Jew Eat Yet?

Remembering Judy Resnik

Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of the Challenger disaster. How is it possible that a whole generation has passed since the cold January morning when those seven astronauts died 73 seconds after the space shuttle rose so beautifully into the Florida sky? I wrote about the tragedy on the Huffington Post yesterday but I was mostly remembering one victim of that awful day, the smiling high school teacher who was supposed to be the first civilian to slip the surly bonds of Earth. Christa McAuliffe stood in for all of us baby boomers who spent our Mercury/Gemini/ Apollo-obsessed childhoods fantasizing about traveling into the vast and hopeful frontiers of outer space. While writing that post, I realized that had Christa McAuliffe not been part of that mission, I would have probably been closely following the other woman on board the Challenger, astronaut Judith Resnik.

Judy Resnik hated being referred to as the “first Jewish astronaut” but that’s how every Jewish family in America knew her. While Soviet cosmonaut Boris Volynov was the first Jew in space (he flew two Soyuz missions in the late 60s), Ohio-born Resnik was the first American Jew to leave the Earth’s atmosphere (as long as you don’t count William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy or the chasidic characters in Mel Brooks' 1981 “Jews in Space” parody). She had a PhD in electrical engineering and unlike many astronauts, did not grow up dreaming of joining the space program. Resnik decided to apply to NASA on a lark in the late 70s. At that time there were only white male astronauts but, under pressure from women’s groups and affirmative action campaigns, NASA had finally decided to recruit women and minorities who had “the right stuff.”

Out of over 1,000 women who applied to be part of the space program, Resnik was shocked when she became one of the six women who were selected. Sally Ride, a native of southern California, became the first American woman to travel into space on June 18, 1983, on one of Challenger's first missions. The following year, Judy Resnik became the second woman in space on the maiden voyage of the Discovery orbiter, logging in 144 hours and 57 minutes outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Resnik and Sally Ride had both worked on the development of the robotic arm that Judy operated on Discovery.

By all accounts, the woman who was the only girl in her high school class to get a perfect score on her SATs was a serious but fun-loving astronaut, an incredibly hard worker, and a loyal friend. What I remember most about her first mission is how her huge mane of hair reacted to the weightless environment inside the shuttle. The other astronauts had great respect for Resnik, even the ones who said that they had some reservations about women joining the space program. “Judy Resnik and the other women at NASA really opened my eyes,” one of the older guard astronauts admitted. “They had dreams and ambitions and were just as good as any male astronaut. Judy was certainly an example of a woman who was very competent. I trusted her with my life and would do it again if she were here.” Judy recognized the inherent dangers in space travel but insisted that the risks were well worth the gains. “I think something is only dangerous if you are not prepared for it,” Resnik said after her first mission, “or if you don't have control over it, or if you can't think through how to get yourself out of the problem.”

Peggy Gawiser Shecket was a childhood friend of Judy’s who was invited to Florida in January 1986 to watch the launch of Judy’s second mission in space as part of the Challenger crew.

I had never seen a launch in person and didn’t suspect a problem as I took continual photos. There was a frightening pause in the audio commentary, however, before we heard that there was a “malfunction.” My husband knew. It would take me much longer to get it. It is a bizarre feeling to plunge from the jubilation at count-down and launch to intense worry. In shock, I fell silent. Immediately we left for the airport. Riding backward, I looked at the continually falling debris, certain that one of the specks was the crew cabin, falling gently suspended by parachutes to bob on the water until rescue people arrived.

On the plane, I sat next to a photojournalist who was creating a book on the shuttle. He told me, clearly, that there was no way the crew could have survived. Shocked enough to not speak to my children, I arrived home. That evening friends and relatives called. I said I could not talk and hung up. Finally at the boys’ bedtime, I was able to tell the 3- and 6-year-olds that we had seen a very bad accident. The next day the rabbi called to express his sympathy and concern. When the rabbi calls to say he is sorry, the person has really died. Quiet shock turned to sobs.

The boys and I began to have nightmares. In theirs, there were explosions and fire. In some of mine, Judy was well, living in Europe; she revealed that the whole thing had been a joke. My son asked me how to make the dreams stop. I told him we would have the dreams until we didn’t need to have them anymore. And eventually, we didn’t. Right before Judy’s funeral was to begin, the temple shook with an earthquake. I pictured telling Judy that I had truly “felt the earth move,” and we would have giggled. Time passes. Life has changed. I imagine that if the flight had gone as planned, Judy and I would have peaceful, easy times to share at this stage of our lives. I think we’d exchange frequent e-mail and I’d send digital photos of my wonderful adult sons. Perhaps we’d still share secrets. I would tell her what a wonderful role model and pioneer she has been for our young women and thank her for including me in her life, adding excitement to mine. I miss her still.

Judy Resnik didn’t want to be defined as the first Jewish astronaut or the second American woman in space but I believe those milestones are an important gateway to breaking down boundaries in our society and changing the way that people think about women and minorities.

I remember listening to Halle Berry’s speech at the 2002 Oscars when she became the first African-American to win the Best Actress award. At the time I thought her words were a bit over the top: “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. This moment is so much bigger than me…it's for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” In retrospect, I think Berry was dead-on. We need to go through the shock of those “firsts” before such things start to seem normal. Have you noticed that in almost everyone’s Oscar predictions this year (including my own), three of the four top acting prizes are slated for African-Americans and that fact is barely mentioned? That is a far cry from the hysteria that ensued when Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, and even Halle Berry won their awards.

The boundaries have been broached in many areas but some foundation-rocking firsts are yet to come. Many people still have a hard time imagining a Jewish person, a woman, or an African-American as President of the United States. When these milestones occur (and I’m positive all three of them will during my lifetime, possibly starting in 2008), they will cease to seem like such a big deal and soon people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Judy Resnik grew up in a Jewish community, went to Hebrew School, and celebrated her Bat Mitzvah. As an adult, she was not observant. Ilan Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut on a space shuttle crew and he was much more religious. Ramon was the first astronaut to require kosher space meals (NASA complied) and he had to consult with several rabbis to determine how to observe the Sabbath. “If a Jewish astronaut is circling the Earth every ninety minutes,” he wondered, “should he pray the Morning Service every ninety minutes--with the Afternoon and Evening Services on ninety-minute rotations as well?  And if a ‘day’ for an orbiting astronaut is ninety minutes long, rather than twenty-four hours long, should he observe Shabbat after six orbits--that is, every nine hours--for ninety minutes at a time?” These questions were debated and discussed and guidelines were drawn up for religious Jews orbiting the Earth. In the end, Ramon did not have to engage in multiple prayer sessions based on the shuttle’s position because the rabbis determined he was not really subject to “Earth time.”

Tragically, Ilan Ramon, like Judy Resnik, was part of a catastrophic disaster in the space shuttle program. Although he was able to participate in his groundbreaking mission in January 2003, he died with the six other crew members (including female astronauts Laurel Clark and Kalpana Chalwa) when the Columbia orbiter broke apart during reentry into the atmosphere over Texas on its way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Some anti-Semitic lunatics tried to draw connections between the Challenger and the Columbia tragedies claiming that their destruction was part of God’s wrath and directly related to the presence of the Jewish astronauts on board. Of course there are now several other Jewish astronauts in the Space Shuttle program who have flown without incident, as Judy Resnik herself did in 1984.

