First-World Problems

I read two online articles today that illustrate just how different one's circumstances can be in life based on where one lives.

The first article was about how some parents were complaining online and to the manufacturer that their kid's Hatchimals haven't hatched as expected. One person tweeted that Christmas had been ruined for one of her kids because of the lack of Hatchimal hatching. Really? Christmas was ruined because a toy malfunctioned? People like this need to get a grip. If you let a toy ruin Christmas for you or your kids, then you don't understand what Christmas is about. #firstworldproblems

The second article I read was about how a lack of feminine hygiene products in certain developing countries, like Uganda, forces girls out of school. When you live in the United States where there are a plethora of tampons, pads, whatever at your nearest drug store/grocery store/Walmart to purchase, you sometimes forget that every woman doesn't have access to these kinds of products. People living in some remote part of Africa or India can't just walk or drive to the nearest Walgreens and pick up a pack of pads. These women often don't have access to basic sanitary goods that we are able to purchase freely and plentifully here in the States. 

Not Again

Once again, we mourn the loss of another musical superstar this year. When I heard about George Michael's death yesterday, I was stunned. I knew he'd been ill in the past, but I thought he had recovered. As a teenager in the 1980s, I loved Wham. I had a "Choose Life" sweatshirt and several Wham records. And when George became a solo singer, I still followed him and his music. This year has been terrible for a variety of reasons (celebrity deaths included). I'm sure I'm not alone in being ready to put this year in my rear view and move on from it. Hopefully 2017 will be better, but with the governmental changes coming, I'm not so sure about that. However, I am trying to remain optimistic because, really, what else can you do? Curl up in a ball and refuse the leave the house?

In other non-celebrity-death-related news, I saw the movie Fences yesterday. I was shocked at how crowded the theater was for the movie. Did everyone decide to go to the movies on Christmas? Apparently. The first theater my sister and I went to was sold out so we drove to another theater and were able to get tickets. The movie was great (albeit a little too long) and the performances were powerful. I hadn't read the August Wilson play before seeing the movie, so I had no idea what was going to happen in the film and I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time. I went from having sympathy for Denzel Washington's character to wanting to strangle him for being such a hard-ass. My only real complaint was that the kid who played the younger son in the movie just wasn't up to par with the other actors. He couldn't hold his own against Denzel and Viola Davis and I wish a more seasoned young actor had been cast in his place. Maybe Michael B. Jordan would have done a better job with the role.

RIP, George Michael.

Merry, Merry, Merry

Merry Christmas. If you don't celebrate the holiday, enjoy your day off. Hopefully you're not working. I'm looking forward to a day of eating, drinking, relaxing, writing, and watching Godzilla movies on the El Ray network. However you choose to spend the holiday, have a great one.

Party Poopers

I've been reading (with glee) news stories about performers turning down invitations to perform at Trump's inauguration. I'm surprised that he actually thought he'd get A-list talent to perform. What world has he been living in? When you pick a VP who believes in gay conversion therapy and wants businesses to be able to discriminate against gays and lesbians based on their religious beliefs, you cut out a huge demographic in the performing arts. On top of that, you run on a platform of racism, bigotry, sexism, etc. What performer in his or her right mind would agree to show up and sing for that kind of platform? Put politics aside for a moment and just think of the financial blowback any inauguration performer would receive if they performed at this event. Skipping the inauguration is, for many I'm sure, a business decision. A-listers don't want to lose money because half of their fans decide to boycott them for performing at Trump's inauguration. I'm surprised Trump isn't able to wrangle a few country singers to perform. Is he so toxic that he can't even get Carrie Underwood or Garth Brooks to show up? Apparently. Well, there's always Ted Nugent and Kid Rock. Thanks, Michigan.

Shut It!

Some people, as we all know, really need to shut it and limit expressing their private thoughts publicly. Today's candidates are, repeat offenders, Lena Dunham and Bill O'Reilly. I read that Dunham recently stated during an interview that she wishes she'd had an abortion. Huh? Who wishes something like that? It didn't take long for Dunham to apologize after she was publicly shamed for her statement. It seems like almost every time Dunham opens her mouth, she ends up apologizing for whatever stupid, ill-conceived statement she made. It amazes me that this woman has an entertainment career in front of the camera (and that's not an insult about her looks--that's an insult about her whole person). And recently Bill O'Reilly stated on his show that the "left" wants to take power away from the "white establishment." Say what now? What world does he think we're living in? This isn't the 1950s anymore, Bill. The last time I checked, the citizens of our country and its government is made up of all kinds of people and, guess what, they're not all white! When I hear the kind of diarrhea of the mouth that comes from people like Dunham and O'Reilly who have a public platform, I wonder if these folks are just trying to get some publicity. Clearly, they can't be that clueless, can they?

