By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Random, scattered and not very deep –and sometimes ridiculous —thoughts.
If people from “past lives” really exist, what do they do all day? Except wait for one of us to try to talk to them? That’s got to drive them bonkers –if you are one of those past lives people. Especially if you have (had) ADD and are not being treated with meds.
Do they watch reality TV shows like us “current lives” folks? And if they do, do they watch reality TV starring only “past lives” people of do they tune in to the same shows we watch?
If it’s the latter, I think it would be nice to have a few “past lives” characters show up in some popular new TV series.
And maybe even have at least one series—a sitcom—about a loveable, endearing past lives family. Sort of a “Modern Family” but set in the late Depression era–and in the show (a story reference within the story) there will be yet another “past lives” family with their own storyline from the 1890s.
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 . . .
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Quentin Crisp
My introduction to foreign doctors and how the language barrier can have serious consequences ––but also teach important life lessons.
When I was 19 years old I moved to Los Angeles, CA to attend the University of Southern California (USC), famous at the time for football more than academics, but I was shooting for the stars academically and it was the best college I could get in at that time. albeit on probation. Sure, I was excited about attending a big name school like USC, but I was a lot more excited about living in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California.
I didn’t know much about LA and was just excited to be a kid from KY moving into the big city and trying to fit in. My first few weeks out there I watched David Letterman ever night on my rented television and one night he interviewed and exotic and eccentric writer named Quentin Crisp who commented about the differences in LA and NY City. Crisp said, almost verbatim, “Los Angeles is an endless sunny paradise where everyone is beautiful and rich and awards grow on trees. But if you want to rule the world, you have to live in NY.” Heaven knows why I remember that quote, but it stuck with me and I never quite looked at LA the same after that. Clearly, it was a “beautiful people” town and although I wasn’t really cut out for that, I wanted to try to blend in and hopefully not stick out.
My first week as I was moving in, a female student from UCLA with the guys helping me move my furniture, made conversation with me and then asked her female friend to come over with her to talk to me. I was nervous and excited —but ultimately disappointed when I realized why she summoned her friend. “Oh my God, listen to him talk. Say something. He’s got the most country accent. Say something. Anything.” They then asked where I was from and I told them Kentucky. “Is that a state?” she asked. I said, “No, Kentucky was a small city in Nashville, which was a state next to the state of Tennessee.” No one laughed so I finally explained the joke. And no one laughed again. Although I was asked to repeat parts of it for the accent affect alone.
I went to the beach a lot the first few weeks. I didn’t surf or even know how to hang out at the beach like other guys in LA my age, so I tried to up my game by using something called “Sun In” to lighten my hair making it blonder and more L.A.-ish. It worked well the first day. And second day. The third day, I rubbed it in like shampoo. And it turned my hair what I suppose is a very intense shade of blonde. But most people would just call it orange. Fortunately for me, orange hair wasn’t as out of place in LA as it would have been back home in Lexington or Louisville. I just went with it and was told it would eventually grow out and that “It wasn’t obviously orange. Just from certain angles.” In other words, from some very narrow angles, I may look a little like a blonde surfer dude. But from most other angles I looked like a Southerner who had just moved to LA and tried to bleach his hair blonde but failed and accidentally dyed it orange.
Read the rest of… John Y’s Musings from the Middle: A Kentuckian in LaLa Land
Personally, I am still confused by the difference between time being “digital” or “analog.”
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I thought I could pull it off today for the very first time. In fact, I was determined to and even promised myself I would not retreat from my commitment–no matter what.
And I held off for a record period of time. But I just can’t pull it off and have to come to grips with the fact that I am going to have to, no matter how humiliating and degrading and personally disappointing to me and those who count on me, ask….
“Would somebody please tell me what time it really is now?”
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Mar 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Confession.
Not like St Augustine’s….but a more modern version with dental implications.
I would like to make a public confession about something I have been deliberately deceptive about for over 40 years.
I continue promising things will change, but frankly, they never have. And I feel guilt and shame…and mild pain that is helped only by Anbesol gel.
For over 40 years when asked by the dental hygienist and/or dentist “Are you flossing regularly?” I also lead them to believe I have been flossing more than I really have—and to make matters worse—add that I will do better before the next appointment. But don’t.
(Once I indicated a flossed with some limited regularity when, in fact, I hadn’t flossed even once in the last 6 months. Except with the corner of sugar packages and once with a toothpick.)
