However, it became apparent during my second week on the job that Oscar is a particular fan of mine, though as I intimated above, there is no reason on Earth why our work should ever intertwine. I am not insensible to the fact that at the age of almost 32, I am one of the younger folks in this elder-skewing environment, another bonus of my employment here. Obviously, Oscar noted this anomaly well before I did.
Anderson Cooper and His Tight T-Shirt Get to the Gulf! (June 17, 2010)
If Obama is still searching for a way to take the national temperature, to figure out “whose ass to kick,” as he famously said last week of his response to the BP oil spill and ensuing environmental crisis, he just needs to follow the biceps. Whenever trouble lurks, wherever humanity has taken a heartbreaking tumble, the “Silver Fox” and his field uniform of form fitting designer jeans and pec-stretched t-shirt will be. Apparently windblown hair and a serious face are the weapons of mass destruction needed to “keep them honest.”
President Obama is not a bad looking guy himself, and we know he keeps in shape – all that “Buff Bam” vacationing in Hawaii coverage. So it’s a wonder that in the midst of the PR mess his administration finds themselves in, accusations of being slow to respond to the Gulf catastrophe, not showing enough empathy and acting as the handmaiden to big business, Obama’s people have never thought to rip a page out of AC’s playbook.
As Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winning author and presidential historian stated as part of a panel discussion on last Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” “President Reagan knew the value of photos.” She alluded to the idea that if the BP catastrophe had happened on his watch, the Gipper would have made sure he was documented in his work shirt, talking to the Gulf’s “real people” on a daily basis.
But Obama is a curious case. For a man who harnessed the viral powers of the Internet throughout his campaign in ways that other candidates could only envy, a man who seems to understand intuitively that listening to the people who put him office is vital to his success, he has a curiously arrogant and disdainful attitude toward the media. This is not serving him well. Reagan, who I revile personally, was however, inarguably cuddly with the press and the American people. Though his policies may have stuck a knife in the back of our nation’s future, he had this way of making you believe in a kindly, disinterested love of the regular guy.
America needs a little cuddling right about now. Unemployment rates are stuck, with no immediate hope of falling. People are worried and scared. The middle class American dream is in danger of slipping through the fingers of so many, and on top of that, our geographic treasures, such as the Gulf and the beaches of Pensacola are imperiled. Is anything sacred anymore? But instead of connecting with us, President Obama comes off as curiously truculent and annoyed. That may be reflective of the national mood but it is not what we need at this moment in history. Where is that decided, active hope?
I began this post by taking a good natured poke at Anderson Cooper, or “Old Smoldering Blue Eyes (OSBE),” as my good friend Diane calls him. But there is a reason I invoked his studly example. AC gets it. He understands that in the midst of a local or international crisis (Katrina, the Earthquake in Haiti, trouble in the Gulf), America wants to see a virile, somber visage, on the ground talking to people, raising awareness, and providing the televised appearance of making things happen. Sitting in the Oval Office on a Tuesday night asking the nation to pray just doesn’t fill that need. God doesn’t know how to fix this mess either. When did “Yes, We Can” become an inert heavenly plea?
Get thee to an Abercrombie & Fitch, Barack!
Katy Perry Is Ruining My Life (June 15, 2010)
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Ever since I made the mistake of telling my husband Eddie that pop singer Katy Perry had gifted a birthday trip to space to her English fiancé, comedian/actor Russell Brand, I have opened myself up to endless complaints that I am not a supportive wife. It’s not like Brand is going to physically walk the moon. He’s just going to shoot up above the Earth’s atmosphere, have a look below and float in a gravity-less environment for a bit, before heading back down to the ground.
Apparently, I am the ultimate shrew because I believe rocket launches to be historically unsafe (Apollo-13, the Challenger disaster) and I have this thing about liking my hubby better alive than dead. I would think he’d be flattered, but no, he thinks I ought to support his sense of adventure, come what may. This from a man who informed me yesterday that he couldn’t possibly take me to a theme park because he doesn’t “like to hang upside down.” What does he think will happen in a rocket? Then there’s the small matter of my not having 100k to spare for Eddie’s Big Adventure.
As tiresome a wife as I am, I was not content to burst this dream bubble and call it a weekend. I also had to put the kibosh on Eddie’s desire to “make a record and go on tour.” Oh, did I lay the blame solely on Katy Perry for bringing marital discord into my home? My bad, I should have included Matthew Morrison, aka “Mr Schu” from the hit Fox television show Glee in my complaint. With his dapper wardrobe, magnificently crafted hair, banging beach body and smooth vocals, my husband has discovered a new 30-something American Idol. On a TV show full of talented high school singers and dancers, it is Mr. Schu who has walked away with Eddie’s heart. He has managed to accomplish the unthinkable, according to my youth-is-everything spouse. He has made a grown man with a day job look sexy and glamorous. Somehow however, I don’t see my husband’s co-workers in the IT consulting field joining him in a glass breaking rendition of “Dream On,” no matter how fun that idea might sound. IT workers are notoriously vanilla.
This got me wondering if grown men ever leave behind the little boy inside. And if not, is this a good or bad thing? In my husband’s case, I choose the former because it is his refusal to disregard “maybe” that keeps him so engaged, active and interesting. Though he has toiled for seven years as a successful software engineer, a career in which he becomes more expert and entrenched with each passing year, there remains a side of him that credulously believes it is possible to chuck it all one day to become an astronaut or a rock star. I like this. He has yet to grow cynical. May he never, despite my nihilistic influence.
