Gen X Retro Flashback: Inspector Gadget

Growing up this was just about my very favorite cartoon. It's not surprising as I absolutely loved Don Adams as Maxwell Smart on the TV show 'Get Smart'. Basically Gadget is Smart, albeit with no 99, and animated. Don died a few years back and was one of the only 'celebrities' I ever felt genuine regret at his passing. Somehow I wish I could send him an email and tell him thanks for all the times through his shows that he cheered me up, made me laugh and learn not to take life so seriously. Somehow he managed to stay dapper and handsome even when making himself ridiculous with that snarky, nasal voice. Thanks again Don for Max and Inspector G!

I'm Ready for My Close-Up, Mr. Cowell...

"Ms. Jones!", a brisk polo-shirted girl with blue streaked hair, a headset clamped in her ear with a mouthpiece protruding inches from her pierced upper lip, a flying lanyard around her neck that proclaims her to be a 'Staffer-'Best Singer in the USA Competition-a division of Super Duper Cola, Inc.' shrieks at me, "you're next!" I stand up, unhook the i-pod ear buds, brush imaginary crumbs from my leatherette mini-skirt, adjust my sequined tank, make sure that the bright yellow and pink streaks in my hair are artfully framing my face, take a deep breath, square my shoulders, trill a few practice "mi, mi, mi miiiii's" and take the cordless mike the frantic, panting staffer holds out, and I step out on to the stage....There he sits, Samuel Corwin himself, ' that's the guy ', I tell myself ' who can make or break me! ' Okay, here goes, showtime...

Yeah, that's the new kind of fantasy girls nodding off in Algebra have these days. Me, I used to dream about maybe being out at some club one night and have Downtown Julie Brown herself show up and take one look at me dancing, in my teased hair, puff ball skirt, t-shirt with leggings and laced up Converse and turn to her lackeys (as all MTV Stars must have) and say in that inimitable London Cockney voice, 'Oh that's so fab, boys we simply have got to have her on Club MTV!'

In my fantasy though, I knew that my big break would probably only involve just that, one moment to get on stage at the Palladium and dance to Depeche Mode with Downtown Julie, after which I'd go to college, get a fabulous job like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom, then get married and settle down in a split-level in the 'Burbs with a really nice accountant.

These days it seems, every kid who isn't completely tone deaf, is sure he's the next big thing. By the age of eight, if he doesn't have 30,000 hits the first day You Tube debuts his rendition in the church choir of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", his little pysche is so crushed that it'll probably cost Mommy and Daddy a Rip-Stick and 80-120 hours of therapy.  Incidentally, when I was in church, am pretty sure Gaga would have been verboten. We sang songs about Father Abraham, Jesus, sheep and such, we never warbled pop hits that involved tongue-ringed kisses in sand, or love as disease.

For fun, and the fact that not very much good passes for TV these days, I've begun watching, "The X-Factor". I was kind of hoping that a Susan Boyle or Jackie Evancho might be discovered here in the States, some overlooked singer that really deserved a chance. Instead what I have seen, really troubled me in terms of the future of this nation. For instance, I have never witnessed narcissism on such a large scale before. All of these 14, 15, 16-somethings and younger in some instances, in tears and crying about how they've worked so hard and just can't bear it if they are sent home. They've worked so hard...hmmm..I don't know if hours spent in front of your mirror, plugged into your I-Pod, singing along with Brittany, Mariah or X-Tina into your hairbrush really qualifies as work. I did the same thing, albeit with a Sony Walkman and Debbie Gibson and sometimes if you must know, Olivia Newton John and Sarah Brightman (who I still think is one of the best soloists ever). It seems as if all of them have been camera-ready since birth. For example, I never saw one teenager in an awkward stage with acne, gawky skinned knees or greasy hair the way kids looked in my Junior High. As if they somehow skipped over childhood and adolescence and were born as pop-stars in waiting. Because goodness knows, that's all they ever strive toward.

