An Attitude of Ingratitude: What to do with Justin Bieber

Well, it looks like Justin Bieber has, once again, proven that if you have a goal and work hard enough, you just might get your wish - congratulations on your arrest in Miami! You've come close, oh so close, before, Biebs, and we all collectively grieved your failure to get popped by the cops after your allegedly wild parties and flooring it in residential areas. But, now, you've made it and your smiling mug shot is a sort of class picture, for you have graduated to the ranks of the arrested. If only they had played "Pomp and Circumstance" for you as you pimp-rolled into the courtroom sporting your prison orange! 

But that's not all! It seems in the hours leading up to your arrest you were one busy boy - hanging out (shirtless) in nightclubs and getting your (underage) "drink on"! And, oh look, you even resisted arrest??!! That's like hitting the trifecta! 

Am I picking on you, Biebs? Am I just another one of those "haters" you've referenced who always seem to be "hating"? Or am I someone who cannot stomach the obvious ingratitude you have for the good fortune you have? 

And while I guess I could give you a pass, you know, because you're 19 and had a tough childhood and that your fame and money-making ability has resulted in a largely unsupervised adolescence which is sputtering into a chaotic young adulthood, I do wonder about the man you will become. Unfortunately, ingratitude isn't something you age out of, like a hankering for Pop Rocks or a love of Teletubbies. Sometimes, life kicks the ingratitude out of you, like a vicious thug, and  takes away those things that you were fortunate enough to have but treated with contempt. And I'm not just talking about money - no! Talent, adulation, respect - these can all wither away. 

So here's my advice - put your shirt on and get grateful! Instead of glamorizing your privileged white boy version of thug life, work to keep at-risk children out of the juvenile justice system. You see, you're slumming it and I'm calling your bluff - cease and desist! Stop glamorizing ghetto fabulous, stop twerking your heads off, stop buying lap dances at grungy strip clubs from women living at the fringes, and stop drinking all of the non-medicinal cough syrup you want because you get to retreat to your mansion and your millions. Stop treating your odyssey to the wrong side of the tracks as if it were a trip to Disneyland. And now that you're finally in jail, pull your pants up! I know this has nothing to do with gratitude on a large scale, but I'd certainly be grateful:)

"You're Not as Cute as You Think You Are"

On a recent episode of HBO's series, "The Newsroom," Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), tells his executive producer/former love interest MacKenzie McHale (played by the squishy-faced actress Emily Mortimer), "You're not as cute as you think you are." It was a simple and yet powerful statement that resonated far beyond the action of that episode. I think we can all relate to people in our everyday lives whose behaviors veer from totally adorbs to really annoying, and so herewith, my list of winners in the first annual "You're Not as Cute as You Think You Are" Awards, and the envelope please:

1. Adorbs, totes, champs - Cutesy-speak, defined as that so clever shortening of words and phrases, where "totally adorable" becomes "totes adorbs" and "crazy" becomes "cray cray" is all the rage, but how did this virus spread? Some blame those texting 13-year-olds of yore who, with their ancient Sidekicks, were looking for keyboard shortcuts. And then came Twitter with its 140-characters and soon the virus had a new host. It then made the leap to prime time television, aided by the now-defunct ABC sitcom "Happy Endings", and the character Penny Hartz. Once established on one of the Big Three networks, it then blazed through the reality TV backwoods, spawning new additions like "glamping" (glamorous camping), in which one hikes in heels and drinks plenty of bubbly (or "champs", you know, as in champagne). 
2. Zooey Deschanel, Katherine Heigl, Mindy Kaling, Chloe Sevigny, That Guy from Season 12 of "Project Runway" who's obsessed with unicorns, Rae Dawn Chong (how dare you go after Oprah...OPRAH??!!), Leslie Mann, The Entire Cast of "Girls", Jane Levy from "Suburgatory", Andy Sandberg, Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" (you were quite insufferable!), Ann Hathaway
3. Anyone over the age of 21 wearing a t-shirt that depicts a cartoon character, television show or commercial brand from the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s, including, but not limited to, the Kool-Aid Man, School House Rock, Fat Albert, Captain Crunch, Strawberry Shortcake, Thunder Cats. 
4. Anyone over the age of 18 wearing their hair in 2 braids (see Cindy Brady)
5. Overuse of the word "ironic" as a means of establishing intellectual superiority when partaking of the popular. For example, "I'm ironically watching every episode of Duck Dynasty/Here Comes Honey Boo Boo/Double Divas/The Golden Girls" or "I'm ironically having my 30th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese."
6. Oral hashtagging - "He's soooo cute #MyFutureExBoyfriend"
7. Knit caps when temperatures are above 40-degrees Fahrenheit
8. Ghostwriting blogs for your dog, cat, hamster
9. Theme parties which require guests to dress as characters from TV shows ("Mad Men", "Golden Girls"), movies ("Mildred Pierce", "The Wiz"), or referencing cartoon action figures (latex, anyone??)
10. Declaring (proudly) your multiple food allergies at the coffee shop/grocery store/restaurant/food festival/farmers market
11. Making every statement sound like a question - "I have a skinny decaf latte?" 

Make It Stop: The Attack of the Stick Figure Family Car Stickers!!

It started innocently enough - a Christmas card from some distant family relation arrived in our mailbox, and in the top left corner of the envelope there it was, actually, there THEY were - 4 stick figures - one shaped like "mom", the other like "dad", and a boy and a girl. The name of the family appeared underneath in jolly Comic font, along with their address, so that I could know just where to find the merriment. And thus, I was thrust into the world of Family Stickers - a multi-million dollar business with various sales outlets. On a typical car ride from my home, I spy dozens of mini-vans, steroidal SUVs, and station wagons with a trio, quartet, or quintet of stick figure family members in their rear windows. And you know something - it's annoying the hell out of me!

I know, I'm raining on someone's parade, but these stick figures are as irritating an addition to the backsides of cars as are those "my child is an honor roll student" bumper stickers that shot to fame in the '90s! When a few people had them, I'll admit, they were quirky, a bit off-beat, but now, they've become like a battering ram, like a requirement for the well-adjusted, all-American, nuclear family. 

I guess in this age of the over-share, letting complete strangers waiting at the traffic light know the size and make-up of your family seems a harmless indulgence, but seriously, I'm just waiting at the traffic light, not trying to strike up a friendship! I mean, what do you need all of the attention for, anyway?? Why do you require windshield validation for your life choices??

If you're proud of your family, then awesome, post their cute pics on Facebook, start a blog for your closest friends and family members. Oh, you're already doing that?? So then why the stick figure family?

I've seen one car in the grocery store parking lot for the past four years. They began with 3 stick figures - mom, dad, baby. Then they upped it to 4 - mom, dad, baby, dog. Then the 4 became 6 - yep, you guessed it - TWINS!!! So - mom, dad, 2 new babies, son, dog. But, I guess that wasn't enough because the last time I saw that car it had a new figure - number 7 if you're having a hard time keeping up. This latest figure - a cat, yes, that's just what that family needed, one more life form in need of care and upkeep, and ordering more damn stickers!!

So, look, I'm going to try to be a bit less bitter about this whole thing, and to do this, I propose a line of stick figure stickers for people in single and non-traditional lifestyles. There's the female stick figure with a briefcase and a cat. Or maybe the two dads, their two babies, and the surrogate.  What about the single guy who's a serial monogamer - this stick figure would come with a dozen female stick figures and big red "Xs" to delineate a break-up. What? You find that too extreme and a bit TMI - well, welcome to my world! I'm just saying:)

Love and Marriage and Race

The month of June is always a special time for my husband and I because it was it was on June 12, 1967 that the Supreme Court made the landmark decision that would make interracial marriage legal. The couple at the center of the case was a white man named Richard Loving and his black wife, Mildred Loving. Many celebrate Loving Day every June 12 in honor of this brave couple who paved the way for that "post racial" society every poet has longed for, and in 2011, in a country whose President is the product of a black and white union, and where blended celebrity couples like Heidi Klum and Seal or Ice-T and Coco, regularly strut the red carpet, it would seem that our country's come a long way from its segregationist past. But I have to say, "not so fast!"

