By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Mar 19, 2013 at 5:00 PM ET
March always tends to be a rather bleak month. In most parts of the country, the charm of snow has definitely worn off, and even here in California, we’re getting a bit tired of gray cold weather. And there’s plenty of gloom and doom in the news, between various fiscal crises, a federal government paralyzed by partisanship, and Lindsay Lohan being sentenced to her 6th stint in rehab. But we Californians are always looking to find meaningful life lessons in our challenges, to let our spiritual selves rise above adversity. Which works great when I get stuck in traffic and do a few deep cleansing breaths, but it can backfire too. Constantly being told to find a brighter side, when there isn’t one, just makes us feel worse. I tried to find a silver lining in having a nasty cold and a huge work commitment that I couldn’t get out of, but I ended up just feeling like a spiritual failure with an ugly red nose. However, I remember hearing some wise words when my kids were younger and took Tae Kwon Do – the instructor told them to absorb blows by making sounds, so they’d release all that negative energy. (Or something along those lines – I may be mixing things up with old episodes of “Kung Fu.”) Which one could interpret to mean, Go ahead and vent – so I did, mostly by sending a couple of self-pitying texts to my closest friends, since my voice was out of commission. And sure enough, I felt better, on top of getting some really nice, sympathetic responses.
Spring will be here soon enough, and it will probably be easier to rise above fiscal cliffs and traffic jams when the weather is nice. But in the meantime, give yourself a break – instead of trying to look for the good in your challenges, go ahead, kvetch! (Which is Yiddish for ‘releasing negative energy.’ Or close enough . . . ) Here’s a song to help you:
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
With last week’s Dow Jones record high, most pundits tell us that the recession is over. Various economists might debate the specifics, whether the deficit is still a problem, why unemployment numbers still matter, but no matter whether you follow Fox, MSNBC, or Uncle Sol, things are definitely looking better. Which is great news – but a little sad for me.
My husband and I are both musicians, which means we clearly married each other for our money. (Cue rimshot) (What’s the difference between a T-bill and a musician? Eventually the T-bill matures and makes money . . . . ) Our income has always lagged behind our neighbors, we rent instead of owning a home, and when people start to complain about the hassles of remodeling their kitchen or how hard it is to decide where to go on vacation, we just smile weakly and hope someone changes the subject.
But during the height of the recession, everyone we knew was in the same boat – my designer-savvy friends were shopping at TJMaxx, families couldn’t plan vacations around their next stock windfall, and high-earning high-tech dads were getting laid off. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t happy for anyone else’s misfortune, but it was really nice to have company. Now when friends would ask us where we should meet for dinner, we didn’t feel like the poor relations when we suggested the cheap cool Burmese restaurant instead of the casual-but-pricy bistro.
Now that the stock market seems to have rebounded and things are coming back to normal, at first I was afraid we’d be alone again in our financial struggles. But it turns out not everyone is feeling the joy – in fact, many middle-class families are still having a hard time – and I’ve heard that from Fox, MSNBC and Uncle Sol.
Many terrific blues songs came out of The Great Depression, so here’s a modern-day blues for those of us who feel a bit left out of the latest economic good news . . .
In this incredibly polarized political climate, it’s always refreshing to find areas of bipartisan agreement. And a recent poll about congressional favorability ratings showed that liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, men, women, older & younger voters are all unified in their disapproval of Congress. Nobody, apparently, thinks Congress is doing its job, and this sure seems like a great place to start working together to find solutions, since we’re all agreed about the problem. Maybe this will help us dig our way out of the sequester mess, before Congress loses any more favorability (by some polls they’re already down to single digits).
I will leave the specifics of those solutions to trained political scientists and commentators, but meanwhile I was struck by one aspect of the poll. This time, instead of just tracking percentage approval rates, some brilliant pollster decided to put things in context by asking respondents to compare Congress with a fairly wide, weird assortment of things, so people were asked whether they viewed Congress or traffic jams more favorably, that type of thing. And as many articles have referenced, Congress is less popular than a ton of fairly awful things, ranging from colonoscopies to Donald Trump – a list which was just begging to be turned into a song!
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Like many of my peers, I grew up in a completely traditional family, with 2 parents, 3 kids, several pets, and a house in the burbs. My parents were each other’s first marriage, we all had the same last name, and we were just like nearly every other family on the block. However, that model is increasingly rare, even in my own experience – I’m divorced from my kids’ dad and remarried, plus I never changed my name either marriage, so our neighborhood carpool chart has to refer to us as ‘The Mayer/Grinthal/Visini family. Plus my ex has remarried a woman with kids of her own, so we’re all one big happy blended family, meaning we can all sit together at graduations and barmitzvahs (and giving me better material than I could ever write – I landed one corporate consulting gig through my first husband’s second ex-wife’s third husband, which as you might imagine I love to say!)
