Random Memories

Maybe, I’m dying.   I say that because I’ve always heard your life passes before your eyes when you’re about to shake hands with the Angel of Death and lately, my past and its personal battle with glory and infamy, has been creeping into my gray matter.

These days, I’m remembering things like a savant.     Things I haven’t thought of in years.

The first decade of my life was the ten year spans of the 60′s.      I was just eight years old during the Summer of Love.    The word “hippie”?    That was an adjective  used by my mother,  during her more catty days,  to describe big bottomed friends.    When the TV news people mentioned ‘drugs’, I thought of Rexall and the only  ”Marx” I knew was the guy who made “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em” robots.

I loved those languid summer days.    After my chores, which I loathed, I could go out and play….and play we did.  We’d be gone for hours; at someone’s house, playing  in a makeshift covered wagon, powered  by imagination.   We were trying to traverse the Cumberland Gap, or whatever the last  land mass we studied in Geography, a few weeks earlier.

I played with neighborhood kids mostly.    They were at my house or I was at theirs.   We hydrated ourselves courtesy of hard, green garden hoses.     We eat whatever Skippy of Mary’s mom would let him or her take out of the kitchen.    Playing pioneer people would morph into various things, such as playing board games–Monopoly, perhaps or Mouse Trap which was soooooooooo labor intensive to set up.     In fact, I don’t think I ever actually played the game.    We’d just set it up simply to watch it play out with its Rube Goldberg precision.    The payoff?    Watching that plastic cage trap thing wobble down the plastic poll and land flat, catching that plastic little mouse.

We’d come home hours later, as the sun was starting to set and no one worried about where we were, what we were doing or who we were doing it with.  We were tired….that good tired that ‘s the result of a free and unencumbered childhood.    We were lucky because that’s what we had all those decades ago.

Sure, I grew up in a small town in South Central Texas, but even my big city cohorts would attest that back in the day, they too could ride their bikes everywhere, walk to the park, playground or movie theatre, play in a front yard.   Being kidnapped by a pedophile was not on the day’s ‘ to do’ list.      If it happened, it was a big deal.    Our parents grew up with headlines about the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping.     They were still a big shell shocked over that one.

In fact, I  grew up with a grandmother who was convinced that children should never, ever sleep near an open window.    That made you a prime target or the gypsies to come steal you in the night.  And if they ever got their hands on you, chances are they’ put you in a travellin’ show where they’d make you dance for the money they’d throw.    Daddy would do whatever he could.    Namely preach a little gospel and if he was lucky, sell a couple bottles of Dr. Good.

I can remember playing with three kids who belonged to the same family.  I used to laugh at how all their farts smelled exactly alike.    Why not?  Same diet.   That was like some  crude methane tracking device.  You could always tell if one of the Schnellings was in the room or had been in the room quite recently.

I can remember watching movies about cowboys and Indians and the Indians (native Americans to be PC) used to communicate with smoke signals.   How long has it been since you heard ANYONE mention smoke signals…other than seeing it on the marquee of a  head shop?

Nehi soft drinks.  Nu-grape?      RC Cola???       St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children?  Creomulsion?    Choks vitamins?     Lik-A Maid, in the perforated accordion packs???

You never see  Milton Bradley board games advertised on TV,  then again, I don’t watch cartoon channels.    Toys today are too weird.    They’re supposed to “edutain” young minds.

What a pant load.

When I was growing up, I had a toy iron that actually plugged in a wall socket and got warm.   So did the Vacuforms and Incredible Edible machines.    Creepy Crawlers, too.   My play flatware had serrated knives and some play spoons could become shivs if bent at the right place.    We ate snow cones made from a plastic snowman with blades in his stomach.   Tore that ice cube up!!!!

We played with toy ovens heated by 40 watt bulbs that were hot enough to turn bad tasting batter into even worse tasting cakes and brownies.

Wanna know how we all knew someone had gotten a Kenner Easy Bake Over for Christmas??

It was easy to tell.

We were burnt, cut, bruised, scalded, balded, maimed and unduly scarred by our toys.  Talk about life lessons!!!!!!      But all that changed with the introduction to Sesame Street.

Kids may be safer but are they are imaginative?   Creative?     Could they do anything without a keyboard???

There are so many  things they’re missing out on.

You never see plastic rings in either gumball machines or as Cracker Jack prizes anymore.    Do they still make that  box of candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize?    That’s what you get in Cracker Jack, dee doh dee doh doh…

I remember getting free stuff if you mailed in a certain number of box tops–mainly from cereal.   Prizes also came in boxes of cereal.    You’d either empty it out in a bowl or contort the shape of the box to get at the tawdry little thing wrapped in cellophane.    It never lost its oaty, wheaty cereal smell.    Invariably, your mom would get mad at you because  your manipulations meant  she could never again completely close the box correctly.

Records,  flexible 45 rpms could be found on the back of Post cereal boxes.   You’d cut it out….it was just this flimsy low tech recording with horrible sound that you’d had to let flatten under a large book for a day or two in order for it to play correctly on your record player.

Cereal box performers included the dulcet tones of a one Bobby Sherman, The Jackson Five, The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats and a group called “The Sugar Bears” which featured a one hit wonder from the summer of ’72 called “You Are The One”.    Catchy little tune.

One of the backup singers on that sleeper was none other than raspy voiced Kim “Bette Davis Eyes” Carnes.

AM radio was king back then.     One speaker played your fave rave tunes and the sound usually emanated from somewhere on the dash board.  The signal would fade as you went over a bridge or under a tunnel and God knows you could always tell if it was lightning was striking anywhere near.   AM static had an unmistakable sound.

I remember we had seasons at my elementary school.   For a few weeks it would be hopscotch…..jump rope was big too.

Not last night but the night before, 24 robbers came knocking at my door…I ran out……ttttttthhhhhhhheeeeeeeeyyyy   rrrrrrraaaaaaaaaannnn in!!!    (That was your cue to exit while another jumper attempted to enter the the inner sanctum of rotating jute)

We played jacks, too.   Onesies….twosies…threesies.     And your discriminating jacks player never played with the little red rubber ball that came with the set.  You played with a golf ball, pilfered from your father;s golf bag.  It had a better, higher  bounce for foursies and higher.