Anti-Social Media

There was a question in the advice column of today's edition of the Chicago Tribune where a reader who'd been invited to a party via social media and accepted the invitation via social media found out that another party invitee announced that he/she wouldn't attend the party if the reader would be there because the invitee didn't like the reader. The reader was wondering how to respond to such a rude statement. My advice would have been to tell the person who didn't want to attend the party if I'd be there to go f*** themselves. The whole scenario got me thinking about people who come back into your life via social media and how to deal with those you don't like. Because I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, I'm able to avoid a lot of people I no longer want to have anything to do with. I think I shut my Facebook page down in 2010 or 2011 and never looked back. I do miss seeing updates from family members and old friends and coworkers, but I don't miss having to deal with people I really didn't like in the past and have no desire to reconnect with in the future. I was thinking about a woman I used to work with in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s. I never liked this woman. She was stuck up and a bitch, yet many people in the company gravitated towards her. Why, I don't know. Maybe others in the office saw something in her that I didn't. I never told this woman that I didn't care for her. I just avoided her and minded my own business. I certainly didn't kiss her ass like others in the company did. I remember being at a housewarming party for one employee and this woman was there dancing (jerking, really, because she couldn't dance) to Blondie's "Heart of Glass." Ugh. Now if this woman came to me today via some form of social media that I am still connected to, I wouldn't just ignore her request to reconnect. I would tell her, "I didn't like you twenty years ago when we worked together and I doubt I'd like you now, twenty years later." The same goes for one of my old supervisors, a woman who pops up on social media every now and then as someone I might now. Yeah, I know her all right and, given the opportunity to reconnect with her, I'd tell her to go pound sand also, but I suspect she's smart enough to never step into my life again. It's not like I'd ever use her as a reference. Luckily, during my tenure at that particular job, I had four different supervisors, so I don't need to rely on this particular one for anything. Some bridges were meant to be burned, folks.

Owner of a Lonely Heart

I've been going through a nostalgic musical period for the past week (or two) and my latest song crush is "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes. I remember when the video for this song (which is great, by the way) was played in heavy rotation on MTV (back in the days when MTV actually showed music videos). Now when I hear the song, I can't help thinking about that scene from the movie The Break-Up where Jennifer Aniston's brother sings a verse of the song during dinner. Hilarious. Check it out on You Tube if you haven't seen it.

What's so great about "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is the music. The guitar, the bridge, the beat...they're all great. I went on iTunes recently to sample other Yes songs because I wasn't familiar with any of their songs other than "Owner" and now I know why. I didn't find any other songs by the band that I was interested in. Yes is an acquired taste and, clearly, it's not my taste.

No Workout for You!

I was at the Y after work today and a young boy, probably about 10 years old or so, got on the exercise machine next to mine and his mother got on the machine next to his. During this mother/son workout session, the kid kept coughing. At first, the coughing wasn't bad, but as time passed, it became worse. The kid wasn't even covering his mouth every time he hacked either. Gross. Anyway, after one particularly long hacking session, I finally gave the kid and his mom a look and inadvertently ended up shaming them into ending their workout early. Soon after I gave them the both the eye, mother and son got off the machines, she gave him some water from her bottle, they put their coats on, and they left. I didn't mean to shame them into leaving. In fact, I was about to ask the kid if he was okay because his coughing was that bad, but he and his mom packed it in before I had the chance and that was probably for the best. That kid was too sick to be working out and his mom should have known that. Given the way he was hacking, he needed to be at home. What I found interesting was that the kid was a little overweight while the mom was very slim and trim and the writer in me wondered if she had forced him to go to the Y for a workout even though he, clearly, shouldn't have been working out today. I hope that kid is able to get some cough syrup and some rest tonight.

Year of the Cat

While I was reading through the threads on one of the many blogs I read each week, there was one that discussed great forgotten and/or obscure songs and one of the songs that came up frequently was Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat." Now if you read my blog with any regularity, you'll know that I'm a big fan of 1970s mush rock music so it's no surprise that I'm a huge fan of "Year of the Cat." I thought for sure I had a copy of this song somewhere in my arsenal of 1970s CDs but, alas, I do not. So I was forced to buy it through iTunes. What's so great about "Year of the Cat" isn't Al Stewart's singing, but the musical arrangement. The piano parts are great and so is the cello in the middle. This song has everything! Piano, cello, guitar, a sax solo. They just don't make songs like this anymore and it's a shame. Few artists now have a huge arrangement of musicians accompanying them. I read up on "Year of the Cat" over the weekend and found out that Alan Parsons produced the song. I didn't know that.

