On Lord Grantham and Lindsay Lohan

1) Lord Grantham (spoiler alert if you haven't seen 1/27/13)

Robert Crawley has quickly become the most despicable character on Downton Abbey. Maybe you thought it was Thomas, the conniving valet, but what can Thomas do, really? What power does he have? A little mean joke on O'Brien here or there? No, Lord Grantham is the worst. Let's just say that we got a little hint of this in season 2 when he was feeling all helpless during the war in his military garb meant only for ceremonial purposes. He was all, I should be out there, fighting, commanding, something, 'Arg!' And the powers that be were like 'pat on the head', look, Aristocrat, war is no longer all fun and games, we need some seriously qualified people to run this shit. Just keep walking around in the nice uniform, you don't realize how much you're contributing to the war effort just by wearing it, "boosting morale" and such.

On to season three. Oh, Robert. First of all, you invest all your wife's money in one stock that inevitably tanks. Even the financially uneducated women of Downton are like, yo, Grantham, haven't you ever heard of diversifying your portfolio? Secondly, we find out that you are mismanaging Downton. There are inefficiencies everywhere, money misspent in all corners of the estate. Now, tell me Robert, what else do you have going on in your life besides running your estate? This is your 9 to 5. This is what you've been put on this earth to do. This is why you married your rich wife whose money you squandered. What else is there for you if not being the chief executive of your house? 

And finally, you killed your daughters. One figuratively and one literally. Let's start with Edith because she's still alive. Now, Edith may very well go on to become the Eleanor Roosevelt of Downton, but until then, you will do everything in your power to make her feel like total shit. And Sybil. Beautiful, kindhearted Sybil. She's dead. Yup, dead. Died, death, morte, muerto, gone forever, in grave, "passed away." At some point you might have realized that your judgment was not 100%. Alas, that point passed through you like a ship in the night. So clearly, you're going to trust this hack aristocrat doctor from London who knows squat about delivering babies instead of listening to your family doctor who might well be an alarmist, but hey, better to be safe than dead sorry. 

With all that said, Robert Crawley, you are now on my shit Diane don't like list.


2) Lindsay Lohan

I'd like one day to find out that Lindsay Lohan's trainwreck life was all just performance art-- an act of social criticism against our celebrity obsessed culture -- and that in real life, she's this healthy, emotionally balanced vegetarian chick who goes on yoga retreats and enjoys long walks on the beach contemplating the universe with her dog, McGregor.

Alas.

I was discussing this with a friend the other day and we agreed that we both really wanted to defend Lohan, like, really badly when she was first getting into trouble, but now it's just too exhausting to even keep up with all her probations and arraignments and paroles and summons and court dates and all that stuff. I want to go to bed just thinking about it. 

A Look Back in Time: My Ear Piercing Experience

I wrote the following blog post on April 5, 2004. I thought it was a pretty funny blast from the past so I'm posting it here.

My Ear Piercing Experience

This weekend, my mom and I ventured to St. Marks Place to get our ears pierced. We had never gotten them pierced before due mostly to a certain social code that labeled pierced ears as "tacky" (ie. the French bourgeoisie to which I owe part of my upbringing- thank you French bourgeoisie, very much). The dilemma was that we like earings, clip-ons hurt and there is a much wider selection of earings for pierced ears in jewlery stores. All this led to the natural conclusion that our ears, pierced they must be. 

Before St. Marks, I must preface that I had been on a qwest over the last couple of weeks to find a clean place to do this, but to no avail. Doctors, Bloomingdales, random jewlery stores, all laughed in my face. Aren't these the places people used to get this done? What happened? Where do people go now? How can most women in Manhattan have their ears pierced if there are no mainstream places to do so? Where have I been? Do they all go to the east village? Does that mean the Gigi Mortimers and Muffie Potters of the world set foot below 14th street? This mystery will remain unanswered, except perhaps in Dyanetics.