And my kids are growing up comfortable with all sorts of families. When my son Ben was about 8, he met a kid who was being raised jointly by a gay couple and a lesbian couple, and Ben informed the boy that he also had two dads and two moms – Ben was referring to his parents and step-parents, but in his view there really wasn’t any difference. Families now come in all shapes and sizes, and so when I was asked to write a kid-friendly song for a special needs program, I couldn’t resist throwing in my own agenda – plus as we get closer to some pivotal Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to celebrate diversity!
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Feb 19, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
I just returned from chaperoning a high school trip to New York, taking 85 dance students to see shows, take class, and explore Manhattan. Granted, I was one of several chaperones so it wasn’t as arduous as it sounds, but it was still exhausting and challenging – try explaining to a huffy teen girl that “bed check” means I have to check that she’s actually in her room, so she can’t just text me that she’s going to bed. However, in general I can report that there is hope for the next generation. (My father used to worry that our generation would amount to nothing since we didn’t grow up with saxophone music, but the popularity of artists like Huey Lewis and Bruce Springsteen, with prominent sax players, reassured him. Likewise, I used to fret that the next generation was doomed because they were addicted to electronics, self-absorbed with short attention spans, and uninterested in reading the classic kids’ books I loved, but this trip convinced me they’ll be fine, based on a few observations:
– Sure, today’s teens text incessantly and have lost the ability to spell, thanks to spell-check and shorthand like ROTFLMAO, but they are also much more open-minded than we were as kids, eagerly trying new experiences and extremely tolerant of the more eccentric members of their group. (Remember, this was a trip for dance/theatre students from a large, extremely diverse public school, so we had the same types of characters you’d see on shows like Glee, as well as kids ranging from a senior who works 2 jobs to help support her family to some extremely wealthy kids who quietly put in extra money when the lunch group didn’t have enough for their table’s check.)
– Some things haven’t changed, like adolescent girls squealing and sighing over cute celebrities, but this group idolized the chorus boys from Newsies (with whom they got to take class and pose for photos), and even their less theatrically-inclined friends are more likely to worship movie starsn or singers with actual talent. (Of course, I still maintain the Monkees were talented comic actors in on the ironic joke, not just a manufactured boy band selected for their teen appeal)
– Speaking of irony, this generation gets it in a way mine never did. In fact, they have multiple layers of irony, so that they can ‘like’ everything from Hello Kitty to Justin Bieber – something about the ‘air quotes’ makes everything okay, which makes it not okay to tease their classmates for uncool tastes. (The weird girl in my 6th grade class who was obsessed with Dark Shadows, because she decided she was a vampire, would have fit in much better today!)
– Okay, they may not read Little Women or The Hobbit (since they can see the movie, duh . . . ), but they are fairly sophisticated. My 16-year-old son was on the trip – mostly with another chaperone’s group, since the organizers realized no kid in his or her right mind wants to spend a high school trip with a parent! – and he came back one day very proud of having bought two LPs in a vintage record store (records being as exotic to these kids as 78s were to us!) And several of his friends bought LPs as well. When I explained my turntable had been destroyed several moves ago and many of his friends’ parents were probably in the same boat he replied, “Oh, they’re not to play, Mom, it’s all about the aesthetics.” (I also love that the records he chose were by Rush and Frank Sinatra – how’s that for ironic fusion?)
– They are fairly tolerant of our generation’s befuddlement. The whole trip made me feel a bit like Jane Goodall researching chimpanzees, observing an entirely different species and trying to decode their communication methods – I’ve finally learned text shorthand, LOL, but I’m still not sure whether Instagram is a noun or a verb. But when I tried out their vocabulary, using ‘dope’ or ‘JK’, they didn’t laugh too loudly (at least in front of me).
– Today’s kids are a great combination of independent and needy – they found their way around and got themselves up on time, yet they weren’t afraid to call on a chaperone when they had questions or were concerned about their roommate whose boyfriend broke up with her via text. (I particularly loved seeing “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” with them, which is a highly stylized, odd musical based on English music hall theatre, including lots of characters talking to the audience and having women play male ingenue roles, a tradition begun with operas using mezzos as boys. At intermission, a group of the kids came up to me and told me they were completely confused, so when I gave them a bit of background, one of them exclaimed, “Oh, we just thought they were lesbians!” Which they actually thought was cool . . . . )
One other side note – it was wonderfully refreshing to go several days without seeing a newspaper or looking at a computer, and consequently having no idea of what was going on in the world. When I mentioned that to my husband in one of our very brief phone check-ins, he said, “Well, you heard a meteor crashed in Russia,” and I thought he was joking. Anyway, if you are a parent who is nervous about chaperoning this type of large trip, rest assured that it will be reassuring (but not very well restful), so take inspiration from these kids and go for it. However, you won’t have much time to act on that inspiration, which is why I don’t have a video to post this week. Stay tuned for next week!
