Monday, January 31, 2005

IN CASE OF SLOW BLOGGING, BREAK GLASS

Not that I seem to run out of material that often, but as I approach the first-anniversary mark on My Urban Kvetch, I thought I'd take a page from Todd and others and open the floor to my readers: this will help me prepare my anniversary post, and could also serve as brain Drano in case I experience some sort of writing blockage in the future.

How did you get here? Why did you keep coming back?

What's your favorite My Urban Kvetch post so far?

What would you like to see me write/opine/pontificate/kvetch about?

If you were to cast me in a television show, what would the format be (sitcom, talk show, game show, improvised show?) and why?

Do you have any questions, suggestions or comedy challenges for me?

Post feedback and suggestions in the comments section--results TBA, depending on volume of reader response.

POPE NON-FICTION

Now here's something to be proud of: according to this article in Ha'aretz, the Jews are threatening legal action against the Pope:

U.S. Jewish groups threatened legal action against the Vatican on Thursday, saying the Roman Catholic church has stonewalled their requests for information about Jewish children placed in convents during World War II to protect them from the Nazis...

The letter said the Jewish groups were "deeply concerned about recent documents indicating a papal policy of encouraging Jewish children who were hidden by convents during World War II not to be retured to Jewish institutions after the war." Moreover, the letter said, in cases where the children were baptized, the documents' directive was to forbid the convent from returning the children to their parents...[Rabbi Shmuel] Herzfeld said the Jewish groups seek an immediate investigation of all archives related convents in northern Europe under the Vatican's influence in order to determine the blood lines of potentially thousands of missing children.

I don't think taking legal action against the Vatican is a good idea. (Didn't anyone read the Da Vinci Codes? You could end up dead at the Louvre... Just kidding...see comments on the Stephen King thread...) There's nothing to be gained, and almost every stride in interfaith relations to be lost.

That dozens, let alone thousands, of Jews do not know their lineage, that they were given away to convents so that they would live, that they were converted so they could survive? That there are people out there who have lived their whole lives as Christians and who may now discover, after more than half a century, that they've been lied to their whole lives? That entire lines of Jewish European families were unnecessarily terminated, not by Nazi persecution, but by a papal declaration? I find this prospect horrifying.

If the Vatican does not have such documents, let it so declare. If the Vatican does have documents proving complicity of Pope Pius in a "plot" to keep converted Jewish children after the end of the war, then the moral thing to do would be to share these records, and let these former children know where they come from. If, post- such a revelation, Christianity is still the belief system that gives meaning to their lives, so be it; I'm not part of any vast movement to reconvert people who have lived their whole lives as Christians and force them to live Jewish lives. But they should be given back the freedom of choice that they were stripped of by Nazi Europe. This does not do anything to undermine the authority of the Church, and in fact, makes a positive affirmation of morality. It should, in my humble, decidedly non-Vatican opinion, be a no-brainer.

Any of my Christian readers want to weigh in on this?

Sunday, January 30, 2005

FOR HARDCORE BUFFY FANS ONLY 2

Ever wonder what the first four seasons might have been like if Dawn had been on the show from the beginning?

Well, the hardcore Buffy fans do. Dawn Summers could not be reached for comment. Although thanks to this link, she'll probably weigh in...

Random Buffiness from the Mind of Esther:

If I could travel back in time, I would be an unsigned band that would play at the Bronze.
I want another musical episode.
I want a Tara spinoff series.
I want to always remember Wesley as the "rogue demon hunter" that he was when he first showed up in Los Angeles.
I want to see the new Watchers Academy that Andrew refers to in Season Five of Angel.
I want a Giles spinoff series that has a musical episode. Or twelve.
I want to open a karaoke bar called "Lorne's," in which televisions are constantly running episodes of Buffy and Angel and all the drinks are named after demons or recurring characters.

That's all, I think. What do you want?

Saturday, January 29, 2005

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE KING

In addition to pontificating on the humor and literary merits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I constantly find myself defending the works of Stephen King.

This is mind-boggling to me, as--in addition to the immense popularity of his books and the pervasiveness of his images and stories in contemporary culture--the genius is plainly there. You’ve probably seen them, and lost sleep over them, even if you didn’t know you were in the presence of the King. (The Shining and Dreamcatcher, alone, were responsible for many nights of insomnia. And don't get me started on Insomnia.)

Shawshank Redemption. Stand By Me. The Shining. Misery. Carrie. They are all icons of horror and suspense, and deal with both supernatural demons and inner demons. They are studies of character and relationship; villains are sometimes spectral, other times desperately human.

In TV's serialization tension is defrayed and the fear factor lessened, but the King continues to rule: from the well-reviewed but doomed Kingdom Hospital to TV movies of Salem’s Lot, Storm of the Century, The Stand, The Tommyknockers, Needful Things, Riding the Bullet, TV has brought King to the basic cable subscribers. Where would TNT and USA be without Stephen King?

The fictional town of Castle Rock became a place on the literary landscape with its own history: its criminals go to Shawshank, its citizens remember their forebears and the unusual incidents that happened in that town “back in the day.” King routinely introduces characters, fleshes them out as if they’re going to be the problem-solvers in their book’s respective scenarios, only to kill them off within the chapter. Each character, no matter how minor, is fully developed—full character descriptions, inner thoughts, dreams for the future, etc, even if that character has no future to speak of. In Desperation, King used the same character names, as in the Regulators. Plus, he's in a band with Dave Barry. That’s genius. But not every writer can mold to this method.

Ayelet, the self-proclaimed Bad Mother (who, despite her name, comes off as eminently and refreshingly human and not in any way a dangerous maternal figure) writes about having met the King of Horror Literature through her husband Michael Chabon, author of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and the new novel The Final Solution. But more amazing than an author meeting an author is a meeting like the one she describes on her blog:

It turns out that all over the country in response to Columbine kids are being prosecuted ... yes PROSECUTED ... for writing fiction. Now, I understand the fear. I understand the horror of the shoot out. What I don't get is the response. My response to Columbine is to wonder what is wrong with a culture that so ostracizes and alienates a child that he ends up so crazy. What is wrong with the mentality of a high school where kids are made to feel so bitterly freakish and outlawed? Instead, we fixate on the kid writing the fiction. Instead of worrying about what's going on in his head, instead of feeling his pain and wondering at its source, we arrest him. Instead of stopping the bullying, we target the bullied.

Michael had a brilliant response to this. He decided to teach a class at 826 Valencia in horror and dark fantasy writing...for teenagers. He told Stephen King about it, and this incredibly famous man, this man with a million things to do, a million commitments, a million demands on his time, said, "Dude, you teach that class, and I'll be there."On the last day of class, he was there. As a surprise guest. You should have seen the kids' faces. They were out of their minds. When he told them that he was an amateur, just like them, they scribbled in their notebooks. When he asked them what they wrote, what their techniques were, you could see their self-confidence expand before your eyes. It was amazing.

Stephen King is giving back, inspiring the next generation of writers, and providing encouragement to the students who need it most. Ayelet said it first, but I’ll second the motion. King’s not just the king. He’s also a mensch.

ORGANIZED LASHON HARA

It has been said that blogging lends itself to lashon hara (gossip). I read Gawker by RSS feed, just to make sure I'm not missing any entertainment-related news, but I can't stomach Defamer. Just the site's name makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Now, the NY Times reports, Gawker's got competition.

In October [Elizabeth Spiers, founder of Gawker] took a job at Mediabistro.com where, among other things, she will start up a media gossip blog called FishBowlNY and serve as its co-author. Among her chief rivals is Gawker.com itself, which is now edited by a cheerful 24-year-old named Jessica Coen and is still a daily addiction for the gossip hungry and media elite.

The face-off begins tomorrow when Mediabistro, largely a journalist networking site, unveils FishBowlNY and several other new blogs. The rivalry falls squarely into the grand New York tradition of competing for the juiciest bits of gossip. This being the new millennium, the battle is being raged not in screaming tabloids but in cyberspace.

Then, the article explains that the web world is snarky and personal barbs are hurled daily at the business' movers and shakers, for instance, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby:

When a departing Mediabistro editor neglected to invite Ms. Touby to his farewell party, Ms. Coen reprinted an e-mail message to the staff from Ms. Touby in which the snubbed cyberhostess fumed, "I have to insist that you not attend this farce of a party."

And two months before Ms. Touby's wedding, Gawker noticed that she had forgotten to deactivate her personal profile on JDate, the Jewish singles site, and linked to it, snarking, "Now we know how to snare a new media goddess."

What have we learned, boys and girls?

1) Read your emails again before you send them. Will you be embarrassed if that email is printed somewhere on the web tomorrow? Then don't send it. Most people don't consider email to be private correspondence, unless the privacy is specified...

2) "Snarking" is now a word.

3) When we do get married, we should deactivate our JDate profiles...


Friday, January 28, 2005

GENIUS OR HERESY?

Probably a little of both.

A new Upright Citizens Brigade event picks up where Mystery Science Theater 3000 left off, and steps clearly across a line...

DIRECTOR COMMENTARY LIVE!@UCBT, WED FEB 2-8pm
UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE THEATER: 307 W 26th St NY NY 10011 212 366 9176


There's more to the movie than what's on screen. Experience the drama that goes on behind the scenes as Matt Walsh and friends provide live commentary for your favorite movies.
This week's movie: The Passion Of The Christ
Starring Matt Walsh (Upright Citizens Brigade), Scot Armstrong (writer, Old School, Road Trip, Starsky & Hutch), Paul Scheer (VH-1, Best Week Ever)
Reserve Online Now

Is PoftheC one of our favorite movies now? This will undoubtedly either be so brilliant that it's funny or so uncomfortable that it's disturbing. I'm not quite ready to attend a screening of this movie into a comedy-commentary driven event, but I do see the potential...if anyone goes, please write in and let me know how it went and how many people turned out to protest it...

Now, Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments...that's MST3K-worthy!

OSCAR SYSTEM FLAWED?

Duh. I think the fact that there's no comedy category proves that.

But the author of this article maintains that Dumb & Dumber was an "overlooked" "epic," that Paul Westerberg* should have received an Oscar for his work on the Singles soundtrack, and that Molly Ringwald was robbed by Sally Field.

Not that author Ace Burpee (I mean, really!) sore just about the last few decades of Oscar. It was this year that prompted the piece, and for him to ask the question that was on everyone's minds:

"Where was Anchorman?"



*If you don't know Paul Westerberg's music on this album, you are totally missing the boat. His two songs, "Waiting for Somebody" and "Dyslexic Heart," are infectious, but in a much better way than say, Britney Spears' "Toxic." Much better, in that "W4S" and "DH" are songs that actually consist of lyrics and music, sold by the musician's passion and enthusiasm without the aid of a vocoder...

Thursday, January 27, 2005

WHY DON’T WE GET DRUNK…AND LEYN*

Ah, the kiddush club, that sacred fraternity. You may have witnessed it, unaware that it had a name. In the middle of the Shabbat morning service (typically between the Torah and the rabbi’s sermon/the Haftarah reading) a group of men between the ages of 25 and 40 vanish from the sanctuary and retreat to the social hall/basement to belly up to the bar. As they hover over a cluster of bottles, they utter magic words like “Glenfiddich” and “Glenlivet” and “L’Chayim” and soon everything becomes a shiny, happy Shabbos haze. And then it’s back to shul for an unsteady Amidah (silent standing prayer).

Maybe that’s what all the shuckling** is about—loss of equilibrium.

But now, the reigning body of contemporary Orthodox Judaism wants to ban the boozin':

The problem with the clubs is twofold, O.U. [Orthodox Union] leaders said in a meeting with the Forward. They desecrate Saturday morning prayers and set a bad example for the community's youth. "Kiddush is a way to sanctify the day," said Rabbi Moshe Krupka, the O.U.'s executive director of programming. "You're not sanctifying the Sabbath by walking into the cloak room with a hip flask of single-malt Scotch." The decision to eliminate the Kiddush Clubs was an outgrowth of a meeting of rabbis and educators convened by the O.U. on December 21 to discuss questions of substance abuse, gambling, smoking and promiscuity among Orthodox teens. Two days later, in a conference call of O.U. board members, the move was approved by a 9-1 margin.

Miriam’s for the new shultime Prohibition, and notes that in her experience kiddush club has been for an older generation. Personally, the synagogues I’ve attended (admittedly, mostly Conservative synagogues on the Upper West Side) don’t seem to have an active kiddush club culture. (In Riverdale, it’s another story.)

I've always thought that having a male-only kiddush club was a waste of schnapps. Maybe some enterprising synagogue could reinvent kiddush club as a singles scene mid-service--daven, drink, daven. A Jew's Booze-n-Schmooze. Why not? It works for Purim.

You know those friends you had in college who swore that their test-taking skills improved when they were high? (Oh come on. I wasn't the only one with those friends, was I?) Maybe the same is true for improving your spirituality while praying. Most synagogues I know could use the boost, even if the high is chemical.

One last note: I am definitely for the reinstitution of the term "cloak room."


* Yiddish term for “reading Torah.”
**Yiddish term for the rocking motion made by fervent Jews during prayer.

IS THAT A PHONE IN YOUR POCKET?

(...or are you just happy to see me?)

Ever wish your personal phone ring was just a wee bit more, ahem, personalized? No need to beg, babies. Jenna Jameson's got your pockets covered:

Porn star Jenna Jameson is now hawking "moan tones." For $2.50 mobile phone users can choose from a variety of moans, and sexual noises all recorded by the blond bombshell.If that's not enough, Jameson will talk dirty to you when your phones rings, in English or Spanish...Jameson's charms are already being downloaded in Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, and in a couple of weeks will be available from Mexico to Uruguay.

As oversexualized as American culture already is, to our credit, these ringtones are not available in the US:

U.S. users will have to wait to get Jameson on their phones as no mobile carriers in the United States have expressed any interest in carrying the service.

Aww. Poor American porn addicts...they'll have to look elsewhere for aural sex.

TBS: VERY FUNNY?

I just caught the end of Sugar and Spice, about a group of high school cheerleaders that robs a bank because one of the members of their squad gets pregnant and needs the money to take care of her baby.

Then, Josie and the Pussycats, starring the inimitable Tara Reid.

I think TBS needs to reconsider their tagline.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

PARANOIA

So, I just saw Osama Bin Laden on the street. He was wearing a snow parka with the hood up, but I could still see his beard.

It was him, I tell you. At the corner of 86th and West End Avenue. For sure, it was him. Either him, or my high school principal.

I suppose there's a slight chance that it could have just been one of the bearded Jews of the Upper West Side.

But just remember: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you.

TO ERR IS HUMAN...

...to forgive? $17K.

God bless CNN Offbeat for helping to put a price on forgiveness.

GRATEFUL/PACT WITH THE DEVIL

Well, voting for the JIB Awards is underway, and I'm very grateful for all your support. JDaters Anonymous is still a dark horse candidate for best culture blog; my writer's ego would love to see it bumped up a few votes in its category so it was facing off against My Urban Kvetch in the eventual finals for some Esther-on-Esther competition (but that's not likely). Right now, I'm just grateful for all the attention. I'm leading in at least one category, and hovering near the top in several others. I'll resist the Sally Field-isms, in favor of a simple "thanks."

I'm so grateful that I even cast a goodwill vote for the ruthless blogger who's accused me of being married to Satan (even though any regular reader knows I'm single as they come). Although I applaud his subtle campaign methods, I think many of my regular readers understand that if I had entered into any kind of pact with the devil, the terms would include a record deal (if William Hung and J. Lo can have one, so can I), movies (if Renee Zellweger can squint on camera for millions, so can I), a book contract (I can share wisdom on how to detect that someone isn't really interested--Lord knows I've had enough experience in this arena) and red carpets (if people can pronounce 'Mariska Hargitay'*, maybe 'Esther Kustanowitz' isn't such a pipe dream)?

In summary: no pact with the devil yet. But I'm open.

May the best blogs win!

(PS: Vote here.)

*Did everyone understand that Mariska's mom was Jayne Mansfield? Yowza. Where have I been?

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BLOGGER WOES: IS THE GRASS GREENER ELSEWHERE?

For various reasons, not the least of which is Blogger's propensity toward freezing and losing the content of my posts, I've decided to give Typepad a whirl.

Continue to look here for posts until further notice, but to come shortly is the new URL of My Urban Kvetch 2005. Color scheme will be similar, to ease the transition for loyal readers.

If anyone has had bad experiences with TypePad, now's the time to speak up, kids.

I'm crossing the fence, and if the grass is greener, I'm staying in the Promised Land.

THE BIBLE AND THE ROCK BIBLE

USA Today reports that Rolling Stone is going to start carrying ads for The Bible:

"We're frankly thrilled that Rolling Stone has decided to accept our ad," said Paul Caminiti, Zondervan's president of Bible publishing. "We believe that the Bible is relevant for Rolling Stone readers," Caminiti said. "We've always believed they were a cornerstone in our campaign to squarely market to spiritually intrigued 18- to 34-year-old young people, many of whom live outside the embrace of the church."

...and who instead, live in the bloodsoaked embrace of Satan's music. (Sorry. That was an editorial comment.)

Zondervan is a company that specializes in new versions of the Bible that fit modern times: they have produced Strive, a Bible for men, and True Identity, a Bible for women. I cannot wait to see these.

Other media outlets that will carry TNIV advertising include Modern Bride, the satirical weekly The Onion and MTV.com.

This could mean great strides for the Good Book. You already have invocations of the deity at awards shows and Presidential inaugurations; why not in rock-and-roll publications? Aren't today's musicians the modern incarnations of the prophets of yesteryear? If Judaism and hip-hop can go together, then this new version of the Bible (aimed at evangelical Christians) and Rolling Stone (aimed at evangelican music fans) may just be a perfect shidduch (match).

Judas Priest and Black Sabbath could not be reached for comment.

IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME...

...that since I'm up for Best Humor Blog in the IsraellyCool JIB Awards, maybe a Holocaust post wasn't the best way to go...

Humor and Holocaust, all in one blog?

I contain my own opposites. And I'm okay with that. (Hopefully voters will be as well.) Next post will be of significantly less national importance...

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

From kindergarten through high school, I went to yeshiva day schools in northern New Jersey. I can't remember the first time I heard the word Holocaust, but certainly, by sixth grade we were watching movies like Shoah and the TV movie Holocaust and writing papers about Anne Frank, the Warsaw Ghetto, Judenrats and Simon Wiesenthal.