Is is so bad that they might have to go home, go to school, study hard and work to get a job like the rest of us mugs? In some ways the parents are as bad as the children they are raising (and I use the term raising loosely). Many times, the X-Factor, while Jr or Sissy is singing, will cut to the oh-so-proud Mom and Pop who with the requisite tears running down their faces (incidentally I think if this show continues at all, they should, in fact, rename it 'Everybody Cries') they later interview. There the almost-more-excited-than-the-star-kid parents are asked to reminisce about their little star. The interview which is overlayed with audio of Jr and Sissy singing in the background, is nearly always a Michael Landon-esque moment where Mom having pulled herself back from the brink of a complete nervous-system collapse, smiles brightly at the host and says, "Oh yes, little Jace was always musical, I can remember Daddy and I thinking while we were filming his preschool graduation that his rendition of Enya's Only Time was just so good we knew we had a star on our hands".

I think if I have to hear just one more time, how so and so, just can't stand, "to live if I have to die with this music inside of me", as if somehow music was an insidious form of cancer and singing was the only way to expell the tumour(s), I will spontaneously combust like those cows out on desolate praries where they only find a carcass some months later at the round-up!

I'm one of the lucky ones, I had good parents, not stage parents, like Justin Bieber's Mom who tirelessly promoted her son on You Tube, forcing him on to stages anywhere anyone would listen until she had the full attention of L.A Reid himself. Frankly you strip away the elfin looks, the floppy stylist-created haircut and you have a kid with an ok voice (which will not be the same when it changes) who simply 'lucked out' and who like many others will be someone we all remember was once, really famous. It's a very common tale. I wish more parents were like my Dad, who took the chance of instilling some reality into his child instead of filling her head with pipe dreams.

 In the 6th grade, I was flying high in the school chorus and I and a good friend of mine (who actually still sings, not on the pop charts mind you, but in her church and I daresay she doesn't do Gaga) spent all of our time singing and mugging before mirrors dreaming we were the next Bananarama or Bangles (once again people, if these names mean nothing to you, for goodness sake find yourself an X-er, they probably still have the Cd's or at least the ability to hum most if not all of the greatest hits) and I just knew that it'd be no time before someone 'discovered us' and we'd be the next great hit on MTV. One day I was bragging and singing and my Dad gently told me that 'truthfully, your voice is not all that great. It's okay for the school choir, but your real talent will be found by studying. Study hard, he told me and learn as much as you can. If I were you, I'd read more than I'd practice singing.' I was of course devastated, and did I read? Of course, no, I sang even more and practised even harder. 'I'd show my Dad he was wrong!'

Then the day came when I had my 'vocal test' in front of our choir teacher who was a very hard taskmaster and who at the time, was my very own Simon Cowell. When the moment came where she took us aside one by one for 'mentoring' and to let us know how we'd done, she took a deep breath, (I guess even hard-nosed teachers and maybe even Simon Cowell hate to kill dreams) and told me, "You work very hard and I've never seen anyone try as hard as you do day in and day out. However, while I am happy to have you in the general chorus, you aren't a soloist, your voice just isn't strong or distinctive enough. You are a very good student and I've noticed that whenever we had a break, or when others were performing, you are always reading. If I were you, I'd take advantage of that, reading and study is where the best opportunities are. To make it as a singer, or in a band, it's a one in a million chance, even IF you are the best. Plenty of wonderful singers are working during the day at Walmart and singing in bars at night!" I was devastated of course, first of all she'd said what my Dad said! Then I realised that maybe deep down, it hurt because I knew she was right. My best successes would come later as a reporter, editor for the school paper, creative writing classes. My grades were my rewards, not my hits on You Tube.

I wish kids these days had parents who truly mentored like mine did. Parents who told them the truth instead of pushing them to humiliate themselves on the world stage. The whole history of the United States would have been altered had not a young Abraham Lincoln labored and studied and read, often in the face of adversity and crushing poverty. What if his parents had just said, "Abe, you're wasting your time with all this study, now there is a traveling Minstrel show 2 towns over, I bet with your height and distinctive 'look' you'd be a natural!"

