Diving Into Dystopia

There is no word in the Russian language for “privacy.” That’s not surprising, considering Mother Russia gave birth to Big Brother.

What is jarring is that some tinpot dictator in a little Long Island town named Riverhead has no concept of the word, either.

Riverhead’s Chief Building Inspector decided to use Google Earth to take a satellite stroll through homeowners’ backyards and nail the folks who had pools but didn’t have the required permits. While the Chief Spy, er, Inspector admitted, “a lot of people don’t like the idea of an eye in the sky,” he also tried to put an altruistic face on this highly-suspect practice by adding that the fear of someone drowning outweighed the concern over privacy.

This guy must think we’re all wet.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, legislation was passed fast and fearfully in the name of keeping us safe from terrorism. The USA Patriot Act, which arguably did more to chip away at civil liberties than any bill passed before or since, enjoyed broad bi-partisan support and became law on October 26, 2001. The terrorists had, indeed, won.

Fact is, you cannot legislate against life, which is messy, chaotic and dangerous. Try as we mere mortals might to keep ourselves wrapped in a cozy cocoon, nature is a wild child and no manic Mary Poppins act is going to keep the cosmic kid from raising holy hell when the mood strikes.

What I find even more insidious is how politicians are now using the “fear factor” as an excuse to raise money for community chests ravaged by the current economic meltdown. If you want to pick my pocket just say so, but don’t hand me a line about protecting my health and welfare while levying a tax against tanning salons or using espionage to root out recalcitrant pool owners. (Note: Riverhead has already garnered a cool $75,000 in fines and permit fees.)

I’d love to lay this knee-jerk reactivism at the feet of our feckless leaders, but it seems we only have ourselves to blame. In an age when we rely on too many conveniences, take in too many calories and live too many years, we’re more than happy to leave our existence to elected court jesters who profess to really care about us. Too bad I don’t feel the same way about them.

We have a pool here at my co-op and, the other morning, a rat was found doing the backstroke in its well-maintained water. I wonder if he was just hot or on a reconnaissance mission.

You Bet Your Life

There are two American tourist destinations I have no desire to visit.

The first is Disney World. Me versus “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Wouldn’t that be a Mexican wrestling match.

The second is Las Vegas. I could contentedly go to my grave without witnessing the bizarre physical contortions of Cirque or the disturbing vocal contortions of Celine. As for gambling, it doesn’t do a thing for me. I can’t count fast enough to play black jack, can never remember the hand rankings in poker, and find feeding coins into a slot machine a crashing bore. I’ve been to Atlantic City and the odd casino down in the Caribbean, and found the only sure-fire transaction is handing over my cash for a couple of cocktails. After all, the first rule of gambling is “the house always wins.”

It didn’t occur to me until our current Great Recession that I have been, in fact, an unrepentant gambler, wagering my home, my income and my retirement on the global crapshoot known as the stock market.

The suits that run Wall Street prefer to use words like “investing” or “trading,” but when you put your money down with no guarantee that you’ll see a return, that, my friends, is gambling. The analogy between throwing dice in “Sin City” and doing the same on “The Street” became even more apparent when not one hustler who ruled from the corner offices of Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers had to take the “perp walk” for losing their fellow citizens’ homes, jobs and shirts. In fact, the traders at the firms that didn’t go belly up continue to collect obscene salaries and bonuses. Once again, “the house always wins.”

The other day, I heard of a new hedge fund that aims to turn the stock market into the bookie parlor it’s been all along. Called Galileo, it will analyze sports probability and statistics, then put investors’ money on the outcomes of games ranging from tennis to baseball to golf.

Of course, when an interviewer asked why not just call this new investment gambling or sports betting, the CEO of Galileo replied, “We don’t gamble. We apply an intelligent process and we look for solid risk-reward opportunities.”

Wanna bet?

Rocks Off

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. -- Adolf Hitler

Back in 1938, the good folks at DeBeers must have had Der Fuhrer in mind when they hired the advertising firm of N.W. Ayer & Son to come up with a campaign that would convince the American public that diamonds were a "necessary luxury."

