Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

I’m used to nice things!

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I had a plan to write a really funny post about how yesterday’s Costco trip destroyed my faith in humanity, but my neighbour restored it; and how the entire city suddenly got over their collective seasonal affectedness disorder because the sun came out and the temperature got above freezing and this was the actual, number one top news story on the six o’clock news.  I was also going to talk about how we got a new garage door to replace our terribly long-suffering forty nine year old garage door and how it has brought me joy as I have had to park on the street – ON THE STREET! – for the past few weeks and while this might not sound like a big deal to you, it is to me.  To quote Cameron from Modern Family, “What am I going to do?  I’m used to nice things!”  I’m not happy scraping several inches of ice and snow off the windshield at five in the morning and then tracking it accidentally onto my seat so that I have a soggy wet butt by the time I arrive at my destination.  The new garage door is a miracle of garage doors.

Anyway, I had some posts planned but I have been unable to focus because my operation to strip my varicose veins is tomorrow at one o’clock, and I have to be at the hospital at 10:15.  I’m a little mixed about this time; on the one hand it will be nice to sleep a little later, my parents don’t have to come over at six in the morning to take care of the boys, and I can shower in the morning.  I also thought, happily, that I could clean the bathroom before leaving for the hospital, and the fact that occurred to me in a cheery way just goes to show I need to get out more.  The problem with this time is that, since I can’t eat after midnight tonight, and the surgery is a couple of hours, that is a long time to go without eating. As those who know me can attest, I do not do well not eating for extended periods of time.  I become even crazier than normal so please, your sympathies for those who have to deal with me tomorrow.

Serendipity

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Do you believe in serendipity?  And I don’t mean the movie, which was fine and all but lady, let me give you a hint here: if John Cusack asks for your phone number, don’t write it on a five dollar bill or in a random book or throw it away.  GIVE HIM YOUR DAMN NUMBER.  It’s John Cusack.  Lloyd Dobler!  One day he could be holding up a ghetto blaster outside your window and it would be the most romantic moment ever.   
Slight digression: did you love Say Anything as much as I did?  I love it nearly – but not quite – as much as I love When Harry Met Sally.  I sigh audibly when I think of that movie.  Oh Lloyd, you adorable slacker, you.  And while I think that John Cusack is some fine drink of water, I actually think that it would be quite irritating to be with someone whose sole ambition is to spend time with me.  I mean, really, I like being adored as much as the next girl, but there are limits to my patience with complete and utter worship.  Not that this is exactly an issue for me, but still.  That movie is fabulous with some truly great lines: “I gave her my heart and she gave me this pen.”  “Joe lies, Joe lies, when he cries.”  Sigh.  Not to mention some great scenes; remember when the guy was singing “The Greatest Love of All” at the graduation ceremony?  They can’t take away MY DIGNITY.
Anyway, back to serendipity.  Friday night we went to the mountains for a night with the kids to celebrate Mark’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, both of which are coming up on Wednesday.  While we were planning this little evening – a  couple of weeks ago –  I called the kennel where I send the dog for boarding, to book him in for a night.  The woman on the phone informed me that she was sorry, but they didn’t take dogs for overnight boarding anymore.  Since this was a Thursday, and only four days earlier I had picked the dog up from that place of business after boarding him there for eleven days, I asked when that policy was in place.  I was informed, rather perkily, that there had been changes in management.
Huh.  Suddenly it all made sense.  When I picked the dog up from boarding there was a strange absence of dogs.  As well, normally after he has been boarded with other dogs, he is completely exhausted like he just got back from the dog version of a Charlie Sheen party, and sleeps almost constantly, but this time he was surprisingly alert and did not seem at all tired.  In fact, for days after he simply sat at my feet and stared at me in a disturbing sort of way.  I realize now he was trying to telepathically communicate with me.  I started wondering what, exactly, had been done or not done with my poor dog, but more than that, I had no idea what to do with the dog for the next time we were going out of town.  In this city, all the big boarding kennels are either a) outside city limits, b) a 45 minute drive away, or c) full of strange and crazy restrictions (Our dogs are allowed to roam free!  If you bring your own food you will be charged excessively!).  The dog boarder that we had used was pretty much perfect; that is, perfect until they stopped boarding dogs while my dog was being boarded.
Later I was picking the kids up from school, and I happened on a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and for some reason it occurred to me to ask her about dog boarding, and it turns out that she has a friend who boards dogs out of her home, not ten minutes away from me.  Score!  So Barkley went there on Friday and I’m happy to report that he is currently passed out like he spent thirty six hours snorting cocaine and having sex with porn stars/hookers and boasting about his Labrador blood.  Serendipity.