Some of it was absorbed, surely. We knew that there was a "War Against the Jews," but mostly because our textbook was so titled. But did any of us truly understand or internalize what we were learning? Some of us had grandparents or teachers--or even parents--who had survived the war. Maybe close connections with those survivors had enhanced understanding of the Holocaust. But maybe not. Perhaps those war survivors had decided to move on into a better future, and left their testimony of the past behind.

Flash forward several decades to today, where, in addition to England's Prince Harry not being aware that his use of a swastika as part of a costume might offend people, now thirty percent of Canadians cannot identify that the main target of Nazi genocide efforts was the Jews.

The Environics survey commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies found that when shown a list of groups nearly 30 per cent instead chose Poles, French, British, Russians or couldn't identify any group at all. In addition, only 40 per cent of respondents correctly indicated that more than six million Jews died during the Second World War.

After some discussion of why this is true (including Apprentice-like breakdowns of college educated vs. non-), the article continues to note a positive effort in one Canadian school:

The students will come face to face with a survivor of the concentration camps in the coming weeks. That meeting is an important way to convey the global horrors of genocide and racism to students, said Marc-Michel Parent of a school board in Lachenaie, Que., that arranged a similar meeting for students.

"She touches the students on a personal level," he said of a meeting with a survivor whose experiences kept the students in rapt attention for two hours."They will remember her for her story but after that the teachers are telling the students that is racism and intolerance still exist."

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to write a book*, geared for teenagers, about hidden children—now in their seventies, then in their teens, these people were hidden by their parents in barns, attics and cellars or lodged with Catholic families. Hiding who they were and where they were was the only chance at survival.

The book required personal interviews, so I sought out survivors and sat across from them in their living rooms, surrounded by photos of their children and grandchildren and the trappings of a post-war life of some affluence. We went through my list of questions and they talked into a tape recorder. Although I had read about the Holocaust for many years, I had never asked survivors to tell me their stories before. Although the survivors were strong enough to tell their stories without disintegration and although I could sit there and conduct the interview, there would be after-effects.

When I hear the name Gurs, a French camp, I think not just of the woman who told me about her experiences there, but about her home now, her life now, the dinner she insisted I eat with her and her husband before the interview began. When I am hungry, I remember the woman who yelled at her son when he said he was hungry. She told him he didn’t know what hunger was. When I use the word "survivor," I remember the man who told me that he felt he had no right to call himself a survivor, since he was never in a concentration camp.

History is still history, a collection of place names and dates. But now they are real people, in my mind; real-life players on the stage of history in a way that the books, papers and movies never were. The first-person testimony. That's the thing.

But as the "war generation" ages, it becomes increasingly more elusive for the students of tomorrow. We need to get the survivors’ stories into the classrooms—teachers and principals need to take the initiative to reach out to the speakers bureaus of The Hidden Child Foundation at the ADL, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Holocaust Museum in DC, the Shoah Foundation, et al. Students need to see individual faces, relatable people, whose humanity will help them to personalize the context of history.








*Do not feel obligated to buy this book to support me. I get no royalties. But if you know of a teenager who is not connecting to the Holocaust as a historical event, this book is part of a series designed especially with teens in mind, and is worth checking out.

Monday, January 24, 2005

BLOG FROM THE HEART

You may already know about Getupgrrl, the proprietress of Chez Miscarriage. She's a phenomenal person, undergoing a torturous process in trying to conceive children. She's a humorist and a sensitive soul, and the way she relates her struggle is both funny and heartbreaking.

You may not know about the California Hammonds, in which Greg, pater familias chronicles his life after losing his wife to cancer.

But they're both profiled in this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Blogs do good, people. They're not just a waste of time. But I'm preachin' to the choir, right?

Why do you blog?

MATHMUSICMAVEN

If math and music had merged, like this, for me, I might not have had "I was told there'd be no math" tattooed on my forehead.

Mr. Kunz has presented Karaoke Friday as a rapper in a stocking cap with a “bling-bling” protractor and also in a red cape and funny glasses titled as “Math Man.”

Missouri's got all the cool math teachers. In contrast, I had a high school teacher whose last name was "Pane." The homophonic irony was not lost on me--I even wrote a song at some point:
"Slow down, you teach too fast.
Gotta make the torment last.
Slipping down, my GPA,
Failing Pane and learning cosine..."

Plus, I had to wait till I was in my late twenties to discover karaoke, while in Minnesota, teachers are slamming down the old school rap hits.

Which of the rabbis from my high school might I have wanted to see dressed in hip-hop gear? Um, make that a big, fat "none of them."

VOTING IS NOW OPEN

It may be an honor just to be nominated, but the writer's ego is a fragile thing; do your part to patch mine, by voting for My Urban Kvetch and JDaters Anonymous in the Jewish and Israel Blog Awards.

The first round of polls is open until Sunday "late morning, Israel time."

The details:

You can vote once every 24 hours, so bookmark the site and visit it to make a daily choice.

Most of the categories have been split into two parts because there were so many nominees; the top 6 in each part will head to the finals. This means that if I do well enough in the qualifying rounds, there will be another announcement here next week, urging you to go back and vote for me again in the finals...

As a reminder, I'm nominated in several categories, so make sure to view the whole list before you vote.

Of course, once you get to the IsraellyCool homepage, you may see other names that ring bells--a substantial number of the other nominees are also on my blogroll and in my rolodex. We're all winners, here, really. Vote your conscience; you'll do the right thing.

Plus, if you vote for me, I'll make sure there's a frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

AMBER FREY'S BOOK AND HJNTIY

A few weeks ago, I caught Amber Frey on Oprah; in promotion of her new book, Witness for the Prosecution, she shared the details of her involvement with the currently death-row-dwelling Scott Peterson. For various reasons, it was a truly appalling display.

Oprah made some interview choices that were alternately cruel and journalistically responsible. She asked Amber if she was in her right mind when she slept with Scott on the first date. She questioned Amber's intuition when she allowed Scott to pick up her daughter from school after she'd known him only a few days. Given what we know about Scott Peterson now, this understandably brought Amber to tears and forced rational audience members to ask ourselves if, faced with "the perfect guy," we would think twice or leap in head-first. Oprah's choice as an interviewer was to be less of a sympathetic ear, and instead user Amber more as an example of what not to do.

Now this article points out how Amber's new book is, in some way, the "evil twin" of He's Just Not That Into You. Although I hadn't thought about this before, it's a valid point. "It's a case study of the misguided thinking of a sector of the female population that quickly abandons common sense in the quest for fantasy romance," the article says. The article suggests a few safety precautions the single mother might have employed to make sure that she and her daughter were getting involved with someone trustworthy:

She might have Googled her new boyfriend whose home she'd never visited nor been invited to. Or she might have listened to her pal, Richard the Fresno cop, who said, ``You know why he calls you `sweetie?' It's because he doesn't want to get your name wrong. He doesn't want to confuse you with all of his other sweeties.''

Not a bad idea, either of them.

But what's the lesson for singles? What's the line between optimism/trust and self-delusion/naivete? How do we dare to open our hearts and trust someone new, when danger lurks behind every devilishly handsome smile? How do we know people are who they say they are? Do we demand references and background checks for our dates? Is Googling them enough? By exercising caution, are we distrusting our potential partners?

In the portions of the Frey/Peterson romance read on Oprah, the warning signs are clearly and glaringly present. Listening to Amber's account of the whirlwind of falling in love with the man who was pronounced murderer by a jury of his peers was like watching a piano falling off a roof and plummet toward an unsuspecting pedestrian who can only look up, and doesn't realize what is happening. You know that even if you yell "look out!" your warning will be too late.

Swept away by the promise of a beautiful, transporting romance, Amber made some bad choices, and never imagined that those choices would be subject to be entered into the court records and criticized by the entire country. Our own romantic choices might not be subject to entry by a court stenographer, but they might not hold up under scrutiny by a jury of our peers, either.

There's a fine line between trusting a stranger with the entirety of your heart and making small revelations that help to build the foundations of a relationship. And I hope that all of us--myself included--are smart enough to draw that line for ourselves in our dating relationships: to recognize the suspicious and potentially dangerous while daring to trust the people who have proven themselves worthy.

JUST A QUESTION

Is a snow storm "news" per se? I don't get it. It's snowing out, so here's what you need to know:

Wear boots.

Dress warmly.

Grip small children (preferably your own) by their hands when they're outside walking.

Transportation may be slow.

Beyond that, aren't we Northeast-dwellers savvy enough to know what to do when it snows? Or do we actually learn from the people who are interviewed on the radio and TV about the storm?

"It's really hard to walk, there's so much snow."
"The wind is making my face cold."
"This isn't so bad--I'm from Minnesota. This is like duck soup."

My opinion? This storm is not news. The only reason it's all over the news is because no one wants to leave the TV studio to cover any actual news.

IT’S A BLOG BLOG BLOG WEEKEND

Friday day and night were free of blog-related activity. Then Saturday night, blogs hit my social life big-time. Without the people I've met through blogging, my Saturday night plans would have consisted of whatever Netflix movies I had and/or reruns of Law and Order: SVU. Not bad plans, even for a worst-case scenario. But I did have other plans.

First, dinner cooked deliciously by the lovely Writersblocgal (fellas, you don’t know what you’re missing…); there was wine and a cheese course before the main course, and of course, conversation that was social sustenance as well.

Then, WBG and I headed off to the remotest recesses of the Lower East Side to the hookah-adorned Ruby Lounge, which might have been eponymously-colored, but was, most descriptively, the darkest bar I’ve ever been in. Most of us were there to celebrate the birthday of the adorable C , but a contingent of visiting bloggers also converged upon the bar to create a blog bottleneck at the bar’s narrowest points. The party was also a convenient way for members of the inner and outer blogcircle to unite at a central location to celebrate the reunion of Candied Ginger, a hallmark of which was Candygirl or Ginger candiedginger.net accidentally stomping on my toes (doesn’t sound so bad unless you’ve seen what kinds of shoes these girls prefer). Both grabbed me for plenty of hugs and pumped my ego full of nice compliments, so an obliterated toe was a small price to pay.

Among the other prolific and prominent bloggers in attendance was the famous Fish , bodacious Bostoner PetiteDov, the rockin’ Jessica, Smurfalicious Lisa , the lovely Ari, the most famous copy editor/poker player in NYC, and Yaron, the blogger who keeps threatening to quit, but doesn’t. If WBG was overwhelmed, she didn’t show it.

Later, Crazy Old Dawn Summers showed up with her Elektra-viewing partner F-Train (maybe now they'll invite me to their karaoke meets, even though I don't play poker). Mike was apparently there, but we didn’t get reintroduced. I met Daniella, who was very well-behaved, despite the title of her blog.

God bless Ari for sharing her cab with me at the end of the night, for I was nowhere near home, and extremely tired by the time we left in the 2am range.

But for friends like these, I might have no blogs. Or but for blogs like these, I might have no friends. Not really sure. But it was a good night, and I did it all for the Bloggie.

Tonight was another, non-blog-related story, for another non-blog-related time.

Sleep well, gentle readers.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

LAST WEEKEND: THURSDAY NIGHT

It all started Thursday night, when a spontaneous Anna Broadway and I decided to meet on the Lower East Side for the Sweet comedy show, hosted by Seth Herzog every Thursday night at the SLIPPER ROOM on Orchard and Stanton at 8:30.

Seth’s name sounded familiar. I thought it was just because he is a member of the tribe. But as it turned out, I was actually in a show with him. (This is unusual because I am not often in shows.) Seth--a funny guy who doesn't seem to have a website--and I shared stage time at last year’s Purim show, coordinated by Daily Show writer Rob Kutner, at my Upper West Side synagogue. I guess it’s a small comedy world because present was comedian Jeff Kreisler, who was also in the Purim show with us, and who I now see everywhere. Also, every time I see him, he tells me about his non-Jewish girlfriend.* This time he didn’t; he told me about his non-Jewish fiancée. I assume it’s the same woman. So congrats to Kreisler, who’s now fleeing the area--I mean, appearing at Sundance--in the next few days or so (check his website for details).

Special cameo at the Slipper Room by Peter Dinklage, star of last year's critically acclaimed film The Station Agent, who was seen canoodling with a woman with short dark hair and wearing long dangly earrings.

Later that night, the comedy event dissolved into a Jewish Below 14th Street party, co-sponsored by JDub Records and featuring So-Called.




*I just don’t know why people feel the need to confess such things to me. A Jew eats a cheeseburger? Dates someone who's not Jewish? Sends email on Shabbat? They appear apologetically before me, confessing all. It’s like someone elected me President of the Jews. Which just to clarify, is not an office I am seeking.

LAST WEEKEND: BLOGTIVITIES

Manhattan. A dark and snowy Saturday night settles over the city. I have plans later, to shoot some billiards in celebration of a friend’s birthday. But I can't start my preparations until I've blogged about last weekend. Although everyone who was there already did their recaps, I feel like I gotta take my shot too. Because last weekend was all about the blog, yo.

Stay tuned for parts 1-3. Because everything is a saga.

Friday, January 21, 2005

FWIW: TV THIS WEEK

For what it's worth:

I don't think I've fully followed an episode of Alias since the first season. Michael Vartan is indeed very hot, but I would give him up for Greg Grunberg in a flash.

People on the Apprentice should not cry. Magna is a stupid name: it reminds me of Dr. Evil saying the word "magma" over and over again. Net worth is an even dumber name: it is actually two names of one syllable each, and evokes only money, no heart. Every season they have people who look the same. Bill=Kelly=Todd and five different guys on this season. I also loathe the product placement...it's not even remotely subtle anymore. I do like Danny the Guitar Guy, though. He's a bit of a loose cannon, but he's fun. If he'd only learn to listen to other people...but I suppose that's too much to ask for.

It really bothers me that I don't care more about Joey. But I think it's Drea DeMatteo's fault. I just don't enjoy her overacting. (Plus, she shares a face with Portia DiRossi, and that scares me.) Joey Tribbiani we are used to. But his sister is useless. And then there's that other blonde woman, who's also useless. And I think among the other five Friends, Joey was cute. But on his own, he's just a jerk--a sexual predator who thinks only about himself and the next conquest. Not very nice. And not funny at all.

I love Lost. All of the acting is stellar, drama and comedy together, flashbacks informing you that there's no one main character and that everyone has a story...but why are they all good-looking, except the fat guy who they clearly use as comic relief in the tenser moments? That kind of offends me. But as long as they keep hiring Buffy writers, I'm ok with it in moderation. But what is up with that gi-normous polar bear on the tropical island? Will we ever find out?

Scrubs makes me laugh. I love Janitor. And Dr. Cox. And of course, Dr. Dorian. I can never see the jokes coming, which makes me appreciate its random zaniness all the more. (OK, I almost never see the jokes coming--I am good.)

Arrested Development is my new dream. I dream to live it, be on it, write for it, accept awards on its behalf...it's just a great team of actors that anyone would be lucky to work with. I hope they all know how lucky they are. Especially Portia--if it were by face alone, she could be on Joey, floundering, instead of with Ellen, flourishing.

No worries. I still love the host of the Daily Show. But that goes without saying. (And that's mostly because according to the terms of the restraining order, I'm only allowed to mention him by name three times in any calendar year. So I'm saving them up.)

That's all for me right now. An ep of AD and then off to B-E-D.

A wonderful weekend to all...and maybe this weekend, I'll finally get the time to write up a considerate account of last weekend.

UWS 9/11 VICTIM LAID TO REST

I never officially knew Nancy Morgenstern, although chances are we’d met. We had many mutual friends and ran in similar circles on the Upper West Side--I was friendly with her roommate.

Because I couldn't place name to face to workplace for most of my close friends, let alone for people I didn't know, on 9/11, the name Cantor Fitzgerald didn’t ring any personal bells for me. But in Nancy's Upper West Side apartment, five blocks and two avenues from my own building, there were bells ringing everywhere--as her roommates fielded desperate phonecalls from Nancy’s family.

When I received word that my friend’s roommate was missing, I felt my stomach drop; I still couldn't match a face to the name, but I knew that Nancy was our representative on that terrible day: a woman with a career, an athlete with an active social network, a committed Jewish Upper West Sider on the scene.

And then, like so many others, she was just missing. In absence of an official confirmation of Nancy’s death, her family mourned, but only off-the-record. For more than three years, there was no burial, no shiva.

This week, after a recent “official” identification of her DNA, the family went ahead with the burial in Beit Shemesh, Israel.

This is the Ha’aretz article about the funeral.

And this is the NY Times piece about Nancy.

May Nancy's memory be for a blessing, and may her family finally know peace.

(Hat tip: IsraellyCool)

Thursday, January 20, 2005

KABBALEXILED

Newly exiled from his London post at the Kabbalah Centre after his remarks about Holocaust victims succumbing to Nazi persecution because they lacked the light of Kabbalah in their lives, Rabbi Eliyahu Yardeni has relocated to the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre. (Because there, insensitive remarks about the Holocaust are apparently better tolerated.)

Speculation is that Madonna, who was reportedly “furious” by the remarks, pulled some red strings to get the good rabbi reassigned, but no sources could confirm it. (Source: Yahoo! Launch)

But we know what this is really about: Harry’s swastika. Two Holocaust-related stories in one week spells bad PR for the monarchy. At least in L.A. if a Prince does something weird, his symbol's likely to be unpronounceable, or he'll just have the word "slave" written on his face.

(Next up across the pond? I heard that Posh and Becks are naming their next kid Adolf.)

NEW COLUMN: "THE ABCs OF SJFs"

Here's my new column, a review of Leah Furman's Single Jewish Female: A Modern Guide to Sex and Dating

The ABCs of SJFs
The New York Jewish Week
01/21/2005

NOSTALGIA: 1992?

Hey, remember 1992?

I was living in New Brunswick, New Jersey, just off the campus of Rutgers College, in a house with three guys and three other women. We were all friends, and our two apartments had open door policies--it was like the Real World, without the randomness. A Clinton/Gore sticker was suspended in one of the upper windows of our house. It was the beginning of senior year, we were minutes away from all the coolest bars, and we were the masters of all we surveyed. We hosted a great Halloween party (my first) that impressed friends visiting from Brandeis, carved a pumpkin that looked more confused than scary, and we dissected each other's love lives. Plus there was a Krauszer's convenience store just down the block.

What there weren't? Cell phones. DVRs. DVDs. "The Internet." Email. Nostalgia shows on VH1. Reality TV. MP3 players. And lots of other things that we didn't know we needed till they arrived.

Which is why I got a kick out of this piece in the New Yorker. You know I have my issues with the New Yorker, but I do enjoy Shouts and Murmurs. Wouldn't mind doing a piece for that column someday.