Jacks season was fun.    We also knew when it was over:   when someone’s dad stepped on a jack at home.
Is Tiger Beat magazine still published.    I never read one….was never into teen idols.     I really didn’t care if  Donny Osmond actually called it “puppy Love or not and I couldn’t be bothered if either of the Brady Bunch chicks had crushes on their on-set gaffers or best boys.  w when it was over, too:  whenever someone’s father stepped on a jack at home.

Then there was MAD Magazine.    That rag offered me entre into the world of sardonic humor.   From there, I started reading the National Lampoon.  Back in the early seventies, it —along with the national Lampoon radio Hour which piggybacked with Dr. Dimento and Firesign Theater each and every Sunday night on our local underground FM rock station.    They’d play deep album tracks (entire B sides of an LP ..betcha haven’t heard that grouping of words in quite some time).  Forty five minutes would go by without a commercial and if one played, the only advertisers were free clinics, head shops, record stores and ticket outlets for upcoming concerts.

The uber cool jocks always sounded stoned.

You never see ads for sea monkeys…or X-ray glasses or patches for your blue jeans.

What happened to cursive writing?

And will someone please tell me what happened to the cents symbol on a keyboard????

Go ahead…look.

I’ll wait.

There were bonnet hair dryers and wall mounted pencil sharpeners  in your classroom that only got full when I walked up to use it.    Remember that grinding sound?  And remember how the wood and lead shavings smelled?

Skinned knees were treated with Mercurochrome     We called it “Monkey Blood”.    An antiseptic by any other name would hurt just as bad.  That shit would sting when applied to an open wound of any kind.    Your mom would blow on the ouchie, which helped some, but it still hurt.   And that red stuff stained  your skin for days.

Remember Bactin?  What about Shake-A-Puddin?

I remember the loathsome taste of Fizzies.   It was kiddie Alka Seltzer with a laboratory created ‘fuity’ flavor.   Nasty.

I was never one of those kids who could take a sheet of notebook paper and fold it here and there and origami it up until it was this fortune telling gizmo or….would tell you who with whom you were were really in love.    Anyone remember these things????

I never knew what they were called.    But they could be manipulated with your forefingers and thumbs.  I never married the fourth grade boy it told me I would.

This is the kind of desk I sat in as I matriculated from first through fifth grade.     This was an all in one, metal and wood hemorrhoid inducer.   Uncomfortable and cold.

It had an indention for pens, pencils and  rulers,  I guess.

And lest we forget Map Pencils.

I can remember going to my grandparents house and wanting to color but all they had were a few Map Pencils.    I’d always be so disappointed to learn you had to make due with Map Pencils.    They were so lacking.    The colors never had the vibrancy that crayons did.

Whatever happened to Hydrox cookies, the poor man’s Oreos???

It debuted in 1908, several years before the Oreos and was made by Sunshine.  It’s name is a portmanteau of the two elements contained  in water:  hydrogen and oxygen.  I had no idea.

The Oreo came four years later, inspired by the Hydrox but somehow, the Oreo always stole it’s thunder.   Hydrox was always looked upon as a poor Oreo facsimile.   Ibnteresting becasuse the Hydrox recipe resulted in the chocolate wafer part of the cookie being for better for dipping in milk.    It stayed crunchy even after being submerged in cow juice over and over again.     Not only that, Hydrox were kosher and DIDN’T use lard as an ingredient in the white filling mix as Oreos did.

Keebler bought Sunshine in 1996 and revamped Hydrox as something called “Droxies”.      Then, Kellog bought Keebler and sent Droxies packing into creme filled sandwich cookie netherworld in 2003.     

I remember Lustre Cream shampoo that came in a thick, white glass jar with a metal lid that screwed on and off.   The shampoo itself was pink and had a consistency of cold cream.   I think we had a jar of that stuff on the shelf for several years.

I can’t remember how it smelled, but I remember it certainly left a ‘sheen’ in the bathtub.

Speaking of soap, there was this stuff called Fuzzy Wuzzy.    Anyone remember that?   It was a bar of soap shaped like a bear and maybe a few other animal shapes.   It came in a box decorated like a circus cage.     You left it out in the open air and it would grow air.     And when you used it all up, you’d find a toy surprise in the middle–usually a ring, or a whistle or a a martian.

I had a Fuzzy Wuzzy.

It was a bear.

It grew this thin, uneven whitish grey layer of fuzz or perhaps it was moss ……dust….or albino algae.

I got tired of waiting and cut my alopecic bruin in half and dug out the prize.     I think my mother made me throw out the Fuzzy Wuzzy.    It didn’t grow any hair…and neither could I on any of the large, red,  irritated patches of skin on my torso.

I used to love Soakies as a kid.   These were plastic bottles of bubble bath shaped in  the form of the day’s most popular cartoon characters:  Topcat, Bullwinkle, Rocky, Deputy Dawg, Popeye…and characters from the Disney and Warner Brothers animated pantheon. 

And then there this final memory.

When I was a little girl, there was a Clorox Bleach ad on the back of a magazine.    It was Ladies Home Journal or McCall’s ..I don’t remember which, but, in this one ad that was introduced in 1965/1966, so many people told me that one of the children featured in the ad looked just like me.   Was my splitting image, my doppelganger.   We were around the same age and had the same haircut and coloring:  blond with brown eyes.   I saw the ad myself and agreed there was a striking resemblance, as did members of my immediate family.

Well, I’ve been on a vision quest trying to find that ad.   In the late 70′s I scoured the library at the University of Texas looking out countless vintage magazines in their collection, looking through fiches.    That was more than 30 years ago.

But thanks to the advent of the Internet ( I could just kiss ya, Al Gore) all those years of searching are over.  I have found the ad and I will share it with you.    My twin sister from different parentage.    The one on end in all white, with the dirty sock and inability to lift her leg in the balletic position known as retire.   Oh, and by the way, my nose wasn’t as wide..

Or maybe it was.     I was the one member in my family who could find truffles in no time flat.

The Tragic Art of “Catfishing”

Ah yes, the catfish.

This bottom dwelling aquatic is known by the white costs types  and nerdier game wardens as  a Siluriform.   They’re called ‘catfish” because of their barbels, which are whisker-like tactile organs near the mouth which house the fish’s sense of taste and have something to do with its ability to move and hunt for food through the murkiest bodies of water.  Their binge eating also adds to their size and their size and their size can make them an absolute pain to reel in.  They’re fighters.