Today I am thinking of Judy Resnik’s smiling face as she boarded the Challenger full of hope and excitement. Judy’s close friend Robert Stevens, a NASA contractor, wrote about her on the 20th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.

The last words she said was the night before on the Astronaut telephone links to families where she was sequestered, “see ya in a week, green eyes,” a moniker for me in that she always loved my green eyes so she said.

I saw her last as she came out of the astro lodge and into the astrovan on her way to the pad and her ship. I shouted to her. She shouted back for which I did not hear, and blew me a kiss.

The fireball erupted at 73 seconds. A thing both fascinating and frightening, a cancer-colored nightmare unfolding in the dark cobalt skies above the world’s first true spaceport. It was failing before my eyes, before the nation’s, before the people of the world. The sum total of our achievement, now spiraling in a tendril of uncommon fiery arcs, surging back toward the ocean surface, now 7 miles below the disintegrating craft. My mouth began to open as did everyone else’s. All forward motion had ceased. The vehicle was gone now.

We do not see death like this among loved ones. Generally it is a knock on the door in the night. We are informed that uncle Jack or whomever has plowed into a light pole, or a heart attack stopped him. We are not used to seeing a loved one right on the cusp of the grandest adventure of all time, soaring in complete personal, professional, national triumph, on the world’s first true space ship, right at the height of utter triumph. Then vanish. One second, triumph. The next second, literally disappear in a orange fog of searing terror. A fireball. Seared into the brain forever. The great ship was dead and gone and was falling delicately in pieces back down to Earth's second largest ocean.

For months and even into the second year, I cried for Judy, for NASA, for everyone in our wonderful country, and for me. I wanted Judy back. I wanted Challenger to not fall down. The gulf of years quickly fall behind me now as I entrain forward in life between me and this thing. But every January 28th, at 11:37 AM, I pause for just a moment. The pain and terror, oddly, are the same, for just a moment, but her face is cloudy now as I remember it. I remember the fireball, but I can't remember exactly the lines of her face or her soft watery dark eyes. Perhaps tears make the view blurry in memory as I stare back across such dark gulfs in time.

Every year, I pause for just a moment. In those moments the crushing sadness is very great. And I never wanted to miss a thing. It was a grand time. It was a time of being invincible. For 73 seconds, whether she knew it or not, wanted to or not, she was on the edge of a still very raw technology, hanging her hide along with 6 others right out over the Yawning Red Maw. For 73 seconds, she was a pioneer, an explorer, an astronaut. A very fine woman. She was there in that thing, that beautiful space ship, surging ahead in that Ahura Mazda Surge that few of us ever will know or feel in this lifetime, moving vertically at 4900 feet per second. Surging at 3600 miles per hour, going up, ship screaming with all motors running nominal. Triumph at full bore acceleration. Rising up with all engines running at 104%. Right at, “Challenger, Go For Throttle Up.” And then she went away.

Congrats, Hank and Annie!

Happy Anniversary, you two crazy kids. It’s been quite a trip, hasn’t it? Your relationship started out as an adulterous affair, but you were smart, Annie, and wouldn’t put out until your guy made some big promises. Forgive me, Annie, but you weren’t much of a looker back then—how did you nab the most powerful hunk in the land, especially after he’d already bedded and dumped your older sis? Damn, girl, leading him on but stopping just short of the prize was genius. Where did you learn that trick, from your stint in the French court? Why buy la vache when you can get le lait for free, right Annie?

Hank, you wanted our girl here so bad you went apeshit when that pesky Pope refused to annul your 24-year marriage to Wife #1 and declare your daughter Mary a bastard. God, Popes can be such a pain. Boy, that Spanish chick you were married to was quite a piece of work—she wouldn't budge. Ay, caramba, I bet she got that hot-blooded temper from her folks, Ferdinand and Isabella. And what a slap in the face when that loser Pope excommunicated you! But you had the last laugh, Hank, when you bounced him and his religion out on their uptight asses and declared yourself the leader of the new Church of England. Awesome move, dude. And it cleared the way for THE wedding of the 16th century. Damn, has it really been 474 years—it seems like yesterday! On January 25, 1533, you took our little Annie here by the hand (I never believed those rumors about that sixth finger, girl) and promised yourself to her for eternity. Or at least until she could give you a male heir, right, dog? Of course both of you knew that she already had a royal bun in the oven. Bummer that it was a girl, Annie.

Hank, isn’t it funny how the qualities that most attract us to a hot chick at the beginning can be the very same ones that make us want to behead her later on? Annie, I’m guessing you played hooky the day they taught that class on “How to be a Subservient Wife and Queen.” Not a good move to keep hocking your poor husband about religion and politics for a thousand days. And you should have let him slide with those Ladies-in-Waiting on your staff. Yo, don't forget that you were one of Queen Catherine’s ladies when you started boffing the big guy. Besides, anyone could see that the wimpy Jane Seymour wouldn’t make it through another smallpox epidemic, why couldn’t you just wait it out? If only those boy babies you carried weren’t all born dead, you could have outlasted that homewrecking wuss. But then that Seymour biatch got knocked up and there was hope once again for a male heir. Sorry, girl, you were toast, even your own family members gave you up. Except for George, now there was one loving brother. Too loving, maybe? Hank, that was a low blow to accuse Annie of adultery with all those guys. You knew most of those dudes were gay. And then to add George to her list of lovers and accuse her of incest—ouch! I knew you were innocent, Annie, no matter what that sonofabitch Cromwell said.

Do you believe in karma, Hank? Check it out, Jane Seymour finally gave you a son but then dropped dead from puerpal fever 10 days later. I told you she was a wuss. You just lost it at that point, didn’t you, Hank? Your next wife, that Cleves chick, was a disaster, but at least she had the good sense to run for the hills right after the honeymoon. And then to hook up with Annie’s little cousin, Catherine Howard, what were you thinking, dude? Forget the fact that she was young enough to be your daughter—that girl was trouble! I guess the Boleyns paid you back big time with that one because Chatty Cathy started doing all the things you’d accused her cousin of. At least when you lobbed that ho’s head off, she was guilty of something. You were damn lucky to get that last Queen of yours considering how you’d let yourself go. Jesus, bro, lay off the mutton legs and roast grouse. Catherine Parr managed to outlive you, Hank, but she shouldn’t have hooked up with your ex-brother-in-law Thomas Seymour. She got pregnant for the first time and died in childbirth. Holy shit, none of your wives ever caught a break, did they?

Sorry to be such a downer on your special day, kids, let’s just remember the love. Annie, it had to feel good when your daughter—you know, the one who was declared a bastard when you were offed—outlived her two crazy siblings and became one of the most powerful monarchs ever to sit on the English throne. Dang, Elizabeth ruled for 44 years, that was even longer than your reign, Hank! I wonder why she never married. Do you think it had anything to do with her dad having her mom beheaded? Just askin’.

Hey, check it out, you two are more famous today than you ever were. Annie, you’ve had some of the hottest babes in Hollywood playing your royal ass. Merle Oberon and Genevieve Bujold got nominated for Oscars, and you can also see Dorothy Tutin, Charlotte Rampling, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and even Natalie Portman donning your bad-ass threads. Hank, you know that Charles Laughton won the Big O for playing you, dude, and Richard Burton also got to try on the royal codpiece.

