house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms while the large guest house has eight bedrooms and seven bathrooms. Surely she could easily accommodate about 75 immigrants. 

 

Chelsea Clinton's $10 million pad is New York's longest apartment, stretching an entire block from 26th Street to 27th Street off Madison Avenue. Described as "a luxury fortress" with its own full-time doorman, it takes aboutt 30 seconds to walk the 250-foot hallway. I heard it has nine bathrooms. Figure Chelsea and her hubby for about 50 immigrants.

Ma and Pa Clinton own two homes, one in Chappaqua and another in Washington, D.C. Figure them for about 25 in each house.

The Obama's house in D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood has nine bedrooms. Let's say they could take in about 30 immigrants.

All those other Hollywood stars could handle about 30-50 immigrants each, depending on how many houses they own. And the congressional Democrats, plus the Senators like Elizabeth Warren, could surely sponsor about ten each. Even Chuck Schumer, with an apartment in Brooklyn and another in D.C., could host at least five or six at each, maybe more.

You get the idea. Problem solved!

Grasping at Straws to Live Longer

Suicides aside, most regular people desire to live long lives. This puzzles me since the older I get, the fewer good times I have. This is because:
1. Many of the people I loved are already dead.
2. An increasing number of body parts are becoming problematic.
3. The people in charge of the government are way younger and seem like idiots. (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cory Booker for example.)
4. Let's face it: music peaked at Woodstock and now there's just a lot of mumbo jumbo passing for singing.
5. All the things I crave are on my DO NOT EAT list.
6. Many of my favorite activities are no longer in my wheelhouse.
7. Every time I see the doctor with a new complaint, he says it's "normal" for my age.
8. The prevailing culture makes me nauseous.

So I read with interest an article in today's paper about the oldest woman in America who died yesterday at the age of 114. She claimed that she lived so long because she ate a sweet potato every day of her life until she was around 100. I wondered, then what? At 100 she just said, "Enough with the sweet potatoes already?" What kept her going another 14 years? (She hinted that it was God's will.)

Week before last I went to Phoenix to visit my friend Gloria who will turn 99 in two months. She lives alone in a lovely house, drives her Prius to the gym four or five mornings a week to work out, plays Bingo and Mahjongg weekly and goes out for lunch with her girlfriends often. She is happy, despite the fact that the love of her life died years ago at the ago of 60. She has two wonderful kids (both in their mid-70s) who check in with her often, and no grandchildren.

Honestly, Gloria is in a better mood than I am most of the time. This might be because she is Italian and I am Jewish. I have known her forever -- she and my mother became best friends at 16 -- and have noticed over the years that Gloria does not seem to worry. She considers things carefully, looks at all sides, and makes a decision. But she does not worry about things for weeks or months. That's the Jewish way. I was taught it well and took to it like a duck to water.

James Gandolfini/Tony Soprano

To improve my remaining time here I have decided to become a trans-ethnic. I will begin presenting myself to the world as Italian. My new name will be Francesca Ricci. I will no longer worry. I will start eating a lot more garlic and learn how to make pizza, pasta, lasagna and marinara sauce. (I might sneak in a sweet potato every so often.) I will re-watch all of The Sopranos and try to forget that James Gandolfini is now dead since such thoughts are counter-productive. In fact, he died at 51, and he was Italian too.

This might not work.

The Non-Whiteness of Sandra Oh

There are countless difference between me and the average celebrity, but the best one is that I can say whatever I want and never get any flak for it. This is because A, I have few readers and B, those readers I do have are not the kind who waste time commenting, unlike the millions of morons out there who seem to make it their life's work to respond, usually via Twitter, to any and all utterances made by famous people. It's sickening, really, and I can't imagine how celebs tolerate it.

Another big difference -- aside from a 35,000 square-foot house in Malibu overlooking the Pacific, four Jaguars in the 5-car garage, a personal chef, endless pool and home gym -- is the fact that I don't care what other people think of me since clearly one's own opinion is the only one that matters. (This explains the suicides of wealthy celebs like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.) Once you lose your self-respect, or if God forbid you never had any in the first place, life is nothing but a painful prison.

