Heard on the subway platform

Posted on June 8, 2010 by 40andover

A woman on the phone passes me on the subway platform and I hear her say to the person on the other end of the conversion:

“If you are in a room with a murder, just LEAVE. [Staying there] was NOT smart!”

So many thoughts and comments collide in my head. But, really, none is necessary. All you need to do is let this woman’s admonishment wash over you and the nuances, the complexities and the insanity hidden in that simple sentence will crash in your head, too. It is a little like going down the biggest slide in the most insane water park ever. Enjoy, but please be careful not to drown.

Hillary and me

Posted on June 7, 2010 by 40andover

Today, I was walking near Times Square, dressed not exactly in a pant suit, but complementary bespoke pants and blazer. So, I was feeling pretty good in my outrageously expensive clothes, made to my specifications in order to hide my — er — “lesser” qualities.

I walked past a Rasta guy hawking his CD and, as my eyes turned to him, he said in a sing-song-way-dontcha-know, “How about some of my music for Hillary Clinton?” My eyes must have widened in the shock that someone compared me, a 46 year-old, to a 60-something year old. As I passed by, in a “no-way-am-I-buying-your-lousy-CD” walk (which I learned from living in Morningside Heights — the positives of diversity), he yelled after me, “I meant Hillary in the best sense!” (I noted, he had no Rasta accent, so he was as phony a Rasta as I was a Hillary impersonator, but I digress.)

Ok, ok, ok, ok. I love Hillary Clinton. I think her intelligence and focus are wildly sexy. I just don’t want to look like Hillary when I am AT LEAST 15 years her junior. Whoa, what a reality check as to what I look like to the 20-something and 30-something set. There is no hiding a woman’s aging process, unless you want to look like an extra-terrestrial (e.g., Joan Rivers).

I am ok with aging — more or less. Except that I am fixated on my 25th college reunion. But I will not color my hair or have unnecessary medical procedures. I just want to look good for my age. And looking like the over-worked, 63 year-old Secretary of State who endured at least 25 years of trials and tribulations both public and private, is not — can I be clearer? NOT — looking good for 46.

I hurried to the gym and worked out extremely hard, as if one day will make the difference. I will probably not be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

If someone said I looked like Susan Sarandon or Catherine DeNeuve, I would be walking on sunshine. But in the real world, where unfortunately my mirror and I must live, I have to get used to the idea that being compared to someone who is sexy if you like smarts and determination ain’t so bad after all. If only, Hillary (or I, for that matter) looked a little more like Susan Sarandon . . . .

(Just remember to suck in the tummy during the reunion . . . .)

Going Nuclear with Dr. Strangelove

Posted on June 3, 2010 by 40andover

How do you get someone’s mind off a headache? A strong punch to the stomach.

How do you take someone’s mind off the environmental disaster caused by the massive oil leak? Detonate a nuclear warhead.

Really? Detonate a nuclear bomb to melt the ocean floor onto itself to stop the leak? It is ok to try new things, like shooting debris in the hole to plug it, because what’s a little more pollution when millions of barrels of oil are gushing into the ocean each day. But a nuclear bomb? Yeah, let’s compound one threat to our future with an almost certain apocalyptic coda.

Someone said this nuclear fix is safe. Someone also said deep water drilling is safe. Someone said the Russians exploded nuclear bombs to stop pipeline leaks, but they never did it with oil, underwater and one mile down. Oh, yeah, just like top kill was never tried underwater and one mile down. Gee, I wish Anyone thought through how to fix something, let’s say an oil pipe, that far down below sea level before the accident. Boy, I never met this Someone or Anyone, but Someone sure is crazy and Anyone should be fired.

But, this is America, where Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels. So, if we look at everything ass backwards and upside down, it should work. From that perspective, the nuclear option looks like a plan. How about if all of the BP executives and the government officials who oversaw deep-water drilling put on some of Ginger’s old outfits and then tried to figure out what to do? No, it wouldn’t add any brain cells (so still a zero sum game) but it would sure provide needed comic relief in the aftermath of the biggest threat to the safety of all living beings since the Ice Age.

Of course, no disaster is complete without the accompanying political grandstanding and fiascoes. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wrote to the President enumerating the number of jobs that will be lost because of the moratorium on off-shore drilling, even as he decries the despoliation of his state’s shorelines and criticizes the administration’s slow response.

Maureen Dowd, who is becoming pathetic, says we got the President we voted for, as if that is a bad thing — a clear-headed leader who doesn’t lead by his gut. The President constantly overestimates our intelligence and ability to understand the important things. And President Obama has to stop what he is doing to go on Larry King so that we are reassured he can feel our pain. Because we need him to hug us and feel our pain while he is protecting us from our own stupidity.

We deserve to choke on the oil slick.

This is the media’s Hurricane Katrina

Posted on June 1, 2010 by 40andover

I believe the Gulf disaster defies analogy.

But we need to pigeon hole this one for the 24 hour news re-cycle. Hmmm. Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, that’s it! Let’s exploit another episode of human suffering for the sake of ratings. That’s why the media asks, “Is this Obama’s Hurricane Katrina?”. Because that was the most recent large scale disaster. We can’t remember back almost 10 years to ask if this is “Obama’s 9/11”.

And it feeds our need, in a situation out of control, for symmetry with past events so we can pretend to understand the event and its ramifications and then go back to watching Britney Spears. The pathology of fear symmetry.

Let’s not make this about President Obama, although it would make it easier if it were. It is about greed and reckless indifference to our earth. It is about a problem of unimaginable scope causing imponderable calamity for all living beings.

We elected President Obama because he is unflappable, at least in public. Now, we are pissed because he doesn’t express constant outrage to satisfy CNN, FOX, and MSNBC and our own fear symmetry pathology.

Everyone, listen up:

Rule 1 of disaster reaction: If the only people with the machinery to solve the problem are the ones who caused the problem, don’t piss them off. If you make it so they can never get out from under the liability, they will take their marbles and go home and then all is lost. Sometimes it feels good to yell at a given moment, but it hurts you in the long run (ever hear the old saw, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”?).

Rule 2 of disaster reaction: There is no easy resolution to this problem because no one prepared for this disaster. Not BP and not the United States. Preparation would have required years of research and development by top scientists and hundreds of millions of dollars. So, blame Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Even throw Carter, Ford and Nixon under that bus while you’re at it.

Rule 3 of disaster reaction: Everyone wastes time pointing figures at others. And take out the mirror. All of us. We are the problem, too. Consume too much? Vote for the Drill, Baby, Drill ticket?

Rule 4 of disaster reaction: DON’T TELL THE PUBLIC THE TRUTH. WE CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH (Jack Nicholson was right in “A Few Good Men”). We also expect that everything will get fixed for us, preferably within a day’s trading session at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rule 5 of disaster reaction: The media feeds our ridiculous expectations and our hubris. So, Anderson Cooper, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Maureen Dowd, Jack Cafferty, Wolf Blitzer and whoever else: stop with the comparisons and come up with ways to heal our earth, ways to help our fellow Americans, our wildlife, etc. Set up a disaster relief fund.

Reality No. 1 of Disasters: The man in charge — President Obama — wanted this gusher plugged the minute it happened. You think he wants to go down as the president who screwed up this disaster response?

Reality No. 2 of Disasters: Everyone is an armchair quarterback. If you can help, then help. If you can’t, then shut up.

Reality No. 3 of Disasters: If there weren’t a disaster, the media would create one. So, for the 45th President of the United States of America, what will be your Gulf Oil Spill Disaster?

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Monthly Archives: June 2010