Jew Eat Yet?

Mother Courage

Well, Saddam Hussein is dead. I’m sure the countless families of the people he tortured and murdered are rejoicing. The world is well rid of him, that’s for sure. But does that mean I think we had any business invading Iraq in the first place or that his execution is going to lead to anything positive in this insane war? Not hardly.

Instead of thinking about Saddam Hussein’s depraved legacy, I’d rather point you to a voice that should be heard far and wide—the articulate  comments of a woman who is very much against the war but whose Marine son is currently serving in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq. I can’t even imagine how I’d be coping if my only child were part of this nightmare.  I try to put myself in Donna’s shoes when I think about what she’s going through on a daily basis, but I’m quite aware that any anxieties I have about my daughter pale in comparison to what this Marine mother must be feeling, especially when she is so ideologically opposed to our government’s actions.

I first hooked up with my old high school friend Donna Anton about a year ago when we started talking about planning our 30th reunion. Donna had found me through this blog, and I enjoyed reconnecting. She was now living in Cornwall, England, and I surmised that her decision to leave the States was due in no small part to George Bush’s re-election.  I had always enjoyed Donna's cynical sense of humor, even more so as an adult. I was interested in her take on the situation in Iraq and intrigued to learn about the very different leanings of her 20-year-old son who felt it was his duty to serve his country in this conflict.

Last month Donna began her excellent blog called Mother Courage in which she shares her growing impatience with the Bush administration as well as her heartrending feelings about her beloved son’s decision to participate in this debacle. Donna has had several  letters published in The New York Times and elsewhere, but I am grateful that she now has a regular forum for her views.

In her first post on her blog, Donna wrote:

The fact that my son is in Iraq has turned the world as I knew it upside down. On good days I’m a complete basket case; on bad days I clearly understand why people turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the terror, to take the edge off the stress, to dull the ache. Unfortunately, save for the magic of triptans for migraines, I am almost irrationally drug-averse.

Living with fear of loss is a terrible thing, one step before loss itself. My fear is mixed with rage, as my letters make clear. I am furious at the Bush administration for sacrificing almost 3,000 young lives over an ideology mixed with back-room politics that led to a bungled invasion and an ill-planned war.

At this point, with Iraq still on the brink of civil war, I only hope for my son to come home alive. But until he does, I thought that writing more regularly for the next four or five months about being an atypical Marine mom might quell my frequent anxiety attacks. I call myself atypical because while I’m proud of my son’s independent thinking in deciding to delay university for a stint in the Marines, not to mention his youthful patriotism, his determination to get through the rigours of boot camp and the courage to face combat, I don’t share the typical Marine parent’s knee-jerk “God bless my child the Marine and God bless America!” attitude. I don’t pray, and I’m angry with America right now. (None too thrilled with Tony Blair’s Britain either.)

Before Christmas, Donna bemoaned George Bush’s decision to wait until after the holidays to decide what should be done in Iraq.

Translation: “Merry Christmas, all you military families out there somewhere with pits in your stomachs the size of the Grand Canyon, surviving one day at a time as news about your soldiers and marines being injured or killed in my disaster of a war continues as it has for four years, which is to say getting worse and worse. I got better things to do.”

Donna did hear from her son on Christmas. This is a photo that he took of his friend with the barracks Christmas tree in Camp Fallujah, Iraq. She was grateful for her son’s phone call, but it could only do so much to allay her fears:

Needless to say, after being unable to avoid the continuing grim news out of Iraq—three U.S. soldiers killed on Saturday, three more this morning—I’m comforted to know that my son is OK—for now—but as anxious as ever over his continued safety as well as the “additional sacrifices,” as George W. Bush calls the inevitable future casualties, yet to come. This is quite aside from the despair and anguish I feel for the soldiers’ families who received the ultimate tragic news this Christmas weekend.

As The Guardian reported via AP this morning, the military deaths in Iraq have now exceeded the 9/11 death toll:

“In a span of a few hours, 2,973 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In a span of 45 months, the number of American troops killed in Iraq exceeded that grim toll as the war continues.

The milestone in Iraq came on Christmas, nearly four years after the war began, according to a count by The Associated Press. In announcing the Monday deaths of three soldiers, the toll from those fighting the war surpassed the toll from those killed by terrorists in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.”

The article goes on to describe the deaths of three young kids who, like my son, enlisted in response to the 9/11 attacks:

Jonathan Lootens, from upstate New York, joined the Army. “This is something I have to do,” he told family members. The 25-year-old sergeant was killed during his second tour of duty when a roadside bomb went off near his vehicle in the city of Kirkuk.

Marine Lance Cpl. John Edward Hale was only 15 and living in Louisiana when the planes hit the World Trade Center, but he never forgot what happened. He joined the Marines after graduating high school last year, and was only in Iraq for three months when he was killed by a roadside bomb.

Michael Glover joined the Marines after his boyhood neighborhood—the Belle Harbor section of Queens, N.Y.— lost several residents in the Sept. 11 attacks. Glover was killed by a sniper while on patrol in Fallujah.

Any of these could be my son. What’s more, I know I’m deluding myself into thinking that if he can just get through this tour of duty—if he can survive the next three months—all will be put right: my sanity will return, I’ll sleep again through the night, my family will remember that I can converse about topics besides Iraq, and I can take a break from blogging.

But the tragic upshot is that kids are being killed on their second or third tour, after they’ve already risked their lives for Bush’s war of choice. And if Bush, who is deluded, gets his way, if Congress capitulates to his bunker-mentality demands, and Iraq is flooded with a “surge” of “fresh” U.S. troops, it means kids on their fourth or fifth tour, decades before they deserve to, will have one more crack at meeting Charon.

Read more of Donna’s thoughts on her blog and try to imagine how you’d feel if your child were stationed in Iraq on this last day of 2006. 

Twelve

I can’t believe I’ve been writing in this blog long enough to have posted on three of my daughter’s birthdays, the day she turned 10, last year when she turned 11, and today, her 12th birthday. We had a fun pre-birthday celebration yesterday that included breakfast at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (site of the first Academy Awards), some birthday shopping, and later High Tea and a movie. In what has to be symbolic of that in-between age she now occupies, our shopping excursion included picking out a stuffed animal at Build-a-Bear followed by a visit to Victoria’s Secret. Oy. They should give special psychological training to the Victoria’s Secret employees on how to deal with the deer-in-the-headlights fathers who are dragged into the store by their rapidly changing pre-teens. I usually veto any suggestive phrases on my daughter’s clothing but when we got home I saw that we had purchased one set of underwear with “Oh La La!” written across the butt. Oh well, it’s not like anyone’s going to see it…I hope. (Note to 12-year-old girls who are are experiencing the wonders of prepubescence: if you do drag your father into an underwear store, you might want to ask him not to blog about it!)