On the dinner table, a catfish also has the potential to be  one of the greasiest critters with fins.   I grew up Catholic and back in the early 60′s, this meant I had to endure plenty of Friday nights being force- fed this fish because this was pre-Vatican II and eating meat on Fridays was verboten.     Something about sacrifice and its correlation to Jesus’ 40 days and nights of fasting before he met his fate high atop Calvary..the old Golgotha.

Well, I guess I owe Mr. Catfish an apology because I learned later in life that some of the greasiness can be controlled by allowing the Crisco in the frying pan to reach the correct temperature.  It’s got to be hot enough.    The hotter the temp, the less greasy it’ll be.   So as it turns out, I’ve spent a lifetime lambasting a fish for being greasy, when it was really the fault of a bunch of bad cooks.

But the term’ catfish’ is one we’ve been hearing a lot about lately, not because it’s a fighting fish.

It’s because of The Fighting Irish.

More specifically, the team’s All-American/Heisman/Lombardi finalist, Manti Te’o.    The linebacker is the victim of an apparent catfishing hoax.   A man posed as a woman to lure Manti into an online relationship.    As a result, one of this past football season’s kings of the collegiate grid iron fell in love with a woman he frequently spoke to on the phone…texted…..emailed, but never met.

Instead, he spent four months falling love via talking.     A lot of talking..

According to ESPN, more than a thousand calls totaling more than 500 hours in length either came from or were dialed to the same number which originated from the 661 area code, which covers a part of Los Angeles County.  Of these calls, 110 were more than 60 minutes in length, including several that were several hundred minutes long. Te’o said he was on the phone “every single night” with a person he believed to be Lennay Kekua,

She sent a photo, but wouldn’t Skype.    She’d claim her undying love for, but wouldn’t meet him in person.  Every time a face-to-face was arranged, something always fell through.

And then, Ms. Kekua had a serious car accident,  then she developed leukemia and died in a very short amount of time.  Is there no better way of ending one of these things?  Death has a tendency to be so….so….final and what better way for a narcissist to go out than in an emotional blaze of cyber glory.

We have since learned the hoax was perpetrated by a guy who’s mom had to have been in love with vowels:   Ronaiah Tuiasosopo admitted he was Lennay.   He even created a fake Twitter account for her and it’s also my understanding that somewhere along the way, Manti and Ronaiah knew each other.

The timing of this tangled web interest me.   All of this went down right before the Heisman was awarded and just a few weeks before Notre Dame met Alabama in the National Championship game.   “Bama won–handily–but even so, it’s presumed that Te’o will be drafted in one of the higher rounds for the NFL.

But for me personally, this story isn’t about Manti, as much as it’s about the hoax itself.   What happened to Manti (whether he’s an innocent victim or willing participant) happens all the time.  It’s just that when it happens to you and me, Katie Couric,  ESPN and a 60 Minutes camera crew don’t get involved.

We live in a world where the computer screen is everything.   It’s our source of news, shopping, communication, entertainment, education, job hunting….it’s all encompassing.    It has opened up the world in ways that Magellan, Columbus and Alexander Graham Bell could only dream of.     Online predators are located all over this big blue marble and no,  they’re not all big, sweaty, no goodniks  in chat rooms posing as someone else with the hopes that  some love starved sapling will fall victim to their wiles.   Very often, they’re just big, run of the mill people with very boring lives, or a disability or physical deformity of some sort, or  an ever-expanding waistline.

We can be anything we want to be online.   A lowly part-time mechanic can be a hunky male model.    An under-developed socially awkward young woman can be an attorney with an extremely successful practice.     A well-read paraplegic with an imagination can be a CIA agent or say someone with MI-5… maybe even a double agent with the Mossad (all popular career choices among trolls because these positions are next to impossible to verify).   A James Bond type is always a very popular choice among the male of this species, but catfishing knows no gender boundaries.  Women do it, too.

Perhaps the goal is sex,  maybe even usury for fiscal purposes, but I think more often than not, it’s all about control and manipulation.   Nothing gives power to the powerless more than being able to control ALL the pieces on the chessboard.   And the love starved victim goes along with it, accepting whatever crumbs he or she allows us to have.   Some have maintained a ‘relationship” for years with a nebulous voice, and little else.

Why would someone do that, airou ask?    Why would someone mastermind and maintain a hoax like this?   Why would intelligent men or women fall for it?

Chances are, when this happens, the victim is well aware that there are  more red flags present than outside the Kremlin, but the idea of love and being in a relationship–even the cyber ones, is all we want.  This need; this desire trumps our own sense of  reality.   Honesty.

And really, that’s not all that hard to understand.   Hell, fashion magazines sell volumes because they airbrush photos in their layouts.   So does Playboy.   Beauty, whatever that’s perceived to be, has to have an air of perfection about it.   Madonna’s gap teeth may not be all that becoming to some, but that 28th crow’s foot forming near her 54-year-old left eye can be damn  well dealt with, thank you very much.   Bad dentition perhaps, but bad skin???????

Never.    

We need to present imagery of being younger thinner, wealthier, more handsome, more worldly, more popular, better educated, more alluring and sensual versions of who we are.   We airbrush our lives.  We Photoshop our existences.  We pad our resumes.   We tell lies (whoppers and baby ones) all the time.   The truth, or I should say ‘authenticity’, ends up on the cutting room floor, like yards of celluloid.

And it’s because of this that the glaringly apparent ‘red flags’  are ignored because the distance between the catfisher and his/her prey is beneficial.    That solves a whole array of potential problems.   And the miles also puts the kibosh on true intimacy, the physical AND the emotional kind.   That’s often a plus for both parties.  You see, sometimes, the victim often has as much to hide as the hoaxer.

In my opinion, Manti Te’o is either a liar with a really bad PR machine on his team and the ruse got way out of hand and instead of helping the would be pro-baller, it might end up causing him to lose pre-draft stock.

OR….

He’s a just  lonely, rather naive, 255 pound, Mormon linebacker playing for a very Catholic university and desperately looking for the kind of love that neither his parents, the legacy of Ara Parseghian or the ghost of The Gipper could provide.

The trouble is, he won’t find that kind of love on the internet, either.

