Finding Purpose

We can all agree that God gave each of us many good things, starting with a body including a head, arms, legs and lots of complex internal organs to make the whole thing work. He just forgot one major thing: A Purpose. Personally I think God blew it with this one omission, and it's possibly the reason why so many people have rejected Him.

Sometimes it's good to hold your breath.

Because they lack Purpose, people do a wide variety of strange things with the limited hours of their allotted lifetimes. I recently learned of perhaps the strangest thing watching a documentary called The Deepest Breath, about the "extreme sport" of freediving, wherein people aim to achieve the longest time underwater while holding their breath. It is also called "competitive apnea." Some competitors start training for this in childhood! They dive down very deep into the ocean, or else lie face down in a pool, and swim without getting any more air than they took with them. Apparently this makes them very relaxed, free of anxiety and happy. I found that odd, since it made me really nervous just watching it. 

I can't say I've come up with anything better. I buy tubes of paint, then with a little brush I arrange different colors on a piece of canvas in a way that pleases me and call it a painting. On other days I might glue torn pieces of paper onto a table, or hundreds of colorful beads onto a drab object, all in the name of "art." Not a whole lot more sensible, I guess, but still I do it. A lot. 

So far today I've gone to the eye doctor and learned that my eyes are fine, then ran a few errands, had lunch with a friend, and came home and made a big pot of vegetable soup. There might be more I should be doing and certainly could be doing, but holding my breath underwater for as long as possible surely isn't one of them. 

Film Review: SOMEWHERE IN QUEENS

Leo and Angela are not happy......

Fans of Ray Romano's popular sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond may be surprised to see him so unloved by most of his family in this sometimes depressing but still endearing movie. Written and directed by Romano, this bittersweet tale of young love and family angst within a boisterous Italian family is The Sopranos but without all the murders. Instead there are seemingly endless over-the-top celebrations for anniversaries, birthdays, christenings and Sweet 16 parties, all held at the same tacky Queens, New York party venue.

Central to all this is Leo Russo (Romano), a nebbishy loser who works for his stern father's contracting business alongside his slick, obnoxious brother Frank (Sebastian Maniscalco). Romano shows his depth as a serious actor, as does Laurie Metcalf as his wife Angela, a tough-as-nails Italian momma with a soft center she rarely exposes. But it seeps out in one outstanding scene where she breaks down and admits to Leo her fear that the cancer she has successfully overcome might return. (Have tissues handy.)

Everyday life is dreary and uneventful for Leo and Angela, except for parenting their slightly autistic teenage son Matthew (Jacob Ward) whose shaky self-confidence soars on the basketball court. With the possibility of a full sports scholarship to a decent college in the offing, Leo goes to a dangerous extreme to ensure that Matthew qualifies. When his ruse is uncovered all hell breaks loose, right in the middle of somebody's anniversary party. Cake is thrown, there's lots of yelling and some hitting, but the deejay plays on. 

It's all a bit of a stretch but the message is real: parents will do anything for their kids to be happy.

 

 

Film Review: OPPENHEIMER

By now we all know that when an avalanche of advertising precedes the release of a new movie, it's likely a real bomb. While Oppenheimer is not that, it's about a bomb and leaves much to be desired. So very, very much. Like a film editor with a backbone, for starters. It's three hours long and it might have been fairly decent at two with all the detritus removed. For example:

There are lots of scenes featuring blackboards covered with mathematical formulas, surrounded by young men in suits spouting technical jargon. I snoozed a bit through those.

The film switches from color to black and white for no apparent reason, many times. It also moves from one era to another era with little warning, and the color vs. black and white is not a clue. Only the director (Christopher Nolan) knows why.

To break up the tedium, a brief and dreary "sex" scene was inserted that makes the act of fornication look like a Hamas punishment wherein two naked people are strapped together and forced to move oddly, one on top of the other, while having a depressing conversation. Later on, more nudity shows up for no apparent reason other than to keep members of the audience from falling asleep.

Oppenheimer in close up, again and again and again .....

The director wastes a lot of frames on psychedelic bursts of colors and shapes, ostensibly to describe physics and explosions -- atom bomb, get it? -- and what you see in your head when you drop acid or have an ocular migraine. I'm guessing here, but perhaps it was because the movie first was released on IMAX. I watched it in my living room on a regular TV and was not blown away, unless you count leaving to go to the bathroom.

