Everything's Coming Up Roosevelts

With our typical devil-may-care television-watching verve, Mr. Rip and I agreed that we might want to catch "The Roosevelts: an Intimate History." We both always found the Roosevelts to be a particularly fascinating and plucky American family, so why wouldn't we want to watch an in-depth documentary covering that great triumvirate of Roosevelts- Teddy, Franklin, and Eleanor (oh, my!) -brought to us by that documentary wunderkind himself Ken Burns.

“You know this is a two-hour commitment,” Mr. Rip warned me, remote control in hand.

No problem, I assured him.  We often watched two-hour programs and while it’s true we didn’t make it through them all awake, we simply caught what we missed later.

Partway through the hour-long preview show it really sunk in that what we were really committing to was 7 nights of 2-hour installments – we were going to be watching 14 hours of this documentary.  It would be like watching the story of the Roosevelts in real time.

We were learning a lot just watching the preview.  We learned that the voice of Teddy would be played by Paul Giamatti.  Oh, okay, he was great as John Adams.  They were thrilled when Edward Herrmann signed on to voice FDR.  Of course, he is the go-to actor to play that part. And none other than the one-and-only Meryl Streep would be Eleanor.  What, Mr. Rip asked, Jane Alexander wasn’t available? Oh, and Ken Burns has a really bad haircut – it’s pretty much an early-Beatles mop top.

So, we were in and there was no turning back.  Well now these first two hours of the documentary were very, very interesting in a historical sort of way.  Franklin and Eleanor were very young in this installment, suffering through difficult childhoods, but Teddy was U.S. President by the end of the show.  Burns was really quite thorough – not one little detail was missed.  Seriously, he included everything.

When it was over, Mr. Rip went into the kitchen for a minute, and I saw that there was still 30 minutes of the Miss America Pageant left to air.  Mr. Rip doesn’t like the Miss America Pageant but I thought it wouldn’t hurt anything to watch it until he came back into the room.

As luck would have it, I turned it on in the middle of the Talent Competition.  Mr. Rip wandered back into the room just as Miss Ohio was starting her ventriloquist act, where her dummy and she sang Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

“A ventriloquist?  What is this?”  Mr. Rip asked, “The Ed Sullivan Show?”   But even he had to admit that Miss Ohio was pretty good.

There was a classical pianist, two interpretive dancers, and a singer singing Ben E. King.  It really was like The Ed Sullivan Show.

Then Miss New York sang Pharrell William’s Happy while sitting cross-legged on the floor accompanying herself by playing percussion with a plastic red cup on the floor.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Miss New York played that red cup all the way to the crown – she was later crowned Miss America.  Whatever. I was rooting for the ventriloquist.

I don’t why Mr. Rip never wants to watch these shows.  There were more laughs in 15 minutes of the Miss America Pageant Talent Competition than there were in three hours of the Roosevelts.

You Can Leave Your Clothes On

Have you heard the latest brouhaha about the nude photos of all the young starlets that have been posted on various websites?  If I understand it all correctly, these were photos that these starlets – DOZENS of these starlets- snapped with their cell phones.

There was all kinds of uproar that these photos were hacked and posted on the websites.  There were articles about how these young women had their rights violated and that they were victims of a sex crime.  There was finger-pointing at Apple because of the suspicion that the hackers were getting the photos from the Cloud. People seemed most upset that one of the exposed starlets happened to be Jennifer Lawrence, and one of my FB Friends supposed this was because she was America’s Sweetheart, so people were more upset when it happened to her.

Okay, I have a question. Why are all these young famous people taking nude pictures of themselves on their cell phones?  Is this a “thing” now? Shouldn't famous young people realize that nefarious and immoral sorts have been out to find compromising photos of celebrities since dinosaurs roamed the earth, or so I've heard (I wasn't actually there). Aren't they the ones who are harassed relentlessly by the paparazzi who will go to any extraordinary lengths to get photos of them even with their clothes on?  Why are they surprised that people are trolling the Internet just looking for photos of them?

This is not the Cloud’s fault.  Back in the day when the Cloud was just a fluffy white collection of moisture in the sky, people were stealing other people's pictures from the Internet.  Before there was an Internet, people were stealing people's “hard copy” photos.

So, I have some helpful advice for any young starlet reading this.  If you don't want anyone to steal and post nude photos of you, don’t take nude photos of yourself on your cell phones.  See how simple that is?  

Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't figured this out for yourselves. If I understand that once something is “out there” in Cyberspace that there is no getting it back, surely a young savvy 24-year-old with an estimated net worth of $53 million like you should understand it too. Actually, anyone with more sense than God gave a goose should understand it.

Oh, and while I'm at it… you regular everyday obscure 24-year-olds, with a net worth of about 53 dollars and seemingly endless student loan debt looming ahead of you? You should keep your clothes on while taking pictures on your cell phone, too. You are every bit as important as Jennifer Lawrence and besides, prospective employers have the Internet too.

Thank You, I Think

At Olive Garden the other day, the waitress came to our table with a huge bottle of wine in her hands and asked (as they are instructed), “Would you like to sample our wine this morning?”

“No, thank you,” I replied, pleasantly, “I would however like to sample your water.”

The waitress laughed at my remark, and when she left our table she said, “That is the best answer I've ever gotten to that question.”

Really?  Mine was the very best come-back to her company’s wine-related suggestive selling this fine young woman had ever heard? Well, this just made my day.  She laughed at my joke and paid me a compliment, all over the same remark.

I’ll tell you, there is nothing that puts me in a better mood than a good compliment.  It is so gratifying to feel appreciated, and I always remember kind words bestowed upon me by friends and strangers alike.  On the other hand, I never forget the slights and insults thrown my way either.  So to those of you who said mean things to me in the fifth grade– and you know who you are – I haven’t forgotten.

Trickier though are those remarks that sound like they might be compliments but upon deeper analysis might not really be as positive as they first seem to be.  You know the kind of backhanded compliments I’m talking about:

1)       “It sure was quiet around here without you.” 

Surely when your parents say this just a couple of hours after you get home from college for a weekend visit, it’s a good thing right?  But you can’t help remembering how they were always telling you to lower your voice when you were growing up.  Hmm, maybe they like it quiet.

2)       “You have an interesting face.”

What the hell does that mean?  “Interesting?”  Is that the only thing you can think of when trying to come up with an adjective to describe my visage?  Next thing you know you’ll be calling me a “handsome” woman.

3)       “That was a great role for you.”

If someone says this to me after seeing me perform in a play, they had better follow it up with “and you were absolutely fabulous in it!” or I am going to think that they just can’t think of anything nice to say about my performance.

4)       “Not just anyone can wear that color…”

“…and neither can you!”  That’s what they’re not saying.

5)      “You’re just like my wife!”

This one definitely was not a compliment when delivered by my colleague with whom I was in a serious disagreement, but I chose to take it that way.  His wife was a lovely women, not to mention patient and saintly for putting up with him all those years.

Actually that is my general philosophy when on the receiving end of these questionable statements and even some remarks clearly not meant as flattery.  I just assume that they are, in fact, compliments.  I mean, maybe when someone says my butt looks big in those pants it is a good thing.  After all, that approach works for Jennifer Lopez, doesn’t it?