What is so wrong with working for a living? For every Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson, there is another who had their moment in the spotlight and then faded away, does anyone know where or even remember who Taylor Hicks, Justin Guarini, or Blake Lewis is these days?

My wise choir teacher left one last gem of wisdom in my year book and every so often when I'm having a day of regret I look at it. She wrote, "to my student, whom I'll always remember as being an avid reader like myself". It spoke volumes. She wrote a reader, not a singer...like myself, meaning very few make it and those who don't teach others!

By the way, I did actually try out once for a TV show...it was Jeopardy. I guess my Dad was right all along.

Gen X Retro Flashback: The Other Ones- "Holiday"

Here's a really cheesy blast from the past...I don't know what it is...but this is one of those songs that makes me immediately think of the 1980's....

The Family Communication Hub

I have a small confession to make, one which will pretty much brand me as a hypocrite.

I am now the owner of... a smartphone. A gen-u-wine, android-powered piece of evil that is supposed to make me hipper, brighter, tech-savvy and have whiter teeth. Ok, I threw that last one in.

I know in my first piece some months back, I branded myself as a reactionary and expressed contempt for these objects. I maintain my contempt, but the sad fact is, you almost can't get just a 'regular cell phone' today and my cell phone company wanted to charge me MORE for their non-Android phones, the one I could find at all. Ok, the conspiracy theorist in me, could go on about this for...well, how much time have you got? But, the truth is...like social media; I guess this is is just the way things are.

My first stirrings that I wasn't exactly a technophile came about two Christmases ago, when my niece, Persephone (names have been changed to protect the innocent) seeing my car pull in the driveway as I dutifully dragged myself to Christmas dinner, came running over to me in full shriek. Immediately, Norman Rockwell-esque images flooded my mind, and I was all warm inside, "My little niece...can't wait to see her Auntie!" As I opened the car door, a very different child confronted me, "Auntie, I got DS!". Neophyte that I am, and missing the oh-so-critical 'a'; I took a few steps back, starting to say, "I'm sorry you don't feel well, and I'm sure Mommy and Daddy will take you to the doctor and he'll make it all better..." when she thrusts this notebook-like object under my nose. "Look Auntie!", she says grasping a stylus in her hand like a secretary about to take dictation, "It's got games, I can go on the internet, see all my friends..." I'm thinking, 'she's 7, I mean, it's not like she needs the internet to send critical work emails, or to liaise with the home office.'
Which was nearly my reaction a few months later when she was given a laptop computer.  To put it in perspective, I was in my LATE 30's when I got my FIRST personal laptop computer.

So to put it mildly, I am a late bloomer when it comes to technology.

After my new device came, I took myself down to the store to have all of my pictures and contacts moved from my old and apparently so low-tech that the rep on the phone nearly laughed out loud when I gave him my model and serial numbers SIM card to my new more hipper and fashion-forward SIM. As part of the service, the cellular representative, who like all of the people in my life these days, probably was born the week that Family Ties had it's farewell episode, proceeded to give me a crash-course in all the things my 'droid could apparently do. It was a lot like when fast talker John Moschitta, Jr. aka 'The Micro Machine Man' used to run down all of the attributes of those amazing little shape-shifting toys in the space of a minute and a half or the weird unintelligible words of the auctioneer hawking cars at the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction. That is, if Moschitta, Jr. or the auction-man also happened to speak very quickly in Greek, Swahili or Russian. "Okay folks, here you have your apps, your apps, swype, give me swype and you have your net, give me net, I say net access, net access, pinch it, pinch it and it gets smaller, smaller I say, give me smaller, spread your fingers, I say spread em, and it gets larger...give me larger"

As he droned on...I zoned out. My mind drifted to a happier place, before 'droids, I-Pods, MP3's, Tablet PC's, laptops, etc. I thought affectionately back to the days when my Mom carried a cell-phone the size of a masonary brick, it's long black plastic antenna protruding through the zipper of her purse. I thought back to my father's car which was equipped with an equally brick-like phone in a cradle housed in the console next to the driver's seat, the hands' free option that so dazzled my friends, press one button, 'beeeepp' connect with the microphone crouched in the window corner and he would transact business all the way to our school, a long wire-like antenna protruding from the roof of the car.

