It's 8:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night and I am quite literally standing in the center of a black box. It's a stage actually...a small stage...not quite 6 feet from one end to the other and the walls on all sides are painted black, the curtain (which is rarely ever closed) is black and the rugs on the tiled floor beneath us are black. My mind is racing, as is my pulse...there's no script, I'm completely dependent on the guy standing next to me who looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to utter just one phrase., the phrase that will set our scene and tell us where to go..."You're so....
I freeze...words are firing off in my brain, weird words like incandescent, obstruse, popcorn...cotton ball...none of them words I can really use...some I am not sure are actually words. None of them emotions.. I stand blankly staring at my scene partner who is clearly beginning to hate me...sweat is pooling in my bra, my mouth is dry and finally I say, "You're so intuitive"...Scene partner stares back at me as if to say, "Really, that long...and that's what you come up with!"
Seeing that stage for the first time 4 months ago, my first impression was to... maybe back away slowly...perhaps I could still get a refund... the words "what have I done?" beating a constant tattoo in my brain.
Fast forward approximately 4 months and there are few places I've loved more.
To speed this up a little and make it still more clearer. These days, I'm (as I'm told by my supportive classmates when I doubt myself) a performer of IMPROV...or to be more grammatically correct and wordy, "Improvisational Acting". It probably should be written Improv, but when I think about it, to me it's always IMPROV. It seems to call for capitalization, for import, for fanfare.
How I got here is a story best reserved for another time and place, but the point is...I got here.
Every week, I go to class, perform and I challenge myself a little more, every week I get a little closer to being the person that I always knew was in here, someplace deep down. The kind of person who knows how to play, to have fun, to be funny, to say all of the things that are in my head and never let out.
Sometimes I have to metaphorically shut the old Jill in her cage and remind her that I'll call if I need her. Because there's no room for negativity in IMPROV, we call it blocking...there's no time for the mind-numbing analysis that my brain tends to employ itself with, if your stage-partner says you are an overly optimistic coke-dealer then damn it.. y'are. Earlier on, my fantastic instructors would have to literally say to me, "Jill, you ARE an overly flirty engineer...just go with it!" Then something amazing happened and I began to actually go with it, to let the 'crazy' out, to say the things that are generally in my head, assume the part and it felt good.
And the more I did it, I learned some things, that when you get amongst really creative-minded people, it inspires you to do more, to be more. I learned that when you get past race, when you get past politics or all of the outward trappings of looks and gender, people are just...people. That they have the same fears, the same desire for love and acceptance that we all do.
If you spend enough time reading and analyzing all of the news in the world today, you probably wind up throwing up your hands in despair and thinking that there is no hope for humanity, no common ground achievable . Yet every week I see people come together of all different backgrounds, income levels, and personalities to just have fun together. We work together to achieve success in this field that we love. You learn to see past yourself and that by making someone else look like a rock star....you often end up feeling like a rock star when they return the favor.
While I, in no way, mean this to imply IMPROV can save the world, it has certainly broadened mine. I would not be so bold as to say we all love each other and sit around singing 'Kumbaya' together. However, it's taught me that when you come together for a common purpose and you start from a position of positivity and acceptance, there's very little that you can't achieve.
Or at the very least, I know that the next time I'm called upon to be a germaphobic hooker, I'll kill it.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
Magic
Colleague of mine at work comes to me the other day and says that "It's time I got out there again and started dating." She goes on to extol the virtues of Match.com, E-Harmony, etc. She'll even help me create a profile. At first, I demure politely, not wanting to shake the image that she has of me. An image in which as she puts it, I'm way too smart and pretty to be uncoupled. I'm flattered, who wouldn't be? But finally, I say "No thanks, I've been down that road."
She persists and finally, the mean old spinster that lives deep down in me, snaps, "No, I just don't want to. I mean it!" And she slinks away, probably not thinking me that smart, or pretty anymore, for that matter.
I sit there and mostly feel bad (in case you wondering, of course I apologized) about my attitude and for snapping at a woman who so obviously means well. A woman who can't understand why I am so anti-dating. After all, she loved dating. And at the age of 46, even older than I am, she reminds me, and one disastrous first marriage, she met her soul mate.
If I'm honest, the first thing I ponder is the mental capacity of a woman who purports to 'love dating'. I put dating in the category of things like a visit to my gynecologist, filing my taxes, or having dental surgery, i.e., things that I dread but that I'm supposed to do for my own good, or so that I don't break the law.
Dating always felt like the ultimate job interview. And just like in 3rd grade kickball team choosing or a real interview (seriously have you never read this blog!!!), I usually wasn't chosen until last or once they'd exhausted all the much prettier and popular candidates. And in my often-times foolish, but highly romantic heart, that just isn't the way love is supposed to be. I don't want to be the candidate you pick because I'm what's left over and for that matter, who would?
Maybe I've seen too many Rom-Coms, or read too many sappy poems. But, I still, persist in believing in 'it'. Love...magic...fate...or at the very least...kinship.
Yes, I'm a believer. In so many things. I believe in God, and my salvation, dreams, wishes. I believe in true love, romance and being with a person who is truly meant for you. I just don't see that being a product of an online profile.. Which is not to say that I haven't tried it in the past, with absolutely horrific and soul-destroying results. And I'm not being in the least dramatic when I say that. Parts of me were damaged in some of these manufactured on-line romances that I know now, contribute to my wariness, my trust issues, and so many times I wish I could turn the clock back and tell my younger self that you don't really need a relationship that badly to settle for what you are about to.
