The Blame the Boomers Game



"The time has come, Senator Barack Obama says, for the baby boomers to get over themselves." - Shushing the Baby Boomers, Journo John M Broder

Baby Boomers, Manhattan, June 2011

"The time has come," Obama said,
"To talk of many things:
Of jobs and tips  and  too-much-tax
Of mortgages   and things
And why it's all the boomers' fault
And whether pigs have wings." ^*

A hundred years ago at Mac.Robertson Girls' High School in Melbourne Australia, we had a headmistress called Miss Barrett. Miss Barrett used to glide around the school's corridors as if she were balancing a book on her head. I remember thinking she was really really old, and fantasized that she had never married because she'd lost her fiancé in the trenches at the Somme during WW1.

Looking back with the benefit of experience, I now think she never married because she was a world-class bitch, but back then I was a bit of a romantic, and no doubt a more tolerant human being than I am now.

We had school assemblies where we'd all have to stand when she entered the hall. She'd be wearing an academic gown and would stand facing us on the stage, fixing us with her stare so that we'd all freeze. We were not to move.

When she commanded, "Sit!" we all had to sit down at precisely the same time. And then she'd give us a lesson in morality.

Vinyls for Sale - Manhattan June 2011

I remember little of her talks, except for one. It struck me at the time and became etched in my memory because it was so blatantly unfair. I was all into fairness at that time.

I used to get really annoyed for example, when the RI teacher would tell us that when we died god would judge us, and depending upon our score would let us into heaven. Or not. I was pretty sure I'd be unjustly accused and not be allowed into heaven. "Why should it be just up to HIM!" I'd think to myself. Of course that was when I thought god was a man as women's lib was yet to enlighten us "gals" as Miss Barrett called us.

I'd imagine myself arguing with god. No way was I going to take his decision lying down. I imagined everyone else going along with the decision and me, alone, defending myself. I'd been studying the Reformation and thought of myself as a modern-day Martin Luther, standing on my principles.

I'm pretty sure now that I know why I was like that. My mother worked and I had to manage the buying of groceries and purchasing house-hold items. So I was constantly having to return items to the store, and being a kid, the customer-service people would argue with me. I'd stand my ground. Martin Luther was my hero. And I envisaged that it would be much the same when it came time for god to assess my earthly performance. A celestial customer-service sort of thing.

The only morning assembly morality talk that I can remember in any real detail, was when Miss Barrett explained to us that we were all "bad gals" because SOME of our parents had brought us up according to (horror of horrors) an American! - a pediatrician called Benjamin Spock, whose book "Baby and Child Care", published in 1946 advocated such "permissive" practices as feeding babies 'on demand'. According to Miss Barrett, this had had the effect of turning us into selfish gals who wanted instant gratification and if we weren't careful we'd all get pregnant and never go to university.

At MacRob - Indulging in an Apple

Little did Miss Barrett know, but she was a trend-setter. A woman before her time. Later Spock was to be blamed by the Right for causing the anti Vietnam war demonstrations, Janis Joplin, the contraceptive pill, drop-outs, sit-ins, and the Summer of Love.

And now, as we near retirement age, the Miss Barrett's of this world are multiplying daily. You can see them in the Tea Party and on the morning news. You can see them on websites, on television; they are everywhere. Even in the Whitehouse. I wrote about Obama's dislike of baby boomers way back in 2009 in Slowing the circle down - like a rolling stone.

Quite frankly I'm getting a bit sick of it. After ALL we did - fixing the post WWII mess, marching for peace and civil rights, working long hours and slaving over hot stoves. And what thanks do we get?

None. Zero. Zilch.

It's gone on long enough. Now it's apparently OUR fault that the U.S. budget isn't balanced. It's our fault that the U.S. debt ceiling is a ceiling. We are responsible for S&P downgrading the U.S. economy. We are responsible for S&P NOT downgrading the U.S. economy earlier.

Are baby boomers to blame for debt crisis? writes Ed Hornick of CNN. But wasn't it boomer Bill Clinton who balanced the U.S. budget?

"Nice going Baby Boomers/Tea Partiers! The Great Depression 2 is here! Looks like you are going to lose your 401K and hopefully job! You voted in these idiots last November and now you have to face the consequences of your actions!" wrote someone signing themselves as "Nice going Baby Boomers/Tea Partiers!" on KHTV.com's news article, about S&P downgrading the U.S. Credit Rating.

