Betrayal

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve.

No great irony or significance there - the man was a secular Jew - but, considering he was also a nobel laureate, legion d'honneur recipient, Tony award winner and Oscar nominee, his passing is definitely newsworthy. In fact, since the guy was 82 and battling cancer, you'd expect a major news network like NBC to have a slickly produced obit on file. But Nooooooooh. It appears they got some intern to google the guy.

So what did they list as his most important credits? A few of his 29 plays,such as The Birthday Party, Betrayal, and The Homecoming?

Nope. His screenplay adaptation of John Fowles' novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman. Probably the only Pinter piece the intern had ever heard of.

NBC wants us to remember one of the twentieth century's most important playwrights for his screenplay adaptation of someone else's work.

No twit I.

They say the birds descend from the dinosaurs. Call me brontosaurus, stuck in the twentieth century where I was born. I may be addicted to google, but I continue to use my computer as a glorified typewriter. Don't expect me to don my reading glasses just so I can watch your podcast on that itty-bitty screen. I'd have to locate the ipod I got three Christmases ago and actually figure out how to use it. Don't invite me to join your new social networking site. Linked In will do me just fine for the rest of my natural life. And for God's Sake, don't look for me on twitter. Because any forum that requires me to limit my blathering to 140 characters is strictly for the birds.

Play it again, George.

Excuse me while I go on you tube yet again and play the video of the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at Bush. What a pitching arm! What an aim! And how can I curb my compulsion to play the clip over and over? Hit play! See Dubya duck! Hit play! See Dubya duck again! I feel like one of those coke-addicted lab rats, compelled to push the lever over and over for just one more hit.

No thanks.

What ever happened to you're welcome?

A gracious response to a thank you that implies that you're happy to help and would do so again.

Now, if you thank someone, you get back "no problem" or "no worries", responses that turn "you're welcome" on it's head. They're no longer about the person doing the thanking, but about the person being thanked. It's "no problem" you did not disturb me too much when I put myself out and did you a favor, but if it's a problem in the future, you're on your own. It's "no worries" I am not annoyed that you asked me to help you out, but if you push it, I just might get annoyed.

And since when did "waiting on" and "waiting for" become interchangeable? The guy with the order pad is supposed to wait ON me, and if I have to wait FOR him, I end up polishing off the bread basket. These days, we're "waiting on" the waiter, which could be why it doesn't occur to him to wait on us.

Think I'm being a word priss? Whatever you do, don't tell me "it's all good." There's a worldwide recession. The polar ice caps are melting. India and Pakistan are on high alert. China owns us, and it appears they're trying to poison us. Antibiotic-resistant TB is on the rise. Nicole Kidman can no longer move her face. They now make so many different kinds of Crest, you can get analysis paralysis in the toothpaste aisle. If you still want to tell me it's all good, I suggest you go read Candide.

Relax...God is in charge.

That's what the bumper sticker on the car in front of me said.  

I find nothing relaxing about the notion that God is in charge. I live in Northern California, where God's handiwork includes earthquakes, mudslides, fire storms and, depending where the big one hits, the potential for our very own tsunami. And if that's all too macro for you, there's always cancer and heart disease.  

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

This week, I met the manager of a high end antique store who collects Manolo Bialnicks and believes Barack Obama may be the Anti-Christ. Her proof? A recent winning lottery ticket in Illinois bore the number...666. I also met a ship's engineer for an international shipping company who thinks 9/11 was engineered by the Pentagon to set the stage the Iraq war. His proof? Loose Change, a desk top "documentary" made by three putzes from Oneonta New York.

Now, I do think the antique store lady scores a bit higher on the stupidity scale because her delusions are racist and based on supernatural claptrap. And I understand how the Bush administration's profound cynicism, hubris and disrespect for human life could raise one's level of paranoia. But I still have to conclude that idiocy has no political affiliation.

Get your house in order, Bee-atch!

Memo to Amy Winehouse:

You are not Billy Holiday. You were not born to a 13 year old, raped at 10, sent to a reform school run by sadistic nuns, raped again at 14 and driven to prostitution. You are not black, this is not the forties, and you do not have to enter clubs where you are headlining, through the back door. You are just a not-so-nice Jewish girl whose parents are still together and did the best they could to raise you. It's time to get the buzz out of your beehive and give the tabloids something more interesting to write about than your skanky, anorexic, illustrated ass. I say, get yourself to the nut house while you're husband' s in the big house. Add a piercing or three and see if Hot Topic will hire you as a salesclerk. Get right with God and reinvent yourself as a gospel singer. And if none of that works, could'ja please go self-destruct somewhere private and remote? I hear they grow opium poppies in Uzbekistan.