DeBeers, one of history’s most successful cartels that, up until very recently, completely controlled the world-wide production and supply of diamonds, saw their European market tank when Herr Hitler started getting feisty. Although the US was purchasing 80% of DeBeers' gems, we were terrible cheapskates. You can't make a bundle peddling small, poor quality stones that cost an average of $80 a pop, so that’s when DeBeers hired Ayer's to cook up a little marketing propaganda.

The result was a four-word tagline, sprung from the mind of a lowly female copywriter, that became the most recognized advertising slogan of all time:

"A Diamond is Forever"

This was the linchpin of a 50-plus years campaign, evoking the idea that chunks of carbon are rare, valuable and never to be parted with. Unfortunately for you, me and every other sucker who was lead to believe we were getting a solid bang for our bling, the slogan worked all too well.

Beginning with young American males, DeBeers convinced them a diamond engagement ring was a reflection of their true love and bigger was better. (When it comes to young American males, this precept doesn't only apply to diamonds, but that's another article.) Once they had that market cornered, they sold three-stone "Past, Present and Future" rings to long-married couples; dreamed up the multi-stone "Eternity Ring" to unload a glut of small diamonds mined in the Soviet Union; and even bamboozled unattached women into buying a diamond ring for their right hand as a statement of their gutsy independence.

But here's the thing with diamonds – they have no intrinsic value and their price depends solely on scarcity. Virtually every diamond that's been found and cut is still in existence, meaning the public holds 500 million carats of diamonds, more than fifty times what DeBeers produces in a given year.

If times get tough and you decide to pay the bills by unloading your ice, good luck. The retailer you bought it from won’t take it, not even a prestigious outfit like Tiffany’s. The best they can offer is wholesale, far below the 100 to 200% mark up they originally charged. Not only would they lose a customer, they’d gain a black eye. If you do find a reputable firm to take it off your hands, expect to get about $600 for a one-carat diamond that cost you $2000.

"A diamond is forever" alright. And we‘re forever stuck with them.

Showers of "Oy"

As I’ve made mention in a past article, I’m a big fan of “Seinfeld” and have watched the syndicated reruns so many times, I can quote whole episodes in my sleep. My hands-down favorite is what I call the “Hamptons Episode,” where a trip to that summer resort area by Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer involves an ugly baby, illegal lobster harvesting, a topless beach romp and the physical effects of cold pool water on the male member. (“It shrinks?” “Like a frightened turtle!”) Elaine echoes my own sentiment when she responds to this spontaneous biology lesson with, “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.”

Actually, that’s not 100% true. There are certain occasions when I would be ecstatic to sport a Mister Johnson, and it’s whenever I receive an invitation to that most dreaded of female-only festivities, the “shower.”

The origins of this four-hour form of torture are a bit vague. The word itself seems to come from the Victorian-era practice of putting gifts inside a parasol which would then be opened, “showering” the bride-to-be with largesse. Presents must have been much smaller back then, because getting crowned with a Crock Pot wouldn’t be the best way to start a life of wedded bliss, although having the bloodied guest of honor whisked away in a speeding ambulance while her bridal party starts a betting pool on whether she makes it to the wedding day would certainly relieve the tedium for this writer.

The earliest use of the word in print occurred in the June 4, 1904 edition of the “Michigan Evening Press”: “The ‘shower parties’ that through mistaken hospitality the wedded couple are forced to attend…”

What a minute. What?!

I don’t know what the hell was going on at the turn-of-the-20th-century, but I do know the only modern shower participant who’s more than happy to attend is the one walking away with all the loot. By the time the maid of honor and bridesmaids have fought it out with the bride over which hideous, overpriced dress and accessories they’ll be forced to wear in public (not to mention memorialized for all time in photos and video), they’d be just as happy to flog the little dear as fete her.

