Life Lessons

Do you know what time it is? Tag time. This one comes courtesy Harini and it’s about life lessons learned. I’d like to think I learn my lessons, don’t you? Coz the alternative is that I’m a dumbass. Hold the emails.

01. Parents are people too. I don’t know if any one of you have seen a parent cry but I can still remember the deeply unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach the first time I saw my mom break down. Her sister had just succumbed to a long illness and she sat on the bed in the pale sunlight of a winter Sunday and sobbed her heart out. I couldn’t have been more than seven but it was old enough to understand that my mom wasn’t merely my “mom”, she was a human being with feelings and relationships of her own. It sounds incredibly simple when I put it like that, but think back to all the times you’ve treated/dismissed one or both your parents as authority figures rather than people with legitimate fears, feelings and failings. I guarantee you, we’ve all been there.

02. Admit a failing. Some people say this is an Indian quirk, the reluctance to admit ignorance or failure of some sort. That makes sense to me on one level because throughout one’s childhood, the punishment meted out to failure and ignorance, no matter how innocent, is vicious. You’re castigated in public, called names, held up to ridicule and made an outcast. Or perhaps it’s just my experience that the world is generally unforgiving to folks who betray for even an instant that they’re not perfect beings. But the thing is – if you’re not willing to say, “I don’t know what this means, could you explain this to me please?” then you’re never going to learn what it is. Asking questions is good.

03. Apologize. I don’t remember what I did, but when I was three, my favorite aunt wouldn’t speak to me until I apologized to her. I didn’t even understand what the word “sorry” meant but I knew it required a certain humility. It was the hardest thing I’d done up to that point (spoiled princess that I am) but I did it. “Sorry” is not a dirty word. But you have to mean it. It’s almost become punctuation these days, the way “thank you” has. Try meaning it the next time you use it or simply refrain. It’s incredible how self-aware it can make you.

04. Manners are important. This sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised to see how many people think manners are circumstantial. If you spend any time on the internet especially you’re likely to come across folks who might be the nicest people on the planet offline but hook them up to the internet and you get an instant douchebag.

05. Listen to music. It’s good for the soul.

06. Karma is real. And it’s coming to bite you on your ass. It doesn’t matter which religion you follow or don’t follow. As a human being you know what’s a nice way to behave and what is not. And when you do something that isn’t right, you take that knowledge with you and eventually it tells on you. The wicked might flourish like palm trees but sooner or later someone is going to set up a smoky chimney right next door and choke you with soot. This is true.

07. People outgrow their friends. It happens. Sometimes it doesn’t and I hope this doesn’t happen to you because it sucks either way – whether you feel like you really have nothing much in common anymore with a friend who was once the center of your universe or whether your friend feels that way about you. In either scenario you lose out. But it happens. It’s sad when it does but it’s a fact of life.

08. Litterbugs aren’t nice to know. If you treat your city like a garbage dump, what’s your life like?

Okay, that’s all I got. Pretty good for a twenty-something I think. This is an open tag – go ahead, take it up and teach me something.

 

Back From the Wedding

No, not mine. My cousin’s. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice I was gone?!

So… yes, there was a wedding. And now I need to go check in with my gynaecologist to see if all my lady parts are working because everyone keeps telling me that as a girl, I’m supposed to love this sort of thing and I don’t.

I like everything that surrounds the occasion – the whole family gets together, I play dress up, the food’s yummy, booze is free, there’s a lot of excitement/drama (got to have drama!) without any responsibility. Good stuff.

I don’t even mind the actual ceremony – especially when the couple are so made for each other sweet as my cousin and his brand new wife. I’m talking Indian Barbie and Ken, people. And I mean that in a nice way.

No, what I can’t stand is the event surrounding the ceremony.

First and foremost, there are the aunties one hasn’t met in ages who feel compelled to discuss your appearance right in front of you. Yeah, that same old story. It doesn’t matter if it’s complimentary or not – I can hear you, people! Have you noticed how that works? When they say something nice amongst themselves, they’ll turn around, look at you, and repeat what they said. Like you can’t hear them. And if they’re being critical in that ultra-bitchy way that can only come with long years of dedicated practice, they carry on talking, carefully avoiding your eyes, then turn around, look at you and change the subject. Like you can’t hear them.

What the hell? I’m right there! In front of you! Towering over you, in fact, and glittering all over. I heard what you said, woman!