The reality is that for every Kardashian sister crossing the color line, there are still vast sections of the American public who aren't as race-neutral as they think they are when it comes to dating and romance. While surveys, such as the Pew Research Center's study that showed an 83% approval rate for interracial dating in the U.S., have been trotted out in recent years to show how far we've come, mainstream dating website eHarmony vigorously defended its policies against interracial matches. It seems there's a disconnect between what we say and what we do.

Even among my own friends and family, there is a wide gap between theory and practice. While they have been nothing but supportive of my marriage, they've never entertained the thought of crossing the color line. For my parents and their generation, it simply wasn't done. But for my contemporaries, who, like me, grew up watching Tom and Helen Willis hold their own against George Jefferson every week on CBS, race and dating is a complicated affair. No one wants to think that they harbor racist thoughts, but I do wonder if the foul-mouthed puppets of "Avenue Q" were right when they sang, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist", well, at least when it comes to dating.

We tend to date who we know and people with whom we share common ties - music, favorite films, and other cultural references. These same rules often apply to our friendships, too. So take a look at your friends and your friends' friends - what do you see? Is it more United Colors of Benetton or the runways of Fashion Week Milan??  Is it more NBA or PGA and less FIFA??  Have you ever asked your friends of different races if they'd ever considered dating someone who's your race?

I must admit that I've asked that question, with varying degrees of success. One former black friend gave me a scathing rebuke for daring to become a "checkerboard chick" given this country's history of slavery, and one former white friend said there was no way he could bring a black woman home to his family. The reactions of both of these people really hurt me, truth be told, because the one challenged my blackness and the other rejected my blackness. And yes, I used the word rejected because if you can be friends with someone of a different race, why wouldn't you be open to dating or marrying someone of that different race? If you're lucky enough to find someone who loves you and wants to spend their life with you, then why should their race be the reason to reject them? From what I've seen, religion seems more divisive than race.

Love in a post-Loving world is an interesting and strange thing, and my hope is that once we really open ourselves to the depths of each other, that the strange won't seem so strange at all. I'm just saying:)

Pepe Le Pew and the IMF!

So it seems that I'm Just Saying can't enjoy a little vacation time without the whole world going mad!! I mean what the Heezy, Wheezy??? It was bad enough watching the Governator and his Kennedy wife calling their 20+ years marriage quits, but now we find out that he had a not-so-immaculate conception with one of his household staff and fathered a child, all under the watchful, all-seeing eyes of the press??? And it seems that he wasn't the only high-profile man to get in trouble with the cleaning lady!! International economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn has landed himself an extended stay at the notorious Rikers Island after mistaking the 32-year old Guinean housekeeper at his $3000 a night Sofitel suite for an amenity and not a human being!

It's a bad week for philandering bastards with foreign accents.Beyond the fact that the two women at the heart of these stories were both employed as housekeepers, it's unfair to attempt even remotely linking the two women. The one lived in Brentwood, CA where she had a "relationship" with her millionaire employer and passed off her lust-child as her husband's, and the other, a single mom living in the Bronx, was brutally raped and imprisoned while she cleaned strangers' hotel rooms for minimum wage.