Twelve is definitely a major turning point in the lives of children. I remember that on my 12th birthday an Alaska Airlines jet crashed into a mountain outside of Juneau, killing all 111 people on board. Such tragedies seemed extremely rare back then and I recall wondering what it boded for my upcoming year. (12-year-olds are nothing if not self-centered. Yes, over a hundred people died but what about ME?!) I’m confident that Leah will have many more wonderful memories of being 12 than I do. My 12th year was marked by the continuing war between my parents (they had gotten divorced in early 1971 but the fun was far from over), the escalation of violence in Vietnam, and the Watergate break-in. Okay, there were probably good things that happened that year, too, but they don’t immediately come to mind.

Leah is in far better emotional shape than I was back then although this time of life brings with it a fair amount of crazy mood swings and boundary testing no matter how well balanced you are. As a parent, it is exciting and awe-inspiring to watch my daughter mature into such a wonderful and caring young woman, even as I simultaneously grieve the child that is no more.

Happy Birthday to one of the most loving, creative, interesting, and talented people I know.

Take a bow, Leah!

Coming of Age with Gerald Ford

I was going into my junior year of high school the summer that Gerald Ford became President. I remember calling everyone I knew on that hot August day to gloat over Nixon’s resignation. I was a few weeks away from turning 15 but I knew that it was a terribly historic moment. I had become addicted to the endless Watergate Hearings the previous summer which I watched on TV with a religious fervor and even though I couldn’t follow all the intricacies of the scandal, I can remember the calming words that Ford uttered when he took office on that August day like it was yesterday.

Mr. Chief Justice, my dear friends, my fellow Americans:

The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.

Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech—just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many.

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.

If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman—my dear wife—as I begin this very difficult job.

I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people…

I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.

In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Powerful, well chosen words. He went on to call the internal wounds of Watergate “more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars” and urged Americans to “restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.”

As an already cynical teenager, the Watergate scandal made me reluctant to ever again trust any politician, especially one hand-picked by Richard Nixon, but there was something so self-effacing about Gerald Ford and his unpolished awkwardness and I truly think his words on that day marked an important turning point in this country.

We were all outraged by his unconditional pardon of Nixon the following month and assumed it was the result of some backroom deal that was struck before he took office, but I think with the passage of time it became clear that his decision made a lot of sense. In one of the many bizarre twists of fate that marked Gerald Ford’s long life, he was presented with the 2001 Profiles in Courage Award because of his pardon by none other than Senator Ted Kennedy who vehemently criticized him for it in 1974. “I was one of those who spoke out against his action then,” Kennedy said at the presentation, “but time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right. His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us.” Among Ford’s major achievements in his life was getting a Kennedy to publicly apologize.

I can’t say I followed Gerald Ford’s presidency with any kind of astute political awareness. Hey, it was hard enough trying to sludge through my last two years of high school. But I sure remember the two frightening attempts on his life in September 1975. The first one took place the day after my 16th birthday and reintroduced the world to one of the lunatic followers of Charles Manson. Squeaky Fromme pointed a Colt .45 handgun directly at the President from a fairly close range but she hadn’t pulled the slide to allow the gun to fire. Seventeen days later Sara Jane Moore again tried to kill Ford while he was visiting San Francisco. She managed to fire her gun, injuring someone standing close to the President, but was stopped by a bystander named Oliver Sipple. Fromme and Moore are serving life sentences for the attempted assassinations. Poor Oliver Sipple did not have a great time of it after he saved Ford’s life. The press found out that he was gay and publicized this fact even though Sipple had not yet come out to his family. While lauded as a hero among gay organizations, Sipple’s mother disowned him and he filed a $15 million dollar invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the newspapers that outed him. He became paranoid and suicidal after that and was found in his bed in 1989 with a half-gallon bottle of bourbon at his side. He had been dead for two weeks. President Ford sent a note of condolence to the family.

Another memory I have of Ford’s presidency was the misfortune he had to stumble twice on television just as Lorne Michaels was creating a ground-breaking new show called “Saturday Night Live.” One of the bits that helped Chevy Chase break out of the pack that year was his funny if wholly inaccurate portrayal of Gerald Ford as a bumbling idiot who could barely walk across a room without a major pratfall. Though Ford was good-natured about it at the time, it hardly did his public image any good and might have even been a factor in his failure the following year to get elected to the Presidency.

Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election, of course, and the campaign between the two had been particularly contentious. During their second debate, Ford was roundly ridiculed for a whopper of a gaffe that was worthy of our current leader.  Asked about U.S.-Soviet relations, he responded by saying, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” Ouch. Remember that this was long before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Ford tried to explain his comment away by saying that he was talking about the “heart, soul, and spirit” of the people of Eastern Europe, not their governments, but the damage was done.

Betty Ford was a refreshing presence in the White House after years of Pat Nixon’s pinched demeanor. Betty was a strong advocate of women’s rights, was pro-choice,  dared to mention on TV that she and her husband slept in the same bed, and even spoke in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.  Weeks after becoming First Lady she underwent a mastectomy and was one of the first public figures to talk openly about her breast cancer and the need for early detection, probably saving many lives in the process. How could you not love a First Lady who appeared as herself on an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show?” Of course her problems with alcoholism and the creation of the Betty Ford Center in 1982 led to her helping thousands of people who suffer from chemical dependencies.

I always admired the close friendship that developed between Gerald Ford and his former rival Jimmy Carter. Despite their  differences, you could tell how much they loved and respected each other. How rare is that in American politics?  Their friendship was not a publicity stunt and the Carters and the Fords spent a lot of time together over the past 25 years. Today Carter called Ford “an outstanding statesmen who wisely chose the path of healing during a deeply divisive time in America’s history.” Carter added that Ford often rose above politics by emphasizing the need for bipartisanship on critical issues.

Gerald Ford was a good man who became the President of the United States under the most bizarre circumstances. As of last month,  the 93-year-old Ford surpassed Ronald Reagan and became the longest-living President in our history.

I do wonder on days like today what people will say about George W. Bush when he finally kicks the bucket. I wonder if my own feelings about him will soften over time as they have with Gerald Ford and to some extent Ronald Reagan.

I doubt it.

Santa Is Dead, Long Live Santa!

Today is the second anniversary of my blog.  That seems impossible to me. Over the past two years I’ve written 255 posts, received 2,026 comments,  and had 302,100 hits. Oh, but don’t be impressed by that—200,000 of those hits are probably me obsessively checking to see if I have any new comments and then falling into another narcissistic mood swing as I wonder why I get so few compared to other bloggers.  Then I remember how much I truly enjoy writing in here and how I’ve loved “meeting” so many interesting new people through my blog so I don’t care about the small number of comments or the fact that most of my other hits are from people doing searches of “adult fotos,” “how can I divorce my siblings in virginia,” “joan crawford hairbrush spanking,” “is catherine keener jewish,” or “lauren ambrose nude” (actual Google searches that have led to my blog in the last hour!). I started writing this just before Christmas in 2004 and some of my earliest entries were diatribes against the over-commercialization of the holidays.  I continued my anti-Christmas rants on the first anniversary of my blog including this charmer from last December in which I advocated for the abolition of Santa Claus. Oy, let it go, Danny.

I’ve noticed a marked absence in holiday kvetching this year.  What gives? Have I gotten into the spirit at last? Nah. I think it’s just that I’ve let the season go by without paying any attention at all. My Grinchiness remains intact, I can’t even believe that tomorrow  is Christmas Eve. Chanukah ends today but I’ve got a brisket in the oven and another batch of latkes in the freezer for the yuletide gathering we’re having with my goyishe in-laws.