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Feb 12, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET
We all have our own irrational fears, based on an emotional response rather than facts. Kids are afraid of monsters in the closet, phobics are afraid of spiders or the color red, single men are afraid of commitment, I’m afraid of cheerleaders – none of these things actually pose a threat, and we eventually either grow up, learn to move past our fears, or in the case of my husband, realize that being married is way more fun than he’d thought.
So with the Supreme Court preparing to hear cases related to gay marriage, it’s time to apply that same standard of rationality to the objections raised by opponents. Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004 (as well as in many progressive states and countries, and frankly, we in California should be ashamed of ourselves for being less progressive than Iowa and Canada!). Therefore, instead of vague fears, we can look at the actual effects on society in those locations – and guess what, absolutely nothing bad has happened. The predictions of societal catastrophe, public fornication, gender confusion, and children behaving terribly have not come true – in fact, the divorce rate has declined in Mass, and experts predict we’ll see the same effect in other states once more data is in. So one could argue that gay marriage is GOOD for society as a whole, not just for all those committed couples who are denied the legal protections we take for granted. (Note – the way I convinced my previously commitment-phobic husband that we needed ‘just a piece of paper’ was to point out that our gay friends have to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to get a fraction of the protection we could get for $50 and a quick trip to City Hall.) (Although now I let him think the whole thing was his idea!)
There are so many real things in this world of which to be afraid – financial collapse, global warming, more Kardashian reality shows – so I believe it’s time for opponents of gay marriage to recognize that there is nothing to fear, and to go find something that actually justifies worrying. And to help them along, here’s a song examining the evidence.
Being from the San Francisco area, I was one of many locals horrified by Chris Culliver’s homophobic remarks last week (about how he’d never play with a gay team-mate – “We dont got no gay people on the team. You know, they gotta get up out of here if they do. Can’t be with that sweet stuff”) And being the daughter of a former English teacher, I was one of many writers almost as equally horrified by his mangling of the language.
But the reaction he prompted was incredibly reassuring. Of course the 49ers organization condemned his remarks – they know their market! – but plenty of other NFL players chimed in, offering their support for gay rights and marriage equality. Seemingly overnight, becauase of one fairly idiotic remark, the homophobia that has long been ingrained in sports culture seems to be dissolving.
Frankly, I never understood sports homophobia – events involving large numbers of incredibly buff young men running around a court or field, jumping, chasing, and tackling each other, is about as homo-erotic as anything not x-rated. And while I don’t expect most teams to dump end-zone prayers for group performances of YMCA, it sure does seem like the overall climate has changed. Sure, a few neanderthals are sputtering about the horrors (“what’s next, people marrying their horses?”), but it’s hard to dispute the fact that public opinion is shifting. Who knows whether it’s because of Will & Grace, or because Idaho and New England haven’t suddenly gone beserk (no pet marriages yet!), but I for one am thrilled. (I am a card-carrying Jewish mother, so naturally I’m still hoping that one of my sons turns out gay, so he’ll never replace me with another woman and I’ll have a shopping pal.)
So here’s a new ‘fight song,’ in honor of the welcome changes within the sports community:
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jan 29, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
I know there’s a lot going on politically right now, between immigration reform, deficit ceiling craziness, and gun control, and it may seem hard to find much in the world that is even remotely bipartisan.
But certain human experiences connect us all – as I was reminded by watching the way Sybil’s childbirth death on Downton Abbey affected both the privileged gentry and the hard-working servants downstairs. Birth, marriage, death, putting on our trousers one leg at a time – it helps me to remember that even those with whom I vehemently disagree still love their families or enjoy good dark chocolate. And on the same day Downton Abbey aired that episode, I had my own version of one of those experirences-which-unite-us-all . . . my younger son took possession of his first car (an ancient one he got from my ex, his dad, with 300,000 miles on it, but it runs!)