I know some very intelligent, very well-educated people who have fallen for the lovely ideal phantom who’s texting and phoning them constantly, making them feel all a twitter from the safety of  being miles away.   ‘In your ear’, can be so much more convenient than ‘in your face’.    And while these bags o’ artiface might work for a while,  eventually, they all grow old.    The rut of being constantly disappointed and dissatisfied has that effect.    Catfish relationships are always….ALWAYS one-sided.   That’s a vital part of the manipulation.    One person tries harder, does all the work and in the end, the hoaxer exits ‘the relationship either because the victim finally wises up or the hoaxer just stops calling or…as in Manti’s case, the non-existent girlfriend conveniently dies.  But, how it ends or even why it ends doesn’t matter.   The destruction of ‘the relationship” is still one sided.   One person is devastated while the other runs off with pilfered trust, hopes and affection.   He or she then compiles all these amorphous trophies under some gigantic but very precise scoreboard that exists only in the ego.

We are toyed with just as a kitten plays with a skein of wool.    

Yes, but deception can still hurt, even if some part of us knew intellectually,  it was a sham all along.   We never want to confront our gullibility.  We never want to admit we’re vulnerable.    There’s a certain amount of pride at stake here, but as painful and embarrsing as it can be in the end, it’s also  one helluva life lesson.    That’s why most people who’ve been “Manti Te’o'd” once, can never be Manti Te’o'd twice.

If properly fortified by heartache, emotional scar tissue is impervious.  It simply won’t allow it.

At least, mine will never let it ever happen to me…..again.

Another Season of AHS Bites The Dust

Well, it’s over.

And it ended as it began but I for one, still have about 148 questions.

It’s the present day and we meet Lana and her new sapphic squeeze, an opera singer or performer of some sort, as she’s being interviewed  by a TV news crew and Lord, did the make-up people work on her face, to give her a necessary seventy or eighty year old look.   Apparently, she’s an accomplished author with six–count ‘em–six best selling novels and not only that, she’s apparently, a TV personality too;  an investigative reporter and host of her own  TV show, you know the kind–that  of the crime solving genre.  She’s also about to be honored at the Kennedy Center.

Apparently, her ambitious need to expose Briarcliff as the hell hole it is, is what catapulted her to such success.     The expose began as a documentary.  She and a camera crew sneak into Briarcliff courtesy of that secret tunnel that Sister Satan introduced to at the very beginning.     We hear how she demanded to see Sister Jude who according to Lana tells us, is still there, lo those many years later.

We treated to a scene of Lana and company entering Jude’s cell, dark and dank and dirty, and on what was once a bed–I think–sits a clump of humanity with wilder than wild hair.   The camera lights prove it’s Jude, who was left in Briarcliff and forgotten.   Jude was the only source left that could prove how the Church (when it owned the asylum)  had looked the other way with regards to mistreatment and scientific experiments.

But is it really Jude?  Nah, that was either Lana’s poetic license…OR…..really bad editing.

We learn that Kit actually rescued Jude and took her home to live with him and his two kids.  The Sister Wives are no longer part of the equation.   His mulato wife killed grace with a couple of ax whacks in the back.    Jude’s name is now Betty Drake.   Kit said he did it–took Jude into his home–as his way of forgiving and forgetting all that crap that happened to him at Briarcliff.    Taking care of Jude, he felt, was his redemption.

He conveys to Lana that it was rough going for a while.  After a lengthy detox, Jude was sedated for years.   She’d forget where she was from time to time and think she was back at Briarcliff and scream and carry on, yelling at Kit’s kids mostly.  She couldn’t understand why there were kids around her.  There was no children’s ward at Briarcliff.

Years later while in the midst of a swing dance lesson, Jude develops a bloody nose.    I’m thinking leukemia    We see her on her death bed, whispering life lessons to Kit’s kids.

To the son: Don’t take shit from the man.

To the daughter:  Never let men dominate you.

The kids are sent out of the room and Jude sees the Angel of Death making her last appearance in the corner of the room.   There she is, decked out in black, wings fully extended  and all puckered up to give Jude that final kiss that’ll take her up, up and away.

Or down, down, down, if you believe the Old Testament.

So, by 38 minutes into the season finale, Jude dies and we’re whisked back to present day.  Lana accomplished her goal and closed down Briarcliff.     She decides to take on the Monsignor–now a Cardinal in New York.   She says he knows about Dr. Arden, the experiments…the cruelty, etc., and we learn that he offs himself in a bathtub.    Slit wrists which are oozing life, turn the bathwater to a deep crimson.

Lana then tells the reporter that  she carried Bloody Face’s child to full term and gave him up for adoption.   His name is Johnny.    We’ve met him before.  Dylan McDermott’s character is genetically programmed to grow up to be the be Son of Bloody Face and all that that implies.   His made an effort to pick up where his father left off.    We saw evidence of that.

Anyway, Lana continues on with the interview and expresses regret for giving him up, but felt she had no other options.    And wouldn’t you know, Johnny seemingly part of the  camera crew.   He even hands her some water during a break in the interview.    Somehow, she knows it’s her son.    After the camera crew leaves, she gets up to make herself a drink and knows he stayed behind. She  implores him to finally come out of hiding to ‘get this thing over with.”  She knows he’s about to kill her.  Johnny is a psychotic sure, but he’s also an angry whack job, which never bodes well.    He was a screwed up kid, in and out of Juvie and now here he is, 48 years old and wanting to whack his mother for giving him away and killing his father.

He pulls a gun on her, but she turn the tables and sweetly convinces Johnny that he’s not only a part of his maniacal father, but he’s also a part of he That means he has at least half the capacity to be a decent human being.     He relinquishes the gun and she takes it away from him, only to point it at his forehead and shoots.

Bang!!!!

Like father, like son.

The show segues back to the very first show, when Lana was desperately trying to gain access to Briarcliff to get an exclusive with Bloody Face.  She gained access to Jude’s office through a ruse.    She claimed she wanted to do a fluff piece on the asylum’s bakery which apparently makes a dandy bread.   Jude escorts her to the front door after learning that the all she really wanted was an interview with Bloody Face who was supposed to be brought to Briarcliff for mental assessment.   She reminds Lana how difficult life can be for a woman with lofty goals and ambitions.  This was 1962.    The last thing we hear; the last thing we see are these two women facing each other with glares that had laser-like intensity.    This was how the first scene with Lana and Jude ended 51 years ago, when Jude realized Lana only wanted to interview Bloody Face.   Jude tells her that whenever you look into the eyes of evil, evil looks back at you.