(Hat tip: Norma)

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

KABBALAH SECRETS REVEALED!!!

Kabbalah leaders live lives of the rich and famous, complete with millionaire lifestyle, gambling and plastic surgery!!! (I can almost hear the Robin Leach voiceover now...)

Cash raised for tsunami relief is being used to [GASP!] distribute Kabbalah products in the devastated region!!! ("Here, tie your huts together with this red string and find enlightenment...")

Evidence has been found of devotees sleeping in windowless "cells" in a basement at the Kabbalah Centre!!! (That's never a good sign...)

Kabbalah water isn't blessed at all...it's [GASP!!] Canadian!!
(I knew it!!)



(Complete article here.)

NYQUIL DREAMS

Usually, you like living alone. You like your own space, and knowing that if you put leftover Chinese food in the fridge overnight that it will be there for you to take to work as lunch in the morning.

But when you’re sick, it’s a whole other story. And yesterday was bad. Not tsunami bad. But having-a-fever-and-living-alone kind of bad.

You long for a roommate to check in on you. You call your mother to tell her you’re sick even though she can’t do anything about it except worry and tell you to eat chicken soup. You end up calling your brother to ask him to run errands for you—even though he’s glad to help, you feel like you’re imposing.

You lie in bed, waiting for sleep. You drift in and out of consciousness and are unsure which state you prefer. You try to keep hydrated, but the bottle of water that’s in your bed starts to leak, gurgling softly until you notice the sound more than the fact that there’s a river running through your bed. Your bed needs dry-out time, so you move to the couch for movie-time. Dodgeball makes you laugh a few times, but you’re still uncomfortable.

You make your deadline, even though the column isn’t your most coherent. You try to watch TV from a reclined on your side in your newly-dry bed position, and discover that sideways Will and Grace makes you dizzy. Your brother arrives, toting the chicken soup, Gatorade and regular Coke that you asked for, in addition to a lovely bunch of tulips that you didn’t ask for, but that brightens up your wintry apartment and proves you were a good older sister.

You try vertical again, and the resultant head rush almost knocks you off your unsteady feet. You heat up the soup and eat it while you watch “Shaun of the Dead.” During a bathroom break, you look at yourself in the mirror and see a slack-jawed face, vacant eyes and your staggering walk, and your realize you’re not wholly unzombie-like yourself. You watch “Medium,” and wonder how anyone as normal seeming as Patricia Arquette tolerated the wacky antics of Nicolas Cage, and then you remember that she’s also related to David Arquette, which explains a lot.

You take the Nyquil, knowing that it will put you out of your misery. Your eyes droop, and you can’t even stay up to see Jon Stewart. And then, while you sleep, you float through a cherry red haze, and dream dreams that make no sense at all, like running into your old camp friends in a Target as they’re shopping for clothes to wear to the D.C. wedding of your first crush who’s already married, a rabbi, and working at Yeshiva University. And in the dream-within-a-dream, there are certainly zombies who play dodgeball.

The next day, things are better. Muscle aches still assertively present, but also duller and more tolerable. You begin to get back to normal. You go to work, and start reading the news on the Internet. You discover that certain drug companies are trying to restrict the sale of Nyquil because it can be used in manufacturing methamphetamines. You read more about Prince Harry and the swastika. You get one email letting you know that (yet) another friend had a baby and another email confirming an upcoming gig in Chicago…you wait for the rest of the chicken soup to thaw for lunch, and swallow it with a Tylenol chaser. You begin to set goals—write about Saturday night’s blogger bash, get started on one of your humongous freelance jobs, finish up old business with clients, pay your bills—everything that you were too foggy-headed to do yesterday.

This day is going to be better.

I KNEW HE WAS MY SOULMATE...

...in the blogworld, anyway...

Your Famous Blogger Twin is Dave Barry
Funny, witty, and clever!You always have a ton of offbeat links to share


IT'S NOT JUST HARRY...

I've refrained from posting about Harry and the swastika until now, because I felt other people covered it enough. It was just a wrong, stupid choice by a teenager who unfortunately is very high profile because of his royal bloodline. But I'm posting a link to this JTA story because apparently, there's a substantial number of British youth who believe that their Prince's costume choice was perfectly appropriate:

The publication of pictures showing Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party caused outrage around the world. But it seems that most of his British peers can’t see what all the fuss is about.

In the days following the furor, a poll published by the Sunday Mirror newspaper showed that although 71 percent of those interviewed thought Harry was wrong to wear the costume, which featured a swastika armband, more than half of those between 18 and 24 said the choice of outfit was acceptable.

The results were particularly dispiriting because they followed a recent BBC survey in which 60 percent of those younger than 35 claimed never to have even heard of Auschwitz.

The article notes that it's hard to imagine what's causing this insensitivity since learning about the Holocaust has been required in British schools since 1991. Maybe Miriam will have some insight into this...

UPDATE: Miriam has an interesting post on this here.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH HIM

Let the madness begin.

The self-proclaimed "world's biggest Star Wars fan" is the first in line to buy a ticket for Episode III in Seattle. He started his vigil on January 1, and will stay out there until the film opens on May 19. He apparently did this for Episode I and II, as well.

And wouldn't you know it, he's also a blogger, although it's not clear to me where he's plugging in to recharge his laptop over the next five months.

You know what's also not clear? Why anyone would do this.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

THE GOLDEN GLOBES REPOLISHED

As promised, here are my random thoughts and observations on this year's Golden Globe Awards...
  • Odd. Tim Robbins seems to think that the Jude/Clive/Julia/Natalie pic is pronounced “clozer.”
  • Natalie wins! Banner year for Israel, what with the Olympic gold medal in windsurfing and now Princess Natalie's trophy. Why am I getting all misty?
  • I think Jennifer Garner’s lips are coming off. Either that, or she’s developing a stress zit in the corner of her mouth for not winning Best Actress in a TV Drama. Is it wrong that I’m happy? I just resent that those Alias posters are everywhere. Everywhere I go, Sydney Bristow is looking at me. It's unnerving.
  • “Congratulations, Natalie.” You can hear her mock-growl, just to get a laugh. And that’s why Meryl Streep rules.
  • Downer…Zach Braff snubbed for Scrubs. Upper…It’s finally Jason Bateman’s move! If you have not yet seen Arrested Development, get thee to the video store, post-haste!

And now, celebrity thought bubbles:
“I’m an Oscar-winner. But I want more awards. That’s why I changed my haircolor. I’m a brunette now, and that shows my range.”
Your choices:
a) Renee Zellweger
b) Charlize Theron
c) Candace

  • I can’t believe I have to wait till late summer for a new season of Nip/Tuck. That Nip/Sucks.
  • Teri Hatcher was not my Housewife of choice. I think that Felicity Huffman is, far and away, the best of the five.
  • My award for Least Orange Desperate Housewife goes to Kimberbree Marcia Cross. Runner-up: Felicity Huffman.
  • Mick Jagger wins the Golden Globes. And for a change, they’re not on his date. The name of the song: “Old Habits Die Hard.” And Mick oughta know. What is he, seventy by now?
  • Prince introduces “Ray.” Naomi Watts wasn’t miked, but her lips just clearly mouthed “I love Prince.”
  • I’m having a weird thought as I watch Clint Eastwood accept his award for “Million Dollar Baby.” His bone structure reminds me of someone. And then it comes to me. Christopher Reeve. If Christopher Reeve had lived to age gracefully, he might have resembled the tall, angular Eastwood.
  • Jamie on Ray: Life is notes right underneath our fingers. Take the time to play the right notes. And then, tears as he recalls the support of his late grandmother, and feels her there with him. Damn the pathos of it all—I guess I need to see this movie already.
  • I love Robin Williams. The man is crazy. But in an endearing way. I always thought he was brilliant in even the critically panned Hook and Popeye, and was glad that he was recognized for both dramatic and comedic acting. His dedication of his own lifetime achievement to Christopher Reeve made the tears well.
  • I’m sure that, when he accepted his award for Best Actor, Leo meant that we should keep contributing to tsunami disaster relief. Big props for sentiment. But minus two points for not finishing the sentence.
  • Kate Hudson lost every one of those seventy pounds she gained during pregnancy.
  • I love that Morgan Freeman has an earring. Cool. Easy Reader...that's his name.
  • Hilary Swank, Jennifer Garner, and Julia Roberts all share a face. But not an award. That’s all Hilary tonight. And this time she even remembered to thank her husband.
  • Sideways for Best Picture Musical or Comedy, The Aviator for Picture Drama. I’m anticipating a tough Oscar race. No one picture even came close to a sweep—tonight, Closer won two awards, two for the Aviator, two for Million Dollar Baby. It's gonna be a squeaker.

See you all in February for the Oscars, when I'll have replenished my store of sarcasm and celebrity resentment. Till then, peace y'all. Happy MLK Day. (Not to be confused with MUK Day, the official day celebrating this blog.)

And now, back to my deadline...

COINCIDENCE?

I’m not saying that Jeremy Piven would have won if he had taken me to the Golden Globes. But you'll note that I wasn’t his date, and he lost. I'm just sayin'.

GOLDEN GLOBES OF ENDLESS TORTURE

Why do I do this? Why do I watch the preshow for the Golden Globes? It's not for the fashion. I could care less about how Eva Longoria had to hire a trainer to get her in shape for her Desperate Housewives lingerie scenes. And it's certainly not for the self-congratulatory vamping of camera hogs like Kevin Spacey and Kathy Griffin or that Star Jones is "girlfriends" with Debra Messing and Jennifer Garner. (It might be in order to calculate the depth of the dimple in Orlando Bloom's cheek. But I'm not revealing anything here.)

I guess the real reason I watch is so that when it ends, I know the real show of Endless Torture will be starting. I had thought that I would liveblog it, but I've got a deadline for something that's actually resulting in a paycheck. Instead of the liveblog, look here at the end of the night for my collected thoughts on the Golden Globes, in no particular order. Snark may be in attendance.

Friday, January 14, 2005

YOU'RE INVITED

If you haven't been to JDaters Anonymous in a while, come on over! We've got great dating related posts, like:
...and more! At JDaters Anonymous, you can share your dating stories, inspire a column, and know you aren't alone...

Looking forward to seeing you there...

PEOPLE ARE INSANE

Oh, those wacky Romanians. First Dracula, then gymnasts, now naming their son Yahoo after meeting online.

At least it's his middle name. His first name is Lucian, and his last name is Dragoman, which I anticipate will become "Lucifer Dragon-Man" before recess on the first day of Transylvanian kindergarten.

I make a solemn vow to you, devoted readers:

I am not naming my kid JDate, no matter what.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

A VERB BEFORE DYING

Norma has a very interesting post on the euphemisms that are used by her local obit pages, among them:
  • fell asleep in the Lord
  • was promoted to Glory
  • was welcomed into Heaven
  • reunited with his beloved
  • went home to be with the Lord Jesus Christ
I invite my readers to submit their favorite standard or newly invented euphemisms, and then I'll post my favorites of those.

I'll start you off with a few oldies:
  • was gathered to his people
  • his spirit departed
  • bought the farm
  • went on permanent vacation
  • went to that great golf course in the sky
And a few new ones:
  • went to the land of free TiVos and flatscreens
  • has joined Chris Farley and John Belushi for dinner and a speedball
  • is dancing with Jessica Tandy
  • is writing in the land where there are no deadlines
  • is surfing to the end of the World Wide Web
  • was handpicked for God's new reality series
  • is dining at the restaurant where every dish has zero Points
Now it's your turn...


AN OPEN LETTER TO JEREMY PIVEN

Dear Jeremy,

Hi! It's been ages since we talked. How are you? How's the run of Fat Pig treatin' ya? You're getting great reviews, so congrats! By the way, I'm totally on board with your plan to dare your costar Keri Russell a box of Krispy Kremes. You just say the word and I'll pick them up and bring them to the theater. (I bet you Andrew McCarthy busts a gut over force-feeding Felicity, LOL!) I've been meaning to get tickets, but need to find someone to accompany me (unless you're willing to comp me and hang out after and I know how busy you are...)

Hey, I just saw on ET that you're taking your mother to the Golden Globes this weekend. That's great--I'm sure she's really excited. While this is an impressive display of admiration for your mother (I hope she is well, by the way--send her my best!), aren't you concerned that "mom-as-your-date" in Hollywood may translate for the tabloids as coming-out announcement? (Not that there's anything wrong with that--you totally know I'd support you if you were gay, but come on: we both know you're just picky.)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go with Mom. I'm sure she's a great date (just like she was at your prom--OH, SNAP!! I'm kidding, Jer!) but I can't help but think that this might be a wonderful opportunity for you to find a nice Jewish girl who would also support you at this event. You know, someone who knows her way around a room of celebrities, and who is witty enough to create repartee with members of the glitterati as well as with their publicists. Maybe a New York writer, who can fully appreciate your sense of humor. A Jewish woman of substance and natural energy, to turn Hollywood on its ear. Perhaps a woman with six bridesmaid dresses in her studio apartment.

If the two of you were really ambitious, you could co-write a Jewish-based sitcom that portrayed Jews as positive forces of a committed lifestyle instead of as whiny stereotypes. You and she could be comedy revolutionaries...just an idea.

Anyway, gotta run. Need an idea for my singles column this week. What do you think of the topic, "A Celebrity and a Civilian May Love Each Other, But Where Will They Build Their Home?" Or maybe "Jewish, Single and Celebrity-Obsessed"? Your input always welcome, dear.

If you win a Golden Globe, totally call me from the podium, K?

Love,
Esther

"MEET THE BUFFYVERSE ALUMNI"

I saw Meet the Fockers this weekend with my friend Marcy. We laughed a lot, not wholly because of the material; I thought it was pretty funny in general (you know I almost always love me some Stiller), and Marcy doesn't get to a lot of movies. I know mainstream media outlets object to the "stunt casting" of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as Stiller's movie parents, but the two are a perfect liberal complement to the stodgy Byrnes patriarch Robert de Niro and matriarch Blythe Danner. Yes, I might have trimmed the script so it was a little more highbrow humor-wise, but that's not what America wants.

But I digress.

What I started to say is that in the first ten minutes of the movie, two Buffy alumni make appearances.

First up--Kali Rocha, formerly vengeance demon Halfrek, plays a supersmiley flight attendant. She apparently also appeared in Meet the Parents, also as a flight attendant. While this shows an admirable consistency, next time, if he wants to see some sparks, Stiller should cast her as a demon. Now, I'm rethinking--flight attendant, demon...it's all semantics.

Then, Jack Plotnick, the doomed deputy to the Ascending Mayor of Sunnydale, appears as rent-a-car agent. You usually see him as a geeky, scrawny guy, but look at his photo in the IMDB! Further delving into the IMDB notes that he's also the voice of Xandir, the effeminate cartoon character who's "on a neverending quest to save his girlfriend" on Comedy Central's Drawn Together, the animated reality show.

I thought about pointing this out to Marcy, but I knew she wouldn't care. She's got a toddler, was working and in school full time. She "didn't have time" for Buffy. (I know, and yet, I continue to be her friend.) But I knew that here, someone else would think this was cool...

I know that all you hardcore Buffyverse fans are dying to know how I found these characters names and information...here's a new database of all the characters, episodes, cast and crew, etc. More Buff than you'd ever hope your brain to know.

(DB via Whedonesque.)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

EXIT BRIGITTE; ENTER CHYNNA--SURREAL INDEED

So here's what you missed if you didn't see the first episode of the new season of The Surreal Life on VH1.
  • Sushi served on a naked Adrienne Curry (America's Next Top Model), who actually eats something.
  • (Female wrestler) Chynna usurps Mini-Me's room, even though everything in that room is clearly made smaller to make his life livable, and does strange things with a thighmaster.
  • The aforementioned Mini-Me (Verne Troyer), a self-proclaimed pig, gets wasted off his tiny ass, pees in the corner of the house after riding his electric wheelchair naked and makes grunting noises after Peter Brady tucks him into bed.
  • Jane Wiedlin jumps naked into the pool and keeps introducing herself as "Jane, from the Go-Go's" without even mentioning her star turn as Joan of Ark in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
  • Da Brat and Marcus Schenkenberg (respectively) loiter and sit around, neither rapping, nor posing, nor doing much of anything.
And speaking of Peter Brady, Chris Knight has become a very hot hall monitor (I think he has better abs than Schenkenberg!--must be middle child syndrome)--I guess that's what happens when you play ball in the house.

WHEN MISPLACED MODIFIERS ATTACK

After an extensive segment on Brad Pitt's arrival at an airport in Tokyo, Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart had this to say about their glimpse of Jennifer Aniston, post-Brad:

"Wearing a white peasant blouse, the guard holds the door open for her."

Think about it, kids. When the image hits you, you'll laugh.

(Some writer should catch hell for this...)

CLOUD/SILVER LINING

Cloud: I open my mail and slice a huge gash in my finger. (Is that a blood vessel I spy? Nope...I should live. Unless gangrene sets in.) This has also slowed down my typing a bit.

Silver lining: The envelope had a paycheck in it.

The simple agonies and ecstasies of freelance life. May we all be so lucky that paper cuts are our biggest tragedies.

BRITNEY AND NICOLE ARE WRITERS NOW

I better watch out...the celebs know I'm getting closer, and are fighting back by trying to appropriate my career, as well.

According to MSNBC, Britney Spears has written a musical, and she wants to direct it too.
(Article contains the best-ever Britney description: "Mousketeer turned belly-baring warbler.")

The article continues to note that Nicole Kidman writes short stories.

In the same article, these other useless tidbits:

  • Charlize Theron has ADD.
  • Angelina and Colin are "just friends."
  • And Anna Nicole Smith, once again, proves that she should never speak.

MSNBC--my source for inane celebrity news.


REMEMBER CHANDRA LEVY?

You're probably thinking, "Oh yeah...I remember that case now," but if you're like most Americans, any concern over the missing (and later discovered to be deceased) Washington intern vanished into the ether after a little incident on September 11th.

Chandra Levy disappeared in May of 2001, and her remains were found in May 2002 in Rock Creek Park in Northwest Washington, about four miles from her Dupont Circle apartment.

But today's Washington Post brings the story back:

Former representative Gary A. Condit denied in a court deposition having had a "romantic relationship" with slain intern Chandra Levy, a statement that was challenged yesterday by Levy's family. Condit's denial came during a pretrial deposition he gave in September as part of an $11 million defamation lawsuit he filed against author Dominick Dunne, who has suggested that Condit was involved in Levy's death.