Over 40 years of cumulative deceit can weigh heavy on a man’s heart. And on his dental health. And I need to come clean.
So I can again, look myself in the eye in the mirror. And at the three remaining wisdom teeth when flossing.
If not for my teeth, I need to at least do it for my soul.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Mar 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
At the coffee shop this morning and I notice the subtle difference in how women and men communicate with the same sex when meeting for business purposes. Each table seems to have two people talking away with files and laptops and tablets and legal pads covering up the table leaving a few inches open for their coffee and pastries.
At tables where women are ta…lking to women, they each listen while the other is talking. They are “connecting” and fully engaged with each other.
At tables where men are talking to men, they each are pretending to listen but primarily preparing what they will say next. They aren’t really in connecting mode but rather “transacting mode.”
What is most interesting is that at tables where a man and a women are are having a business conversation the man listens and is trying to “connect” and the women is thinking about what she is going to say next —and trying to pretend like she is connecting.
And here’s the irony: The same man who when talking business with another man knows his colleague isn’t really listening (even though his colleague is pretending to listen), when talking to a women believes they are really connecting (even though his female colleague is only pretending to connect.)
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Mar 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
When I was 21 I saw an attractive and vivacious young lady who I had briefly dated at the end of high school. (Actually, I sat behind her taking the SAT and got her phone number. The most impressive work I displayed that entire morning–as memory serves)
Anyway, I got her number again 3 years later and asked her on a date. And we went on a date. I asked her on a second date. This time on a Friday night. She called to say she was running behind and so I watched LA Law for the first time. And liked it.
She called again saying again she was running even later and I watched another show I can’t remember but didn’t like as much as LA Law. And then I watched the early news before getting the call that tonight wasn’t going to work out but asking about Sunday evening for a rain check. I said OK.
But got stood up again Sunday.
We made another date for Wednesday for which I got stood up a third time.
Saturday was The Police concert in Lexington and I got two tickets and invited my SAT friend but ended up only needing one ticket that night. For me.
We tried for a rain check again Sunday but something came up and she had to cancel because she was simply “over-extended.” I was irritated but hadn’t heard the word “over-extended” used in that way by someone my own age and was impressed.
And started using the word often in the same context and still do 30 years later. So, I am appreciative for learning that from her.
We tried for a lunch date Wednesday but it got cut short due to something “beyond her control.” I had heard that excuse before but wasn’t as impressed as I was with the excuse of being “over-extended” and rarely use it myself unless I really am truly desperate and can’t come up with a legitimate reason. Which I remember thinking is what she must have been thinking that day.
Friday we had a date but she explained she couldn’t make it. Without any excuse or apology. Standing me up had gone from being a rude and unexpected surprise to the equivalent of a yawn.
I had heard “boundaries” recently and even heard there was a book out I should read about them. I didn’t know a lot about boundaries but knew they had something to so with being more assertive and were a theory for not letting people take advantage of you.
And so since I had been learning new vocabulary words from my friend, I decided it was my turn and I invoked my own new vocabulary word “boundary.” And the fact that I had them. At least one boundary anyway. Or so I said. Or was at least trying to start having a new boundary. With her anyway.
I calmly explained that she had essentially stood me up for dates 6 times in two weeks and that was “not acceptable” to me. strong words that only emboldened me. I continued that because “I had boundaries” that (and I was very delicate but still deliberate in explaining this part) that there would not be a 7th opportunity to stand me up.
Boundary-wise, I had to be this way because “I respected my self.”
And we hung up and never spoke again.
That’s the end of the story.
I never actually saw with my own eyes the boundaries I created and announced that night. But they must still be there. Since that time I have never let anyone stand me up in business or other (non-dating) areas of my life.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Mar 6, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
As this is a bi-partisan site, and as yours truly has been using this space to air my support for an Ashley Judd for U.S. Senate candidacy, I feel it is critical to give Team Mitch (McConnell) some equal time.
With that in mind, here is the latest McConnell for Senate campaign video:
h/t to Joe Sonka, liberal columnnist/blogger for Ace Weekly (Louisville) who tweeted:
We can finally credit McConnell for bringing some progress to America: The Harlem Shake is officially dead: youtube.com/watch?v=VMp_yz…
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!
If it’s the latter, I think it would be nice to have a few “past lives” characters show up in some popular new TV series.
