Dressing Up Death

This morning I read a news tidbit about a woman who is outraged because her son's ashes were returned to her in a Wal-Mart shopping bag. The funeral home director, in his own defense, explained that he had been asked to divide the ashes into four parts for family members to share, and was hard-pressed to find enough plastic bags, so he cut up a large one from Wal-Mart, being careful not to use the logo. But the woman, a regular shopper at the store, recognized the bag anyway.  She was devastated, claiming it was "disrespectful to her son's memory."

Now here is my question: Would she rather they had used a Neiman Marcus bag, or maybe a pretty blue Tiffany box? Was it the fact that Wal-Mart is a discount mill that bothered her, or was it perhaps the fact that her son died of a heart ailment at age 17? And really, dividing up the ashes so everyone could have some seems really rude to the dead person, in fact much worse than the Wal-Mart bag if you ask me.

My mother was cremated and her remains arrived, via UPS, in a paint can. Ditto my father. My sister and I transferred them into two nice porcelain urns, but we certainly kept them all together. In fact, now they are literally together, since one day my sister got angry remembering her abusive childhood, and so combined their ashes into one container, declaring, "Now they can fight for eternity!" But that's another story. The fact is, they were both pretty dead--they were ashes. I doubt I would have felt better if they showed up in nicer containers. This is something that not many of us truly understand. They should teach Death in grade school--okay, junior high--instead of algebra. Algebra is used by just a few people in later life, whereas death comes to everyone. 

Holiday Entertainment for the Immature

It has recently come to my attention, not least of all via the hullabaloo over the sexually explicit performance by Miley Cyrus still causing ripples, that most people, usually men but also some rural and backwoods-raised women, are embarrassed by the whole subject of sexuality. They look away, hide their heads, avert their eyes, whatever, but cannot simply tackle the subject head on. In my mind this makes them no better than children, who titter and blush at the "dirty" words related to the subject. With the three-day Labor Day holiday upon us, take an opportunity to tailor your weekend activities to your personal level of maturity with this simple test: Look into a mirror and say each of the following words aloud. Score 0 if you do nothing in reaction, 1 point if you feel like giggling or actually do giggle, 2 if you can't say it at all, 3 if you blush and 4 if you feel aroused. Scores will be explained following the test.

Masturbation

Blue Balls

Vagina

Menstruation

Fertile

Breasts

69
Testicals

Nuts

Genitals

Sex

Cunnilingus

Penis 

Intercourse

Anus

Fellatio

A score of 45-60 means you have serious problems regarding sexuality, and with adulthood, and may have gender issues; read Portnoy's Complaint and Tropic of Cancer, and then get some therapy.

A score of 30-45 indicates you are seriously pre-pubescent; pick up some vintage copies of Mad Magazine and subscribe to The Onion.

Under 15 means you're okay, just immature, so rent Dumb and Dumber. any of the Three Stooges or Marx Brothers movies, or possibly some Tom & Jerry cartoons. Or you could just watch regular TV.

And remember, if you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours, you know what to do.

Drive Slowly; School Is In

Illustration by Gordon Studer

School's back in most places, thank God, and we can send those pesky little rugrats inside again and get them out of our hair. After all, isn't that what school is for? It certainly can't be for teaching them anything, since they could learn a whole lot more spending a day of real life at home with Mom, learning how to cook, clean, write checks and shop for the family. Or at work with Dad, where they could learn how to schmooze with a team of coworkers, kiss up to the boss, attend meetings and maybe even do some real work. Instead, they are locked away in a minimum security prison for 7 or 8 hours each weekday. The younger ones are taught to sit still and suppress their natural boundless energy, and also color, which as we all know figures greatly in adult life, while the older ones are forced to memorize random facts that they will never need once they get out of there.

That being said, which is an annoying cliche but useful right now, I still remember a few of the things I learned in school:
1. The Three-Pronged Attack, which was important in the Civil War but may have been during the American Revolution.
2. X and Y--usually written as x and y--are important values in algebra.
3. President Lincoln freed the slaves, George Washington crossed the Delaware in a rowboat, and Ben Franklin invented electricity.
4. General Burgoyne did something quite impressive.
5. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman were two different people.
6. Never split an infinitive if you can help it. Dangling participles are also bad.
7. Amoebas reproduce by binary fission.
8. A body in motion tends to stay in motion until interrupted by an outside force.
9. No two pieces of matter can occupy the same space at the same time.

After that I majored in art in college, and I do know a ton about all that. The bottom line: Be careful texting, there may be a school bus stopped right in front of you.

Miley Cyrus is No Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz, a.k.a. Ricky Ricardo

I was going to let it pass, especially since I didn't see it. But today's Wall Street Journal has an op-ed thing about it, giving it gravitas, and so I feel compelled to weigh in on the whole "Miley Cyrus thing," which until now I've heard about and read about and seen on the news and tried to ignore but have failed.