Another thing – stop stroking my goddamn face. Pinch my cheeks if you want, kiss me on the mouth, rub noses with me, press your cheek against mine, give me an uncomfortable body hug. I’ll grin and bear it. But for the love of God, do not – I repeat, DO NOT – stroke my face. I really don’t like the feel of your sweaty palms smearing make up all over my face. It makes me want to reach over and use the pallu of your expensive Kancheepuram saree as a makeshift towel. Would you like that? No, right? Then quit stroking my face!

Also, uncles can shake my hand. Really. It’s quite okay. I won’t jump up and scream rape. And I promise I won’t jump your bones either. It’ll be quite difficult to restrain myself because everyone knows balding old men who don’t use deo are incredibly hot, but I’ll try my best.

Apart from these annoying incidents that repeated themselves endlessly (have you ever been to a South Indian wedding? Even if the ceremony gets over in the blink of an eye, if you’re closely related to the bride or groom, you’re stuck from sun up to… well, not quite sun down but nearly that long), it was as fun a wedding as it had any right to be.

There was a band that played songs in high decibels and three languages to aid the digestion; there was a classical duet that needed to be waved into silence so that the priest could recite the required slokas; there was an elephant that roused false hope in my breast – I was so sure they’d force my poor cousin on to it and make him ride it into the hall but alas, the bride’s family lacked my vision; there were pretty babies and self-conscious young girls whose fashion disasters (two words: purple netting) immediately made me feel better about my advanced age and greater wisdom (#1 advice: let your mother dress you. #2 advice: pray really hard that she has good taste); there were cousins I hadn’t met in ages and was quite happy to see again.

And now that I’m back home with my mom and dad, a thought that I’ve often had has crystallized into a firm decision: when I get married, I’m having the whole thing at home with no one but close family and friends in attendance. If I don’t know you personally, you don’t get an invite. My parents can throw themselves a big party later and have the time of their lives – that’s fair isn’t it?

Unless they arrange for the groom to ride in on an elephant. From his hotel/home to the venue. If he’s willing to suffer, then so am I.

No wait, scratch that. If he rides in on an elephant, will he then smell like an elephant? Don’t want to be stuck for hours next to a hot, tired man who smells like Jumbo. It’d probably put me off my food. That’s no way to start a marriage.

PS – I just read the whole thing over and I guess what I’m trying to say is: Like weddings. Hate people. Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

The Charlie Wilson’s War Reaction

Charlie Wilson’s War is the extraordinary tale of a little known Texas Congressman who pulled off one of the greatest coups of the Cold War. Like most things written by Aaron Sorkin, it’s smart, funny and politically astute. Going in, I had no idea if I would be able to sit through it.

Oh, I like smart, funny and politically astute. In fact, had this movie been written by anyone else – and I mean anyone – I wouldn’t have watched it. The subject, you see, hits a little too close to home.

At the heart of Charlie Wilson’s War is the Soviet-Afghan conflict: a bloody, brutal mess that dragged on years longer than anyone thought it would, with millions displaced and countless dead, leaving a country absolutely wrecked. Ironically, more than a hundred years before the Soviets marched in to “help” the Afghan government, the British had attempted something of the same sort; their objective then had been to keep Imperial Russia (which it saw as a threat to its dominion of India) out of the neighborhood. It became one of the costliest blunders of the British Empire, one that some credit with inspiring what we Indians call the First War of Independence – the Revolt of 1857. After all, it was the first time we’d seen the might of the British Army not just humbled by a ragtag bunch of guerrilla fighters with nothing more than inferior weaponry and a fierce determination to go down fighting, but positively annihilated.

Perhaps the Soviets should have learned from the lessons of the past. But just as Napoleon’s misadventure in Russia didn’t stop Hitler from dreaming of Russia’s conquest, Britain’s bloody nose wasn’t about to stop the Soviets.

My own memories of that terrible chapter in Afghanistan’s history are twofold. The first is the face of this kid who attended Kindergarten with me. His name was Hamid and he had a few siblings who were also in the school. I always knew they were “the Afghan refugees”. I was five, I didn’t know or care what a refugee was – for all I knew that’s what you called people from Afghanistan much like Tamil Brahmin or Kutchi Muslim or Kashmiri Pandit or Goan Christian. In that manner of children, I simply accepted “Afghan refugee” was what he was. Now when I think back, I wonder what his story was: was he an orphan, had he lost siblings, were his family political refugees? Back then, however, I was a lot more interested in how he looked – absolutely beautiful. It’s been a couple of decades since I laid eyes on him and some pretty kids grow up perfectly hideous, but in the 80s? Hamid was the resident heartbreaker of Upper Kindergarten.