Not that I’m totally immune to the Christmas juggernaut. Last night I went to see “White Christmas” at the American Cinematheque in all its Technicolor glory. It was fun but I must say I prefer the earlier film in which Irving Berlin’s song “White Christmas” was introduced (and won an Oscar). 1942’s “Holiday Inn” also starred Bing Crosby and his on-screen partner Fred Astaire was supposed to hook up with him again for the 1954 version but after reading the script  Fred claimed he was in retirement (pay no attention to the slew of musicals he then made over the next dozen years). Donald O’Connor was signed for the role but backed out at the last minute so the part of Bing’s co-hort was quickly rewritten for the wonderful Danny Kaye. The dames in “White Christmas” were played by Rosemary Clooney (in one of her very few film roles) and Vera-Ellen,  the former MGM dancing star who was big in her day but never achieved the level of success of her contemporaries. If not for this film and her great role as Miss Turnstiles in “On the Town,” I think she’d be completely forgotten.

I’m always fascinated by those stars who never quite hit it. Last night we wondered why all of Vera-Ellen’s costumes, even her sleepwear, covered her neck completely. Turns out the actress suffered from severe anorexia throughout the 1950s (before they even had a term for it) and her neck had prematurely aged to the point where they couldn’t cover the wrinkles with makeup.  Her legs also looked painfully thin compared to her great gams in “On the Town,” especially next to the naturally robust Rosemary Clooney who had the opposite problem. You could tell that she was cinched so tight into her costumes to try to make her look svelte that she could barely talk. But she sure could sing, I’m surprised they didn’t draft her into more movie musicals.  The film, though light on story and plot,  is a delight  to watch. My favorite part is when Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye lip sync and dance to the girls’ number “Sisters”—this wasn’t in the script but when the stars were clowning around on the set director Michael Curtiz thought it was so funny he put it in the film.

This was not exactly the happiest cast in movie history. Clooney had a well publicized struggle with alcoholism and addiction and suffered a complete nervous breakdown  following her second divorce from José Ferrer. She was in the Ambassador Hotel in 1968, standing close to Bobby Kennedy when he was assassinated which didn’t do her mental condition much good since she didn’t work for the next ten years. Oy. Vera-Ellen’s career basically ended with “White Christmas” although she made one more movie, the ghastly  “Let's Be Happy" with Tony Martin that had the tagline, "Tony Rocks 'Em! Vera Rolls ‘Em!” This abomination rolled her right out of a career. She gave birth to her only child in her 40s but the baby girl sadly died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Following that, Vera-Ellen disappeared from the spotlight and wasn’t heard from again until her death at the age of 60 in 1981. As you see, I am brimming with Christmas cheer. Oh well,  I won’t even go into Bing Crosby’s or Danny Kaye’s personal problems. 

I’ve managed to avoid all shopping malls for the duration  except for one visit to the Grove in L.A. a few weeks ago. When Leah and I walked by Santa’s North Pole bungalow,  she said she wanted to go in. “It’s for much younger kids, Leah,” I replied in full Grinch mode, “and I sure as hell don’t want to pay those insane prices for the photo packages they make you buy.” “Dad, relax, I just want to check this Santa out. I’ll meet you in the Apple Store in a few minutes.” I was too embarrassed to wait in line with my very tall daughter  looking like Dorothy in Munchkinland  next to all the tiny toddlers but I didn’t want to drag her away either so we agreed to meet up.  When Leah found me perusing the new MacBooks, she looked very proud. “He was really nice, “ she said, “and they all felt sorry for me because I was alone without a parent and didn’t have any money.” Leah was laden down with free gifts including a framed color photo that would normally cost over twenty bucks and a Godiva white chocolate Christmas lollipop. My daughter has never believed in Santa Claus but she managed to have a great exchange with the jolly old guy and his elfin minions that was far more in keeping with the spirit of the holiday than those brats who were handing him laundry lists of desired loot. I, on the other hand, with my refusal to enter St. Nick’s lair, felt like Ebenezer Scrooge before his visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Another year on my blog, another cheery Christmas post. Let’s not forget that “White Christmas,” the most successful Christmas record in history (in fact the most successful song on any topic in history) was written by a Jewish immigrant from Russia with absolutely no experience with the holiday.  The first version that Irving Berlin wrote was about a Los Angeleno living amidst the orange and palm trees, longing for a traditional Christmas “up north.” That eventually morphed into the version we know today which has been recorded by countless artists over the years including fellow Jews Bette Midler, Neil Diamond, Eydie Gorme, and Barbra Streisand.  Sadly, the song has occasionally been purloined by white supremacist groups to send out an entirely different message. But for now, I will suppress all my holiday cynicism and thank you for tuning in for any part of these past two years.

May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white
(or any other color that works for you)

How Many Jewish Bloggers Does It Take...

I never respond to memes. Not because I’m anti-social (well not entirely) but because I’m always leery of being part of a pack, as if answering a meme will ultimately lead to my joining a right-wing vigilante group. But when I was asked by Leah of Accidentally Jewish if I were interested in being one of the 36 Jewish bloggers that writer Amy Güth was hunting down for her Chanukah meme (1 blogger on the first night, 2 on the second, 3 on the third, etc.), I didn’t want to miss out on that party.

Amy Güth is definitely one of the cool kids. According to author Eric Spitznagel, “If Tom Robbins and Exene Cervenka had hot, filthy sex in some dank back alley, their illegitimate lovechild might look something like Amy Güth.” Check out her impressive website and blog and read her new book “Three Fallen Women” which manages to be “both touching and terrifying, sentimental and demented, ferociously dark and unapologetically hopeful.”

Amy sent her cabal of Jewish bloggers the following questions:

1. Quick! You must turn a plate of latkes into an upscale gourmet delight (as if they aren't already?). What would you add to them to dress them up, flavor and/or garnish them?

I am a purist when it comes to latkes, just give me the simplest recipe of potatoes, onions, salt, and oil, oil, oil. Yes, I’ve made sweet potato and zucchini latkes (yawn) but I always come back to the original. This year I made them at our goyishe friends Michelle and Steve’s house while they were away and Kendall was babysitting their kids. It was ideal—I got to indoctrinate Keane and Chase into the wonders of heavy Jewish cuisine and our house doesn’t smell like an onion field. Poor Michelle is still slipping on her kitchen floor and squeegeeing oil off her walls.

2. What is the dumbest thing you've ever heard anyone say about Chanukah?

The first thing that comes to mind is an old “Saturday Night Live” from the late 1970s when Mary Kay Place was hosting the show during Chanukah. They did a sketch with Gilda Radner and John Belushi as a stereotypical Jewish couple and Mary Kay and Dan Aykroyd as their uber-Goy friends coming over to celebrate Chanukah. I still remember Mary Kay Place’s perfect delivery of the line, “Bobbie, these Chanookah decorations are out of this world!” I guess that’s not so dumb but it still makes me laugh 30 years later.