Here is what I know: former child star Miley Cyrus has a vagina. She also has breasts, albeit teeny ones, and a tongue somewhat bigger than those breasts. She has always had them but now, being 20 years old, she understands that those regulation body parts are more valuable. In fact, she apparently thinks they make her pretty special, which is silly since every living woman is born with them, but still Miley decided to showcase hers on TV at some music awards show a few nights ago. This may have been a desperate attempt to deflect attention from her singing or dancing or whatever is her "talent." While she didn't actually exhibit her naked vagina, she did indicate she had one inside her skimpy outfit and hinted that she knew what things might fit inside it, and so her act has been deemed "disgusting" and "lewd" and "lascivious" and "shocking" by a parade of incensed journalists and critics. And now I am just one more in the line of people gossiping about her, making her richer and more popular and more likely to do all that stuff more often.

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I've never heard or seen Miley perform; all I know is that she is the daughter of a country singer named Billy Ray Cyrus who I also have never heard or seen perform. What I'm wondering is if she has a mommy, because if she does, that's who has some "s'plaining to do," as Ricky Ricardo would say. I loved Ricky Ricardo, and he never once took his clothes off or did anything remotely tacky or gross or demeaning, at least not in public, but still he was a pretty sexy guy.

The End of Django

After watching the first two-thirds of the movie and thinking it was fabulous, I watched the conclusion of Django Unchained and now I'm really upset. What happens is that Django kills all the white people who done him wrong, and then a whole lot more of them who never done him at all. Then he and his wife, who he has finally rescued from her evil white masters, ride off into the sunset. The audience is certainly happy for both of them, since they suffered such hideous abuse as slaves, but still--I can't help feeling a tad skeptical that racial harmony is high on either of their bucket lists. The bottom line: Where Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream, Django had a nightmare. God only knows where Quentin Tarantino fits in.

Film Review: DJANGO UNCHAINED

Thwarted in my search for a movie out in the world, last night I stayed home and watched Django Unchained, successfully purchased from Redbox. The opening credits seemed so sappy, with postcard images of mountains and clouds obviously colorized to death, and a soaring soundtrack befitting one of those bad John Wayne westerns from yesteryear, that I almost turned it off. Also, the story is about slavery, my least favorite subject after the Holocaust. (Yes, I know, bad things happened in the past, but can't we just move on?) But hey, what else was I doing, so I forged ahead.

My box of Whoppers at the ready, I steeled myself for Hollywood's trivialization of a serious subject, so I was delighted to see that not only is Oprah not in it, but Christoph Waltz is. The brilliant actor who played the evil SS officer in Inglorious Basterds owns the screen for much of the film, once again scaring the bejeezus out of us--although here he is kinder, gentler, and the only non-racist around. This movie turned out to be along the same lines of Basterds, only for blacks. The sweet revenge of all those Jewish Nazi killers is greatly surpassed by Django, played by Jamie Foxx. Pretty soon there are piles of dead white guys everywhere, each one deserving it of course, not only for calling everyone a nigger, but for torturing, whipping, disfiguring, demoralizing and humiliating any and every person of color.

When I saw The Help a few years back I thought they were slaves, but director Quentin Tarantino made those cleaning ladies look more like a branch of the Southhampton Junior League. These slaves are shackled, hung upside down, buried naked inside sweat boxes, eaten alive by dogs, branded with red-hot irons, forced to fight one another to the death--and those are the lucky ones. But disturbing as parts of the movie are, what with the fake but very convincing blood spurting, gushing, poring, sputtering, jettisoning, oozing and seeping from a variety of orifices from hundreds of people and their horses, it also contains some memorable comic scenes. One in particular involves the dumb-as-rocks Ku Klux Klansmen out for a midnight raid who can't see out of the eye holes in their hoods. They stop and have a debate over it, finally deciding to go hoodless this time but vowing to do a better job the next time they "go out to kill a bunch of niggers." It was Mel Brooks-funny, making all the terrifying scenes of torture where you have to cover your eyes and plug your ears worth it.

Incredible performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson added to the intensity. In fact, it was so intense that I had to stop the movie halfway so I could sleep without nightmares and will watch the conclusion this evening. I slept fine, but noticed that today I hate all white people.

To be continued...

Non-Movie Reviews

Feeling down, I decided to go see a movie today--there are several new ones out that seemed intriguing, and they happen to be playing right near my home. My first choice was Blue Jasmine, the latest offering from Woody Allen. Naturally I assumed it was a comedy, but a few reviews and an explanation of the plot convinced me that it's even worse than my own life, which sort of sucks right now and which is why I want to see a movie. You know, the whole escapism thing. But this Blue Jasmine is all about unhappy people having nervous breakdowns which I can see at home for free, so I nixed that idea pretty quick.