So anyway, we ventured down to St. Marks place because really, the east village is completely gentrified anyway, St. Marks is just trying to maintain the illusion of what it used to be--a neighborhood for junkies, runaways and Sid Vicious. On our way there, our only topic of conversation was about ears. Who do we know has pierced ears? Is it really tacky? no, it's not, the French are just really stiff. My friend S has hers pierced and she has her shit together. Yeah, but my friend P doesn't and so does she. Well, my mom's friend S has hers pierced and she is an ex French model married to a successful business man and she has her shit together. My friend K has had hers pierced since she was six, yeah but she is 100% American, yeah but she too has her shit together. All of sudden, the streets of New York became one giant walking ear lobe. We scrutinized every pair of ears on the street: "oh, those look good. Hmm, hers closed up but you can still see the mark. Oh look, she doesn't have them pierced, that's rare here". We analyzed every aspect of the pierced ear until we built a legitimate case in favor of the procedure based on the conclusion that having one's ears pierced is synonymous with having one's shit together.

We walked into the first place we found, a friendly looking place called Andromeda. There sat a man with the scarriest tatoos and piercings I had ever seen live; he literally had a bull's horn going through his nose and two gaping square shaped holes in his lobes. This was oddly comforting; he was clearly a man who knew what he was doing, respected by his peers in the piercing field, and, we later found out, probably the only body piercer in NY with a health board certificate (ok-fine from Suffolk county, details). 

After asking many questions such as, will it hurt? will it get infected? What kind of ring do you put in there? When can I wear chandelier earings? The kind that Nicole Kidman wore at the Godess party at the Met? Would you say a plethora of people visit your establishment? Yes? Do you know what "plethora" means? Yes? Give me a definition. Thanks. I went for it. The more the piercer talked, the more he convinced me that not only should I do it, but that I had found the best person in all New York State to do it. Afterall, he was a descendent of the Native Americans and the Maoris of New Zealand, two tribal cultures that body pierced like it was their job (incidentally, it was his). 

It took about two minutes and didn't hurt at all and then it was my mom's turn. She started to chicken out, said she would do it another time etc, she would "come back". I finally convinced her to just do it. She was like "are you sure it doesn't hurt?" and I was all "dude, you had three kids in pre-epidural times, it doesn't hurt". 

As I said goodbye to my new friends from Andromeda, "Closer To the Heart" by Rush took over the radio airwaves with the best opening lyric ever: "And the men who hold high places/Must be the ones to start/To mould a new reality/Closer to the heart". 70s rock in a body-piercing parlor; my experience was complete. 

Friends, take note, my ears are now pierced, you can add "earings" to your Diane gift list. My birthday is in January, my half birthday is in June, Passover is tomorrow, Easter is coming up, Memorial Day is in May, Independence Day is in July. You know the drill. 

This Life is Self Service

New York Magazine dedicated an issue to the phenomenon of Self Help books in America. This got me wondering, if I wrote a self- help book, what would it be? Maybe an amalgam of all the self-helpish books I've ever read or skimmed?

The self help books I've read have all been excruciatingly repetitive. You think you read that in chapter 2? Well think again because chapter 3 is the exact same thing using the exact same words because the author just can't be bothered to think of new ones. So in my self help book, each chapter would be dedicated to summarizing someone else's self help book. I will call it: A Small Guide to Better Self Help Books if You Skip to the End. And it goes a little something like this:


Chapter 1: The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale 
Just pretend it's all gonna to be ok. k?

Chapter 2: Why Men Love Bitches, by Sherry Argov
A repeat of the outdated 1985 best seller "The Rules of Dating." 

Chapter 3: Rich Dad/Poor Dad, by Robert Kyosaki
How to make lots of money writing a self-help book, then squander it and declare bankruptcy. 

Chapter 4: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
You should have found a skill when you were five years old and stuck with it forever. Now it's too late and you are going to fail. 

Chapter 5: 127 Hours (or Between a Rock and a Hard Place), by Aron Ralston
In order to survive, you will need to cut off your arm. But then, you'll become a millionaire writing about your ordeal and have James Franco play you in the movie adaptation. Just give it roughly 5.2 days.

Chapter 6: Talent is Overrated, by Geoff Colvin
You might be naturally good at something but that doesn't actually matter.

Chapter 7: Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston
Just throw everything you own away. It's giving you depression and medication is expensive.

Chapter 8: The Cunt Book, by Inga Muscio 
Your vagina is your temple.

Chapter 9: Any Suzie Orman book
You are broke and will probably die broke.



And Finally...




Chapter 10: A Guide to Better Self Help Books
If you truly want to help yourself, these are the only self-help books you're ever gonna need:

The Art of War

The Prince

Demonic Male: Apes and the Origins
of Human Violence

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

It may seem like I have a very bleak view of the human race, but really, I'm just a pragmatist at heart. 

Now take three big breaths and remind yourself that you're alive by repeating the words "I'm alive" five times a day.

What's so amazing about really deep thoughts

Here's some stuff that's been on my mind that's really, not very good shite.

1) Fox News and MSNBC are both useless

I think the liberals are going to unfortunately and
as usual, be dumb asses on this issue.

Ed, unfortunately, conservatives are just
real dumb asses all the time.

I spent a little time watching MSNBC and Fox News in the past few weeks... As little as possible but enough to come to the conclusion that they are both shit. One is too left wing, the other too right wing. They spend most of their time either talking about how the other side is presently reacting to something, or speculating how the other side is going to react to something tomorrow. 

As someone who has common sense, I think MSNBC has smarter, more interesting pundits, but overall I learn basically nothing watching either of these two channels. Well, I lie, I learn how the pundits and journalists feel, which is super useful information.

2) When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know that it is.

- Oscar Wilde

Money. There's really nothing any feel good movie or 3 cent philosophy Facebook post is going to do to make me believe that it's not the most important thing in the world. So far in my life, nothing has proven to the contrary (so yeah, thanks, people in my life). Family, Love etc. all those things go to shit when money is either lacking or when there's too much of it, but mostly when it's lacking. With that said, I hope that the knowledge of this truth will set me free and allow me to just get over it already and do interesting things in my life (i.e. redemption). But I doubt it because I'm only human. Born to make mistakes.

Everybody needs money. That's why they call it Money.

-Danny Devito to Gene Hackman  in the Mamet film "Heist"

3) Why is Shawshank Redemption every male I've ever encountered's most favorite movie ever?
I liked this movie, I really did. But the men of the world are just not letting me forget it exists. Go ahead and ask every guy you know what their top five movies are, they will always, always, always include Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank was good, but it wasn't THAT good. It wasn't, like, Criterion Collection good. It wasn't Empire of the Sun good. It wasn't Jaws good, nor was it even Good Fellas good. So why?

I asked a friend who shall remain unnamed why men liked this movie so damn much. He responded that it's because men don't like movies with women and children in them. That makes TOTAL SENSE. This friend went on to say that men are completely fascinated with male dynamics. That also makes TOTAL SENSE. Mystery solved.

4) I am totally fascinated by the Lance Armstrong story. He's this year's Bernie Madoff. Actually, maybe Jerry Sandusky is...                 But anyway.
I think this story is one of the most interesting to emerge in the last year from a human psychological perspective. The entire world really fell for Armstrong and his story and he managed to cover up a lie for over 10 years. I think his brain should be studied for sociopathic tendencies. When you watch his testimony, you see that he's a gifted liar. But because you know the truth, you also feel that there are fissures in his conviction. Experts, please analyze his body language!

5) If it were up to me, the gun control debate would result in the repeal of the 2nd amendment
I am not an extreme person, at least, I try not to be. But I've mulled this issue over and over in my mind, read facts, read opinion columns, and came to the conclusion that mere gun control would not be enough to curb gun violence or mass shootings in America. Bashir posted this thought piece the other day by Sam Harris. While I only agree with about half of it, and strongly disagree with the first half, what I do concede is that a ban on assault weapons would only be a symbolic gesture at best. Handguns account for most of the gun violence in the US, and contrary to popular belief, mass shootings as well. The only private citizens who should have guns are people who need them for their livelihood, people who live in the boondocks and hunt for instance. That's about it. That said, since the repeal of the 2nd amendment will not happen, and there are already 300 million guns floating around in the country, my solution is clearly not a realistic one.

And the men who hold high places

On to our regularly scheduled program. Here is a list of shite that's really good shite.

1) The Street Stops Here

If every once in awhile I flip, so be it. If I didn't, these kids would get swallowed up by the streets. 

This documentary is about High School basketball coach Bob Hurley who has been coaching at St Anthony's in New Jersey for a shit ton of years. St. Anthony's has one of the best HS basketball programs in the nation and Hurley is one of the greatest basketball coaches in the nation. He is demanding and tough but the kids who play for him respect him so much and know that by playing for him they're getting a shot at a better life -- I'm not talking about the NBA (which would be nice, sure), but a college education (hopefully, that does still mean something, eek). Admittedly, I shed a tear. Ok? These stories always get to me. Hurley's received many lucrative offers to get out of dodge and be a college coach or recruiter, but has always turned them down. He wants to teach 16-17 year olds of the inner city because he knows that at that age, he still has a chance to influence them in a positive way. Oh and St. Anthony is a poor school. I mean, they don't even have a gym-- They rent their basketball court. They have to make up a large part of their operational budget through fundraising. After watching this documentary, I felt compelled to donate. I think you will too. And you can do so at this here link. Or you can just, you know, google it yourself.

Oh, and I know coaches haven't been popular this past year. Leave Hurley out of it. He's a Mensch. He doesn't act all nice and silly with his kids or try to ingratiate himself with them. He means business, he shows up and gives a damn. And he can be a total asshole, but that's his way and everyone knows it. 

2) Anna Karenina - The Movie (2012)

Anna isn't a criminal, but she broke the rules.
Countess Nordsten, refusing to see Anna socially.

Tom Stoppard wrote the hell out of this script y'all. It got totally jipped in the Golden Globe nominations, which is an unfortunate predictor of Oscar Nominations. Ugh, I have a pop culture chip lodged in my frontal lobe. Why do I even care. I saw this in Aspen and really really enjoyed it. Maybe it's because I was on vacation and I love everything on vacation, or maybe it's because it wasn't as hyped up as, say, Sky Fall (Blasphemy! but 'Meh', 'cept for the Judi Dench scenes), but this film took me on a journey. Damn it was tough to be a scorned lady in imperial Russia. We've come a long way (thank you, women of England). And you should also know that I've never been a huge Keira Knightley fan, but she rocked this movie as did the other actors. 

3) Harvard Beats Yale 29 - 29
Good documentary about a legendary football match between Harvard and Yale in 1968 in which Yale was, how do I put this, the VERY obviously favored team. Yale was kicking Harvard's ass for the majority of the game until Harvard came back out of nowhere in the last two minutes of the game. I love me a comeback.







4) Killer Joe

Besides a scene that triggered my gag reflex (you'll know which one if you watch the director's cut), this movie is excellent. A bleak, white trashy world in which Mathew McConaughey masterfully depicts a sociopathic contract killer who also happens to be a cop. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?






5) The Hopeful

I don't need false excitement, but I need something! I need something! 
Coach Dan O'Day to his team in the middle of a dismal performance:

See, while I don't actually watch much sports during the year -- unless it's the Superbowl, the NCAA, the Grand Slams or the Olympics -- and get annoyed, possibly due to my ignorance, with all the Football postings on FB (Go Cowboys! Oh man! Fumble? Fumble this you mofo! Personal foul? That ref deserves jail time. Take him out of the game! Wtf are you doing, Tebow!), I am such a huge fan of sports documentaries and movies. I'm sure there's a deep psychological reason for that. Here's another sports doc about a young man, Cody Keith, whose dream it is to play Division I football. It was a pretty controversial story because his parents were rich enough to move across the country just so he could find a highschool that would give him more playing time. And he was certainly not a well known player to college recruiters. That said, he works his butt off and seems like a terrific kid, so all you can do is root for him the whole way through.

6) George Bellows at the Met

Highly recommend this exhibit at the Met highlighting the work of George Bellows.