In summer of 2001, I remember talking with friends about Chandra Levy on the beaches of Fire Island. It soon after her disappearance, and one of the NY dailies had printed artists' renderings of what Levy might have looked like with different hairstyles, if for some reason she was alive and in disguise. Whenever a Jewish-looking woman walked down the beach, or bicycled along the roads of Ocean Beach, we jokingly speculated that it was just Chandra, on vacation. At one point, my friends, all Jewish women of varying hairstyles who could have been Chandra in wigs, turned to each other--maybe one of us was Chandra Levy, and we didn't even know it!

We continued to riff, on the hairstyle pictures mostly, because none of us thought she would be found dead in the park. The other "intern story," the then only-recently concluded Monica Lewinsky affair, had concluded in embarrassment, SNL skits and impeachment, but not death.

And then, like America, we forgot all about her, and focused on national pain, and missing persons flyers that peppered our neighborhoods like obscene confetti. Months later, we were shocked when Levy was found dead, but a lot of the shock came from the fact that we had totally forgotten about the case.

On TV, Law & Order figures it out in under an hour. In real life, it takes longer. No one knows what happened. Gary Condit either did or didn't have an affair with her. Even if the two were involved romantically, such an affair doesn't necessarily mean Condit murdered her. No one's any closer to finding out.

As a single woman living in the big City--albeit closer to Columbus Circle and Central Park than to Dupont Circle and Rock Creek Park--I'm disturbed by the lack of resolution. Maybe Chandra made poor choices in love or location, or maybe she was a victim of random violence. Her family went through the wringer--Chandra was reported missing in the aftermath of the joke that was the Lewinsky scandal, was missing without a trace for over a year, a year that included the emotional devastation of 9/11. And now it's possible that her family will never have the closure of knowing what happened or why. And that's a tragedy, all over again.

My heart goes out to them, and prays for justice so that they can move on toward long-awaited closure.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

AMERICA IS THE BIGGEST LOSER

(Here comes another rant. This one's the result of a weight loss study covered in the New York Times and the finale of "The Biggest Loser." Oy. Here it comes.)

According to the New York Times, a new study “finds little evidence that commercial weight-loss programs are effective in helping people drop excess pounds. Almost no rigorous studies of the programs have been carried out, the researchers report. And federal officials say that companies are often unwilling to conduct such studies, arguing that they are in the business of treatment, not research."

They cite Weight Watchers as an example as the most livable of the weight loss plans, since it involves changing your eating habits and weekly support meetings. It was apparently the only "diet company" (which is not how they refer to themselves) that actually does any research.

…with the exception of Weight Watchers, no commercial program had published reliable data from randomized trials showing that people who participated weighed less a few months later than people who did not participate. And even in the Weight Watchers study, the researchers said, the results were modest, with a 5 percent weight loss after three to six months of dieting, much of it regained. [Emphasis mine]

The Weight Watchers study, published in 2003 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, involved 423 people who weighed an average of 205 pounds. Half the participants were randomly assigned to attend Weight Watchers meetings and follow the program. The other half tried to lose weight on their own. After two years, the participants in Weight Watchers had lost an average of 6.4 pounds. The other group had lost no weight. Neither group showed a change in blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose or insulin.

[Side note: one of their sources is a Dr. Stifler, who I believe spends a portion of each day cursing the careers of the Weitz brothers, who created a memorable American Pie character who shares his last name and who emphatically is not a doctor. I’m sure that Dr. Stifler is also not enjoying the implication that his mother is a MILF.*]

What have we learned so far (if any of you are still with me)? That there’s no program that works for everyone, and the only one with any kind of success rate combines sensible eating with exercise.

Moving on to the not wholly unrelated topic of “The Biggest Loser” (which ended its high-ratings run Monday night on NBC).

The title itself reminds me of the episode of Friends where Monica gets mad at her mom for saying that she “pulled a Monica” (meaning that despite her best efforts, everything went wrong). Phoebe suggests that they change the meaning of the phrase, converting “pulling a Monica” into something good. Later, Mrs. Geller (which was actually the name of my high school librarian, but I digress) gives Monica a compliment on her chef-work. Phoebe says, “You might even say she ‘pulled a Monica.’” There’s a beat as Monica glares at Phebes, and then Phebes responds, “oh, she doesn’t know we changed it.”

Growing up, if someone called you “The Biggest Loser,” there was no doubt it was a barb, hurled solely to maim you. And even if no one called attention to it, an overweight child felt like he or she had been publicly crowned “the Biggest Loser.” It was a double insult: socially, you were a loser, and if you were involved in some sort of weight-loss program, the term also functioned as a mockery of your inability to lose the life-ruining pounds and attain the weight standard as set by doctors and the popular Benetton-rugby wearing class elite. Loser…bad.

But this NBC show essentially attempts to play on this double meaning, and to reclaim the term within a weight loss context, reframe it and make it positive. Essentially, they encourage contestants to pull a Monica and officially become The Biggest Loser--after years of feeling like the biggest loser--but Phoebe forgot to tell everyone that being a Big Loser on this show is the whole point, and that it means something different now.

I’ve watched two episodes (both while I was at the gym on the elliptical). And I can tell you now why it’s a) an abhorrent concept, and b) riveting television.

It wouldn’t be reality TV without three essential elements: competition, a useless host, and public humiliation. The Biggest Loser has all three, in spades.

The participants have been broken into teams (red and blue), and are asked to perform various challenges. I only managed to watch two of these challenges: one involved the teams being forced to make pastries and then sell them at a theme park. Of course, the secret purpose of this assignment was to test their ability to restrain themselves from tasting the batter, licking the spoons, etc. They were told after they’d completed the task that they’d be penalized for any BLTs (as Weight Watchers calls “bites, licks and tastes”) that they might have taken during the process. (How many of us could pass such a test?) But this is nothing compared to the challenge in which contestants are forced to climb the stairs of a ninety-floor building and the first complete team to reach the top wins. (Maybe it’s just the irrevocable warping of my brain, but I don’t hear, climb stairs in a 90-story building without thinking about 9/11.) People collapsed in tears, one woman was rushed to the hospital, I believe. Even most gym regulars aren’t in the kind of shape that allows them to sprint 90 stories.

Now let’s up the humiliation ante…with a public weigh-in that doubles as another chance to torture the contestants, but this opportunity provides for emotional torment. As each contestant stands on the scale, clad in shorts (and for women, a sports bra), the screen they stare at, was well as the screen over their head, projects their weight escalating and then going down in an effort to create dramatic tension for the audience and contestants alike. The number is giant, on the screen over their heads, like a scarlet number they’ll have to wear in the town square for all to see. The number fluctuates…260…262…245….252…258…230 before finally arriving at…250. This scale is literally PURE EVIL. And once the show is over, it SHOULD BE DESTROYED (via a potion by the Charmed Ones if necessary. Do not make me involve Alyssa Milano). This episode with the scale made me so mad that I stayed at the gym an extra half hour to see every contestant get weighed. (I ellipticaled so hard that my quads ached in the morning.)

But wait, there's more humiliation ahead.

If the team has lost enough weight as a whole, they’re technically safe. The losing team (which, if you’re following, did not lose enough, and therefore they lose that round and feel like big losers for not losing…) is forced to “vote someone off the island.” Those who are unpopular, who have any kind of weight gain or plateau are up for review by their teammates. There’s a vote: team members unveil their choices by lifting up the lid of a fancy silver serving tray that you might expect would reveal duck a l'orange, but instead contains a folded index card with a player's name on it. If a player is voted off after losing twelve pounds the week before but only one pound that week, she must face useless host Caroline Rhea (who is apparently the biggest loser of her own sense of humor, which is completely absent on this show), who says “You are not the biggest loser. Go home and good luck.” Then, the camera pans to a corner of the room with ginormous refrigerators, each labeled with the name of a contestant. When the contestant is eliminated, the fridge goes dark. (To recap: here, on this show, you want to be “the biggest loser.” A total of 13 pounds in two weeks, unrealistic bordering on miraculous in real life, is scorned on the show. And your presence is represented by a refrigerator. Like I said, this is not a nice show.)

But even as the show sucks, it also sucks people in. Because in America, we all think we’re fat. And, according to BMI guidelines and Supersize Me, many of us are right. But with self-esteem and health of national concern, no matter what our weight or the depth of our revulsion of the concept and execution of “The Biggest Loser,” we’re hooked. But why? I hope it’s not because we enjoy the torture of others, I assume that we watch because we are appalled. These people are bigger versions of us—larger than life because they are on TV, publicly struggling with their size. We compare our bodies to theirs; even though we often suffer from a mild body dysmorphic disorder and don’t really know what we ourselves look like next to anyone else, the comparison engenders either comfort, that their weight problem is more serious than our own (“at least I’m in better shape than she is”), or a mixture of contempt and jealousy (“if I spent two months with a trainer and dietitian, not working or in my regular environment, I could lose a hundred pounds, too!”).

Maybe it is this “awesomely bad” quality that draws us in. They are us, so we can relate. Yet they are not us, so we can bear to watch.

Many of these people were extremely overweight when the show began. And now, they are thinner. They've probably learned a lot about healthy eating and exercise. And while it’s encouraging to see people have success in their weight loss battles, the cynic in me credits not their hard work, but the advantages that they’ve had: personal training, the luxury of working out all day, every day in preparation for weekly weigh-ins, nutritional counseling, the competition looming over them like Big Mother, watching everything they put in their mouths.

I admit it, I’m a little jealous. But I wonder what will happen once they really get back to their normal lives. Donuts in the morning at the office, birthday parties for family members, trying to incorporate exercise into a packed schedule…these are the ongoing challenges of weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. What’s unclear is if they’ll still see themselves as losers once they’ve been reimmersed in normalcy. And we won’t know how they feel about the title of loser--whether it will be their scarlet letter or red badge of courage.

Tonight, The Biggest Loser was declared. And I missed it. I just decided not to tape it. I know my ratings points don’t matter to NBC. But even though this show won’t feel my bite (I’m even blogging about it too late for it to have an impact), I don’t want to expose myself to the reality that there is such a thing as The Biggest Loser, Who Is Also The Winner. It’s too confusing.

Although, for some reason, when they begin advertising the next season, I know I’ll find myself wondering what the application process is like.





*Yes, I am fully aware the mention of Mr. Stifler and his mother is going to increase traffic to my blog, if only via keyword searches. I do understand the nature of the internet. As it is, the search term that most frequently leads people to My Urban Kvetch is “Portia diRossi Ellen Degeneres lesbians.”

Monday, January 10, 2005

INFOMERCIAL

Is your apartment a mess? Did you ever go out with someone and have a great time, never to hear from that person again? Got cancer? Credit problems? Brittle fingernails? Flat, lifeless hair? Genocide? Left with the feeling it's all your fault, and that you've been abandoned by God?


Well, you were right. It was all your fault. And God had abandoned you. But now there's something you can do about it...And now, coming to you from Amazing Inventions and London's Kabbalah Centre via the BBC, the catch-all excuse you've all been waiting for...

Talking about the wartime massacre of the Jews, Mr Yardeni said: "Just to tell you another thing about the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust: the question was that the Light was blocked. They didn't use Kabbalah."

If you only had had Kabbalah in your life, your Light would be unblocked and all those pesky problems, from matters of the heart to the Holocaust, would vanish in a blinding brilliance rivaled only by Madonna's diamond "E" necklace.

I know what you're saying...Kabbalah? It's too easy. But that's what makes it great!

And everything you need to get started is in this Kabbalah starter kit. It contains two pieces of red string, a 3-oz. bottle of extra-blessed Light-N-Tasti Kabbalah water, a guide to using your strings (including seven Kabbalah-water-based recipes) and a copy of Madonna's American Life CD. Plus, if you act now, we'll throw in not one, not two, but three extra red strings, ABSOLUTELY FREE! (Zohar not included.)

Why wait, when Kabbalah can be yours, for immediate use and the guaranteed* solution of all your problems? Call today.

*Not a guarantee.

Inspiration via Jewlicious.

CELEBRITY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS UNCOVERED

My celebrity connections recently uncovered the New Year's Resolutions of some of today's pop culture icons. As you can see, even celebrities can't keep all of their resolutions, and they have their own hair, makeup and exercise people.

I hesitated to publish them, but when they started becoming reality, they entered the public domain, and I could not, in good conscience, withhold them from you, gentle and inquisitive readers. Here they are, as I found them, on each celeb's novelty stationery:

Yo, homes: A Note from J. Timberlake

1. Erase mine and Janet's 2004 Superbowl performance from my TiVo.
2. Ask Cameron to marry me, even though she's Mom's age.
3. Apologize to Joey for pronouncing his last name "Fat-One" for the past ten years.
4. Immerse myself in hip-hop slang (maybe ask Snoop to create new lizzanguage?)

Life is a Bowl of Cherries, and I'm the Pitt

1. Start rumor about me and Angelina.
2. Deny rumor about me and Angelina
3. Find other uterus to carry my Aryan-looking superchildren.
(Note: are bloggers hot? Ask assistant to check.)
4. Write the Star a nasty letter about
their spelling error in our breakup announcement.

Jottings from Jude

1. Find smitten young lass (preferably an actress) to marry me and help me raise my children from my previous marriage.
2. Be in as many movies (and kiss as many leading ladies) as I possibly can.
3. Be strangely sexy in a way that enraptures the hordes and confuses the intellectually elite.
4. No more porn before shooting scenes on location.

Renee Zellweger's Diary

1. Learn how to open my eyes.
2. Ruin--I mean, celebrate--Janis Joplin's legacy by portraying her in movie.
3. Save my relationship with Jack White, who I keep mistakenly referring to as "Jack Black."

4. Eat.

Lindsay's Likes-n-Lists

1. Like, totally rule in 05! But that's like hardly even like, a resolution. It's more like a totally undeniable fact!
2. Get other people to
respect my privacy. I'm tired of rumors starting. I'm sick of being followed!
3. Get more publicity than PH, even if I have to make a naughty video (should I call Wilmer?). P will so freakin' flip, and the world will see what a jealous hotel heiress looks like! I totally hope she doesn't kick my ass though. (Better make an exercise resolution.)
3. OMG! I totally already had a 3!! LOL!!

4. Rent Carmen Electra's striptease video and do it with mom every day.
5. Get better abs and better career than Hilary Duff.

6. Grow red dreads and cover "Superfreak" for next album.

Stiller's Stories

1. Make ten more movies with Owen Wilson.
2. Practice getting hit in the groin so it doesn't hurt so much next time I do it in a movie.
3. Workshop "Keeping the Faith 2"--see if Norton will return my calls.
4. Summon up the courage to ask Christine to convert to Judaism.
5. Ask agent why I've never been on Law & Order.
6. Join synagogue on Upper West Side.
7. Are Jewish bloggers hot? Investigate.

A Message from "Maverick"

1. Practice my smiling--one hour a day, at least.
2. Get over my stagefright and host Saturday Night Live.
3. Cut down on purchase of sunglasses.
4. Do a movie with Ben Stiller where he plays me and I play him.
5. Break up Nicole's relationship with that film producer guy.
6. Prep for exercise--buy more button-down shirts, tightie whities and socks, and try to expand musical repetoire beyond "Old Time Rock and Roll."
7.
If I get depressed, take myself to bank and show myself the money.


BIG, FAT DOUBLE STANDARD

In his article in Slate titled "Beauty and the Beast," writer Matt Feeney points out the trend in contemporary sitcom: fat or not conventionally attractive husband paired with hot, skinny wife. I read the article with great interest, thinking it would eventually point to the dearth of realistic women on television as a problem for the expectations it breeds in men, for their partners, and in women, who will put further pressure on themselves to conform to sitcom size standards. But that's not how the article went.

Feeney notes that the previous trend in sitcom home life, was a husband who was "comparatively plain"--but times have changed:

In the current sitcom lineup, by contrast, several shows pair extremely attractive women, who are often clad in plunging tops and tight jeans suitable for a Maxim photo spread, with TV husbands who are not only not studly but downright fat, and a couple who are not only not mensches, but are ugly on the inside, too.

He cites King of Queens, According to Jim, Grounded for Life and Still Standing, and then points out that "in addition to their girth, a signal characteristic of these men is immaturity."

In one of his final paragraphs, Feeney concludes:

It's tempting to register a feminist complaint about the message these shows convey—that they perpetuate the view that women shouldn't expect autonomy or fulfillment in romance and marriage. They do, after all, play to a certain male fantasy: living the gluttonous, irresponsible, self-absorbed life of an infant and basking in the unconditional love of a good-looking woman.

I'll take the feminist complaint issue a bit further, focusing on the message that these pairings send to both men and women viewers:
a) These pairings create an unrealistic expectation among American men of all shapes, sizes and emotional stripes, that they "deserve" a hot wife, no matter how they look or behave.
b) The absence of realistic-looking actresses on TV says that there is only one standard for attractiveness in leading women--the Maxim standard, which should be kept throughout one's life, children, career and responsibility being secondary to looking good.
c) It conveys the message that women over a size 6 (and I think I'm being generous using that size as an example) don't deserve the comedy and pathos of a functional relationship, or at least, their relationships are not fun or interesting enough to be the subject of a sitcom.

This is Hollywood's problem. Sitcoms are not Hollywood in the breaking box-office records with epic stories and gorgeous bone structure splayed across a 100-foot high screen sense. I would be very surprised to see Brad Pitt or Jude Law, or Nicole Kidman in a sitcom. They are the golden, glamorous icons of the big screen. But sitcoms are supposed to be more universal, urban, and reflective of some relatable reality. In other words that may be familiar to comedy performers the world over, "funny because they're true." Not true in the sense of a documentary, but truly human.

Mix it up, Hollywood. The reason people have switched sitcoms off and tuned into reality shows is because we're all self-centered, looking for ourselves on television.

Mandate to Hollywood: reward talent, not dress size. Casting a soap opera? How about an actress who weighs more than 95 pounds? If there's a Bridget Jones 3 in the works, at least give Marissa Janet Winakur an audition. Give Camryn Manheim a sitcom, and make her the lead, instead of the funny best friend next door. Next time George Clooney--or Jim Belushi--needs a leading lady, let Catherine Zeta-Jones and Courtney Thorne-Smith (dang hyphenates) sleep in and send Sara Rue instead.

People--men and women--of all different shapes and sizes find love, happiness, family, and fun. It's not because of what they look like outside--it's because they forge a connection. Through attraction, yes, but also presumably through personality, and a chemistry that's not just about her abs and his childlike immaturity. If the TV sitcom alters its attitude, maybe America will also embrace the change. Or maybe I'm delusional. But it doesn't hurt to hope.


