On Notice

No message could have been any clearer

“Have you heard the news?” shouted my cab driver through the plastic divider in the late evening hours of June 25th. “The king is dead, he is gone.” And then he began to cry.

“How are you today?” I asked the woman at the checkout yesterday.  “Oh, today is a bad day, horrible,” she said to me as she handed me my bag.  Peering at me over the register with kohl-black rimmed eyes and runny mascara, she held back tears and whispered “what will the world do without him?”

In Times Square, people gathered under a Jumbotron playing videos from every song on Thriller on an endless loop.  They looked up, snapped pictures of the pictures played on the screen, most remained entirely silent.  A few mouthed the words.  One man stood and held his one-gloved hand in the air, tears streaming silently down his face, crying with his eyes closed.

I’m not sure what to make of this, this deification of a man proved to be entirely human, maybe not entirely good, certainly deeply damaged.  I don’t know that it’s warranted.  I cannot deny, though, that people have been moved and affected in strange and deep ways.

Michael Jackson provided a carefully-choreographed, videographed escape from a cold war with no seeming end,  AIDS, starving babies, exploding nuclear plants and airplanes and space shuttles, an economy in the toilet. He was the 80s, born of drum machines and synthesizers and sparkle and MTV.  His songs didn’t always make a lot of sense, but they made you want to dance until you you didn’t have to think anymore.  Sure, there wasn’t much soul or deeper meaning or heft, but those production values sure were amazing.  Michael became a new media superstar, one who crossed racial and genre lines because his music was so damn catchy, his videos so damn entertaining.

Before our very eyes, he turned into a cultural touchstone by virtue of his dancing shoes.

And then he got weird, turning into a bizarre, sculpted, sad man-child living all alone in an amusement park with a chimp and Elvis’s daughter, the Beatles and the bones of the elephant man.  There were court cases and allegations and tell-all documentaries and it was unchoreographed and uncomfortable and wholly unsynthesized.  The media performed a slow, painful iconoclasm of the very icon they created, maybe with good reason.  All the joy was gone.  It became impossible not to think about what really happened, and no one could dance around to Thriller until they couldn’t think anymore.  The 90s were what was real and painful, a reality that couldn’t be drowned out with a drum machine and a glove and a catchy bass line.

And here we are today in a hopeless, endless cycle of suck, mired in an unending war no one asked for, facing an economy that may never recover, a post-racial America that really isn’t, and maybe we all just needed a reason to cry and gather and listen to Off the Wall and dance like maniacs and be together like we’re kids again, even if it’s only for five minutes.   “Yes we can” has quickly turned into “no we can’t” and maybe we’ll feel just a little bit better if it’s replaced with “annie are you ok?” for just a moment

Yesterday on the outskirts of Central Park, a boombox blasted “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and several dozen people of various ages and races gathered, some crying, some dancing, everyone smiling.  And as I stood there, and tried to decide if these people were crazy or sane, if I wanted to be sad about the death of a man who checked out of reality and humanity a very long time ago, an old lady grabbed my arm and said “come on, you can’t miss this.”  She was right.  I put my hands in the air.  I was crazy and sane and danced until I stopped thinking.

Wolverine, a breakdown

30% – time Hugh Jackman had on no shirt

55% – time Hugh Jackman had on a wifebeater or something approximating a very small tank top

10% – time Hugh Jackman was fully clothed

5% – time Hugh Jackman had on no pants

85% – scenes in the movie in which Hugh Jackman popped his eyebrow/looked angry/had veins popping out of his arms/brooded

5% – scenes in which Hugh Jackman was played by a kid

10% scenes in which Hugh Jackman was unconscious, thus unable to pop his eyebrow.

60% – people in the theater for whom showering was apparently optional/got dressed in the dark/bought their wardrobe at Hot Topic

20% – people who thought the characters in the movie could in fact hear them, thus talking to the screen aloud the entire time, saying helpful things to explain the plot, such as “Oh yeah, he bad.”

0% – how much I care that this was “not faithful to the comic books” and “was a horrible injustice to the character of Wolverine” as stated by the people next to me.

100% – amount of the people sitting next to me who were still virgins

75% amount of time I could smell the odor of the girl next to me, which I described in terms I learned on the Howard Stern Show.

95% – chance of the girl next to me owning cats numbering in the double digits by the time she is 40

100% – scenes involving Tim Riggins that would have been improved if he did not speak and was wearing less clothing

100% – amount of the movie husband hated, amount I thought was fun, cheesy, and entertaining

0% – hot chicks in the movie wearing no shirt or something approximating a very small tank top, thus precipitating my husband’s level enjoyment

Did you feel so empty without me?

I retired from blogging for quite some time because I really didn’t think I had anything profound to contribute to the interwebs.  Frankly, whenever I sat down to write about current events or news or popular culture or even Anderson Cooper, all I could do was type “THE ECONOMY MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT” over and over.

Also, I was pretty sure the world does not need another person with a “hey look at me try to be esoteric and and witty so OMG check out my amazing life events/cutedogs/baybees/boogers/cats/drinking stories” blog.  (Even though my favorite blogs are the ones where people ask me to do just that.)

And then, in the space of a few days, at least five people asked me why I wasn’t blogging anymore.  So I’ve decided to come out of retirement, at least temporarily, and I’m going to try to write at least one entry per week with some kind of practical purpose.  And sure, that purpose might be that I print it out and wipe my ass with it, but I’m giving it a shot.

In the meantime, OMG CHECK OUT MY AMAZING CUTE DOG.

I’m back from the dead

And while I figure out where to begin, enjoy this wordle and see what exactly this blog talks about the most.  I totally expected it to be a giant cloud containing Britney Spears bajingo dogs vodka Aveda Anderson Cooper.

But people, I am deep.

An excerpt from Courage

“Courage” by Robert William Service

Today I opened wide my eyes,
And stared with wonder and surprise,
To see beneath November skies
An apple blossom peer;
Upon a branch as bleak as night
It gleamed exultant on my sight,
A fairy beacon burning bright
Of hope and cheer.

“Alas!” said I, “poor foolish thing,
Have you mistaken this for Spring?
Behold, the thrush has taken wing,
And Winter’s near.”
Serene it seemed to lift its head:
“The Winter’s wrath I do not dread,
Because I am,” it proudly said,
“A Pioneer.

Today, for the first time in eight years, I have hope.

I’m putting you on notice

Decisions are made by those who show up

If you don’t vote, you don’t care.

Don’t show up tomorrow to vote only because of abortion or guns or the economy, and don’t be convinced that you need to vote just because of race or gender or fancy speeches or what your spouse thinks you should do.  At the end of the day, we’re all in this together, regardless of what our political leanings may be.

We’re in this together, and we need to show up, all of us from both sides of the aisle. Right, left, liberal, conservative – and the end of the day, we’re all in this together.

Vote because it’s your responsibility.  Be convinced to do so because it’s your right as an American – probably the only unalterable one remaining on that carefully-measured, rapidly-disappearing list our founding fathers left to us.

It shouldn’t matter how hard it is.

It doesn’t matter how inconvenient it is.

Tomorrow, it might rain.  Your kids might have a meltdown.  You might have a dozen things to do.  You might have the flu.  You might get tied up at work.  You might have to wait in a long line.  You might be able to think of a million reasons that you can’t get to your polling place.

But tomorrow might be historic,  and we might make a huge difference.

You only need one reason to show up: if you don’t vote, you don’t care.

One reason, one vote.

Show up.

West Wing Quote of the Day

Sam: Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

And my sister would like me to add – GO PHILS!

West Wing Quote of the Day

My sister gave me the idea to post a West Wing Quote of the Day during the remaining days of this crazy election.  She is doing all the legwork and providing the quotes; I am simply the conduit for providing you with excessively idealistic, occasionally hilarious snippets.  Frankly, we all could use some excessive idealism and occasional laughter right now.

Our hope is to remind you that regardless of your personal feelings, regardless of your political views, we all live in this country together.  Together, we have the power lift each other up.

I also hope you’re reminded that Rob Lowe is completely smoking hot.

Josh: Tell me democracy doesn’t have a sense of humor. We sit here, we drink this beer out here on the stoop, in violation of about 47 city ordinances. I don’t know, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?

Toby: God bless America.