Generation Xers Looking for Bargains, Manhattan, 2011

Last week while I was getting ready to go to work, I was listening to CNN. "One good piece of news," a twelve year-old anchor was saying, "with the baby boomers having to downsize their apartments in order to retire, there are lots of bargains to be had! They are forced to sell at rock-bottom all manner of things, dinner sets, couches, appliances."

Uh-err, watch out my fellow boomers! The vultures are out. I'm reminded of a movie I saw back in the Dark Ages. Some Greek movie or was it Zorba? Where people in black pretending to be her mourners, descend upon some old lady's house fighting over her posssessions.

"But we aren't dead yet!" I cry!

As they say in New York, "What can I tell you?"

"O Boomers," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd beaten every one.^*

* Apologies to Lewis Carroll (Jabberwocky)

What Sort of Candle Are You?

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind - "Candle in the Wind" 1973, Bernie Taupin

Let me take you down,
'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever - "Strawberry Fields" 1966, John Lennon

Tourists at Strawberry Fields, New York

I ask this question, not because I have written a FaceBook app on the topic, but because recently a friend of my brother's described my brother Tim's life as, "like a Roman Candle". And I got to thinking ...

Thinking about how often the image of a flickering dying candle flame is evoked when trying to describe the brief life of one who has gone too soon from this world.

The song "Candle in the Wind" is just one example. Interestingly it was written by Elton John's writing partner, Bernie Taupin, about Marylin Monroe - Norma Jean. Taupin got the idea for the title from a quote he read about Janis Joplin. And of course, over a decade later, in 1997 Bernie Taupin rewrote the lyrics so that the subject was Diana Spencer. Elton John played the new version at Princess Diana's funeral.

Still, I was surprised when I read in an email that a friend had described my brother's life as being "like a Roman Candle, spent in a fantastic rush."

It's not how I saw my brother at all. He was a laid-back kind of guy. He worked for himself most of his adult life, as a carpenter. "Like Jesus," he'd say when people asked him what he did.

I remember Tim musing one night about "careers". He saw them as something "other people had", but not himself. "When I think of 'career', he explained,"I think of a car careering out of control." I laughed. So Tim.

George Harrison Remembered -  November 2001 - Strawberry Fields

I remember too when Tim lived in a spice cupboard. Sleeping on a narrow shelf. Of course this description of his lodgings back then were conveyed to me by my mother who had a dry sense of humour, and moreover, was given to exaggeration.

Tim said he was happy to live in a spice cupboard - "like the Vietnamese boat people," he explained. "If it's good enough for them, then it's good enough for me." But then, he had a dry sense of humour, and moreover, was given to exaggeration.

I actually visited him there later, at his spice cupboard abode. We met outside the spice cupboard in a communal lounge-room. I was wearing a watch. Tim said, "Can I have l look?" and so I took it off and handed it to him. There upon he picked it up and smashed it with a hammer. "You don't need to be ruled by TIME," he said. Really.

Perhaps Tim's friend of the Roman candle remark merely meant that Tim lived life to the full. A Roman Candle. I googled it, and I vaguely remembered them from my childhood - splattering sparks randomly in all directions. Like "Tom Thumbs". I think I was scared of them.

Tim, St Kilda Beach, 1960

Yes my brother did "live life to the full", as they say. He wasn't a conventional person, but he wasn't a Roman Candle speeding through life like a gush of shooting Roman candle sparks.

I lived with Tim for a while when we were both adults. At a time when we were both recently separated from our partners. In the evenings we'd sit out in the back yard with his mates. Like his dad, Tim was a beer drinker.

I'd stay relatively sober, as I had a salaried job. A "career" in fact. But towards the end of the evening even Tim would quit drinking and lay back, looking up at that wonderful Australian night sky - so filled with stars - sinking into ... his strawberry patch.

"Strawberry fields, forever," his friends would say as they departed for the night.

A Lennon admirer, yes. A Roman candle? I can't see it.

And what sort of candle am I?

Or, more to the point, what sort of candle are YOU?

Beetroot
beetroot to yourself
Lettuce
lettuce all get along
Bean so good
getting to know you
Peas to you
and all of your family.