As for the guests, their fun begins with the bridal registry and the fervent hope there’ll be something left besides the “I Don’t Want to Look Cheap” salt and pepper shakers and the “There Goes My Bridgework” fine china setting. With gifts in hand, the guests are welcomed and then entertained with sophomoric shower games (although I do get a sick thrill out of seeing the bride wear the dreaded “Bow Bonnet”), served a menu that assumes all women enjoy nibbling greens and overdone salmon, and then get a ringside seat for an hour or so of “ohhing” and “ahhing” as the wife-in-training rips off the wrapping paper on a bath towel set or a toaster oven.

(Don’t even get me started on baby showers. At least towels and toasters I know about. Diaper genies, breast pumps and that disgusting plastic thingee that suctions snot out of an infant’s nose I wish I never knew about.)

But for my salad bowl and tongs set, the absolutely worst part of these segregated soirees (besides the exclusion of anyone with a “Y” chromosome) is the shower libation of choice – champagne punch. With a sickly sweetness that would send a non-diabetic into a coma, it’s usually served in small glasses so that, God forbid, none of the women become “tipsy.” Believe me, there’s not so much as a headache in the whole punch bowl.

There was a time not so long ago when “Jack and Jill” parties were in vogue, but that quickly passed. Men are no dopes. They’re not going to blow a perfectly good Saturday or Sunday afternoon kvelling over kitchen utensils or playing “Bridal Shower Bingo.”

Now that the season of showers are upon us, a trip to Stockholm to check out a sex change operation has a certain appeal yet seems a tad drastic. Maybe a cucumber, a trucker’s cap and NFL season tickets would be enough to discount me from the deluge.

Following Suit

The French are in the middle of a cultural merde storm with a bill being hotly debated in parliament that would ban the wearing of face-covering veils such as the niqab or burqua in public. Secularists to the soul (God bless them) but with the largest Muslim population in Europe, the French are walking a political tightrope that would put Philippe Petit’s stroll between the Twin Towers to shame.

I’m not going to weigh in on this touchy subject because, for starters, I don’t live in France, but I have a suspicion the real reason a large majority of the French back the ban is sartorial. In a country that not only coined the term haute couture (loosely translated as “high sewing” or “high dressmaking”) but protects its criteria and use by law, the deliberately gruesome burqua must be particularly offensive. I know when I strolled down the Champs Élysées wearing a perfectly acceptable American ensemble of jeans, top and leather boots, I felt déclassé to say the least.

Lately, I’ve been giving this idea of banning a certain article of female clothing much thought. The only problem is, some of the elected officials who’d have to get behind the prohibition are its most ardent adherents.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about that ubiquitously horrendous combination of blazer and pants that’s come to be known as “The Hillary Suit.”

That damning designation is a bit unfair. Yes, ever since Hillary Clinton decided to seriously pursue her own political career, she’s been seen exclusively in the eponymous suit (at least she dropped the all-black look awhile ago and branched out into color, although that orange number was a poor choice), but this has been the “uniform” for all serious female pols since they were permitted to wear pants on the Senate floor in the early 1990’s. (And wasn’t that mighty white of their male counterparts.) It’s also become the go-to get-up of any woman in corporate America who’s looking to take a hammer to the glass ceiling.

I don’t get it. If a woman can wear only one type of apparel to prove her worthiness, is there that much difference between a business suit and a burqua? Isn’t it just as repressive for a woman to be required to cover her whole body to gain acceptance, as it is to ape the look of a man?

I wish I had a solution to fascist female fashion in all its guises, but Coco Chanel I am not. Maybe it’s about time women themselves cut the burquas, business suits and ties that bind.

All Fired Up

I think if you ask most Americans, Christmas would be their favorite holiday, with Thanksgiving coming in second by a drumstick.

This has always stumped me.

Just when Mother Nature (in the Northern Hemisphere) is nagging us to slow down, eat less and sleep more, we contrary critters bust our guts with over laden tables, break our budgets with over-the-top gift lists and try and beat the clock to get it all done before the designated day.

What fools we Americans be, especially when the greatest national holiday is a scant two days away.

That’s right my fellow revolutionaries, the Fourth of July is almost upon us and more red, white and buzzed I could not be!

