So Much to Learn

          Marc Johns

Yesterday's post, in which I criticized Donald Trump for his recent gaffe on abortion, called out Ted Cruz for his anti-gay values, and excoriated Hillary Clinton for her general dishonesty, ending with a resounding endorsement of John Kasich, elicited a decidedly snide response from my old friend Anonymous. He (or she) declared me an "uninformed woman."  Now I'm wondering just what part I got wrong, although right off the bat I'd say "absolutely nothing."

Nowadays it's pretty hard to be wrong about anything if you have access to a computer. Anyone with movable fingers can summon up a laundry list of Clinton's misdeeds from the past, both distant and recent. I must assume that Anonymous is one of those lefties who flip out at even a timid hint that either they or their candidate could be wrong on any issue. Just not sure why they lack the courage of their convictions and refuse to attach a name to their opinions.

Our Next President

It's probably best to clip these in private.

Good thing Donald Trump isn't going to be president or I might end up on Death Row. You know, that whole abortion thing making the woman pay, although he did retract his ridiculous statement after giving it some deep thought for about fifteen seconds. Admittedly abortion is a thorny issue. It surely is murder, that cannot be denied, but of what?

No matter, the procedure has been legal for years and there's no turning back since it's become quite popular, with many women using it as a form of birth control. Outlawing abortion now would be like making the act of clipping your toenails illegal, which it probably is in some indigenous tribe somewhere for all we know. It certainly is frowned upon in public right here in the USA, and several years back one unlucky New Yorker got a ticket for littering when he clipped his toenails while sitting on a Central Park bench.

Back to poor Donald: He had a great run, but it's likely over. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," or something like that. Bear in mind that Ted Cruz is no fan of abortion; he means it and is even worse than Trump. So, with Hillary so hated, and with good reason, I think we're looking at a President Kasich.

Remember, you read it here first.

It's A Scary World

I am what is commonly referred to as a scaredy-cat. I am afraid of many things. According to a succession of shrinks, this is because I was kidnapped at the age of four and kept overnight, by a total stranger. She didn't hurt me, at least not physically, but apparently I was permanently and emotionally scarred from this event, or so they say. Following is a list of some of the things I am afraid of:

1. Spiders
2. Terrorists
3. Getting sepsis from a manicure or pedicure and losing a limb or dying
4. Having a stroke from my high blood pressure
5. The furnace in my basement exploding while I am sleeping two floors above
6. Getting a flat tire on a dark, lonely country road at night
7. Falling asleep in my hot tub when my husband is out of town
8. A home invasion by a maniac
9. Riding the subway in NYC or DC
10. Getting stuck in traffic on a hot day and running out of gas
11. Being diagnosed with an incurable, painful and rare disease
12. That stuff you drink the night before a colonoscopy
13. Driving in snow
14. Swimming in the ocean and getting eaten by a shark
15. Eating bad sushi and having a parasite take up residence inside me
16. Vomiting
17. Driving over bridges
18. My cat going missing
19. Roller coasters
20. Getting food poisoning
21. Driving fast directly behind someone who has a heart attack at the wheel
22. Being behind a multi-car-carrier and having whatever mechanism holds it together fail and having all the cars roll off onto mine
23. Thunderstorms

On the other hand, I am not afraid of death, dentistry or public speaking, the top three fears for most people. Go figure.

Where's My Kool-Aid?

Every night when I go to bed, I pray I will wake up a Democrat.  It must be so nice. To not have to think about things at all, but just accept the wisdom of the elders and Rachel Maddow and snuggle into the comfort and security of knowing you are always right about everything, and thus will going to Heaven someday.

I try so hard to be one, but it just doesn't work for me. Each morning when I wake up, there are still the doubts. And it's true for so many of my dear friends, too, who insist on questioning, always questioning, and actually seeing the other side of things. I tell myself, "Shut up, brain!" But dammit, those pesky questions keep nagging at me.

Take Hillary Clinton. Is she really any more "presidential" than Donald Trump? Doesn't she lie and obfuscate just like all the rest of them? What about all those past scandals? And the new ones too? And all her rich friends? And if pictures are any indication, isn't she more than a little nuts?

There I go again. ("Shut up, brain!") Hillary is fine, she'll be a wonderful president, really. Now, where's my Kool-Aid?

Just Say No to Trump, Shrillary & The Bimbos

Gretchen "Buffy" Carlson

Megyn "Tinkerbell" Kelly

Martha "Muffin" McCallum

Shannon "Dolly" Bream

Dana "Pookie" Bash

Ann "Sunbeam" Coulter

Dana "Binky" Perino

Pamela "Tiff" Brown

Laura "Little Jo" Ingraham
 

Every single person you pass on the street has a life, a story, a world of connections: Family, friends, colleagues, past associations, dead children, living children. Now think of a street in Hong Kong, or maybe Times Square in New York City, where you can barely do more than shuffle along with the crowds because there are so many people. It's crazy how many people there are, in fact, there are 318.9 million of them here in the USA. I say this only to point out how silly, stupid, and dumb it is for us to be so consumed with just a few people, actually more like two: Shrillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Just say no! Don't do it. Refuse to discuss them. Enough already with the fucking election, so big deal who gets to live in the White House and choose the new rug in the Oval Office and have big parties and invite Barbra Streisand and Kanye West over to sing. It matters not a whit to the lives of us little people, so why is it something we all yammer about incessantly?