Then, Lana leaves and Jude turns around as the  camera pans to the face of  a shiny, glossy statue of the Virgin Mary which stands in Briarcliff’s foyer.   The head is tilted as if glancing in the nun’s direction.    Gee, no hidden anti-Catholic sentiment there, huh?

I suppose it’s safe to say that Lana’s stint in the snake pit that was Briarcliff didn’t turn Lana into some cold, emotionless bitch with ambitions large enough to choke a whale.   Lana entered Briarcliff that way and walked through its doors unchanged.    Sister Jude recognized that right off the bat and in her special, ‘no holds barred’ manner, told her so.    She wasn’t predicting Lana’s life per se, but she certainly called it.   Lana didn’t have what Jude or Kit had:   at least a small period in life where there was peace and normalcy.

If I’m right, then I’ll give the writers a rate-a-record score of 79 for adding a smidge of pathos, but was it enough?   Not for me, then again, I’ve come to expect a certain shoddiness with AHS..

Characters were killed off too soon.   There were more holes in the plot line than in Bonnie and Clyde’s ambushed car.   We didn’t get to spend much time in Johnny’s head.   I could’ve used an episode delving into all of his angst.    What about that evil little girl who killed her friend and then her whole family?    What happened to the crazy ass serial masterbator????  And Kit’s alien space babies?    The ones that were so ‘special’?     One grew up to be a doctor, the other a lawyer.    Hhhhh’mmmmm, do those two occupations in this day and age really make them all that ‘special’?   Well, for a Jewish mother, maybe……

Lana was the only major character who survived.   Sister Satan and Dr. Arden were burned to death in the asylum’s crematorium.  Threadson was shot in the head several episodes back.    The Monsignor/Cardinal committed suicide. As far as I’m concerned, all three deaths happened prematurely and allowed a season finale that was anti-climatic.   In the finale, Jude died of cancer and so did Kit, although he was abducted by the same bright white light that became an obscure third or fourth level character on the show this season.   Why wasn’t this connection to space beings expounded  upon?  Why did those space freaks murder and mutilate all those women?    What happened to Pepper the Pinhead???     And why couldn’t we learn more about the forest dwelling  critters that Arden created?   And soooooo much more could’ve been done with the satanic angle, but nooooooooo!!!!!!

Season two jumped the shark so many times that poor thing’s dorsal fin was sheared off.

Anyway, I wasn’t as colossally disappointed as I was when season one ended.  And while I have questions, I think  that the unscripted dangling participles that I swat away like slimy tentacles are supposed to make me  come up with my own answers; my own conclusions.   Whenever I encounter endings like this in books, TV shows, movies and such,  I hearken back to a press conference I attended back in 1993.  

Directing wunderkind, Steven Spielberg came to Houston on a press tour promoting his boffo hit, “Schindler’s List.”     This involved filling a theater with local   high school kids, have them watch the movie then he would take their questions about the flick.   All members of the press could do was watch and at least in my case, learn.

One astute young woman asked Herr Spielberg about the little Jewish girl in the Warsaw ghetto who had worn the pinkish red coat;  the only bit of color in the black and white film.   Her question focused on the coat color and what that  was supposed to mean.

He responded without missing a beat, “It means whatever you need it to mean.”

That day, I learned that poetic license was a tool that the story teller could use at his or her discretion and it’s one that sometimes, an audience member has to employ as well.

And in spite of my many criticisms, I can’t wait for  Season 3.

Seriously, I can’t.

As for plotlines, I’m thinking a family of vampires moves into an abandoned but still ‘hot’ nuclear power plant and the fun begins when genetic mutations run amok while angry neighbors who complain, mysteriously after a  mod painted van called “The Mystery Machine” filled with four hips kids including one beatnik lookin’ cat named Shaggy who pals around with his  giant, snack eating, running in place while bongos play, talking dog with a speech impediment, arrives on the scene.

And here I’ll be at my keyboard poised at the ready in the  minutes after the  finale ends, closing the curtain on yet another fakakta AHS season.  That’s when and where  I’ll hold writers/creators Ryan Murphy and Bryan Falchuk  responsible for series of shows that leave more questions unanswered, throw logic out the window and could have been/should have been so much better.

And because of that, I’ll fully expect one or both to appear on camera and admit that they would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!!!!!

Closure

A friend of mine contacted me to tell me that a former boyfriend from 37 years ago contacted her recently.    A long four-hour telephone conversation revealed that he isn’t happy with his life and admitted that really, he hasn’t been since they broke up in the mid seventies.    They only dated for a few months–he was her ‘transition boyfriend”, but he never knew that and I don’t think it would have mattered if had an inkling.   He loved this woman, warts and all and knew what she didn’t:  that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

And he would–from a distance and it was with a view that was no better than a few stolen glances over the shoulder of  his rebound wife.    Yes, irony of ironies, the “transition boyfriend” married his “transition girlfriend”.    Of course his marriage to her would be unhappy, for the most part.  Oh, there would be glimmers of happiness; a joyous birth or two, but in the back of his mind,  piercing through every smile would be those damned feelings for ‘her”...THEE girlfriend.  The one that got away.

My friend is currently in a relationship herself.   She says she’s in love.   He’s a man she maneuvered into her life so the move from wife to divorcee would be seamless.

“I could NEVER ever t involved with (insert name here) again.   Ewwwwwww!”

I’ll lay odds that as her marathon conversation with this specter from her past winded down, visions of a life him in some form or fashion crossed her mind.    How could it not?    Name me one normal red-blooded sentient woman who couldn’t let her mind roam down the back alleys of her imagination as she’s being told she was/is the love of someone’s life.   That her absence has been felt every day for almost four decades.   That losing her was and always will be his life’s singularly biggest regret.

I had one of those heartaches.  I had one of those relationships that I let haunt me.   I allowed a simple, acne-faced 15-year-old boy who broke up with me four days into my Freshman year of high school dictate me emotionally for 39 years.       He was there, always present, seething in soul , gripping like a vice.      In some form or fashion, he was there on every date, every uttered “I love you”, every break up, every holiday.

After high school, he went straight to work.   No college for him.    He was a simple guy.   He found a job in the oil patch and never looked back.    He married a women he met in a small town where he’d landed a job;  they married and had kids and last I heard, he had a couple of grandchildren added to his family tree.