Tim Juliff (1950 - 2011)

On Heaven and Paisley

Sugar,
Oh, Honey Honey.
You are my candy girl,
and you got me wanting you. - The Archies - "Candy Girl"

Window Display, Dylan's Candy Store,
Midtown Manhattan

There's a whole new - well maybe not so new - candy world out there. A world of glitz and child pageantry. More so in America, though I was shocked to read yesterday that it has reached my old home town of Northcote - a suburb of staid Melbourne - a city not generally known for its crassness.

Pageantry - that word used to conjure up images of Medieval processions, of men in gold black brocade doublets, of young men, pages, unfurling banners. Of heraldry. And of guilds and illuminated manuscripts. I guess these were what people watched for entertainment, when taking a break from ploughing the unenclosed fields, fighting Goths, and discussing Magna Carta over goblets of mead.

Well, not really, but you get the picture.

I have known about these child pageants ever since JonBenét Ramsey made news - JonBenét Ramsey the child beauty pageant contestant who was discovered murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996. JonBenét's untimely death spawned numerous TV documentaries and print-press articles - scathing stories about the little girls who enter beauty pageants, dressed up like Barbie dolls with big hair, fake cosmetic teeth and spray-on tans.

But recently I have become even more aware of their existence, thanks to my friend Dee who introduced me to the American TV series "Toddlers and Tiaras".

"Toddlers and Tiaras" is a must-watch. I even stop playing Angry Bird to watch it. Sometimes I even put it before "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as I scroll through my DVD cable recorded TV titles.

Toddlers and Tiaras Website

Whoever does the editing of T&T should be nominated for a Pulitzer. The media is the message!

Every episode features two or three contestants and their parents, with cameramen following them around detailing their lives from the preparations at home, to their appearances at the pageant competitions, invariably held in Georgia Tennessee and Arkansas.

What I like about T&T is the way the image of a screaming toddler will be shown with a voice-over of the mother proclaiming how much little Kerleigh (sic) "just LOVES" being a pageant girl.

"She's our little pride and joy," a proud parent will say, only to be followed in the next screen with his off-spring saying to her proud daddy, "You stink, shut up!!!".

And then there are the classics, such as "What is Paisley having for lunch today?" from her Mommy, as the camera zooms in to little four-year-old Paisley picking her nose up to the third joint of her index finger.

"Everyone who knows Paisley calls her "The Little Turd" comments her proud mother. Proudly!

As well as its educational non-value, T&T is worth watching in that it keeps me up with the latest trends in American girls' names.

A while back, say in the late eighties, when using place names for females given names was beginning to become a bit too old-hat - when just about everyone under 12 was called "Chelsea" or "Britanny" - trend-setting parents, not wanting their child to be just one of the crowd, found the solution - a way of making their child stand out - by misspelling the kid's name. So the made up name "Caylee" became "Kayleigh", Masison "Maddyson" and China was on the baptismal certificate, misspelled as "Chyna".

Manhattan Kids, Au Naturel

But there's a limit to how much one can misspell without completely making the origin unguessable. Like "Kaylezs" from the misspelt "Kayleigh" which was once "Caylee". Or "Grayce" for "Grace"

For a while there, after the birth of Paltrow's daughter, Apple Blythe Alison Martin, I thought that we might be in for a run of fruit names. Pineapple, Avocado and Peach. I can just hear it, "Now Pomegranate, please put on your INSIDE voice now."

Or numbers - as in "Seven" - Seinfelds' George Costanza's favourite kid's name. "Now Six, give Five back his Tonka toy!"

But now ... now it's just words. Like "Heaven". And "Paisley". And "Puddle". I was going to quote Michael Jackson's "Blanket", but that is just a little too normal ...

And yet, even these aren't good enough. We need to misspell the words! I just came across a "Triniti". And a "Saryniti" (from Serenity???)

And there was I, 18 years ago, cringing at Australia's "Jaydon"s and before them, at the "Wayne"s and "Leanne"s. It could be worse. Instead of living in America in 2011, I could be living in Australia circa 1980.

Well, maybe not ...

The Middle Ages are looking better every day. Or should I spell that My-dell Ajays?

A Word By Any Other Name

"Pretty good. Pretttttttty, pretttttttttty, pretttttty good." - Larry David (many times)

"I'll take your words and be gone
Your words and be gone
I'll take your words and be gone" - Lady GaGa - "Words"

"Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" - Mae West

A Man of Few Words (East Harlem)

That's what I like about the internet. You wake up and find out about so many weird otherwise obscure things.