Who needs to labor over turkey with all the trimmings when a package of hot dogs, a bag of chips and a cooler of cold ones is all it takes to get the party started? Who needs twinkle lights when fireflies are working their natural magic? Who needs to gather around a roaring fireplace when you can sit under a star-filled sky and still break a sweat?

Not me, that’s who!

And I haven’t even mentioned the Fourth’s best treat of all – fireworks! Lucky for me that Long Island just happens to be the home base of the world’s pre-eminent “First Family of Fireworks,” the Gruccis, so I’ve been witness to some spectacular pyrotechnic displays over the years, including the Bicentennial blowout of ’76, and an international exhibition at the old Shea Stadium, where I spied patriarch Felix Grucci handling some explosive device with a smoldering cigarette dangling from his lips.

But the show that blew my Keds off was held on the playing field of our local public high school when I couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. Keep in mind that back in the day, before we became such collective fraidy cats and allowed “The State” to nanny us to death, fireworks were easily accessible to all and sundry. It wasn’t unusual for our parents to give us a dime so we could buy “punks” at the local candy store, making the lighting of firecrackers more efficient. In fact, if you read the following day’s paper and didn’t see a few stories about kids blowing off a finger or two or taking out an eye, you knew it was a pretty shabby Fourth.

So it was also run-of-the-mill that you’d have a local fireworks show where the audience was seated mere yards away from where the explosive action was due to take place. What I wasn’t prepared for was a large grid, set up mid-field, that had all manner of contraptions lashed to its frame. As I anxiously waited for the sun to set, one of my brothers patiently explained that, before the skyward portion of the performance, there was a ground display. Not knowing what the hell he was talking about, I figured it was just one more thing, like that damned lingering sun, holding up the sensational skyrockets.

Ah, the ignorance of youth. Not only was the ground show far superior to the aerial display (we could actually feel the heat of the burning chemicals), it was the first and, unfortunately, last time I saw that most magnificent of razzle-dazzlers, the Catherine Wheel.

Named after “the breaking wheel,” an instrument of torture that, legend has it, carried off the soul of the martyred Saint Catherine, this firework is constructed either as a cross with a fifth wheel in the middle or a star. I don’t recall which version was ignited that long ago night, but it was truly an awesome sight.

Since New York is one of four states that ban all consumer fireworks completely (bastards) and the annual Grucci show at Jones Beach has been cancelled due to the shitty economy (goddamn Great Recession), looks like fireworks in my neck of the woods will be light on the ground and the sky this year.

Two hundred and thirty-five years ago, the colonists started a revolution because they didn’t want to pay their taxes. This Fourth, I say we man the barricades and demand our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of a few lost limbs.

Killing Time, Softly

You don’t reach a certain age in this circus we call life without cultivating a few well-chosen pet peeves along the way. Some are inherited while others are imprinted from our first yowling appearance out of the womb and into the world.

My Mom is responsible for my vexation with noisy walkers. When my sister and I were small, we’d screw around the way most kids do and shuffle our feet. This would drive Mommy mental and elicit a barking, “Girls! Pick up your feet!” As I grew up, that command spread into a personal bias not only against shufflers, lumberers and galumphers but the women’s footwear industry. A hex on you clacking high heels! Shut the fuck up thwoking flip-flops! Consequently, I have an extremely light tread that’s temporarily stopped hearts in my fellow human beings and even scared the bejesus out of cats. I also have a helluva time buying shoes.

Under the second nature category is my compulsive punctuality. While some people will be, as the saying goes, “late to their own funeral,” I’ll be ten minutes early to mine. I never mind cooling my flats for a few minutes waiting for an appointed meeting or rendezvous, but may the good Lord help you if you show up a minute late. My time is just as important as your time, and don’t you forget it.

Which is why I’m increasingly ticked (tocked) off by the vague phrases that have become the lingua franca of designating time or, more importantly in my industry, deadlines.

The most passive-aggressive is the acronym ASAP. As someone who prides themselves on not just meeting but beating deadlines what, exactly, does “as soon as possible” mean? Metaphysically, any thing is possible at any time. Using ASAP is just a convenient way to cover your ass. You don’t come off sounding like a whip cracker if you only imply a need for speed, but can say to your direct report “I told them I needed it ASAP” if it doesn’t magically materialize within a never allotted time frame.