But, kids, wait until you see this brand new Showtime series, “The Tudors” that’s starting up in April. No more fat dudes wheezing and hobbling on their gout-infested legs, Hank, this time you’re going to be played by the superhunky Jonathan Rhys Meyers. You know, that dude with Angelina Jolie’s sexy lips? “Henry was a man who could do anything and fuck anyone,” series producer Ben Silverman said. “The fact is, his dick changed the course of history, literally.” Whoa, dude.

And don’t worry, Annie, no historically accurate fugly actress for you, our new Boleyn babe is the smokin’ hot Natalie Dormer. I’d like to see someone call her “the Great Whore” and live to tell the tale. According to Showtime president Robert Greenblatt, the goal is to “breathe new life” into the Henry VIII story, offering a “younger and sexier version” of the early 1500s' King of England. “I say it's the greatest soap opera never told.” They’re borrowing fast-paced editing techniques from shows such as “Lost” and “24” and the episodes are being helmed by one of the directors of “Desperate Housewives.” True, some British historians are bugging out over the portrayal of Henry VIII as a hypersexed, promiscuous stud muffin, but hey, dogs, I say give the people what they want!

Hank, Annie—you two rock! Happy 474th!

Why Do I Still Care About the Oscars?

I think I’ve written about awards shows on this blog more than any other single topic. God, how embarrassing. With all the tragedies that are taking place around the world and all the outrageous actions being carried out by the current administration, I’m spending my time railing about something so meaningless? If I really believed awards shows were such a waste of time, wouldn’t I just stop talking about them? At least I’ve been successful at avoiding most of the shows that pollute the airwaves this time of year (from the Golden Globes to the so-called People’s Choice to the ones that are so lame that even the D-list stars look embarrassed to be there) but I guess I just have to accept the fact that the Oscars are like crack to me. “Hi, my name is Danny Miller and I’m an Oscarholic.” I need a new version of the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the nominations I cannot change, the courage to watch the broadcast without hurling sharp objects at my television, and the wisdom to know the difference between the opinions of the stodgy Academy members and my own.”

The nominations for the 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced early this morning. True, I haven’t seen many of the films under consideration but why should that stop me (or the Academy voters) from having strong opinions? My predictions two years ago were fairly on target but I really blew it last year. My own fault for trying to think like an Academy voter. Here are my predictions for the 2007 awards:

Best Supporting Actor: I didn’t see “The Departed” or “Blood Diamond,” but Mark Wahlberg and Djimon Hounsou are always good. Has any Oscar nominee come as far as Wahlberg? Arrested as a teen for a couple of racist assaults, later becoming a rap star, male model, and then, quite surprisingly, a damn good actor. Oh wait, Djimon Hounsou had a pretty similar background from street kid to male model to actor. He even appeared in a Janet Jackson video. Jackie Earle Haley pulled off being creepy and poignant in “Little Children” and it’s nice to see him back in front of the cameras after his childhood stint in the “Bad News Bears” movies and “Breaking Away.” Alan Arkin was a total joy as the four-letter-word spewing grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine,” a movie I loved, Arkin’s one of the few actors who got a Best Actor nomination for his very first movie (“The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming”). He’s been in his fair share of bombs during his long career (“Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” anyone?) but also turned in a lot of great performances. My strongest childhood memory of Arkin is when he terrorized the bejeesus out of poor blind Audrey Hepburn in “Wait Until Dark,” a role that he had a hard time with (“I didn't like being cruel to her. It made me very uncomfortable.”). And I loved him as Murray Abramowitz in “The Slums of Beverly Hills.” I’d love to see him win but I believe the statue will go to Eddie Murphy for his amazing performance as James Thunder Early in “Dreamgirls.” While Murphy has never had a problem getting the big bucks for his film roles, it hasn’t exactly been the most critically acclaimed career on record. “Dreamgirls” finally gave him the opportunity to show what he could do with a meaty, non-starring role, and I will cheer his Oscar win. I’m just sorry that his next film, opening in a few weeks, is another one of those fat suit comedies. What is so funny about an obese black woman played by a skinny black man—there have been so many of those films it’s practically its own genre.

Best Supporting Actress: Nice to see Rinki Kikuchi and especially Adriana Barraza nominated for “Babel.” Both had very challenging roles and were quite good. Neither has a chance in hell of winning, though. As much as I was ready to commit an act of civil disobedience if Cate Blanchett didn’t win the Best Supporting Actress award two years ago for her chanelling of Katharine Hepburn (she did win), I don’t think she’s going to get it this year for the disturbing “Notes on a Scandal.” Abigail Breslin was a delight in “Little Miss Sunshine.” We saw that movie while Leah was gone for a month this summer and I burst into tears at the very first shot in the film which was a closeup of the wonderful Breslin who reminded me of my daughter. But sorry, Abigail, this year’s Oscar is going home with Jennifer Hudson for her searing portrayal of Effie White in “Dreamgirls.” Of course hers was not a supporting role at all but the studio chose wisely in promoting Hudson in this category. I hope she follows it up with something good and doesn’t become a one-hit wonder.

Best Actor: Oh my God, I think this is the first time since I started watching the Oscars that I haven’t seen a single one of the performances nominated for Best Actor. What is wrong with me? I do want to see them all although I admit I’d never even heard of “Half Nelson,” Ryan Gosling’s movie, until this morning. I did think he was quite good as the neo-Nazi Jew in “The Believer.” I hear Will Smith did a great job in “The Pursuit of Happyness” which I want to see mostly to watch his real-life son playing his child. I’m sure Leonardo DiCaprio is good in “Blood Diamond” (why is that film so far off my radar screen?). I’m looking forward to his take on the 26th President in next year’s “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,” Martin Scorsese’s next movie. For this category, I see a dead lock between “Forest Whitaker” as ruthless dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” and Peter O’Toole as an aging actor in “Venus.” Whitaker is probably the favorite with the younger Academy voters while O’Toole must be the sentimental choice for anyone old enough to have seen “Lawrence of Arabia” on the big screen (why the hell didn’t he win for that?). This is O’Toole’s eighth nomination, for God’s sake, and he might just get it this time. He did win an honorary Oscar in 2003, though, which he almost turned down because he still had hopes for a “real” one and felt that the honorary award would hurt his chances. He may have been right about that. I’m going with Forest Whitaker by a nose.

Best Actress: I thought Kate Winslet was superb, as always, in “Little Children” and I so admire how she never hesitates to deglamorize herself for a role. It was a difficult, unsympathetic part that she played beautifully but I don’t think she’ll score this year. It seems impossible to deglamorize Penelope Cruz. Even scrubbing airport floors as she does in “Volver,” she is gorgeous and sexy. She’s an excellent actress and her sex appeal comes not from the American babealicious model but from the earthy, intelligent, Sophia Loren school. I loved Cruz in “Volver” but I think her prize this year will be basking in relief that she is free from the Scientologists and bad American films and is working with people like Pedro Almodovar again. Didn’t see “Notes on a Scandal” yet but as far as I’m concerned, Judi Dench deserves an Oscar every time she opens her mouth. Meryl Streep was absolute perfection in “The Devil Wears Prada” and proved she can do more with a raised eyebrow and a sigh than most actresses can with a Shakespearean soliloquy. It’s possible she could pull off another win here but I doubt it. I think it’s Helen Mirren’s year and deservedly so. Her role as Queen Elizabeth II could have easily gone the way of Mommie Dearest-like camp, but Mirren was so damn good in “The Queen” that she painted a sympathetic portrait of a woman who doesn’t always present herself in a sympathetic light. Mirren it is.