Take the "thebookslut" for example. Yes, that's right, The Book Slut. I follow her on Twitter.

A new vocabulary, a new lexicon, a new whatever ...

Ms Book Slut recently "tweeted", published in 140-or-less characters, that there is a German word for "excess weight gained from emotional overeating" - "Kummerspeck" - literally, grief bacon. I "followed" Ms BookSlut's link to the Dental Floss Archives. I wanted to find out more.

It's easy to feel like Alice in Wonderland on the internet. Who knew? And who knows where you'll end up? One minute I'm following Ms BookSlut and the next I'm reading about obscure words and cyber-flossing.

I read that there is a Yiddish word, "Luftmensch" - to describe social misfits - meaning an "impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person." But of course I knew that!

And so I got to dreaming. I remembered three weeks ago seeing Larry David in a sneak preview of an episode from his newest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" series. What a genius! I firmly believe that if the world had even 2.5 more Larry Davids, then we'd have peace and justice and whatever else a rational mind could envisage.

Instead we are all here and now and reliant on HBO for a modicum of sanity ... Scary!

More Words (Mid-town Manhattan)

But back to "words". Three weeks ago when the preview of "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" "Palestine Chicken" episode was shown on the huge screen at 92Y in New York, it was followed by a panel interview hosted by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams" with Larry David and cast. They had a captive audience. One of the topics was the concept of "social assasins". People who call a spade a shovel, who (albeit unconsciously) hold without thinking, non-politically correct views.

This was appropos of the sneak-previewed episode, "Palestinian Chicken" where Larry is accused of being a "social assassin" when he criticizes the wife of a friend who verbally, audibly says 'LoL' instead of just laughing.

I remembered my mother at a party I'd organized. A reunion of sorts between her, my mum, and her best friend. They'd parted ways a decade or so back, and I and the best-friend's daughter had organized a "reunion" at my house in Melbourne.

Shades of "Palestinian Chicken" - Mosque Demo

The reunion party was in full-swing when my mother and old-friend Norma arrived. By cab. They were bickering. Not so odd for old friends, but my mother, after paying an inflated fare, complained to the driver in no uncertain terms. The "best friend", who wore her left-wing heart on her Gucci sleeve had, according to both of them, turned on my mother, telling her she was a "social fascist". A reverse snobbery. Somehow the cab driver was out of bounds - immune from criticism by virtue of his being a member of the working class.

Well, the 'social fascist' remark got several laughs from the party animals, but I remembered at the time thinking, how unfair.

What's in a word?

Sometimes I think words are being re-cycled. Fitting. Green words!

Look at this...

What is it? A jumper (sweater USA) with an outside pocket.

Now for some reason - I forget why - a few months ago I looked up the definition of "pocket" and discovered that the "pocket" was invented a hundred years or so ago, as a bag- or envelope-like receptacle inserted underneath an article of clothing close to the body and used to hold small items. To access the "pocket" the outer clothing had to be bunched up, and this was obviously inconvenient. Eventually some bright soul had the idea to make a slit in the outer-wear to allow for easy access. Still later another bright spark had another idea - the outer sides of the bag were attached to the sides of the slit - and so we had the "pocket".

Time passes and no doubt the advances of 200 hundred years ago are now forgotten. A designer here in New York has stepped back centuries to come upon the idea of reversing the trend and putting pockets back as separate, unattached items, although on the outer side of the outer garments. Which just goes to show, that ...

"If it wasn't for pick-pockets I'd have no sex life at all." - Rodney Dangerfield.

Not really, but it was the closest pocket quote I could find!

Very very very occasionally I have occasion to read a dead tree book, and recently, while reading one, I come across a word, a word that neither Book Slut or Mr. Dental Floss had uncovered. I'm reading "People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman" not available in Kindle. It's set in Japan. I read about the word "jikokenjiyoku" which apparently means "the wish to expose oneself and have the self-exposure well received". And yes, the context is sexual.

Now who was it said, "In the beginning was the word"????

On Google+ and Coke Bottles "On the Beach"

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there - ©1967 John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas

Way back last century, a movie was made called "On the Beach". It starred Ava Gardner and some other people whose names I've forgotten. I could Google them of course, but why bother?

The point of my remembering "On the Beach" lies in one particular scene - the Coke bottle scene.

