ADJUSTMENTS

ADJUSTMENTS

I haven’t been able to blog as much, play guitar, or pleasure read. Slowly but surely, my better half & I strive to interweave strands of our former selves into our newly adjusted routines that revolve around raising three beautiful and healthy children.

ATM is getting back into swimming, and I just learned a Concrete Blonde song. We hope to read more than just news snippets here and there—the less about the MSM’s summer ’08 stars, Brett Favre and Paris Hilton, the better. And once the three month old gets into a steady sleeping pattern, maybe we can escape for an adult night out—even if it’s to drive around the block a few times.

This adjustment period has indeed offered us learning opportunities, aside from getting adept at changing diapers in the sand at the beach—talk about a summer Olympic sport—or managing three at the grocery store amidst the hostile on-lookers who scowl as if to say: “the kiddy-tracked crowd is only allowed here very early in the morning or very late night—so f*ck off.”

The one major realization I’ve had is that it’s not easy to adjust. I would go so far as to say that in many cases our natural inclination is NOT TO adjust. Sadly, for many individuals it’s far easier to stay the same, to think the same way, to behave the same, or, in this political climate: to stay the course. That’s why I’m not at all surprised there isn’t more of a spread in the general election tracking polls between John McCain and Barack Obama.

It’s tragic that American society still grapples with all the same, recurring issues that require enormous adjustments to change things ever so slightly: the Iraq War, socio-economic inequality, poverty, racism, sexism, and homophobia. Certainly, it’s not so tragic, I’ve come to realize, to believe that some small adjustment can create some kind of change. The question is: how do those of us who can adjust help those who cannot...adjust to the idea of change? After all, changing a diaper in the sand at the beach isn’t so hard as it seems.

Money Doesn't Buy Class

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the pop culture proverbial water now that Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears seem to be taking sobriety seriously for once, now come along a trainwreck-in-training, who is being trained by none other than her trashy sister.

Bear with me....

Kim Kardashian, former friend of Hilton, etc., is desperate for attention. She hangs out at all the right places, is rich, etc. but does not get the paparazzi's attention like the other. She has no talent (I know that doesn't stop Spears and Hilton)and basically she is mostly known for being a slut (sorry! truth hurts) and Bruce Jenner's step-daughter (yes Olympian decathlete Bruce Jenner).

Here is a clip from Kardashian's new reality series (isn't reality TV so yesterday?!?!), Keeping Up With The Kardashians on the E! Network. In this "morsel", we find out the following things:

1) Ms. Kardashian bought her mother and step-father a stripper pole for their anniversary, located in the master bedroom, which she promptly shows of to party guest Robin Antin, creator of the Pussycat Dolls.

2) Ms. Kardashian's 9 year old half-sister comes in when Kardashian and Antin are "working out on the pole and the little girl ..... sit down for this one... the little girl demonstrates moves on the pole that would make Gypsy Rose Lee blush.

Now, at least Jenner comes in at the end and calls this what it is: inappropriate behavior. But, tell me please, what chance do ANY little girls have in America, heck in the world, of growing up with self-worth, self-esteem, and good body image if older girls they admire (and in this case live with and are related to) are acting this way?

The shock and awe factor of everything aimed at the younger generation, such as this trashy display, is and has gotten way out of control. I mean, I can hear Nero fiddling away as I type. Believe me, I feel like I am a prude for saying things like this, but safe experimentation with a funky hair color or several ear piercings in the name of finding your identity as a female are a far cry from a prepubescent girl bumping and grinding against a stripper pole on world-wide TV in her parents' bedroom. Things like that are not innate in girls that age, nor should they be. Before your very eyes, you can view at the above link how a little girl can lose her innocence and others laugh about it as if it is no big deal. It is sadly depressing and scary.

I won't even talk about how Emily Post is rolling in her grave about how improper it is to take party guests to a room that is not yours, and is a PRIVATE room.

This proves that money doesn't buy class and that for those of us that have manners, dignity, et. al., we are shoveling against a torrent of ...well, crap.

Speaking of shovels, I am going to my shovel and my bat, and put them in my car ... just in case the tide gets too close to home.

Lindsay and the Astronauts

Lindsay and the Astronauts

No, this is not the name of a new Indie band. Lindsay and the Astronauts—it does remind one of Josie and the Pussycats, doesn’t it? No, this is the state of the mainstream media in America this week. For rather than emphasize the lies, lies, lies, and more lies of Attorney Liar, Alberto Gonzales, who can’t remember the bull he said the night before, the mainstream media went nuts for Lindsay Lohan and the drunk Astronauts this week. No wonder why so many Americans are space cadets. The horror, the horror of the Pat Tillman case? What’s that?

But have no fear because the only thing we have to fear is the mainstream media itself. Just when we thought we could seek refuge from our narrative addiction to Nation Gone Wild, with the dramatis personae of those multi-talented girls gone wild, Nicole Skinny & Britney Scissorhands resurrect from the media dead with a vengeance. Yeah, Nicole’s planning to bitch slap Paris with her own version of “I Need Attention in Jail House Rock,” and Britney’s bodyguard really bitch-slapped the paparazzi in Vegas. At least the media has something else to focus on other than Senator Clinton’s cleavage. Honestly.

So as our brave soldiers suffer terribly in Iraq, as Osama-Has-Not-Been-Found tailgates on the border of AfGONEistan and Pakistan, as our government—get a load of this one—prepares for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a country that just so happens to have a nice representation of insurgents in Iraq, our mainstream media just gets its "skyrocket in flight...afternoon delight" form Lindsay and the Astronauts.

NOTE: This entry was inspired by the great Randi Rhodes whose humorous opening to her show yesterday was about Lindsay and the Astronauts.

Week in Rear View: Cell Block America

Week in Rear View: Cell Block America

Jail has been, well, “hot” this week. And if you can’t recognize how hot it's been, then you may, in fact, be leading a simple life.

Where does one begin? Fake or real? Real or fake? No, silly, I’m not talking about Pam Anderson or those chee-chee mamas in The Girls Next Door. I’m talking about the current state of our mainstream media, which loves to keep the “real” on the DL to transport us to a different world overpopulated by Paris, Lindsay, and others in a Nation Gone Wild.

The fake news is that Paris Hilton went to jail, only to be released temporarily for some reported, get this, “medical reasons”—my ass, and then put back into jail for the remainder of her sentence. The real news is that I. Scooter Libby, part of the Neocon death squad, a cheerleader for the war/mess in Iraq, received a 2 ½ year jail sentence this week for basically outing a top cover CIA agent—her name would be Valerie Plame—and for obstructing justice—Scooter’s game would be covering for Dick, our Vice President.

Paris knocked the shit of Scooter in our steroid-induced news cycle; quite frankly, Paris does look better than a WASPy, old prune. Regardless of Paris’s good looks or her intriguing SHEnanigans, there are now over 3,500 dead in Iraq and even more political casualties at home; General Peter Pace is the latest to join the body pile-up of the Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, prison-obsessed foreign policy of Bush/Cheney. Which brings me to my larger point: in our Dick Wolf, Law & Order, CSI, COPS, Prison Break culture, why is it that most Americans are trapped in a cell block of mis/dis—information?