Mr. Oppenheimer is played by a skinny little guy with no charisma, I forget his name, whose face is almost always right there, for a long time. (We get it, the film is called Oppenheimer, enough already!) 

Other known actors who showed up for itty bitty parts are Casey Affleck, Rami Malek and Kenneth Branaugh. The actor who played Albert Einstein looked more like Captain Kangaroo than Albert Einstein. A lot more.

The beautiful Emily Blunt deserves an Oscar for looking hideous and accepting a role that had almost no character development.

The U.S. dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and boo-hoo, some of the people who made the bomb felt bad about it. Like who knew it would kill so many people and burn their faces off?

Robert Downey Jr. is the best part of the movie and will still be handsome when he's old. Matt Damon is already not handsome anymore and gives the worst performance of his career and this film.

Happy Thanksgiving?

I wish I could say I am having sushi for dinner at my favorite restaurant this evening after a relaxing day. But instead I got up early, baked a pumpkin pie, then started on the mashed yams and soon will make the stuffing for a 13-pound turkey, to be followed by the whole rest of the dinner and then setting the table and finally cleaning up after dessert. 

A day spent cooking and eating and I'm already about ten pounds over my fit-into-those-jeans weight. This is so my husband and son and the other guests will have a nice day and think well of me after my death, although they probably won't considering we all tend to fight on the holidays. 

And people are starving and war is everywhere, and anyway the Pilgrims were colonizers and killed a lot of Native Americans and now millions of turkeys have been slaughtered, and for what?

This is how my mind works. Maybe in a next life it will be more like that of Rose on The Golden Girls. That would be swell.

What's Not to Like About A Jew?

When it comes to antisemitism I am at a complete loss. Yes, I am Jewish, but there are some self-hating Jews out there that probably agree with the Muslims, or Hamas or the Palestinians or whoever finds  a Jew distasteful, like my ex-friend who lives down the street.

Nan and I were friends once. We walked our dogs together every day, and we went to the movies or the farmer's market together. We laughed and shared books and generally enjoyed one another's company. She got sick with cancer and I grieved, then celebrated her return to health. All was good, until the day I loaned her my copy of Maus, the award-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman that tells the story of his father's time at Auschwitz during the war. 

Two days later Nan came to my door with the book, actually books since it's a set of two volumes. She had a pained expression on her face and said, and I am quoting verbatim here, "This is not for me. We don't do this." Handing me the books, she turned and walked away. And that's virtually the last time we spoke to one another, besides the occasional, "Please get your dog out of my flower bed." (Me to her.)

I've never been quite clear on who was "we" and what it is they "don't do." Perhaps a clue is the wooden sign posted on a tree at the entrance to her driveway that says, "NO TURNAROUNDS." Like god forbid you might erode the driveway's topcoat with your wheels while doing so. (And people say Jews are cheap?)

Gentiles, except for my friends of course, can be mean, cold-hearted and ungenerous. Jews are empathetic, warm, spirited and very generous, especially with food. As George Constanza's mother Estelle famously said when she and Frank were invited to meet George's future gentile in-laws, "We're sitting there drinking coffee, without a piece of cake!" Jews got the joke.

So if you are antisemitic, or on the fence, get to know a Jew, and take notes. You too can become a nice person with the proper training. And definitely read Maus.

Don't Quote Me

This is my blog and I write about what I want to write about, not what I think people want to read about in order to get more clicks or likes or readers or whateverthefuck people want these days from the internet. 

If I did write what people want to read it would be all Taylor Swift and her football player boyfriend and Kate Middleton's latest hairstyle and any and every black rapper and how much Trump sucks, so no thanks.

A recent "critic" chastised me for writing about the rise of anti-Semitism and then a day later about Matthew Perry's death, denigrating me as a "source." Hey, I'm no source, please don't quote me.

Hell Is All Around Us

I know, I know -- people are being held hostage in tunnels and entire families have been wiped out and the ravages of war are way beyond horrible, and I'm not in it so I should be grateful and nothing should bother me. I know all that and I agree but still, there are the little things. And sometimes little things can be big enough to bum you out...