Best Director: Tough one to call. Some people are saying it’s finally Scorsese’s turn but others grumble that “The Departed” isn’t Scorsese’s best. I think Paul Greengrass did an amazing job with the powerful “United 93” and Stephen Frears’ “The Queen” was expertly directed. Clint Eastwood pulled off something of a miracle with his two-sided take on Iwo Jima. But he’s won twice already so I’m going with Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for “Babel,” a difficult film and exactly the kind the Academy likes to honor. Oy, when did the Best Director winners start getting younger than me, I can’t take it! Maybe Scorsese should win, at least he’s turning 65 this year!

Best Picture: This category has become increasingly difficult to predict. I’m surprised and disgusted that “Dreamgirls” didn’t make the cut (or Bill Condon for Best Director, for that matter) which I think says a lot about the snooty Academy members who somehow believe that a movie can’t possibly deserve a Best Picture Oscar if it's that much fun to watch. But at least “Little Miss Sunshine” got nominated and if I were voting, I’d pick that quirky, moving comedy. I think “The Departed” is a little too dark and violent for the Best Picture nod and I don’t think “Letters from Iwo Jima” has a chance. I’d say it’s between “The Queen” and “Babel,” two very different films but both dripping with A-list Prestige. I think it’s possible “The Queen” could reign victorious, in the same way that “Shakespeare in Love” beat “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Thin Red Line” in 1998 and “Chicago” won out over “The Gangs of New York” in 2002. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “Babel” will take the top prize, not because I think it’s the best movie from 2006 but only because I think the Academy members will delight in patting themselves on the back for selecting such an atypical and “important” film.

I know there are many other awards but unless one of your friends is nominated, you don’t really care about those, do you? Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” was shut out of most categories but I think the Academy voters may want to show how “with it” they are by giving him the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. I hope Michael Ardnt wins the Best Original Screenplay award for “Little Miss Sunshine.” I’ve actually seen three of documentary nominees. I thought “Deliver Us from Evil” and “Jesus Camp” were excellent but I hope “An Inconvenient Truth” wins and that director David Guggenheim brings Al Gore with him to the podium to accept the Oscar.

Our house is indirectly up for two Oscars this year, since it was the location for two scenes in “The Prestige.” That’s why I’m hoping the film wins for Best Art Direction (you should have seen the work it took to turn our first floor into an 1890s English pub) and Best Cinematography (I enjoyed watching the talented Wally Pfister). Okay, the footage from our house lasts less than a minute in the final film, but I’ll still be rooting for it!

One category I have decried for years is the competition for Best Song. Besides last year’s terrifying and inexplicable winner, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” I moaned two years ago about the horrible songs that are added to existing musicals just so they can be eligible for an Oscar nod. I also ridiculed the use of Beyoncé in that year’s show as the singer of three of the five nominated songs. Ironic then, that this year I am gung ho for a song added to an existing musical and sung by Beyoncé! I think “Listen,” one of the new additions to “Dreamgirls” is a killer song and Beyoncé’s rendition of it sends shivers up my spine even if it does veer a bit from the kind of voice her character Deena Jones is supposed to have.

And there you have it. Sadly, I’ll probably have more to say on the subject before the February 25 telecast. Let’s just hope the winners’ speeches are shorter than this rambling post because I’m telling you, if that damn orchestra continues to cut off the winners in mid-sentence, I will storm the stage of the Kodak Theatre.

Happy National Sanctity of Human Life Day!

Hey, kids, aren’t you excited? Sunday is National Sanctity of Human Life Day! Woo-hoo! What a fabulous idea! Better get those Sanctity of Human Life party hats and games dusted off. Anyone up for a rousing game of Pin the Unwanted Pregnancy on the Rape Victim?  I love me a national holiday that is decreed by our beloved President and pays no attention to that nasty Separation of Church and State silliness some of those crazy liberals still moan about.

In case you missed it, here’s the official order that was posted on the White House website yesterday:

A Proclamation by the
President of the United States of America

America was founded on the principle that we are all endowed by our Creator with the right to life and that every individual has dignity and worth. National Sanctity of Human Life Day helps foster a culture of life and reinforces our commitment to building a compassionate society that respects the value of every human being.

Among the most basic duties of Government is to defend the unalienable right to life, and my Administration is committed to protecting our society's most vulnerable members. We are vigorously promoting parental notification laws, adoption, abstinence education, crisis pregnancy programs, and the vital work of faith-based groups. Through the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002,” the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003,” and the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004,” we are helping to make our country a more hopeful place.

One of our society's challenges today is to harness the power of science to ease human suffering without sanctioning practices that violate the dignity of human life. With the right policies, we can continue to achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical and moral responsibilities.

National Sanctity of Human Life Day serves as a reminder that we must value human life in all forms, not just those considered healthy, wanted, or convenient. Together, we can work toward a day when the dignity and humanity of every person is respected.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 21, 2007, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

You go, George. By the way, who wrote that proclamation, Lewis Carroll? “Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe…” I’m so grateful that the Bush administration has made our country “a more hopeful place” and that they are continuing to live up to their moral and ethical responsibilities. Thank God they are committed to protecting “society’s most vulnerable members.” But wait, who do they mean by that? Could it be people living in poverty, minority groups, at-risk children, senior citizens, or those in desperate need of health care, insurance, or stem cell research? Maybe it refers to the military personnel stationed in Iraq? That would be appropriate since today was one of the deadliest days on record for our men and women over there. No? What’s that? It’s really National Anti-Abortion Rights Day, timed to coincide with the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade?  Oh damn, and I already had my Happy National Sanctity of Human Life Day t-shirt printed up. Maybe I’ll save it for use two years from today when our dear leader leaves office for good in the year of our Lord two thousand nine.

I Made Love to Rita Hayworth

I did, I swear. Well, Danny Miller did. Kendall was on a Turner Classic Movies bender this weekend and recorded a very strange Rita Hayworth film called “Down to Earth.” She wanted to see it because Larry Parks was Hayworth’s co-star. We screamed in unison the first time we heard Hayworth call out to Larry’s character. His name? Danny Miller. I felt like I was in some kind of LSD-induced fantasy as I kept hearing the gorgeous red-maned actress call me by name: “Danny Miller, you are the most impossible man I’ve ever met!” I know, Rita, darling, but you’ll get used to me. Kendall didn’t seem to mind how thrilled I was at hearing Hayworth seduce me from the screen. Aren’t extramarital affairs allowed if your newfound mistress has been dead for twenty years?