Bully for him.

This was the guy who broke up with me before every major gift giving holiday.    I could always count on heartache two to three days before Christmas, my birthday and Valentine’s Day.    Easter,too.   Once, I accused him of being a Jehovah’s Witness, a reference that moved his bangs as it flew over his head.   Yet, I loved the little SOB.   He was my first boyfriend; my first love and at age 12, no less.     In the two years that we were together, he gave me a  yellow smiley face lollipop (which I kept as long as I can remember), a small black pocket  comb with greasy kid stuff still in it  , a very well-worn green and white cap with just as much greasy kid stuff in the inner lining, but the pièce de résistance????     He gave me a corroded silver-colored ring (I’ve yet to find the particular metal ANYWHERE on the table of elements) with green colored stones and three were missing.    He explained that the ring was in his jeans pocket when an impromptu game of backyard football broke out in the neighborhood.

As for the corrosion?   I shudder to think what might have started THAT scientific  process.     He found it, I’m sure but what did that matter?   I didn’t care.    HE gave it to ME.

I was lucky in that I was able to talk to him a few years ago.     A few weeks of phone calls, that’s all.    In that time, I was able to ask him why he left me so suddenly, without a real explanation and without ever really talking to me and he told me that he did so because I was in high school and would probably want to start dating and based on my upbringing he assumed that meant dinners and movies which took time and money–both of which he little of—and he was too embarrassed to tell me.   So, he did the sensible thing and broke up with me.

I can remember going silent at the end of the explanation, the reality that I was devastated by reverse snobbery was sobering.    I don’t remember what was said or even how much longer we talked, but I do remember this overwhelming feeling of release immerse me.    When we last spoke I had no money, only a half ass job, no boyfriend, certainly no modeling contracts or Academy Awards, the Pulitzer had eluded me, as did motherhood and marriage,  but even in the face of all those perceived negatives, I had one bright, shiny positive:  I had an answer to the single most pressing question of my life.

It made up for all the deficits during those holidays 43 years ago.  It was the best thing; the ONLY real thing of value he ever gave me:   the gift of closure.

This, I explained to my friend, is pivotal.     She should meet with this guy from her past that still holds the torch for her or at the very least, send him an email or something that could free him of the hold she has had on him.

“He told me he’s miserable and his marriage is nothing more than a joyless business arrangement.  He’s not happy because it was never what he wanted.” 

Of course it failed.   He settled.

Then, I explained it to her as I saw it, from someone who was haunted by a lost love for so long.  Emotional closure is vital for anyone who’s loved too long and all alone.    My God, is THAT a horrendous way to exist.

Sometimes it takes a gentle shove….a nudge….sometimes a major kick in the ass, but easing the pain is so important.   Not that it’s my friend’s responsibility,  not that it was my ex boyfriend’s either, but being told the real reason–even though it hurt a bit—was incredibly worth all risks, all feelings….everything.      I could stop the doubting;  the incessant wondering how and why.

But the truth is,  I was a lot like Dorothy Gale of the Oz and Kansas Gales.    I had the power to free myself of my emotional  enslavement all along, but I never really knew it.   Perhaps, I did but it served a good purpose.  I used it like a protective layer;  an impenetrable fortress.    Nothing gets near me;  I am safe.     But confines like that also allow nothing in either.   But I used it for as long as I used it–it kept me from getting too close to a lot of people.   So when I finally got the answer to a question that became rhetorical, 39 years ago, I let go.   I suppose it was time.

My life has changed since the  big release, in that he’s really no longer in it.    I rarely think about him anymore.  Oh, he’ll creep in when a song comes on that sweeps me back to 1972, but only in a certain fondness.    I don’t revisit unless a memory is triggered, and lately that trigger has a very secure safety on it.    As for the smiley face sucker?   I kept that for a long time, but eventually mice or other critters who forage storage spaces for food, destroyed it  and I would imagine the comb and cap met the same fate.   The ring, you ask?   I still have it.     It’s in a jewelry box somewhere and there it sits, just as it has for the past 42 years but I would imagine these days, it contains a few less green stones and the curious setting is now probably a lovely rust color.

The idealization of who he was and what he had all those years ago has long dispersed. And that is a very, very good thing;  a process that has taken a very long time.   I am free.  I now have a few well sorted  memories  that I keep in a memory bouquet.  I comprised it like one would order off a menu at a Chinese restaurant:   I’ve taken a few  memories from 1971, a couple from 1972 and one or two from 1973 just to complete the triad of years.

“Please set him free”, I begged my friend.    ”You have to do for him what he can’t for himself.  Write him, phone him, telegraph, send a carrier pigeon.   How you do it is your choice, but please, just do it.”

She replied, “Why should I?   I  owe him nothing.  It was a lifetime ago!”

My answer came  surprisingly quick.

I told  her when spend most of your life, loving someone  in your past and it’s that all-encompassing love that burns as it cools, races as it rests; leans as it stands tall and straight, you have no traditional concept of time.   Any prisoner will tell you a 42 year sentence  takes forever to endure, but amazingly, when you look back on it, it  takes all of 42 seconds relive.   And in that time, which transpires quickly then slowly, then back again,  all you can think about  is being free from its clutches.

Freedom.   And  sometimes, for the damnedest of reasons,  freedom isn’t a choice….. but in some cases,  it can certainly be a gift.

She assures me, he’ll be receiving her email soon.

.

Christmas 2012: I Know How This Day Ends

The last present is unwrapped.

The food is put away and the dishes are done.

The last guest is gone.

Was it a good Christmas?

You ask yourself the rhetorical question.  Suddenly, save for one television set in a another room, quiet permeates the house. You can actually feel the energy as it wanes. It’s like the last swirls of water down the drain. The sink is still wet and that’s all the proof you had that water was once there.

You know that feeling.  The house is vacant, but there is residual energy. Proof that people were once there.

As each second passes, the energy fades. It’s all in the timing and today the timing was perfect, as was the holiday.

You are tired. And with good reason.

You were quite accomplished in your hostess duties this year. You graciously fed and entertained 18 members of your family. You did a good job and there is much to be proud of. The new furniture looks great. The new window treatments are gorgeous. The newly remodeled kitchen was a hit, too. Plus, you had the house professionally decorated this year. It was like a Courier and Ives photo come to life.