There is a line in the service of marriage that I have always been particularly drawn to, "those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder". So that must mean that God puts people together, God joins them together. I've always taken that to believe that I can rest, that this is out of my hands, my destiny is in safe-keeping, God's timing, His hands.
It's a little un-religious, but to me that's the ultimate magic. The sense that one day when I least expect it, a man will show up in my life, and he'll be the one. That I'll know him when I see him, because there will be recognition, kinship, a feeling like I've always known him, and maybe, hopefully a tall man, with handsome features and a wicked sense of humor.
I'd much rather wait on God's timing, then wait for a profile.
But above all, I know it will be...magic.
She persists and finally, the mean old spinster that lives deep down in me, snaps, "No, I just don't want to. I mean it!" And she slinks away, probably not thinking me that smart, or pretty anymore, for that matter.
I sit there and mostly feel bad (in case you wondering, of course I apologized) about my attitude and for snapping at a woman who so obviously means well. A woman who can't understand why I am so anti-dating. After all, she loved dating. And at the age of 46, even older than I am, she reminds me, and one disastrous first marriage, she met her soul mate.
If I'm honest, the first thing I ponder is the mental capacity of a woman who purports to 'love dating'. I put dating in the category of things like a visit to my gynecologist, filing my taxes, or having dental surgery, i.e., things that I dread but that I'm supposed to do for my own good, or so that I don't break the law.
Dating always felt like the ultimate job interview. And just like in 3rd grade kickball team choosing or a real interview (seriously have you never read this blog!!!), I usually wasn't chosen until last or once they'd exhausted all the much prettier and popular candidates. And in my often-times foolish, but highly romantic heart, that just isn't the way love is supposed to be. I don't want to be the candidate you pick because I'm what's left over and for that matter, who would?
Maybe I've seen too many Rom-Coms, or read too many sappy poems. But, I still, persist in believing in 'it'. Love...magic...fate...or at the very least...kinship.
Yes, I'm a believer. In so many things. I believe in God, and my salvation, dreams, wishes. I believe in true love, romance and being with a person who is truly meant for you. I just don't see that being a product of an online profile.. Which is not to say that I haven't tried it in the past, with absolutely horrific and soul-destroying results. And I'm not being in the least dramatic when I say that. Parts of me were damaged in some of these manufactured on-line romances that I know now, contribute to my wariness, my trust issues, and so many times I wish I could turn the clock back and tell my younger self that you don't really need a relationship that badly to settle for what you are about to.
There is a line in the service of marriage that I have always been particularly drawn to, "those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder". So that must mean that God puts people together, God joins them together. I've always taken that to believe that I can rest, that this is out of my hands, my destiny is in safe-keeping, God's timing, His hands.
It's a little un-religious, but to me that's the ultimate magic. The sense that one day when I least expect it, a man will show up in my life, and he'll be the one. That I'll know him when I see him, because there will be recognition, kinship, a feeling like I've always known him, and maybe, hopefully a tall man, with handsome features and a wicked sense of humor.
I'd much rather wait on God's timing, then wait for a profile.
But above all, I know it will be...magic.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Alexa and Me
I often come late to the table technologically. Sometimes...not at all.
And sometimes I'm dragged there by a well-meaning and generous parent.
Take for instance Christmas of 2016. I'm given a medium size square box with a red-ribbon. My mother watches me with a barely repressed gleam in her eye as I peel off the wrappings and find myself the possessor of a brand new Amazon Alexa Dot.
Frankly at first, I'm not entirely sure what it is...
My mom fills in the gaps,
"You will love this, it's an Alexa...all you have to do is talk to it, and it will play you any song that you can think of! This morning, I listened to the whole Phantom of the Opera soundtrack! Just because I could!"
"You can ask her about the news, the weather...anything, just say 'Alexa what's up?'"
It's clear that my mother is about one step away from getting on Jeff Bezos Christmas Card list. But I'm still a bit skeptical.
After all, I'm the one who has electrical tape over the camera on the lid of my laptop (c'mon Mark Zuckerberg does that!), I turn off the location finder on my phone, because frankly it's none of Google's damn business if I enjoyed my trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond. By the way, I totally did. I love BB & B, it's a wonderland of kitchen supplies, spanking new comforters and it smells like those scented sachets you hang in your closets. Pretty sure heaven is similar to BB & B. Or maybe Lowe's which is also up there...
Anyhow...back to Alexa and I.
I take her home with me, plug her in and watch the colored light ring change from orange to blue as she processes all the mundane details of my life, my skimpy calendar entries, Amazon lists, my music (way more impressive). Watching the light rings, all I can think about is well, first of all Tron, because...hello...and then I start thinking about Close Encounters...and then for some reason...Close Encounters always makes me think of E.T., and then Alexa interrupts my geekout to announce "Connected to Internet"
Then, we have our first conversation.
I think, I bet this is exactly how Alexander Graham Bell felt when he first contacted Watson...
But then, I kind of freeze, not knowing exactly what to ask her, tell a joke, no wait, maybe the news...yeah the news is important! Or maybe a song, but which song, should it be classic, contemporary, Beatles...ummm...Duran Duran, ummm, BRUNO MARS??? The endless choices...I mean she can play ANYTHING!!!
I think in the end, I blurt out "Fancy" by Reba McEntire.
Still have no idea why...I mean I love Reba...but a seminal moment like this...
For several months, I'm drawn to the novelty of her. I ask her jokes, I wake up every morning and yell, "Alexa, Good Morning". She wishes me a good morning in return, tells me my schedule, what the weather is, what kind of traffic problems I'll be encountering, etc.