Kendall and I were both surprised we had never heard of this weird 1947 musical from Columbia Pictures. It was a sequel of sorts to their popular “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” in which a boxer named Joe Pendleton dies prematurely and is allowed by Mr. Jordan, one of Heaven’s head honchos, to come back to Earth in the body of a wealthy man who has just been murdered by his wife. (This film was remade by Warren Beatty in 1978 as “Heaven Can Wait.”) The story of “Down to Earth” bears no resemblance whatsoever to that plot, but in a marketing move worthy of today’s desperate movie executives, the studio brought back many of the characters from the earlier film (some played by the original actors such as Edward Everett Horton as Heavenly Messenger 7013 and James Gleason as tough-talking manager Max Corkle) and plopped them into this bizarre tale of the goddess Terpsichore (Hayworth) who is steaming mad about a Broadway producer’s (Parks) mockery of Greek mythology in his latest stage production. The goddess of music and dance comes down to earth to get a part in the show and to set the record straight on Danny Miller’s take on the Nine Muses (which he presents, to Rita's horror, as a bevy of man-hungry babes). Terpsichore (called Kitty Pendleton on earth, another homage to the earlier film) turns Danny’s play into a flop with her attempts to instill historical accuracy into the plot. But in the process, the goddess falls in love with Danny Miller and decides to do it all his way. Hear that, Kendall?

The reason that Kendall was keen to check out this Larry Parks movie was that Parks was married to the great MGM actress Betty Garrett who appeared in one of Kendall’s dad’s plays and is still a close friend of the family. Parks died in 1975 but Kendall knew him during her childhood. In fact, Larry had dinner at the Haileys the very night that he died. His last meal included three servings of Kendall’s mom’s Ozark Pudding (Bess Truman’s recipe, no less) which Betty recounts in her book. Our friend and blogging cohort Naomi is one of Betty Garrett’s closest friends. Naomi, do you remember Betty or Larry ever talking about Rita Hayworth or this movie?

“Down to Earth” was made at the zenith of Larry Parks’ fame, wedged in between “The Jolson Story” and its sequel “Jolson Sings Again.” Then why isn’t he a household name today? Because he was blacklisted in 1951 by all the studios after admitting to the dreaded House Un-American Activities Committee that he had once been a member of the Communist Party. Long before I ever met Betty, my mother used to tell me about her teenaged obsession with Larry Parks. I think she saw each of Larry’s Jolson movies about 10 times and had a major crush on the actor. Although my mother was only 14 when “Down to Earth” came out, it suddenly made me wonder whether I was actually named after this character. I used to ask her where she got the name Danny and she never had a good answer. Hmmm…but couldn’t I be named after a character in a better film?

I knew that Al Jolson supplied his own singing voice for the two Larry Parks biopics, but I’ve also heard songs recorded by Betty and Larry and knew that Larry had a great voice. So I was surprised to hear another singing voice coming out of Parks’ during all his numbers. What gives? Ditto for Rita Hayworth. I had always assumed her rendition of the red-hot “Put the Blame on Mame” in her previous film “Gilda” was her own voice but it turns out she was dubbed by Anita Ellis for several of her Columbia musicals including “Gilda” and “Down the Earth.” I really don’t get Columbia, I’m definitely an MGM man (don’t remind me that the former MGM Studio in Culver City is now called Columbia thanks to several buyouts in the 80s and 90s). Columbia czar Harry Cohn reportedly made Rita Hayworth’s tenure at the studio a living hell. Cohn must have been a real piece of work. After his funeral which was quite crowded, Red Skelton remarked, “It proves what they always say: give the public what they want and they’ll come out for it.”

Of course Columbia made some fantastic movies: “It Happened One Night,” “You Can’t Take It with You,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “His Girl Friday,” and “Born Yesterday” among many others, but with a few notable exceptions, they should have left the musicals to MGM. Most of the numbers in “Down to Earth” are pretty God-awful, except for the great scene in which Terpsichore first arrives in Danny Miller’s theatre and crashes a rehearsal for his show in such a spectacular way that he fires the outraged diva (Adele Jergens) on the spot and hires Hayworth as his new leading lady. But despite our love of Larry Parks and the fact that Rita Hayworth is so freaking beautiful in this film it almost hurts your eyes to look at her, I’m not sure “Down to Earth” would have held our interest for long if not for the Danny Miller connection. I am happy to add Larry Parks to my list that includes Albert Brooks’ turn as Danny Miller in the hilarious “Defending Your Life” (insanely neurotic Jew who feels inadequate and has a big crush on Meryl Streep—what, like it’s not about me?) and Sally Field’s turn (yes, Sally Field!) in the 1971 let’s-scare-the-white-families-that-their-kids-can-become-drug-addicts classic “Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring.”

I guess there’s no real purpose for this post other than to bask just a little bit longer in the glow of Rita Hayworth cooing my name. Writing this is also keeping me from watching the Golden Globes which are on now and which I can’t bear. I still think they’re not “real” awards—the Academy voters are suspect enough, who the hell are these Hollywood Foreign Press Association members? Proof of the shadiness of the awards? Rita Hayworth was only nominated once for a Golden Globe. And which of Hayworth’s excellent films was chosen for the honor? A 1964 abomination called “Circus World” with John Wayne as a 1901 circus owner looking for his long-lost love, former circus performer Lili Afredo (Hayworth) who had abandoned her daughter (Claudia Cardinale) to be raised by Wayne. Oy. Turn the Golden Globes off, people, and watch any movie from 1947!

Lily Munster vs Morticia Addams

I’ve got a horrible cold, my daughter has an ear infection, Kendall is under the weather, and I'm dealing with several crushing deadlines, but I have to take a moment to comment on the passing of one of the iconic figures from my youth—Lily Munster! I was sad to learn last night that actress Yvonne De Carlo died earlier this week at the age of 84.

I had just turned five when “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family” debuted within a week of each other in September 1964. Was it just a coincidence that two such ghoulish and unusual sitcoms started production at the same time? I think not, and with the massive changes that were about to rock American society, the two shows’ departure from traditionally wholesome TV families now seems quite prescient. Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the “Father Knows Best” crew just weren’t cutting it anymore. President Kennedy had been assassinated ten months earlier, the Vietnam War was ramping up in a big way, and the cultural norms which had seemed so secure in this country were poised for major upheaval. Enter “The Munsters,” featuring a Frankenstein-like patriarch played by Fred Gwynne, his delightfully macabre wife played by Yvonne De Carlo, their Dracula wannabe son Eddie (Butch Patrick), and Al Lewis’s Grandpa who could turn into a bat at a moment’s notice. Cousin Marilyn was played by pretty, blond Pat Priest, and the joke was that she was considered the freak by the rest of the family. Didn’t we all feel like Marilyn Munsters in our own families? I know I did.

“The Addams Family” was based on the great “New Yorker” cartoons by Charles Addams.  John Astin’s creepy Gomez romanced his unearthly wife Morticia (Carolyn Jones). The couple provided questionable parenting to their spawn Wednesday and Pugsley while their mansion boasted an array of wacky residents from scary Uncle Fester (played by former child star Jackie Coogan), Cousin Itt (a giant mass of hair), Thing (a disembodied hand), and butler Lurch (“You raaaaaang?”).

We ate these shows up. 1964 produced a spate of other-worldly TV sitcoms including “Bewitched,” “My Favorite Martian,” and “My Living Doll,” starring everyone’s favorite sex kitten robot, Julie Newmar. This leap into the supernatural was a trend that would only last a few years but in the mid-1960s we were desperate for alternatives to the staid Eisenhower-era family dynamic. At least in appearance. We weren’t quite ready for family values that were truly counterculture and the funny thing about these shows is that for all their ghoulishness, the families were every bit as wholesome as the Cleavers or the Nelsons.

I think the characters of Lily Munster and Morticia Addams were like a Rorschach Test for boys growing up during the Johnson years. Which one did you prefer? My feelings were a bit complex. While I had a major crush on the late Carolyn Jones’s Morticia who exuded raw sexuality with every word she uttered (not to mention the mania she caused Gomez—and viewers—whenever she spoke French), I probably had more fantasies about Yvonne De Carlo’s Lily. The 44-year-old actress was more zaftig, more angst-ridden, more easily annoyed than Jones’s stunning, spider-like Morticia. Regardless of her Transylvanian heritage, Lily Munster was really a typical Jewish mother while Morticia Addams was the quintessential shiksa. Morticia barely had time for her bratty offspring, she was too busy mooning after her dashing husband. Lily provided comfort and loving support to everyone in her household, from Eddie to Herman to their fire-breathing pet named Spot who lived underneath the stairs. How could I not be attracted to that? Oy, was I working out all my Oedipal fantasies via 1960s sitcom characters?

I was also a fan of Yvonne De Carlo’s earlier work. She sailed into Hollywood in the early 1940s as part of the Dorothy Lamour Wave of Exotic Beauties and was often cast as provocative native girls or Polynesian temptresses. Her early movies included such gems as “Song of Scheherazade,” “Slave Girl,” “Casbah,” “Salome Where She Danced,” and “The Gal Who Took the West.” De Carlo was more famous back then for her off-screen romps with powerful men including Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, and Prince Aly Khan.

In 1953, De Carlo got a big break co-starring with Alec Guinness in the A-List British comedy, “The Captain’s Paradise.” In this great film, Guinness plays a Mediterranean ferryboat captain who is having his cake and eating it too. When he’s in Gibraltar he is married to a lovely, domestic, proper English wife (played by the brilliant Celia Johnson) but when he is in Tangiers his wife is the hot-blooded De Carlo. By the way, for all the attempts by studio PR people to build up De Carlo’s “exotic” past, she was actually born Peggy Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia.

De Carlo’s most memorable screen credit is probably Charlton Heston’s wife Sephora in the 1956 blockbuster, “The Ten Commandments.” It was a fairly thankless role, especially since hubby spent half the film mooning after that Egyptian bitch Nefretiri played by Anne Baxter, but it gave the struggling De Carlo the Hollywood street cred she longed for.

Following a major dip in her career after “The Munsters” exit from prime time, De Carlo scored big on Broadway in 1971 by originating the role of Carlotta Campion in “Follies.” It was Yvonne De Carlo who introduced the world to Stephen Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here.” With all the nosedives De Carlo’s career took over the years, and all the freaky stuff she saw in Hollywood, I can only imagine how meaningful these words were to her as she blurted them out night after night at the Winter Garden Theatre:

Black sable one day.
Next day it goes into hock,
But I'm here.
Top billing Monday,
Tuesday you're touring in stock,
But I'm here.
First you're another
Sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone's mother,
Then you're camp.
Then you career from career
To career.
I'm almost through my memoirs.
And I'm here.

I've gotten through "Hey, lady, aren't you whoozis?
Wow! What a looker you were."
Or, better yet, "Sorry, I thought you were whoozis.
Whatever happened to her?"
Good times and bum times,
I've seen 'em all and, my dear,
I'm still here.

Except now she isn't. Farewell, Lily Munster.

From Brooklyn Heights to Walton’s Mountain

I think at this stage in my life, most of my collecting OCDs are under control. Back in the day I felt I had to add to my various collections whenever the opportunity arose, with little regard for my finances. I remember once in my twenties spending the only money I had in the world on a beautiful MontBlanc fountain pen and another time committing my last few hundred bucks to restore an original 3-sheet poster from the 1939 MGM film “The Hardys Ride High” (the sixth film in the Andy Hardy series). I don’t regret any of those decisions although I’m glad my obsessions tapered off and I wasn’t taking food out of my child’s mouth to support my antique inkwell habit or losing the roof over my head to buy another rare book about Anne Boleyn. I don’t think any of my old collections are all that weird. In fact, though some have been packed away for years, I still appreciate every item, even if I’m no longer trolling eBay and antique malls to find missing items. Most of my collections relate to some aspect of history that I’m interested in or the old movies that I love.

One slightly more modern collection has the added bonus of providing hours of entertainment for me and my family. Above is a photo of Leah checking out the rules for the newest item in this collection: my pristine copy of Howdy Doody’s TV Game, also billed as "A Visit to Howdy's Own TV Studio!"

Kendall thought I was insane when I purchased this item at a collectibles shop in Riverside (for a song I may add) and I thought she was out of her mind for questioning the acquisition of such a rare treasure. Who wouldn’t want to play this game in which you get to be part of the exciting new world of television production? What thinking person wouldn’t want to take on the roles of Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob Smith, Clarabell the Clown, Flub-a-Dub, or Phineas T. Bluster? And if you’re feeling a little lazy? Just hang out in the Peanut Gallery! “Howdy Doody” was revolutionary for its time, debuting when the TV schedule began at 5:00 pm (during the day only test patterns were shown) and finally ending when I was a tot. Check out this great ‘Howdy Doody” site for lots more information about the show. You can even watch actual episodes.

It's Howdy Doody Time.
It's Howdy Doody Time.
Bob Smith and Howdy Do
Say Howdy Do to you.
Let's give a rousing cheer,
Cause Howdy Doody's here,
It's time to start the show,
So kids come on, let's go!

Leah and I also recently enjoyed a rousing match of “The Patty Duke Game” in which we got to take on one of the identical cousins: Patty (“a hot dog makes her lose control”) Lane or her snooty Scottish cousin Cathy (“who’s lived most everywhere, from Zanzibar to Barclay Square”). While Patty was just a normal red-blooded, frug-dancing, Paul Anka-loving teenager living in Brooklyn Heights, I secretly had the hots for the more intellectual Cathy who “adored a minuet, the Ballet Russes, and crepes suzettes.” I didn’t know what any of those things were but as a budding snob she seemed way more sophisticated and interesting than the rockin’ Patty who reminded me of my sister.  The world later found out that young Patty Duke suffered terribly from bipolar disorder and was practically a slave to her managers, John and Ethel Ross. During the run of the popular show, Patty had no control over her earnings, and the Rosses plied her with alcohol and prescription drugs. She later claimed that both of them sexually abused her. Yikes.

Still, they're cousins,
Identical cousins and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike—
You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind!

Next up on game night was a trip to Walton’s Mountain, Virginia, for some down-home fun with John, Olivia, John-Boy, Mary Ellen, and the entire Walton clan. My history with the Waltons goes far and deep and Leah is already well versed in the show, identifying most strongly with Elizabeth. I still relate to John-Boy but as I get older I'm finding new connections to the steadfast John Walton and stubborn-as-a-mule Grandpa.

We also feel intimately connected to the gang in Fernwood, Ohio, since Kendall’s parents both had staff positions on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” I remember seeing their names on the credits long before I met Kendall. The nightly show nearly put star Louise Lasser in the loony bin, but it was 1970s TV dementia at its best. Leah insisted on having Mary Kay Place’s Loretta Haggars as her playing piece. My favorite episode of the series was when the career of saintly country music singer Loretta implodes during an interview on Dinah Shore’s talk show. Loretta is so thrilled to be visiting Los Angeles on tour for her hit single “Baby Boy” that she starts telling Dinah how she’s never met so many Jews before. She then extols the virtue of Dinah’s Jewish producer. “He was so nice,” she says with a big smile, “I just can’t believe that his was the people what that killed our Lord!”

In all collections, whether it’s stamps, coins, Pez dispensers, or prosthetic limbs, there is always some kind of Holy Grail, some impossible to find rare item that collectors may spend a lifetime searching for. In the world of TV show games, the Holy Grail is the game that was based on the Emmy Award-winning “Dick Van Dyke Show,” surely one of the top five sitcoms of all time.

 

I had once seen a photograph of this game in a book about the show and had been searching for it ever since. I went to every memorabilia show and contacted every antique collectibles store and vintage game shop across the country. No one had ever even seen a copy of this game. Many collectors told me that they’d been looking for it themselves and would pay any price for it if they could get their hands on a copy. I started wondering whether that photo I saw was of a mock-up that was never actually produced. I told my friends that if they ever saw this item to get it for me no matter what the cost and I’d reimburse them later. I had a permanent search for it going on eBay, and after years and years of coming up empty, one day it suddenly appeared on the online auction. I didn’t hesitate for a second, and immediately put down an inflated bid that was sure to land me the most sought-after prize of my life as a collector.

To be honest, it’s not exactly a fun game to play. Leah was bored by the time I finished reading the convoluted rules, although she did insist on being Laura Petrie and not spinster Sally Rogers. Did you know that Rose Marie was only 38 when that show began? Good lord, at the time we thought she was about 100! I have to admit there’s something a little sad about finally obtaining the most cherished missing item in a collection. The search is over, the mystery solved, the nervous tension (“will this be the day?”) gone.

Anyone interested in a board game set in 1960s New Rochelle, New York, and the offices of “The Alan Brady Show?” Going cheap!

After Delilah

Am I becoming completely humorless in my old age? Yesterday I was reading one of my favorite blogs and saw that the blogger had posted a picture of himself with a funny commentary about his future dating prospects. A few readers commented that his full head of hair will be a big plus for many women. I guess I was in a sensitive mood because I found myself wincing at every comment that implied a lack of hair would make him that much less desirable and so I added a defensive comment about bald-bashing. When I reread the comments later, I realized it was hardly the lynch mob I had imagined, it was just a few people commenting on his hair the way someone might say “nice eyes” after looking at a photograph.

When I wrote about the experience of being bald a year ago, I mentioned a reality show I had just seen in which a woman was being set up on a blind date. The host was telling her a few facts about the guy she was about to meet when she suddenly blurted out, with panic rising in her voice, “HE’S NOT BALD, IS HE?!” The host was quick to reassure her. “Oh no, of course not!” as if no one, not even the mean-spirited producers of a reality TV show, would be so cruel as to fix up this hot babe with a bald guy. I wondered at the time how that exchange would have played out if the woman had said, “He’s not Jewish, is he?!” with the same panic in her voice.

I think these messages about baldness are as prevalent in the media as the ones that are constantly telling girls and women that they are less than. The good guys and romantic leads in movies and on TV typically have thick manes of perfect hair, while the criminals and schlemiels are invariably balding. It is so insidious I think most of us don’t even see it anymore: full head of hair = trustworthy, kind, desirable stud; receding hairline = sleazy, pathetic losers. Aren’t there even studies that show how a bald man could never be elected president in this country? (Too bad Dick Cheney won’t be the Republican candidate next year!)

While I was surprised at my over-reaction to the implied comments about baldness, I still maintain that it is one of the few personal attributes  that people can make disparaging comments about these days without appearing oafish. Or maybe it’s just the only one that I notice. I guess if I were extremely tall or short, I’d be more aware of all the stuff people say about those traits. And I can only imagine the daily earfuls that very fat people have to endure. 

I’ve never tried to hide my baldness (which began in my early 20s) and have always laughed along with any comments made about it (while eagerly trying to change the subject). But I obviously still have some issues with being bald no matter how much I try to insist otherwise. I think the messages our culture sends out about balding men make me nuts because I am both victim and perpetrator—there’s a part of me that goes along with the disparaging views and believes that the bald guy cannot really be the object of desire in a movie or TV show or magazine ad (with the exception of Yul Brynner, Patrick Stewart, and few other famous baldies), but is only suited for villainy or comic relief.

I’m acutely aware that of all the pictures of myself that I’ve posted on this blog, over 95% of them are from my pre-bald days. That’s partly because I seem to constantly veer back to a 1970s time warp, but it’s also related to the fact that it remains difficult for me to look at pictures of myself bald even though I’ve been this way for a good 20 years. So here’s a picture of me in all my chrome-domed glory, just for the hell of it. Oy, forget the baldness, what's going on with that turkey neck?

I have to admit that when I’m in any group of men, I do notice hairlines and I am frequently quite envious of the guys who have “great hair.” It’s usually just a passing thought, not some obsession that has me fantasizing about waking up with the locks of a male model. Maybe if I own it, I can get past it once and for all, because I sure don’t find that lack of self-acceptance an appealing character trait and it’s definitely not one I want to pass on to my daughter as she moves into her teenage years.

As I said a year ago, my insecurities have nothing to do with my own relationships. Kendall has no issue with my lack of hair, and I can't believe I'm giving this topic energy when it is so unimportant in the bigger picture. If I were a reader of my own blog, I’d leave the following comment:  “Who cares about your fucking hair? Jesus, don’t you have anything better to write about?”

Last year I referred to a group called the Bald-Headed Men of America and I mocked some of their Bald Pride activities. When I tried to look up such groups tonight, I came up with a site called “Bald R Us.” I read their “Transplant Terror Stories” and “Hairpiece Horror Stories,” especially the ones about the evil Hair Club for Men that made it sound like a dangerous cult. Many of the stories were quite sad and poignant, and I am grateful that I avoided falling into those traps. If I have one resolution for 2007, it is to accept myself for who I am, especially the parts of me that I cannot change even if I wanted to.

Besides, how could I ever feel bad about losing my hair when our fearless leader seems to have some kind of fetish for bald men?

Yikes, maybe it’s not too late for those transplants?

One Punk Under God

As we make our way into 2007, can we all agree that one of the scourges of the new millennium is so-called “reality television?” There were all sorts of hideous examples of this cultural phenomenon in 2006 from the ghastly “Dr. 90210,” a show about plastic surgery that proved that people really are more shallow in Beverly Hills to the shockingly debased “Flavor of Love” in which former Public Enemy rap star Flavor Flav filled a mansion with terrifying specimens of the female persuasion and whittled them down week by week through a series of humiliating antics and cat fights. I saw only a few snippets of that show but it seemed to set the women’s movement back to somewhere just before the Mesozoic Era.

Kendall and I have mostly weaned ourselves off of all reality TV offerings. We were never into the more popular reality game shows such as “American Idol” or “Dancing with the Stars” but a few years ago we got suckered into a particularly heinous season of VH1’s “The Surreal Life” in which we were introduced to the diminutive gold-teethed Flavor Flav and his unlikely TV paramour, Nordic Amazon Brigitte Nielsen, ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone. Oy. We also watched, God help us, a spinoff of “The Surreal Life” called “My Fair Brady” (call the Lerner & Loewe attorneys!) in which a crazy young model chased after the middle-aged Peter Brady (Christopher Knight) and forced him to propose. The two reality stars then headed towards their impending nuptials like a 747 heading for its crash site. Continuing our cultural decline, we got hooked on the first season of “Breaking Bonaduce” in which former “Partridge Family” star Danny Bonaduce, a self-described train wreck, struggled with his alcoholism, drug addiction, bouts of violence, and several other undiagoned disorders on national television. With every episode of these shows we watched, we could feel our brain cells screaming in agony. I was determined to honor our moratorium on reality television until I caught a new show that debuted last month. I’ve been looking forward to each episode and I don’t even feel the need to do penance afterwards.

“One Punk Under God” on the Sundance Channel (and available on iTunes) details the activities of Jay Bakker, prodigal son of 1980s super-televangelists, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Jay was only 12 when his parents’ fundamentalist empire came tumbling down, thanks at first to revelations about Jim Bakker’s sleazy affair with church secretary Jessica Hahn and the hush money that was paid to her, and then a case of fraud that landed Jim in the clink for several years. The Bakkers handed over their massive ministry to friend and fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell who, in their view, then betrayed them big time by keeping it for himself and saying that in good conscience he could not turn the reins back over to the sinning Bakkers. Falwell called Bakker a liar, embezzler, sexual deviant, and “the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.” This from the man who blamed September 11th on abortionists, feminists, and homosexuals: “I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen,’” he said on “The 700 Club.” Host Pat Robertson readily concurred. Falwell is also the putz who said that “God is a Republican” and that “Jesus was the First American.” Huh? In the final analysis, Jim Bakker’s biggest sin may have been ever trusting Jerry Falwell.

I don’t know if I should admit this, but for a few years during its 1980s heyday, I consistently watched Jim and Tammy Faye’s wildly popular TV show, “The PTL Club.” I wasn’t a closet evangelical Christian, but I wasn’t watching purely to make fun of it either. Oh, I was horrified by the constant (and I mean CONSTANT) appeal for funds which included massive amounts of guilt-inducing manipulation (basically you didn’t have a prayer of getting into Heaven if you didn’t send a good chunk of your income straight to the Bakkers’ coffers). I was mesmerized by the power these two people seemed to wield. I watched as their gigantic Christian theme park and resort Heritage USA skyrocketed in popularity (in the 80s it was one of the top vacation destinations in the United States just after Disney World and Disneyland). Long before the scandals broke that would topple them, Jim and Tammy Faye would regale viewers with detailed explanations of their constant legal and financial problems with Tammy Faye breaking into mascara-smearing sobs at the drop of a hat.

Jim Bakker seemed like a high-tech snake oil-selling charlatan, but even with all of her excesses, there was something about Tammy Faye that I found endearing. She was easy fodder for comedians everywhere (two especially funny and brutal parodies of Tammy Faye were performed by Catherine O’Hara on “SCTV” and Jan Hooks on “Saturday Night Live”). One of the things that kept me glued to the show was Tammy Faye’s singing. Although her speaking voice could shatter glass and make you want to stuff communion wafers in your ears, her singing voice really did have an ethereal quality that seemed to come from the Divine. I couldn’t wait for Jim to shut up about his money worries and how he was being persecuted by the government so we could hear Tammy Faye trill for Jesus. The Bakkers would often parade their two young children in front of the cameras, Tammy Sue and Jamie, who seemed like bored snotty brats who would probably rebel from the so-called family values their parents espoused.

When the Bakkers fell from grace, I can’t say I didn’t join the clucking that they were finally getting their due. I watched their defensive rants on Larry King and was repulsed by the reports of their spending sprees including an air-conditioned doghouse, solid gold bathroom fixtures, and Tammy Faye’s wardrobe that made Imelda Marcos look like a country girl who’d taken a vow of poverty. But there’s nothing like being at the center of a well publicized scandal to give sinners a healthy dose of humility. The Bakkers lost their fortunes, the sprawling Heritage USA shut down, Jim got sent off to jail, and Tammy Faye divorced her husband, got remarried, and began a talk show with an openly gay co-host. Little Jamie Bakker, now calling himself Jay, dropped out of high school and fell into drug addiction before cleaning up his act and becoming a tattooed, pierced pastor in the Revolution Church, a Christian ministry that appeals to a decidedly more liberal crowd than his parents’ old TV show.

This six-part series details the activities of Jay Bakker, now 31 and still struggling with his identity as the son of Jim and Tammy Faye. We see how he has reclaimed his passion for Christianity, albeit a different version than the one his parents promoted, as well as his current relationship with mom and dad and his gorgeous rocker cool wife, Amanda, who is working on her PhD at NYU, and would just as soon see her husband drop his religious pursuits. I’ve seen three of the episodes so far and I was deeply moved by each one. The unabashedly sincere Jay welcomes everyone to his church and strives to prove that Christians are not all right-wing Christian Coalition neocons. “You can care about social issues,” he stresses. “You can care about the poor and the hurting.” Jay raises plenty of eyebrows in his church and risks his funding when he decides that he is pro-gay marriage. He visits his mom Tammy Faye who is sadly in stage 4 of inoperable lung cancer. The warm interplay between the two is heartbreaking and poignant. Jay tries desperately to see his father Jim, now out of jail and remarried with several new adopted children but his father seems reluctant to meet with him. They haven’t seen each other for over two years but finally Jim agrees to let Jay come and visit him and appear on the new television show he began a few years ago in Branson, Missouri. The meeting is awkward and painful. Jay still longs for a relationship with his dad, especially now that his mother is dying, but the workaholic Jim seems to be unable to relate to others except on his show. Following their reunion, Jay says, “I think my dad’s a pretty sincere guy. On TV.”

Whenever anyone is being followed by a TV crew, it obviously changes the dynamic of what’s going on. This is one of the reasons why “reality TV” is such a misnomer. But with Jay Bakker, it’s clear that the TV cameras have little effect on his earnestness. There is something so unusual about the personal truths that pour out of his mouth that I was moved to tears during each episode and worried about the lack of a protective shell around the vulnerable preacher. Unlike his dad, Jay never tailors his spiritual talks to cater to his followers (or their wallets), he speaks his mind and shares from his heart, no matter the consequences. Now that’s a religious calling I can respect.

I can’t stand the way many fundamentalist Christians invoke the name of Jesus to spread their message of intolerance and closed-mindedness, the very antithesis of Jesus’s teachings. But if Jesus were looking down on Jay Bakker and his ministry, I think he’d say, “Right on, brother.”