You walk through your home reliving the moments. You peer into the bar: ah yes, the liquor bottles were in great demand this day. The almost empty bottle of Dewar’s tells you that Uncle Sam was present and accounted for. Very little Vodka left and someone made sure Gin was consumed. Only one glass fell victim to shoddy dexterity this year. That’s OK. A set of 11-Waterford crystal hi-balls works just as well. You can always get another glass.

You move to the kitchen: you admire your architect’s handiwork as you hear the sound of the new dishwasher softly clicking into “rinse cycle”. Cookies, cakes and pies–the ones you couldn’t give away to departing guests, now sit on the counter top, protected from the elements by festive red and green plastic wrap.

You look in the refrigerator. It’s filled to capacity with food. No one touched cousin Lana’s three bean salad. There’s a good amount of dressing left, too but not that much turkey and there are only a few ham slices, too.   You’re thankful you won’t have to deal with leftovers for very long.

Gee, a Coke sure sounds good.

You open a bottle. The fizzy sound is inimitable. You take a sip and savor the cold, crisp flavor. You take the bottle with you as you move to the living room.

There it is;  a large seven-foot Blue Spruce that just 24 hours ago, presided over a house full of people and laughter, now stands rather empty looking—in spite of branches that still sport lights, ornaments and gold and silver tinsel.

Your husband is in the den, in his easy chair. An anonymous NFL game is on TV.  The announcers’ voice serve more as a lullaby than play-by-play.  He’s been asleep for almost an hour now.

You sit on the couch, holding the soft drink bottle in one hand, your head in the other. You smile. You thoughts focus on your daughter and what she’s doing at the very moment…how she might be looking down on her left hand admiring the beautiful diamond engagement ring she received this morning. Chris is a great guy. They’ll be happy, you hope. All this young woman’s hopes and dreams are centered around a piece of refined carbon atop a platinum setting. You remember when you and Bill got engaged. You look down at your wedding ring. Now as much a part of your personal scenery as your blond hair.

You think about your little sister and how happy she was when she opened the tiny gift her boyfriend had given her. It was a key and it fit the new Mercedes Benz parked outside. She was delighted. How lucky she is!! A brand new Mercedes! Wow, you think to yourself—he must really love your baby sister.

Your hear your husband stirring in the den. He’s awake. He changes the channel on the new flat screen TV. He seems to like his present. You’re glad. After 29 years of marriage, he’s still impossible to shop for. The man has everything!

He stops on an all music channel playing Christmas carols.   You listen to the lyrics.

Silent night.

You think about your grandkids who went crazy when they ran in this very room this morning squealing with delight. They realized after seeing the bounty before them, that they’d been good enough for the past year to warrant a Christmas Eve visit by the red suited benevolent one.

This room was littered with so many toys!

Then, a passing car light brings you back to reality and you get up from the couch and walk toward the source. There, in the window you can feel the cold radiating off the panes of glass.  You realize it’s Christmas everywhere, but you never thought about that all day.   You were insulated by your life in your world.  But even so, you know things are very different “out there”—beyond the panes of glass.

For a few fleeting moments, you think about all the life that exists outside your home. Then, you think about the people forced to live those lives.

Holy night

There’s the dissatisfied wife whose husband forgot her again this Christmas. Her gave her nothing. That is, if you don’t count the black eye he gave her after she “made” him hit her as he unraveled at the height of one of his more violent drunken rages on Christmas Eve.

All is calm.

There are American servicemen and women stationed around the world who are on watch….on patrol. In Afghanistan,  one squad is taking fire. A sniper in some bombed out mid-rise outside some war torn region  has the upper hand. Suddenly, there’s a lull in the fire fight. One 19-year old soldier, wipes away a tear as he clutches a gun on this night. He wishes to God he could be at home, in his mother’s arms. No, be brave, he reminds himself.  “I’m a Marine!”  A stray bullet grazes the wall behind him. He hunkers down lower. For a fleeting moment, he thinks about his family;  the tree; his Aunt Deb’s pumpkin pie. He wonders if they’ve thought about him at all this Christmas. This, as he prepares to return fire.

All is bright.

The 81-year old woman who waited for her son to come pick her up for a Christmas visit. She dressed and waited and waited, but he never came. He didn’t come last year, either. Maybe he’ll call on New Year’s Eve.

He won’t.

Round yon virgin, mother and child

There’s that sad, unkempt eight year old, the eldest child of a drug addict’s five children. She had to tell her crying brothers and sisters that Santa once again, lost their address. Their Christmas dinner is stale dry cereal, no milk. That was all she could find to feed them.

Holy infant so tender and mild

There are the those souls who’ll go to sleep hungry. Like those struggling to live in war-torn Darfur. The only Christmas gift some receive will be the “privilege” of waking up to yet another morning.

And in every city in this country, many people aren’t acknowledging Christmas.  It’s hard to do that when you’re depressed and hungry.  But their hunger goes beyond the need for food; they hunger for love and companionship.

They hunger for peace of mind.

Sleep in heavenly peace

There’s the broke couple who were only able to open envelopes containing  bills on Christmas morning.  There are  grieving parents in Newton, CT who two weeks ago, sent their children to school only to bring them home later, in coffins.  A family in New Jersey now homeless, because of Superstorm Sandy.

~

“How sad”, you think to yourself. You sigh and shake your head, but through it all, you thank God it’s them and not you.

Thank God indeed.

You take another sip of your drink and unplug the Christmas lights. It’s late. Time to go upstairs and try out the marvelous new king size Egyptian Cotton sheets that Sheila and Dan bought you. It’ll be like sleeping on a cloud. And you can’t wait to try on your new incredibly warm Chenille pajamas. Margaret must have spent a fortune on those!

You make your way toward the stairs and clutch your sweater;  it’s cold in this big, five bedroom manse. Raise the thermostat up a notch or two and maybe steal a cookie on your way upstairs.

But before you do, you stop, turn and take a one final look around you. You finish surveying the day’s events and the castle in which everything unfolded.

Your home.  Your family.   Your good fortune. It all melds together in this life affirming moment amid the holly and tinsel.

All is right.

So, the answer is yes, it was a great Christmas;  at your house, anyway.

Sleep in heavenly peace….

.