For example, today I went to the market to buy fish. A pound of haddock to be exact. There was the fish in the glass case, all nicely laid out on ice as usual. But today there was something new: pre-made packages of fish in plastic containers in a separate area of the refrigerated section, next to a sign that said "Grab 'n' Go!" I asked the fish guy what the difference was between buying the pre-packaged fish and having him slice and weigh the fish right in front of me.

Fish Guy: No difference! I made up those packages myself a few hours ago, it's just as fresh.

Me: So, no difference at all?

Fish Guy: None whatsoever, except for the convenience.

I opted for the plastic package and went on my way. When I got home I found out the difference: all my groceries were wet and smelled like fish. That plastic package did not have a tight seal, apparently. After washing everything I'd bought and mopping up the fish liquid that had leaked through the fabric shopping bag and onto the carpeted floor of the trunk of my car, I called the store to complain-slash-alert them to the problem. I was put on hold, where I remained until I got hung up on.

So yeah, war is Hell. But sometimes other things are too.

 

 

Muslim or Jew? You Decide.

Lately Muslims have become quite popular on college campuses across America, especially at Columbia University where anti-Semitism is a required course for entering freshmen. Young people adore the Palestinians, who are Islamists, a.k.a. Muslims. Following is a snapshot of the rules of that particular religion.

Muslims are prohibited from gambling, fortune-telling, lying, stealing, cheating, oppressing or abusing others, being greedy or stingy, disrespecting parents, and mistreating relatives, orphans or neighbors.

Sounds good, right? Like who wouldn't agree to all that? But then there's this: When an unmarried male commits adultery with an unmarried female, they both receive 100 lashes and banishment from society for one year.  And in the case of a married male committing adultery with a married female, they each shall receive 100 lashes and then be stoned to death. This seems unduly nasty, since if you are going kill the person why bother with the pre-lashing? 

And what if you steal something? How does the Muslim faith treat thieves? Theft is punished by the amputation of the offender's right hand. Armed or highway robbery may be punished by execution, crucifixion, or amputation of hands and feet from opposite sides of the body, depending on the severity of the offense.

Meanwhile, the Jews are much more forgiving. If you're a Jew who commits adultery, all that will happen is that people will gossip about you behind your back, and some people may contact you hoping to hear all the juicy details. As for theft, if it's less than $900 worth of goods, nothing happens at all!

So go ahead and choose. You decide, I just report.

Matthew Perry Was No Chandler Bing

I am a little over halfway through Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, a memoir by Matthew Perry, a.k.a. Chandler Bing. I was motivated to read it after his recent death since I had become a fan of "Friends" reruns and got to like his character best of all. But this book has made me a whole lot less sad that he died. What a selfish twit he was! 

At age 24, armed with fabulous looks and good fortune, he won the role of Chandler and starred in a top-rated sitcom for ten years that paid him a million dollars an episode. Plus, his girlfriend was Julia Roberts when she was the "it" girl, but boo hoo, he couldn't enjoy it all because he had a hole in his heart that he could only fill with alcohol.

Stories of how he got to be selfish, and an asshole, and a drunken selfish asshole, and examples thereof, are the meat and potatoes of the book. Eventually you will get really, really full and decide you've had enough.

Married to a Jew Should Count for Something

Mr. and Mrs. Giggles

I wish Kamala Harris would quit giggling and mention the fact, or even just remember, that SHE IS MARRIED TO A JEW! Yet she is all hot and bothered by what she called "growing Islamaphobia." Someone should tell her that according to the FBI there has been a 400% increase in anti-Semitic acts in this country since October 7.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff -- cat got your tongue? Where do you stand?

Lil' Kim Is Bigger Than God

A freak of nature who is a rapper, maybe, or hip-hopper or whatever they call it these days, Lil' Kim, 49, has an ego the size of Texas and even bigger breasts. She claims that her upcoming memoir is "currently getting orders that indicate it will outsell the Bible."

Sadly, there are people like this who are allowed to vote in our elections. (No wonder the U.S. is such a mess.) 

According to the publisher, Hachette Books, Lil' Kim's memoir is set for release on September 23, 2025. Be sure to mark your calendar.