The next instance comes second hand. When I was a toddler my father disappeared from my life for an extended period of time. I don’t know if I missed him or not, but where other children remember their father first, my earliest memory of a male influence is my maternal grandfather in whose home we spent that year. I didn’t know until years later that my father was in Afghanistan at that time, serving as Economic Advisor to the Afghan government. The way he tells it, life in Kabul under curfew was an adventure – but I can only imagine the strain both he and my mother must have experienced. He was never in any actual danger (unless a stray bomb caught him) because he was a UN employee and as such lived in a gazillion times more comfort and security than the average Afghan – and he got out before the last great push against the Soviets began.

Charles Wilson (Tom Hanks) was the man who orchestrated that push.

The way the movie tells it, Wilson’s interest was caught by the fact that at the height of the Cold War, the Soviets were pretty much sauntering into Afghanistan and treating it as they please while the United States studied its fingernails. His first visit to a refugee camp at the behest of Pakistani dictator General Zia ul Haq (Om Puri) fundamentally changed that position – it was impossible to watch the conditions at the camp, talk to the survivors of brutal atrocities carried out in the most casual manner by Red soldiers, and feel nothing more than a politically strategic itch.

With the help of a Texas socialite named Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) and a maverick CIA agent called Gust Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), Wilson turned a puny $5 million warchest geared towards “turning Afghanistan into their (the Soviets’) Vietnam” into a billion dollar covert operation that ended with the Red Army going back where they came from.

In lesser hands than that of writer Sorkin and director Mike Nichols, this could have become yet another tale of America-saves-the-day or one of those tiresomely preachy War-Is-Bad movies. That it is neither, in spite of the dozens of chances freely handed to it, is a testament to both their skills.

But that doesn’t mean this is a movie without faults. For one thing, after I learned how they’d watered down Hanks’ character to be more in line with his image, I had to wonder about other cinematic licenses they might have taken. I wanted to wait to write this piece until I’d read Wilson’s book for myself but the darn thing’s taking too long to arrive.

[Digression: The debate over whether Hanks was too good to truthfully portray Wilson who, no matter what his choices, is after all a Congressman, sounded bizarre until I watched Hanks in full dirty old man mode, playing with Emily Blunt's belly button. It's not like he's a screen virgin but... I guess it's true - there really are things you don't want to see Hanks do. It's one thing to suggest he's a manwhore, but to actually see him do it? No thanks. I couldn't have felt more uncomfortable if that was my father up there.]

There is also a curious sense of flatness throughout the movie. Like it’s caught tight between two needs: its spirit wants it to be a feel good movie about America helping the poor and the downtrodden – most notably in a scene wherein Wilson is berating his colleagues for always helping to get the party started but never waiting to help clean up and thus making more enemies than friends – but its reality is rooted in a 2007 that it can’t ignore.

In 2007, Afghanistan was the sacrifice made for that inept invasion of Iraq. The country is every bit as badly off as it was under the Soviet occupation, it’s just that the aggressors are different and working out of a separate set of convictions. In 2007 we’re living the consequences of that war unleashed by Charlie. And some of us, like me and millions of other Indians, have been living with those effects for nearly two decades now.

In what is possibly the best scene of the movie, Gust and Charlie have a quiet moment to themselves while behind them, people celebrate the Russian retreat. Sorkin-lovers will remember his use of allegories (Leo from The West Wing: “A man falls into a hole…”); here, Gust finally completes the one he tried to tell Charlie once, before it all began:

A boy is given a horse on his 14th birthday. Everyone in the village says, ‘Oh how wonderful.’ But a Zen master who lives in the village says, ‘We shall see.’ The boy falls off the horse and breaks his foot. Everyone in the village says, ‘Oh how awful.’ The Zen master says, ‘We shall see.’ The village is thrown into war and all the young men have to go to war. But, because of the broken foot, the boy stays behind. Everyone says, ‘Oh, how wonderful.’ The Zen master says, ‘We shall see.’

Like Ana says, Even if things are supposed to end badly, it does not mean that we not act to rebuild the bridges we are burning. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to call Charlie an idiot or condemn the CIA for what it unleashed on the region and, later, the world. But at that point, had I been in his shoes? Would I have acted any differently?

Fate decreed that I was on the other side of the fence and it does not make me feel kindly towards Charlie & Co. But perhaps Hamid would have and his need was greater. Maybe Charlie unwittingly saved his family from total obliteration. In the end, which one of us really knows for sure how and to what extent we affect the people around us?

Watch Charlie Wilson’s War. It’s good entertainment. As far as politics goes… we shall see.