The Hunger Games versus Harry Potter

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I’ve been unwell for the past couple of days; I’ve had the cold that has been going around the kids’ school, and while it isn’t devastating, it is annoying in one of those “I just went through an entire box of Kleenex” sort of way.
Yesterday was spent in a cold medication-induced fog, the kind of day that not only gets in the way of any kind of productivity, but also gets in the way of basic functioning.  I spent the afternoon dozing in and out on the couch while Jake watched TV – active parenting, no? – and woke up to find his stuffed Quatchi on my face.  “I thought you might want to snuggle him!” Jake said happily, which made me happy although somewhat leery of being smothered.
I couldn’t even focus enough to read.  On the weekend I read The Hunger Games, which Mark’s teacher had lent me with a high recommendation.  I didn’t pick it up for a week or so, because it just didn’t seem like my type of book, and also I realize that the trilogy is very popular and the last time I tried to read something that popular – Harry Potter – I hated it and found myself alone on an island of non-enchantment.  I still avoid mentioning that I dislike Harry Potter in certain circles, due to the emotional tarring-and-feathering I received from my feelings.  So I worried that I would try to read this and hate it, and then I would be all alone again.  Here I go again on my own…
But I loved it.  I couldn’t put it down.  It greatly surprised me and so if you, like me, have been putting off reading The Hunger Games because you think it looks terrible, it might surprise you!  I took it to my hair appointment on the weekend because I couldn’t bear to pick up any of the usual tabloid magazines. 
Last Thursday I was grocery shopping and I came upon two checkout lines: one with a senior couple who had only a few items left to unload in their cart, and one with a woman who had a full-to-overflowing cart, and so I lined up behind the seniors.  I soon realized my mistake as the woman sped through the other lineup, and several other people after her, while I stood there waiting, waiting for the elderly woman to SLOWLY take one small item at a time out of her cart and the cashier SLOWLY rang it through and SLOWLY set each item with the utmost care in a shopping bag.  I kept thinking to myself, be patient, it’s only five minutes out of your day, then be patient, it’s only ten minutes out of your day, then OMG how can it take fifteen minutes to unload six items, no, be patient, finally TWENTY MINUTES!  IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES ALREADY!!!  While I was deep breathing and focusing on not shoving everyone out of the way and bagging all the damn groceries myself, I started looking at the magazine display.  “Bachelor Brad Betrayed by Emily!” one magazine screamed, and went on to reveal that “engagement to dead Nascar driver was a lie!”  Okay.  Since this was last Thursday, and I know with 100% certainty that the Final Rose was only given out two days ago, I idly wondered if the network would be upset at this very important security leak.  Another magazine claimed to be the Cellulite Edition.  On the cover were various celebrities in various skimpy outfits, with circles around various body parts.  Yippee.  “Guess Who?” the magazine asked about someone in a bikini with “flabby love handles.”  I wondered if people actually buy this magazine.  They must, I guess, but how depressing.  How depressing would it be to be someone who writes those “articles”?  Even more depressing, those were the only two magazines that did not have Charlie Sheen’s and his crazy face splashed across the cover.  When I finally left the store twenty-five minutes later, I felt like I had lost actual IQ points from just reading magazine covers. 
And today I appear to be oscillating between being completely high, jittery, and unfocused due to cold medication, or completely foggy, slow, and unfocused due to having a cold.  Apologies if this post makes no sense.  But The Hunger Games!  You should try it; you may like it!

At that moment I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

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A while back, I read Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP newsletter, something I never do unless my attention is directed to it.  This particular newsletter – which I cannot find archived, for some reason – dealt with how to be organized.  I was particularly interested because, not to overly congratulate myself here, I consider myself to be a very organized person.  Hyper organized, one might say.  Insanely organized, even.  I write in my agenda daily, little to-do lists that really transcend what I think normal people probably write on their to-do lists.  For example, I write down “clean bathroom” on the same days that I clean the bathroom, week in and week out.  One might think that, hey, it’s Monday/Wednesday/Friday.  I always clean the bathroom.  I do not need to write that down.  But yes.  I do. 