I have little tolerance for Chanukah being billed as “Jewish Christmas.” The two holidays have about as much in common as Yom Kippur and Hitler’s birthday.

3. What's the best possible use for olive oil?

Is that a cue for some clever sexual repartee? I am hopeless at such allusions so I’ll just say that some excellent high quality olive oil drizzled onto a great piece of bread with a little fleur de sel on top is a thing of beauty.

4. Settle it once and for all. Latkes or hammentaschen? Which do you prefer? What about pitting the winner of that contest against sufganiyot?

Most hammentaschen you find today are leaden doorstops including the ones I tried last Purim from Canter’s. I enjoyed them anyway (who said being a leaden doorstop was a detriment in Jewish cuisine?). My favorite flavor is poppyseed which I think would make me fail a heroin drug screening, no? But if I were forced to pit these two items against each other, there’s no contest: latkes rule. Sufganiyot share a similar fate to hammentaschen in this country but I’ve had exquisite examples of both in the old Jewish quarter in Paris. And my old Hebrew teacher Mrs. Hankin, a Holocaust survivor, used to make sufganiyot that were so delectable I’d dream about them the rest of the year. Strangely, she called them latkes. I guess she thought that’s the only word us grandchildren of Eastern European shtetl Jews would understand.

5. What's the best way to mix up a game of dreidel?

The deep dark secret we Jews try to hide from Gentiles is that playing dreidel is truly a bore. In fact, I’m not convinced that it wasn’t invented by anti-Semites to drive home the libel that Jews are obsessed with money, even during the holidays. On the other hand, I did a Chanukah presentation in my daughter’s 5th grade class last year and the kids went nuts playing dreidel. After an hour, the room took on the desperate air of the casino at Bally’s.

When I was in 5th grade I played a giant dreidel in the Shaare Tikvah Hebrew School Chanukah program and proceeded to careen into fellow spinning dreidel Scott Whitcup, sending us both to the floor during our rendition of “S’vivon, sov, sov, sov.” This produced my first Jewish-related shame spiral.

6. My novel, “Three Fallen Women,” shockingly enough, is about the lives of three women. Which three women would you like to have over this year for latkes and why?

This question is so broad it intimidates me. I saw earlier bloggers mention Katharine Hepburn and I would do anything to break bread (break latkes?) with her but I think in honor of Amy, I’ll limit my answers to Jewish writers.

My first pick is the brilliant writer Anzia Yezierska (1885-1970) who wrote several gritty Jewish-themed novels including “The Bread Givers,” “Hungry Hearts,” and my favorite, “Salome of the Tenements.” If you’ve never read this largely forgotten author, you must check her out. She had a fascinating and troubled life, born in a Polish shtetl and working in a sweatshop after emigrating to the U.S. at the turn of the century. Samuel Goldwyn brought her out to Hollywood to turn “The Bread Givers” into a silent film in the 1920s but she hated it here and eventually returned to the Lower East Side. She fell back into hard times during the Depression and got a WPA job cataloguing the trees in Central Park. I can only imagine the obstacles she faced as a Jewish woman writer back then but her amazing books are intensely authentic. Anzia, have a latke!

My second writer would be Lillian Hellmann (1905-1984), a tough cookie who didn’t suffer fools. I have admired her writing from “The Children’s Hour” to “Watch on the Rhine” to “The Little Foxes.” She has been accused by many of fabricating elements of her past, including those that were later featured in the film “Julia,” but being a person who massages my own life events as I see fit (as long as they follow the “spirit of the truth”), I say “you go, girl!” Dashiell Hammett supposedly based his Nora Charles on Hellmann. Can you think of two more different entities than Lillian and Myrna Loy? Her response to HUAC during the McCarthy nightmare was classic: “To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.” Care for a dollop of sour cream, Lill?

The last writer I want to invite to my latke fest is playwright Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006) if for no other reason than to hear her distinctive voice that was stilled way too soon and experience that wonderful Wasserstein wit one more time. She gave birth to her daughter when she was 48 years old and it makes me so sad to imagine that Lucy, who just turned seven this year, will not be growing up with her way cool mom. I loved “Uncommon Women and Others,” “The Heidi Chronicles,” and “The Sisters Rosenzweig” and I was in the middle of reading her memoir “Shiksa Goddess” when she died at the age of 55. Welcome back, Wendy. More applesauce?

But wait, I just saw that several other bloggers cited their late mothers for this question. I have to say that if I could bring my mom back for latkes tonight with me, Kendall, and Leah, that would trump any other possible visits.

7. Other than “Three Fallen Women” (har har), what book do you think would make a great Chanukah gift this year? What book would you like to receive as a gift this year?

I have to guiltily admit that having just discovered the Wonderful World of Güth, I have yet to read “Three Fallen Women” and if I don’t receive it as a gift (pointed hint to my loved ones) I’ll be ordering it next week.

This question is also such a broad canvas that it paralyzes me so I’m going to pretend that we’re just talking about memoirs written by the Jewish women bloggers I know and love. Of course I already own their books but the ones that I’m thinking about that would make PERFECT Chanukah presents include “The Division Street Princess” by Elaine Soloway, “Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants” by Jill Soloway, and “Queen of the Oddballs” by Hillary Carlip. These books brilliantly convey the unique fabulousness of three very different Jewesses. Get all three and wrap them together for your special friend. But HURRY, Chanukah is almost over!

8. What bloggers didn't participate in Chanukah Blog Tour 5767 and you think should have?

I heart Jewish bloggers—several of my favorites have already participated. If this meme business didn’t make me so uneasy, I’d tag Annie Gottlieb, Neil Kramer, Tamar Jacobson, Wandering Jew, Toronto Pearl, Cruisin-Mom, That Black Lesbian Jew, Tequila Mockingbird, Naomi Caryl, and the aforementioned Soloway, Soloway, and Carlip (sounds like a Century City law firm).

I think I’ve just discovered why I never do memes.  Aren’t the answers supposed to be short and pithy? Sorry, Amy, I don’t know from pithy—my responses are as bloated as I am after eating a plate full of latkes.

All You Gotta Do Is Dream

The two-year anniversary of my blog is just a few days away. It was last year on that day that I finally changed the name of my blog from “Andy Hardy Writes a Blog” to “Jew Eat Yet,” a name I’m still mildly embarrassed explaining to strangers when they ask. When I was trying to come up with a new title last year, one suggestion that I thought was funny was “Straight Man/Gay Blog.” Do you think my choice of topics reveals a bit of a gay sensibility? Well, hold on to your rainbow flags, kids, because I’m about to send the blog gaydars into the stratosphere with my response to the new movie “Dreamgirls.”

Kendall, Leah, and I saw the film last night at the Cinerama Dome, one of my favorite movie theatres in the world (which is surprising since it was built in the 1960s). While “Dreamgirls” opens nationwide on Christmas Day, they’re having a special 10-day presentation at only three theatres in the country: the Dome in L.A., the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York, and the Metreon in San Francisco. Tickets are $25 each which is crazy but you get a souvenir program and a limited edition lithograph of the poster art with a certificate of authenticity.