Oh, and one last thing. Everyone says Phillip Seymour Hoffman stole the show. Putting my love for him aside, I would have to respectfully disagree. The undoubted star of the show is the large, orange tabby that deigned to lend its presence to all the funny goings-on in Charlie’s office. Attitude like that, my friends, can’t be obtained for love or money. Take a bow, kitty cat. You’re awesome.

 

Heath Ledger (1979 – 2008)

Actor Heath Ledger, age 28, was discovered dead in his NYC apartment by his housekeeper and his masseuse yesterday. Suffering from a bout of pneumonia, he’d apparently overdosed on the sleeping pills he’d begun taking to deal with the stress of playing The Joker in the upcoming Batman sequel co-starring Christian Bale.

Just the other day I was snarking about his new “fashion statement” and looking forward to The Dark Knight. Today I’m posting videos to commemorate his passing.

He was a gifted actor, incredibly beautiful and had been fighting his demons for quite some time. While his death doesn’t appear to be suicide, it ironically appears that of all the things he had going on, it was his work that exacted the greatest toll on him. The family he leaves behind includes a little girl, Matilda Rose, age 2, of whom he once said that her birth had made death less frightening for him.

R.I.P.

 

Everyone Has a Problem With Breast Feeding

Breast feeding. Does that make you uncomfortable? If so, are you uncomfortable at the thought of it (babies! suck! food! out! of! women!) or is it the actual physical act of it (baby! sucking! nipple! just! like! ME!) that’s disturbing? Or are you one of those folks who find it erotic? Or do you, like me, not think about it?

I ask because I was reading this post by the Mad Momma, written in response to this other post (lots of pics, so don’t click if you’re squeamish / your boss is squeamish / your colleague might take it as a come on / your spouse thinks breastfeeding is porn-y) and it sort of made me wonder why so many people – especially people who don’t have kids – spend so much time thinking about this.

Perhaps I’ve mentioned before that I usually walk around in a haze? Well, that means I’ve never had a random breastfeeding mother actually impinging on my consciousness long enough for it to “traumatize” me. However, I would like to think that if that ever happened, I’d look elsewhere or something and go on with my life rather than feeling victimized by the sight of a stranger whipping out a boobie in public so that their baby doesn’t starve. On second thoughts, I’d rather they fed their baby in their frickin’ birthday suit than sit through the heartrending wails of a baby who doesn’t understand why the promised meal has failed to arrive. And I say this as a woman who once witnessed a threesome, complete with the most awkward poledancing known to man, in a subway car. I know I can look elsewhere.

But on reading those two posts, it occurs me this whole feed/don’t feed the baby in public is a matter of nuance. I mean, most things are but this is especially so, it seems.

I guess it starts pretty early, with the kind of family you come from. I think it was Patrick French who said he was shocked and disgusted to discover that Gandhi spent quite a lot of his time quizzing people about their poop, but you know what? Indians, especially of a certain generation, might be prudish about sex but they have no problem discussing other intimate details of their lives. Hang around these folks long enough and conversations can switch with bewildering ease from, “Hey, I like that saree” to “Why do you think I bleed when I go potty?” I think it’s one of the reasons older people are so interesting. They say the darnedest things.

Therefore, I’m pretty sure I was breast fed because I remember my mother cracking jokes about me making faces when she switched over to the bottle – I was apparently a finicky diner from the start. We have a large family and someone or the other is sure to have a tot in tow so I’m used to being around parents and simply filtering out child rearing information. I mean, I like kids and I really like the kids I’m related to, but do I want to know about the composition of their poop or the details of what they spit up? Uh, no. I guess things change when you become a parent but I’m happy to wait until then.

So… breast feeding. The first woman I ever saw feeding a baby was Mandakini with her pretend baby in Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga Maili. I try not to think about that awful movie and haven’t seen it in a long, long, long time so I’m missing context, but what I remember of it is that it took place on a train and something about it felt vaguely dirty. But then that entire movie gave me the heebie-jeebies so maybe it wasn’t specific to that scene?

The next thing I remember about breast feeding are these awful faces made by Lakshmi and Rekha.

Lakshmi played the title role of an AngloIndian unwed mother in Julie, and I don’t know what her problem was (again, awful fucking movie) but it was like she wanted to masturbate but didn’t know how. The camera lovingly tracked her Wonder-Bra’d breasts with milk seeping out as she made some more of those faces and – oh my God! As I type this, I just realized this is why I can’t stand porn. Every time I see some woman’s O-face, my subconscious says “Baby has no food!” Talk about trauma.