My Urban Kvetch: 01/2005 - 02/2005

Monday, January 31, 2005

IN CASE OF SLOW BLOGGING, BREAK GLASS

Not that I seem to run out of material that often, but as I approach the first-anniversary mark on My Urban Kvetch, I thought I'd take a page from Todd and others and open the floor to my readers: this will help me prepare my anniversary post, and could also serve as brain Drano in case I experience some sort of writing blockage in the future.

How did you get here? Why did you keep coming back?

What's your favorite My Urban Kvetch post so far?

What would you like to see me write/opine/pontificate/kvetch about?

If you were to cast me in a television show, what would the format be (sitcom, talk show, game show, improvised show?) and why?

Do you have any questions, suggestions or comedy challenges for me?

Post feedback and suggestions in the comments section--results TBA, depending on volume of reader response.

POPE NON-FICTION

Now here's something to be proud of: according to this article in Ha'aretz, the Jews are threatening legal action against the Pope:

U.S. Jewish groups threatened legal action against the Vatican on Thursday, saying the Roman Catholic church has stonewalled their requests for information about Jewish children placed in convents during World War II to protect them from the Nazis...

The letter said the Jewish groups were "deeply concerned about recent documents indicating a papal policy of encouraging Jewish children who were hidden by convents during World War II not to be retured to Jewish institutions after the war." Moreover, the letter said, in cases where the children were baptized, the documents' directive was to forbid the convent from returning the children to their parents...[Rabbi Shmuel] Herzfeld said the Jewish groups seek an immediate investigation of all archives related convents in northern Europe under the Vatican's influence in order to determine the blood lines of potentially thousands of missing children.

I don't think taking legal action against the Vatican is a good idea. (Didn't anyone read the Da Vinci Codes? You could end up dead at the Louvre... Just kidding...see comments on the Stephen King thread...) There's nothing to be gained, and almost every stride in interfaith relations to be lost.

That dozens, let alone thousands, of Jews do not know their lineage, that they were given away to convents so that they would live, that they were converted so they could survive? That there are people out there who have lived their whole lives as Christians and who may now discover, after more than half a century, that they've been lied to their whole lives? That entire lines of Jewish European families were unnecessarily terminated, not by Nazi persecution, but by a papal declaration? I find this prospect horrifying.

If the Vatican does not have such documents, let it so declare. If the Vatican does have documents proving complicity of Pope Pius in a "plot" to keep converted Jewish children after the end of the war, then the moral thing to do would be to share these records, and let these former children know where they come from. If, post- such a revelation, Christianity is still the belief system that gives meaning to their lives, so be it; I'm not part of any vast movement to reconvert people who have lived their whole lives as Christians and force them to live Jewish lives. But they should be given back the freedom of choice that they were stripped of by Nazi Europe. This does not do anything to undermine the authority of the Church, and in fact, makes a positive affirmation of morality. It should, in my humble, decidedly non-Vatican opinion, be a no-brainer.

Any of my Christian readers want to weigh in on this?

Sunday, January 30, 2005

FOR HARDCORE BUFFY FANS ONLY 2

Ever wonder what the first four seasons might have been like if Dawn had been on the show from the beginning?

Well, the hardcore Buffy fans do. Dawn Summers could not be reached for comment. Although thanks to this link, she'll probably weigh in...

Random Buffiness from the Mind of Esther:

If I could travel back in time, I would be an unsigned band that would play at the Bronze.
I want another musical episode.
I want a Tara spinoff series.
I want to always remember Wesley as the "rogue demon hunter" that he was when he first showed up in Los Angeles.
I want to see the new Watchers Academy that Andrew refers to in Season Five of Angel.
I want a Giles spinoff series that has a musical episode. Or twelve.
I want to open a karaoke bar called "Lorne's," in which televisions are constantly running episodes of Buffy and Angel and all the drinks are named after demons or recurring characters.

That's all, I think. What do you want?

Saturday, January 29, 2005

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE KING

In addition to pontificating on the humor and literary merits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I constantly find myself defending the works of Stephen King.

This is mind-boggling to me, as--in addition to the immense popularity of his books and the pervasiveness of his images and stories in contemporary culture--the genius is plainly there. You’ve probably seen them, and lost sleep over them, even if you didn’t know you were in the presence of the King. (The Shining and Dreamcatcher, alone, were responsible for many nights of insomnia. And don't get me started on Insomnia.)

Shawshank Redemption. Stand By Me. The Shining. Misery. Carrie. They are all icons of horror and suspense, and deal with both supernatural demons and inner demons. They are studies of character and relationship; villains are sometimes spectral, other times desperately human.

In TV's serialization tension is defrayed and the fear factor lessened, but the King continues to rule: from the well-reviewed but doomed Kingdom Hospital to TV movies of Salem’s Lot, Storm of the Century, The Stand, The Tommyknockers, Needful Things, Riding the Bullet, TV has brought King to the basic cable subscribers. Where would TNT and USA be without Stephen King?

The fictional town of Castle Rock became a place on the literary landscape with its own history: its criminals go to Shawshank, its citizens remember their forebears and the unusual incidents that happened in that town “back in the day.” King routinely introduces characters, fleshes them out as if they’re going to be the problem-solvers in their book’s respective scenarios, only to kill them off within the chapter. Each character, no matter how minor, is fully developed—full character descriptions, inner thoughts, dreams for the future, etc, even if that character has no future to speak of. In Desperation, King used the same character names, as in the Regulators. Plus, he's in a band with Dave Barry. That’s genius. But not every writer can mold to this method.

Ayelet, the self-proclaimed Bad Mother (who, despite her name, comes off as eminently and refreshingly human and not in any way a dangerous maternal figure) writes about having met the King of Horror Literature through her husband Michael Chabon, author of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and the new novel The Final Solution. But more amazing than an author meeting an author is a meeting like the one she describes on her blog:

It turns out that all over the country in response to Columbine kids are being prosecuted ... yes PROSECUTED ... for writing fiction. Now, I understand the fear. I understand the horror of the shoot out. What I don't get is the response. My response to Columbine is to wonder what is wrong with a culture that so ostracizes and alienates a child that he ends up so crazy. What is wrong with the mentality of a high school where kids are made to feel so bitterly freakish and outlawed? Instead, we fixate on the kid writing the fiction. Instead of worrying about what's going on in his head, instead of feeling his pain and wondering at its source, we arrest him. Instead of stopping the bullying, we target the bullied.

Michael had a brilliant response to this. He decided to teach a class at 826 Valencia in horror and dark fantasy writing...for teenagers. He told Stephen King about it, and this incredibly famous man, this man with a million things to do, a million commitments, a million demands on his time, said, "Dude, you teach that class, and I'll be there."On the last day of class, he was there. As a surprise guest. You should have seen the kids' faces. They were out of their minds. When he told them that he was an amateur, just like them, they scribbled in their notebooks. When he asked them what they wrote, what their techniques were, you could see their self-confidence expand before your eyes. It was amazing.

Stephen King is giving back, inspiring the next generation of writers, and providing encouragement to the students who need it most. Ayelet said it first, but I’ll second the motion. King’s not just the king. He’s also a mensch.

ORGANIZED LASHON HARA

It has been said that blogging lends itself to lashon hara (gossip). I read Gawker by RSS feed, just to make sure I'm not missing any entertainment-related news, but I can't stomach Defamer. Just the site's name makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Now, the NY Times reports, Gawker's got competition.

In October [Elizabeth Spiers, founder of Gawker] took a job at Mediabistro.com where, among other things, she will start up a media gossip blog called FishBowlNY and serve as its co-author. Among her chief rivals is Gawker.com itself, which is now edited by a cheerful 24-year-old named Jessica Coen and is still a daily addiction for the gossip hungry and media elite.

The face-off begins tomorrow when Mediabistro, largely a journalist networking site, unveils FishBowlNY and several other new blogs. The rivalry falls squarely into the grand New York tradition of competing for the juiciest bits of gossip. This being the new millennium, the battle is being raged not in screaming tabloids but in cyberspace.

Then, the article explains that the web world is snarky and personal barbs are hurled daily at the business' movers and shakers, for instance, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby:

When a departing Mediabistro editor neglected to invite Ms. Touby to his farewell party, Ms. Coen reprinted an e-mail message to the staff from Ms. Touby in which the snubbed cyberhostess fumed, "I have to insist that you not attend this farce of a party."

And two months before Ms. Touby's wedding, Gawker noticed that she had forgotten to deactivate her personal profile on JDate, the Jewish singles site, and linked to it, snarking, "Now we know how to snare a new media goddess."

What have we learned, boys and girls?

1) Read your emails again before you send them. Will you be embarrassed if that email is printed somewhere on the web tomorrow? Then don't send it. Most people don't consider email to be private correspondence, unless the privacy is specified...

2) "Snarking" is now a word.

3) When we do get married, we should deactivate our JDate profiles...


Friday, January 28, 2005

GENIUS OR HERESY?

Probably a little of both.

A new Upright Citizens Brigade event picks up where Mystery Science Theater 3000 left off, and steps clearly across a line...

DIRECTOR COMMENTARY LIVE!@UCBT, WED FEB 2-8pm
UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE THEATER: 307 W 26th St NY NY 10011 212 366 9176


There's more to the movie than what's on screen. Experience the drama that goes on behind the scenes as Matt Walsh and friends provide live commentary for your favorite movies.
This week's movie: The Passion Of The Christ
Starring Matt Walsh (Upright Citizens Brigade), Scot Armstrong (writer, Old School, Road Trip, Starsky & Hutch), Paul Scheer (VH-1, Best Week Ever)
Reserve Online Now

Is PoftheC one of our favorite movies now? This will undoubtedly either be so brilliant that it's funny or so uncomfortable that it's disturbing. I'm not quite ready to attend a screening of this movie into a comedy-commentary driven event, but I do see the potential...if anyone goes, please write in and let me know how it went and how many people turned out to protest it...

Now, Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments...that's MST3K-worthy!

OSCAR SYSTEM FLAWED?

Duh. I think the fact that there's no comedy category proves that.

But the author of this article maintains that Dumb & Dumber was an "overlooked" "epic," that Paul Westerberg* should have received an Oscar for his work on the Singles soundtrack, and that Molly Ringwald was robbed by Sally Field.

Not that author Ace Burpee (I mean, really!) sore just about the last few decades of Oscar. It was this year that prompted the piece, and for him to ask the question that was on everyone's minds:

"Where was Anchorman?"



*If you don't know Paul Westerberg's music on this album, you are totally missing the boat. His two songs, "Waiting for Somebody" and "Dyslexic Heart," are infectious, but in a much better way than say, Britney Spears' "Toxic." Much better, in that "W4S" and "DH" are songs that actually consist of lyrics and music, sold by the musician's passion and enthusiasm without the aid of a vocoder...

Thursday, January 27, 2005

WHY DON’T WE GET DRUNK…AND LEYN*

Ah, the kiddush club, that sacred fraternity. You may have witnessed it, unaware that it had a name. In the middle of the Shabbat morning service (typically between the Torah and the rabbi’s sermon/the Haftarah reading) a group of men between the ages of 25 and 40 vanish from the sanctuary and retreat to the social hall/basement to belly up to the bar. As they hover over a cluster of bottles, they utter magic words like “Glenfiddich” and “Glenlivet” and “L’Chayim” and soon everything becomes a shiny, happy Shabbos haze. And then it’s back to shul for an unsteady Amidah (silent standing prayer).

Maybe that’s what all the shuckling** is about—loss of equilibrium.

But now, the reigning body of contemporary Orthodox Judaism wants to ban the boozin':

The problem with the clubs is twofold, O.U. [Orthodox Union] leaders said in a meeting with the Forward. They desecrate Saturday morning prayers and set a bad example for the community's youth. "Kiddush is a way to sanctify the day," said Rabbi Moshe Krupka, the O.U.'s executive director of programming. "You're not sanctifying the Sabbath by walking into the cloak room with a hip flask of single-malt Scotch." The decision to eliminate the Kiddush Clubs was an outgrowth of a meeting of rabbis and educators convened by the O.U. on December 21 to discuss questions of substance abuse, gambling, smoking and promiscuity among Orthodox teens. Two days later, in a conference call of O.U. board members, the move was approved by a 9-1 margin.

Miriam’s for the new shultime Prohibition, and notes that in her experience kiddush club has been for an older generation. Personally, the synagogues I’ve attended (admittedly, mostly Conservative synagogues on the Upper West Side) don’t seem to have an active kiddush club culture. (In Riverdale, it’s another story.)

I've always thought that having a male-only kiddush club was a waste of schnapps. Maybe some enterprising synagogue could reinvent kiddush club as a singles scene mid-service--daven, drink, daven. A Jew's Booze-n-Schmooze. Why not? It works for Purim.

You know those friends you had in college who swore that their test-taking skills improved when they were high? (Oh come on. I wasn't the only one with those friends, was I?) Maybe the same is true for improving your spirituality while praying. Most synagogues I know could use the boost, even if the high is chemical.

One last note: I am definitely for the reinstitution of the term "cloak room."


* Yiddish term for “reading Torah.”
**Yiddish term for the rocking motion made by fervent Jews during prayer.

IS THAT A PHONE IN YOUR POCKET?

(...or are you just happy to see me?)

Ever wish your personal phone ring was just a wee bit more, ahem, personalized? No need to beg, babies. Jenna Jameson's got your pockets covered:

Porn star Jenna Jameson is now hawking "moan tones." For $2.50 mobile phone users can choose from a variety of moans, and sexual noises all recorded by the blond bombshell.If that's not enough, Jameson will talk dirty to you when your phones rings, in English or Spanish...Jameson's charms are already being downloaded in Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, and in a couple of weeks will be available from Mexico to Uruguay.

As oversexualized as American culture already is, to our credit, these ringtones are not available in the US:

U.S. users will have to wait to get Jameson on their phones as no mobile carriers in the United States have expressed any interest in carrying the service.

Aww. Poor American porn addicts...they'll have to look elsewhere for aural sex.

TBS: VERY FUNNY?

I just caught the end of Sugar and Spice, about a group of high school cheerleaders that robs a bank because one of the members of their squad gets pregnant and needs the money to take care of her baby.

Then, Josie and the Pussycats, starring the inimitable Tara Reid.

I think TBS needs to reconsider their tagline.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

PARANOIA

So, I just saw Osama Bin Laden on the street. He was wearing a snow parka with the hood up, but I could still see his beard.

It was him, I tell you. At the corner of 86th and West End Avenue. For sure, it was him. Either him, or my high school principal.

I suppose there's a slight chance that it could have just been one of the bearded Jews of the Upper West Side.

But just remember: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you.

TO ERR IS HUMAN...

...to forgive? $17K.

God bless CNN Offbeat for helping to put a price on forgiveness.

GRATEFUL/PACT WITH THE DEVIL

Well, voting for the JIB Awards is underway, and I'm very grateful for all your support. JDaters Anonymous is still a dark horse candidate for best culture blog; my writer's ego would love to see it bumped up a few votes in its category so it was facing off against My Urban Kvetch in the eventual finals for some Esther-on-Esther competition (but that's not likely). Right now, I'm just grateful for all the attention. I'm leading in at least one category, and hovering near the top in several others. I'll resist the Sally Field-isms, in favor of a simple "thanks."

I'm so grateful that I even cast a goodwill vote for the ruthless blogger who's accused me of being married to Satan (even though any regular reader knows I'm single as they come). Although I applaud his subtle campaign methods, I think many of my regular readers understand that if I had entered into any kind of pact with the devil, the terms would include a record deal (if William Hung and J. Lo can have one, so can I), movies (if Renee Zellweger can squint on camera for millions, so can I), a book contract (I can share wisdom on how to detect that someone isn't really interested--Lord knows I've had enough experience in this arena) and red carpets (if people can pronounce 'Mariska Hargitay'*, maybe 'Esther Kustanowitz' isn't such a pipe dream)?

In summary: no pact with the devil yet. But I'm open.

May the best blogs win!

(PS: Vote here.)

*Did everyone understand that Mariska's mom was Jayne Mansfield? Yowza. Where have I been?

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BLOGGER WOES: IS THE GRASS GREENER ELSEWHERE?

For various reasons, not the least of which is Blogger's propensity toward freezing and losing the content of my posts, I've decided to give Typepad a whirl.

Continue to look here for posts until further notice, but to come shortly is the new URL of My Urban Kvetch 2005. Color scheme will be similar, to ease the transition for loyal readers.

If anyone has had bad experiences with TypePad, now's the time to speak up, kids.

I'm crossing the fence, and if the grass is greener, I'm staying in the Promised Land.

THE BIBLE AND THE ROCK BIBLE

USA Today reports that Rolling Stone is going to start carrying ads for The Bible:

"We're frankly thrilled that Rolling Stone has decided to accept our ad," said Paul Caminiti, Zondervan's president of Bible publishing. "We believe that the Bible is relevant for Rolling Stone readers," Caminiti said. "We've always believed they were a cornerstone in our campaign to squarely market to spiritually intrigued 18- to 34-year-old young people, many of whom live outside the embrace of the church."

...and who instead, live in the bloodsoaked embrace of Satan's music. (Sorry. That was an editorial comment.)

Zondervan is a company that specializes in new versions of the Bible that fit modern times: they have produced Strive, a Bible for men, and True Identity, a Bible for women. I cannot wait to see these.

Other media outlets that will carry TNIV advertising include Modern Bride, the satirical weekly The Onion and MTV.com.

This could mean great strides for the Good Book. You already have invocations of the deity at awards shows and Presidential inaugurations; why not in rock-and-roll publications? Aren't today's musicians the modern incarnations of the prophets of yesteryear? If Judaism and hip-hop can go together, then this new version of the Bible (aimed at evangelical Christians) and Rolling Stone (aimed at evangelican music fans) may just be a perfect shidduch (match).

Judas Priest and Black Sabbath could not be reached for comment.

IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME...

...that since I'm up for Best Humor Blog in the IsraellyCool JIB Awards, maybe a Holocaust post wasn't the best way to go...

Humor and Holocaust, all in one blog?

I contain my own opposites. And I'm okay with that. (Hopefully voters will be as well.) Next post will be of significantly less national importance...

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

From kindergarten through high school, I went to yeshiva day schools in northern New Jersey. I can't remember the first time I heard the word Holocaust, but certainly, by sixth grade we were watching movies like Shoah and the TV movie Holocaust and writing papers about Anne Frank, the Warsaw Ghetto, Judenrats and Simon Wiesenthal.