Leah started listening to the soundtrack a few weeks ago and has already choreographed her own versions of most of the numbers. She can’t decide which of the Dreams she wants to play, Deena or Effie. I don’t have the heart to tell her that her theatre company of mostly white 10-13-year-old girls will probably never put on this show. Kendall saw “Dreamgirls” when it premiered in Los Angeles with the original cast including Jennifer Holliday’s knock-down performance as Effie White, the Florence Ballard-like member of the Dreams who is booted out of the group even though she has the best set of pipes. I happened to be in New York in early 1982 and scored a front row seat to the original Broadway production at the Imperial Theatre. In addition to Holliday, the Dreams were played by Sheryl Lee Ralph as the Diana Ross-inspired Deena Jones and Loretta Devine as the Mary Wilson-ish Lorell Robinson. I loved the play and was stunned by the raw emotion in Jennifer Holliday’s explosive signature song, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” which she recreated that year on the Tony Awards. A bunch of movie versions of the musical were planned over the years including one in the 80s with Whitney Houston as Deena (she tried to get them to rewrite the story so that she could sing Effie's “And I Am Telling You”) and one in the 90s with Lauryn Hill. Thankfully, the project languished in development. Now, 25 years after the Broadway opening, the movie version is finally here. So how did it turn out?

WOW.

I can’t remember the last time any movie I’ve seen has lived up to its hype but “Dreamgirls” surpasses even its own advanced press. I had been looking forward to seeing the film but it was WAY better than I anticipated and even more enjoyable than the play. Several of the characters were fleshed out in a very satisfying way and Bill Condon’s deft direction allowed more elements of the changing times and the civil rights struggle to find their way into the story which added a lot. The film has an energy that I can’t even describe (I’m tempted to call it “electric”) and the look of it is total perfection from the simulated album art to the 5,000 pairs of false eyelashes I read they went through during the first month of shooting.

If I rack my brain I can’t come up with a negative comment about the cast. The biggest surprise to me was Eddie Murphy’s fantastic turn as soulful R&B singer James Thunder Early. There were so many opportunities for Murphy to fall back on some of his old (funny) shtick in this very over-the-top role but he avoided that temptation completely and gave a performance that was wild and raw and yet full of poignancy and complexity. Amazing. I read that Jamie Foxx first turned down the Berry Gordy-like role of Curtis Taylor and the part was offered to Denzel Washington who had to decline because he just can’t sing. When Murphy signed on, Foxx relented and it’s lucky that he did, he is superb in the role of the visionary but ultimately corrupt and power-hungry Svengali who brings the Dreams and their “new sound” into the mainstream and turns the once timid Deena Jones into a world class performer. I loved seeing the always moving Danny Glover in the role of the passed-over agent Marty and newcomer Keith Robinson was quite effective as Effie’s composer brother C.C. White.

My last comment about Beyoncé Knowles on this blog was mocking her overexposure at the 2005 Academy Awards. She sang three of the nominated songs which, in my opinion, was two too many. She had a nice enough voice but I just didn’t get the appeal. I do now. Knowles was apparently so desperate to play this role (she wanted it since she was 15 years old) that she begged the producers to give her a chance and swore that we would not see any trace of Beyoncé in her performance. And we don’t. It is Deena Jones all the way through, with a healthy dose of Diana Ross, of course. The Deena-Diana connection is so much more pronounced in the film version than in the stage play that I’m frankly surprised they could get away with it. Most of Deena’s incredible outfits and hairstyles (and she must have 100 costume changes in the film) are lifted straight from the historic annals of Miss Ross’s heyday, as are many of the situations (e.g., trying to break free from her mentor’s influence to become a serious actress) but the parallels have their limits. When the musical came out in the 1980s it was widely disowned by the real-life Supremes. Times have changed, though. Last week Mary Wilson was asked about the film and said that “it was closer to the truth than they even know.” When asked how similar Diana Ross was to the character of Deena (I love that Mary Wilson will only refer to Ross as “Diane,” her real name and what she called her when they were girls in the Detroit projects), Wilson said, “Nowhere near it. Not near it.” “You mean she wouldn’t have been as sweet?” the interviewer asked. “You said it!” Wilson exclaimed. Ouch. After turning down the role of Deena’s mother in the film, Diana Ross is trying to distance herself as much as possible from the film, the same way she’s avoided talking about the play which she claims she’s never seen or listened to.

Anika Noni Rose struck just the right note as Lorell in “Dreamgirls” and she had big shoes to fill. I loved Loretta Devine’s original (her character provided most of the comic relief in the play) and thought she had a killer voice. In a very sweet and fan-pleasing move, Devine has a nice cameo in the film as a jazz singer and former acquaintance of Jimmy Early (who was her married boyfriend in the play). Last week Leah and her mom were shopping at the Grove shopping center in L.A. In a cell phone store, Loretta Devine came over and was admiring Leah’s new cell phone. Sophie recognized her and told her how much she enjoyed her work in “Boston Common” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” After they walked away, Devine’s husband doubled back to Sophie and Leah and whispered, “You know, my wife was in the original ‘Dreamgirls’ and has a role in the movie version that’s coming out!” Now that’s a supportive hubby.

No sign in the film of Sheryl Lee Ralph, the original Deena, who has criticized the casting of Beyoncé on the grounds of her light skin. “When Tom Eyen who is the creator, had this idea, he said that the Dreams have to be three obviously black girls,” Ralph said in a recent interview. “Why? Because America will always go for that light, bright, long-haired black girl because they will feel comfortable building her up, since they see themselves in her. But for the obviously black girl, if she makes it, she deserves to be right there…So, when they cast Beyoncé in the role of Deena Jones, I said, ‘Wow, this is exactly what Tom Eyen said would happen. They are going to take to that light, bright blackish blonde girl because they feel comfortable with her. That's the reality.’” I’m not sure I agree with her concerns about Beyoncé but I’m still sorry they didn’t find a small role for Ralph in the film. “For us to be so much a part of theatrical history and then to be treated like we did nothing is heartbreaking,” she said last week. “I don't take offense. It's just show business, baby. I wish them every success.” Until this year Ralph had a child at my daughter’s school and we used to trail after her at school events (violating the strict rule in the parent handbook to avoid approaching celebrities on campus) humming the lyrics to her songs under our breaths. “Every man has his own special dream, and your dream is about to come true. Life’s not as bad as it may seem, if you open your eyes to what’s in front of you…” Sheryl Lee Ralph is still as stunningly beautiful as she was when she was playing Deena Jones a quarter of a century ago.