Suddenly after two decades of my life revolving around my kids and their various activities, doctors, etc., I’m mostly done with driving them, and that’s something we can all relate to! (or as they would say at Downton, “something to which we all can relate . . . “)
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jan 22, 2013 at 5:00 PM ET
In case you’ve been under a rock for the past week, dethroned cyclist Lance Armstrong ‘told all’ to the queen of the confessional, Oprah Winfrey. And most people reacted much like Claude Rains’ character in Casablanca upon learning about gambling at Rick’s – “we’re shocked, simply shocked” – or something to that effect. The highly promoted, well-publicized interview covered many subjects, but I was surprised that Oprah stayed away from the good stuff, or at least what seems most interesting for a hopeless romantic like me who knows nothing about competitive cycling (but is addicted to Downton Abbey and Jane Austen): his love life! Armstrong has certainly been a cad to his teammates, trainers, sponsors, and anyone else he’s sued or insulted (and I love his defense of all the horrid things he said about his teammate’s wife, claiming as long as he didn’t say she was ‘fat’, all the other names he called her were okay). But he’s been spectacularly awful to his romantic partners, dumping his first wife for a glamorous rockstar, whom he then very publicly dumped because she wanted kids, ironically next taking up with a child star (okay, Ashley Olsen was an adult by that point but she still looks like a teenage waif), and then adding insult to injury by having two kids with the newest girlfriend.
I’m hoping the resilient and talented Ms. Crow will pull a Taylor Swift and write some devastating new song about Armstrong’s betrayal of her, but in the meantime, I’ve taken a stab at it myself.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
When people need a break from partisan politics, economic woes, traffic, overflowing email boxes, and the other challenges of modern life, many turn to the usual methods of escape – football playoffs, the 2-for-1 happy hour martini special, or catching up on “Say Yes To The Dress.” But for many of us, the ultimate escape is Downton Abbey, the PBS costume drama that has surprised even public t.v. fans and become a runaway cult hit.
And our devotion to the show can border on obsession – so to tell if you’re totally hooked, here are a few questions:
– Do you think Lord Grantham is blind to Thomas’s scheming, or just misses Bates so much that he doesn’t notice?
(and bonus point: Can you pronounce ‘valet’ properly?)
– Have you ever wondered how Daisy has worked in the kitchen at least since 1912 and by 1920 hasn’t found another job, used any of the money she got as a war widow, or in fact aged one bit?
– Was Lady Mary technically a virgin on her wedding night? (Which involves answering whether Mr. Pamuk’s heart attack was before or after they did or didn’t do anything, as well as debating whether Mary secretly wanted him to come to her room.)
– Have you started referring to Sybil’s husband as ‘Thom,’ or is he still ‘Branson’ to you? (And before they eloped, how many times did you watch a scene with them and shouted to the television, “Just kiss her already!”?)
– Will O’Brien ever confess about the bathtub episode which caused the miscarriage?, or if not, will she at least update her bangs?
– How does Anna get so much time off (to sleuth for her unjustly incarcerated husband) yet still manage to be both head housemaid and lady’s maid to the two girls?
If you understand these questions enough to answer any of them, then yes, you’re a Downton Abbey addict. However, if the questions make absolutely no sense to you and you fail to see the appeal of what sounds like a silly soap opera, try to see it from a fan’s point of view. Of course it’s silly, and like all good soap operas it’s full of ridiculous plot twists, overly convenient coincidences, and sappy, manipulative moments that make you cry even while you’re thinking, this is stupid.
BUT – and this is the key point – – also like a good soap opera, the characters engage the audience. Villains we love to hate, persecuted martyrs we root for, unrequited lovers we want to unite – Downton Abbey has all those and more, including the resident font of brilliant sarcasm, the Dowager Countess (and bonus points if you know her first name is ‘Violet’ but she should still be addressed as Lady Grantham even though Cora has superceded her as Countess). Plus Downton gilds all those soap opera traditions in a lovely veneer of historical details, fabulous period costumes and mellifluous English accents – so we get to feel intelligent while indulging in a guilty pleasure. Haven’t you ever known someone with a British accent, who can make even the most banal statement sound erudite? ( “Dahling, I’m terribly afraid that one must go to the loo” sounds ever so much more elegant than “I gotta pee.”) And we don’t mind the silly plot twists when the characters are dressed so beautifully (although am I the only one who wonders if they’re wearing equally period-authentic undergarments?) or using what look like real antique kitchen tools and feather dusters. Add in the magnificent Maggie Smith, who could read the phone book and make it witheringly brilliant, and it’s no wonder the show is such a success.
So here’s my version of the theme music (which is actually pretty strange and more suited to a Hercule Poirot mystery) in tribute to Downton Abbey fans and the people who love them but don’t quite understand them . . .
