Bill Moyers on Memorial Day

This is from the end of last night's Bill Moyers Journal:

Every Memorial Day I think about what these men did and what we owe them. They didn't go through hell for a political system that functions on bribery, or for off-shore tax havens that pass the cost of national defense from the conglomerates that profit from war to the ordinary people whose children fight it, or for an economic system that treats working men and women as disposable cogs to be tossed aside at a predator's whim, or for an America where the "strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."

Yes, our soldiers fought and sacrificed for freedom; but as wiser men than I have said through the ages, when liberty is separated from justice, neither liberty nor justice is safe, and those who sacrificed for both are mocked.

Seven Years Later, I Still Remember

This morning on The Sound of Ideas, Regina Brett led a discussion about the kinds of advice commencement speakers give.

Someone called in and said he didn't remember anything his commencement speaker said, and he didn't know anyone else that did, either.

I do.

My commencement speaker at Cleveland State was Drew Carey.

He said (this is not a direct quote):

I'm supposed to tell you all this stuff about how great your future is going to be, but the truth is, I didn't graduate from college and I make a lot more money than any of you are ever going to anyway....

Nice.

Sunset on Lake Ontario

"If dreams could come true, I'd still be there with you

On the banks of cold waters, at the close of the day...."

If you live on the Great Lakes and don't own Lee Murdock's Cold Winds, you need to buy it right now.

1,001 Things Your Kids Should See & Do

So I recently picked up a book called 1,001 Things Your Kids Should See & Do (Or Else They'll Never Leave Home) (sort of an odd subtitle, I think - how would #977: They need to learn how to pay their own auto insurance make them want to leave home?).

My intent was to make fun of it, of course, during my leisure time, but I figured I'd be doing so from the point of view of someone who thinks it's silly for parents to overschedule their kids' cultural learning opportunities.

Instead, it turned out to be a creepy conservative, tough-love-and-angry-Jesus kind of book.

Here are some highlights:

#125. They need to learn to wash their underwear, not wear their parent's.

Read: No cross-dressing, Johnny.

#227. They need to form a well-read, well thought out opinion on evolution.

Read: As long as you read your Bible well, you won't have to think about evolution. [I just want to point out this one wasn't in the "They Need to be Good at Science" chapter.]

#362. They need to understand global warming better than most congressmen.

Read: uhhh.....

#887. They need to learn how to clean a carpet stained by Coke, blood, tea, or a pet. Apartment deposits are lost over this.

Read: Clean up your own crime scene, son. Daddy's not going to help.

#890. They need to be on a first name basis with someone at Home Depot.

Read: They need to support corporate America like a good Freedom Values Patriot.

#929. They need to learn that even though crystal meth is often found at dance clubs and parties [editor's note: is it??], not to touch the stuff unless their goal is to live in a trailer park.

Read: They need to form harmful stereotypes about people below them on the socioeconomic ladder.

Time Sucks

I smell a letter to the editor coming....

I recently subscribed to Time because I hate reading news on the Internet, and because I recalled that I always enjoyed reading my mom's Time magazines while I was in high school. (Which was a long time ago, now, I guess -- pre-Internet, at least. Yikes.)

My subscription coincided almost exactly with Time's redesign. And gosh, I couldn't help but notice how much Time started sucking.

This article in the Christian Science Monitor says that the Big Three - Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report, are making the decision to publish less news and more commentary:

Newsweek wants to report less and interpret more, says worldwide publisher Gregory Osberg. "In the past, you followed the news. Now we're getting out in front of it and providing analysis." [emphasis mine]

First of all, why? Because we're all idiots, and can't interpret it for ourselves?

Second, I'm assuming that they're switching the focus to commentary because "that's what people want, according to market trends" or some such BS. So then, what if every news agency did this? It'd be like what I call the Women's Clothing Crisis: you can't walk into a store and just buy a white blouse, because "they're not in this season."

Then again, maybe I should just buy all my clothes online.

The Really Bad Cleveland Accent Philosophy

I've been doing this blog for over two years now, longer than I've ever been at any job.

This is my 200th post, so I thought I'd lay down the RBCA philosophy.

It's about two things, really:

• how people perceive you, based on the way you talk, and
• taking where you come from with you, wherever you go.

It's not a big secret that people judge others based on their accent. If you have a British accent (and it doesn't matter what kind, either), when in America, your assumed IQ goes up about 10 points. And if you're from the South, your assumed IQ goes down about 100 points, if you're talking to someone from the Northeast.