While the hunt for photos and names of the two women is at fever pitch, there is an even more heated search proceeding simultaneously - the search for dirt on these two women. In the case of Schwarzenegger, speculation abounds as to how many millions it cost to keep the housekeeper quiet. In fact, Democrats in the California legislature are already threatening to open inquiries into just how much taxpayer money paid for her silence. And in the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, conspiracy theories have sprung up in various intellectual and political circles in France, with DSK supporters alleging that the Sofitel housekeeper was a plant by DSK's political foe - French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Other theories hold closely to the time-worn narratives of "blame the rape victim", ranging from the romantic (it was consensual sex) to the economic (this was a plot to extort money from DSK). I'm sure prosecutors in NYC are praying mightily that this housekeeper is squeaky-clean with a perfect credit score and no outstanding parking tickets. Not that these qualities will prevent attacks on her character!

But maybe there's something more basic at work here. For English-as-a-Second-Language speakers such as DSK and Schwarzenegger, maybe words like, "no" or "consent" or "marital fidelity" simply get lost in translation. I mean, when I was a little girl, I was always puzzled by the cartoon character of Pepe Le Pew. There he was, a skunk, raining wet kisses up and down the arm of that poor little she-skunk. As she recoiled from his touch, he pursued her; as she shrank from his embrace, he was emboldened and gave chase. As I got older, I began to understand my unease with Pepe Le Pew - you see, I realized that Pepe Le Pew was a rapist! It's sad that Pepe never got the help that he needed in order to understand the difference between sex and violation. Sadder still that Pepe didn't know that he stunk! But that's a discussion for another day - I'm just saying!

Maria and Arnold: The End of the Political Marriage

Well, after 25 years of marriage, it appears that the party is over for Maria Shriver and former Governor-slash-celluloid he-man Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two announced their separation and I and the rest of the world are stunned. Granted, we were stunned when they first got together - she, with a political pedigree, and he with his spray butter, muscles, and Conan the Barbarian flicks. What a crazy pair!! Truth be told, we were shocked that they made it past their first wedding anniversary, but by the time they survived the seventh year, itch-free, well, we kind've took them for granted. The last time I felt this way was when Al and Tipper Gore announced the end of their 40-year marriage. My heart sank, I mean they could've split in January 2000 and spared everyone the spectacle of their infamous sloppy kiss at the 2000 Democratic National Convention! But all of this makes me think that we may be witnessing the evolution of the political marriage.

The political marriage has always been a subject of speculation for those of us who watch them from a distance. We're always looking for a magical doorway into this most intimate of relationships. Why? Mostly because we're just curious about this carefully crafted political character and wondering what percentage of what we see is an act. There are some of us, though, who want to find the weakness in a person, and where better to dig for dirt than in the backyard of their marriage.

The political marriage follows a timeworn trajectory, beginning with the dashing, ambitious young man meeting and marrying the demure, yet practical young lady, who bears him the perfect, camera-ready offspring. He begins his quest for elective life and she begins her tour of duty slogging it out in the mine-fields of campaign stops and ladies' luncheons. Along the way there are defeats, election nights where she and the kids stand supportively behind the husband-candidate while he makes a heart-felt speech thanking the troops, congratulating the other guy who won, and pledging to run again, and win the next time. And then there will be victories, and there she'll be, the political wife of a winning candidate, resplendent and shining, smiling as she stands next to her husband, passing the cherubic children to him so that he may hoist them high into the air for the cameras to see. Now, there will be tough times - when the poll numbers show how dissatisfied the voters are with her husband, or when the whispers begin about her husband and some sweet young thing, but the political wife will keep her head up, smiling broadly, clutching the hands of her little ones as she attempts to break through the gaggle of press blocking her way to the kids' elementary school. And when the indiscretion is confirmed, it will be the political wife who will stand propped up next to her husband, suffering the glare of the flashbulbs while her husband reads his prepared statement. And when he leaves elective political life, it will be the political wife who will attend to him.

I've got to admit - I'm surprised that ANY political marriages survive at all! I mean, imagine having to listen to pundits and the opinionated masses ripping apart your husband or wife in the never-ending churn of the 24-hour news cycle? Think about it! How could Laura Bush muster any romantic feeling with that dufus Will Ferrell pretending to be her husband??