To explain - to those younger than 100 - "On the Beach" is set in Melbourne, Australia post 1959, after a global nuclear war has resulted in life being destined to be destroyed in a matter of months. People in Melbourne, including a number of Americans from various branches of the US military, are aware that most of the inhabitants of earth will soon die. Except that is, those at the very bottom of the southern hemisphere, although they too will eventually sucumb to radioactive poisoning resulting from the nuclear fallout. The idea being that, though started in the northern hemisphere, the radioactivity will move south due to gravitational pull (a bit suss ...). And so ... those people in Melbourne are still alive but are the last survivors and their end is nigh.

I remember when the film was being shot in Melbourne. We'd all grown up in a city that no one had ever heard of. A cultural no-man's-land. A nowhere place. Pre-internet, pre nearly everything. But here we were, courtesy of Stanley Kramer, at last, on the map.

The star of "On the Beach", Ava Gardner, on arriving in Melbourne was quoted in the Murdoch press as saying that Melbourne was "an appropriate city in which to film the end of the world". This was before Murdoch-gate and so we all believed her.

Anyway, I digress. There's a scene in "On the Beach" where the US military in Melbourne start receiving Morse code signals from a US military station in San Francisco. Yep, Morse code. Ancient history - Melbourne - a place I grew up in, getting end of the world messages! Who is sending the messages? The military men (there were no military women back then) scratch their crew-cuts. Could it be that San Francisco was not after all destroyed by nuclear war?

The men meet - and military-men-like - ponder. A DECISION is made. The Americans based in Melbourne are asked to volunteer to take a submarine to the Northern hemisphere to INVESTIGATE. And so the hero - was he Gregory Peck? - says goodbye to Ava Gardner. He and his men must depart. On the submarine, the "USS Sawfish", to see if there is anyone still alive in San Francisco. And WHO is sending the messages.

Of course, this means Gregory Peck will never see Ava Gardner again because the end of the world will happen before the sub can return. There's just enough time before the radioactivity kicks in, for the "Sawfish" to reach San Francisco to see who is sending out the Morse code signals.

The Sawfish arrives in San Francisco Bay and the best of the crew (in looks) volunteers to venture out in radio-activity-land, to find the source of the Morse code messages.

Half a Cinema-Scope day later, the brave marine volunteer locates the source of the signal. The neck of a Coke bottle has fallen into the pull-ring of a blind in an office window at Marine Head Quarters, and lying on the desk top the bottle is swaying slightly in the breeze (the window is open), hitting sporadically on a Morse code machine, causing it to transmit random Morse code signals.

So much for intelligent life.

Now if I were a film director, I'd do a re-make. I'd do the same Coke bottle thing but I'd set the Morse code machine somewhere in the Kalahi Desert. A Bushman would find the Coke bottle and would be in awe. He'd take it back to his small village and the village people would fight over it.

The Bushman would get worried about the trouble it was causing. He would then decide to return the Coke bottle to God - where he thinks it came from. A white school teacher assigned to the small village would fall in love with a white anthologist and have words with a despotic revolutionary. A clumsy biologist would fall for the teacher but would not think he had a chance against the despotic revolutionary. All good stuff. Meanwhile the Bushman would look really cute and get into lots of adventures. Eventually the clumsy biologist would win the affections of the white school teacher and - well you get the picture.

But I digress again ....

Back to reality. The reason I got stuck on the Coke bottle image this week is that I joined Google Plus.

I set it all up. Did my profile thingy. Set up my "Circles", although I did not have enough people to make a "Huddle".

And then I waited.

And nothing happened.

It felt like something, but what was it? I'd been there before ... I wondered how to describe my "status" my 140 characters. My geo-location. My whatever.

I wracked my brains. I posted threads, strings, snippets. To no avail. No one was listening. No one replied.

And then all became clear.

I was like the Coke bottle in "On the Beach" in San Francisco last century - emitting meaningless syllables to a place 12,000 miles away.

When was "On The Beach" made? In 1959 according to IMDB. That's about right.

1959 - 2011. Nothing much has changed.

... - .- -.-- - ..- -. . -..

The Beige Women of Trak

"Is that why you always look like the cat who swallowed the King Island double cream" - Trude to Prue, on discovering Trudy is having an affair with her husband, "Kath and Kim"

"In popular Australian culture, the name Toorak has become synonymous with wealth and privilege. The suburb has long had the reputation of being Melbourne's most elite, and ranks among the most prestigious in Australia. It has the highest average property values in Melbourne, and is one of the most expensive suburbs in Australia." - Wikipedia Toorak, Victoria

Sunbakers, Upper East Side, New York

"I have two groups of friends," Cara mused. "There are the normal ones like you and Ruth, and then there are my golf ones."

