Jew Eat Yet?

My Davy Jones Story

Sad to hear that Davy Jones died this morning in Florida of a massive heart attack. And shocked to realize that the former Monkee was 66 years old. When I look at the crazy long list of celebrity obituaries that I have written on this blog (see column on the right), I’m amazed (and slightly creeped out) at how many times I am able to dredge up some kind of personal connection to the departed star. I never met Davy Jones but he was certainly a part of my childhood, including one of the most traumatic events of my early years.

I can already hear everyone who knows me, especially my sister, starting to groan—they know what’s coming. My obsession with being left behind when the rest of my family took a fun-filled road trip from Chicago to the 1964 New York World’s Fair is hardly along the lines of the actual abuse that so many unfortunate children have experienced but I haven’t stopped bitching about it for over 40 years! I was discussing it with my mom on her death bed in 1999 and I frequently torment the rest of my family members with queries that may be at the root of my well-burnished abandonment issues.

Why my parents would leave their five-year-old son behind on such a child-centered fantasy vacation is beyond my comprehension. They planned the trip for months—got all the maps, read through the colorful brochures, planned their detour through Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the air smells like chocolate, and packed everything they needed into our 1963 Buick Skylark for the long trip east. Everything, that is, except one little thing they decided to leave behind…ME!

I suppose I should come clean and admit that most of my outrage took shape years later when I realized the full import of the event—I don’t remember feeling particularly upset about it at the time. But I’m still confused. Was I such an out-of-control brat that my parents worried that I’d jump off the Unisphere at the World’s Fair or get lost in the Johnson Wax Pavilion? My sister, who has a tendency to infantilize me, swears that I was left home with my grandparents so that they could teach me how to walk. AT THE AGE OF FIVE? If my parents did have a five-year-old who couldn’t walk, they should have been taking me to see a team of doctors, not gallivanting around General Motors’ Futurama or singing along with “The Happy Plastic Family” at DuPont’s Wonderful World of Chemistry.

When the Betrayers finally returned home from The Best Family Vacation in History, my brother and sister regaled me with stories of unlimited fun and excitement. One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Imperial Theater in New York to see the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning musical “Oliver!” This cast included the legendary Georgia Brown as Nancy, Clive Revell as Fagin, Barry Humphries (now known as “Dame Edna”) as the undertaker, and as the Artful Dodger, a young 19-year-old former horse jockey named Davy Jones. My sister, like her doppelganger Jan Brady a few years later in a famous episode of “The Brady Bunch,” instantly fell in love with Jones and described the musical that I missed in explicit detail, reading her cherished Playbill over and over again.

Okay, I did it again. Davy Jones died and it’s all about ME, ME, ME! But why else do we ever note the passing of people in pop culture if not to remember where we were in our own lives when their stars were shining brightest. It was only a year later that the Artful Dodger left the cast of “Oliver!” and auditioned for a TV show in which producers picked four people to become part of a Beatles-like rock group. “The Monkees” became a huge sensation, and Davy Jones’ fame hit the stratosphere. (The more famous he became, of course, the more my sister reminded me that she saw the heartthrob live before any of the other screaming girls ever laid eyes on him!)

 

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit what a big fan of The Monkees (featuring Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork) I was. I knew their songs at least as well as I knew The Beatles’ repertoire. I could sing every word of “I’m a Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,” and “Daydream Believer” and I could probably still perform an impromptu concert of these tunes today if asked (so please don't!). I watched every episode of “The Monkees” from 1966 to 1968, not quite realizing that they were a fake band put together for a TV show. The Beatles were very good-natured about the TV cloning and actually came to admire The Monkees. During one meeting between the two groups, Mike Nesmith reportedly asked John Lennon if he thought they were a cheap imitation of The Beatles. “I think you’re the greatest comic talent since the Marx Brothers,” Lennon replied. “I’ve never missed one of your programs!”

 

Davy Jones participated in many reunion tours over the years. The group last played together (sans Mike Nesmith) in 2011 but after a few dates the tour was cancelled because of “internal group issues and conflicts.” The Beatles have lost half of their members but Davy Jones is the first Monkee to go. I’m surprised that the obituaries I’ve read don’t even make reference to his Tony-nominated performance in the original Broadway production of “Oliver!” I’ll always remember Jones most as the Artful Dodger I never got to see.

Consider yourself at home 
Consider yourself one of the family 
We’ve taken to you so strong  
It’s clear we’re going to get along…

Five Ways to Improve Next Year’s Oscar Telecast

Nobody wants to read about the Oscars three days later, and I already posted these comments on MSN Movies, but because I've always shared my post-mortem of the Academy Awards broadcast on this blog, I feel compelled to include this here as well. This year I live-blogged the entire evening with a colleague from MSN Movies. It was fun, exhausting, and definitely colored my experience a little. (If you want to check out any of those ramblings, it was in three separate posts: pre-show, Oscars part 1, and Oscars part 2.) Writing about something as you're watching it changes your perceptions, there's no way around it. I think film critics should watch a film once straight through just to be in the experience, immersing themselves in the story and images without taking notes or thinking about what they're going to say. Then they can watch it again before they write it up. Of course that's never going to happen--who has the time?