Back when the family communication hub consisted of a phone with a looonnng extension cord that let you walk all the way from the breakfast nook to the dining room and if you were nimble and determined enough to the living room sofa where you could sit down for an intimate conversation heard only by...well...everyone in the living room or the bedroom beyond. I used to love to wind myself in the cord and see how many revolutions it took to get free again. I think my record was 9. With a cell-phone you're too free and ambulatory, consequently you miss things. If I hadn't been wound up in the cord and trapped in the kitchen; I'd have missed the moment when our crazy, clumsy cat BJ while in the midst of a fight with another cat, missed his footing, tripped and flipped himself into the family swimming pool.

As for texting, in the 1990's with a houseful of people coming and going at different times, texting was a spot on the breakfast nook where a sheaf of scratch paper fashioned from cut-up backs of those pesky Val-Pak coupons and a chewed-up pencil resided. It was there you got all you needed to know, "We've gone to bed, please don't unplug the coffee maker, we're going out early in the morning, see you when we get back. Love, Mom". Important information like, "Jessie's staying over night, so you're sleeping on the couch, try not to wake the girls!" Or chores, "On your way home from school, could you please pick up a veggie for supper, cauliflower would be good or maybe green beans, NO LIMA BEANS, your sisters won't eat them!"

Yep, the good old reliable Family Communication Hub...for my money you can keep the droid...It'll never beat a coil-y phone cord and a chewed up pencil!

Hello Fall!

Fall has finally come to the great state of Florida.

Or our version of fall anyway.

It's my favorite time of year, it's some of Florida's best weather. Those of us who have lived indoors all summer hovering by the AC and trying to ignore the constant layer of sweat on our foreheads are now opening our windows and going out for walks, bike rides, and to all manner of 'activities', pumpkin patches, craft bazars, community sales, etc.

It's sort of the opposite of up-north where people begin to lay in supplies, the days are shorter, and they begin to head inside to 'hunker down' ahead of a bitter cold winter.

I kind of like the sense that fall is a time to sort of clear up what remains of the old year and to start to plan for the new. I love the holidays that bring us the chance to meet up with our loved ones, find out how they've been surviving the summer, to bring in, to feast.

I like clearing out closets and cleaning up prepartory to decorating, the fall theme until November 25th and then a mad orgy of red and green for the festive season, silly snowmen, dancing 'Clauses, and reindeer.

In a sense, fall is the time that you take stock and begin to rebuild for the future.

With that in mind...I'd really like to ask that those who read this blog with any frequency, to please, please comment!! What kinds of things have you liked that I posted, the silly retro-flashbacks and ads, the polls (please participate), the content, anything?

What I had really hoped to do with this blog was to establish a forum, a place for Gen X'ers to congregate, share stories and experiences. As an X'er or even a 'Boomer or Millenial reading this, I really value your perspectives. I would love to get emails or if you'd like to be a 'Guest Poster', I would welcome that. What's your 'Moment of Epiphany'? Surely, I can't be the only one!

Please, please comment..even negative comments are welcome (that said, please be civil). Reading over some of the last posts, I realise that perhaps my pieces are too dark, or personal in some cases...but I do try to be honest and I welcome feedback about that.

Lastly, if you like what you've read, please share with your friends...

Happy Fall...

Regrets...I've had a few

I'm in a pensive frame of mind today.

Today I'm not so much thinking about the clash of generations or generational differences but of my own personal losses.

Time does indeed make fools of us all. Thanks to social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc we get to relive those regrets on a daily basis in some cases.