While it hasn’t reached the ubiquity of ASAP, EOD is another murky qualifier that’s turning up in my e-mails more and more. If I worked as a trader on the New York Stock Exchange, end of day would be 4pm. If I were a soldier in basic training, end of day would be 6pm. If I followed the sun, end of day would be whenever Old Sol sets. Of course, there’s the “end of days” or “Armageddon,” which would be the end of day and night for good and all. The point is, my end of day may not be your end of day. In fact, given how some days end, I wish they never began.

Although I found it easy as a kid to walk like a starving hunter, it was, ironically, more difficult to master the reading of a clock face, so my Mom bought me a Fisher-Price “Tick Tock Teaching Clock” to help the process along. I still have it as my most cherished childhood toy. For those who use flimsy acronyms instead of solid numbers to lay down a deadline, feel free to borrow it. Anytime.

You Say It's Your..?

“Gloria, you’re just like your Uncle Johnny. Your birthday is a national holiday.”

I’ll be hearing that annual refrain from my Mom tomorrow because it is, in fact, my birthday!

Light the sparklers! Fling the confetti! Toss back a toast! Hell, I’d even urge you to take the day off from work if it wasn’t a Saturday.

I’m one of those people who think birthdays are a big deal and deserve to be fussed over. I never mind getting a year older (the way I’ve lived my life, I’m lucky to have made it this far) and believe they’re New Years, Christmas and Fourth of July rolled into one personal, gift-wrapped package.

How I celebrate my birthday has changed over the years. When I was in the single and early double digits, it was all about sugar overload and how many gifts I could amass. I particularly remember a tradition we had in grammar school, where your friends would make “corsages” out of tin foil-covered cardboard, bows and ribbons, covering them with Bazooka, Tootsie Rolls and other “penny” candy. Not only would the number of corsages you received reflect your popularity in the pecking order, you became the most sought-after person in class as your fellow students treated you like a walking, talking Pez dispenser.

I hit eighteen during those golden years when that was the legal drinking age. Sugar was replaced by shots and ear-bleeding hangovers for the next two decades or so, but I still had my cake and ate it, too, thanks to that universal workplace tradition known as the office party.

Truth be told, nobody gave a rat’s ass whose birthday it was, as long as we had an excuse to get away from our desks at three o’clock and fill our faces with cake. The only angst surrounding the celebration was the passing around of the birthday card. Suddenly, I became the most popular person on the premises and not because I was clothed in candy.

“Say, Glor. Think you can help me write something here?” miffed co-workers would ask while waving the card in my general direction. When I’d tell them that writing their own sentiment would be just fine, miffed turned to alarmed.

Inevitably, there’d always be one colleague who’d ask the question that never failed to leave me speechless. “Is there another way to say ‘Happy Birthday’?”

You will find no bigger iconoclast than yours truly, but some things are sacred and the words “Happy Birthday” are one of them. It’s simple, it says it and it shouldn’t be screwed around with. Add on “many happy returns” if you must, or “how old are you now?” if you’re suicidal, but there is no substitute in the vast language we call English for those two little words.

Last year, I had one of those milestone birthdays that stretched out to a three-day free-for-all. For a change, I’m keeping it on the down low tomorrow. The sparklers, confetti and other festive trappings can be shelved until next year.

A simple “Happy Birthday” will do it for me.

Book 'Em

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Some book title, eh? Just the sort that makes my eyes skittishly dart around the shelf, looking for a read with a little more, shall we say, heft.

But tough times combined with unrelenting boredom make a woman do strange things. It was the tail end of last summer when my 84-year-old mother fell on her tail and sustained a slight fracture to one of her ribs. What followed was a month of the matriarch being confined first to the hospital, then a physical rehab facility and, finally, back to the old homestead. Over my strenuous objections, the rest of my clan hatched an ill-conceived plan to give my Mother 24/7 care until she was able to stand on her own two feet. The scheme lasted exactly one week before we were at each other’s throats but, in the meantime, yours truly was on duty during daylight hours, ping ponging between the stress of playing nurse to a cantankerous patient and the malaise of having zilch to do when said patient was asleep.