Mumbai

More lethal Islamic wack job shenanigans. What a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Yes, I am thankful I was not born female in a Muslim country, can speak my mind with impunity and still have all my lady bits. My husband has an interesting theory which my friend thinks would make a dandy Saturday Night Live skit: The 72 virgins are all dogs. That's why they're virgins. Bummer, Mahmoud. Your heavenly bride Snaggletooth has more facial hair than you do. No wonder the Koran says it's OK to drink in Paradise.

You go, grandma!

Drove over to a street full of cute little boutiques to buy a gift for my yoga teacher's fiftieth birthday party. I pull into a metered spot, grab a handful of change, charge into the store and am about to start looking when I realize I still have the meter change pressed in my clueless palm. I tear out of the store just in time to see that the meter man has materialized out of nowhere and is about to write me up. "Wait!" I cry, holding up my palm full of coins." I was coming out to feed it. See?" "I see," the little prick responds,as he writes me up, places the ticket on my car and walks away. I'm furious, at him, at myself, at all the inequities of life on this planet. I look around, trying to calm down as I feed the meter. A lady is walking towards me, preceded by two small, frisky, apple-cheeked children, one barely out of toddlerhood, the other maybe five. I smile at them and the little girl smiles back with a cheerful "Hi, old lady!"

I guess I'm having a day.

Reality check

Been floating on cloud Obama for 3 days now. I haven't felt this positive about the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I'm flush with progressive patriotism, which is all about diversity, tolerance and brotherhood. Loving every one and smiling like Stevie Wonder. Doing happy dances all over the house. My family diagnosed me a long time ago, but now the dog thinks I'm insane too.

Sooner or later, I had to come down.

It happened at the grocery store, by the frozen food section, when a young man tossed a carton of ice cream back in the bin. "Fuck the French", he exclaimed to his girlfriend, seemingly a propos of nothing. Did he not like French Vanilla? Who knows. It appears that even in Berkeley, the French are still fair game. Other than Arabs, they're the only people one can dump on without fear of being politically incorrect.

I felt like speaking up, identifying myself as franco-american and putting him in his place. Or maybe going into my best Parisian accent and playing dumb. "Ze French? Wat eez zees "phoque?" Perhaps a simple "Phoquez-vous", would have sufficed. But I kept my mouth shut. As I shuffled on down the aisle, I could feel myself falling, tumbling down off of cloud Obama, back to this imperfect earth.

Open mouth, insert tennis shoe.

Out for a stroll with my doggie in tow, I approach the edge of Tilden Park, a large reserve crisscrossed with paths. As an urban female with a modicum of street smarts, I don't do wooded pathways alone. I stick to roads and sidewalks.

Two guys with back packs come up to me. "Excuse me," one of them asks, "Do you know a good path for us to take a hike in the park?"

"Sorry." I reply. "I don't know my way around the park. I'm a street walker."

They gave me a strange look as they turned away. I was halfway down the block before I realized why.

NOW I get it.

A North Dakota study just linked high lead levels in human blood to the consumption of wild game killed with lead bullets. High lead levels, of course, can lead to learning problems and brain damage. So it would seem we have, pun intended, dodged a bullet in not electing McCain/Palin, as there is no doubt in my mind that avid mooseburger muncher Palin is not just full of shit: she's full of lead.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081106/ap_on_re_us/lead_venison_3

There goes your tip, sweety.

My heels are so cracked, they're starting to look like a dried out lake bed in the late 21st century. I listen to Oprah. I know the drill. Love yourself! Take time for yourself! Pamper yourself! It's pedicure time.

I bury my head in US magazine while a pretty young Asian woman works on my calluses. (Why are pedicure ladies all Asian? Isn't it enough that Asian women have bird bones and teeny tiny waists? Do they have to have perfect feet too)?

The aesthetician looks up at the US's smiling cover shot of Jenny McCarthy, commenting "That actress used to be so slim, but now she's getting fat".

"Oh well," I reply, "she's getting close to forty. It's hard to keep your weight down past a certain age." "What about you?" the young lady asks. "Were you slim when YOU were young?"

I've just spent 4 weeks on South Beach and was feeling borderline svelte. And I guess I tend to forget how old I am. Thanks, Oprah. Next time, I'll do my own feet.

PS Of course I tipped her anyway.

Big Love, Big Hair

Finally got around to reading the New York Times Magazine story about Mormon Polygamist women and I have to conclude that nature trumps nurture. Doesn't matter if you're born in or outside the faith - the big hair gene will out.