Women I Can Believe In

No matter how you look at it, it’s been a rough election cycle for women, despite all those cracks in the glass ceiling.

First, we had the historic–and historically messy–candidacy of Hillary Clinton. It’s no secret that I wasn’t exactly a fan of Hill’s during the primary season (and it’s no secret to the point that I can’t link to just one post in which I was railing against her).  While her campaign was historic, I frequently found her tactics disgusting. I don’t have daughters, but I have young female cousins and I frequently work with bright young women. And Hillary Clinton is no longer the role model I would choose for them based on her do-anything, say-anything campaign.

But despite my anger, Hillary redeemed herself to me (at least to some extent) with her speech at the Democratic National Convention. Even if it was all bullshit, even if her heart was breaking, her plea to her supporters–”Was it only about me?”–was wonderful (even if it was delivered in an orange pantsuit. Yikes!). When it truly mattered, Hillary put the Democratic Party–and, given what’s at stake in this election, the country–first, and for that, she’s earned back at least a little of the admiration I had for her during her husband’s administration and her terms in the Senate.

The Republicans, not to be outdone, have also given women a historic candidate in Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. But as far as I’m concerned, the history ends at the fact that Palin has the requisite lady parts. Now, in my opinion, her candidacy is just historically bad. I don’t think I’ve ever so viscerally disagreed with another human being, from her social and economic policies right down to the way she wears her hair.

And then she opened her mouth.

Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention made Hillary Clinton’s worst moments on the campaign trail look like an argument for her cannonization. The Pitbull with Lipstick Who Looks Like Peggy Hill But Sounds Like Judy Tenuda gave one of the most mean-spirited, hateful–not to mention, completely devoid of any substantive policy–speeches I’ve ever seen (And a close second would be the speech Rudy Guiliani gave immediately before Palin’s, but as I lived in the New York in the waning days of his administration, I already knew what a mean, opportunistic prick he was. And besides, we’re talking about the women here.). I was particularly appalled at how both Palin and Guiliani gleefully slammed the role of the “community organizer,” Palin going so far as to say that community organizers don’t have any “real responsibility.” Well, here’s some information for you, Sarah (and Rudy, who, as the former mayor of New York, which is composed of thousands of small communities, should really know better than to make fun of the work that these people do)–guess where community organizers do most of their work? Churches. That’s right–churches, you self-righteous, Evangelical, holier-than-thou crazy woman. But I’m guessing that someone who embraces the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” probably isn’t too concerned with the least among us unless we’re sending them to do “God’s will” in Iraq or trying “reprogram” them if they’re gay.

So when you’ve been let down by Hillary and Sarah scares the living hell out of you, what’s a politically-inclined girl to do?

Well, I’ll tell you which women I can currently get behind in this election–Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the McCain campaign has been using the Heart song “Barracuda” as Sarah Palin’s theme song. And even after the Wilson sisters asked them to stop using the song, they went ahead and used it again during the last night of the convention, prompting the sisters to release this statement (and note how they point out the irony in the Republicans using the song–which doesn’t exactly have the most positive message–to promote their girl). 

So kudos to the Wilson sisters for doing what the media apparently isn’t ready to do–stand up to the McCain campaign. Thanks to Ann and Nancy for showing me that there are still some females out there I can believe in. Hell–in light of the farce that this election season has become all around, let’s just go all in–Ann and Nancy Wilson ‘08, Independent Party candidates (And I just arbitrarily put Ann before Nancy–I’ll let them work out the order of the ticket for themselves). Women unite!

And considering that Nancy is married to Cameron Crowe, at least we know the convention videos will be interesting.

On a Rocky Mountain Oyster High…

While his usual Sunday morning column may be abbreviated due to his presence in Denver for the Democratic Convention, Jason Linkins is on fire with the funny this morning. And I think he may have set the record for Most Mentions of Fried Bull Testicles in One Blog Article (because I’m sure someone, somewhere is keeping track of those stats).

I so wish I was in Denver right now, and not just because I might be lucky enough to run into Jason Linkins and Chuck Todd and buy them a round of brews and Rocky Mountain Oysters. Frankly, it’s been a long time since I’ve been excited for a Democratic Convention (okay–it’s actually the first time I’ve been excited for a political convention, Democratic or otherwise). And I’d just love to actually be where the action is, right in the middle of all of it.