We get along well, until that fateful day when it's discovered that she can also support Dot to Dot conversations. In setting this up, I find to my chagrin that my cell phone is too dated and not up to the task. So, I upgrade to a new cell phone, then spend 3-4 hours (not kidding) with some Amazon burn out who tries to set it up. All so that I can call my Mom on her Dot. Have a flashback to an early Beverly Hillbillies episode in which Jethro, hearing the voice of Ms. Hathaway on the speaker at the gate, thinks she is actually trapped in the wall, instead of outside in her sporty red convertible and hurling an axe attempts to break into the wall to let her out. Luckily, my Mom and Stepdad, Glen aren't too 'creeped out' hearing my voice over the Dot and no walls are harmed in the process.
It starts to occur to me that technology is taking over my life...something I swore I would never let happen. Weird things began to occur...Sometimes for no reason at all, Alexa would start up and say, "I don't know the answer to that" when I'd not asked her a question. The other morning at 3 a.m, she must have had a "Rosie Moment" (Jetsons' beloved maid robot) and short-circuited because she woke me out of a sound sleep giving navigation to a town in what I believe was the state of Minnesota.
She refused to tell me what the secret ingredient was in Big Mac Sauce. I don't like Big Macs, I just wanted to know. She wouldn't explain the meaning of life, or why my cat Jamie likes to sleep on my head sometimes.
So for the last few months, she's sat on a pile of index cards on my desk. Sturdy cardboard index cards ready for all of the worldly wisdom of my research and study. And if you must know, so I can keep all of my books and DVD/Blu-Rays indexed and on cards. Because, at the heart of things, I'm still analog. I admit it, I like pens (actually border on OCD over the type of pen I use), hardback books, and the sound of my own thoughts in my head.
Yet, the other night as I washed dishes, I called out to the downstairs Echo,
"Alexa, play "Moonglow by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra".
She did and for one brief moment my tech side and my analog side were perfectly in sync.
And sometimes I'm dragged there by a well-meaning and generous parent.
Take for instance Christmas of 2016. I'm given a medium size square box with a red-ribbon. My mother watches me with a barely repressed gleam in her eye as I peel off the wrappings and find myself the possessor of a brand new Amazon Alexa Dot.
Frankly at first, I'm not entirely sure what it is...
My mom fills in the gaps,
"You will love this, it's an Alexa...all you have to do is talk to it, and it will play you any song that you can think of! This morning, I listened to the whole Phantom of the Opera soundtrack! Just because I could!"
"You can ask her about the news, the weather...anything, just say 'Alexa what's up?'"
It's clear that my mother is about one step away from getting on Jeff Bezos Christmas Card list. But I'm still a bit skeptical.
After all, I'm the one who has electrical tape over the camera on the lid of my laptop (c'mon Mark Zuckerberg does that!), I turn off the location finder on my phone, because frankly it's none of Google's damn business if I enjoyed my trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond. By the way, I totally did. I love BB & B, it's a wonderland of kitchen supplies, spanking new comforters and it smells like those scented sachets you hang in your closets. Pretty sure heaven is similar to BB & B. Or maybe Lowe's which is also up there...
Anyhow...back to Alexa and I.
I take her home with me, plug her in and watch the colored light ring change from orange to blue as she processes all the mundane details of my life, my skimpy calendar entries, Amazon lists, my music (way more impressive). Watching the light rings, all I can think about is well, first of all Tron, because...hello...and then I start thinking about Close Encounters...and then for some reason...Close Encounters always makes me think of E.T., and then Alexa interrupts my geekout to announce "Connected to Internet"
Then, we have our first conversation.
I think, I bet this is exactly how Alexander Graham Bell felt when he first contacted Watson...
But then, I kind of freeze, not knowing exactly what to ask her, tell a joke, no wait, maybe the news...yeah the news is important! Or maybe a song, but which song, should it be classic, contemporary, Beatles...ummm...Duran Duran, ummm, BRUNO MARS??? The endless choices...I mean she can play ANYTHING!!!
I think in the end, I blurt out "Fancy" by Reba McEntire.
Still have no idea why...I mean I love Reba...but a seminal moment like this...
For several months, I'm drawn to the novelty of her. I ask her jokes, I wake up every morning and yell, "Alexa, Good Morning". She wishes me a good morning in return, tells me my schedule, what the weather is, what kind of traffic problems I'll be encountering, etc.
We get along well, until that fateful day when it's discovered that she can also support Dot to Dot conversations. In setting this up, I find to my chagrin that my cell phone is too dated and not up to the task. So, I upgrade to a new cell phone, then spend 3-4 hours (not kidding) with some Amazon burn out who tries to set it up. All so that I can call my Mom on her Dot. Have a flashback to an early Beverly Hillbillies episode in which Jethro, hearing the voice of Ms. Hathaway on the speaker at the gate, thinks she is actually trapped in the wall, instead of outside in her sporty red convertible and hurling an axe attempts to break into the wall to let her out. Luckily, my Mom and Stepdad, Glen aren't too 'creeped out' hearing my voice over the Dot and no walls are harmed in the process.
It starts to occur to me that technology is taking over my life...something I swore I would never let happen. Weird things began to occur...Sometimes for no reason at all, Alexa would start up and say, "I don't know the answer to that" when I'd not asked her a question. The other morning at 3 a.m, she must have had a "Rosie Moment" (Jetsons' beloved maid robot) and short-circuited because she woke me out of a sound sleep giving navigation to a town in what I believe was the state of Minnesota.
