Betty’s Back!

The RP’s favorite TV show premiere is less than a month away — Sunday, March 25.  From their latest sneak preview, it turns out that despite her divorce from the series’ anti-hero, Don, Betty Draper — played by January Jones — is back.

Check it out:

 

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: The Eyes

Are the eyes truly the window to the soul?

I think they are.

About 5 years ago a book came out titled, “A Hand To Guide Me: Legends and Celebrities Celebrate the People who Shaped Their Lives.”

It had a picture of Denzel Washington on the cover. (See below).

This book had an important impact on me.

I never bought the book, or the book on tape.

Never borrowed it from a friend to read. In fact, never once opened the book. Never even ever touched it.

But I would stare at it every time I’d go to the book store, which was at least once a week. This went on for nearly six months.

What did I stare at? Denzel Washington’s calm, humble and yet assured look. Not seeming assured with confidence– but rather assured with integrity.

I love this picture and decided I wanted to live my life in such a way that if the eyes are truly the window to the soul, one day I could transmit through my eyes the same calm and peaceful soul Denzel Washington appears to in the picture.

I’m still working on that…and will be for years to come. Many days I feel my eyes look less like a composed and serene Denzel and more like the frenzied, fearful, vacant eyes of the protagonist in the movie Eraserhead.

But I try. It’s a goal. And a good one. And I got if from a book. With a picture of a man who’s soul spoke to me.

Through his eyes.

The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: Artur Davis Rebuts

Rebuttal #6: Artur Davis

[John Y.’s Provocation The RP’s Rebuttal #1; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #2; Rod Jetton’s Rebuttal #3; Krystal Ball’s Rebuttal #4; John Y.’s First Defense; Rod Jetton’s Response #1; Jeff Smith’s Rebuttal #5; John Y.’s Second Defense; Ron Granieri’s Response #1; John Y.’s Third Defense]

I’m a Johnny-come-lately to what sounds like an incredible conversation, so I will wade in very selectively, with these random observations:
  • I like Jeff’s observations if only because they are the best explanation for why a decidedly average looking guy like me didn’t go further! More seriously, I think we will forever remain on the lookout for an explanation of what makes winners in politics. If it were all looks and charm, Kennedy crushes Nixon, instead of beating him by a vote per precinct; I’ve seen the charming losers–I vividly recall from my candidate recruitment days at the DCCC, a Nebraska guy whose looks had female staffers rearranging their schedules to meet him; the voters were less enraptured than the staffers and the online world; he lost by about 20 points — and I’ve seen the winners whose charisma would’t carry them past the corner next to the punch bowl in most other settings.
  • My best guess is that for all our jaded reasons not to believe it, issues do matter, but sometimes only in the most reductionist sense–“does the guy or lady believe in people like me?”;”is this person going to deliver on the one or two things I really value?” I deliberately don’t use the word trust, by the way, because I think the trust quotient is so low in politics today that relying on it proves too little. I also don’t mean to endorse the very test I describe — part of leadership is sometimes deciding to deliver not on the one thing you care about, but the one thing that really will work better. Sometimes, “believing in people like me” means leading too narrowly, and shortchanging the broader good for one faction.

    Read the rest of…
    The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: Artur Davis Rebuts

The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: John Y. Defends

John Y.’s Third Defense

[John Y.’s Provocation The RP’s Rebuttal #1; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #2; Rod Jetton’s Rebuttal #3; Krystal Ball’s Rebuttal #4; John Y.’s First Defense; Rod Jetton’s Response #1; Jeff Smith’s Rebuttal #5; John Y.’s Second Defense; Ron Granieri’s Response #1]

Great point, Ron, but let me play the contrarian’s contrarian on looks and politics and point out that although I brought up the issue and am trying to make the case that we need to think more deliberately and deeply about the candidates than we do, I still seem to vote for the better looking ones myself.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s important to be deep when discussing presidential politics, but don’t underestimate the shallow. Not because of shallow voters.

Read the rest of…
The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: John Y. Defends

The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: Ron Granieri Responds

Ron Granieri’s First Response

[John Y.’s Provocation The RP’s Rebuttal #1; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #2; Rod Jetton’s Rebuttal #3; Krystal Ball’s Rebuttal #4; John Y.’s First Defense; Rod Jetton’s Response #1; Jeff Smith’s Rebuttal #5; John Y.’s Second Defense]

John Y. is right to bring up the power of TV, but I have to play the contrarian idealist for just one more moment.

Everyone loves to make the argument that surface appearance is what matters most in politics, especially when their candidate loses. It is yet another way to assume that the people who vote differently than you are too shallow and superficial to understand the depth and brilliance of your own positions.