Then there was Rekha – not the scary, maneater Rekha of these days but the quasi-arthouse Rekha of the 80s (when she was able to escape the clutches of, er, fashion for want of a better word – Khoon Bhari Maang, anybody?). It was a remake called Sansar and again, I have never lactated so I have no idea what her issue was, but she eventually ends up gasping in agony on the floor, unable to feed her child. By this time she was on the top of her game so unlike Mandakini and Lakshmi, the camera was very respectful and there were no shots across the bursting with milk bosom. But she did writhe around and moan and break out in a sweat.

And then I met a woman in real life who fed her baby in front of me. It was my cousin – my incredibly shy cousin – and she was perfectly okay unbuttoning her blouse before a group of us (this is a woman who wouldn’t show me how she looked in a flirty nightie she got as a wedding present because it was too “daring” thanks to the modest slit up one side). And I have to admit, that breast didn’t look anything like Mandakini’s perky, fake-mommy ones and yes, it was uncomfortable for a quick second.

Why? Because I got the feeling I was intruding in some sort of private, special ritual between mother and child. And also, I’m not used to being around naked people. Not that she was naked but you know what I mean.

And then I realized I was projecting my feelings on to her. I’m sure it is pretty special to feed your baby but she’d been doing it every two hours for days by that point and was looking forward to least five months more of the same. She tells me it doesn’t hurt to have another human being chomping on your lady bits but frankly, the whole child bearing thing is so freaky – to have a real, live human grow inside of you, absorbing nutrients from your body and then slowly push out of the most sensitive part of your body – that if you’re okay with that stuff, then breastfeeding isn’t exactly going to make your palms sweat. Breastfeeding only sounds “strange” to people who don’t do it, I guess. Have you ever seen an animal feed its young? The mother looks totally bored with the whole process. No wonder human mothers multitask when feeding.

But what if you’re one of those people who find breastfeeding mothers sexy? Not just the way they look (big boobs! Who hates that?) but the fact that they’re lactating? Ew, right? Would it be more acceptable if a man said that about the mother of his child though? Like pregnant women – how come men who find pregnant women sexy are creepy unless they’re the father of that child when everyone says “Awww!”

Nuance. That’s what I’m talking about.

 

We Didn’t Start the Fire

I’ve had a couple of depressing posts in the works for the past couple of days and every time I go to post them, something like this catches my eye and perks me up so much, I end up posting it instead. Today: Nerd World commemorates the 19th anniversary of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. You haven’t even read it yet, but I bet you think that’s hilarious. It gets better. Here’s an excerpt:

NerdWorld: Well, the song certainly has a lot of history in it. Did you realize when you were writing it that it was just a big list of references, or did you stand back at the end and go, “Wow, it’s all just some stuff that happened. Weird.”
BillyJoel: No, I pretty much intended that from the start.

But it’s at moments like this that I suddenly realize that I’m getting on in years. I mean, I’m old enough to remember this thing being played at the Grammy’s. I thought it was the coolest thing ever because I couldn’t catch a word of it and thought, Hey! This grown up is singing at the Grammy’s in his own special language! I didn’t know you could do that! Alright! I now have an ambition! Awesome!

And then I grew up and discovered it was just ol’ BJ running through a laundry list. Even worse, I realized the fire I inherited was one hell of a lot worse than the one he got. Growing up sucks. Thank God for alcohol. Here, by the way, is the song that BJ is supposed to have riffed off (quite different from “ripped off”, please note) from: R.E.M.’s End of the World as We Know It. Personally, I prefer Reunion’s Life is a Rock but the Radio Rolled Me. Yeah. I said that, I did. Bite me.

 

Scientology Asks Questions

I really thought I was done with the whole Tom Cruise-Scientology thing but what do I know? I hadn’t yet seen the “Sec Whole Track” – the Scientology questionnaire. According to Radar, these are the questions asked at “audits”. There are 343 of them, but Radar brings us the choicest. So I obviously had to answer them.

• Have you ever enslaved a population?
No, but there was this gorgeous population of swimmers at my local gym once that I really desperately wanted to.

• Have you ever debased a nation’s currency?
I know what you’re trying to ask and no, I don’t snort coke.

• Have you ever killed the wrong person?
No, I have only ever killed the right person.

• Have you ever torn out someone’s tongue?
Okay, I don’t know what you’ve heard but I’m an excellent kisser. I mean, excellent. Phenomenal. Understand?

• Have you ever been a professional critic?
Only according to my family.

• Have you ever wiped out a family?
Yes. There was once an extended family of lizards that met their tragic end on my direct orders. Yes, I have flunkies. I’m a superior wipe out-er.