So, what kinds of assumptions do others make about you if you sound Cleveland?

I've been thinking about what it means to have a Cleveland accent ever since, as I described in my first post, I happened upon my west-coast roommate at Oberlin making fun of the way I talk.

Now, you don't want to hear about glottal stops and stuff, and despite having excelled at my linguistics classes at Cleveland State, I don't want to or feel terribly qualified to talk about them. So for the nuts-and-bolts of what a Cleveland accent sounds like, go here.

Instead, I'll try and describe its bouquet, if you will, such as one might describe a rustic Beaujolais, or in this case, perhaps Two Buck Chuck:

The Cleveland accent's dominant note is outrage, underscored by a sharp tang of bristly disbelief, suspicion, and distrust. To ears of pretension it might sound slightly unsophisticated, uncultivated. Not corn-fed, but rust-fed. Pierogi-and-cabbage fed. There's a definite note of "fuck you and the foreign car you rode in on" there, too, and "you're not going to pull the wool over my eyes, you bigshot bastard."

And from that, comes its power.

It's my belief that we ought to harness that power for good, rather than let it suck us down into the helpless despair of the Monday Moaner (all of whom, undoubtedly, are afflicted with terminal RBCAs).

And it's my belief that, though it may be unfashionable to talk about national or regional character, Clevelanders are smart people who are used to sifting through heady promises and lies and who simply don't have the patience to listen to anyone's bullshit.

They say Northeast Ohio is in the midst of a Brain Drain, and have the maps to prove it. So, apparently, all of these other regions are experiencing an influx of people with RBCAs.

We ought to retire that old saying, "you can't go home again," because it's ridiculous. You take home with you, wherever you go - even if you escape the frigid grasp of the Great Lakes for the cheap and easy allure of the Sun Belt. You take with you all the misgivings and misconceptions and sorrows that come with growing up someplace scarred by such overwhelming forces as globalization and the persistent, hurtful misunderstandings between white people and black people, and yet you still manage to drum up some nostalgia for Angelo's (large artichoke pizza - $10.95!) and Big Chuck and Little John and you still manage to hope that this year really will be the Tribe's year. Even if you don't like baseball.

You take the power of the Really Bad Cleveland Accent with you, too.

Use it wisely.

Cloud Factories

I took this picture in April 2005, on my first visit home after moving to New Jersey.

When I was a kid, I thought these were cloud factories.

Ahh, the things children believe.

My mom must have thought I was nuts.

A Step in the Right Direction?

I just sent for a quote from a long distance moving company - from zip code 11435 to 44102.

Better than a golden monkey

Happiness Good Mental Condition

First off, I don't like the word "happiness." See my comments here. (Short version: "I feel like it's my right as a thinking human being to have dark moods, to be irritable, to be outraged, and that none of that should carry a negative connotation.")

But for right now, I'll define the H-word as "good mental condition," i.e., no semi-violent outbursts about noise, imagined noise, and/or where said possibly imaginary noise might be coming from (did somebody move in upstairs? do the neighbors have their meatheaded friends over for late night TV again?) And no prolonged, despairing fits of ennui on the couch with a bottle of Manischewitz either.

So it occurred to me the other day that my happiness is directly proportional to the amount of bread I make. A very simple thing, isn't it?

Something else has also been rattling around in the old brainbox for a while now, and I'm really embarrassed to admit it's a line from possibly the worst TV show ever. It went something like, "he is a fool who doesn't return to the place of his greatest happiness." (The plot centered lamely around this twentysomething who moved to New! York! City! and wrote a Best! Selling! Book! dumping on his old hometown. Which, predictably, was --gosh-- the place of his last happiness.)

So by this logic, I have to conclude that maybe I ought to return to the place where I made the most bread.

Which, I guess, was Lake Avenue.

Talking about the Olduvai Gorge, where she and her husband not only excavated some of the most significant anthropological finds in history but also fell in love, Mary Leakey said, "this place has come to mean more to me than any other in the world."

I've got to go to work now.

Rosie vs. Ugly Betty

Going back to what I said the other day about Rosie O'Donnell....

I was trying to think of other "unattractive" women in popular culture, and was soon astounded that I hadn't thought of the obvious candidate: Ugly Betty.

Hmm. I don't think Ugly Betty counts, and here's why.