Facebook I've decided, can on any given day, be both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that it keeps me up to date on the people that I truly care about. In an instant, I know that my sister/aunt/friend had a 'Super time at Walt Disney World' or at least as good a time as one can have paying $8.00 for a Coke after dropping (according to my most recent stats) $90.53 (can that be right!??) a head to be hurled through the air, plummeted, turned sideways, jolted, and just plain scared out of their wits on rides that make you wish you were dead! But at least, thanks to Facebook, I know that they at least loved/liked/survived the experience. Also, when next month they are 'worried about making the mortgage', I for one, know why!

No one can doubt the truly all-encompassing changes that social media has wrought on our lives. For once, I have the upper hand over my mother when we gently gossip about the family and what's going on in so-and-so's life. I've been there, seen the pictures, and bought the t-shirt.  I'm able to correct her and say that "Actually Aunt Louisa and Uncle Ted are not going to Las Vegas for their vacation, they've decided to go to Branson instead!"

On the other hand though, the dark little secret of Facebook is that once you've delved in, you are sucked into a vortex that inevitably leads you back to your past. 'Friending' this person leads to that friend who leads to this friend and so forth...you get the idea. Some friends it leads you to are just as you remember them and their life has taken a pretty predictable path, some you look at and go, "Wow, next to this guy/that girl, my life looks pretty great!"

But then, you look at the really close friends and you wonder, 'should I have taken a different path?'
When you are a 30-something X'er, looking at your other 30-something X'ers, sometimes you sit back and catch your breath and think back to the simpler times. Before they had kids, and dance lessons and soccer games to go to. When you were a real person to them, not just a name on their speed dial or Facebook Friends' list. You look at the photos of their weddings, their kids as infants, Christmases, Easter, the trip to that amusement park, that field trip and realise that the pics of you dancing with your colleagues at the office Christmas Party after you've had a little too much wine seem a bit hollow in comparison. A little too 'Bridget Jones' for comfort.

Granted, sometimes these maudlin reflections are the result of a few too many hours listening to "Now That's What I Call the 80's" Volume(s) I, II, III, too many awkward dates, too many failed relationships. Nights where you sit and reflect on 'the one who got away'. And Facebook is there to remind you of that as well. You see the one(s) who got away. Sometimes you even 'friend' them. The exquisite torture of seeing them and their spouse, children and how 'happy they are at Disney World'.

Then there is always the 'one', the incomparable, who you sit back and voyueristically marvel at, and wonder how you let someone as fantastically talented, humane, decent, moral and kind just slip through your fingers.

Yes, even in your worst hour, Facebook is there for you.
And yet... in the space of a few hours, I'm sure I'll log in again for just a little more torment...

Mitigating My Damages

At the end of the movie Pretty Woman, prostitute Vivian (as portrayed by a youthful Julia Roberts) cleans up and is whisked away by Richard Gere where she will presumably marry or cohabit with him, but at the very least will no longer have to 'turn tricks' to earn her bread. Her roommate and fellow 'lady of the evening' inspired by her former 'co-worker' exhorts her new 'roommate' fellow 'lady of the evening' that she will have to charge her an increased rent owing to the fact that she too doesn't want to 'turn tricks' forever and may take night school classes, etc, because as she giddily states, "Ya gotta have a plan!" , "Do ya have a plan?" she exhorts her new minion.

Do you have a plan? Indeed.

I, in fact had (have) a plan. It's very simple. The plan has ALWAYS been to GET. A. JOB.
I've gone through all the usual suspects, Craigslist, Careerbuilder, Monster, HotJobs..Cold Jobs, Good Jobs, Indifferent Jobs, Mediocre Jobs...ok...you get the idea...
My resume has passed through more hands than a NY Subway token. Placement Agencies, Temporary Agents, Staffing Agents, (Casting Agents?). 

Since my plan hasn't been completely realized, contingencies WERE necessary, somewhat humiliating and degrading, but still necessary! Especially given the fact that I liked to eat and the bills WILL keep coming in spite of the fact that employment has not. So of course, I tapped on the great State of Florida's shoulder and said, "I'd like to have some of those tax dollars back that I and my former employer(s) paid into your unemployment coffers".  And at first the State of Florida obligingly complied.