Not that watching the Oscars broadcast more than once would have changed my opinion that it was a bit of a snoozefest. True, the show was a vast improvement over last year’s utter FAIL, hosted by a comatose James Franco and a perky-to-distraction​ Anne Hathaway. At least the Academy let go of its obsession with appealing to a younger, hipper crowd (apart from a brief and funny moment with Justin Bieber in Billy Crystal’s opening film sequence). After an opening montage in which Crystal predictably but amusingly inserted himself into clips from the nominated films, the dependable host all but disappeared into the woodwork of the former Kodak Theater, appearing every once in a while to tell an unfunny joke about Christopher Plummer’s age (we should all be in such shape when we’re 82!) or an uncomfortable remark about “The Help” (Billy, there actually ARE black people living in Beverly Hills!).

I was happy enough with the awards themselves (and scored a Personal Best by correctly guessing the winners in 19 out of 24 categories), but things were so glaringly predictable that any half-hearted attempt (whether deliberate or accidental) to spice up the proceedings (the “Wizard of Oz” focus group bit, J-Lo’s and Diaz’s butt shot, Angelina Jolie’s odd right leg maneuver, Ferrell and Galifanakis, Downey and Paltrow) were tweeted more than the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

What gives? Is this show such a grandiose behemoth that there’s no way to save it? After watching this year’s better-but--boring telecast, here are five suggestions for next year’s producers:

1. Once and for all, STOP CUTTING PEOPLE OFF! Don’t get me wrong—I realize no one wants to hear the winners go on and on, thanking their managers, accountants, and dog walkers. I get that the producers need to keep the show on track, but the obnoxious way that the Academy cuts people off just makes already nervous winners way more nervous. Case in point: Octavia Spencer. It seemed like the actress had no sooner reached the podium when they started giving her the sign to wrap it up. Her real emotion was a breath of fresh air but giving her the bum’s rush just made her step all over her words and miss an opportunity for a more moving speech. The most egregious moment came when the folks who made the documentary “Undefeated” were giving their delightful speeches and had their mics cut off in mid-sentence. Really, Academy? Thank God Meryl Streep has been around long enough to simply ignore the control-room hysteria and do whatever she wants—and her speech was wonderful. I can think of a million other things to trim to give the winners more time. I also liked the idea I read on Slate.com last week about having all nominees supply a list of people they want to thank in advance. Then, when someone wins, the names would appear in a scroll on the bottom of the screen, freeing them up to be more thoughtful and inspiring.

2. Ground the clip montages in some kind of context. As an avid lover of classic films, I am always down for a fun montage of old movie clips. But they need some kind of context. The clip sequences on this year's show seemed all over the place. They were not well thought out or executed. And sticking the “Twilight” couple in the middle of clips of beloved actors from some of the greatest films of all time made everyone in my house scream in horror.

3. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but bring back the Best Song performances. The bizarre Academy rules that led to only two song nominations this year have to be changed. And, as much as I’ve been a vocal critic of the frequently awful Best Song category, it just seemed weird to not have performances of the nominated songs. Why? This year’s show could have really used some more live entertainment. I was almost missing Debbie Allen’s much-ridiculed dance numbers of yesteryear. (Bring back Rob Lowe and Snow White’s dirty dancing!) Seriously, this is a SHOW, throw the audience a few bones between the awards. Take a look at how the Grammys do it! True, there was the Cirque du Soleil performance that, like all their efforts, was absolutely amazing…and yet, if I may, what relevance did it have to the general proceedings?

4. Restore the honorary Oscar recipients to the main show. I find it outrageous that the honorary Oscars are now part of an untelevised event and that we only get to see a few edited moments from those proceedings. The way that sequence was edited, it was hard to even follow who was being honored. Oprah? James Earl Jones? These awards belong IN the show, even if they have produced some uncomfortable cringing in years past involving a few elderly celebrities. The truth is they've also provided some of the most moving moments in Oscar history. Show some respect, Academy! And if you’re worried about time, simply limit the number of recipients to one or two.

5. Find some new writers! No offense (!) to the writers of this year’s telecast, I know it’s not an easy job, but am I the only one who longed for more jokes? I mean, jokes that are actually funny? Has Bruce Vilanch been kicked off the show? Where was all the topical humor? Is there nothing to skewer in today’s news? How about the Republican candidates’ newfound fear of contraception? Why not a few jabs at Oprah’s OWN network? At the new craze of converting older movies to 3D? Come on, people. Billy Crystal was playing it so safe I kept imagining what it would be like if Ricky Gervais were hosting. Or the originally planned Eddie Murphy, for that matter. I’m not saying Crystal was bad, but I doubt anyone would say he hit it out of the ballpark and he probably won't be asked back for a while. Is it too late to exhume Bob Hope?

HOLD THE PHONE: Forget everything I've written about the Oscars, the biggest travesty was leaving our friend Betty Garrett out of this year's "In Memoriam" tribute. She died on February 12 last year and wasn't included in the show later that month because they said she was past the "cut-off date." But Whitney Houston died on February 11 this year and WAS included in Sunday's Oscar tribute. (And God knows Betty had a hell of a lot more to do with the movies than Whitney.) Really outrageous. I'm ashamed I didn't realize this hideous omission until three days after the broadcast when I read the blog of our friend, Naomi Caryl, one of Betty's closest friends, who was understandably horrified by the Academy's mistake. Kendall was infuriated that they left Dorothy McGuire off the list when she died in 2001 but this is worse! 