Film Review: NYAD

Now streaming on Netflix, NYAD is an inspirational quasi-documentary about the endurance swimmer Diana Nyad, who wowed the world with her stamina at the age of 28 when she swam around Manhattan Island in eight hours. The film re-introduces us to her when she is about to turn 60 and is dealing with a post-midlife crisis. Are all her best days behind her? She says no.

Annette Bening plays Diana, and without a stitch of modesty. No makeup, wrinkly skin, messy hair and all, she gives a fantastic and 100% believable performance as a woman desperately holding on to her youth, a bit off her rocker and doggedly determined to make the best of her latter years. With her every step, or rather stroke, of the way is her best friend who takes on the role of her swim coach, Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster). The movie is basically the two of them, with plenty of help from a team of kayakers and navigators, and their interaction is lots of fun to watch. 

Besides the very compelling story of Diana attempting to swim from Cuba to Key West -- the one swim she failed at during her youthful heyday -- despite her advanced age, the underwater scenes of her several attempts are beautifully photographed and will make you so happy you spent the money for that big screen TV.

Flashbacks to Diana's childhood are interspersed with her grueling training sessions and painful swims, like the one where she gets attacked by poisonous jellyfish. It's all quite interesting and definitely not the same old rom-com or action hero claptrap. As for being inspirational, if there is any goal you may have given up on because of your age or physical condition, this movie will change your mind, fire you up and get you going.

The Sheer Folly of Being Human

Ted Bundy was not very nice, but cute.

If you put a gun to my head I still could not explain why Kim Kardashian is famous. I get that she's rich: her birth father was a successful lawyer and self-made businessman born into an affluent family and her stepfather was a former Olympic gold medalist followed by a career in television, film, writing, auto racing, business and as a Playgirl cover model (before going crazy and turning into a "woman"). But Kim has done little herself besides getting a very big butt and huge breasts from injections of chemicals.

Her sisters are all famous as well, even more so after their stepfather lost his mind, grew his hair and fingernails long and started wearing tight dresses and high heels and became the famous-for-no-reason Caitlyn Jenner. 

So what is fame anyway? Is it simply kudos from strangers for being outrageous and different? Standing out from the crowd? Does society need famous people in order to thrive? Is it to give the masses something to think about because they lack the intelligence to read works by great writers and philosophers and make something of their own lives? 

Here are some famous people who lack innate talent, yet they pop up in the news (unless they are dead) and on TV talk shows.

Monica Lewinsky: Had sex with a sitting United States President, then started making handbags.

Ted Bundy: Murdered at least 30 women in four years (1974-78). Was handsome.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Killed and dismembered 17 males, eating some of their body parts.

Paris Hilton: Born into a rich family that owns a lot of hotels; has done nothing of note personally.

Chastity Chaz Bono: Had very famous and talented parents and changed her gender.

Cool It, Nikki!

I don't shock easily; most New Yorkers don't. Probably the last time was when the Twin Towers were felled by a group of Muslim scumbags, and that was 22 years ago. 

The preceding sentence uses the word "scumbag" appropriately, meaning "low, vile or worthless person or group of people." You call someone "scum" when their behavior is utterly reprehensible, like President Bill Clinton having sex with an intern in the Oval Office, or pundit/lawyer Jeffrey Toobin masturbating during a live Zoom call with his colleagues at The New Yorker. 

During last night's Republican Debate, demure ex-Governor, ex-U.N. Ambassador and current candidate for the presidency Nikki Haley hurled the word at fellow debater Vivek Ramaswamy when he mentioned her daughter. I was truly shocked.

It's not as if he called her daughter a slut or accused her of selling drugs to toddlers. He simply said that she uses TikTok, which was at the moment under discussion for being a dangerous Chinese surveillance tool. And for that Nikki spat out, "Leave my daughter out of your voice. You're just scum!" That's what I call a short fuse, maybe a bit too short for a president.

Film Review: DOWNSIZING

Matt Damon, still big, and his pal Jason Sudekis,
post-downsizing, discuss the pros and cons of getting small.

If you are a fan of bad cinema, this one should be on your list, maybe even at the top. Downsizing was released in 2017 and nobody saw it, or those who did likely forgot it, or tried, the minute they left the theater. Back before Covid people went to places called "movie theaters." They had to either walk out or sit through a dog film to the end. Luckily I watched it on my big-screen television at home, so I could fast forward when necessary. And trust me, it was necessary quite often.