Instead, I’ll be on the couch, most likely enjoying a few adult beverages and watching history unfold. That is, of course, in between screaming at the punditocracy for wondering what’s so wrong with Obama that he’s not blowing McCain out of the water.

Actually, I have a theory about why Obama’s not blowing McCain out of the water at this point (and I have to give partial credit to my infinitely smart and wise spouse here, because we came up with this theory together). And it’s a theory that dovetails with my theory as to why Obama chose Joe Biden–the older white guy who’s been a senator for nearly forty years and appears to some to be the antithesis to Obama’s “change message”–as his running mate.

And the theory goes like this: No matter what people say, the majority of Americans aren’t ready for “Change We Can Believe In.” What they really want is “Change we can kind of sort of deal with because we know the country’s been headed in the wrong direction and I really wanna like this Obama guy but he’s black and that kind of bothers me–not that I’m racist or anything–and then I also hear he might be a secret Muslim which is sort of weird and then he’s also got that crazy pastor and all these other shady people in Chicago who he maybe kinda sorta hung out with once or twice and that wife of his really has a mouth on her. But he’s got cute kids, though.”

So for the aforementioned Americans–Ladies and Gentlemen, Joe Biden. Obama/Biden–Change You Can Deal With. Biden is a white, working-class Catholic who speaks his mind and is, therefore, prone to the occasional verbal slip-up. Most people can identify with more aspects of Biden’s personality and biography than not, thus making him the perfect person to persuade Americans who are still suspicious of or undecided about Obama to get on board the change train.

And speaking of people who are suspicious, here’s a little note to the Hillary supporters out there who are still angry that she isn’t the nominee/isn’t the VP pick/hasn’t been anointed Queen of the Universe: She lost. Get over it. The DNC did not “disenfranchise” you. The constitution does not cover voting rights in presidential primaries, so if the DNC had suddenly decided in the middle of the primary season that they wanted the nominee to be determined by a WWE Smackdown, then that’s what would have happened (and personally, I’d like to see that happen in 2012, because wouldn’t that be interesting?). You’ll get your moment at the convention and Hillary will presumably give a speech in which she tells all of you for the forty-thousandth time to back the party candidate. So after that, could we maybe all just believe her and get on board before you hand the election to John “I have a proven record of not doing shit for women other than letting them buy me houses” McCain? Please?

So yeah–there are a few reasons as to why Obama’s not blowing McCain away right now and why all the pundits will spend next week foaming at the mouth about what needs to happen during the convention for Obama to really start to run away with the race. None of these reasons preclude the fact, however, that Obama has been ahead of McCain this entire time. Seriously–if you watch the talking heads on the TeeVee, you’d think that Obama’s behind and has no hope of catching up and what the fuck’s wrong with him anyway? But really, what fun would this campaign season be for the pundits if Obama were absolutely smoking McCain’s ass right now? Because as we all know horserace = ratings. But as Chuck Todd has reminded us on several occasions, even a slight lead in the polls can translate to a landslide in the electoral college. And as we all should know by now, electoral math is the only math that matters.

Well, okay, I’m just rambling right now. Maybe I’m just incoherent because I’m sad that I’m not in Denver, and I’m probably a little dizzy from hunger right now as well, so I should probably eat. Fried bull testicles, anyone?

Things I Learned While in the Midst of a Hellacious Writer’s Block…

I haven’t posted much to the blog lately, and it’s not because I’ve been writing like crazy in other forums. I just haven’t been writing at all. Nothing. Period. And as much as I’d like to blame my writer’s block on stress at my non-blogging-job-that-actually-pays-me or maybe something wacky in my personal life, neither would be the case. I just seem to be trapped in some inexplicable state that leads me to stare longingly at a blinking cursor on a computer screen, hoping that words magically appear.