• Have you ever tried to give sanity a bad name?
All the time.

• Have you ever consistently practiced sex in some unnatural fashion?
“Unnatural” fashion? No, but I’d be interested to listen to you explain what “unnatural” means.

• Have you ever made a planet, or nation, radioactive?
Hasn’t everybody?

• Have you ever made love to a dead body?
He may be my ex, but that’s still not a nice way to talk about him.

• Have you ever engaged in piracy?
Yo-ho-ho! Yarr! I harve!

• Have you ever been a pimp?
No, but I’ve had a pimple.

• Have you ever eaten a human body?
No, but I’ve eaten chicken and I hear that’s practically the same thing!

• Have you ever disfigured a beautiful thing?
Okay, last year I got this awful haircut that completely disfigured my beautiful hair and it was completely traumatic because some trainee did the highlights and they looked awful too. It was really sad.

• Have you ever exterminated a species?
Omigod, you guys, it’s, like, my favorite activity, like, EVER.

• Have you ever been a professional executioner?
Um, I was an editor at a magazine once.

• Have you given robots a bad name?
Well, I really try to be nice, you know? But there was this one robot that was such an asshole!

• Have you ever set a booby trap?
No, my boobies have never run wild. Besides, I’m not into S&M.

• Have you ever failed to rescue your leader?
You’ve been talking to my Journalism professor haven’t you? Well, let me tell you – oh, that’s not the leader you meant? That’s a “lead”? Oh. My bad.

• Have you driven anyone insane?
Only my father.

• Have you ever killed the wrong person?
No, I’m quite thorough.

• Is anybody looking for you?
My parents. Every other second of every day. Aargh!

• Have you ever set a poor example?
Why would a poor person take my example?

• Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?
Muahahahaha!

• Are you in hiding?
Yes, that’s why I got a blog.

• Have you systematically set up mysteries?
You obviously haven’t read my About page.

• Have you ever made a practice of confusing people?
*head wobble*

• Have you ever philosophized when you should have acted instead?
You mean like, “House work is the tyranny of order over the free spirit of universal chaos”?

• Have you ever gone crazy?
Only when my mother starts nagging.

• Have you ever sought to persuade someone of your insanity?
No, that took place on its own.

• Have you ever deserted, or betrayed, a great leader?
I wouldn’t dream of deserting or betraying myself. More to the point: can’t.

• Have you ever smothered a baby?
You mean you haven’t?

• Do you deserve to have any friends?
I not only deserve to have friends, I deserve to have YOUR friends too.

• Have you ever castrated anyone?
You know the problem with castration? I’ll tell you the problem with castration – when you hate someone enough to cut their pee-pee off, the last thing you want to do is actually look at it much less touch it. So…

• Do you deserve to be enslaved?
I think I told you I’m not into S&M.

• Is there any question on this list I had better not ask you again?
Really, I’d never take that tone with you. I consider it quite rude.

• Have you ever tried to make the physical universe less real?
In my spare time, I slowly pull apart tiny strings to destroy the fabric of the universe. It’s quite fun but hasn’t worked yet. I think I’m pulling the wrong strings.

• Have you ever zapped anyone?
Sorry, all that Trekkie stuff leaves me cold.

• Have you ever had a body with a venereal disease? If so, did you spread it?
Did I spread a body with VD? EW! If I ever turned lesbian, it sure as hell wouldn’t be for Paris Hilton.

This has been so much fun! My Saturday is looking up already.

 

Mrs. James Bond

I would like to interrupt regular programming to show all of you a photograph that did more for my self-esteem and faith in the continued existence of true love in these superficial times than that Dove commercial.

The lady you see above? She’s Keely Shaye Smith. Otherwise known as Mrs. Pierce Brosnan.

Did I blow your mind? It’s okay. Take your time. Ready?

Alright. So when she married Brosnan, she looked like this and I don’t remember paying any attention to the event but if I did, I probably expected it to end the way most Hollywood marriages end – in divorce in a few years. However, they have now been married since 2001 (and they dated for years before that). In that time they’ve seen the arrival of two kids as well as the end of the Brosnan-Bond franchise. And neither of them looks the way they did when they got married – and it’s apparently okay.

In a way, I can’t believe my own reaction to this. Why is this such a big deal?

I was a Brosnan fan for a quick minute when I was a little kid because we used to get reruns of Remington Steele and I absolutely loved it. But then I grew up, Remington Steele ended and Brosnan became my (second- no, wait, third) least favorite James Bond.