I'll never forget when Kendall and I went straight from the Cedars NICU where Charlie was still struggling for his life to the celebration of Betty's 90th birthday at the old Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. It was one of the only times we broke away from the hospital but I'm so glad we were able to honor our friend and attend that event. Here is a wonderful video retrospective of Betty's career that they showed on that night: 

 

Complete Last-Minute Oscar Predictions

The Academy Awards will be handed out in a few hours but, as far as I'm concerned, several of the big awards are still up for grabs. I feel compelled to get my predictions down in print before the big day, but, more than in years past, I think we could be in for a few surprises. At least I hope we are—something needs to juice up the potentially deadening broadcast.

For me, one of the biggest questions is who will win the Best Actress Oscar. For months I thought Meryl Streep had a lock on that prize, and I’m still predicting that she’ll take it, but the buzz on Viola Davis has been building by the day and she may just pull it off. Of course, in my insanely early predictions, Streep and Davis were the only women on my list who even got nominated. Last fall, I was still operating under the crazy assumption that Emma Stone (remember her?) was the “star” of “The Help” and I also thought there’d be some Oscar love for Kirsten Dunst and Helen Mirren, fool that I was. Let's not even get into other worthy candidates like Tilda Swinton, Anna Paquin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Vera Farmiga.

But I'll shut up already about the people I thought SHOULD have been nominated (cough-Albert Brooks-cough). Now that total gridlock on Hollywood Boulevard has begun, limousines are being scrubbed, and Wolfgang Puck's sous-chefs are working overtime, let’s just get on with it and assess who the Academy will choose from their list of nominees.

I could be way off with my predictions of a great night for “Hugo” but I definitely think there will be a lot of Veuve Clicquot corks popping in France as the news starts coming in about “The Artist.”

Best Picture 
Likely Winner: “The Artist” 
Possible Spoiler: “The Descendants” 
Worthy Long Shot: “Midnight in Paris” 

Best Actress
Likely Winner: Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Possible Spoiler: Viola Davis, “The Help”
Worthy Long Shot: Michelle Williams, “My Week with Marilyn”

Best Actor
Likely Winner: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Possible Spoiler: George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Worthy Long Shot: Demián Bichir, “A Better Life”

Best Supporting Actress
Likely Winner: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”
Possible Spoiler: Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”
Worthy Long Shot: Bérénice Bejo, “The Artist”

Best Supporting Actor
Likely Winner: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Possible Spoiler: Kenneth Branagh, “My Week with Marilyn”
Worthy Long Shot: Nick Nolte, “Warrior”

Best Director
Likely Winner: Michael Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Possible Spoiler: Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”
Worthy Long Shot: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Likely Winner: “The Descendants,” Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash
Possible Spoiler: “Hugo,” John Logan
Worthy Long Shot: “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Likely Winner: “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen
Possible Spoiler: “Margin Call,” J.C. Chandor
Worthy Long Shot: “Bridesmaids,” Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig

Cinematography
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Robert Richardson
Possible Spoiler: “War Horse,” Janusz Kaminski
Worthy Long Shot: “The Tree of Life,” Emmanuel Lubezki

Art Direction
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo
Possible Spoiler: “The Artist,” Laurence Bennett and Robert Gould
Worthy Long Shot: “Midnight in Paris,” Anne Siebel, Hélène Dubreuil

Visual Effects
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman, and Alex Henning
Possible Spoiler: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson
Worthy Long Shot: “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett

Film Editing
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Thelma Schoonmaker
Possible Spoiler: “The Artist,” Anne-Sophie Bion and Michael Hazanavicius
Worthy Long Shot: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall

Sound Editing
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
Possible Spoiler: “Drive,” Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
Worthy Long Shot: “War Horse,” Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Tom Fleischman and John Midgely
Possible Spoiler: “War Horse,” Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, and Stuart Wilson
Worthy Long Shot: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Bo Persson

Music (Original Score)
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Howard Shore
Possible Spoiler: “The Artist,” Ludovic Bource
Worthy Long Shot: “War Horse,” John Williams

Original Song
Likely Winner: “Man or Muppet,” Bret McKenzie
Possible (and only!) Spoiler: “Real in Rio,” Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, Siedah Garrett

Make-up
Likely Winner: “The Iron Lady,” Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland
Possible Spoiler: “Albert Nobbs,” Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston, and Matthew W. Mungle
Worthy Long Shot: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, and Lisa Tomblin

Costume Design
Likely Winner: “Hugo,” Sandy Powell
Possible Spoiler: “The Artist,” Mark Bridges
Worthy Long Shot: “Jane Eyre,” Michael O’Connor

Foreign Language Film
Likely Winner: “A Separation,” Iran
Possible Spoiler: “In Darkness,” Poland
Worthy Long Shot: “Bullhead,” Belgium

Animated Feature Film
Likely Winner: “Rango”
Possible Spoiler: “Puss in Boots”

Documentary (Feature)
Likely Winner: “Hell and Back Again,” Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
Possible Spoiler: “Undefeated,” TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay, and Richard Middlemas
Worthy Long Shot: “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory,” Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky

Documentary (Short Subject)
Likely Winner: “Saving Face,” Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Possible Spoiler: “The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement,” Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
Worthy Long Shot: “Incident in New Baghdad,” James Spione

Short Film (Animated)
Likely Winner: “La Luna,” Enrico Casarosa
Possible Spoiler: “Dimanche/Sunday,” Patrick Doyon

Short Film (Live Action)
Likely Winner: “Tuba Atlantic,” Hallvar Witzo
Possible Spoiler: “The Shore,” Terry George and Oorlagh George

And there you have it. Am I a good predictor of Academy tastes or simply a blithering idiot? Um...don't answer that! Or at least wait until after tonight's show! I'll be live-blogging the Oscars telecast over at MSN Movies with fellow Hitlist writer, Kate Erbland. Click here starting at 4 pm PST to join in the fun!