The Blonde Bimbos love talking about Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump since it requires almost no thinking on their part. So if you see one of these made-for-TV women shown above (yes, they actually are different people), and their mouths are moving, just walk away since they will be saying nothing of value. Instead, go make yourself a sandwich and read a book. Try All the King's Men, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, for a good take on rancid politics in the South. (Based on a true story!)

Goodbye, Patty

Social media is funny. If Kim Kardashian gets another implant in some body part yet to be enlarged, it's a story of major import. If Miley Cyrus twerks her butt or Justin Bieber gets arrested for more drunk driving, tongues wag. This would indicate that it is mostly young people who populate websites like Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. But that's not true, since many people age fifty and above hang out there too. So I find it surprising that no mention has been made by anyone online of the passing of Patty Duke yesterday, at age sixty-nine, which BTW is my age exactly and so I am of course gravely interested, no pun intended. Patty died of sepsis from a ruptured intestine, which further freaked me out as I am right now smack in the middle of an unpleasant episode of diverticulitis, which if you know anything about it, you know it feels like your intestine might rupture any minute.

Seeing double: The Patty Duke Show

But enough about me. Patty Duke began her acting career in a daytime soap opera at age twelve. She was sixteen in 1962 when she earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress playing the young Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. (At the time she was that award's youngest recipient.) Prior to that she had played the part on Broadway for two years, where her name appeared on the marquee above the play's title, the first time that had ever been done for such a young performer.  She went on to star in her own TV sitcom, The Patty Duke Show, in which she played identical cousins. During her lifelong career on stage and TV, in dozens of roles appropriate to her age, she always gave a great performance. In her later years, with major film offers waning, she elevated even the shlockiest made-for-TV movies just by her very presence.

Patty Duke was one of the greats. Over the course of her career she received an Oscar, ten Emmy Award nominations and three Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe awards. Let's show a little respect.

What's the Deal with TV Reporters?

TV reporters are a sick breed. They are egotistical, narcissistic, superficial nitwits who suck the blood of famous people, and that's being kind. They live in their own little world, where the "news" is petty and unimportant to everyone but them. There are huge important issues facing the country, but these weirdos can only talk about the silliest, scummiest least important aspects of the campaign, like Donald Trump posted a photo Ted Cruz's wife, and Ted Cruz said he would "Blah, blah, blah," and then Trump said "Tweet, tweet, tweet." The reporters simply cannot drop it, constantly inflating this teeny, little thing into a huge, non-story they blabber about over and over and over.

Now there's this thing with Trump's campaign manager who supposedly pushed a reporter and bruised her arm.  At first she claimed he "pushed her to the ground," but when a video surfaced showing she was hardly touched at all she changed her story, and now the campaign manager is being charged with "simple battery." This is all they can yammer about, like little babies who just learned how to talk. The most egregious of them are on CNN, led by Anderson Cooper, and they include Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer and Gloria Borger and Erin Burnett and Don Lemon and Donna Brazil and Betty Boop and Archie and Veronica and Ad Nauseum. Over on FOX they have their own lunatic bunch, as they do at a few other stations. The whole lot of them are nuts, thinking they actually contribute something to society.

If you ask me, that Trump campaign manager who pushed the reporter was indeed dead wrong! He should have punched her in the face and stomped on her a little so she would stop stalking people and go home and find a real job.

No Spring Chickens

In today's Wall Street Journal, a 57-year-old columnist discussing the relative merits of Clinton vs. Trump in the upcoming general election writes about Bernie Sanders: "What does it say about large dissatisfactions within the Democratic Party that this cranky old guy continues to pull out victories?"

I ask you: was that necessary? He didn't call Hillary "an old cow" or Trump "an old coot." Yet Bernie, at 74, is castigated for being old, that most hated of all epithets, when Clinton and Trump, no spring chickens either, would be ages 69 and 70, respectively, on Inauguration Day. 

This happens again and again when speaking of Sanders. So somewhere after the age of seventy, I'm guessing, you get too old to matter. As someone who will celebrate that milestone in three months, I find this alarming, disgusting, repellent, stupid, depressing and just plain wrong.  

Toughening Up for The Afterlife

About a month or so ago I began working out with a personal trainer at a nearby CrossFit gym three times a week. Since then my body aches all the time and I can barely make it up the stairs to bed each night, but at least I can say it's because I pushed myself and am getting stronger every day, instead of it being because I'm almost seventy and thus getting weaker every day. Trust me, it's a lot better, at least psychologically.