In many ways the Brosnan Bond broke new ground but somehow, all of it kind of left me less than impressed. And I say this as a sucker who contributed to his take of one billion dollars at the box office each time he made one of those movies.

Part of my animosity, I think, stems from a miniseries he did in his pre-Bond days – The Noble House. Look, he tried his best but if ever a man was miscast in a production, that man was Brosnan as blond Ian Dunross with his Hong Kong business empire. Around the World in 80 Days made me feel kinder towards him but not much.

Ask me the best work I think he’s done in the past 10 years and I think it’s Evelyn followed by The Thomas Crown Affair. And nobody topples Steve McQueen off his perch so that second one is always going to be an also-ran in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I enjoyed Matador (and Mars Attacks too, if it comes to that), but it doesn’t reach favorite status, sorry.

But! Learning today that he’s married to a woman who doesn’t follow cookie cutter celebrity standards makes me like him in a way I don’t like most celebrities. And that’s weird right? To like someone or not based on who they’re married to/ dating? What business is it of mine if his wife is a size 0 or a size 20? It’s one thing to gossip about celebrities, why take it to their spouses or children?

I guess it’s because tales of the twenty-something with rock hard abs who lands the aging movie star are pretty commonplace but you don’t often get to hear about the plus-size environmental reporter/ avid gardener who married an aging James Bond and is a style icon to boot.

Team Keely.

 

Me Be Hero, Pliss

I’m not really an angry person but I was reading this post by the Mad Momma and realized that most of my “reaction posts” sound… well, furious. Reasonably so, in my opinion but still, it made me wonder if I’ve been slowly writing myself to a place that I have no wish to inhabit – the body of a scowly, righteously angry blogger, burning in exhaustively told agony at the sight of a cruel world.

Therefore, I was only too happy to find this post of Aspi’s, one he says was sparked off by a chance remark of mine and closely related to this funny tag of Beth’s. What character in a Bollywood film would I like to play?

I vote: The Hero.

I know I’m probably letting down the sisterhood and I don’t really want to trade my boobs for an uncle chest but what to do? I can’t think of a single female character that ends well.

There are specific female characters that go on to have a happy ending (and really, why would I want to be a Bollywood character and get an un-happy ending? I’d rather be French in that case, thank you very much – at least I’d get to eat good food, drink decent wine and get in a few bouts of adventurous sex before I meet my bad end). But Bollywood’s women in general are wounded birds from start to finish.

If I were The Vamp – I’d get to slut it up all I want, no problem-o. I could wear clothes I bought at Baby Gap even if I weighed 200 lbs and every man I met would love my wriggle and jiggle! Of course, all the women would hate me but it’s not like I was going to win any popularity contests once I finished bitching them out and making them feel like Olive Oyl next to me. I could let my eyeliner trace whatever path it wanted and run screaming into my hairline and nobody would blink an eye. I’d get to sing at least one cool song about how sexy I am and maybe even sexually harass a man or two – with inappropriate touching – and everybody would shut up and take it. Bad news is, somewhere along the line I’d get shot, stabbed, thrown off a train, run over by a car and/or commit suicide. When pregnant. Additionally, right before I bit it, I’d have to beg somebody’s forgiveness and negate all the fun I’ve had thus far. No deal.

If I were The Mother – my life would be hell. If I didn’t get raped and murdered/ rendered insane, my husband would get murdered (never raped) /rendered insane. Alternatively, he’d turn out to be the bad guy and screw my life up even more. I’d never be allowed to bring up normal kids and if, by some miracle of fate, I managed to do so after working my butt off (usually by washing dishes in the bitchiest household I could find or breaking stones in some quarry that’s conveniently situated right in the middle of the biggest, baddest city on the planet that will eventually drive my kids to commit Bad Deeds), said kid would turn out to be the villain. And I’d just have to shoot him. Sigh. To compensate for these pitfalls, if I survive to see my kids grow up into hero material, I get to be the most important person in their lives. Unless, of course, they marry a witch who decides I’m not too old to play Cinderella. In which case, we’re back to square one. No deal.

If I were The Sister – well, good luck to surviving that! Rape and murder, guaranteed! Once in a while, I’d get to marry but I’ll probably end up as a widow. No fucking deal!