Some of it was absorbed, surely. We knew that there was a "War Against the Jews," but mostly because our textbook was so titled. But did any of us truly understand or internalize what we were learning? Some of us had grandparents or teachers--or even parents--who had survived the war. Maybe close connections with those survivors had enhanced understanding of the Holocaust. But maybe not. Perhaps those war survivors had decided to move on into a better future, and left their testimony of the past behind.

Flash forward several decades to today, where, in addition to England's Prince Harry not being aware that his use of a swastika as part of a costume might offend people, now thirty percent of Canadians cannot identify that the main target of Nazi genocide efforts was the Jews.

The Environics survey commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies found that when shown a list of groups nearly 30 per cent instead chose Poles, French, British, Russians or couldn't identify any group at all. In addition, only 40 per cent of respondents correctly indicated that more than six million Jews died during the Second World War.

After some discussion of why this is true (including Apprentice-like breakdowns of college educated vs. non-), the article continues to note a positive effort in one Canadian school:

The students will come face to face with a survivor of the concentration camps in the coming weeks. That meeting is an important way to convey the global horrors of genocide and racism to students, said Marc-Michel Parent of a school board in Lachenaie, Que., that arranged a similar meeting for students.

"She touches the students on a personal level," he said of a meeting with a survivor whose experiences kept the students in rapt attention for two hours."They will remember her for her story but after that the teachers are telling the students that is racism and intolerance still exist."

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to write a book*, geared for teenagers, about hidden children—now in their seventies, then in their teens, these people were hidden by their parents in barns, attics and cellars or lodged with Catholic families. Hiding who they were and where they were was the only chance at survival.

The book required personal interviews, so I sought out survivors and sat across from them in their living rooms, surrounded by photos of their children and grandchildren and the trappings of a post-war life of some affluence. We went through my list of questions and they talked into a tape recorder. Although I had read about the Holocaust for many years, I had never asked survivors to tell me their stories before. Although the survivors were strong enough to tell their stories without disintegration and although I could sit there and conduct the interview, there would be after-effects.

When I hear the name Gurs, a French camp, I think not just of the woman who told me about her experiences there, but about her home now, her life now, the dinner she insisted I eat with her and her husband before the interview began. When I am hungry, I remember the woman who yelled at her son when he said he was hungry. She told him he didn’t know what hunger was. When I use the word "survivor," I remember the man who told me that he felt he had no right to call himself a survivor, since he was never in a concentration camp.

History is still history, a collection of place names and dates. But now they are real people, in my mind; real-life players on the stage of history in a way that the books, papers and movies never were. The first-person testimony. That's the thing.

But as the "war generation" ages, it becomes increasingly more elusive for the students of tomorrow. We need to get the survivors’ stories into the classrooms—teachers and principals need to take the initiative to reach out to the speakers bureaus of The Hidden Child Foundation at the ADL, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Holocaust Museum in DC, the Shoah Foundation, et al. Students need to see individual faces, relatable people, whose humanity will help them to personalize the context of history.








*Do not feel obligated to buy this book to support me. I get no royalties. But if you know of a teenager who is not connecting to the Holocaust as a historical event, this book is part of a series designed especially with teens in mind, and is worth checking out.

Monday, January 24, 2005

BLOG FROM THE HEART

You may already know about Getupgrrl, the proprietress of Chez Miscarriage. She's a phenomenal person, undergoing a torturous process in trying to conceive children. She's a humorist and a sensitive soul, and the way she relates her struggle is both funny and heartbreaking.

You may not know about the California Hammonds, in which Greg, pater familias chronicles his life after losing his wife to cancer.

But they're both profiled in this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Blogs do good, people. They're not just a waste of time. But I'm preachin' to the choir, right?

Why do you blog?

MATHMUSICMAVEN

If math and music had merged, like this, for me, I might not have had "I was told there'd be no math" tattooed on my forehead.

Mr. Kunz has presented Karaoke Friday as a rapper in a stocking cap with a “bling-bling” protractor and also in a red cape and funny glasses titled as “Math Man.”

Missouri's got all the cool math teachers. In contrast, I had a high school teacher whose last name was "Pane." The homophonic irony was not lost on me--I even wrote a song at some point:
"Slow down, you teach too fast.
Gotta make the torment last.
Slipping down, my GPA,
Failing Pane and learning cosine..."

Plus, I had to wait till I was in my late twenties to discover karaoke, while in Minnesota, teachers are slamming down the old school rap hits.

Which of the rabbis from my high school might I have wanted to see dressed in hip-hop gear? Um, make that a big, fat "none of them."

VOTING IS NOW OPEN

It may be an honor just to be nominated, but the writer's ego is a fragile thing; do your part to patch mine, by voting for My Urban Kvetch and JDaters Anonymous in the Jewish and Israel Blog Awards.

The first round of polls is open until Sunday "late morning, Israel time."

The details:

You can vote once every 24 hours, so bookmark the site and visit it to make a daily choice.

Most of the categories have been split into two parts because there were so many nominees; the top 6 in each part will head to the finals. This means that if I do well enough in the qualifying rounds, there will be another announcement here next week, urging you to go back and vote for me again in the finals...

As a reminder, I'm nominated in several categories, so make sure to view the whole list before you vote.

Of course, once you get to the IsraellyCool homepage, you may see other names that ring bells--a substantial number of the other nominees are also on my blogroll and in my rolodex. We're all winners, here, really. Vote your conscience; you'll do the right thing.

Plus, if you vote for me, I'll make sure there's a frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

AMBER FREY'S BOOK AND HJNTIY

A few weeks ago, I caught Amber Frey on Oprah; in promotion of her new book, Witness for the Prosecution, she shared the details of her involvement with the currently death-row-dwelling Scott Peterson. For various reasons, it was a truly appalling display.

Oprah made some interview choices that were alternately cruel and journalistically responsible. She asked Amber if she was in her right mind when she slept with Scott on the first date. She questioned Amber's intuition when she allowed Scott to pick up her daughter from school after she'd known him only a few days. Given what we know about Scott Peterson now, this understandably brought Amber to tears and forced rational audience members to ask ourselves if, faced with "the perfect guy," we would think twice or leap in head-first. Oprah's choice as an interviewer was to be less of a sympathetic ear, and instead user Amber more as an example of what not to do.

Now this article points out how Amber's new book is, in some way, the "evil twin" of He's Just Not That Into You. Although I hadn't thought about this before, it's a valid point. "It's a case study of the misguided thinking of a sector of the female population that quickly abandons common sense in the quest for fantasy romance," the article says. The article suggests a few safety precautions the single mother might have employed to make sure that she and her daughter were getting involved with someone trustworthy:

She might have Googled her new boyfriend whose home she'd never visited nor been invited to. Or she might have listened to her pal, Richard the Fresno cop, who said, ``You know why he calls you `sweetie?' It's because he doesn't want to get your name wrong. He doesn't want to confuse you with all of his other sweeties.''

Not a bad idea, either of them.

But what's the lesson for singles? What's the line between optimism/trust and self-delusion/naivete? How do we dare to open our hearts and trust someone new, when danger lurks behind every devilishly handsome smile? How do we know people are who they say they are? Do we demand references and background checks for our dates? Is Googling them enough? By exercising caution, are we distrusting our potential partners?

In the portions of the Frey/Peterson romance read on Oprah, the warning signs are clearly and glaringly present. Listening to Amber's account of the whirlwind of falling in love with the man who was pronounced murderer by a jury of his peers was like watching a piano falling off a roof and plummet toward an unsuspecting pedestrian who can only look up, and doesn't realize what is happening. You know that even if you yell "look out!" your warning will be too late.

Swept away by the promise of a beautiful, transporting romance, Amber made some bad choices, and never imagined that those choices would be subject to be entered into the court records and criticized by the entire country. Our own romantic choices might not be subject to entry by a court stenographer, but they might not hold up under scrutiny by a jury of our peers, either.

There's a fine line between trusting a stranger with the entirety of your heart and making small revelations that help to build the foundations of a relationship. And I hope that all of us--myself included--are smart enough to draw that line for ourselves in our dating relationships: to recognize the suspicious and potentially dangerous while daring to trust the people who have proven themselves worthy.

JUST A QUESTION

Is a snow storm "news" per se? I don't get it. It's snowing out, so here's what you need to know:

Wear boots.

Dress warmly.

Grip small children (preferably your own) by their hands when they're outside walking.

Transportation may be slow.

Beyond that, aren't we Northeast-dwellers savvy enough to know what to do when it snows? Or do we actually learn from the people who are interviewed on the radio and TV about the storm?

"It's really hard to walk, there's so much snow."
"The wind is making my face cold."
"This isn't so bad--I'm from Minnesota. This is like duck soup."

My opinion? This storm is not news. The only reason it's all over the news is because no one wants to leave the TV studio to cover any actual news.

IT’S A BLOG BLOG BLOG WEEKEND

Friday day and night were free of blog-related activity. Then Saturday night, blogs hit my social life big-time. Without the people I've met through blogging, my Saturday night plans would have consisted of whatever Netflix movies I had and/or reruns of Law and Order: SVU. Not bad plans, even for a worst-case scenario. But I did have other plans.

First, dinner cooked deliciously by the lovely Writersblocgal (fellas, you don’t know what you’re missing…); there was wine and a cheese course before the main course, and of course, conversation that was social sustenance as well.

Then, WBG and I headed off to the remotest recesses of the Lower East Side to the hookah-adorned Ruby Lounge, which might have been eponymously-colored, but was, most descriptively, the darkest bar I’ve ever been in. Most of us were there to celebrate the birthday of the adorable C , but a contingent of visiting bloggers also converged upon the bar to create a blog bottleneck at the bar’s narrowest points. The party was also a convenient way for members of the inner and outer blogcircle to unite at a central location to celebrate the reunion of Candied Ginger, a hallmark of which was Candygirl or Ginger candiedginger.net accidentally stomping on my toes (doesn’t sound so bad unless you’ve seen what kinds of shoes these girls prefer). Both grabbed me for plenty of hugs and pumped my ego full of nice compliments, so an obliterated toe was a small price to pay.

Among the other prolific and prominent bloggers in attendance was the famous Fish , bodacious Bostoner PetiteDov, the rockin’ Jessica, Smurfalicious Lisa , the lovely Ari, the most famous copy editor/poker player in NYC, and Yaron, the blogger who keeps threatening to quit, but doesn’t. If WBG was overwhelmed, she didn’t show it.

Later, Crazy Old Dawn Summers showed up with her Elektra-viewing partner F-Train (maybe now they'll invite me to their karaoke meets, even though I don't play poker). Mike was apparently there, but we didn’t get reintroduced. I met Daniella, who was very well-behaved, despite the title of her blog.

God bless Ari for sharing her cab with me at the end of the night, for I was nowhere near home, and extremely tired by the time we left in the 2am range.

But for friends like these, I might have no blogs. Or but for blogs like these, I might have no friends. Not really sure. But it was a good night, and I did it all for the Bloggie.

Tonight was another, non-blog-related story, for another non-blog-related time.

Sleep well, gentle readers.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

LAST WEEKEND: THURSDAY NIGHT

It all started Thursday night, when a spontaneous Anna Broadway and I decided to meet on the Lower East Side for the Sweet comedy show, hosted by Seth Herzog every Thursday night at the SLIPPER ROOM on Orchard and Stanton at 8:30.

Seth’s name sounded familiar. I thought it was just because he is a member of the tribe. But as it turned out, I was actually in a show with him. (This is unusual because I am not often in shows.) Seth--a funny guy who doesn't seem to have a website--and I shared stage time at last year’s Purim show, coordinated by Daily Show writer Rob Kutner, at my Upper West Side synagogue. I guess it’s a small comedy world because present was comedian Jeff Kreisler, who was also in the Purim show with us, and who I now see everywhere. Also, every time I see him, he tells me about his non-Jewish girlfriend.* This time he didn’t; he told me about his non-Jewish fiancée. I assume it’s the same woman. So congrats to Kreisler, who’s now fleeing the area--I mean, appearing at Sundance--in the next few days or so (check his website for details).

Special cameo at the Slipper Room by Peter Dinklage, star of last year's critically acclaimed film The Station Agent, who was seen canoodling with a woman with short dark hair and wearing long dangly earrings.

Later that night, the comedy event dissolved into a Jewish Below 14th Street party, co-sponsored by JDub Records and featuring So-Called.




*I just don’t know why people feel the need to confess such things to me. A Jew eats a cheeseburger? Dates someone who's not Jewish? Sends email on Shabbat? They appear apologetically before me, confessing all. It’s like someone elected me President of the Jews. Which just to clarify, is not an office I am seeking.

LAST WEEKEND: BLOGTIVITIES

Manhattan. A dark and snowy Saturday night settles over the city. I have plans later, to shoot some billiards in celebration of a friend’s birthday. But I can't start my preparations until I've blogged about last weekend. Although everyone who was there already did their recaps, I feel like I gotta take my shot too. Because last weekend was all about the blog, yo.

Stay tuned for parts 1-3. Because everything is a saga.

Friday, January 21, 2005

FWIW: TV THIS WEEK

For what it's worth:

I don't think I've fully followed an episode of Alias since the first season. Michael Vartan is indeed very hot, but I would give him up for Greg Grunberg in a flash.

People on the Apprentice should not cry. Magna is a stupid name: it reminds me of Dr. Evil saying the word "magma" over and over again. Net worth is an even dumber name: it is actually two names of one syllable each, and evokes only money, no heart. Every season they have people who look the same. Bill=Kelly=Todd and five different guys on this season. I also loathe the product placement...it's not even remotely subtle anymore. I do like Danny the Guitar Guy, though. He's a bit of a loose cannon, but he's fun. If he'd only learn to listen to other people...but I suppose that's too much to ask for.

It really bothers me that I don't care more about Joey. But I think it's Drea DeMatteo's fault. I just don't enjoy her overacting. (Plus, she shares a face with Portia DiRossi, and that scares me.) Joey Tribbiani we are used to. But his sister is useless. And then there's that other blonde woman, who's also useless. And I think among the other five Friends, Joey was cute. But on his own, he's just a jerk--a sexual predator who thinks only about himself and the next conquest. Not very nice. And not funny at all.

I love Lost. All of the acting is stellar, drama and comedy together, flashbacks informing you that there's no one main character and that everyone has a story...but why are they all good-looking, except the fat guy who they clearly use as comic relief in the tenser moments? That kind of offends me. But as long as they keep hiring Buffy writers, I'm ok with it in moderation. But what is up with that gi-normous polar bear on the tropical island? Will we ever find out?

Scrubs makes me laugh. I love Janitor. And Dr. Cox. And of course, Dr. Dorian. I can never see the jokes coming, which makes me appreciate its random zaniness all the more. (OK, I almost never see the jokes coming--I am good.)

Arrested Development is my new dream. I dream to live it, be on it, write for it, accept awards on its behalf...it's just a great team of actors that anyone would be lucky to work with. I hope they all know how lucky they are. Especially Portia--if it were by face alone, she could be on Joey, floundering, instead of with Ellen, flourishing.

No worries. I still love the host of the Daily Show. But that goes without saying. (And that's mostly because according to the terms of the restraining order, I'm only allowed to mention him by name three times in any calendar year. So I'm saving them up.)

That's all for me right now. An ep of AD and then off to B-E-D.

A wonderful weekend to all...and maybe this weekend, I'll finally get the time to write up a considerate account of last weekend.

UWS 9/11 VICTIM LAID TO REST

I never officially knew Nancy Morgenstern, although chances are we’d met. We had many mutual friends and ran in similar circles on the Upper West Side--I was friendly with her roommate.

Because I couldn't place name to face to workplace for most of my close friends, let alone for people I didn't know, on 9/11, the name Cantor Fitzgerald didn’t ring any personal bells for me. But in Nancy's Upper West Side apartment, five blocks and two avenues from my own building, there were bells ringing everywhere--as her roommates fielded desperate phonecalls from Nancy’s family.

When I received word that my friend’s roommate was missing, I felt my stomach drop; I still couldn't match a face to the name, but I knew that Nancy was our representative on that terrible day: a woman with a career, an athlete with an active social network, a committed Jewish Upper West Sider on the scene.

And then, like so many others, she was just missing. In absence of an official confirmation of Nancy’s death, her family mourned, but only off-the-record. For more than three years, there was no burial, no shiva.

This week, after a recent “official” identification of her DNA, the family went ahead with the burial in Beit Shemesh, Israel.

This is the Ha’aretz article about the funeral.

And this is the NY Times piece about Nancy.

May Nancy's memory be for a blessing, and may her family finally know peace.

(Hat tip: IsraellyCool)

Thursday, January 20, 2005

KABBALEXILED

Newly exiled from his London post at the Kabbalah Centre after his remarks about Holocaust victims succumbing to Nazi persecution because they lacked the light of Kabbalah in their lives, Rabbi Eliyahu Yardeni has relocated to the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre. (Because there, insensitive remarks about the Holocaust are apparently better tolerated.)

Speculation is that Madonna, who was reportedly “furious” by the remarks, pulled some red strings to get the good rabbi reassigned, but no sources could confirm it. (Source: Yahoo! Launch)

But we know what this is really about: Harry’s swastika. Two Holocaust-related stories in one week spells bad PR for the monarchy. At least in L.A. if a Prince does something weird, his symbol's likely to be unpronounceable, or he'll just have the word "slave" written on his face.

(Next up across the pond? I heard that Posh and Becks are naming their next kid Adolf.)

NEW COLUMN: "THE ABCs OF SJFs"

Here's my new column, a review of Leah Furman's Single Jewish Female: A Modern Guide to Sex and Dating

The ABCs of SJFs
The New York Jewish Week
01/21/2005

NOSTALGIA: 1992?

Hey, remember 1992?

I was living in New Brunswick, New Jersey, just off the campus of Rutgers College, in a house with three guys and three other women. We were all friends, and our two apartments had open door policies--it was like the Real World, without the randomness. A Clinton/Gore sticker was suspended in one of the upper windows of our house. It was the beginning of senior year, we were minutes away from all the coolest bars, and we were the masters of all we surveyed. We hosted a great Halloween party (my first) that impressed friends visiting from Brandeis, carved a pumpkin that looked more confused than scary, and we dissected each other's love lives. Plus there was a Krauszer's convenience store just down the block.

What there weren't? Cell phones. DVRs. DVDs. "The Internet." Email. Nostalgia shows on VH1. Reality TV. MP3 players. And lots of other things that we didn't know we needed till they arrived.

Which is why I got a kick out of this piece in the New Yorker. You know I have my issues with the New Yorker, but I do enjoy Shouts and Murmurs. Wouldn't mind doing a piece for that column someday.