Jennifer Holliday seems to be the most bitter former cast member, raging mad that she wasn’t asked to be involved with the project in any way and feeling like she was being disappeared from the history of the show in the same way that Efffie White was excised from all the Dreams PR after she left the group. “Why is it necessary for them to wipe out my existence in order for them to have their success?” Holliday has publicly pondered. “It’s scary that they can be so cruel. I know it’s business, but why do they have to do to this extreme? I’m a human being. Why do I have to die to make them a winner.” Those criticisms sound a little unfair to me, and I’ve always heard how difficult Holliday was back in the day (just like Effie) but I can see why she feels excluded. Following her huge success as Effie White, Holliday's life took a few Effie-like turns. She suffered from severe depression, had two failed marriages, and tried to commit suicide on her 30th birthday. She later lost a whopping 200 lbs. and started recording again but it's been an uphill struggle. I can understand how Holliday's ego might be taking a hit since her mantle has been passed on to someone as extraordinarily talented as Jennifer Hudson. The one-time “American Idol” performer does not revisit Jennifer Holliday’s tour-de-force in the film version of "Dreamgirls" but instead gives the role an entirely new interpretation, one that is so real and so natural you just can’t believe she’s never acted before. But as Kendall pointed out, a good singer is a good actress.

Hudson never once hits a false note in this film and for my money, is the best thing in it. When’s the last time you heard someone sing a song with such pure emotion that people were crying all over the theatre and then furiously applauding at the end of the number? In another case of life imitating art (as if Jennifer Holliday’s sad life isn’t enough), the Golden Globes were announced the other day with Beyoncé being nominated for Best Actress but Jennifer Hudson getting the nod for Best Supporting Actress. Huh? Isn’t her part just as big and critical to the story? I think it may be the studios themselves who submit actors for different categories and it was probably a calculated move to give Hudson a better shot at the prize, but it makes no sense. Is Knowles more the lead than Hudson because she’s prettier and thinner?

I love the fact that movie musicals are making a comeback and “Dreamgirls” director Bill Condon deserves a lot of the credit for that. After so many failed stage-to-screen transfers (from the abominable “Chorus Line” to the lukewarm “Rent” and “The Producers”) the total success of “Dreamgirls” as a film is even more heartening. In the recent “Chicago,” which Condon penned, all the musical numbers had to be seen as Renee Zellweger’s fantasies. “Dreamgirls” uses no such gimmick—there are lots of actual staged numbers since this is a story about show biz, but there are also plenty of instances where the characters just burst into song (without apology) to convey their emotions. Hooray! I say we elect Bill Condon our new National Musical Czar and see what he comes up with next.

Annie Redux

I swear this will be my last Annie-themed post but I've been playing with this clip of Leah in her closing night performance from this weekend. Forgive my shoddy camera work and my utter lack of iMovie skills (gotta work on that). Be grateful that I haven't figured out how to include more than one clip in a single post (but I'm sorry I can't show you her other great numbers and fab costume changes)! I so enjoyed Leah's final two performances and wanted to record just a snippet for posterity even if it makes me look like the most hideous stage parent on the planet. Enjoy!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’m Kvelling, Tomorrow…

Last night was Leah’s opening as Annie in the musical “Annie.” She was fantastic. Last month I wrote about her getting this role and how, during the casting process, I needed to forcibly restrain my Mama Rose tendencies. I don't think I was too bad last night, I never once screamed “Sing out, Louise!” from the audience.

Leah has done close to 20 shows with this theatre company over the years but this was her first show with the master class, made up of the oldest kids. The very first performances in children’s theatre are often a bit iffy. Sometimes what’s happening on the stage is so confusing that unless you have the entire play and score committed to memory (as I always do) you wouldn’t have a clue as to what the story is about. It’s especially hard for Leah’s mom, born and raised in France with little exposure to American musicals. I’ve looked at her face during some of these first shows as she desperately tries to follow along. “Who are those nuns and why is one of them getting married?” “Why are those nice little boys picking those people’s pockets?” “Did that plant just eat the main character? What’s going on?” Some of the dance numbers in these early performances look like they were choreographed by martial artists, with kids ramming into each other at every turn. But, as in the Hanukkah miracle which we start celebrating tonight, by the second performance the kids have somehow gotten it all together and the shows become as cohesive as a long-running Broadway blockbuster. Part of the problem is that school and theatre schedules often create long delays between the final rehearsal and opening night. This was particularly true for “Annie.” The kids hadn’t been together since December 2nd, almost two weeks before their first performance in front of an audience. But man, they pulled it off. Sure, there were a few dropped lines here and there, and a couple of missed song cues, but they got more confident in every scene and it was a great show.

Needless to say, seeing Leah up there belting out “Tomorrow” sent chills up my spine and I would have happily sold my soul to the devil if my late mother could have seen it. She was a Broadway fanatic (who was with me when we stood in the SRO section of the Alvin Theatre in 1978 watching the original “Annie”) and would have kvelled herself into a state of apoplexy to see her first grandchild playing that part. But maybe she was watching the show somehow.

Most of the photos I took came out blurry because I was too afraid of blinding the kids with my flash but if I can get an audio or video clip tomorrow night I’ll add it later. I can see I’m already acting like one of those painfully annoying parents who talk too much about their kids so I’ll stop. At least I’ve never put a bumper sticker on my car extolling the accomplishments of my child, why do people do that? (As if writing blog entries about her accomplishments is any better?) Even more embarrassing is the way I scan the program looking for the kids of famous parents. And oh my God, there were some doozies this time. I think it would be too obnoxious to name them (although not half as obnoxious as mentioning them at all) but let me just say that for two of the kids, both of their parents are HUGE movie stars. Enough of a hint? Honestly, I should be barred from all children’s theatre.

The one part of the play that reduced me to mush was when Leah finally accepted Daddy Warbucks’ love after realizing that she wasn’t going to find her real parents. But then those imposters, played by Miss Hannigan’s brother Rooster and his floozy girlfriend arrived and convinced everyone that they were Annie’s birth parents. They were going to come the next day to take her away. Annie knew she should be happy and couldn’t figure out why she felt so miserable. Leah sat alone on the set of the Warbucks mansion, looked down sadly, and sang:

And maybe I’ll forget
How nice he was to me
And how I was almost his baby…
Maybe.

Oh crap, I’m crying again just thinking about it.

Rotting My Brain in Bed

I’ve been sick in bed since Thursday with some kind of virus/flu. I still have a bad cough but if I don’t wrench myself out of bed today I’m afraid I never will. Hell, even Jesus got up after three days. I’m not comparing my cold to a crucifixion although Leah has already accused me of having delusions of grandeur. “Dad, I’ve had a cold for three WEEKS and you’re complaining about a few DAYS?!” Do Gentiles play that ever-popular Jewish game, “Who’s the Sickest?” On the other hand, I’ve also noticed that whenever I’m sick I judge myself mercilessly as if I have no right to engage in such a silly self-indulgence as resting in bed. Shouldn’t I at least be catching up on work projects, committing Shakespeare to memory, or learning Italian? Why is it so hard for me to take it easy without feeling massive guilt? It’s also hard for me to ask for help even though my loved ones could not be more accommodating. Does part of me think I don’t deserve the attention because whatever illness I have is nothing compared to people who are really sick?

Maybe this has all been one big sleep correction. I’m lucky if I get 4 hours of sleep a night but I’ve been averaging 10-12 hours during the past several days. My brain isn’t used to that much REM sleep and I’ve been having extremely vivid dreams, one after the other. Let’s see, this morning alone I remember something about an impending nuclear strike on the United States (and I was the only person who knew about it), my 49-year-old sister being pregnant with triplets, a massive snowstorm hitting Los Angeles, and Kendall accompanying Greer Garson on a trip to Israel. Can someone page my therapist?