Normal? Me? I don't THINK so. But to continue ...

Cara lives in Melbourne. We were chatting on the phone. "My golf friends are all rich and they all have lemon-colored straight hair and live in Toorak or Balwyn. And it is weird," said Caro, sounding bemused. "They say things like, 'The government wants to get money from the rich with a new tax for the bushfire victims.' This really annoys them but of course the government must get money from the rich. They are the ones with the money. How can the governement get money from the poor?"

That's Cara for you. Logical with a touch of naiveté. Delightful.

She picked up speed. "And they don't have to go to work. And they don't believe in global warming. And they talk in loud voices, a bit like they're English but they aren't."

Sunbaker, Melbourne, OZ

I could picture them. The beige ladies of the Melbourne suburbs of Toorak aka "Trak", and Balwyn.

It occured to me today that there's no equivalent of these beige ladies in America. I've lived in old Greenwich Connecticut. If there were beige ladies of the Toorak variety, one would expect to see them there. But no. Or perhaps on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But no again.

For the first time I think I've discovered something that exists in Australia but not in America!

Of course America isn't just Manhattan and Connecticut, though perhaps it would be better if it was ... But I've lived elswhere in the States. Oklahoma for example - "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" - Beige Oklhoma ladies in tweeds? Trudys and Prues? Wives of wealthy stock-brokers and plastic surgeons? "Old money"? I don't THINK so. Or in New Jersey? Don't even go there!

For my American readers who don't know any beige ladies and cannot imagine them, here are two Trak wannabes from the Australian comedy, "Kath and Kim". You can see Prue and Trude on the left.

Americans, you just don't know what you're missing!

Factlets, Factoids and Verbal Texting

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh - John Lennon, 44 years ago today

New York Man

I HEARD the news today ... well I heard and saw on CNN today - on Fareed Zakaria's GPS excellent panel show thing - that (though I have not authenticated it) in China TWO cinemas a being built EVERY DAY.

Amazing, I thought. An interesting factoid. Or should that be, "factlet"?

And I got to thinking - about how not only are two cinemas being built in China every day, and about how 50 airports are being built in China every other day - but even more noteworthy - is that in America, several new words are being invented - Daily.

"Factoid"? Why not "Factlet"? I googled the definition.

"Factoid" - "A brief or trivial item of news or information".

What's with the "-oid" suffix?

I googled "factoid - suffix" and found, "Used as in mainstream slang English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance." Whatever ...

It is getting more difficult daily, to keep up with the new "words". Just yesterday someone commented on something I'd written in an email, with a "<8>". WTF?

I had to look up the online internet slang dictionary. Apparently "<8>" means "grin".

Why not just write "grin"?  Or even just write, "I am being funny"?

Last week I saw a preview of this season's Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm". As well as the preview there was a panel discussion with Curb's main players. To borrow a Davidism, it was pretty, pretty, pretty, funny!

Silent Texting, West Village

A character in the preview was a rather annoying wife who, instead of actually laughing, would exclaim. "Ell Oh Ell" (LoL). Larry is asked by the wife's husband, to attack her for this annoying habit. Larry is reluctant. Why is it always left up to him to point out people's annoying habits? But eventually he's forced to agree, to go along with it.

"Why don't you just laugh?" he asks his friend's wife - "What's with the 'LoL'?" "It IS the way I laugh!" is her response.

But "LoL is verbal texting," he counters.

Later he gets annoyed at the husband. Why is it up to him, Larry, to point out the absurdity? Why does everyone expect him - Larry - to tell the home truths? I'm expected to be a "social assassin", he complains. Why don't you complain yourselves? Why is always ME?

Social assassins, factoids, LOLs, verbal texting.

What can I say?

LoL!

Close Encounters of the Corporate Kind

Tim: "Like, we know this amazing guy Barry, who's an excellent guy, which we've referred at, and, um, like Barry runs these whole Earth bush workshops, right. What he does..." - from Brainspace' - Tim and Debbie

There used to be a really clever and amusing Australian comedy duo called "Tim and Debbie". In OZ. A hundred years ago.