Gotta run. I think I hear Eddie tying a bungee cord to our balcony.
The Catch-22 Of Manners (June 12, 2010)
Whenever I pick up a Jane Austen novel, a work by the Bronte sisters, or one of many other classics of British literature, I am both thrilled and saddened to recognize myself in a world of slackened manners. On the one hand, keeping up with appearances and civilities seemed to be such an exhausting effort, one I just don’t have time for in my own life. I am not that great at remembering names, so how often would I redden in the face at having lost Mr. So and So’s surname? I would be a social pariah at the neighborhood ball in a flash.
On the other hand, people today are bracingly rude. I am not simply referring to the guy who steps on your toe in a crowded commuter train and never apologizes. Neither am I alluding to people who cut in line, take more than their portion, or burp in public. While all of these behaviors may be obnoxious, I am interested in the power of words and their varying effects. I both love and loathe that we live in a historical epoch where people will say just about anything to you, with zero regard for your feelings or their own image. This phenomenon is amplified when it comes to the Internet. The ability to be controversial from the safe confines of your home office seems to be empowering for many.
And that is terrific in a variety ways. We live in an alienated, siloed quasi-community. Many of us don’t engage with our physical neighbors anymore, but are able to carry on debates and conversations with other web surfers in Sri Lanka. There is something both strange and wonderful about that. As we become more fractious and divided in our personal politics, and lose the ability to make small talk with those we encounter while taking out the trash, at least we can form connections, somehow, some way. When we feel in our daily lives, that our little voice doesn’t matter, it is affirming to know that we can be heard (or read) by someone, somewhere.
At the same time, I wonder if these e-connections we are building across the world cause us to forget that we are actually interacting with people, not machines – people who have feelings and reactions that you cannot see while staring at a monitor. My personal rule of thumb is this: I will never write something that I am fearful or ashamed to say in public. However, this is clearly not general practice. When I read a news item on the web, or am directed to the latest hot You Tube video, I am often beyond appalled at the galling commentary I find at the end of the item. As a writer, a liberal and a human being, I cannot but champion free speech. It is simply lamentable that this right is often misconstrued as the right to be an arse.
There is no use hankering for a return to formality. Once lost, social fetters are not willingly recalled, and that is as it should be. I remind myself that I would not have liked to be a female in Austen’s time, treated as a simpleton and “protected” as an item of witless property. The liberty to express oneself often accompanies quantifiable improvements in social status, and I wouldn’t undo centuries of progress for anything. That said, it is hard not to feel wistful for the days when the days when people thought a bit before they spoke. Being a jerk just because you can is not an empowering exercise of your rights. Consideration can be trying, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the attempt a little more often.
Making the Name “Stanley” Sound Cool (June 10, 2010)
Though it took me, and the rest of the City, a minute or two to process what happened, it sure feels good to be a Chicagoan today. Last night, after Buffalo native and youngster Patrick Kaine slipped the puck past Flyers’ goaltender Michael Leighton, for a 4-3 overtime victory over Philadelphia, and handed the Blackhawks their first Stanley Cup championship since 1961, Windy City residents were stuck in a lengthy moment of determined disbelief.
In the first place, the final flash, the end of an eight month, bruising journey that is the NHL season, was a bit anticlimactic. I had to watch the replay several times to finally grasp that a puck had gone into the opposing net. My friend Ann said it best, likening the winning instant to “some one pulling the plug on a video game and then saying ‘oh by the way, you won.’” It was a bit disorienting. Even as I watched Kaine, possibly the only man in the free world who knew immediately that the Hawks had done it, skate down the ice in the midst of a war whoop, I was afraid to trust the emotion.
And that is because, in addition to the end of the game being somewhat unusual, Chicago denizens just aren’t used to winning that often. The last time we had a sporting victory parade was in 2005, when the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. But let’s be honest, some of us (Cub fans – 102 years and counting) felt a little left out of that soiree. Prior to this, it was the late 1990s, the end of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls dynasty, when the City last united in drunken revelry with a side order of good natured taxi tipping.
My husband and I discussed the euphoria we experienced on election night 2008, the night Obama stood before hundreds of thousands in Grant Park to become the first African-American President-elect. I suppose many parallels could be drawn between politics and sports, but comparing a momentous moment in American history to a Stanley Cup victory seems to cheapen Obama’s accomplishment. I will never forget that unseasonably warm November evening as long as I live, but it’s still different.
Today is the rare day in this violent, corrupt and financially troubled City when we can all set our differences, factions and grudges aside and enjoy being fellow members of Blackhawks nation. For just a moment or two, the local media has turned its head away from the sideshow of the Rod Blagojevich trial to celebrate something positive and unifying. The parade that will stream down Michigan Avenue tomorrow, as our heroes hoist the Stanley Cup high for all to see, is not a protest, demonstration or some other form of social unrest. The only thing to fear Friday morning is litter, or the vomit piles of over-served revelers.
There just aren’t enough moments like this. I plan to milk it as along as I can. Blago isn’t going anywhere.
becky sarwate 