Grammy Night 2012

I planned to write about our fun experience going to the 54^th Grammy Awards on Sunday but the minute the show ended we were all felled by illness. Kendall and Charlie weren’t at the Staples Center that night but I decided to blame the terrifying Nicki Minaj and her satanic number for Charlie’s double ear infection and Kendall’s weird case of extreme vertigo. Did that bizarre creature pass some spell through me to my loved ones? Hmm, I was physically closer to Cyndi Lauper and Kathy Griffin, maybe they were responsible.

We found out early on that Wilco’s category, Best Rock Album, was not going to be part of the televised extravaganza but would be doled out in the pre-show at the neighboring convention center. Isn’t that weird? I mean, it’s not like they were nominated for Best Foreign Polka Band, their category sounded pretty major to me. Turns out the Grammys is more of a concert than an awards show. Out of 78 categories, only 8 awards are given out during the three and half hours of TV time. Whatever.

We arrived at the Red Carpet about a half hour before Wilco’s category was announced. The boys slooooowly made their way down the gauntlet which included everyone from CNN India to these two little YouTube girls, Sophie Grace and Rosie, that Leah seemed to know. Before each band hit the endless media outlets, frantic publicists rushed forward to tell the often clueless reporters who the hell they were about to interview. We were kept just behind the ropes of the Red Carpet area and there were several times when I was tempted (but restrained myself...until now) to make allusions to the lines at Auschwitz as burly Grammy guards ordered us to go to the left while pointing the celebrities to the right. Gulp.

Here’s a photo taken of Wilco at the end of the gauntlet. Insanely, several outlets I saw labeled brilliant drummer Glenn Kotche in this photo as Glenn Close and Pat Sansone as Patti Sansone. Hello? Is there anyone reviewing copy at news outlets anymore? The scary thing is that I checked those sites two days later and am happy to report that Wilco’s percussionist is still Oscar nominee Glenn Close. I only hope he wins his Best Actress Oscar later this month! Before we even made our way into the arena, we heard that the Foo Fighters won Best Rock Album. Or as they are known by my disgruntled nephews, the Poo Fighters. It was the second time Wilco lost out to them. Oh well.

Because Sue and Jeff were sitting way up front with the nominees, Leah and I sat with Spencer and Sammy. Everyone looked fantastic. Leah was such a fashion plate she could have passed for one of the Best New Artist nominees. It was hard not to ogle all the crazy people at the Grammys. I had to look up most of the performers I saw on the Red Carpet when I got home to discover who I was looking at. It was easy to spot the record company execs but much of the rest of the crowd was a mystery to me. All you could see everywhere were sequins, feathers, dangerously high heels, tattoos, and boobs, boobs, boobs. Spencer and Sammy were in heaven. 

Here are Leah and Sammy in a position emulated by thousands of Staple Center attendees all night long. Because I know next to nothing about much of the current music scene, I had to constantly ask my young charges who the performers were—at least the performers under 50! What follows are just a few of my own personal highlights, not in any way to be confused with an exhaustive or intelligent “review” of the proceedings. For a hipper take, check out my nephew Spencer’s recounting of the event.

Believe it or not, I had never even heard of Adele, the charming British minx who dominated the night. Well, I recognized her hit song when I heard it, but I hadn’t been following her career. Killer pipes but it’s still a mystery to me why some talented singers become SUCH a sensation (how many Grammys did she win on Sunday—30?) while most remain in relative obscurity. I liked her a lot, though, and she became the first in a long list I gave Leah of CD she owns that I want to download.

I also loved Bruno Mars and his retro 60s look and sound. Who knew? Great production number. The sets at the Grammys were insane—constantly changing and quite complex. I have to hand it to the people that put this night together, it is one well produced show. I haven’t watched it on TV but it looked fantastic in person.

When I got home I read about all the Chris Brown Twitter arguments. Some people thought he shouldn’t have been invited because of his abuse of Rihanna a few years back. I don’t know enough about that to comment (I assume he’s gone through some kind of treatment or rehab?), but dare I say that if she’s okay with him being present, shouldn’t we be? I’m not defending Brown’s actions, God knows, but I’m also not blaming him for the lunatics online who announced via Twitter that they would love to be abused by him. Oy. I actually interviewed him last month on the set of his latest film (“Planet B-Boy”) and found him to be quite nice but I barely knew who he was (except for an amazing dancer—wait till you see that film!). Sometimes my cluelessness is a gift.

And speaking of Rihanna, her song with Coldplay was mostly memorable to me for how they got the audience involved. When we all filed into Staples Center, they handed us these colored bracelets that said “Coldplay” on them. I thought it was just some off-putting promotional move and was shocked when at a specific moment during the number, all of the thousands of bracelets suddenly turned on and started blinking. They all went off at the same moment and then back on, in time with the music. It was a stunning effect even though I wondered if they were also engaging in group mind control!

Certainly one of the major highlights of the evening was seeing the legendary Paul McCartney perform. He was there with his new (um…young) girlfriend and he’s had a bit of work done but oh, how great he was both singing his new “My Valentine” and in the amazing “Abbey Road” finale with Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh, and others. Wow. I was so happy Leah, Spencer, and Sammy got to witness that.