But the words don’t magically appear, and then I have to engage in some classic avoidance behavior. So now that I’m forcing myself to sit back down at the computer and write something, anything, I’ll give a full report on what I learned today while I was avoiding trying to write:

1. Everything on my IPod sucks. Everything.

Remember how Bruce Springsteen once sang about “fifty-seven channels and nothing on”? That’s pretty much how I feel about my iPod right now. Music usually helps me write, but not today. I have nearly one-thousand songs on my iPod and I’ve wasted at least three hours today fast-forwarding through my shuffled tracks to the point that I think my thumb fell off ten minutes ago and I just didn’t feel it. All the while, I’m hoping for that one magic song that will shake me out of my writing lethargy. Even the Dave Matthews Band, who have helped me conquer writer’s block on several occasions going all the way back to that Long Dark Night of the Soul otherwise known as Writing My Dissertation, are letting me down today, so I know I’m at condition critical.

But wait–it gets worse, because I also discovered over two hours this afternoon that…

2. The Delta Force may be one of the shittiest movies ever made.

 Yes, you read that right. The Delta Force. Staring Chuck Norris. And also starring Lee Marvin and Martin Balsam and Shelly Winters and a whole bunch of other people who should have known better but were apparently looking for a paycheck back in 1986. 

Brief plot synopsis: Flight is hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. Plane lands in Lebanon. Women and children are released. Men are held hostage in Beirut. The Delta Force is called in to rescue the hostages. Lee Marvin barks orders, Chuck Norris kicks ass, hundreds of Arabs die violently while only one Delta Force soldier is killed, the American hostages are rescued and everyone sings “God Bless America” at the end.

The Delta Force is just the kind of movie that I find incredibly icky yet still end up surrendering two hours of my life to for the simple reason that said movie stars Chuck Norris. The same icky-but-fascinating principle also applies to marathons of Walker, Texas Ranger on the Hallmark Channel, the common denominator being, of course, Chuck Norris. So I’ll just go ahead and admit it–I’ll watch anything Chuck Norris does, because it’s bound to be chock full of roundhouse kicks, worthless dialogue, and an over-the-top “Yay America! Testosterone rules!” message. His oeuvre is so against everything I stand for as a human being that the only recourse I have is to laugh hysterically at his awesome ass-kickingness.

However, the two most unintentionally hilarious moments in the movie weren’t courtesy of Chuck Norris. The first occurs when Rat Packer Joey Bishop, as one of the hostages, looks out the window of the school where they are being held and describes visiting Beirut twenty years before, telling his fellow captives that it was “the Las Vegas of the Middle East.” And no, I wasn’t particularly laughing at the fact that a real-life Rat Packer was making a Vegas reference while in character. I was laughing at the fact that he made the reference while looking out a window. Looking out a window that was at street level where anyone could see him. Did I mention that he was being held hostage? Yes?

The second unintentionally funny moment for me was a continuity screw-up that I noticed isn’t listed on IMDB. After the hostages have been rescued, they return to the hijacked plane for a flight to Israel. Nearly every seat is filled with a rescued male hostage, which would be impossible since there were a whole bunch of women and children sitting in those seats who were released from the flight when the terrorists forced it to land. Not to mention the fact that as all the hostages were taking up the seats, the Delta Force guys would have had to stand up for the entire flight, and you know if there had been a flight attendant on board, no one was gonna get away with that.

So, yeah–The Delta Force was two hours of my life that I’m not getting back, and two hours of my life that I could have spent writing a screenplay that was vastly superior to The Delta Force. But I didn’t (or couldn’t). And apparently I hadn’t yet reached my testosterone quotient for the day because I started flipping channels and discovered that…

3. NBC is now airing wrestling on Saturday nights.

I’m not kidding. Wrestling. And I’m not talking Greco-Roman wrestling here. I’m talking about the kind of wrestling where the first twenty minutes of the match is taken up with guys walking around the ring trying to whip the crowd into a frenzy by glaring at them and flexing their muscles. The kind of wrestling that finds guys likely named Rocky or Bubba sitting in the crowd wearing the faces of their favorite warriors on black t-shirts. The kind of wrestling that some people (not me) think is every bit as real as Greco-Roman wrestling rather than some sort of carefully choreographed entertainment spectacle. In fact, they may actually think Greco-Roman wrestling is less real, seeing as how that kind of wrestling is just guys rolling around on the floor in tights, which is just kind of weird and lame and possibly gay (again, this opinion is not my opinion).