In other news, it's snowing here but I did venture out for a walk so I could see how beautiful everything looks before it all turns to slush.

The Kennedys...Again?

How many movies, television specials, and documentaries are going to be made about the Kennedys? When I saw the trailer for the latest film about Jackie Kennedy, I wondered, Why was this made? Haven't there been enough movies about the Kennedys? Haven't they been analyzed and autopsied enough? Who do filmmakers think are the target audience for a movie about Jackie? Baby boomers? Surely not young people today. They probably don't care and, really, why should they? As for the rest of us (and even I wasn't born during Kennedy's presidency and assassination and I'm middle-aged!), we've had the Kennedys shoved down our throats for decades and I know more than I ever wanted to know about that family. Is this the best Hollywood can do? Move on already.

Tired Already

Don the Con isn't even officially POTUS yet, and I'm already tired of him. Every day there's some new ridiculous Tweet or some stupid statement for the media to salivate over. And, speaking of the media, they're largely dead to me at this point, particularly the cable news channels. CNN, as I've said before, is a joke now and unwatchable. Zucker took his stink of failure from NBC over to CNN and stank that joint up too. And MSNBC isn't immune either. I've just about had it with Morning Joe. If Joe and Mika aren't kissing Donald's ass they're play-fighting with him. Get a room already! (Fox doesn't even register because I don't listen to that noise. I used to watch O'Reilly for kicks, but I haven't done that in years.) When I want national news now, I'll turn to PBS. (RIP, Gwen Ifill.) I'm convinced that part of the reason for Don's win was due to the news media who covered every bizarro thing he said or Tweeted and just gave him hours and hours of free publicity. These media moguls (the cable ones, in particular) loved covering Trump because he brought them good ratings. They saw a cash cow and they milked it.

Monkey Business

I'm so tired of reading about racists (yes, that's what they are) who refer to black people as monkeys and then say, "But I'm not racist!" The latest case involving a doctor in Denver who posted on Facebook that Michelle Obama has a "monkey face" claimed she didn't know saying a black woman resembled a monkey was racist. As Judge Judy would say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" These folks know damn well that referring to black folks as monkeys is racist. I remember when I was a teenager working as a cashier at KMart in Southfield, Michigan, one of my fellow employees, a young white woman, told me that another employee, a young black man, looked like a monkey. She prefaced it with something ridiculous like, "I'm not racist, but..." and then the monkey business started. Now why this woman felt the need to share her racism with me (a black woman) is unknown, but she went there. I just rolled my eyes and walked away. Now, I would have told that chick off. Now, it probably wouldn't have happened and I can only hope that woman grew up, saw the error of her ways, got her shit together, and stopped being racist. (Maybe she didn't, but I hope she did.) I'm just tired of people saying racist things and then claiming they're not racist. Yes, you are, folks. Own it or change your ways and disown it. Be the change, people. Be the change.

Consequences and Repercussions

I read today that Kellogg's is pulling its advertising from a bigoted, racist, sexist, (insert word here)-ist site (that shall remain nameless here because I'm not giving them any more publicity than they already have) and now the site's creators and others who love the site and worship at the feet of its leader are on the rampage, calling for people to boycott the cereal chain. How dare Kellogg's pack up and take their advertising dollars elsewhere? How dare they not advertise on a website that consistently belittles racial minorities, women, gays, and anyone who isn't a straight, white, Christian man? I say, good for Kellogg's! The company has the right to advertise wherever it sees fit and pull its advertising when it sees fit. Apparently the geniuses at the offending website don't understand how free speech works. Everyone always wants to jump up and scream about free speech, but these same folks don't seem to understand that there are consequences and repercussions to free speech. Sure, you can say what you want, but be prepared for blowback to your business, your career, your life, etc. when you choose to use your free speech platform to denigrate others. Hitting bigots where they live (in the pocketbook) is a good way to shut them down. You can't keep a bigoted website going with no advertising cashflow. Well, maybe they can get some wealthy donors from the incoming administration to float them a few bucks to make up for the advertising losses from Kellogg's and other businesses that have chosen to advertise elsewhere. Hearing the news about Kellogg's made me go out and buy a new box of Crispix today. (I was running low anyway.)