Starring Matt Damon, who looks sick about it during the whole thing -- you could tell he was thinking, "Find new agent immediately" -- and Kristen Wiig for about the first 20 minutes then she's gone, it starts out with some promise along the lines of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids but without the humor. They play married couple Paul and Audrey Safranek who decide to undergo a new medical procedure that miniaturizes people, invented to save the planet from the coming ravages of overpopulation. 

At five inches tall, people exhaust fewer natural resources and create much less waste, etc. But the real perk, as explained  by their already-small friend (Jason Sudekis), is that their money goes a lot further. Like a lot further. In the upscale small community where they will live, they can afford a huge mansion instead of the tiny dump they now inhabit in Normal-land.

The first part is fun, as is watching the details of the procedure one undergoes to get small. After that, all is lost. It's a big mish-mash, brightened briefly by the charm and considerable acting skills of Christophe Waltz, and God only knows who and how they talked him into doing this film.

Spoiler alert: Audrey chickens out at the last minute and stays big, leaving Paul a lonely, unhappy teeny-tiny divorced man. We follow him to Small World (called something else) where he is awkward and seemingly suicidal (and who could blame him), until he meets a one-legged Vietnamese cleaning lady who introduces him to the incredibly slummy side of life beyond the walls of his fabulous gated community, where the service people live. 

Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, went to the bathroom, got a snack, thank you God for letting me fast forward, finally came back to find that Paul, who was an occupational therapist in Normal-land, has become a doctor and now dedicates himself to caring for the sick and dying tiny slum people. Oh yes, and he has fallen in love with the Vietnamese lady and makes her a new prosthetic leg.

I'm leaving out all the stuff about the members of the cult in Sweden who go to live underground for 8,000 years until the Earth stabilizes after the horrible things that will happen. (I was in the kitchen.)

See what I mean?

Feeding Campus Anti-Semitism

A Jewish student at Carnegie Mellon University discovered swastikas and anti-Semitic comments written inside a campus library book.

Many American colleges and universities have accepted billions of dollars in donations from undisclosed foreign countries, among them China, Qatar and Russia. Coincidentally, anti-Semitic threats and actions on those particular campuses taking the most money have risen 400% from a year ago.The number one school taking foreign donations is Carnegie-Mellon University, my husband's alma mater and the recipient of thousands of dollars from our bank account over the 37 years of our marriage. 

Because my husband received so much scholarship money to attend that school, he has long insisted that we continue our charitable support because "he owes them," despite my insistence that spoiled rich kids at elite schools are much less needy than actual needy people who lack food, shelter, clothing and access to medical treatments.

Now it has been learned that Mitch's hard-earned cash has gone towards fueling anti-Semitism at his beloved CMU. Excuse me while I pull my hair out. (I'd pull out his but he doesn't have any.)

The Bright Side of World War III

Long ago I realized that my husband and I are polar opposites in just about every area of life. Describing him as a "glass is half-full" person while I'm more of a "glass is half-empty" type doesn't come remotely close. More accurate would be that his glass is overflowing and dripping down the table leg and onto the floor while I'm wondering how come I didn't get any at all. 

However, recent world events have further highlighted the stark differences in our temperament to an alarming degree. Like many Jews, naturally we are greatly concerned with the war raging in Israel that threatens to overtake the entire globe, as well as the growing antisemitism gripping college campuses and major cities here at home. But our views of the future have nothing in common. 

While I often worry aloud about a possible nuclear World War III, or that "any day now we'll be forced to wear yellow armbands, and the next thing you know it's a gas shower for us," Mitch says to look at the bright side. "Nobody who ever lived before us until this very minute got to witness the End of the World, so it would be pretty wild if we were here for it. And really, if you think about it, gas showers are a time-honored tradition for the Jews."

I am not making this up.

Rashida Tlaib Has A Big Mouth (and she's ugly too)

The world is falling apart, young men and women are dying in several horrific wars, hostages are sick and starving, protesters are calling for the death of all Jews, and yet some random woman I don't know and will never know is picking a fight with me on Facebook after I wrote that Governor Glenn Youngkin is right to ban abortions after 15 weeks. Am I not entitled to my opinion?