That’s when I finally gave in and picked up the above-mentioned best seller, which one of my sisters left on the kitchen table. Maybe it was the circumstances but, much to my pleasant surprise, it wasn’t half bad -- a bit contrived, somewhat mawkish, yet not without a certain lighthearted wit. But what the hell is with that title?

A quick blow through Amazon’s 50 Best Sellers of 2009 tells you today’s writers need to brush up on the three “Cs” – clear, concise, compelling.

Is it really necessary for Stephen King to include the words, “A Novel,” in the title for “Under the Dome”? Surely the “Master of the Macabre” doesn’t believe that we believe a sinister clear dome has actually cut off the residents of a New England town from the rest of the world. Or that the vampires, zombies, werewolves and other crazy-assed creations that make up his prolific bibliography are walking among us. Granted, I’ve met a few dogs that could give Cujo a run for his Milk Bones, but really, give your readers some credit.

Take out the utterly unnecessary “a novel” and at least King kept his title down to three well-chosen words. It’s the non-fiction writers who need to invest in a carton of red Sharpies and delete the subtitles to their titles. How’s this for verbiage that rolls off the tongue: “Fans, Friends and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age.” Or this: “Popes and Bankers: A Cultural History of Credit and Debt, from Aristotle to AIG.” And finally: “Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan.” With a title this all-encompassing, who needs to read the book?

At the moment, I’m hunkered down with Martin Amis’ novel, “London Fields.” Before the story begins, Amis includes a note explaining how he came to title his book:

“The first kind of title decides on a name for something that is already there. The second kind of title is present all along: it lives and breathes, or it tries, on every page. London Fields is the second kind of title.”

In future, let’s hope all writers, like Amis, go with option two.

Hail a Holy Hellraiser

Long before it became the home for battling chefs and bitchy housewives, Bravo was cable’s cultural bastion for opera, dance, classical music, theater performances and foreign films.

I should know. At the time, I held the now antiquated title of Secretary to the Manager of Bravo’s Program Acquisition Department. Between answering phones (voice mail wasn’t even a twinkle in Ma Bell’s eye) and pounding out letters on an IBM Selectric typewriter (clickey-clack, clickety-clack), I was exposed to all this high-falutin’ fare. The opera, ballet and symphonic stuff left me cold, but it was here that I discovered the exotica of global cinema. For a kid brought up on Disney’s animated saccharine and Cinemascope’s bloated epics, it was a reel smorgasbord. From the French New Wave to the Italian Neo-Realists and the Chinese Fifth Generation, I could feast on a broad array of movies that were way more compelling, insightful and thought-provoking than anything ground out by the Hollywood film factory.

Also unlike the studios, where movie titles are dictated as much by the storyline as the marketing department, foreign filmmakers have the same mastery with a moniker as they do over the medium. Some of my fave titles include Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well, Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (aka Dick Tracy on Mars), Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Lina Wertmuller’s Everything Ready, Nothing Works and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

There’s one foreign writer/director/actor who belongs in the Film Title Hall of Fame and that’s Herzog’s compatriot, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Completing an astonishing forty feature films in less than fifteen years (not to mention two television film series, three short films and twenty-four stage plays), Fassbinder was a bundle of creative energy and a self-destructive libertine who died from an overdose of sleeping pills and cocaine at the age of thirty-seven. Never one to shy away from controversy, he made front page news in his native Germany as much for his tortured personal relationships with both men and women as the provocative political content of his works, pissing off feminists, gays, conservatives, Marxists and Jews.

It’s no wonder he became known as the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema and that his film titles reflect both the turbulence of his work and, ultimately, his life:

Love is Colder Than Death

Gods of the Plague

Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

Beware of a Holy Whore

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven

Whether Fassbinder ultimately joined Mother Kusters or is hanging in hell with a holy whore, his films and film titles can best be summed up in his own words: “I let the audience feel and think.”