That’s just day-to-day information.  If something really big is happening – and by “really big” I mean “really big in the life of a stay-at-home-mom”, so take that with a grain of salt – then I compile lists, normally on spreadsheets.  If there are three really big events occurring over a six week period, which is my situation right now, then the lights will be dimmed with my spreadsheet making. 

So when I read this GOOP newsletter I was struck by two things: a) Gwyneth Paltrow’s writing is somewhat difficult to read, but it seems that she is attempting to show the world that she is just a regular mom, which I contest given that regular moms do not normally shimmy on a grand piano at the Grammys with Cee Lo Green and a tribe of dancing Muppets, although I totally would if I had the chance, and b) she has a friend who she admires for her organization as she makes spreadsheets when she is packing to go somewhere. 

I read that and thought, really?  Doesn’t everyone just make spreadsheets while packing?  But no, it appears that they do not.  Also, not everyone makes a weekly dinner plan to avoid staring at the fridge and sobbing at five o’clock.  Neither do they carefully schedule grocery trips and other boring domestic activities into their daytimers.  It appears that I am just an anal weirdo.

Remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally (greatest movie ever) when Sally finds out that her old boyfriend, Joe, is getting married?

Sally: I’m difficult.

Harry: Challenging.

Sally: I’m too structured, I’m completely closed off.

Harry: But in a good way.

That’s me.  I am Sally.

The problem with being hyper-organized is that something has to give, and that something is sponteneity.  I have a very hard time just going with the flow, especially if I’m busy.  This week has been extraordinarily busy, for me, as I have been running our Scholastic book fair; in other words, this is the week I stand in awe of working parents everywhere.  How do you all do it?  Clearly I am just accustomed to a slack, slow-paced life as I am frantically trying to keep up with my regular life in addition to dealing with excited little people and their ravenous acquisitions of floppy covered books and fancy erasers.  I am TIRED, people.  And I think I need a glass of wine, Thursday be damned.

I need to learn how to go with the flow, I need to learn to be more spontaneous (perhaps I should write that on my to-do list: “LEARN SPONTANEITY”.)  I need to learn to take a deep breath and not get frustrated when (let’s say, for example) Jake leaves his mittens on the steps at lunch and then slips and falls down said steps thirty seconds before we have to leave the house, in order for me to be on time to open up the book fair.  Let’s say.  Or to be more empathetic when I hustle the children back to their normal routine after a ten-day vacation, and remember that if I am frantically rushing around it affects them, and to not completely snap when I ask Mark to please pick up his Legos and he responds with an “Awww!  What?  I never get to do ANYTHING!”  I also need to not be completely thrown off when I reach into the dog’s crate to retrieve his food bowl and subsequently thrust my hand into a pile of his own regurgitated food that he was trying to re-consume.

Well, maybe I can accept being thrown off by that.  What can I say, it’s been a bit of a crazy week.