I blame, oops, I mean attribute, this turn of events on my husband, who has been, since the day we met, and still insists on being to this day, eleven years younger than I. Mitch is a founding member of CrossFit, and while I often have scoffed at his blind obedience to the cult, he does seem to be in damn good shape, I'll give him that. He too is in constant pain, so now we complain together and soak in the hot tub more often. In that sense, CrossFit is helping our marriage.

The old saw, "Use it or lose it," certainly rings true for me. I have discovered muscles I never knew I had, and surely they were on their last legs before I disturbed them, if muscles can be said to have legs. Now my entire body is engaged in the aging process, and I'm guessing that can only be a good thing. I only wish I had started sooner, but at least I'll be stronger in my next life when I'm up against all those Transhumans.

Film Review: KING GEORGES

As an artist, I often wonder what people do with themselves if they don't write or paint or dance or sing or something creative like that. When I am between projects, one thing I do is go to the movies, which I did last night. I saw a wonderful, intense documentary about a famous French chef who owned a restaurant in Philadelphia for forty years. The film is King Georges, the restaurant, now closed, was Le Bec-Fin, and the chef is Georges Perrier. What he did with himself was cook fabulous food.

He did it for a living all day and then he did it some more at home. It was his one true passion, except for his fluffy little dog who stayed with him, unlike his wife who left him because all he did was cook, putting in sixteen-hour days at his restaurant, one assumes six days a week. (It must have been closed sometimes.)

Perrier recognized his gift early on and never wavered. We see many old photos of him growing up in France, and learn that his grandmother asked him for cooking advice when he was just a child! Invited to America by a benefactor, he opened his restaurant and became a huge success, eventually becoming one of the greatest chefs in the world. In his prime Perrier won culinary prizes, appeared on TV and was written up in newspapers and magazines. Interviews with his grown daughter attest to his not having been much of a father all those years, but of course she loves him anyway.

From the opening scene showing Perrier shopping for ingredients at a produce market at the crack of dawn, King Georges takes you inside the heart of this great chef, as well as the kitchen of his fabulous, high-end restaurant. It's crazy in there! There's a lot of cursing and sweating and chopping and tasting. Perrier has continual screaming tantrums (English subtitles help you understand what he's saying) over burnt galettes and just about anything else. There are kitchen disasters like exploding gas burners, with eighty foodaholics in the elegant dining room waiting to be fed. There's also a lot of butter and flour, in case you've wondered why French cooking is so delicious. It seems like every time Perrier walked by a pot of something cooking he threw in a big clump of butter, just because.

Watching the movie makes you really hungry, so eat before you go. But go.

Film Review: MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN

Adorable Anna, imagining Heaven.

Okay, so it was snowing and cold and nothing else was playing in my town, see? And so despite the dumb title -- like where the heck else do miracles come from? -- I went to see this "faith-based" movie even though I am of little faith. And I'm glad I did, if for no other reason than a dynamite performance by Jennifer Garner as Christy Beam, mother of a sick child. (Garner should just be awarded the Best Actress Oscar right now before everyone forgets Miracles in Heaven, as well they should.)

The sappy tale is true, which makes it less sappy and more stunning, despite being handled mawkishly by the director. There are lots of sunlight-glinting-through-trees shots, and people looking up at the fluffy clouds, and other hints of The Big Guy, including one scene that takes place in Heaven itself, which was quite eye-opening. Turns out those fluffy clouds are hiding a solid, slick floor you could likely skate on, and the trees are various shades of pink and blue, and hydrangea petals turn into butterflies and fly away when you touch them. The whole place is quite lovely. But I digress.

Back home in Texas, on the farm with the cows and the horses and the five dogs, we're watching adorable 10-year-old Anna suffer with a horrible digestive disease that causes her to be in constant pain and be fed through a tube in her nose, which we see going in and out and in and out more times than I really needed. (Once would have been too much.) Christy finds a specialist in Boston, offering the interesting diversion of another city and the flights back and forth. Anna has two sisters and a really handsome Dad, and the whole lot of them go to church every Sunday and have a great life until that awful illness arrives out of the blue. Bummer.

Christy cries a lot, and so will you. And she stops going to church. Who wouldn't? I mean, what could make you not believe in God more than a sick child? (Nothing, that's what.) But the Lord comes through in a very dramatic and miraculous way, which we all knew would happen from the spoiler title, and Christy returns to her church with quite a story to share, the one about all the miracles. One miracle the film could do without is Queen Latifah as a Boston waitress who befriends Christy and Anna in their hour of need. I'm guessing she was stuck in there to avoid that whole "no-roles-for-blacks" thing, because her character is totally unbelievable and adds nothing to the story line.

Anyway, bring tissues.