She refused to tell me what the secret ingredient was in Big Mac Sauce. I don't like Big Macs, I just wanted to know. She wouldn't explain the meaning of life, or why my cat Jamie likes to sleep on my head sometimes.
So for the last few months, she's sat on a pile of index cards on my desk. Sturdy cardboard index cards ready for all of the worldly wisdom of my research and study. And if you must know, so I can keep all of my books and DVD/Blu-Rays indexed and on cards. Because, at the heart of things, I'm still analog. I admit it, I like pens (actually border on OCD over the type of pen I use), hardback books, and the sound of my own thoughts in my head.
Yet, the other night as I washed dishes, I called out to the downstairs Echo,
"Alexa, play "Moonglow by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra".
She did and for one brief moment my tech side and my analog side were perfectly in sync.
New Blog Title
After nearly six years, I've decided to change the name of this blog. I don't feel the need to 'strike back' any more. I started this blog as an angry rant after a terrible job interview left me feeling alone, disenfranchised...and let's face it...bitter. I'm not in the same place as I was then, and I need a new approach.
So now I'm just down to me...a.Gen X lifer and these are the stories of my life and how it goes. A place for all of my sometimes whimsical, sometimes pessimistic, and often downright emotionally purgative thoughts.
Fate has also stepped in through the guise of new co-worker who is a solidly Gen Y millennial. We have a lot of interaction over the differences in our experiences. It's helped me to see life through a different prism.
Although...being born in 1986, I thought for sure he would at least know one of my favorite songs from the year of his birth.
I mean after all, I am very well acquainted with "Sweet Home Alabama" which was number one in the year I made my entrance into the world. (Don't make me tell you, look it up)
So I gleefully mentioned "Something About You" by Level 42, to which he replied,
"Huh?"
We'll get there...
So now I'm just down to me...a.Gen X lifer and these are the stories of my life and how it goes. A place for all of my sometimes whimsical, sometimes pessimistic, and often downright emotionally purgative thoughts.
Fate has also stepped in through the guise of new co-worker who is a solidly Gen Y millennial. We have a lot of interaction over the differences in our experiences. It's helped me to see life through a different prism.
Although...being born in 1986, I thought for sure he would at least know one of my favorite songs from the year of his birth.
I mean after all, I am very well acquainted with "Sweet Home Alabama" which was number one in the year I made my entrance into the world. (Don't make me tell you, look it up)
So I gleefully mentioned "Something About You" by Level 42, to which he replied,
"Huh?"
We'll get there...
Saturday, March 18, 2017
"Hi...I'm Robert Osborne"
Admit it....you thought I was dead.
If in fact, you actually even read this...
Not going to apologize, or offer any excuses....
It's been awhile since I felt like I had anything to say....to offer humanity...if you will.
Maturity seems to bring out many things, different kinds of aches and pains where you stop and think 'wait a minute, when did THAT start being painful', an increased reverence for soft rock, and lately the march of time has made it seem that everyone familiar in pop culture is dead or will be soon.
For the most part I can't say I was surprised to see an early death for George Michael or Carrie Fisher, they seemed to live their lives with an appetite for self-destruction. I felt twinges of remorse over seeing Debbie Reynolds and Mary Tyler Moore pass away. Last week though was the hardest for me. It was personal.
Last week, Robert Osborne passed away.
Robert Osborne was the genial, mellifluous-voiced host for Turner Classic Movies for over 20 years. For most of those 20 years, I was one of his most ardent fans. Probably not the most devout or zealous; I never wrote him a letter, or sent him a knitted sweater. For some reason that I've never really questioned, Robert was part of my life, like a favorite uncle who just happened to be the most well-informed movie fan on the planet. No really, he was...he wrote the definitive guide to old movies, "85 Years of Oscar, the Official History of the Academy Awards".
Bout of illness or surgery, Robert was there for me, broken-heart, Robert was there for me, a period of unemployment, Robert was there for me. With a kindly smile and a story about the movie I was about to see was my class film professor. Sometimes it felt like he was personally there watching it with me.
Some years ago, back in about 1988 when my grandma became ill and moved back to Ohio, while helping my mother go through her possessions in her Florida summer home, I came across old movie magazines, Photoplays, etc. They mesmerized me, the old advertisements, the pictures of the movies stars. I paged through and looked at them until the pages literally came apart in my hands. Yes, I realize if I'd been more careful, I could have probably unloaded them for some serious coin on Ebay. If I'd done so though, I'd never have had the experience of falling in love with Gable, Grant, Niven and Powell long before I'd ever seen one of their movies. I cut their pictures out, made collages and plastered my bedroom walls with them. Out when the Julian Lennon, the Wham posters and the Duran Duran; I was infatuated with these debonair leading men who had died before I was born.
About that time our cable company began carrying American Movie Classics (AMC), the place you now know as the home of the Walking Dead, and Mad Men actually used to have classic films all day (and the world was better for it) introduced by Bob Dorian and Nick Clooney. Finally a chance to see some of my heartthrobs for real. So when the fledgling Turner Classic Movies (TCM) was announced in 1994, I was excited. Unfortunately, it would be another 5 years until the network actually made its way from a premium HBO-like pay channel to a basic cable offering where I could actually watch. Even then I was skeptical about this Robert Osborne, whoever he was. Nick Clooney and Bob Dorian were my guys.