I never slept through Money Never Sleeps

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The boys had a day off of school today, and it went the way such days often go: with happiness distributed like a double bell curve, peaking in the mid-morning while pajamas are still on, bottoming out in the early afternoon, and then peaking again, after some activities instigated by myself, only to start the slippery slope back down again.  Mark has a love-hate relationship with days off: on the one hand, he enjoys the freedom to just play unrushed, but on the other hand he really misses the structure of school.  And I run a pretty structured house, it’s not all hippy-dippy around here; meals are eaten at the same time, bedtime and rising times are kept the same, clothes are still expected to be worn, as opposed to pajamas.  Mark started to spiral downwards right after lunch, becoming irritable and high-needs until I suggested he make Valentines for his class.  Glitter and sticker backings soon overtook the table and happiness reigned once more.
On Saturday night I watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which is remarkable for the sole reason that I watched it in its entirety and did not fall asleep.  I very rarely see the end – or middle – of movies because I generally fall asleep or, alternately, get bored and start reading, which means I have a very fuzzy view of most films released in the past ten years.  For example, the other night my husband was watching the movie Blow, which we had seen together a few years ago.  I watched a bit with him, unable to remember how it ended, only to discover that it has a very sad ending.  I watched the final scene with tears running down my face, while my husband reminded me that the man in question was a hardened, criminal drug lord, even if it was sad his daughter never visited him in prison.  It is surreal watching movies that you know, intellectually, that you have seen before but can only remember small snippets of.  The last movie I saw in a theatre was Pirates of the Caribbean Part Two, and I slept through nearly the whole thing, waking occasionally to see that weird guy with a squid head and a scene where Captain Jack was being chased around an island.  Although I may have dreamed that part.  Was Johnny Depp naked?  And feeding me grapes?  No?  Then I guess I dreamed it.
But Money Never Sleeps was an excellent movie; I would highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in financial markets.  If you aren’t, then I wouldn’t recommend it at all.  It was a very interesting and entertaining view of the 2008 market correction, and I found myself strangely attracted to Michael Douglas, which is nothing short of disturbing given that he is a senior citizen.  Evidently I’ve turned into my mother, who has always thought that Sam Elliott is the bee’s knees, and my response would be “Oh GOD, Mother, he is so OLD, how can you LIKE HIM?”  Well now.
My husband also loved Money Never Sleeps, which is not surprising given that the original Wall Street was a “motivating” movie for him.  Yes, my husband found Wall Street, greed is good, to be “motivating”.  I am not sure how I feel about that, but I guess it’s better than Rocky, or something of that genre.  Although a guy I once dated used to watch Rudy as a motivational movie.  He used to get so choked up in the part where the teammates bring their jerseys in “It’s for Rudy, Coach.”  I remember laughingly telling that story to a male co-worker, then noticed that HE was getting teary eyed as I talked about Rudy finally getting to play.  All of which is to say I just don’t understand.

Blue Monday Cures

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Today is Blue Monday, the day that is scientifically and mathematically proven to be the most depressing of the year.  So let’s fight the power, shall we? 
If the best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing (implied: Christmas songs) loud for all to hear, then C(x) = f(singing), then it follows that the best way to spread non-Christmas cheer is by singing (implied: non-Christmas songs) loud for all to hear, i.e., NC(x) = f(singing N).  So here is your challenge, if you choose to accept it and you are feeling the effects of Blue Monday: sing Tonight’s the Night as loudly, earnestly, and passionately as possible.  You’ll feel better immediately.
 Whenever I think of Tonight’s the Night I always visualize the vinyl record playing, a guy clad only in his leopard print briefs, swaying his hips sensually to the music, blow drying his feathery hair with a large roller brush, singing passionately.  Tonight’s the night, gonna be all right, cause I’m in love with you and ain’t nobody gonna STOP US NOW.  Sometimes I imagine a poster of a red bathing suit clad Farrah Fawcett in the background, or maybe a KISS poster. 
I always wonder if Rod Stewart sings his songs to his various girlfriends/wives.  I wonder if he sang it to this woman just before he impregnated her:
Photo from The Daily Mail

That article shows why it would be difficult to be a celebrity, or married to a celebrity (since I’m not actually sure if she is a celebrity or not).  She looks gorgeous, right?  Yet the comment from The Daily Mail is