If I were The Heroine – oh joy. One, I could be a shrew and be impossible to please until a dashing young man comes along, slaps me around, tells me I’m a worm, pours contempt and scorn all over me and caps it all off by singing a song in which he does all of it all over again – in public with an orchestra and a hundred odd backup dancers. He’ll harass me into drooling submission, maybe even rape me to show me how much he cares and, won over by his sheer ardor, I will then denounce my parents as fascists and run off to live the life of a reformed, proper young Indian bride. Two, I could already be a proper, young Indian girl and in that case I pretty much do nothing but stick around hoping that someone will eventually remember my existence. I’ll finally get the attention I crave when the villain/ villain’s son decides he’d like to treat me like the hero would in Scenario One and then the hero will come beat the crap out of him (because this is Scenario Two and I don’t need reformation of that sort, thanks) and I’ll get to be his grateful prize. If the director is a nice man, he’ll let me ineffectually smack some random bodyguard of the villain’s with a lamp or something similar in company with the hero’s incredibly intelligent pet chimpanzee or Pomeranian who probably played a bigger role than I did in bringing down the Evil Doers. Nix, I say.

If I were The Friend – I’d be Karisma Kapoor and have nothing but bra tops and hot pants to wear. And it still wouldn’t land me the guy I want. Boo! No deal.

So, really, I’d rather cut out the middle(wo)men and be the Hero. That way I’d get to do anything and everything I want, including all the fun bits of the characters above, and at the end of it, no matter what I’ve done, I’d be universally loved. All that and I’d get to pee standing up. Suits me just fine.

 

Tom Cruise, Actor on Tom Cruise, Scientologist

I keep thinking that tomorrow Tom Cruise will hold a press conference and say, “Ha! Fooled ya, suckers!” but considering Mark Ebner sent it out and the thing was apparently taped for a Scientologists’ award function, chances appear to be very slim.

This video went viral after it was posted on Gawker and The Huffington Post yesterday and within half an hour it was pulled down. However, that was a half hour too late. It keeps mushrooming up all over the Internet. Here’s one of many Youtube uploads – watch it before it gets pulled! And if you’re too late, search for it on Youtube, I’m sure someone else would have posted it in the meantime.

I really think this is some of the best work Tom has done in years. Here’s a transcript from UsWeekly (which “mysteriously” pulled rather than correcting a story about Katie Holmes running the Boston Marathon in spite of not qualifying for it):

“I think it’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist, and it’s something that you have to earn because a Scientologist does… has the ability to create new and better realities and improve conditions. Being a Scientologist, you look at someone and know absolutely that you can help them.

“Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident… you know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one that can really help.”But that’s what drives me… I know that we have an opportunity to really help… effectively change people’s lives and I am dedicated to that. I am absolutely, uncompromisingly dedicated to that.

“We have a responsibility.

“We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions… we can rehabilitate criminals.

“…We can bring peace and unite cultures…

“Traveling the world and meeting the people that I’ve met, talking with these leaders in various fields, they want help and they are depending on people who know and who can be effective and do it and that’s us. That is our responsibility to do that.

“It is the time now. Now is the time… Being a Scientologist, people are turning to you, so you better know it, you better know it and if you don’t, go and learn it, but don’t pretend you know it. It’s like we’re here to help.

“If you’re a Scientologist, you see life, you see things the way they are, in all its glory, all of its complexity and the more you know as a Scientologist, you don’t become overwhelmed by it.

“Look, I wish the world was a different place. I’d like to go on vacation and go and romp and play and just do that, you know what I mean. That’s what I want it to be. There’s times I’d like to do that, but I can’t because I know I have to do something about it.

“I have to do it because I can’t live with myself if I don’t, and that really is it.

“So it’s our responsibility to educate, create the new reality. We have that responsibility to say, ‘Hey, this is the way it should be done because we do it this way and people are actually getting better.’

“And let’s get it done. Let’s really get it done and have enough love and compassion and toughness that you’re really going to do it and do it right.

“I have to tell you something – it is rough and tumble, and it’s wild and wooly, and it’s a blast, it’s a blast, it really is fun because, dammit, there is nothing better than the going out there and fighting the fight and suddenly you see things are better.

“I want to know that I’ve done everything I could everyday, and I think about those people out there who are depending on us. I think about that and it does make me feel that we’ve got more work. I need more help, get those spectators either in the playing field or out of the arena. Really, that’s how I feel about it.

“I do what I can, and I do it the way I do everything. [laughs] There’s nothing part-of-the way for me.”

PS – For those of you who have no idea what any of those terms mean, here’s the always helpful Towleroad. News is, Ebner knows where to get his hands on plenty more videos like this one. Should be a fun year coming up.

PPS – Now that the video above has been pulled, you can try the link Apu gives below. If that doesn’t work either, try this. It’s a newscast so it can’t be pulled but it’s not the original 9 minute clip. It does however have that music. Yay! Also, read this. Hilarious!