Seeing as Chuck Norris was not involved, I watched approximately five minutes of this monstrosity–just long enough to see some guy sporting questionable facial hair and wearing what appeared to be a wet suit give a body slam to some other guy who, frankly, looked just like the first guy, only without the wet suit and the striped chin hair. Yawn.

All this male aggression left me a little hungry, so I wandered into the kitchen where I learned that…

4. Oh my f–king God, I’m a human garbage disposal.

In my effort to avoid going back upstairs to my office to face that infernal blinking cursor and the blank page on which it resides, I managed to somehow ingest the entire contents of my kitchen. I’ll spare you the cataloging of what I ate for the simple reason that not only might you throw up, but I might also throw up if I have to live it all over again in print. And right now, I’m trying desperately to avoid that scene at the end of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Burp.

And so I certainly didn’t learn The Meaning of Life in my day of avoiding my computer, but I was reminded of the fact that I will do absolutely anything to shirk writing when I find that the muse isn’t with me on a particular day.

Tomorrow, I’ll be left with weed-eating and scrubbing toilets. I pray that the muse returns, although I’ll have nothing left in the kitchen to feed her if she does.

This Breakfast Club Makes Me Want to Puke

I saw this new JC Penny commercial four times last night, and each time I just about hurled up my dinner. This ad disturbs me on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. So I’ll just dive right in:

1. Memo to corporate America: Please stop co-opting my childhood to sell your stupid crap.

It’s already bad enough that I can hardly listen to The Who without seeing scenes from CSI: Whatever in my head (nothing like some bad David Caruso acting to ruin a rousing “Won’t Get Fooled Again”). But now JC Penny has to go and destroy one of my favorite movies of all time–The Breakfast Club–in an attempt to sell back-to-school clothes. And, yes–I’m not so naive that I don’t realize that the artists are culpable here as well–The Who’s songs don’t just magically appear over the credits of a TV show, and I’m assuming that some licensing agreement was made in order to recreate scenes from The Breakfast Club (although, the scenes aren’t recreated exactly as they are in the movie and for my money, the whole thing falls under the definition of a parody, thus making this train wreck absolutely legal regardless of permissions).

But while parody is one thing (I love it when shows like Family Guy make fun of ’80s institutions, because it’s like a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge to their audience. Plus, it’s usually hysterical), taking iconic songs and films from the past and using them to market a TV show or sell clothes always seems a little…well…gross to me somehow. In fact, I’m usually less inclined to watch whatever show or buy whatever product because I’m just rubbed so completely the wrong way.

So if somebody decides to start using “Hungry Like the Wolf” to sell popcorn, then I guess I’m fucked because two of my favorite things will be ruined for me.

2. Just who the hell is the audience for this thing anyway?

When the time came to buy fall clothes in my house, my mom and I (and later, once I started working, just me) would go to the mall and we’d just veer wherever I found clothes that suited whatever I thought was cool at the time (and then she’d say, “You’re not planning on buying that, are you?” or “I am not buying that for you.” And then we’d fight and then I’d end up with clothes I totally hated and people would laugh at me. But I digress.). But regardless of who was actually purchasing the clothes, the point here is that I was the consumer–I was the one making the decisions about what stores to enter and what clothes to look at, at least initially.

And as today’s teens have more money than ever (whether earned or given to them by their parents), they have awesome power as consumers. So why did JC Penny choose to ape a movie that was released before any of them were born (and let’s just have a moment of silence over the fact that The Breakfast Club was first released nearly twenty-five years ago. Sigh.)? While I know that the film has endured in the pop culture cannon, would most tweens and teens get the reference (and I know some particularly savvy kids probably would, but what about the kids who are ingesting a daily diet of Hannah Montana or Lil’ Wayne or Fall Out Boy or the Jonas Brothers or whatever travesty is coming down the pike these days. Would they get it?)? And even if they get it, will it make them want to rush headlong into a JC Penny for some cool threads?

I thought that perhaps the target audience for the ad was maybe the parents of the kids rather than the kids themselves (and let’s have another moment of silence to observe the fact that people my age are actually old enough to have kids in high school). But again, while the parents may control the purse strings, the kids are the ones who are actually yanking the purse strings around the mall. And I could be misremembering things here, but I don’t recall my mother and I ever entering a particular store on the strength of a commercial that mimicked scenes from Rebel Without a Cause  or Tammy.