Tim and Debbie recorded a number of skits and one of my favorites was about their friend, 'Barry'. 'Barry' allegedly made a fortune by driving people to a place in the outback of Australia and "leaving then there".

This was before reality shows, long before shows such as "Survivor". People would pay good money for Barry's wilderness workshop experience - no doubt under the misguided illusion that they were being given the opportunity to "find themselves".

In perfect bogan dialect, the upward inflection pitched exactly right, Tim and Debbie let it be known how much they admired 'Barry'.

"Right, wilderness workshops. He gets a group of really, like, aware sort of committed people who want to find themselves, and he drives them out into the middle of the wilderness ... he just leaves them there you know, and it's really, and,and he only charges two hundred dollars, you know.It's really excellent, you know."

I was reminded of Tim and Deb the other day when a friend of mine launched into a description of something weird and less than wonderful. Something which I hope is not going to be a "trending topic" - to borrow a Twitterism.

Now this friend is not normally given to exaggeration, and so I am inclined to believe her, even though what she described to me appeared to belong on the West, rather than the civilized East Coast where of course, being intelligent women, we both reside.

According to the friend, there's a new sort of human evolving. A "Job Shrink" aka a "Career Facilitator".

And this is what such people do - for $$$ of course.

Career Facilitators are invited in to corporations who wish to improve on their return from their more highly-paid employees. Once embedded in the organization, the facilitators invite everyone who has anything to do with the targeted employees to attend sessions behind closed doors - one session per highly-paid employee. The only person missing during these sessions is of course, the target - the highly-paid employee.

Once the door is locked the participants are given free reign to say whatever they like about the said employee. All comments are noted and sometime later the victim is called in to hear the news. Oh, and all comments are of course treated as confidential.

I'm not sure what the goals of these work-place encounters are supposed to be. They seem a bit along the lines of the nineteen seventies 'encounter groups'. I hated those groups. You were expected to sit there and listen to people being boring about what was wrong with their own lives and brutally honest about what was wrong with yours. BUT - with encounter groups - you were present when everyone got stuck into you. You KNEW who said what, and didn't have to unwittingly invite enemies to your next party.

Not so with the career facilitator sessions. The victim knows WHAT people said about them, but not WHO said it. You just have to cop it sweet and try to learn from your supposed - or maybe imagined - errors of your ways.

Ah, progress! We have obviously come a long way since the nineteen seventies! Back then encounter groups were up-front and personal.

In 2011 they are behind closed doors and corporate.

The Crusts of Life

Anyway for my sanity I am writing here. I am sixty-five years old. Past the Beatles song. By some accounts that is young. But when a man wakes on his fortieth birthday he may safely say he has no youth ahead of him. - from "The Secret Scripture", Sebastian Barry

So it seems now. Who was I then? A stranger, but a stranger who hides in me still, in my bones and in my blood. ... The girl I was. - from "The Secret Scripture", Sebastian Barry

The Girl I Was

I hate endings. And it is for that reason I don't eat the crusts of things. This annoys the hell out of people, especially people who sit opposite me in restaurants, or even worse, who cook for me.

I won't eat the crusts of anything - even things that other people think do not have crusts. Like pizzas. Like veal scallopini. Or french fries. In fact the only food I can think of that doesn't have a crust, is ice-cream.

I used to think the way men reacted to my leaving the crusts was an indicator of their tolerance to others. My first husband, for example, used to put less and less on my plate, hoping that one day I would eventually eat all of it. I didn't. No matter how small the serving I always left something and eventually he gave up. He was very negative. Very intolerant. Very first-husband.

Later I took as a lover, a Dutchman. The opposite of first-husband he gradually served me more each day, hoping that although I would leave something, at least I'd get my nourishment. Very tolerant. Very Amsterdam. Very lover.

My second husband has a German background and like the aforementioned men, he also cooks for me. And as with the other two, I always leave a bit. Second Husband serves the same amount every time. And of course I always leave a bit. And every time he has the same comment. "Is there something wrong with it?" Very consistent. Very German. Very second-husband!

With the Dutchman

But where was I? Yes I was talking about the ends of things and how I hate them. The last full day of a vacation is unenjoyable. It doesn't matter where it is - in Paris, Bali, London, it's the pits. It's not even worth having. I'd sooner leave one day earlier. But that would only mean the bad last day would come sooner. You just can't win!