There were several points during the show that reduced me to tears. The Beach Boys reunion, Jennifer Hudson’s brief but extremely heartfelt musical eulogy to Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys honoring the late Etta James, but the Glen Campbell tribute made me sob like a baby. As we all know, Campbell is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and this is undoubtedly the last time he’ll be able to perform at such an event and take in the accolades that were coming his way (with musical help by The Band Perry and Blake Shelton). I grew up with those songs and I remember every episode of “The Glen Campbell Show.” I was moved to read later that several of his family members are supporting him on his farewell tour—his son Cal on drums, his brother Shannon on guitar, and sister Ashley on keyboards, banjo, and violin. Whoever was responsible for including this number in the Grammys this year deserves a lot of praise.

Another highlight was getting to see 85-year-old Tony Bennett in the flesh and sounding as great as ever. I loved his rendition of “It Had to Be You” with Carrie Underwood who was damn lucky to have been chosen as his partner for that song. He is not only a great singer, he is a fantastic person by all accounts. And such a rare example of the lack of ageism in the extremely ageist music industry. Again, all I could think of is one day Leah, Spencer, and Sammy will be telling their children that they saw the great Tony Bennett live even if they didn’t realize the full weight of that the other night.

All in all, a fabulous, memorable night. Everyone kept pointing out that in all the times that Wilco has been nominated for a Grammy, they lost when they showed up, and won when they didn't. After seeing Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters perform not once but three times on the show, we had to laugh when some Grammy official asked Jeff toward the end of the show if he was a “seat filler.” Um…no, you idiot, he is a nominee! Not that any of it really matters. When you consider who votes for these things and how it all works, it’s a miracle that Wilco ever gets nominated at all. It’s really not their thing and it's not sour grapes to say that this and all awards shows are ultimately pretty meaningless. And yet I selfishly worry that Jeff won’t bother to show up the next time he's up for an award. What about ME? Will I have to produce a CD of my blog and hope to get nominated for Best Spoken Word Recording?

We went to the Wilco label party afterwards and then home to watch Nicki Minaj’s curse take effect on me and my entire family. The next day MTV published this Instagram Photo Diary of pix taken by Wilco members John Stirrat and Mikael Jorgensen. Check it out if you want to see how smokin’ hot everybody looked that night.

The best news came over breakfast the next morning before my sister and her gang left for Chicago. As Spencer reported in his blog, some of the band members went to a Warner Bros. party (their old label) at the Chateau Marmont after the Wilco bash and Paul McCartney told John that he had stayed up late a few nights before watching Wilco’s concert on “Austin City Limits” and loved it. If that isn’t better than winning the damn Grammy, I don’t know what is!

One Million Moms Is a Hate Group

Normally I’d resist giving attention to any group as idiotic as One Million Moms, an “activist” offshoot of the odious American Family Association, but their current campaign to try and force the retail outlet JC Penney to fire Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson (“DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.”) is so obnoxious that I think they need to be called out by as many people as possible. And they have been. Ellen herself responded to the campaign on her talk show, but even people as far-ranging and unexpected as Bill O’Reilly and Howard Stern came out against the ignorant, offensive, and time-wasting moves by this organization that, in my opinion, is a disgrace to true Christian values and a horrible model for the children they claim they are working to “protect.”

 

  

I speculated earlier this week that their optimistic use of “One Million” was probably more like 300 although Ellen pointed out that their Facebook page had 40,000 likes (“I get it, they’re just rounding up to the nearest million!”). Their page was down for several hours yesterday so they could do “a clean sweep of negative comments.” They had their work cut out for them in that regard—following Ellen’s remarks on her TV show, they had thousands of comments decrying their ridiculous campaign, many by self-professed religious Christians. But OMM had the audacity to respond to their critics by saying, “As you can see, some folks are always going to have a bigoted and narrow mind when our faith is expressed.” THEIR FAITH? Or is it their narrow-minded hate? Oh, the stupidity that is so often expressed in Jesus’ name.

JC Penney is just one of the group’s current targets. They are also going after Macy’s (one of their ads featured a wedding cake with two grooms on top), advertisers for the TV show “Modern Family,” Jenny Craig for featuring “an extremely sensual and scantily clad Mariah Carey” in one of their commercials, Mattel for teaming up with the Kardashian sisters for a line of limited-edition dolls, ABC and “Good Morning America” for featuring “lingerie photos” of comedian Kathy Griffin, Target, Ben & Jerry’s for some of their “tasteless flavors,” and all advertisers for “Dancing with the Stars” because of Chaz Bono’s involvement with the show. After listing that show’s sponsors and urging their members to insist that the companies pull their support, they added, “Thousands of Christian counselors and pastors are available all across the country to help anyone who is struggling and living in any kind of sin including homosexuality, gender identity disorder, or gender dysphoria.” Oy.

Oh, there’s more, lots more: Oreos, Febreze, Dentyne, Old Navy, J. Crew (I love their headline, “J. Crew Plants the Seeds for Gender Identity Confusion”), Burger King, NASCAR, even Disney for their offensive disregard for “Christian values.” Don’t even get them started on the TV show “Glee” (“Openly homosexual producer Ryan Murphy is pushing his lifestyle choice on teens. Teenagers are being desensitized, but parents can do something about this hidden agenda.”)

All of this would almost be funny in a sad kind of shoulder-shrugging way if so many of the advertisers and other groups weren’t so quick to cave to the crazy demands of these irritating people. As they gleefully point out, sometimes all it takes is one letter or phone call to these nervous companies for them to pull their “offensive” ad or change their entire marketing plan.