It is a dangerous fallacy, though, because it can lead strategists to believe that winning elections ONLY involves the manipulation of images and to forget the significance of the actual political ideas and positions behind them.

Of course it helps to be pleasant and nice looking in most cases. But if sex appeal was all you needed for electoral success, then Sarah Palin would be President, and the RP would be governor of Kentucky. [ED’s note: Aw shucks!] Ask Rick Perry (or, if you want a coherent answer, don’t): it matters what candidates say when they open their pretty mouths.

The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: John Y. Defends

John Y.‘s Second Defense

[John Y.’s Provocation The RP’s Rebuttal #1; Ron Granieri’s Rebuttal #2; Rod Jetton’s Rebuttal #3; Krystal Ball’s Rebuttal #4; John Y.’s First Defense; Rod Jetton’s Response #1; Jeff Smith’s Rebuttal #5]

Jeff’s post reminds me of the famous story about the Nixon –Kennedy debates.

On TV Nixon, who had refused pancake make-up, had his infamous 5 o’clock shadow and sweated profusely. Kennedy, by contrast, was cool, calm, and collected—and at his Kennedy-esque best.

Learn to help create beauty with a beauty school diploma.

Those voters watching on television believed Kennedy won by a 3-1 margin. Those listening on radio believed Nixon won by a 3-1 margin.

Which opens up an entire new line of discussion: How has TV has changed the message  and the messengers—we get for political candidates today?

Abe Lincoln would have withdrawn from Iowa months before Michelle Bachmann had to. And if Mitt Romney had showed up to debate with Lincoln and Stephen Douglass a while back, he would’ve have been laughed off stage and beaten up as a dandy.  But that’s another thread altogether.

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The RPs Debate Presidential Leadership: John Y. Defends

The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Beauty

The Politics of Beauty

If you’re a fan of American pop culture, you’re certainly aware of comic books and the influence they’ve had on American culture—from Spider-Man to American Splendor. And if you’re not familiar with the hysteria created by comic books in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, you must read one of your correspondent’s favorite books, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. So is the recent release of The 99, a group of Islamic superheroes embodying the more positive attributes of Allah, a cause for multicultural celebration or hyperbolic cries of “propaganda!”? Read more about the “controversy” from MSNBC. [Islamic superheroes: Role models or propaganda?]

If you watched a football game this weekend, you probably noticed a whole lot of pink going on. In fact, unless you’re color blind, you’ve probably seen a whole lot of pink everywhere lately as October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But is it too much? Is it just another over-simplified “symbol” that makes people feel like they’re doing something to help when in fact they’re just putting on a ribbon? Nothing more than putting a bumper sticker on your car? There are plenty of critics that think so. Check out two pieces on thinking outside the “pink” box. Amid Breast Cancer Month, Is There Pink Fatigue? from National Public Radio, and more from Breast Cancer Action.

Finally, unless you’ve been maniacally focused on getting the latest iPhone recently, you may have noticed that there’s a little protest movement going on in Manhattan (and Rome, Paris, Peoria, etc., over the weekend). Check out this send up from the New York Times, as the rich have had it up to their mink stoles with all of the attention given to the plebeians of late. [Occupy Poor Street]

The RP’s Top Five Art Museums to Place on Your Bucket List

Here's Your Top 5 List!

It’s time again for yet another of my infamous Half-Letterman pop culture lists.  If you are a newbie, having joined our site after a “Prison Sex” Google search, SHAME ON YOU, and enjoy these links to all of my past gems:  Favorite Breakup SongsFavorite Hoops Books, Most Jew-ish GentilesFavorite “Docs” who Weren’t DoctorsPretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire, Guilty PleasuresPop Music LyricsAwful TV Shows with Terrific Theme SongsMost Romantic Screen Scenes in the Rain, and Worst Oscar Robberies of Italian-Americans.

While lower forms of culture (and alleged outbursts of “humor”) are my forté; today, I will try to educate, inspire, and lift the RP Nation up out of the penis-joke muck by offering some high-brow pontification.  So with nose raised high, hand firmly patting own back, and notifications sent to all of those whom I desperately am trying to impress with my erudition, I hereby and heretofore offer my list of the Top Five Art Museums to Place on Your Bucket List:

HONORABLE MENTION:  The Tuska Museum, Lexington, KY

OK, it would be slightly disingenuous of me to lump this local fare into a group so rich in prestige and historic import. But as a disproportionate percentage of the RP Nation hails within driving distance of my hometown, I use this opportunity to strongly prod my neighbors into visiting this superb hidden local treasure. The Tuska Museum, a tribute to the life and art of John Tuska, Kentucky’s most celebrated 20th Century artist — housed within the late sculptor’s former off-campus home — features many of the legend’s greatest works. Tuska vividly captures the human condition through his exquisite draftsmanship, solemn paintings, and, most famously, extraordinary sculptures — in bronze, ceramic and paper.  Check out the permanent collection here and sign up today for a guided tour, performed with great love and passion by the artist’s son, Seth.