So, um, yeah–the audience thing baffles me.

3. And don’t even get me started on the kids in this commercial. Oh, wait…here I go…

The point of The Breakfast Club was that regardless of whatever high school stereotype we exemplified on the outside–the brain, the jock, the princess, the criminal, or the basket case–we were all dealing with the same emotional black holes on the inside. I always thought that the message was why the film became such a classic. I mean, what teenager can’t relate to that sentiment? And I know that personally, thinking about the film helped me get through those rough patches in high school when I thought that the popular kids couldn’t possibly understand anything that my friends and I were about–I’d think back on the movie and try to remember that deep down, we were all just human beings of about the same age, trying to deal with the same shit in our own ways.

Um, so thanks, JC Penny, for ruining the message of the film for me. As you can see if you watch the clip, not only are the kids in this Breakfast Cluster-Fuck the same on the inside, they’re the same on the outside, too, all of them looking like the preppy spawn of princess Claire Standish and jock Andrew Clark. The girl who gets to recreate the iconic Allison (the basket case) scene of her pouring pixie stix onto a sandwich made of bread and Cap’n Crunch is wearing a pink dress. A pink dress, for the love of all that’s holy. Somewhere, Ally Sheedy is probably crying. I know I am, anyway. And nowhere in this ad does there appear to be a nerdy Brian or a rebellious Bender (and no, young man who thrusts your fist in the air as you are leaving the school at the end of the commercial–you are no John Bender).  All of these kids are as nicely-dressed (of course–it’s a clothing ad) and freshly-scrubbed as your local church youth group. John Bender wouldn’t have hesitated to put a cigarette out on one of their foreheads.

So JC Penny takes a film with a moving message about getting beyond typical teenage alienation and twists that into “Buy our clothes, and you’ll look cool just like these kids.” Barf.

As it’s July, I’m assuming I’ll have to either endure this insult of a commercial until late August or early September or stop watching TV altogether, and as option #2 isn’t likely, I guess I’ll just have to let this ad stoke my anger. And I haven’t even touched on the awful remake of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” by “pop-punk” outfit New Found Glory (“Pop-punk.” Bleh. I’m still waiting for the day Johnny Rotten blows snot on the New Found Glorys and Avril Lavignes of the world and they run away crying). Nor have I touched on the fact that the Shermer High School in the ad doesn’t look like the Shermer High School in the movie (which was actually two different suburban Chicago high schools in the original film, because as Jay reminds us in Dogma, “There is no Shermer, Illinois.”). There’s just not enough space in one blog posting to go off in detail on everything that offends me about this commercial.

But at least they tried to get the old-school Illinois licesnse plates right. So boo-yah to you, JCP, for making the effort.

Top Ten Signs of Chuck Todd Withdrawl

With primary season over, Chuckolytes are seeing a lot less of the Chuckster on the TeeVee these days. Therefore, fans of Chuckie T may find themselves experiencing symptoms of Chuck Todd Withdrawl.

How do you know if you’re experiencing Chuck Todd Withdrawl? Check to see if you are suffering from any of the symptoms below and if so, please direct your web browser to Viva Chuck Todd immediately.

The Top Ten Signs of Chuck Todd Withdrawl are:

10. You find yourself staring wistfully at maps of the United States.

9.  You find yourself signing documents with a big red dry-erase marker.

8.  You find yourself thinking about growing a goatee (men) or wishing you could (women).

7.  You start taking sick days from work so you can watch MSNBC from Morning Joe until Verdict, hoping for just the briefest glimpse of The Chuck.

6.  You see Chuck Norris and yell “Chuck Todd!” and then say “Oh…wait…never mind…”

5.  You set MSNBC’s “First Read” as your web browser’s default home page and refresh every ten seconds.

4.  You find yourself missing Chris Matthews calling Chuck the Spock to his Kirk.

3.  You find yourself saying “You got it” whenever your friends thank you for something.

2. You find yourself applying “delegate math” to everything (“My checkbook will balance once crucial counties around Philadelphia have reported.”)

And the Number One sign of Chuck Todd Withdrawl:

1. You find yourself watching Pat Buchanan and thinking “You know, maybe this guy’s okay after all.”