Then I saw my first Robert Osborne intro and it was as if he'd always been there, that I'd always known him. Whenever I had free time or was sick, when it was Christmas, or Easter, Robert and TCM always had the programming I tuned in for. To this day, "Libeled Lady" is one of my favorite comedies because Bob said I needed to see it. Through Mr. Osborne, I learned to appreciate acting as it should be, how a movie can make you see life differently, it's power to pick you up when you are down, to inspire, to make you laugh, to make you cry. I think in this day of 24 hour news and social media, of constantly revolving reality shows, people crave stories about a less complicated age and less 'reality' which is why TCM keeps gaining fans (younger and younger) and ratings. Without a powerhouse like Robert Osborne to helm it, I don't know if TCM would have ever gotten a chance.
Just the other weekend, I went to our local art movie house (back in the days before TCM and it's efforts on film preservation, we never even had a local art movie house and now it's planning to expand) to see a showing of "It Happened One Night" with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, a movie that came out in 1934, before my parents were born, an 83 year old movie. The reaction amazing; to see the laughter and seen the joy on the faces of people who were connecting to this Academy-Award winning film directed on a shoe-string budget with Gable on loan from his home studio and Colbert who had to be persuaded to put off her summer vacation to film it. The first person I thought of was Robert Osborne, "I bet he would have loved something like this"
As I was leaving the theatre, two guys walking behind me who couldn't have been more than 18-22 years old were saying, "Dude, that was really good. I wasn't going to see this, but...man I'm glad I did". I beamed. It seemed that life, that mankind felt better to me.
I had a similar reaction two years earlier checking my Twitter TCM feeds while waiting on my car to get tires, my favorite actor William Powell was actually trending. I marveled for a moment, 'I wonder what Powell would think?' When he died in 1984, no one had even dreamed of social media and here he is being searched, where he was born, who he loved. They tweet that they find him handsome, funny and name drop the movies he's been in.
If not for Robert Osborne, I wonder if it would ever have happened?
My DVR is full of TCM movies, many of which I already own on DVD or Blu-Ray, and I keep them not for the movies, but for Robert's introductions. They can't be replaced. It'll be a while until I can let them go.
When I learned that he'd passed away, via social media...I texted my Mom,
"Robert Osborne died. Absolutely heartbroken..."
It wasn't nearly enough to sum up the way I felt about him...not nearly enough. I find comfort in the fact that there are many others who like me, today...grieve.
If in fact, you actually even read this...
Not going to apologize, or offer any excuses....
It's been awhile since I felt like I had anything to say....to offer humanity...if you will.
Maturity seems to bring out many things, different kinds of aches and pains where you stop and think 'wait a minute, when did THAT start being painful', an increased reverence for soft rock, and lately the march of time has made it seem that everyone familiar in pop culture is dead or will be soon.
For the most part I can't say I was surprised to see an early death for George Michael or Carrie Fisher, they seemed to live their lives with an appetite for self-destruction. I felt twinges of remorse over seeing Debbie Reynolds and Mary Tyler Moore pass away. Last week though was the hardest for me. It was personal.
Last week, Robert Osborne passed away.
Robert Osborne was the genial, mellifluous-voiced host for Turner Classic Movies for over 20 years. For most of those 20 years, I was one of his most ardent fans. Probably not the most devout or zealous; I never wrote him a letter, or sent him a knitted sweater. For some reason that I've never really questioned, Robert was part of my life, like a favorite uncle who just happened to be the most well-informed movie fan on the planet. No really, he was...he wrote the definitive guide to old movies, "85 Years of Oscar, the Official History of the Academy Awards".
Bout of illness or surgery, Robert was there for me, broken-heart, Robert was there for me, a period of unemployment, Robert was there for me. With a kindly smile and a story about the movie I was about to see was my class film professor. Sometimes it felt like he was personally there watching it with me.
Some years ago, back in about 1988 when my grandma became ill and moved back to Ohio, while helping my mother go through her possessions in her Florida summer home, I came across old movie magazines, Photoplays, etc. They mesmerized me, the old advertisements, the pictures of the movies stars. I paged through and looked at them until the pages literally came apart in my hands. Yes, I realize if I'd been more careful, I could have probably unloaded them for some serious coin on Ebay. If I'd done so though, I'd never have had the experience of falling in love with Gable, Grant, Niven and Powell long before I'd ever seen one of their movies. I cut their pictures out, made collages and plastered my bedroom walls with them. Out when the Julian Lennon, the Wham posters and the Duran Duran; I was infatuated with these debonair leading men who had died before I was born.
About that time our cable company began carrying American Movie Classics (AMC), the place you now know as the home of the Walking Dead, and Mad Men actually used to have classic films all day (and the world was better for it) introduced by Bob Dorian and Nick Clooney. Finally a chance to see some of my heartthrobs for real. So when the fledgling Turner Classic Movies (TCM) was announced in 1994, I was excited. Unfortunately, it would be another 5 years until the network actually made its way from a premium HBO-like pay channel to a basic cable offering where I could actually watch. Even then I was skeptical about this Robert Osborne, whoever he was. Nick Clooney and Bob Dorian were my guys.
Then I saw my first Robert Osborne intro and it was as if he'd always been there, that I'd always known him. Whenever I had free time or was sick, when it was Christmas, or Easter, Robert and TCM always had the programming I tuned in for. To this day, "Libeled Lady" is one of my favorite comedies because Bob said I needed to see it. Through Mr. Osborne, I learned to appreciate acting as it should be, how a movie can make you see life differently, it's power to pick you up when you are down, to inspire, to make you laugh, to make you cry. I think in this day of 24 hour news and social media, of constantly revolving reality shows, people crave stories about a less complicated age and less 'reality' which is why TCM keeps gaining fans (younger and younger) and ratings. Without a powerhouse like Robert Osborne to helm it, I don't know if TCM would have ever gotten a chance.