The need to be right has overtaken every last brain cell of every last person who engages in arguments with strangers online. If you dare to say something someone disagrees with, they never respond, "Gee, I feel differently about that." No, they have to prove that you are wrong and they are right, even if it's all just opinions and thus there can be no proof. And so they go on and on and on, digging in even harder like a pit bull on an ankle bone. 

If you don't believe that a blatant racist like Michigan's Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib should be kicked out of office for chanting that Israel must be wiped off the map, I detest you. But I won't fight you about it since you are simply parroting what you hear other Democrats saying, and you want to be woke just like them. 

I had a couple of friends like that once, but I dumped them for being too stupid. One of them believes that plastic drinking straws will bring about the end of the planet, and the other one gave $3,000 over the phone to a stranger who called her and claimed she had outstanding parking tickets. This is the intelligence level of the people currently chanting, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." 

There's simply no arguing with idiots.

A Harsh Reality

The photo above is of a fetus at 15 weeks. Looks like a human being to me, not just a "collection of cells." There's a head, ears, eyes, a nose, a mouth, shoulders, a chest, a rib cage, arms, hands and legs, all covered with skin. Inside there is a skeleton.

Yet in today's New York Times, in an article about Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin offering voters an "alternative to MAGA," it reports that his agenda still contains "plenty of harsh conservative elements," like "his call for a 15-week ban on most abortions." That's harsh? 

In 1973 I went for an abortion at Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. and was literally kicked out the door when the doctor who was about to perform the procedure examined me and determined that the fetus was about 12 weeks old. Outraged, he literally yelled, "You've got a baby in there!" 

My, how times have changed.

Kamala Is No "Mamala"

Our idiot veep Kamala Harris is married to a Jew, in case you hadn't heard. Yet she just came out with a video saying that this is a really bad time in America because of the increase in Islamaphobia. WTF? Where has she been? (Certainly not at our southern border.) Has she not heard about the latest craze sweeping the nation: Antisemitism?

Talking about her "national plan" to help the poor 😢 Palestinians, she said, "This strategy will be a comprehensive and detailed plan to protect Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim from hate, bigotry and violence and ... blah fucking blah.

On her Facebook page Harris describes herself as, "Wife. Mamala. Auntie. She/her." I beg to differ. First of all, "mamala" is a Yiddish word for mother. Maybe she ate a bagel once, but that's about as Jewish as she is. Anyway, I think she's a tranny, so "she" cannot be a mother in any language. 

Nine Democrats: The Tip of the Iceberg?

Rashida makes a fashion statement: Her scarf, called a keffiyeh, is a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. The black-and-white keffiyeh is popular among activists supporting Palestine in the conflict with Israel and is an icon of Palestinian solidarity.

Led by the loud-mouthed "Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, eight other Democrats voted against condemning Hamas for its murderous terror attack on October 7 at a peaceful music festival in Israel, killing 1,400.

Yet they all remain our elected lawmakers. How many more remain silent? 

I'll Never Eat Chinese Food Again

Patrick Dai, a Chinese-American student at Cornell, faces five years in jail for his hateful antisemitic scrawls all over the Internet. His parents, in his defense, claim he has been, "in a deep depressive state since 2021."

Me too, but now I feel even worse. And to think I once wanted to go to Cornell.

I'm pissed. Maybe I'll call a lot of Chinese restaurants and place extensive orders and never pick them up. (That's about the worst I can imagine doing.)

The Fraud of Fame

Judy Garland's fabulous talent led to a miserable existence.

Based on the behavior of most celebrities, there are two roads to fame: The first is having innate talent and showing it to the world, and the second is engaging in outrageous behavior that gets tongues wagging. (There's another way, which is how Kamala Harris is now our VP, but I won't go into that here.) What I wonder is why anyone in their right mind would seek fame. And therein lies the answer: in their right mind.

Actor Matthew Perry, whose recent death caused a worldwide outpouring of grief among an entire generation of Friends-devotees, said repeatedly, in print and in interviews, that he wanted to be famous. He even admitted to praying to God, "make me famous." Well, his prayer was answered and famous he was, although it did nothing to alleviate his pain and suffering, ending in his dying alone in a hot tub at his $6 million California mansion at the age of 54.

Yet many young people still worship fame and waste their fleeting youth trying to achieve it, only to find out too late that it's a worthless commodity having very little to do with happiness, security and a fulfilling life.