But One Million Moms really miscalculated when they went after Ellen, a person who is admired and watched by millions of people of every stripe. Following the public outrage over the group’s actions, they published an op-ed piece yesterday on the site of their parent organization, the American Family Association. Here are some excerpts:

As you are certainly aware by now, JC Penney has chosen an open and avowed lesbian to serve as the face of the company. This spokesman is by all accounts warm, engaging and funny. But she is more known by America for what she does off camera than on. Why should this matter to pro-family Americans? It matters for one simple reason: role models matter. 

When a company with the visibility and reputation of JC Penney deliberately chooses as its representative someone who engages in a sexually abnormal lifestyle, it is not an insignificant thing. JC Penney’s choice will further lower the bar of what Americans consider sexually acceptable behavior. 

“Deviancy” means, according to the dictionary, “actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms.” A generation ago, virtually all Americans would have agreed that homosexual conduct violated cultural norms. It represented a violation of the laws of nature and nature’s God. We shared an understanding that such behavior was immoral, unnatural and unhealthy, and represented behavior that society should discourage rather than promote. 

What America considers sexually deviant behavior has been redefined downward, downward, downward. And JC Penney has done its part by celebrating and rewarding a practitioner of behavior which has serious psychological and physical consequences. 

Will America’s young women be just a bit more likely to experiment with lesbianism now that JC Penney is mainstreaming it? To any objective observer, the answer must be yes. Is this a good thing? To any objective observer, the answer must be no.  Research has indicated that lesbians suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to heterosexual women.  

Wait, what? Lesbians have more breast cancer and “vaginal diseases” than heterosexual women? How did I miss that research? The co-opting and twisting of words like “faith” and “family values” by groups like this infuriates me to no end. It’s sad that these women can’t harness all that energy in more productive ways. On the other hand, I may be with them about those Kardashian dolls. What was that website address?

Simpler Times in Disneyland

What strikes me most about this just-restored previously unseen footage of Disneyland that was taken in 1957 (two years after the park opened, a few years before I was born) is how much the place still looked like this more than a decade later when my family made its first pilgrimage. I'm not sure Aunt Jemima was still walking around hawking her pancakes and I think they had a new version of the Skyway, but most of the place still resembled this more homey, less crowded, work-in-progress. I haven't been to the park in years now and I'm looking forward to taking Charlie there eventually even though I believe these days you have to take out a second mortgage on your home to be able to afford entry. Take a look at this gorgeous color film and read the commentary by Todd J. Pierce of the Disney History Institute. 

 

I first wrote about my obsession with Disneyland on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in 2005.

I know it’s sort of cool these days to dismiss the entire Disney corporation as an evil empire whose sole aim is to lure our children into their corporate lair like crack pushers in the school playground and create new generations of consumers with glazed eyes and open wallets. I've listened to the anti-Disney rants, the folks who rail about the over-commercialization, condemn Disney’s distorted treatment of women, speculate that Walt Disney himself was a borderline anti-Semite. But in the privacy of my own blog, do you want to know what I really think about Disney’s worldwide domination?

I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it!

Being the pop culture slave that I am, many of my happiest childhood memories revolve around Disney. Seminal moments of personality development occurred as I was hooked up to the IV drip of the Disney machine. My supersized Disney diet included such staples as the Mickey Mouse Club, The Absent-Minded Professor, Babes in Toyland, Swiss Family Robinson, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone, The Three Lives of Thomasina, The Parent Trap, That Darn Cat, The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes, The Happiest Millionaire, The Gnome-Mobile, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Jungle Book, and, every Sunday night, Disney’s Wonderful World of COLOR, COLOR, COLOR! (Please note that the absence of the classic Disney animated films on my list is only because of the lack of VCRs and revival screenings in the 1960s—I came to love those films later on.) But by far the most exciting Disney experience of my childhood had to be my trips to Disneyland.

Our first visit to the Happiest Place on Earth occurred during the 1967 Summer of Love. While hippies and other counterculture types were gathering in the head shops of Haight-Ashbury, I was breathing in the psychedelic fumes of Disney Spirit. We stayed in the glorious Disneyland Hotel (back when there was only one official hotel for the park—I believe this original one was recently bulldozed)—a child’s Shangri-La complete with themed restaurants, a monorail stop that would take us right into Disneyland, and a distinct smell of oranges (did they pipe in this artificial smell in memory of the groves that once filled these 100 acres?). It’s almost embarrassing to admit how excited I was to hurl myself into the Disney dream. Somewhere in a box in Chicago is my dog-eared scrapbook of the trip, stuffed with Mickey Mouse-shaped menus, Instamatic portraits of our encounters with Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, and Chip n’Dale, and remnants of our Disneyland ticket books.

In those days you paid a very small admission fee to get inside the park ($2.00 for adults and 60 cents for children) and then you purchased ticket books for the different rides which were given with A through E designations. The coveted E-tickets, of course, were for the Big Experiences like the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Submarine Voyage, and It’s a Small World, a ride that premiered a few years earlier at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Going on this ride helped me deal with the trauma I still felt at being left behind during my family’s fabled vacation to the World’s Fair. E-Tickets were supposed to be the most sought after coupons but I also favored the more sedate C-Tickets that provided entry into escapist fare such as Peter Pan’s Flight, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and Mike Fink’s Keel Boats.