Then there's Jobs, about Steve Jobs, the brilliant but dead CEO of Apple. It stars Ashton Kutcher, who all I know about is that he does TV commercials for cameras and was married to Demi Moore. But hey, I always liked Steve Jobs, so I read a bit about it and it turns out that most of the people who saw it say it sucks, is the poor man's Social Network, and is only worth seeing if you are a fan of Ashton Kutcher. I am not.

The last option is Elysium, starring Matt Damon in a futuristic, violent, dumb and boring tale about another planet where are all the rich people have gone, leaving only deadbeats on Earth. For reasons of plot development, only Matt can save everyone from the evil High Priestess of Elysium, played by poor Jodie Foster who seems never to have fully recovered from that whole "shooting Ronald Reagan because I love Jodie" thing. So now I'm not going to a movie after all, until or unless I get really desperate, which must be why they make movies in the first place.

Netflix is the New Alzheimer's

It's tough staying current with my generation. For example, I have not seen even one episode of Orange is the New Black. Or House of Cards. Yes, I know--Kevin Spacey is fabulous. I definitely must watch both of those. Then when I'm done, I'll watch The Wire, Homeland, Mad Men, Downtown Abbey, Arrested Development, Entourage, The Big C, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Weeds and Breaking Bad. And if I'm still alive, I'll fill in with The West Wing, Twin Peaks, Grey's Anatomy, Dexter, Monk, Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives and 30 Rock. (Thankfully I succumbed to The Sopranos and Lost some years back, so I'll have a few minutes for meals and bathroom breaks.)  

Part of my problem is that the local Blockbuster closed several months ago. Then I tried Redbox and it ate my credit card and didn't even give me a DVD. But the real issue, I've been told, is that I still I don't have Netflix so I'm not capable of streaming anything, however one does that. It's all so confusing, but I'm guessing that when I get to the nursing home I'll have plenty of time to catch up.

Smart Phones Aren't

I still have one of these cast-offs....

I hate myself for several reasons. Not all the time, of course, but every so often, like when I'm driving to the periodontist and remember all those nights over the preceding three months since my last appointment that I fell into bed without flossing. Or when I yell at my cat for being out of her mind with the constant going in and going out, but then remember she is 19 and can't help it. But mostly it's for owning a cell phone, which in reality owns me. I need it when I drive in case I have a flat tire or a heart attack, and will go back to retrieve it if I have left it at home. I freak out when I can't find it, which freaks me out even more.

My husband, who recently married his iPhone in a small, private ceremony and would definitely save it in a fire before me, says I am living in the Dark Ages and that I am the only person he knows who does not have a "smart phone." I think he finds this embarrassing. He says he knows people who have the lesser but still respectable Android, but nobody at all who still has what I have, which is an old-fashioned flip-phone. He says I cannot text properly. I say they should be called dumb phones, and that I am the smart one, and that texting causes nothing but death and neck aches--a condition officially known as "text neck"-- and are responsible for the lessening quality of interpersonal relationships, ours included.

Thank You for Being a Friend

One of the best things about being human is the fact that we are born in possession of a huge array of emotions. These translate into "feelings," the outward expression of which skitter across our faces every second of our lives. Some people can hide them; these people are known as "poker-faced" or "con artists." Alas, I am not one of those, and so everything I am thinking and feeling shows. For this reason I have very few friends, since I am quite picky and only truly like people who are considerate, intelligent, funny and interested in personal growth. Also, they have to "get me." Naturally, it's slim pickin's out there...

There was a time when I had scores of friends, many of whom did not meet my standards, and thus many of whom I did not really like--heck, I was even married to one once. But I was never alone, and so hardly ever had to confront my inner demons. This makes for a happy life, if you can pull it off. But the older I get the less I can settle, and so these days I am often alone. On the plus side, I really do like my friends. One of my very favorites is coming to visit soon, and I am quite excited about it.

Traveling in Place

If you always behaved as if you were in a foreign country, life would be so much more interesting. For example, the Dutchess County Fair is happening now, just ten miles away as the crow flies, and it's a big deal around these parts. There are the usual kiddie rides and pie contests and pig races, with demonstrations of sheep-shearing and horse grooming at certain hours. The biggest pumpkins and the prettiest chickens will be on display, and probably goats, cows, sheep and turkeys raised by earnest young 4-H'ers too. If we get hungry, there's sure to be plenty of sno-cones and funnel cake and french fries and pizza and those aromatic and scary-looking kielbasa, which you hardly see anywhere else except maybe Poland.

Mitch and I don't really want to go but we're going anyway, since it's a spectacle that only happens once a year and we've never been around when it's going on. If we were traveling in Germany or France or any other foreign country, we'd jump at the chance to see some local color and come home brimming with stories and photos. Funny how we all marvel at any old thing when we pack our bags and pay a fortune to fly across an ocean to another continent, but when it's right in our own backyard it's a big yawn.