Just the other weekend, I went to our local art movie house (back in the days before TCM and it's efforts on film preservation, we never even had a local art movie house and now it's planning to expand) to see a showing of "It Happened One Night" with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, a movie that came out in 1934, before my parents were born, an 83 year old movie. The reaction amazing; to see the laughter and seen the joy on the faces of people who were connecting to this Academy-Award winning film directed on a shoe-string budget with Gable on loan from his home studio and Colbert who had to be persuaded to put off her summer vacation to film it. The first person I thought of was Robert Osborne, "I bet he would have loved something like this"
As I was leaving the theatre, two guys walking behind me who couldn't have been more than 18-22 years old were saying, "Dude, that was really good. I wasn't going to see this, but...man I'm glad I did". I beamed. It seemed that life, that mankind felt better to me.
I had a similar reaction two years earlier checking my Twitter TCM feeds while waiting on my car to get tires, my favorite actor William Powell was actually trending. I marveled for a moment, 'I wonder what Powell would think?' When he died in 1984, no one had even dreamed of social media and here he is being searched, where he was born, who he loved. They tweet that they find him handsome, funny and name drop the movies he's been in.
If not for Robert Osborne, I wonder if it would ever have happened?
My DVR is full of TCM movies, many of which I already own on DVD or Blu-Ray, and I keep them not for the movies, but for Robert's introductions. They can't be replaced. It'll be a while until I can let them go.
When I learned that he'd passed away, via social media...I texted my Mom,
"Robert Osborne died. Absolutely heartbroken..."
It wasn't nearly enough to sum up the way I felt about him...not nearly enough. I find comfort in the fact that there are many others who like me, today...grieve.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Saying It
I've just been reading over what I recently blogged a few days ago and I wondered who's voice that really was?
It's apparently mine, since I don't have any trouble recalling writing it.
But reading it again...I felt...I don't know... apologetic?
That voice was whiny and somehow...old.
It's not the voice I imagine myself to have or the thoughts either. I came across angry and bitchy and that's not really how I meant it. I'm really neither, angry really or bitchy.
If anything, I'm...bewildered.
I don't know what my place in this world is and I figured by the age of 42, I'd have certainly figured it out. It's the reason I started this blog in the first place.
Gen X.
I'm Gen X and this is my voice, my way of striking back at the things that have changed in my part of the world.
My sister, a Gen X by the skin of her teeth, I think of her as Gen X on the Cusp of Millenial, once said that she rejected that title, and resented being labeled as such.
I've always embraced it, feeling that at least I wasn't a lone figure sitting cross-legged on my bed in front of my laptop venting my spleen, that there was a whole generation of us trying to puzzle out the ways things are from the way things used to be. Safety in numbers if you will.
It's really been on my mind of late. How do I fit myself into this society? I feel it in so many ways, trying not to be swallowed up by past recollections. I chafe at the idea of turning into an ersatz Miss Havisham, although instead of a wedding dress, I would be ensconced in my Benetton rugby shirt circa 1986, neon Swatch and high-top Reeboks. In some ways I want to fully embrace all the future has to offer, but then I take a really hard look at the trappings of our post-modernist society and feel myself contort into an Edvard Munch-esque tableau.
Sometimes it feels like I'm standing up on a table screaming into a megaphone to a world that is mute to all but the clicking of their thumbs.
I'm not angry...I'm confused at a world that consistently rejects the values it once espoused.
I'm not angry...I'm heartbroken that we've shoved all of our optimism and belief in a brighter day into a class struggle where we all end up losers.
I'm not angry...I'm astonished at the fact that arguably sane adults are running into oncoming traffic trying to catch an imaginary Pikachu.
Social media is a particular sticking point. The other day, the Google function on my cellphone began picking out my news items for the day. I admit it, I snapped a bit, 'the gall of Google telling me what news I was and was not going to read'.
"Dammit, all I want you to do Google, is to tell me the answer when I ask for it, not log everything I've ever 'shown interest' in to pick out the articles that I will read!"
I want the freedom to choose what I want to read and when I will read it, I don't want to be coaxed like a recalcitrant child into reading, "Now be a good girl and let's read our Channel 63 weather forecast, you've shown interest in Channel 63!" Because the truth is, Channel 63 is pretty lame and their digital doppler is nowhere near as mack daddy as Channel 89, but Channel 63 paid out more ducats than 89 to show up first on the Google search list and I'm lazy sometimes!
Then the resentment comes in, resentment at the world where my privacy is so regularly violated. It's not as if there is even anything particularly nefarious, I just want the right to live in a world where if I so choose to re-read an old Judy Blume book to see what they are like as an adult reader, Google and Amazon don't immediately start recommending children's books to me.
I don't want Twitter to make me feel guilty that I don't 'tweet' more. Or chide me for my lack of followers. And how about you Facebook, telling me the other day, when I finally deigned to look in at my home page that if "I had more FB friends, you would load more stories in my News Feed!"? I can't believe it, I'm 42 and I'm still being mocked by the 'cool kids'!
All of this just makes me feel more isolated and less included and that's why I started writing here, so that my voice wouldn't be just another metric to measure traffic. So that I could write it all out and justify, I don't know, my existence perhaps?