OK…back to our shew…

5. The Picasso Museum, Paris

A few years ago, Mrs. RP and I were wandering through the shops, synagogues, and kosher restaurants of Paris’ Marais District, the heart of France’s Jewish community, when we stumbled upon the under-advertised tribute to the greatest artist of the 20th Century. La Musée National Picasso features the late Spaniard’s personal collection of nearly 3000 of his own beloved works, as well as his collection of other great artists, such as CézanneDegasRousseauSeuratde Chirico and Matisse. The gallery is housed in a building that itself is worth espying: The Hôtel Salé, is a 17th century architectural masterpiece. Of course, you are going to have to wait a little bit to check this museum off your bucket list: It is currently closed for renovations, and will re-open in the spring of 2013.  So order your plane tickets early!

4. Vatican Museums/Sistene Chapel, Rome

The tour guides around Rome can only agree on one thing: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a d-bag. But they fiercely debate the value of the Catholic Church’s historical impact on the world of art and architecture. The guides at the Collosseum and the Roman Forum decry the Popes of the Middle Ages who robbed these historic sites of the art, architecture and majestic craftsmanship created at the behest of the Roman Emporers. But the Vatican guides ferociously celebrate how the Church maintained and preserved the best of the creativity of the pre-Renaissance Era. What’s indisputable is that in order to experience the greatest art of that age — and the greatest religious art of any era — you’ve got to head to the Vatican Museums.  You are undoubtedly familiar with the Sistene Chapel’s iconic ceiling, painted laboriously for years by prone Michaelangelo — and you’ve got to experience the entirely sublime head-craning spectacle — but the Museum (and the Chapel itself) have so much more to offer. And don’t neglect to stay for a tour of St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest, most ornate, and most visually spectacular church you will ever visit.  Just make sure to wear comfortable shoes on the most cobblestone roads and floors.  I learned that one the hard way. Ouch!

3. Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York

Good news:  You don’t have to travel halfway around the world to experience one of the world’s greatest art musuems. In fact, in my not-so-humble opinion, the MOMA features the world’s most spectacular collection of 19th and 20th Century artwork. Whenever I can squeeze a few hours out of a business trip to the Big Apple, I wander through the permanent collection on the fifth floor and give greetings to Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Chagall’s I and the Village and Rousseau’s Dream and Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans and Cezanne’s Bather and Monet’s Water Lillies and Jasper Johns’ Flag and…and..and…  The special exhibitions are always worth checking out as well, as MOMA works hard to include all of the visual arts, from film to electronic media, to architecture, to photography…the list goes on and on.  If you are new to the world of art, this is a great starter museum — many works that you’ve seen via the pop culture — even if you can’t exactly explain them — surrounded by hundreds of other incredible works that will expand and fortify your art cred.  And you don’t have to take six or seven planes to get back home.

Read the rest of…
The RP’s Top Five Art Museums to Place on Your Bucket List

The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Beauty

The Politics of Beauty

Paris, je t’adore. If you’ve never visited, lived in, or dreamed of Paris, your ability to see, to feel, to touch, even smell beauty is severely diminished. And despite les fumeurs, the grit and the annoying accordion players, the Paris Métro is a place of rare beauty and life. The RP loves this ode to Paris from the installment of “Sub City” by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason. Amusez-vous bien! Sub City Paris

 Andy Warhol certainly did it. Degas, Edvard Munch and even Henri Matisse all did it. Granted, Bob Dylan is no Edward Hopper, but his new paintings have a caused an uproar recently in some circles because many of them are based closely or entirely on photographs—some taken by equally famous photographers. Just contemporary art, or contemporary plagiarism? Check out Dylan’s work and their sources. The Daily Beast

When you typically think of contemporary American art, you think of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. But a new collaborative exhibit in California wants to remind you that Los Angeles is a contemporary art capital as well. The new exhibit, Pacific Standard Time: An L.A. Art Story, reminds us that American art has been influenced for decades by Latino, Asian, hippy, feminist, Chicano, gay and African-American artists residing in California. Indeed, “something happened here.” Check out more on the works from NPR

Jeff Smith: When J.T. Met Pork Chop… (or Sex, Lies & Prison Love)

Click the picture above to read Jeff’s critically-acclaimed piece about his path from rising political star to federal prisoner to hopeful redemption.