To my great surprise though, I found some weeks later that a former employer quite vociferously objected to my request for her portion of those aforementioned dollars and had viscously petitioned every department of the Florida State unemployment office up to and including Governor Scott himself to prevent me from doing so.

Her reasoning was that I wasn't mitigating my damages, simply put that I hadn't made the necessary effort to find a job. As she saw it, all these months, I've been sitting around in a feathered peignoir and slippers watching the soaps while gorging myself on bon-bons.

After I cried and screamed, then cried and screamed a little more, I did what any reactionary type A personality would do. First I burned with indignation, recalling every menial task I'd ever performed for her up to and including making her lunch, dropping off postage and buying stamps for which I was never reimbursed nor for the mileage it took for me to go and purchase them, petitioning members of my family to provide her with advertising products at cost for which they and the company never received one penny in profit, taking a part-time position at a substantially lower wage while she replaced me with someone else in order to avoid being altogether unemployed. The temporary assignment I took which paid me 50% less in wages than a similar position I'd held 4 years earlier, because I was so desperate NOT to be unemployed, to NOT have to take unemployment compensation.

Then I overdosed on job-hunting. It hasn't been uncommon for me to be scouring Craigslist or Careerbuilder at midnight on a Saturday double-checking, being sure that there wasn't something I'd missed earlier in the week. Then being panicked at finding something, only to find as I checked my list of sent resumes that I'd already contacted them.

 All of the interviews, kowtowing to every hiring manager, every receptionist, every single person who might have had the ability to make or break me.  Hearing so often the phrases I dread, "Well, we have a few more people to see this week." Or... "We are going to email you a personality evaluation and then we'll see where we are."  "We'll be in touch soon..."  And responding to my query, "Will I hear from you either way?"   "Oh sure, we'll definitely be in touch!" All of the ways people handle you, all of the ways they tell you without ever saying it, without ever giving you the chance to prove them wrong, that you are too old, too young, too ugly, too pretty, too thin, too fat, too blond, too not-blond, too not asian, too not hispanic, not spanish-speaking, too qualified, too underqualified for them to bother with being polite to or treating you like a human being.

And you go home and beg the phone to ring. Praying that they'll give you the chance to prove them wrong.

Trying so damn hard to mitigate my damages. To prove that I am not a bum, a burden on society, shiftless, lazy, good for nothing...not a failure.

Fast foward a few months and then, the other week,  Interview #...oh forget it, a guy, the owner in fact, shows up to interview me...in shorts. I try to overlook the fact that I am perspiring, SWEATING in hosiery, having sat up the night before swathed in blue clay to be sure my skin was supple, bleaching my teeth white using a device that is reminiscent of the mouthguard Rocky Balboa used while sparring with Apollo Creed, (come to think of it, it kind of makes me sound a bit like Rocky too..'Yo Adrian!'), the hours I spent that night researching interview questions, trying to be prepared for any eventuality.

But nothing could have prepared me for the question he posed 15 minutes into the interview when he says, "So unemployed for how many months...how come you haven't had any offers?" 

I blink hard to stop the rush of emotion, my throat raw with the sob that is never far from the surface. For a split second, I want to punch him square on the jaw. I want to break the windows. I want to scream, "Why indeed, your guess is as good as mine, you inconsiderate jerk?"

I think, 'I can't believe I have to answer the question of a man who five minutes ago stopped me mid-sentence to take a cell phone call from his wife about some matter relating to home improvement, and whose trousers are hanging on the door of his office, who IS WEARING SHORTS!'

I answer, of course, I answer. I know that I have as much chance of getting this job as my cat Jamie ever has of catching that moth on the other side of the sliding glass door.

But I answer...above all...my dignity doesn't matter, my pride doesn't even factor in, I have to mitigate my damages.