The last day before going on vacation. I just hate that day too. I wake up thinking what's wrong with today? And then I realise it is the end of the time before my vacation. Suddenly I will love being where I am. Be it New York or Melbourne. Why am I leaving? I love this place I think as I reluctantly, joylessly throw a few things into a suitcase, looking forward not to the vacation but to my return home.

I hated my last day of high school. I lingered for years at university, never quite knowing when I'd finished there, and thus not only postponing, but also hiding the awful last day from my awareness.

The last day of being a kid. I even remember it. I was on my way home from school, walking along Glenhuntly Road in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick when I saw a rubbish-bin lid on the sidewalk. I jumped over it, a real spring in my step. I won't be doing that again, I thought sadly. Good-bye my last day of childhood. I was growing up.

And now I'm thinking it is the end of an era. A friend emailed me. She was going home from her home in the UK to the home of her childhood, in Australia. A house in Elsternwick in fact. Her mother still lives in the same house there, the house she was in when I first met my friend. My friend is going home to unpack that house of whatever it has accumulated for over sixty years, as her mother is now elderly an moving into a nursing home.

"An end of an era," she wrote.

Yes, I hate endings. Especially end-of-era ones. I can't just push them around on my plate like they are pizza crusts. I can't hide them from the sight of husbands or lovers, shoving them surrepticiously under the mashed potatoes.

My second husband once lost all the desktop icons on his PC. "Where did they go?" he asked, quite seriously. I laughed and laughed.

But when it is about me, it ain't so funny! My youth. Where did it go?

I am so consciously aware of this lost youth that it worries me, annoys me rather. I've gotten into the habit of waking up in the mornings with the thought, "Oh no! Not YOU again!" Of course if I woke up as someone else I'd probably scream in terror ...

Instead I just laugh at myself, get up and start the day.

Dreading of course, the end.

Gabriel Gateau and the importance of je ne sais quoi

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day - Eugene Raskin

Paté escargots soup de jour
cordon bleu chic coiffure
fait accompli maison
crème de menthe Marcel Marceau
meringue blancmange Bardot
gauche gay Paris garçon - "The French Song", Greg Champion

There used to be a man, a chef in fact - long before the days of the Cooking Channel, "Master Chef" and Scott Conant - called Gabriel Gaté. I used to listen to him wax lyrical about the virtues of the French, on Radio Australia. In fact he's still around - I just googled him. Gabriel Gaté. Apparently he was awarded "La Croix de Chevalier dans L’Ordre du Merite Agricole" in 2000. Wonders will never cease.

I used to call Monsieur Gaté, Gabriel Cake - well, Gabriel Gateau - because quite simply, he annoyed the hell out of me. I just couldn't hack his French accent, because I thought - and I still do - that he was putting it on. Anyone who pronounces "cabbage" as "cab-arge" after living in Australia for over a hundred years, just has to be fake.

Those were the days. When I lived in Australia, I used to listen to Greg Champion and the "The Coodabeen Champions" every Saturday morning. They had a footie show on the radio. Not that I knew or know anything about footie, but the Coodabeens could make anything funny.

American Cuisine, Michigan

In those days I actually listened to the radio. Now, in America, I've just never gotten the hang of it. The channel numbers I mean. And "FM" and "AM" - are they even meaningful here? All I know about American radio is that there's some awful guy called Rush Limbaugh on it, which is enough to turn anyone left of Genghis Khan right off.

Rush Limbaugh or Gabriel Gateau. Who is worse? Reminds me of when my son was little and he'd keep coming up with silly questions like, "Who would win? A dog with one eye or a rabbit with a broken leg?" And, "Who would win? A cat with three legs or a monkey with the measles?" I didn't know then and I still don't.

Even worse was when my daughter of the time asked me to send her to France so that she could "get a French accent".

Humor. There's nothing like it to keep one sane. And even though I am 12,000 miles away from some of the funniest people in the world, here in America humor is alive and well.

In a few weeks I'm going to see my new idols - Larry David and Susie Essman, from the excellent comedy series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm". They, along with their co-star Jeff Garlin are appearing at the 92nd Street Y, to celebrate the launch of the eighth season of the show. I can hardly wait.

So who is funnier, Greg Champion or Larry David? Greg Champion with a broken leg, or Susie Essman with chicken pox? Scott Conant eating raw red onions or Gabriel Gateau at the Tour de France hosting the "Taste Le Tour"?

Stay tuned ....