Last month, I moved cross-country from St. Louis to the New York City area. The other night, a colleague invited me to a party. It was teeming with Brooklyn hipster-intellectual types – young college profs, Times reporters, social entrepreneurs, assorted do-gooders.

The only person I knew was the host, but he kindly introduced me around as a New School prof teaching in their public policy graduate program (yawn) who once ran for Congress (yawn) and served in the Missouri Senate (slightly more polite yawn). They were Brooklyn-ites, after all.

Midwestern-ness emanated from me like stink from a skunk. I could feel it when I used the word “wife” instead of partner, the self-consciously gender-neutral term they used when referring to spouses or long-time companions.

Email Jeff at jeffsmith2006@gmail.com for press inquiries or to be notified for book/speaking events

Then the host told them where I spent 2010, and their curiosity was insatiable.

Was it white-collar? (Maybe 5%.) Was it violent? (Occasionally.) Did you get in fights? (A couple.) Did you get hurt? (Yes.) What were the people like? (More interesting and less pretentious than you.)

They reached for the gin, hoping the liquid courage would help them ask the question they were dying to ask. But it didn’t. Instead, one stammered, “Did you get…, uh…was there a lot of sex?”

***

Click above to connect with Jeff on Twitter

A few weeks after you get to federal prison, you go through orientation. The first thing they do is take you down into the visiting room to show you a mandatory sexual assault video featuring a 40-ish white guy warning you not to eat the Snickers bar that may be waiting on your bed when you return to your cell. (He ate his, unwittingly signaling the predator who left it for him that he was ready and willing.) All the guys in the visiting room laughed. So did I. But at 117 lbs, I reminded myself not to accept any sweets during my tenure, lest I “get my windows tinted,” in the parlance of Federal Correctional Institution, Manchester.


As you might imagine, things can get pretty nasty when several hundred guys are confined in a small area without the benefit of female interaction, other than a pair of (arguably) female prison administrators. Outside muscle-building substances, pornography was perhaps the most prized possession on the compound. Its value hinged on a woman’s measurements, which were, up to a point, proportional to the price of the material. Depending on how brazenly a woman displayed her ass(ets), one magazine could fetch up to $200 in stamps, due to the recurring revenue stream available by copying pictures and selling them individually and/or renting the magazine (after laminating it in plastic). The purveyors of such contraband, who could become quite wealthy by prison standards, were dubbed “entrepre-niggaz.”

My first cellie, who favored a young Morgan Freeman, was a frequent customer. One day about a week after I moved in with him he told me was going back to the bathroom to “get married to (his) baby Coco,” his slang for masturbation. He was partial to magazines featuring the impossibly curvaceous (39-23-40) bleach blonde who recently burst onto the reality television scene as the wife of rapper Ice-T. My cellie would return from the bathroom fifteen minutes later and announce, “Now I need a muthafuckin cigarette!”

He was unusually open about his sexual proclivities, which probably should not have surprised given that he had been locked up for most of the previous 20 years. As he liked to tell me, “I got more time in this place on the toilet than you got time.”

One day I was on my way down to the visiting room to see my now-wife and he approached me with a business proposition. “Ten stamps if you can get me a lil’ Teresa on here,” he said, thrusting a tissue into my hand and inhaling theatrically. “Mmmm-mmmm, I bet she do smell like fresh strawberries!”

He was astonished when I declined his offer. “Cellie, you ain’t even got to DO shit. Easiest ten stamps you ever make. And I bet she love that shit, knowin’ I be gettin’ off on her.”

Um, no, Cellie, actually, I don’t think she would love knowing that. But thanks for thinking of her.

I would not have been surprised had others accepted his offer. First, some inmates were desperate for stamps. One was nicknamed Five-Stamper; word was, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for five stamps. And visiting room shenanigans were not uncommon. For instance, one newbie got sent up the road to a higher-security facility for manually pleasuring his girlfriend in the visiting room one day as I sat nearby.

***

When it came to women, there was really no limit to inmates’ imagination. The quickest way to get into a fight was by switching the channel during a women’s softball game or track meet, events that are watched with as much whooping and hollering as homemade porn at a frat house.