I've always loved "The NeverEnding Story", which worth mentioning is all the more prescient because it just celebrated it's 37th anniversary. I loved the idea that Bastian is not merely reading the story, he's participating in it, he's part of it. Down to the moment, when he has to overcome the feelings of his lack of worthiness and call out the name of the Empress. When he says it, shouting the name in the midst of all of the confusion and cacophony, the Nothing recedes. If you say it, say the name, the Nothing has to recede.
And I guess that's why I keep at this, writing this, saying it, so that my own personal Nothing recedes.
It's apparently mine, since I don't have any trouble recalling writing it.
But reading it again...I felt...I don't know... apologetic?
That voice was whiny and somehow...old.
It's not the voice I imagine myself to have or the thoughts either. I came across angry and bitchy and that's not really how I meant it. I'm really neither, angry really or bitchy.
If anything, I'm...bewildered.
I don't know what my place in this world is and I figured by the age of 42, I'd have certainly figured it out. It's the reason I started this blog in the first place.
Gen X.
I'm Gen X and this is my voice, my way of striking back at the things that have changed in my part of the world.
My sister, a Gen X by the skin of her teeth, I think of her as Gen X on the Cusp of Millenial, once said that she rejected that title, and resented being labeled as such.
I've always embraced it, feeling that at least I wasn't a lone figure sitting cross-legged on my bed in front of my laptop venting my spleen, that there was a whole generation of us trying to puzzle out the ways things are from the way things used to be. Safety in numbers if you will.
It's really been on my mind of late. How do I fit myself into this society? I feel it in so many ways, trying not to be swallowed up by past recollections. I chafe at the idea of turning into an ersatz Miss Havisham, although instead of a wedding dress, I would be ensconced in my Benetton rugby shirt circa 1986, neon Swatch and high-top Reeboks. In some ways I want to fully embrace all the future has to offer, but then I take a really hard look at the trappings of our post-modernist society and feel myself contort into an Edvard Munch-esque tableau.
Sometimes it feels like I'm standing up on a table screaming into a megaphone to a world that is mute to all but the clicking of their thumbs.
I'm not angry...I'm confused at a world that consistently rejects the values it once espoused.
I'm not angry...I'm heartbroken that we've shoved all of our optimism and belief in a brighter day into a class struggle where we all end up losers.
I'm not angry...I'm astonished at the fact that arguably sane adults are running into oncoming traffic trying to catch an imaginary Pikachu.
Social media is a particular sticking point. The other day, the Google function on my cellphone began picking out my news items for the day. I admit it, I snapped a bit, 'the gall of Google telling me what news I was and was not going to read'.
"Dammit, all I want you to do Google, is to tell me the answer when I ask for it, not log everything I've ever 'shown interest' in to pick out the articles that I will read!"
I want the freedom to choose what I want to read and when I will read it, I don't want to be coaxed like a recalcitrant child into reading, "Now be a good girl and let's read our Channel 63 weather forecast, you've shown interest in Channel 63!" Because the truth is, Channel 63 is pretty lame and their digital doppler is nowhere near as mack daddy as Channel 89, but Channel 63 paid out more ducats than 89 to show up first on the Google search list and I'm lazy sometimes!
Then the resentment comes in, resentment at the world where my privacy is so regularly violated. It's not as if there is even anything particularly nefarious, I just want the right to live in a world where if I so choose to re-read an old Judy Blume book to see what they are like as an adult reader, Google and Amazon don't immediately start recommending children's books to me.
I don't want Twitter to make me feel guilty that I don't 'tweet' more. Or chide me for my lack of followers. And how about you Facebook, telling me the other day, when I finally deigned to look in at my home page that if "I had more FB friends, you would load more stories in my News Feed!"? I can't believe it, I'm 42 and I'm still being mocked by the 'cool kids'!
All of this just makes me feel more isolated and less included and that's why I started writing here, so that my voice wouldn't be just another metric to measure traffic. So that I could write it all out and justify, I don't know, my existence perhaps?
I've always loved "The NeverEnding Story", which worth mentioning is all the more prescient because it just celebrated it's 37th anniversary. I loved the idea that Bastian is not merely reading the story, he's participating in it, he's part of it. Down to the moment, when he has to overcome the feelings of his lack of worthiness and call out the name of the Empress. When he says it, shouting the name in the midst of all of the confusion and cacophony, the Nothing recedes. If you say it, say the name, the Nothing has to recede.
And I guess that's why I keep at this, writing this, saying it, so that my own personal Nothing recedes.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
A Substantial Identity Crisis
(Originally published in 8/16- re-released 12/18)
Judging by my output over the last several weeks, it should be fairly easy to conclude that I haven't had much to say...
You know you are experiencing a formidable dearth of creativity when the most original thing you've done in two and a half months is create a playlist of all songs with the word 'magic' in them. It was a doozy though, with everything and everyone from Olivia Newton John to the Cars.
I've been in a sort of philosophical 'funk' of late. Inspiration has never seemed so far away. Began to think that I might be experiencing some sort of 'mid-life' crisis...Nothing is more hackneyed and clichéd, I know, but how else to explain the fact that the only things I've looked forward to of late was TCM's Summer Under the Stars Movie festival and the fact that Yacht Rock returned to Sirius XM Radio. Even more worrying was the recent trip I paid to my local used book store in which I spent 45 minutes and emerged empty-handed! That's never happened in my personal history. Not Ever....Absolutely Never.
Panicked, I retreated to a local antique store hoping to find some sort of tchotchke or piece of décor to pluck myself from the oblivion I seemed to be inhabiting. It didn't work. I emerged like a sleepwalker from the shop mumbling to myself some gibberish about not wanting 'more clutter' or 'things that would only collect dust'. Alien phrases I've never before heard myself use...