When I wasn’t dreaming about nuclear holocausts I was laying in bed watching TV. I don’t watch that much these days so the steady influx of commercial television was a shock to my system. On Saturday I discovered that we get Turner Classic Movies On Demand and I happily viewed several old movies that I’d always wanted to see. Highlights included the star-studded 1954 MGM film “Executive Suite” starring Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, June Allyson, Walter Pidgeon, and a host of other Big Stars from the waning days of the studio system. I was riveted by the Ernest Lehman script and the solid direction from Robert Wise but amazed that such a suspenseful and intriguing film could be built around the search for a new head of a furniture company in Pennsylvania following the death of its leader. Would anyone give a damn about such a storyline today? A unique feature of “Executive Suite” is that it was one of the only movies ever to come out of Hollywood with no music track. The only thing you can hear on the soundtrack besides dialogue are the natural sounds of the city, even during the opening and closing credits. Holden’s idealistic McDonald Walling reminded me of a character out of an Ayn Rand novel. “The force behind a great company has to be more than the pride of one man,” Walling states ever so seriously. “It has to be the pride of thousands. You can’t make men work for money alone—you starve their souls when you try it, and you can starve a company to death the same way.” I couldn’t help but think that people had real jobs in the 1950s. And I loved those cool 1950s skyscrapers. Should I try to get a job in a furniture company and then claw my way to the top, having an affair with Barbara Stanwyck in the process?

Another film I enjoyed was “The Stork Club” from 1945, starring “that wacky Paramount songstress” Betty Hutton. When Betty, a struggling hat check girl at New York’s swanky Stork Club, saves the life of distraught millionaire Barry Fitzgerald, whom she believes to be penniless, Fitzgerald is so grateful that he decides to anonymously set Hutton up in a luxurious Park Avenue townhouse with an open charge account at Sak’s. Yeah, right. Betty thinks the riches are coming from her lecherous boss at the Stork Club (played by 1950s TV announcer Bill Goodwin) and yet, in a weird but plot-advancing move, she accepts the largesse and goes nuts at Sak’s, buying not one but two $6,000 mink coats and a glittering new wardrobe. Betty, Betty, if you’re worried that your patron is going to expect things in return, then what are you doing? Was the temptation for finer things at the end of World War II simply too great? Of course when Hutton’s boyfriend Danny (played by Don DeFore, better known as Mr. Baxter on the TV series “Hazel”) gets back from the Pacific, he assumes that his girlfriend is being kept by some sugar daddy. Duh! Of course the millionaire eventually makes things right, and the innocent Hutton gets plenty of opportunities to sing her trademark novelty numbers including the Hoagy Carmichael song, “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief” that became one of Hutton’s biggest hits.

Tell the doc to stick to his practice
Tell the lawyer to settle his case
Send the Injun chief and his tommy-hawk
Back to Little Rain-in-the-Face.
‘Cause you know! know! know! it couldn’t be true
That anyone else could love you like I do!

Betty Hutton was a gigantic star back in the day but her fame hasn’t exactly withstood the test of time. I always liked Hutton but admit she is sort of an acquired taste. She seemed much more real and vulnerable than the refined studio movie stars of the 40s and 50s. To her credit, Betty seemed to recognize her limitations. Despite her natural charm, she never claimed to be a great beauty or the most talented singer, dancer, or actress on the lot. “I worked out of desperation,” she once said in an interview. “I used to hit fast and run in hopes that people wouldn't realize that I really couldn't do anything.” Her brief superstardom ended after some high profile films in the early 1950s (she replaced the ailing Judy Garland in “Annie Get Your Gun”) and she eventually followed in Garland’s footsteps by succumbing to drug abuse and a nervous breakdown. I remember the big story in the late 70s when Betty Hutton was discovered working as a cook in a Roman Catholic rectory in Rhode Island. She had a brief comeback playing Miss Hannigan in “Annie” on Broadway and then left the public eye again. Today she lives in quiet retirement near Palm Springs. Robert Osborne interviewed her on Turner Classic Movies in 2000 and it was fascinating to watch someone be that honest about her career and her personal problems. I think she did have a lot of talent but Hollywood never really knew what to do with her.

I then watched an MGM promotional film from the early 1950s in which Dore Schary (who had just replaced the ousted Louis B. Mayer) introduced all of studio’s upcoming films. We forget how the classic movies we all know and love were just a fraction of the studios' output. So many of the films from back then are now forgotten, many deservedly so. Stars who were wildly touted as the Next Big Thing are barely remembered today. The MGM trailers in this film enthusiastically promoted such forgotten personalities as Pier Angeli, Sally Forrest, and John Erickson. There was a lot of build-up for Nancy Reagan (who had just married Ron but was still making films under the name Nancy Davis). She was shown in several upcoming films, including one in which all of her young children were killed in a house fire while she watched from the curb, unable to help. Yikes. The studio also heralded its prestige films of the day. The promo for “King Solomon’s Mines” blared that it was “filmed entirely on location in the savage heart of equatorial Africa.” Dory Schary then raved about the biggest picture of the year. “This isn’t just another movie, it represents the apex of motion pictures. No other movie can remotely come close. I’m happy to reveal to you for the first time, some advanced scenes from the greatest picture in screen history.” What film represented such an incredible apex for the motion picture industry? “Quo Vadis” starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr. Yawn.

Rounding out my TV overdose were selections from the weekend-long marathon of “That Girl” on TV Land. I hadn’t seen that show in decades and yet it all came back to me the minute I saw Marlo Thomas bickering with boyfriend Ted Bessell. In the first episode I watched, Bessell’s Don Hollinger was upset that he was stuck in an elevator with Thomas’s Ann Marie all because he had agreed to accompany her to her Women’s Liberation meeting (!). It’s easy to make fun of the show today including the cheesy openings where someone in the cast always referred to Ann as “That Girl!” but I think that Marlo Thomas really did pave the way for Mary Richards and the other women who would follow who didn’t live solely for the approval of a man. Well, most of them still wanted that approval but they didn’t live solely for it! Let’s face it, Marlo Thomas may have been a ground-breaking female character but the TV industry in the 1960s was still controlled by middle-aged Jewish guys. “That Girl” never employed a woman writer or director and its theme song would hardly be used a feminist rallying cry today:

Diamonds, Daisies, Snowflakes, That Girl
Chestnuts, Rainbows, Springtime...Is That Girl
She’s tinsel on a tree...
She’s everything that every girl should be!

Sable, Popcorn, White Wine, That Girl
Gingham, Bluebirds, Broadway...Is That Girl
She’s mine alone, but luckily for you...
If you find a girl to love,
Only one girl to love,
Then she’ll be That Girl too...That Girl!