They assumed I was sleeping with any woman who visited me, regardless of the woman’s age or attractiveness. Some of my work colleagues at the prison warehouse even fantasized about our boss, a squat woman with the build of a high school wrestler, the demeanor of a drill sergeant, and the sensuality of an amoeba. “Lemme catch Miss Horton in the club once I’m sprung, bihhh,” said my friend ‘Ville as he pumped his hips.

My cellie often told stories of “gunslingers” he had met during his time. There was one female guard who occasionally patrolled, and one day while she was patrolling the show hall, he contemplated whether it would be worth it to “gun her down.”

“You crazy?” I asked. “You’re almost to the door!” He’d been locked up off and on for 20 years, but only had a year left.  “What she do to you anyway?”

He spoke to me slowly, as if I were a child. “Prance around in front of me with that fat ass, is what she did. Fuck they gon’ do, throw me in the hole?”

“Cellie, they’ll give you life!” I exclaimed.

He scrunched up his face. “How they gon give me life fo’ gettin’ off on some bitch?”

Only then did he realize that I didn’t understand his slang. He explained that “gunslingers” were men who ran strings from their toes up their leg to lubed up toilet paper tubes fitted around their penises. To “gun her down” would’ve been to wire himself and go to the chow hall at mealtime, position himself at a table near her post, and toe-tap away until he…well, I won’t extend the gun metaphor any further.

* * *

Most inmates at FCI Manchester were non-violent (though as a warehouse buddy of mine liked to brag, that didn’t mean they hadn’t shot people – just that they didn’t get caught).  They were crack or meth dealers at their last, lowest-security-level stop on a multi-facility national tour, courtesy of the U.S. of A. FCI Manchester was usually pretty calm. Sure, we had lockdowns when they found steroids or dangerous contraband. Sometimes there were fights; guys might attack each another with slocks (padlocks wrapped in socks) or homemade shanks, other times there were just were normal fistfights. And since most people were close to the door – you couldn’t be in a minimum-security facility unless you had less than ten years to go – most inmates avoided beefs, lest they be shipped to the hole.

But one act of violence I did not see was prison rape. Actually, I saw prison love.

* * *

If felons were cars, Porkchop was as standard-issue as a Ford Taurus. Like several others (Popcorn, Peanut, Hot Dog, etc), he was named after his favorite food. He was 6’2” and husky, with close-cropped dark hair, a goatee, and more tattoos than teeth. In and out of state and federal prison for nearly 20 year, his offense ranged from selling meth to kiting checks to stealing cars. He spent every waking hour smoking, on the weight pile, or watching TV. A habitual offender, the law called him. To us he was just a regular thug, always trying to get over for a cigarette, a beef jerky, or a pack of mackerel, the $1 protein source of choice at FCI Manchester.

The minute J.T. came on to the compound, Porkchop had his eye on him. Now, J.T. wasn’t flamboyant – not one of the dudes who wore makeup (grape Kool-Aid on the eyes, cherry on the lips, Tang on the cheeks). He wasn’t the type we got warned about by the gruff veteran staffer during orientation: “You might wanna move now if you got a single and go move in with somebody you know,” he’d warned. “You don’t wanna get a cellie with boobs.”

J.T. was just a regular drug offender, nondescript, mostly kept to himself other than the occasional poker game. But Porkchop took a shine to him, pursuing him quietly but relentlessly. First it was bringing J.T. into his “car”, the small group with whom he worked out. Then it was showing him how to make a nacho, a unique prison dish made in a bowl with rice, chips, beef jerky, cheese, beans, onions, peppers, most smuggled out from the warehouse. Finally, it was ironing J.T.’s greens before Visiting Hours on Sunday.

And then one day, as I walked down to the bathroom late one night, I saw it. They were in bed together, snuggling and talking quietly. I saw a newbie snicker, and then a prison old-head ice-grilled him. “It ain’t none o’ yo muthafuckin bidness,” said the look, and the newbie scurried back to his cell. After that, no one said a word about it. And it remained that way every night for the next few months until I left.

* * *

I hadn’t thought about Porkchop and J.T. for over a year, until the other night, after that Brooklyn party. Those incomparably enlightened and erudite hipsters, themselves mostly unattached and plotting their next conquests (“So, she’s not looking for anything too serious, right?”), were palpably fascinated with the sexualized brutality of prison rape.

I wonder if any of them will ever experience the type of intimacy that J.T. and Porkchop shared.

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Editor’s Note: To learn more about Jeff Smith’s fascinating path from rising political star to federal prisoner to hopeful redemption, read his critically acclaimed piece, “The Long and Winding Journey to My Second Act.” 

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For media requests and individuals interested in contacting Jeff to be made aware of future book events and speaking engagements, please email jeffsmith2006@gmail.com.

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