Anyway, following are some outrageous statements I make because I can:

1. People are the dumbest species on the planet. No other species willingly undergoes surgery to make themselves look younger on the outside, leaving their insides just as old as ever and thus just as close to death.
2. Maine and Vermont are the whitest states in America and also share the country's lowest crime rate, yet white people are currently seen as very bad people, i.e. "basket of deplorables." Nobody ever mentions this in all the heated talk about racism and immigration.
3. Senator Elizabeth Warren must be mentally ill. That's the only explanation I can think of for her continuing to remain in the public eye after her "I'm an Indian" charade was debunked.
4. Sandra Oh, shown here, is a fabulous actress. End of story. But no, it's not. After her winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress, many news outlets made a big deal about how she, born to Korean parents, is the first actress of Asian descent to win multiple awards. Whatever happened to people are just people and race is not an issue, blah, blah, blah?
5. Looking inward is far more rewarding than looking outward.

God Doesn't Make Mistakes

I recently attended a large party where I didn't know anyone but the hosts. It was fun running around and meeting a slew of strangers, especially for a former reporter such as myself who loves doing interviews. One person I ran into was an attractive fifty-ish woman who I chatted with for a few minutes at the bar while waiting for a glass of red wine. There was something odd about her but I didn't know what: she seemed vaguely foreign, like maybe she was from someplace like Latvia, or perhaps another planet entirely. I found out later she was transgender.

Dressed in a slinky blue sheath, the newly-formed woman had a great figure and an impressive bosom, or "rack" as the young people say. I later learned from someone else at the party that inside that slinky blue dress was her very own penis. I'm sorry, but, "Yuk, ewww and gross." I don't get it. Maybe I never will.

Homosexuality never caused me even a raised eyebrow, having been part of my life since birth due to my parents' gay friends who were often around. Since then I have had countless gay friends, male and female. But cutting off genitals or having fake breasts installed or taking hormones to grow facial hair or make big muscles or whatever the heck transgenders do to feel "comfortable with themselves" is a horse of a different color. And speaking of which, imagine one day your brown horse neighs that he'd rather be white, or grey or black. If I had such a horse I would A, call the newspapers because it's a talking horse and B, tell it to get over it and go out and buy it a blanket in the desired color.

God doesn't make mistakes. Just accept the way you came and move on.

Liberal Logic

Five years before Donald Trump ran for president he was secretly recorded boasting to a TV talk-show host that when you're a star like him, women "let you grab them by the pussy." Liberal logic has changed this to Trump saying he actually had grabbed a woman by the pussy, and without her consent.

Similarly, a woman accused Judge Brett Kavanuagh of drunkenly groping her at a teen party 30 years ago. None of her clothes were removed before she ran out of the room. Despite the lack proof that this event ever happened, today's dutiful liberal repeats the mantra, "We now have a rapist on the Supreme Court," as often as possible.

This is like me telling someone, "They allow 72-year-old women to zip-line across the Grand Canyon," and having them conclude that I have done so.

I haven't. And won't.

The Downside of Being Yourself

Just be yourself, they all say.

A colonoscopy earlier this week netted the good news that my colon is healthy. That's one less body part to worry about! Actually it's a pretty big one since the average colon (a.k.a. large intestine) is five feet long. Since my father died of colon cancer, it's been a concern. According to WebMD, "One of the risk factors for colorectal cancer is a family history of the disease." I don't have it, and likely won't get it because I'm too old (aging has its perks), so I'm free to worry about something else.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- worrying is a waste of time. It doesn't change anything. Like the rest of the world, I've heard the song (Don't Worry, Be Happy) and while it's a catchy ditty it doesn't keep me from thinking the slightest backache or arm pain signals a heart attack. This happens after you've had a heart attack, which I did, fifteen months ago to be exact.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

I've heard that a major health scare wakes you up and makes you appreciate each day so much more. You hear the birds chirping, stop and smell the roses, etc. Well I did all that stuff before my heart attack, and now all I do is worry about having another one while I'm listening to the chirping birds or smelling the damn roses. That's just me, and according to philosopher Lao-Tse, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, founder of philosophical Taoism and a deity in traditional Chinese religion and hippie communes everywhere, my hands are tied: I gotta be me. 

Legendary entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. popularized that sentiment. His cover of the song "I've Gotta Be Me" peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1969 and remained in the Top 40 for 11 weeks.

So now I'm looking around for somebody else to be. Someone who doesn't worry and never had a heart attack. BTW, Sammy Davis was busy "being himself" by smoking cigarettes. He got throat cancer and died at 64.

Film Review: BIRD BOX

Sandra Bullock with a blindfold over her perfect eye makeup.