And don't forget that the political marriage seems always to require sacrifice on the part of the people who weren't elected at all. Sure, Chris Matthews might grill your elected spouse like a July 4th barbecue at 5:00PM, but at 7:00PM, your spouse could get a standing ovation from the 1500 people attending a rally on his behalf! And what do you, oh loyal political spouse get in return? You get to be the single parent, attending your children's soccer games (alone!), getting dinner on the table (ALONE!), dressing yourself and the kids and rushing over to that 7:00PM rally with a smile plastered on your face so that no one knows how much that SOB getting all of that love and attention takes you completely for granted.

I say that it's about time that the Maria Shrivers and the Tipper Gores stood up and walked out. Maybe the next generation of political marriages will be based on truly equitable partnerships. We're starting to see some examples of that. The First Lady of France has kept her day job as model/singer/actress, and here in the U.S. Dr. Jill Biden is inspiring students everyday in her job as a professor. If there's one lesson to take away from the political marriage it's this - it must have balance. I'm just saying:)

The Winter of Our Discontent

Have you ever had that feeling of gray? Where all is routine, even down to the clothing you wear, the food that you eat, and the route that you take to work? Those gray days - where even buying a little trifle to lighten your mood has no effect? Some people chalk it up to the winter weather and its sustained periods of snow and cold and gray skies. But, it feels as if I've tapped into a mood that's not my own. All around me, at the grocery store, in the churchyard, and at the coffee shop, everywhere, there seems to be this grayness. This Great Recession has put this country into one bad mood-swing, so much so that it's triggering a Great Depression 2.0 - the Mental Health Edition.

Apparently, I'm not the only one taking notice. Last fall in Orlando, Florida, a campaign entitled, "It's Okay to Get Help" launched in order to help the growing numbers of Central Floridians experiencing mental health crises triggered by the tough economy.

So, is it possible for an entire country to be in a bad mood?

I'm starting to think that the answer to that question is HELL YES! So, what can we do, as a country, to "get our happy back"? I'm Just Saying has a few ideas:

1. Stop moaning and start moving: If life is kicking you while you're down, then there's no better time to pack up your bags and move closer to the ocean or into the mountains or into that stone cottage in the foothills of Appalachia that you fantasized about while working in that grey, soul-less cubicle before you were downsized. It's time for the Great Migration 2011! Always wanted to trade in your snow shovel for flip-flops and a questionable tan line? Then get thee gone to Florida - I hear you can buy a condo for a song!! Sometimes, new beginnings come from an abrupt stop.
2. Stop watching news talk/opinion shows: Notice, I didn't say stop watching THE NEWS, rather stop watching news talk shows. So leave the Becks, Maddows, Bill-Os, Andersons, Parkers-Spitzers, and, instead, just get the news, unsullied with opinion. These shows only make you angrier, more frustrated, or plain old sad. Leave them to their rants, and their take on things. Think for yourself. Oh, and this goes for fake-news shows as well, so give a long, inappropriate kiss goodbye to the Daily Show and to Bill Maher. Real people aren't left or right!
3. Stop making reality show stars/contestants/lab experiments your role models: Just last week, one of the starts of MTV's "The Hills" finally 'fessed up that the bulk of the show was scripted!! Would that they had made this stunning admission years earlier and maybe the world would have spared the likes of Kelly Catrone, the entire cast of "Jersey Shore", and the pantheon of noxious reality stars crowding the entertainment firmament! Applicants are still pouring in for every new reality show concept. And much like the nuclear arms race, contestants must go big or go home - usually during some heart-pounding conclusion in the final 3 minutes of the show. Here's the deal - if you're a 14 year old girl who's pregnant, then odds are you're not getting a show on MTV. If you wear wigs and date married men, Andy Cohen from Bravo TV ain't picking up the phone to get you on the couch as one of his stable (get it, because of the weaves???) of so-called "Bravo-leberties".

It's time we all got our groove back. I'm just saying:)