We stuffed our faces at Aunt Jemima’s Kitchen where large African-American waitresses called us “honey chile” and recreated the “happy, carefree days” of life in the Old South (the NAACP must have rightfully protested this throwback because the name of the restaurant was changed to the Magnolia Tree Terrace in 1970). We went on Monsanto’s Adventures Through Innerspace (Disneyland pioneered the idea of amusement park rides with heavy corporate sponsorship) and I truly believed with all my heart that we were shrinking down to microscopic bits as we explored the world residing inside a snowflake. As we exited our little cars which had miraculously returned to normal size, we were shown the “modern miracles created by rearranging the molecules, not only of water, but of air, coal, petroleum and many other raw materials. THIS IS MONSANTO!”

We marveled over “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” (which also debuted at the blasted 1964 World’s Fair) featuring the first fully functioning audio-animatronic human figure who actually stood up, spoke, and gestured to the audience. Amazing. What if the rumors of Disney’s predelictions were true and this technology was secretly handed over to our enemies? Can you imagine “Great Moments with Adolf Hitler” with a walking, talking Fuhrer and an army of audio-animatronic SS officers?

The Disney “Imagineers” had also created the brand new “Pirates of the Caribbean” which featured a whopping collection of 64 fake human figures and 55 fake animals. This was my favorite ride and we waited again and again in the hellish lines to join the bloodthirsty pirates on their rampage through a Caribbean outpost. What other children’s ride in the world boasts a scenario that is centered around rape and pillaging? We learned the word “wench” and laughed when the local women were caught by the lascivious pirates. “Yo-ho-ho, the pirate’s life for me!” Four decades later, the pirates are still chasing women, but as a 1990s nod to political correctness, we are now supposed to believe that they are chasing them for the trays of foods that have been awkwardly placed in their audio-animatronic hands instead of for their bodies. Oy.

Our second trip to the Magic Kingdom occurred in 1971. My parents were in the middle of their hideous divorce, and during the worst of it my dad got the idea to squirrel us away to California for a bit of a reprieve. The Times They Were a-Changin’ at the Happiest Place on Earth. The summer before Abbie Hoffman’s Yippies had invaded the park and forced it to close early for the first time ever. While the park had just welcomed its 100 millionth guest, the changing political climate had forced the closure of Frontierland’s Indian village (featuring REAL Indians, the signs boasted—dirt poor locals who were forced to shvitz in the sun all day long looking authentic while tourists riding by on the Disneyland Railroad snapped their photos). The Indian War Canoes became the Davy Crocket Explorer canoes and that paean to the Old South, the Magnolia Tree Terrace, was shut down for good.

Our new favorite ride was New Orleans Square’s Haunted Mansion, another marvel from those clever Imagineers. The original plans for the ride told the story of the owner of the house, a wealthy sailor who built the mansion for his soon-to-be wife. When the wife discovered that the sailor was actually a pirate, he had no choice but to axe-murder her just before their wedding. At the last minute Walt decided this story was a bit too frightening for the kiddies so they did away with it while keeping many of the original props including the distorted wedding march, the skeletal bride with the glowing, beating heart, and the disembodied heads that popped up in the graveyard screaming “I do!” to taunt the would-be bride.

In 1971, Tomorrowland was looking a bit tired. Following the Apollo lunar landing in 1969, Disneyland’s “Voyage to the Moon” was given a minor facelift and renamed “Mission to Mars” but it still looked woefully out of date compared to the real NASA footage we were able to see every night on the news. This image of the future where everything was encased in sparkling white plastic was starting to seem a little retro but it wasn’t until 1998 that Tomorrowland was re-envisioned as a place of color with hydrophonic farms and state-of-the-art computer technology.

My next trip to Disneyland took place in 1984 when I was in Los Angeles on a business trip. I made a nostalgic pilgrimage to the theme park which looked even more faded than it had in the 70s (Tomorrowland was now truly Yesterdayland) but what I remember most about that visit was the 30th reunion of the original Mouseketeers. There, in the flesh, were those icons of my youth, now in their mid-40s and being forced to dance and sing their original Mickey Mouse Club tunes over and over again in the blazing Orange County heat. Annette, Sharon, Bobby, Darlene, Karen, Cubby, Tommy, Cheryl, Don—they were all there, God love them. Annette Funicello, by far the most famous Mouseketeer and a bona fide Disney goddess, would soon be diagnosed with debilitating MS so this was sadly one of the last times we Baby Boomers got to see her strut her stuff and play off her “Beach Blanket Bingo” persona. And poor Darlene Gillespie, once my favorite Mouseketeer, would soon become embroiled in a case of securities fraud and spend a couple of years in the slammer.

M-I-C—See you real soon!
K-E-Y—Why? Because I LIKE you!
M-O-U-S-E!

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1986, one of the advantages frequently repeated to me by my Chicago family and friends was that I could go to Disneyland ANYTIME I WANTED TO! But DID I want to? After Leah was born I loved introducing her to the park, especially since her French mom wouldn’t go near the place. But my youthful tolerance of the oppressive heat, endless lines, and rides that deposited you into high-priced stores was gone. I realized that it only worked when Leah and I went to Disneyland by ourselves. If another adult accompanied us, I couldn’t resist spewing a steady stream of complaints about all that was wrong with the place. When we were alone, I was better able to see Disneyland through my daughter’s eyes and remember why it was so magical for me when I was her age. I did institute a two-year rule—I could only handle a visit every two years, and that one had to be off-season, preferably a freezing rainy Tuesday in November.