(Hat tip: Norma)

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

KABBALAH SECRETS REVEALED!!!

Kabbalah leaders live lives of the rich and famous, complete with millionaire lifestyle, gambling and plastic surgery!!! (I can almost hear the Robin Leach voiceover now...)

Cash raised for tsunami relief is being used to [GASP!] distribute Kabbalah products in the devastated region!!! ("Here, tie your huts together with this red string and find enlightenment...")

Evidence has been found of devotees sleeping in windowless "cells" in a basement at the Kabbalah Centre!!! (That's never a good sign...)

Kabbalah water isn't blessed at all...it's [GASP!!] Canadian!!
(I knew it!!)



(Complete article here.)

NYQUIL DREAMS

Usually, you like living alone. You like your own space, and knowing that if you put leftover Chinese food in the fridge overnight that it will be there for you to take to work as lunch in the morning.

But when you’re sick, it’s a whole other story. And yesterday was bad. Not tsunami bad. But having-a-fever-and-living-alone kind of bad.

You long for a roommate to check in on you. You call your mother to tell her you’re sick even though she can’t do anything about it except worry and tell you to eat chicken soup. You end up calling your brother to ask him to run errands for you—even though he’s glad to help, you feel like you’re imposing.

You lie in bed, waiting for sleep. You drift in and out of consciousness and are unsure which state you prefer. You try to keep hydrated, but the bottle of water that’s in your bed starts to leak, gurgling softly until you notice the sound more than the fact that there’s a river running through your bed. Your bed needs dry-out time, so you move to the couch for movie-time. Dodgeball makes you laugh a few times, but you’re still uncomfortable.

You make your deadline, even though the column isn’t your most coherent. You try to watch TV from a reclined on your side in your newly-dry bed position, and discover that sideways Will and Grace makes you dizzy. Your brother arrives, toting the chicken soup, Gatorade and regular Coke that you asked for, in addition to a lovely bunch of tulips that you didn’t ask for, but that brightens up your wintry apartment and proves you were a good older sister.

You try vertical again, and the resultant head rush almost knocks you off your unsteady feet. You heat up the soup and eat it while you watch “Shaun of the Dead.” During a bathroom break, you look at yourself in the mirror and see a slack-jawed face, vacant eyes and your staggering walk, and your realize you’re not wholly unzombie-like yourself. You watch “Medium,” and wonder how anyone as normal seeming as Patricia Arquette tolerated the wacky antics of Nicolas Cage, and then you remember that she’s also related to David Arquette, which explains a lot.

You take the Nyquil, knowing that it will put you out of your misery. Your eyes droop, and you can’t even stay up to see Jon Stewart. And then, while you sleep, you float through a cherry red haze, and dream dreams that make no sense at all, like running into your old camp friends in a Target as they’re shopping for clothes to wear to the D.C. wedding of your first crush who’s already married, a rabbi, and working at Yeshiva University. And in the dream-within-a-dream, there are certainly zombies who play dodgeball.

The next day, things are better. Muscle aches still assertively present, but also duller and more tolerable. You begin to get back to normal. You go to work, and start reading the news on the Internet. You discover that certain drug companies are trying to restrict the sale of Nyquil because it can be used in manufacturing methamphetamines. You read more about Prince Harry and the swastika. You get one email letting you know that (yet) another friend had a baby and another email confirming an upcoming gig in Chicago…you wait for the rest of the chicken soup to thaw for lunch, and swallow it with a Tylenol chaser. You begin to set goals—write about Saturday night’s blogger bash, get started on one of your humongous freelance jobs, finish up old business with clients, pay your bills—everything that you were too foggy-headed to do yesterday.

This day is going to be better.

I KNEW HE WAS MY SOULMATE...

...in the blogworld, anyway...

Your Famous Blogger Twin is Dave Barry
Funny, witty, and clever!You always have a ton of offbeat links to share


IT'S NOT JUST HARRY...

I've refrained from posting about Harry and the swastika until now, because I felt other people covered it enough. It was just a wrong, stupid choice by a teenager who unfortunately is very high profile because of his royal bloodline. But I'm posting a link to this JTA story because apparently, there's a substantial number of British youth who believe that their Prince's costume choice was perfectly appropriate:

The publication of pictures showing Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party caused outrage around the world. But it seems that most of his British peers can’t see what all the fuss is about.

In the days following the furor, a poll published by the Sunday Mirror newspaper showed that although 71 percent of those interviewed thought Harry was wrong to wear the costume, which featured a swastika armband, more than half of those between 18 and 24 said the choice of outfit was acceptable.

The results were particularly dispiriting because they followed a recent BBC survey in which 60 percent of those younger than 35 claimed never to have even heard of Auschwitz.

The article notes that it's hard to imagine what's causing this insensitivity since learning about the Holocaust has been required in British schools since 1991. Maybe Miriam will have some insight into this...

UPDATE: Miriam has an interesting post on this here.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH HIM

Let the madness begin.

The self-proclaimed "world's biggest Star Wars fan" is the first in line to buy a ticket for Episode III in Seattle. He started his vigil on January 1, and will stay out there until the film opens on May 19. He apparently did this for Episode I and II, as well.

And wouldn't you know it, he's also a blogger, although it's not clear to me where he's plugging in to recharge his laptop over the next five months.

You know what's also not clear? Why anyone would do this.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

THE GOLDEN GLOBES REPOLISHED

As promised, here are my random thoughts and observations on this year's Golden Globe Awards...
  • Odd. Tim Robbins seems to think that the Jude/Clive/Julia/Natalie pic is pronounced “clozer.”
  • Natalie wins! Banner year for Israel, what with the Olympic gold medal in windsurfing and now Princess Natalie's trophy. Why am I getting all misty?
  • I think Jennifer Garner’s lips are coming off. Either that, or she’s developing a stress zit in the corner of her mouth for not winning Best Actress in a TV Drama. Is it wrong that I’m happy? I just resent that those Alias posters are everywhere. Everywhere I go, Sydney Bristow is looking at me. It's unnerving.
  • “Congratulations, Natalie.” You can hear her mock-growl, just to get a laugh. And that’s why Meryl Streep rules.
  • Downer…Zach Braff snubbed for Scrubs. Upper…It’s finally Jason Bateman’s move! If you have not yet seen Arrested Development, get thee to the video store, post-haste!

And now, celebrity thought bubbles:
“I’m an Oscar-winner. But I want more awards. That’s why I changed my haircolor. I’m a brunette now, and that shows my range.”
Your choices:
a) Renee Zellweger
b) Charlize Theron
c) Candace

  • I can’t believe I have to wait till late summer for a new season of Nip/Tuck. That Nip/Sucks.
  • Teri Hatcher was not my Housewife of choice. I think that Felicity Huffman is, far and away, the best of the five.
  • My award for Least Orange Desperate Housewife goes to Kimberbree Marcia Cross. Runner-up: Felicity Huffman.
  • Mick Jagger wins the Golden Globes. And for a change, they’re not on his date. The name of the song: “Old Habits Die Hard.” And Mick oughta know. What is he, seventy by now?
  • Prince introduces “Ray.” Naomi Watts wasn’t miked, but her lips just clearly mouthed “I love Prince.”
  • I’m having a weird thought as I watch Clint Eastwood accept his award for “Million Dollar Baby.” His bone structure reminds me of someone. And then it comes to me. Christopher Reeve. If Christopher Reeve had lived to age gracefully, he might have resembled the tall, angular Eastwood.
  • Jamie on Ray: Life is notes right underneath our fingers. Take the time to play the right notes. And then, tears as he recalls the support of his late grandmother, and feels her there with him. Damn the pathos of it all—I guess I need to see this movie already.
  • I love Robin Williams. The man is crazy. But in an endearing way. I always thought he was brilliant in even the critically panned Hook and Popeye, and was glad that he was recognized for both dramatic and comedic acting. His dedication of his own lifetime achievement to Christopher Reeve made the tears well.
  • I’m sure that, when he accepted his award for Best Actor, Leo meant that we should keep contributing to tsunami disaster relief. Big props for sentiment. But minus two points for not finishing the sentence.
  • Kate Hudson lost every one of those seventy pounds she gained during pregnancy.
  • I love that Morgan Freeman has an earring. Cool. Easy Reader...that's his name.
  • Hilary Swank, Jennifer Garner, and Julia Roberts all share a face. But not an award. That’s all Hilary tonight. And this time she even remembered to thank her husband.
  • Sideways for Best Picture Musical or Comedy, The Aviator for Picture Drama. I’m anticipating a tough Oscar race. No one picture even came close to a sweep—tonight, Closer won two awards, two for the Aviator, two for Million Dollar Baby. It's gonna be a squeaker.

See you all in February for the Oscars, when I'll have replenished my store of sarcasm and celebrity resentment. Till then, peace y'all. Happy MLK Day. (Not to be confused with MUK Day, the official day celebrating this blog.)

And now, back to my deadline...

COINCIDENCE?

I’m not saying that Jeremy Piven would have won if he had taken me to the Golden Globes. But you'll note that I wasn’t his date, and he lost. I'm just sayin'.

GOLDEN GLOBES OF ENDLESS TORTURE

Why do I do this? Why do I watch the preshow for the Golden Globes? It's not for the fashion. I could care less about how Eva Longoria had to hire a trainer to get her in shape for her Desperate Housewives lingerie scenes. And it's certainly not for the self-congratulatory vamping of camera hogs like Kevin Spacey and Kathy Griffin or that Star Jones is "girlfriends" with Debra Messing and Jennifer Garner. (It might be in order to calculate the depth of the dimple in Orlando Bloom's cheek. But I'm not revealing anything here.)

I guess the real reason I watch is so that when it ends, I know the real show of Endless Torture will be starting. I had thought that I would liveblog it, but I've got a deadline for something that's actually resulting in a paycheck. Instead of the liveblog, look here at the end of the night for my collected thoughts on the Golden Globes, in no particular order. Snark may be in attendance.

Friday, January 14, 2005

YOU'RE INVITED

If you haven't been to JDaters Anonymous in a while, come on over! We've got great dating related posts, like:
...and more! At JDaters Anonymous, you can share your dating stories, inspire a column, and know you aren't alone...

Looking forward to seeing you there...

PEOPLE ARE INSANE

Oh, those wacky Romanians. First Dracula, then gymnasts, now naming their son Yahoo after meeting online.

At least it's his middle name. His first name is Lucian, and his last name is Dragoman, which I anticipate will become "Lucifer Dragon-Man" before recess on the first day of Transylvanian kindergarten.

I make a solemn vow to you, devoted readers:

I am not naming my kid JDate, no matter what.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

A VERB BEFORE DYING

Norma has a very interesting post on the euphemisms that are used by her local obit pages, among them:
  • fell asleep in the Lord
  • was promoted to Glory
  • was welcomed into Heaven
  • reunited with his beloved
  • went home to be with the Lord Jesus Christ
I invite my readers to submit their favorite standard or newly invented euphemisms, and then I'll post my favorites of those.

I'll start you off with a few oldies:
  • was gathered to his people
  • his spirit departed
  • bought the farm
  • went on permanent vacation
  • went to that great golf course in the sky
And a few new ones:
  • went to the land of free TiVos and flatscreens
  • has joined Chris Farley and John Belushi for dinner and a speedball
  • is dancing with Jessica Tandy
  • is writing in the land where there are no deadlines
  • is surfing to the end of the World Wide Web
  • was handpicked for God's new reality series
  • is dining at the restaurant where every dish has zero Points
Now it's your turn...


AN OPEN LETTER TO JEREMY PIVEN

Dear Jeremy,

Hi! It's been ages since we talked. How are you? How's the run of Fat Pig treatin' ya? You're getting great reviews, so congrats! By the way, I'm totally on board with your plan to dare your costar Keri Russell a box of Krispy Kremes. You just say the word and I'll pick them up and bring them to the theater. (I bet you Andrew McCarthy busts a gut over force-feeding Felicity, LOL!) I've been meaning to get tickets, but need to find someone to accompany me (unless you're willing to comp me and hang out after and I know how busy you are...)

Hey, I just saw on ET that you're taking your mother to the Golden Globes this weekend. That's great--I'm sure she's really excited. While this is an impressive display of admiration for your mother (I hope she is well, by the way--send her my best!), aren't you concerned that "mom-as-your-date" in Hollywood may translate for the tabloids as coming-out announcement? (Not that there's anything wrong with that--you totally know I'd support you if you were gay, but come on: we both know you're just picky.)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go with Mom. I'm sure she's a great date (just like she was at your prom--OH, SNAP!! I'm kidding, Jer!) but I can't help but think that this might be a wonderful opportunity for you to find a nice Jewish girl who would also support you at this event. You know, someone who knows her way around a room of celebrities, and who is witty enough to create repartee with members of the glitterati as well as with their publicists. Maybe a New York writer, who can fully appreciate your sense of humor. A Jewish woman of substance and natural energy, to turn Hollywood on its ear. Perhaps a woman with six bridesmaid dresses in her studio apartment.

If the two of you were really ambitious, you could co-write a Jewish-based sitcom that portrayed Jews as positive forces of a committed lifestyle instead of as whiny stereotypes. You and she could be comedy revolutionaries...just an idea.

Anyway, gotta run. Need an idea for my singles column this week. What do you think of the topic, "A Celebrity and a Civilian May Love Each Other, But Where Will They Build Their Home?" Or maybe "Jewish, Single and Celebrity-Obsessed"? Your input always welcome, dear.

If you win a Golden Globe, totally call me from the podium, K?

Love,
Esther

"MEET THE BUFFYVERSE ALUMNI"

I saw Meet the Fockers this weekend with my friend Marcy. We laughed a lot, not wholly because of the material; I thought it was pretty funny in general (you know I almost always love me some Stiller), and Marcy doesn't get to a lot of movies. I know mainstream media outlets object to the "stunt casting" of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as Stiller's movie parents, but the two are a perfect liberal complement to the stodgy Byrnes patriarch Robert de Niro and matriarch Blythe Danner. Yes, I might have trimmed the script so it was a little more highbrow humor-wise, but that's not what America wants.

But I digress.

What I started to say is that in the first ten minutes of the movie, two Buffy alumni make appearances.

First up--Kali Rocha, formerly vengeance demon Halfrek, plays a supersmiley flight attendant. She apparently also appeared in Meet the Parents, also as a flight attendant. While this shows an admirable consistency, next time, if he wants to see some sparks, Stiller should cast her as a demon. Now, I'm rethinking--flight attendant, demon...it's all semantics.

Then, Jack Plotnick, the doomed deputy to the Ascending Mayor of Sunnydale, appears as rent-a-car agent. You usually see him as a geeky, scrawny guy, but look at his photo in the IMDB! Further delving into the IMDB notes that he's also the voice of Xandir, the effeminate cartoon character who's "on a neverending quest to save his girlfriend" on Comedy Central's Drawn Together, the animated reality show.

I thought about pointing this out to Marcy, but I knew she wouldn't care. She's got a toddler, was working and in school full time. She "didn't have time" for Buffy. (I know, and yet, I continue to be her friend.) But I knew that here, someone else would think this was cool...

I know that all you hardcore Buffyverse fans are dying to know how I found these characters names and information...here's a new database of all the characters, episodes, cast and crew, etc. More Buff than you'd ever hope your brain to know.

(DB via Whedonesque.)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

EXIT BRIGITTE; ENTER CHYNNA--SURREAL INDEED

So here's what you missed if you didn't see the first episode of the new season of The Surreal Life on VH1.
  • Sushi served on a naked Adrienne Curry (America's Next Top Model), who actually eats something.
  • (Female wrestler) Chynna usurps Mini-Me's room, even though everything in that room is clearly made smaller to make his life livable, and does strange things with a thighmaster.
  • The aforementioned Mini-Me (Verne Troyer), a self-proclaimed pig, gets wasted off his tiny ass, pees in the corner of the house after riding his electric wheelchair naked and makes grunting noises after Peter Brady tucks him into bed.
  • Jane Wiedlin jumps naked into the pool and keeps introducing herself as "Jane, from the Go-Go's" without even mentioning her star turn as Joan of Ark in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
  • Da Brat and Marcus Schenkenberg (respectively) loiter and sit around, neither rapping, nor posing, nor doing much of anything.
And speaking of Peter Brady, Chris Knight has become a very hot hall monitor (I think he has better abs than Schenkenberg!--must be middle child syndrome)--I guess that's what happens when you play ball in the house.

WHEN MISPLACED MODIFIERS ATTACK

After an extensive segment on Brad Pitt's arrival at an airport in Tokyo, Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart had this to say about their glimpse of Jennifer Aniston, post-Brad:

"Wearing a white peasant blouse, the guard holds the door open for her."

Think about it, kids. When the image hits you, you'll laugh.

(Some writer should catch hell for this...)

CLOUD/SILVER LINING

Cloud: I open my mail and slice a huge gash in my finger. (Is that a blood vessel I spy? Nope...I should live. Unless gangrene sets in.) This has also slowed down my typing a bit.

Silver lining: The envelope had a paycheck in it.

The simple agonies and ecstasies of freelance life. May we all be so lucky that paper cuts are our biggest tragedies.

BRITNEY AND NICOLE ARE WRITERS NOW

I better watch out...the celebs know I'm getting closer, and are fighting back by trying to appropriate my career, as well.

According to MSNBC, Britney Spears has written a musical, and she wants to direct it too.
(Article contains the best-ever Britney description: "Mousketeer turned belly-baring warbler.")

The article continues to note that Nicole Kidman writes short stories.

In the same article, these other useless tidbits:

  • Charlize Theron has ADD.
  • Angelina and Colin are "just friends."
  • And Anna Nicole Smith, once again, proves that she should never speak.

MSNBC--my source for inane celebrity news.


REMEMBER CHANDRA LEVY?

You're probably thinking, "Oh yeah...I remember that case now," but if you're like most Americans, any concern over the missing (and later discovered to be deceased) Washington intern vanished into the ether after a little incident on September 11th.

Chandra Levy disappeared in May of 2001, and her remains were found in May 2002 in Rock Creek Park in Northwest Washington, about four miles from her Dupont Circle apartment.

But today's Washington Post brings the story back:

Former representative Gary A. Condit denied in a court deposition having had a "romantic relationship" with slain intern Chandra Levy, a statement that was challenged yesterday by Levy's family. Condit's denial came during a pretrial deposition he gave in September as part of an $11 million defamation lawsuit he filed against author Dominick Dunne, who has suggested that Condit was involved in Levy's death.