Although it was the perfect dress to give her bump plenty of room, it was less than supportive around her bosom which has massively increased as the pregnancy has developed.
Well, thank you Daily Mail.  Bosom?  This is not the 1800’s, we don’t generally refer to it as “bosom” anymore.  Also, clearly the author has never been pregnant, because if there is one thing pregnant women agree on unequivocally, it is the gigantic increase in their bra sizes.  We are all shocked and often dismayed at the enormous breasts we grow, and the bra sizes that we thought were mythical are ours.  Even my one girlfriend who was amazed that she was finally in a B cup, even she was astonished at the massive increase in her bosom.
Honestly, I give this woman kudos for being a gorgeous, ripely pregnant woman being out and about and not wearing a muumuu, house slippers and a pained expression, the garb of any woman in their ninth month of pregnancy.  The article goes on to say 
She didn’t appear to be feeling the cool weather either…(she) went bare-legged and wore flip-flops.
Again, really?  Pregnancy was the one and only time in my life that I wasn’t perpetually cold, and remember how difficult it was to put on shoes?  So yes, Daily Mail, I suppose she probably wasn’t feeling the cool weather as being pregnant is akin to having your own internal furnace turned to “the fires of hell”.  But maybe that’s just me.
On reading this “article”, such as it is, two other things strike me: a) Rod Stewart is 66, and b) he has seven other children, including a five year old.  That’s spreading the musical genes around, no?  I think it would be strange to have such a spread in age between children, but then again I suppose that he is not likely the one who is doing the night feeding and diaper changing.  But maybe he is, I shouldn’t judge.
I shouldn’t judge because I do like his music, sadly.  I especially love to sing If You Want My Body in a Scottish accent, a la Mike Myers in So I Married An Axe Murderer.  I was doing that in my car recently when my friend, of jewelry and belt buckle making fame, walked by.  That was humbling, although she was very non-judgemental about the whole situation.  But I say to you, if you are blue today, on this bluest of Mondays, try it.  Watch this video, sing along, and see if you don’t feel immediately well and happy.        

Censorship: Dire Straits, Little House, and Huckleberry Finn

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Did you hear that “Money for Nothing” is now banned on Canadian radio stations?  Banned!  This is incredibly startling news for me, given that the song originally came out in 1985.  So, twenty-six years later, it has been decided that the word “faggot” – when used by derogatory men who are moving the singer’s fantastic possessions including but not limited to a colour TV and a microwave oven  – is unacceptable and the song must be taken off the air.  Really.  Have you heard “Shake That” by Eminem?  It is possibly the freakiest song ever, given the details about a) getting so drunk that one barfs and then gets drunk again, immediately, b) going to a strip club, c) popping the date rape drug into one of the strippers champagne glasses, d) looking for a slut to fuck in a Hummer truck.  Among other things.  As far as I know, that song is still on the radio, but the word “fuck” is censored.  Thank goodness we have standards.
Censorship is a sticky subject.  Clearly hatred and derogatory terms are not acceptable in this day and age, but is retroactively changing art and literature a fix?  There’s a whole debate currently raging about changing parts of Huckleberry Finn, a novel I never liked, but recognize its importance in American literature.  Is sanitizing art really the thing to do?
Here’s the thing: the n-word currently is used in nearly every hip-hop song by Kanye West and Jay-Z, and a lot of other artists whose names I do not know because I’m pretty out of the loop and I mostly listen to radio stations that play songs like the Pina Colada song and Margaritaville.  Also that song Santa Maria, about everyone on the yacht getting loaded.  I hear that song all the time.  But if the n-word is erased from Huckleberry Finn, then shouldn’t it be taken from rap and hip-hop songs?  Where does it stop?  Should that entire musical genre be banned?
I remember reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was a child.  There was a lot of abject racism in those books, especially in Little House on the Prairie, where the Ingalls family moves to Indian Territory.  The plot of the book is that settlers move to Kansas to take the land from the Indians, and are pretty angry that they are forced to move at the end of the book, as the land is going to remain with the Indians.  There is a lot of fear and hatred in that book.  There are a lot of non-flattering descriptions in that book, about Indians wearing skunk pelts and smelling badly, about Indians stealing all the corn bread and Pa’s tobacco, about terrifying war cries keeping the Ingalls family awake at night. 
But yet it is a time piece.  Those feelings were real.  Those things did happen; settlers did fear and, possibly, hate Indians, white settlers believed that the land was inherently theirs and not the Indians’.  The whites in the book say frequently that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, which is horrifying to modern ears.  But what I also remember about that book is that Pa realizes that there are good people and bad people, whites and Indians both, and he shows immense respect for one person in particular, referred to as the “Osage”.  I remember the Osage catching and killing a panther that was on the prowl. 
“Laura asked if a panther would carry off a little papoose and kill and eat her, too, and Pa said yes.  Probably that was why the Indian had killed that panther.”
Despite the racist undertones, there is a thread of common humanity in that book.  Reading this book today, it strikes me that it is better to use art and literature as tools to teach about the roots of racism – fear and ignorance come to mind – rather than erase and sanitize.   What do you think?