For many people, Netflix is today's go-to source for new movies. You can stay home, stop it when you want, and yell at anyone around you who's talking too much. A new Netflix product getting attention is Bird Box. Last night I watched most of it (leaving the room for the most gruesome scenes) with my husband and visiting son. A horror film of sorts, it stars Sandra Bullock, who despite all the death, mayhem, blood and gore never lacks for perfect eye makeup including shadow and mascara, and a rosy dusting of blush on her cheeks. To me this indicates a lack of seriousness on the part of the director, but then that's just my opinion.

The story is oddly compelling, wherein a mysterious force or "monster" is causing the deaths of millions of people across the globe. If you look at it you die, usually by suicide, so it's necessary to wear a blindfold when outside or indoors near an uncovered window. As an extra bit of mischief, some of the dead return as zombies bent on killing whoever is still alive. How fun!

Things start out normal until the "thing" shows up in Romania causing mass suicide, then spreads across the globe. During their escape from the hordes of crazies on the streets somewhere in California, Malorie (Bullock), a single pregnant artist, sees her sister willingly stand in front of a bus and get crushed to death. Seeking refuge, she enters a house full of strangers who quickly bond and try to survive. One of them is Douglas (John Malkovich), an obnoxious redneck who hates everyone and everyone hates him. (I even hated him, and I usually like him.)

Babies are born. Love grows. Members of the group get killed in horrendous ways. Blood seeps from battered skulls and slit throats. It was during these scenes that I chose to wash the dinner dishes, which was much more fun and certainly more wholesome. From the kitchen two rooms away I could hear my husband and son scream out in horror every so often.

In case you wondered, there really is a box of birds -- Malorie's parakeets that serve as an early warning system by flapping their wings and chirping wildly when the monster approaches. I can't say more because it's too dumb, but not as dumb as what's going on in real life right now, which is that people are taking the "Bird Box Challenge," which involves navigating through their day blindfolded like the characters in the movie, then posting their efforts on social media.

Some reviewers love this film. Watch it if you dare, but have some Zzzquil handy when you go to bed that night. 

Open Letter to My Alimentary Canal

Dear Al:

First let me say how sorry I am for starting off the new year with a colonoscopy. I know it's a bummer, especially for you. On the other hand, after it's over later today we'll both be starting out with a clean slate for 2019. I sincerely hope I get the chance to do better in the future.

I'd also like to apologize for the recent abuse you have tolerated over the past few weeks. Like many people, I have used "the holidays" as an excuse to flood you with a lot of bad shit, no pun intended considering where things are today. In particular, I'm sorry for the following insults I forced upon you in the last month of last year, all in the name of said "holidays."

1. Twelve days of bad sweets at our local post office. Some of these were downright disgusting but I ate them anyway since they were Christmas cookies or walnut bread or fudge bars or bourbon balls covered in red and green sprinkles or white frosting or powdered sugar and set out on a pretty platter by some well-meaning (but woefully misguided) neighbor. It's a nice idea but it only works in those fictional New England towns on the Hallmark Channel.

2. Strange and unusual party hors d'oeuvres. It's crazy what some caterers will do to make a name for themselves. In the waning hours of 2018 I encountered some real winners, by which I mean losers. The worst was called a "Mac 'n' Cheese Ball." I should have known this was trouble but I ate one anyway, although in my defense I will remind you that I only had one bite. What was I thinking? A clump of macaroni stuck together with melted cheese and butter, then rolled in breading and deep fried is certainly not a health food. Alas, after ditching that I went for a slice of the "Melted Brie Pie," which looked fabulous. Again, the very first bite rang my alarm bells and I stopped, but you still got that one bite: the formerly warm but now room temperature brie coated with molasses and powdered sugar in a flaky crust sliding all the way through you. Can you ever forgive me?

3. Completely inedible meals eaten to be nice to other people. The truly awful mushroom ravioli in bitter brown sauce. The too-salty Chinese food. The ice-cold baked potato with the dry roast chicken. All chewed and swallowed quickly and sent down for you to deal with. (I'm so ashamed.)

Then came the final insult, wherein you have been forced to ingest 64 ounces of peach-flavored Propel water laced with 8.3 ounces of Miralax powder and a quartet of laxative tablets! Oh, the inhumanity! 

I promise Al, if we make it through this whole thing alive I will never, ever mistreat you again. In fact, I may just leave you alone for a few days and let you have some peace and quiet. And thanks for sticking by me all these years.

Love, Droid