In summer of 2001, I remember talking with friends about Chandra Levy on the beaches of Fire Island. It soon after her disappearance, and one of the NY dailies had printed artists' renderings of what Levy might have looked like with different hairstyles, if for some reason she was alive and in disguise. Whenever a Jewish-looking woman walked down the beach, or bicycled along the roads of Ocean Beach, we jokingly speculated that it was just Chandra, on vacation. At one point, my friends, all Jewish women of varying hairstyles who could have been Chandra in wigs, turned to each other--maybe one of us was Chandra Levy, and we didn't even know it!

We continued to riff, on the hairstyle pictures mostly, because none of us thought she would be found dead in the park. The other "intern story," the then only-recently concluded Monica Lewinsky affair, had concluded in embarrassment, SNL skits and impeachment, but not death.

And then, like America, we forgot all about her, and focused on national pain, and missing persons flyers that peppered our neighborhoods like obscene confetti. Months later, we were shocked when Levy was found dead, but a lot of the shock came from the fact that we had totally forgotten about the case.

On TV, Law & Order figures it out in under an hour. In real life, it takes longer. No one knows what happened. Gary Condit either did or didn't have an affair with her. Even if the two were involved romantically, such an affair doesn't necessarily mean Condit murdered her. No one's any closer to finding out.

As a single woman living in the big City--albeit closer to Columbus Circle and Central Park than to Dupont Circle and Rock Creek Park--I'm disturbed by the lack of resolution. Maybe Chandra made poor choices in love or location, or maybe she was a victim of random violence. Her family went through the wringer--Chandra was reported missing in the aftermath of the joke that was the Lewinsky scandal, was missing without a trace for over a year, a year that included the emotional devastation of 9/11. And now it's possible that her family will never have the closure of knowing what happened or why. And that's a tragedy, all over again.

My heart goes out to them, and prays for justice so that they can move on toward long-awaited closure.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

AMERICA IS THE BIGGEST LOSER

(Here comes another rant. This one's the result of a weight loss study covered in the New York Times and the finale of "The Biggest Loser." Oy. Here it comes.)

According to the New York Times, a new study “finds little evidence that commercial weight-loss programs are effective in helping people drop excess pounds. Almost no rigorous studies of the programs have been carried out, the researchers report. And federal officials say that companies are often unwilling to conduct such studies, arguing that they are in the business of treatment, not research."

They cite Weight Watchers as an example as the most livable of the weight loss plans, since it involves changing your eating habits and weekly support meetings. It was apparently the only "diet company" (which is not how they refer to themselves) that actually does any research.

…with the exception of Weight Watchers, no commercial program had published reliable data from randomized trials showing that people who participated weighed less a few months later than people who did not participate. And even in the Weight Watchers study, the researchers said, the results were modest, with a 5 percent weight loss after three to six months of dieting, much of it regained. [Emphasis mine]

The Weight Watchers study, published in 2003 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, involved 423 people who weighed an average of 205 pounds. Half the participants were randomly assigned to attend Weight Watchers meetings and follow the program. The other half tried to lose weight on their own. After two years, the participants in Weight Watchers had lost an average of 6.4 pounds. The other group had lost no weight. Neither group showed a change in blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose or insulin.

[Side note: one of their sources is a Dr. Stifler, who I believe spends a portion of each day cursing the careers of the Weitz brothers, who created a memorable American Pie character who shares his last name and who emphatically is not a doctor. I’m sure that Dr. Stifler is also not enjoying the implication that his mother is a MILF.*]

What have we learned so far (if any of you are still with me)? That there’s no program that works for everyone, and the only one with any kind of success rate combines sensible eating with exercise.

Moving on to the not wholly unrelated topic of “The Biggest Loser” (which ended its high-ratings run Monday night on NBC).

The title itself reminds me of the episode of Friends where Monica gets mad at her mom for saying that she “pulled a Monica” (meaning that despite her best efforts, everything went wrong). Phoebe suggests that they change the meaning of the phrase, converting “pulling a Monica” into something good. Later, Mrs. Geller (which was actually the name of my high school librarian, but I digress) gives Monica a compliment on her chef-work. Phoebe says, “You might even say she ‘pulled a Monica.’” There’s a beat as Monica glares at Phebes, and then Phebes responds, “oh, she doesn’t know we changed it.”

Growing up, if someone called you “The Biggest Loser,” there was no doubt it was a barb, hurled solely to maim you. And even if no one called attention to it, an overweight child felt like he or she had been publicly crowned “the Biggest Loser.” It was a double insult: socially, you were a loser, and if you were involved in some sort of weight-loss program, the term also functioned as a mockery of your inability to lose the life-ruining pounds and attain the weight standard as set by doctors and the popular Benetton-rugby wearing class elite. Loser…bad.

But this NBC show essentially attempts to play on this double meaning, and to reclaim the term within a weight loss context, reframe it and make it positive. Essentially, they encourage contestants to pull a Monica and officially become The Biggest Loser--after years of feeling like the biggest loser--but Phoebe forgot to tell everyone that being a Big Loser on this show is the whole point, and that it means something different now.

I’ve watched two episodes (both while I was at the gym on the elliptical). And I can tell you now why it’s a) an abhorrent concept, and b) riveting television.

It wouldn’t be reality TV without three essential elements: competition, a useless host, and public humiliation. The Biggest Loser has all three, in spades.

The participants have been broken into teams (red and blue), and are asked to perform various challenges. I only managed to watch two of these challenges: one involved the teams being forced to make pastries and then sell them at a theme park. Of course, the secret purpose of this assignment was to test their ability to restrain themselves from tasting the batter, licking the spoons, etc. They were told after they’d completed the task that they’d be penalized for any BLTs (as Weight Watchers calls “bites, licks and tastes”) that they might have taken during the process. (How many of us could pass such a test?) But this is nothing compared to the challenge in which contestants are forced to climb the stairs of a ninety-floor building and the first complete team to reach the top wins. (Maybe it’s just the irrevocable warping of my brain, but I don’t hear, climb stairs in a 90-story building without thinking about 9/11.) People collapsed in tears, one woman was rushed to the hospital, I believe. Even most gym regulars aren’t in the kind of shape that allows them to sprint 90 stories.

Now let’s up the humiliation ante…with a public weigh-in that doubles as another chance to torture the contestants, but this opportunity provides for emotional torment. As each contestant stands on the scale, clad in shorts (and for women, a sports bra), the screen they stare at, was well as the screen over their head, projects their weight escalating and then going down in an effort to create dramatic tension for the audience and contestants alike. The number is giant, on the screen over their heads, like a scarlet number they’ll have to wear in the town square for all to see. The number fluctuates…260…262…245….252…258…230 before finally arriving at…250. This scale is literally PURE EVIL. And once the show is over, it SHOULD BE DESTROYED (via a potion by the Charmed Ones if necessary. Do not make me involve Alyssa Milano). This episode with the scale made me so mad that I stayed at the gym an extra half hour to see every contestant get weighed. (I ellipticaled so hard that my quads ached in the morning.)

But wait, there's more humiliation ahead.

If the team has lost enough weight as a whole, they’re technically safe. The losing team (which, if you’re following, did not lose enough, and therefore they lose that round and feel like big losers for not losing…) is forced to “vote someone off the island.” Those who are unpopular, who have any kind of weight gain or plateau are up for review by their teammates. There’s a vote: team members unveil their choices by lifting up the lid of a fancy silver serving tray that you might expect would reveal duck a l'orange, but instead contains a folded index card with a player's name on it. If a player is voted off after losing twelve pounds the week before but only one pound that week, she must face useless host Caroline Rhea (who is apparently the biggest loser of her own sense of humor, which is completely absent on this show), who says “You are not the biggest loser. Go home and good luck.” Then, the camera pans to a corner of the room with ginormous refrigerators, each labeled with the name of a contestant. When the contestant is eliminated, the fridge goes dark. (To recap: here, on this show, you want to be “the biggest loser.” A total of 13 pounds in two weeks, unrealistic bordering on miraculous in real life, is scorned on the show. And your presence is represented by a refrigerator. Like I said, this is not a nice show.)

But even as the show sucks, it also sucks people in. Because in America, we all think we’re fat. And, according to BMI guidelines and Supersize Me, many of us are right. But with self-esteem and health of national concern, no matter what our weight or the depth of our revulsion of the concept and execution of “The Biggest Loser,” we’re hooked. But why? I hope it’s not because we enjoy the torture of others, I assume that we watch because we are appalled. These people are bigger versions of us—larger than life because they are on TV, publicly struggling with their size. We compare our bodies to theirs; even though we often suffer from a mild body dysmorphic disorder and don’t really know what we ourselves look like next to anyone else, the comparison engenders either comfort, that their weight problem is more serious than our own (“at least I’m in better shape than she is”), or a mixture of contempt and jealousy (“if I spent two months with a trainer and dietitian, not working or in my regular environment, I could lose a hundred pounds, too!”).

Maybe it is this “awesomely bad” quality that draws us in. They are us, so we can relate. Yet they are not us, so we can bear to watch.

Many of these people were extremely overweight when the show began. And now, they are thinner. They've probably learned a lot about healthy eating and exercise. And while it’s encouraging to see people have success in their weight loss battles, the cynic in me credits not their hard work, but the advantages that they’ve had: personal training, the luxury of working out all day, every day in preparation for weekly weigh-ins, nutritional counseling, the competition looming over them like Big Mother, watching everything they put in their mouths.

I admit it, I’m a little jealous. But I wonder what will happen once they really get back to their normal lives. Donuts in the morning at the office, birthday parties for family members, trying to incorporate exercise into a packed schedule…these are the ongoing challenges of weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. What’s unclear is if they’ll still see themselves as losers once they’ve been reimmersed in normalcy. And we won’t know how they feel about the title of loser--whether it will be their scarlet letter or red badge of courage.

Tonight, The Biggest Loser was declared. And I missed it. I just decided not to tape it. I know my ratings points don’t matter to NBC. But even though this show won’t feel my bite (I’m even blogging about it too late for it to have an impact), I don’t want to expose myself to the reality that there is such a thing as The Biggest Loser, Who Is Also The Winner. It’s too confusing.

Although, for some reason, when they begin advertising the next season, I know I’ll find myself wondering what the application process is like.





*Yes, I am fully aware the mention of Mr. Stifler and his mother is going to increase traffic to my blog, if only via keyword searches. I do understand the nature of the internet. As it is, the search term that most frequently leads people to My Urban Kvetch is “Portia diRossi Ellen Degeneres lesbians.”

Monday, January 10, 2005

INFOMERCIAL

Is your apartment a mess? Did you ever go out with someone and have a great time, never to hear from that person again? Got cancer? Credit problems? Brittle fingernails? Flat, lifeless hair? Genocide? Left with the feeling it's all your fault, and that you've been abandoned by God?


Well, you were right. It was all your fault. And God had abandoned you. But now there's something you can do about it...And now, coming to you from Amazing Inventions and London's Kabbalah Centre via the BBC, the catch-all excuse you've all been waiting for...

Talking about the wartime massacre of the Jews, Mr Yardeni said: "Just to tell you another thing about the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust: the question was that the Light was blocked. They didn't use Kabbalah."

If you only had had Kabbalah in your life, your Light would be unblocked and all those pesky problems, from matters of the heart to the Holocaust, would vanish in a blinding brilliance rivaled only by Madonna's diamond "E" necklace.

I know what you're saying...Kabbalah? It's too easy. But that's what makes it great!

And everything you need to get started is in this Kabbalah starter kit. It contains two pieces of red string, a 3-oz. bottle of extra-blessed Light-N-Tasti Kabbalah water, a guide to using your strings (including seven Kabbalah-water-based recipes) and a copy of Madonna's American Life CD. Plus, if you act now, we'll throw in not one, not two, but three extra red strings, ABSOLUTELY FREE! (Zohar not included.)

Why wait, when Kabbalah can be yours, for immediate use and the guaranteed* solution of all your problems? Call today.

*Not a guarantee.

Inspiration via Jewlicious.

CELEBRITY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS UNCOVERED

My celebrity connections recently uncovered the New Year's Resolutions of some of today's pop culture icons. As you can see, even celebrities can't keep all of their resolutions, and they have their own hair, makeup and exercise people.

I hesitated to publish them, but when they started becoming reality, they entered the public domain, and I could not, in good conscience, withhold them from you, gentle and inquisitive readers. Here they are, as I found them, on each celeb's novelty stationery:

Yo, homes: A Note from J. Timberlake

1. Erase mine and Janet's 2004 Superbowl performance from my TiVo.
2. Ask Cameron to marry me, even though she's Mom's age.
3. Apologize to Joey for pronouncing his last name "Fat-One" for the past ten years.
4. Immerse myself in hip-hop slang (maybe ask Snoop to create new lizzanguage?)

Life is a Bowl of Cherries, and I'm the Pitt

1. Start rumor about me and Angelina.
2. Deny rumor about me and Angelina
3. Find other uterus to carry my Aryan-looking superchildren.
(Note: are bloggers hot? Ask assistant to check.)
4. Write the Star a nasty letter about
their spelling error in our breakup announcement.

Jottings from Jude

1. Find smitten young lass (preferably an actress) to marry me and help me raise my children from my previous marriage.
2. Be in as many movies (and kiss as many leading ladies) as I possibly can.
3. Be strangely sexy in a way that enraptures the hordes and confuses the intellectually elite.
4. No more porn before shooting scenes on location.

Renee Zellweger's Diary

1. Learn how to open my eyes.
2. Ruin--I mean, celebrate--Janis Joplin's legacy by portraying her in movie.
3. Save my relationship with Jack White, who I keep mistakenly referring to as "Jack Black."

4. Eat.

Lindsay's Likes-n-Lists

1. Like, totally rule in 05! But that's like hardly even like, a resolution. It's more like a totally undeniable fact!
2. Get other people to
respect my privacy. I'm tired of rumors starting. I'm sick of being followed!
3. Get more publicity than PH, even if I have to make a naughty video (should I call Wilmer?). P will so freakin' flip, and the world will see what a jealous hotel heiress looks like! I totally hope she doesn't kick my ass though. (Better make an exercise resolution.)
3. OMG! I totally already had a 3!! LOL!!

4. Rent Carmen Electra's striptease video and do it with mom every day.
5. Get better abs and better career than Hilary Duff.

6. Grow red dreads and cover "Superfreak" for next album.

Stiller's Stories

1. Make ten more movies with Owen Wilson.
2. Practice getting hit in the groin so it doesn't hurt so much next time I do it in a movie.
3. Workshop "Keeping the Faith 2"--see if Norton will return my calls.
4. Summon up the courage to ask Christine to convert to Judaism.
5. Ask agent why I've never been on Law & Order.
6. Join synagogue on Upper West Side.
7. Are Jewish bloggers hot? Investigate.

A Message from "Maverick"

1. Practice my smiling--one hour a day, at least.
2. Get over my stagefright and host Saturday Night Live.
3. Cut down on purchase of sunglasses.
4. Do a movie with Ben Stiller where he plays me and I play him.
5. Break up Nicole's relationship with that film producer guy.
6. Prep for exercise--buy more button-down shirts, tightie whities and socks, and try to expand musical repetoire beyond "Old Time Rock and Roll."
7.
If I get depressed, take myself to bank and show myself the money.


BIG, FAT DOUBLE STANDARD

In his article in Slate titled "Beauty and the Beast," writer Matt Feeney points out the trend in contemporary sitcom: fat or not conventionally attractive husband paired with hot, skinny wife. I read the article with great interest, thinking it would eventually point to the dearth of realistic women on television as a problem for the expectations it breeds in men, for their partners, and in women, who will put further pressure on themselves to conform to sitcom size standards. But that's not how the article went.

Feeney notes that the previous trend in sitcom home life, was a husband who was "comparatively plain"--but times have changed:

In the current sitcom lineup, by contrast, several shows pair extremely attractive women, who are often clad in plunging tops and tight jeans suitable for a Maxim photo spread, with TV husbands who are not only not studly but downright fat, and a couple who are not only not mensches, but are ugly on the inside, too.

He cites King of Queens, According to Jim, Grounded for Life and Still Standing, and then points out that "in addition to their girth, a signal characteristic of these men is immaturity."

In one of his final paragraphs, Feeney concludes:

It's tempting to register a feminist complaint about the message these shows convey—that they perpetuate the view that women shouldn't expect autonomy or fulfillment in romance and marriage. They do, after all, play to a certain male fantasy: living the gluttonous, irresponsible, self-absorbed life of an infant and basking in the unconditional love of a good-looking woman.

I'll take the feminist complaint issue a bit further, focusing on the message that these pairings send to both men and women viewers:
a) These pairings create an unrealistic expectation among American men of all shapes, sizes and emotional stripes, that they "deserve" a hot wife, no matter how they look or behave.
b) The absence of realistic-looking actresses on TV says that there is only one standard for attractiveness in leading women--the Maxim standard, which should be kept throughout one's life, children, career and responsibility being secondary to looking good.
c) It conveys the message that women over a size 6 (and I think I'm being generous using that size as an example) don't deserve the comedy and pathos of a functional relationship, or at least, their relationships are not fun or interesting enough to be the subject of a sitcom.

This is Hollywood's problem. Sitcoms are not Hollywood in the breaking box-office records with epic stories and gorgeous bone structure splayed across a 100-foot high screen sense. I would be very surprised to see Brad Pitt or Jude Law, or Nicole Kidman in a sitcom. They are the golden, glamorous icons of the big screen. But sitcoms are supposed to be more universal, urban, and reflective of some relatable reality. In other words that may be familiar to comedy performers the world over, "funny because they're true." Not true in the sense of a documentary, but truly human.

Mix it up, Hollywood. The reason people have switched sitcoms off and tuned into reality shows is because we're all self-centered, looking for ourselves on television.

Mandate to Hollywood: reward talent, not dress size. Casting a soap opera? How about an actress who weighs more than 95 pounds? If there's a Bridget Jones 3 in the works, at least give Marissa Janet Winakur an audition. Give Camryn Manheim a sitcom, and make her the lead, instead of the funny best friend next door. Next time George Clooney--or Jim Belushi--needs a leading lady, let Catherine Zeta-Jones and Courtney Thorne-Smith (dang hyphenates) sleep in and send Sara Rue instead.

People--men and women--of all different shapes and sizes find love, happiness, family, and fun. It's not because of what they look like outside--it's because they forge a connection. Through attraction, yes, but also presumably through personality, and a chemistry that's not just about her abs and his childlike immaturity. If the TV sitcom alters its attitude, maybe America will also embrace the change. Or maybe I'm delusional. But it doesn't hurt to hope.