After retreating home to huddle cocoon-like with a cup of tea and a few pieces of verboten Scottish shortbread on my sofa, I proceeded to spend some time staring off into space contemplating my seemingly erratic behavior of late.
What was happening to me?
I realized that I was tired of the same old, same old. Nothing substantive. I'm sick of reading magazines in which the only 'meaty' reading was the disclosure page for prescription medicines. They seem to be writing periodicals these days for people with zero attention span. The pages were a hodge podge of 'bites' of articles with no real story with a beginning thesis, supportive documentation and a conclusive ending. I went into the bookstore looking for a sweeping novel and all I found were breezy pieces of 'chick lit' and for some reason I can't work out, hundreds upon hundreds of books about vampires, zombies and various other assorted stories of the undead. I couldn't even find any of the Louis L'Amour(s) which were so prized by my late great-aunt.
It's as if I'm in a state of perpetual mourning, (no I'm not really depressed) for more than society is capable of providing. I mourn the lack of civility, manners, the casual dress, the appalling lack of education. In the time period between my last writing on this blog and now, I've been informed that cursive writing is no longer part of the standard curricula in our schools. Upon hearing this, I embarked on a lengthy period of research (nothing thrills me more than doing research) and in several articles I read, I was backed up by several eminent sociologists, many teachers and educators as to the irreparable harm this is doing, but in the midst of my quest for validation, was the far more sobering thought that, "No one cares..." If the parents whose children this is affecting say nothing and thus far, their silence in this case is deafening, then what do I, a parent of none, a childless spinster have to say? I've got no skin in this game. My contemporaries who have school age children argue that "computer skills are more important...and no one writes in cursive these days anyway".
Except well...me...I always write in cursive. Even down to the notes that I write to myself.
So I am once more perhaps, an anachronism in my own time.
Maybe it's foolhardy to be this way, but I find myself unable to deny the fire that burns within me for substance. So in spite of the fact that it is possibly an exercise in futility, I will continue to seek out the elusive well-written sweeping novel, I will keep using 'big words'. I will keep my inner pilot light lit with zeal for the beauty and class of classic movies, for the arts, for music and for the hope that somehow the written word will stand the test of time.
Judging by my output over the last several weeks, it should be fairly easy to conclude that I haven't had much to say...
You know you are experiencing a formidable dearth of creativity when the most original thing you've done in two and a half months is create a playlist of all songs with the word 'magic' in them. It was a doozy though, with everything and everyone from Olivia Newton John to the Cars.
I've been in a sort of philosophical 'funk' of late. Inspiration has never seemed so far away. Began to think that I might be experiencing some sort of 'mid-life' crisis...Nothing is more hackneyed and clichéd, I know, but how else to explain the fact that the only things I've looked forward to of late was TCM's Summer Under the Stars Movie festival and the fact that Yacht Rock returned to Sirius XM Radio. Even more worrying was the recent trip I paid to my local used book store in which I spent 45 minutes and emerged empty-handed! That's never happened in my personal history. Not Ever....Absolutely Never.
Panicked, I retreated to a local antique store hoping to find some sort of tchotchke or piece of décor to pluck myself from the oblivion I seemed to be inhabiting. It didn't work. I emerged like a sleepwalker from the shop mumbling to myself some gibberish about not wanting 'more clutter' or 'things that would only collect dust'. Alien phrases I've never before heard myself use...
After retreating home to huddle cocoon-like with a cup of tea and a few pieces of verboten Scottish shortbread on my sofa, I proceeded to spend some time staring off into space contemplating my seemingly erratic behavior of late.
What was happening to me?
I realized that I was tired of the same old, same old. Nothing substantive. I'm sick of reading magazines in which the only 'meaty' reading was the disclosure page for prescription medicines. They seem to be writing periodicals these days for people with zero attention span. The pages were a hodge podge of 'bites' of articles with no real story with a beginning thesis, supportive documentation and a conclusive ending. I went into the bookstore looking for a sweeping novel and all I found were breezy pieces of 'chick lit' and for some reason I can't work out, hundreds upon hundreds of books about vampires, zombies and various other assorted stories of the undead. I couldn't even find any of the Louis L'Amour(s) which were so prized by my late great-aunt.
It's as if I'm in a state of perpetual mourning, (no I'm not really depressed) for more than society is capable of providing. I mourn the lack of civility, manners, the casual dress, the appalling lack of education. In the time period between my last writing on this blog and now, I've been informed that cursive writing is no longer part of the standard curricula in our schools. Upon hearing this, I embarked on a lengthy period of research (nothing thrills me more than doing research) and in several articles I read, I was backed up by several eminent sociologists, many teachers and educators as to the irreparable harm this is doing, but in the midst of my quest for validation, was the far more sobering thought that, "No one cares..." If the parents whose children this is affecting say nothing and thus far, their silence in this case is deafening, then what do I, a parent of none, a childless spinster have to say? I've got no skin in this game. My contemporaries who have school age children argue that "computer skills are more important...and no one writes in cursive these days anyway".
Except well...me...I always write in cursive. Even down to the notes that I write to myself.
So I am once more perhaps, an anachronism in my own time.
Maybe it's foolhardy to be this way, but I find myself unable to deny the fire that burns within me for substance. So in spite of the fact that it is possibly an exercise in futility, I will continue to seek out the elusive well-written sweeping novel, I will keep using 'big words'. I will keep my inner pilot light lit with zeal for the beauty and class of classic movies, for the arts, for music and for the hope that somehow the written word will stand the test of time.
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