I remember attending an event to honor “That Girl” at the Museum of Television in Beverly Hills in October 1996. The night before the cast was to gather, Ted Bessell dropped dead from an aortic aneurysm at the age of 61. Marlo Thomas and the others came to the event anyway, and held a tear-eyed tribute to their beloved co-star who had become a successful TV director. You can watch full episodes of “That Girl” here if you’re hankering for a crash course in the 1960s male-written sitcom version of feminism. You can also watch Marlo’s “Free to Be…You and Me” special from 1974, one of the first network shows for children to challenge gender and cultural stereotypes. Who can forget such classic songs as “It’s All Right to Cry” and “William’s Doll?” Oy, are these the cultural landmarks that shaped my sensibilities? No wonder I’m so screwed up. Would I have been better off using William Holden’s martini-swigging executive as a role model?

My God, what am I rambling about? Can I blame this whole post on my Nyquil-induced delirium? For now I just need to get as far away from any television set as possible.

Mentors Wanted

Last night Leah and I attended a party at Universal Studios for an organization in Los Angeles called WriteGirl, a creative writing and mentoring program that pairs professional women with local high school girls. They meet one-on-one for nine months, attend a series of workshops, and participate in public readings. Last night marked the release of their latest anthology called “Untangled: Stories & Poetry from the Women and Girls of WriteGirl.” The quality of the writing in the book is extraordinary, the pieces by these girls are moving, real, and often quite painful. My 11-year-old daughter began devouring the anthology during the party and I only hope that she finds similar mentor relationships during her teen years.

The WriteGirl staff also presented their Bold Ink awards to five “fierce women writers”—our friend Jill Soloway of “Six Feet Under” fame, the brilliant NPR commentator and writer Sandra Tsing Loh, Janet Fitch who wrote “White Oleander” and the recent “Paint It Black,” TV writer/producer Carol Flint, and poet Suzanne Lummis. All of them were hilarious and inspiring in their talks and encouraged the high school girls to continue with their writing no matter how much rejection, disinterest, or self-doubt they face. Jill talked about a screenplay she submitted around town early in her career that was ignored or rejected by everyone she sent it to. After Alan Ball hired her for “Six Feet Under” and declared her an excellent writer, suddenly everyone wanted to see the script and thought it was great.  Tsing Loh wished the girls great success and some “stupendous failures.” She told the story of her outrageous dismissal from L.A. radio station KCRW for uttering an obscenity that was supposed to have been bleeped out (she had worked it out with the engineer beforehand but he made a mistake). “I thought by now I’d be in the Amy Tan phase of my career burnishing all my awards,” she said, “but instead I was fucking fired from a public radio job that only paid $100 a week!”

We were invited to the event by Sara Shirrell, the Program Manager for WriteGirl who happens to be the niece of two bloggers I read daily, AmbivaBlog and True Ancestor. When I checked the WriteGirl website yesterday, I was surprised to discover that my mother-in-law is on the Advisory Board of this organization and has known Executive Director Keren Taylor for years. Who knew?

Hearing these articulate women speak last night and witnessing the high school students reading selections from their work, it’s quite obvious how a program like this can be utterly life-changing. All of the girls who have participated in WriteGirl have gone on to college, many of them being the first person in their families to do so.

Some of the honorees wondered aloud what their difficult teen years would have been like if they’d had supportive mentors. Janet Finch told us how she always loved writing until she handed a prized story to an English teacher who promptly got out a thick red pen, covered the paper with grammar and spelling corrections, and handed it back to her without another word. Finch didn’t write again until she was 21. Many of the WriteGirl mentors were present to introduce the girls with whom they’ve developed close relationships. I can’t think of a more worthwhile program in this city. How would my life have changed if I’d had a mentor? I guess my high school English teachers were the closest I came to that. Some were supportive and inspiring while some resembled Janet Fitch's teacher and used their red pens to draw blood. They were all dealing with 30+ kids to a class so it was hardly a one-on-one experience.

On my last trip to Chicago I found more of my papers from high school including a bunch of writing from various English classes. You know how sometimes when you look at stuff from your past it rings a bell even if you can’t remember the content? And then other times you’d swear on a bible that you've never seen it before but you can't figure out how it got there in your exact handwriting? That’s how I feel about my writing from high school, I don’t have the slightest memory of the essays, poems, short stories, or plays that I found in my thick yellow pocket folder from the 1970s emblazoned with anti-war stickers (“MIA: Only Hanoi Knows!”).

But there they are, the endless lined pages beseeching me to remember that Lost Boy of the early 1970s. A lot of the writing is awful but I'm fascinated by the recurring themes. I just read aloud to poor Kendall a short story I wrote in 1973 about a kid who was the son of a famous movie star in Beverly Hills. After his parents are killed in a car accident, he goes to live with his boring aunt in Akron, Ohio, who convinces him how much he really hated the childhood he used to think was so exciting. Then I read her a futuristic piece about a world in which people are “drained” on their 50th birthdays with all of their body parts filed away for later use. Some of these pieces contain detailed notes from my teachers, most of them very positive. Much of my writing back then seems like a cry for help. The constant themes of repressed feelings and deceitful family dynamics are not hard to decipher. But never once did a teacher make a connection between my writing and what was going on in my home life. Some of the poetry I found should have elicited a mandatory visit with the school counselor. I don't remember actually having suicidal thoughts but it was a common theme in my tortured haikus and cinquains. I much prefer reading the series of topical limericks I wrote in January 1974:

Yikes, Nixon was still President when I wrote that. And what's with the crack about having a place for his “chicks?” For all his faults, I don't remember accusations that Tricky Dick was a womanizer too. Another poem I wrote that year stated, “I used to be a symbol of trust and honor among all, but now I am the President of the United States.” Would such writing today land a 10th grader on an FBI list of subversives? How about the “Brady Bunch” script I wrote that speculates what the dialogue might be like if it were uttered by real kids and not smarmy TV characters:

I received an A and many positive comments about this piece even though I talk about Marcia’s abortion, have Jan accusing Peter of sexual harassment, and reveal that Mr. Brady is beating the crap out of his wife who is about to leave the entire family and go off on her own. I also use the word “fuck” about 10 times which seems perfectly okay to my sophomore English teacher Mrs. Bjorklund. This is the woman who once sat on the edge of my desk during class and said “See, everyone…look how uncomfortable Danny is because I’m invading his personal space.” Another day she blurted out “Penis, penis, penis!" just to see how we'd react. Despite her eccentric ways, Mrs. Bjorklund was an excellent teacher who allowed us free reign to explore our lives and our pain through our writing. I guess that’s about as close to a mentor as I ever had in those days.

There are many different kinds of writing represented in the 288-page “Untangled” anthology. All of it is worth reading and all the money raised from book sales goes directly back into the program to support workshops and mentoring opportunities. You can’t help but be moved by the writing from these girls. One short blurb that resonated with me was from a 16-year-old in South-Central Los Angeles:

“One Atom”
Devon Regina DeSalvo

So I was thinking, we all want to be somewhat normal, but if everyone were normal, would we all get bored and want to be insane instead? Then, if we were all insane, would our insanity be considered normal? If so, we’d live in a world full of crazies and oddballs. Oh, wait—we already do. We all go around saying, “Oh, so-and-so is normal,” but I bet when you’re not looking, that person’s favorite thing to do is run around and bark like a dog. Everyone has some craziness. It may only be one atom, but it is there whether you accept it or not. We are what we are.