The new trend is to create feature films out of Disneyland attractions. “Pirates of the Caribbean” with Johnny Depp became an insanely lucrative franchise while “The Haunted Mansion” with Eddie Murphy is long forgotten. Please tell me they’re not going to make a movie version of “It’s a Small World.” If they do, it should be made as a horror film. As it is, I can never look at those scary multicultural dolls without thinking of the infamous “Trilogy of Terror” in which Karen Black is chased down and hacked to death by an African doll straight out of that evil ride.

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all.

After all this reminiscing, I can't wait until Charlie is old enough to appreciate the wonders of the Happiest Place on Earth. Forget a college fund—I better start saving now for his Disney indoctrination!

Accepting Loss

I was so grateful that I was able to be in Chicago last week for the funeral of my gorgeous and loving stepmother, Marilyn. She and my dad had been together for over thirty years. For much of the last twenty, Marilyn had been suffering as a result of this awful and fairly rare blood disease she had called polycythemia vera. She almost died at least a dozen times over the years but because she always rallied, we were still incredibly shocked when she finally succumbed, especially since it happened just a few hours after she was released from the hospital and seemed to be feeling okay. 

The only part I really hate about growing older is having to endure the loss of the people that came before you (and, of course, sadly, sometimes people of your own generation or after). I know it’s part of life, that it’s inevitable, that we need to live one day at a time and enjoy the people around us when they’re here and accept when they’re gone, but it still sucks, no matter how you position it in your head. The only saving grace with Marilyn’s death is knowing that she is free from all that pain and misery. When my mom died almost 13 years ago, the last months were so traumatic I worried I’d only remember her that way. But I needn’t have worried. Sure, that was part of her time here and I haven’t forgotten it, but it was only a very small part, and as soon as she died, I began visualizing her back in her healthy, strong body. The same thing with Marilyn. Her illness was such a part of her life for so long that I was surprised over the past week how many memories came flooding back of a time I hadn’t thought much about lately when she was so much healthier and more active. 

Marilyn’s son spoke so beautifully about his mom at the funeral, as did her niece. My dad’s words tore my heart out, especially when he ended with a beautiful message to her in Spanish. I just pray that Marilyn heard every single word, and I’m sure she did. 

Here’s a version of what I said at the funeral.

Marilyn. Marilinda. Grandma Marilyn. Evil Stepmother. These were some of the names we had for the woman we were so lucky to have in our lives for more than three decades. I was in college when I met Marilyn for the first time. I remember going to her apartment in Highland Park for Sunday brunches that made Martha Stewart look like a hillbilly. The fruit bowl alone was a museum-worthy work of art and could have fed a small European country. I remember taunting my mother with tales of Marilyn’s gorgeous cakes that were adorned with decorations she made by brushing melted chocolate onto leaves and then peeling the leaves away when the chocolate hardened. For years whenever Marilyn’s name was mentioned my mother would scream, in mock jealousy, “Chocolate leaves! Chocolate leaves!” 

Marilyn was one of the most glamorous people I ever knew. I always used to think that if another famous Marilyn had lived longer, the two could have passed for sisters. Marilyn was so warm that we all felt instantly close to her even though we put her through her paces. I remember in the early days before she lived with my dad, they’d come home and my dad would announce to me and my friends that they were going upstairs to “watch TV.” We didn’t even pretend to believe him and everyone openly snickered. If I were Marilyn, I might have run out of the house in embarrassment but she just smiled and followed my dad upstairs. 

I am beyond grateful that my dad found Marilyn when he did. Watching the way that she cared for him for all those years was always so moving. I remember the big surprise party that she threw for him for his 60th birthday in 1992 and how she beamed throughout that wonderful event as my father was celebrated by his friends and family members. Marilyn was at her happiest when she was making my dad happy. She may have rolled her eyes when he’d start telling a long, drawn-out joke that she’d heard over 600 times, but when he got to the punch line she’d still laugh every time. 

Marilyn was also one of the most well read people I ever knew. I loved talking books with her—as well as movies, theater, politics. She and my dad used to go to the movies all the time. The only one I remember seeing with them was the Holocaust documentary “Shoah” at a special screening in which we watched the whole 8-hour film in one sitting, as opposed to breaking it up into different nights as many people did. It was a fascinating film, but what I remember most was the gigantic cooler of food we brought with us into the theater. God forbid we should go that long without some major sustenance! You’d have thought WE were war-time Jews hoarding food in the Warsaw Ghetto! 

I am grateful that Marilyn was there for so many family events, both good and bad. She was a tower of strength during my mother’s illness and death 13 years ago. She was there for me in a big way when we lost our son Oliver and when our 1-lb. son Charlie was fighting for his life for months in the hospital. God knows she had her own never-ending medical problems, and she bore those with a dignity and grace that I don’t think I ever could have mustered in her position. 

No matter how sick she was during these later, difficult years, she always had a smile for us, she was always interested in what we and her grandchildren were up to, and she kvelled over every accomplishment and achievement, no matter how small. 

Marilyn was so strong and managed to come back from so many horrible health crises that it’s still hard to believe that she’s not here. I want to think of her now with her little dog Sunshine and with all her family members that she had to say good-bye to over the years. I want to think of her finally showing my mother how to make those chocolate leaves, and imagine that she’s spending time with Charlie’s twin brother.

We love you, Marilyn.