We can tolerate "unattractive" women as long as they appear sort of trodden-on by "beautiful" society, sort of goofy, clumsy, hapless. But make that woman 100% outspoken, confident, and upfront, and she's vilified. Heck, such a woman becomes a target for the U-word even when she's a paragon of traditional beauty. People criticized Nigella Lawson when she first went on TV as being "too bosomy and bottomy." Well, that's what she looks like - what's she supposed to do?

I know Ugly Betty is supposed to be about how shallow all the pretty people are. And it's good that way. But wouldn't it be real progress to show us an "ugly" gal without bringing the discussion of looks into the equation?

Or maybe that's not possible?

Cleveland+ , Ideastream, and the Corniness of "Branding"

I've been thinking this morning about two "brands" that have been, and will be, bandied about in Cleveland -- namely, the new marketing slogan, and the name of a certain non-profit, public service, multiple media organization based in Cleveland, Ohio[, that] was formed in 2001 to deliver high quality public broadcasting and related services to Northeastern, and North Central Ohio.

I wasn't crazy about the Ideastream thing in the beginning - I was suspicious of it, I thought it was replete with vaguely space-age Kenny G overtones and frankly kinda corny. But geez, who am I to talk about corny? I sit around on weekend afternoons watching Antiques Roadshow, drinking cheap fruit wine, and turning bad 80s hits into odes to my cat (think: "two of cats - two cats that beat as one...").

This morning I came across this quote from Ideastream's 4th Listening Project report, in response to the question "what do people see as the role of local public broadcasting?":

PBS is corny, but it's great. We're so geared toward the flash and slick preproduction (on commercial television) - but once you get past that, public TV is phenomenal.

I don't know much about this brandjacking business, but I do know that branding doesn't seem slick or cutting edge to me, it seems corny. So what if attempts to make fun of Cleveland+ sort of, well, worked in its favor? I mean, maybe Cleveland is sort of a corny place that should embrace polka, bowling, and kielbasa.

Crazy auntie finds purpose in life

[disclaimer: if hearing me prattle on sappily about my nephew would shatter your preconceived image of me as a twentysomething, female Andy Rooney, I beg you, avert your eyes now.]

Yesterday my sister sent me the first photo of my nephew in which he bears the remotest resemblance to me. (Oddly enough, he's smiling, something I don't think I did in a photograph until about age 22, and even then, it was pretty forced.)

I'd already been feeling a bit more like a grownup, what with being the little nipper's godparent and all. But it's a weird feeling, to see your face reflected in the next generation. It makes you feel at once like a pawn in the Universe's game, but also like you're terribly important, and should be acting more responsibly. The seriousness of life flattens you like a blow from the Whomping Willow, but at the same time, it suddenly dawns on you that up until this moment, you've been taking life much too seriously.

Kurt Vonnegut said in his famous 1973 Playboy interview that there ought to be a manual you hand to little kids when they're born, called Welcome to Earth, that describes what sort of planet they're on, and "why they don't fall off it." Maybe it's just because I work for a company that publishes them, but I know that there is such a book. It's called an encyclopedia.

So, as godparent, Crazy Auntie, and librarian, upon the little chap's first birthday, I will bestow upon him the finest children's encyclopedia I can find.

Any suggestions?

Cleveland Women's Orchestra, This Sunday

I already posted this on BFD, but in case you missed it....

The Cleveland Women's Orchestra is performing their 72nd (!) annual spring concert at Severance Hall this Sunday, May 6, 2007. No kidding, you really should go. They're performing two of my favorite pieces - Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky) and Finlandia (Sibelius) and I can't go, so if you go, you can at least tell me how it was.

I've seen the orchestra perform many times - in fact, feasted on lingonberries and lamb cake at the music director's own home, more times than I can recall - so I know what I'm talking about.

Go.

Rosie, archetypally

Not that I'm terribly keen on The View, but I'd hate to see Rosie O'Donnell disappear completely. Simply put, she represents an aspect of the feminine principle - the "goddess," if you want to get squishy about it - that isn't widely represented in pop culture. She's loudmouthed, unashamed, and raucous - there's nothing ladylike about her. I like that. It feels refreshing and natural to see a frowning woman who's built like brick shithouse on TV. She reminds me a bit of Baubo, the foul-mouthed Greek goddess of obscenity, who prodded Demeter out of her blue funk with dirty jokes and grotesque physical comedy.

Being female is messy and problematic, fraught with peaks and pitfalls. In the words of W.B. Yeats' Crazy Jane:

"A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent."

(from: "Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop")