Jew Eat Yet?

The Seven Year Itch?

Kendall and I were married seven years ago today. The term “seven year itch” was coined many years ago when the average length of many marriages was apparently seven years (those statistics are even more dire today). According to this theory, once promoted by psychologists, the temptation to cheat on your spouse or call it quits becomes much more pronounced in the seventh year of marriage. The phrase was immortalized in a successful 1952 play by George Axelrod (who wrote the screenplay for “The Manchurian Candidate”) and a few years later in the brilliant Billy Wilder film adaptation starring Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe.

In “The Seven Year Itch,” Tom Ewell’s wife, played by Evelyn Keyes, absconds to the country for the summer, leaving Ewell alone in their Manhattan apartment. One floor above, an aspiring and voluptuous actress, played by Marilyn Monroe, is subletting the apartment and strikes up a friendship with Ewell—mostly because he has air conditioning in his place while she has no relief from the stifling New York heat.

Ewell, alone after seven years of marriage, can’t help but fantasize about carrying on a wild affair with Monroe’s character. He finds various ways to get Marilyn alone in his apartment and is constantly making terribly awkward advances that fly right over the oblivious actress’s head.

Do you want to hear the God’s honest truth? Although I love Marilyn Monroe, I’d much rather be with Evelyn Keyes’ smart, sexy Helen Sherman than spend five minutes with Monroe’s ditzy character. Oh, I don’t for a minute think that Marilyn Monroe herself was a ditz, but I do think the character she played in this wonderful film was bubble-headed to the extreme. Yawn.

 

I would have been bored silly by Monroe’s character and would have high-tailed it to the country to be with Evelyn Keyes. I hope Kendall is flattered and not insulted to hear that I think she’s more Evelyn Keyes than Marilyn Monroe. Hell, I’d take Keyes’ Suellen O’Hara over Scarlett, too. And give me Keyes’ version of Ruby Keeler in “The Jolson Story” over the real Keeler. On the other hand, as I wrote just after Keyes’ death in 2008 when she was haunting my blog, the real Evelyn Keyes gave Marilyn Monroe a run for her money in terms of her off-screen exploits with famous men. Hmmm...

I wrote about our wedding on our first anniversary and as we celebrate our seventh, I must say I’m grateful to be on the other side of that event. Oh, it was a great wedding but remembering what goes into the planning of such a day, even one as “simple” and homespun as ours, makes me woozy.

In retrospect, I cringe when I think of the issues that somehow seemed important to me at the time. My first wedding 10 years earlier in Paris with its 400+ guests bore a strong resemblance to the coronation of the King and Queen of France. I vowed for years that if I ever got married again, I’d opt for total simplicity, preferably 20 people in a Chinese restaurant. The minute Kendall and I decided to get hitched our 20 guests quickly bounced up to 150 and counting but at least we knew we’d get married in our new house. A simple wedding in our loving home—what could be easier?

Well, as the plans took shape, Mr. Simplicity here turned into a male Bridezilla, panicking about things like getting matching tablecloths and the right kind of plates, and making sure we had enough food (i.e., enough to feed Romania). Kendall’s planning ideas, on the other hand, were so rustic and do-it-yourself that she practically had herself crocheting the chuppah and hand-blowing the glass we’d smash at the end of the ceremony.

I don’t know why I was surprised that we were doing our usual polarizing dance. Sometimes we are like that couple in the Woody Allen movie, disagreeing about ridiculous things for the sake of argument. Wife: “The Atlantic is a better ocean!” Husband: “No, the Pacific is better!”

When Kendall said she didn’t think we needed to rent any chairs for the wedding reception, I had visions of my relatives passing out from exhaustion, a plastic cup of lukewarm punch dropping from their hands. We’d lean down to their flailing bodies and strain to hear their barely audible last words: “I j-j-just needed to sit down for a minute.” Kendall also believed that she could prepare all of the food herself, whipping up several hundred sandwiches that morning in her wedding gown. And we certainly didn’t need to get any additional plates or glasses—if we ran out she’d just excuse herself and do a few loads of dishes in the kitchen, what’s the big deal?

By the time Kendall came around and agreed to let someone else handle the grub, I was able to see the light and let go of most of my prissy demands. We ultimately came to appreciate what the day was really about (NOT tablecloths!) and it all came off without a hitch. In the end, we did do things our way, starting with our decision to use the 1927 wedding photo of Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer on our own invitation (they were married near us at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple). I loved that some people actually thought it was a photo of us! We later spent hours in the Motion Picture Academy Library looking for the perfect photograph of the married Irving and Norma for our thank you notes. That photo sits on our mantle in a beautifully engraved silver frame someone gave us as a wedding gift!

Kendall and I have been through a hell of a lot in the past seven years but I wouldn’t trade a second of it. Our marriage is stronger than ever even though my general cynicism about the institution remains. I always loved Oscar Wilde’s comment that “marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” No one in their right mind would embark on such a journey, but oh, what a rewarding trip! Seven year itch? No way. I love you, Kendall!

Why Do Young People Smoke?

I’ve railed on this subject before and I’m sure I sound like a nut—most likely a boring, self-righteous nut—and yet I still can’t stop myself.

I’m sitting in the Starbucks on Larchmont, a high-rent enclave not far from my inner city ‘hood. Despite the slow encroachment of chain stores and restaurants, Larchmont retains the feel of a Main Street in a quant Midwestern village—no matter that the Hancock Park homes surrounding the business district run into the millions. I come here often with Charlie—we enjoyed an onion bagel at Sam’s this morning, and now I’m back after a Runyon Canyon hike to get a little work in before heading home. 

Three kids just came in, two girls and a guy, looking like poster children for one of the expensive private schools that dominate these parts. They are attractive, smiling kids, who wait for their coffee beverages and seem almost giddy about some event they’re going to later tonight. I look at their gleaming, youthful beauty and can’t help but notice what seems like a great enthusiasm for life. Did I ever have that much self-confidence or joie de vivre? Certainly not at that age.

As they get their lattes and frapuccinos, I notice that all three are holding something else in their hands. Packs of cigarettes. Marlboros. They leave the store but congregate in front of the large Starbucks window. Each of them pulls out a cigarette and they spend a moment lighting up, intimately cupping each other’s hands to prevent the flame from their lighter from going out.  They are laughing and expertly blowing smoke out of the sides of their mouth as they talk and sip their drinks. This is clearly not their first pack of cigarettes.

Why does the sight of this instantly change my demeanor from wistful admiration to unbridled rage? What do I care? A friend of mine who works at a college near Chicago responded in surprise when I wrote about this topic several years ago. She said that the majority of students on her campus smoked and she just took it for granted. Despite massive anti-smoking campaigns over the past 20 years, it is estimated that about 3,000 adolescents still pick up this habit every day. 

I’m not an anti-smoking fanatic, I swear. Well, at least not one who thinks cigarettes should be criminalized or that smokers should never be allowed to light up. I have close friends who smoke and I don’t view them as undesirable beings (although to be honest, I’m not sure I’d want to live with one). I welcomed the ban on smoking in planes and restaurants but was shocked when that ban migrated to bars and, in many cases, even outdoor venues.

It’s no secret to me or anyone else that my passion on this subject was formed by the early deaths of my grandmother and mother from smoking-related illnesses. Watching people you love go through such agonizing deaths is not something a person forgets, and seeing this happy-go-lucky Starbucks threesome in their $300 jeans squandering the good health that they’ve been given makes me feel weak at the knees.

While I abhor the tactics of the tobacco companies’ industry of death and I’m grateful that I never picked up the nasty habit, it’s not hard to see why millions of people did. Let’s be really honest here—it IS cool to smoke! Whoa, hold it, not really, but you know what I mean. I can’t even imagine some of my favorite movies without smoking, it was such an essential element. For so many of my favorite stars, smoking was a sensual mating ritual. Try to imagine Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a cigarette-free world. Think of one of the most famous smoking scenes of all time—between Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in “Now, Voyager.” Henreid’s gesture of lighting two cigarettes and handing one to Davis is, in my opinion, one of the most sexual acts ever depicted on the screen. Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and so many others used cigarettes as one of their most effective props. Of course a good many of these folks had hideous deaths from cancer. Just sayin.

As I gaze at these smoking Starbucks kids, I realize my intense feelings are directly related to their age. I have infinitely more tolerance for people my age or older who still smoke. After all, they became addicted to the stuff at a time when many of the dangers of smoking were not fully known. Hell, for many years, tobacco companies extolled the (absurd) health benefits of smoking. But teenagers today, especially kids with good educations, are all too familiar with the risks involved in their vile habit. I wouldn’t be surprised if ten years earlier these very kids were tormenting their own parents with gruesome tales of the smoking-related diseases they were learning about in elementary school.

It’s also these kids’ privileged status that makes me crazy. I obviously don’t know the background of the Larchmont teens, but from the way they’re dressed and a bunch of other factors, I’d bet the farm that they’ve grown up in rarified circles with every possible advantage. Do they now subconsciously think their parents’ money will be able to buy them out of the life-threatening diseases they are begging for?

I’m surprised by my feelings of disgust at these misguided kids. I want to leap up from my table, run out the door, and forcibly grab their expensive packs of Marlboros, shredding every cigarette into the water bowl that all of the dog-friendly Larchmont establishments keep in front of their stores. “STOP IT, YOU IDIOTS!” I’d scream as two of them pull out their iPhones and call the police. “CAN’T YOU SEE YOU’RE FUCKING UP YOUR LIVES, YOU ARROGANT, SELF-IMPORTANT, SELF-SERVING IMBECILES?” And that goes for you, too, fucking Kirsten Dunst, Robert Pattinson, Kate Hudson, Daniel Radcliffe, Johnny Depp, and Kate Moss! 

Breathe, Danny. Just breathe.

The kids are gone now, on to their next stop for the evening. I didn’t say anything, of course, but I did give them “the look.” I’m sure they didn’t notice or if they did, found it quite easy to ignore the middle-aged lunatic staring daggers at them. Sigh.

The Judy Miller Show, Episode #77

I’ve written a lot about my mom on this blog over the years, especially on her birthday. She died in May 1999 less than two weeks after turning 65. Today she would have turned 77. I try to avoid torturing myself with all the “what-ifs.” For most of the year I’m pretty decent at accepting what is and just feeling gratitude that I had such a loving mother for almost 40 years. But in May, with the triple whammy of Mother’s Day, my mom’s birthday, and the anniversary of her death, I often find myself going to that place where I imagine how things “should” have been. I want to insert my mother into all of the events and places where she belonged—my wedding to Kendall, Leah and Spencer’s Bat/Bar Mitzvahs, Sammy and Charlie’s birth and early years, summers at my sister’s pool in Michigan, winter visits to our house in L.A., endless family dinners, phone calls, and so on. I think of how much she was looking forward to retiring and living a different kind of life and how cruel it was that she died just before that could happen. I marvel at her strength in kicking her longtime cigarette habit eight years earlier and feel outraged that she died of lung cancer anyway. Fair? No, but it doesn't work that way. I remain aware and oh so grateful that despite some of the painful events of her life and her own insecurities and foibles, her 65 years on this planet were a great success when measured against the only thing that really matters: she loved and she was loved. In spades.

I’m so glad my mother got to have the experience of kvelling over her grandchildren, even if it was only Leah and Spencer and even though they were both quite young when she died. Not seeing her with Sammy and Charlie often seems the cruelest part of her not being here, both for the Buba-love she would have drowned them in as well as the utter happiness she would have experienced by following every detail of their lives. I know that she’d be eating Charlie alive if she were around and I want to see that so badly that I practically have the urge to Photoshop her into pictures of him. My personal belief is that “she’s still around” even though she’s no longer here physically, and usually I can have that be enough. But not this month.

Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you!