Gotta Minute? We Need To Talk

This feeling of inadequacy  has been bugging me since Friday morning.   I’ve felt inadequate after watching FOX and CNN and seeing the tears and witnessing heartache in tsunamic waves of emotion that just wouldn’t stop.   I could do nothing but sit there and empathize.

And then I got mad.

What happened in Newton, CT last week was a lot like 9/11 but in some ways, even more gut wrenching.   The age of the  victims, I suppose.

Not that the terrorist attacks almost 12 years ago didn’t include children.   They did.  Seven kids, all under the age of  17 died on that balmy September morning.  Six were on board the hijacked planes; one young man–supposedly a teenager, had been on one of the impacted floors of the World Trade Center.

Like most of my fellow global citizens, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to process all that happened twelve years  ago.   Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism; an attempt to make sense of the senseless, but that horrible day has now become this horrific amalgam of people and debris.  The destruction of lives,  the destruction of buildings, airplanes….our innocence.    There were almost 3, 000 lives lost that day and after a while, the horror of it all;  the unspeakable tragedy that unfolded on live TV and for New Yorkers and Washington residents, in their own backyards, forced us to view 9/11 differently.   At least, it forced me to think differently.    On every anniversary since then, I have refused to allow the day to take a human form.   I can’t see it as the mass murder for three thousand.     It’s just a horrible day that still makes me feel like hell.   It always will.

What happened at Sandy Hook,  was smaller in scale, but in many ways, even bigger than life.      Twenty children woke up Friday morning, to die.   They got dressed, had breakfast, said goodbye and trundled into their classrooms at the usual safe haven that is a school—a familiar place where they learn to add and subtract, to spell and write.  It’s a place where they learn the basic academic foundations of life.   But all that changed Friday.   That’s when a mentally man who at 20, was a mere child himself in so many ways, chose to take his delusional rage out on the softest of targets.  Six unarmed women.  One of which was his mother and 20 children.

It was almost as if he killed a child to represent every year of his tortured life.

It’ll be different of course for the people of Sandy Hook, but in the coming weeks, when time has placed enough distance between the rest of the world and what Adam Lanza did, we’ll start hearing  quite a few conversations–heated and otherwise.      Oh, there will be those who insist that gun control be enacted NOW and they’ll do so with histrionics and drama citing 27 reasons (the number of fatalities in Connecticut) for the total abolition of all guns, certainly combat caliber assault rifles.  And while I can understand this stance, I also see it as more knee jerk  reaction than anything else.

The old adage that we’ve heard a million times–hackneyed as it is–applies here:  guns don’t kill people, people do.

Lots of people will call that a pant load.    When it comes to murder with a gun, another platitude applies:  which came first,  the chicken or the egg?    A gun is the weapon, a person uses the weapon.   A gun is only as lethal as the person pulling the trigger and so on and so forth.    I’m not making light of the situation.  It’s that gun control has been a font of rhetoric for ages.

The ubiquitous ‘they’ demanded gun control after Columbine; after Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona, after the mass slaughter at the McDonald’s in San Ysidrio, California, after the one at the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen….after Virginia Tech.     They’ve shouted for gun control after every time any bloody scenario has played out in this country.     And people get up in arms about it–no pun intended and it maintains life–for a little while, and then eventually, like everything in this country, the zeal wanes.

Why does it fall by the wayside?   Why are there no teeth in the anti-gun bite?  Well, I’d venture a guess it has much  to do with the indefatigable and immensely powerful lobby that IS the National Rifle Association.   And then there’s the  Second Amendment of the United States Constitution which protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home

Of course, when you read that knowing all the illegalities involved in guns in this country, it seems a bit sophomoric.  Well, intended but in this day and age, not all that applicable.  Some people will do it right…most will.  They’ll buy firearms legally and will own a gun (or guns)  for a lifetime without a single incident.    Then, there are the criminals who have to have a gun,legal or otherwise, to do their licentious bidding.    So do lunatics.

Enter the gist of my blogpost.  I really  don’t think guns are the problem.     Mental illness is.   A crazed person hell-bent on killing is going to kill come hell or high water.    A knife, a hammer….anything can be used as a blunt object—a frozen round steak, my old Chatty Cathy doll.    They had hard PVC bodies back then.   Real rigid stuff.

An old school doll can be a murder weapon, but a gun is a much more efficient killer.

But it isn’t the only choice the contemporary mass murderer has at his disposal.    Case in point:  the hijackers killed using airplanes, tons of A-1 jet fuel, physics and box cutters.   No guns.     The attack was extremely efficient and admittedly, visually stunning.    And that’s stunning asn inducing paralysis–both emotional and physical.

In Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer, a timer and a rented truck.     Efficient, too.    One-hundred and sixty-eight people were killed when the Murrah Federal Building was blown up.   Of that number, 19 victims were children under the age of 6.   You might recall, there was a nursery just above the detonation point.

We’ll also hear lots of talk about mental health.   This is one conversation we need to listen to and join in.    We need to talk openly about mental illness; recognize the signs and learn what to do when it stares back at us…before it looks down on us through the cross hairs in a rifle scope.

We need to voice our concerns when someone starts to act differently.   We have to risk being wrong people.   One person’s bad day could be another person’s breaking point.   We have to speak up, risk being embarrassed if we’re wrong; risk embarrassing someone if we’re right.   We must risk angering someone.  And in this ridiculously litigious society we now live in, we must even risk a slander suit.

Mentally deranged people are at the helm of every heartbreaking scenario known to man.   I firmly believe this.   Now, psychiatrists may argue that point.  They’ll tell us that not all murderers are psychopaths.    And that not all psychopaths are murderers.  Call it what you must for your article in this month’s Psychology Today,  Doctor, but as I see it, EVERY  murderer is deranged by the mere fact that he/she took someone’s life.

We have to get a better handle on why so many young white males are cropping up mentally impaired and not only that, why they’re acting upon their delusions in such murderous ways.   Is it the pharmacological parenting that’s creating this rewiring of adolescent gray matter?   Is it external import?    Is this something that’s genetic?     As for the ADD/ADHD crisis, I have no doubt that there are very real cases of  kids with these maladies for which mind or mood altering meds are a godsend, but..

I also feel that these meds can be just what the doctor ordered for a tired overwrought, overworked single parent with a very rambunctious, attention demanding seven-year old.    Give ‘em a pill….put ‘em in front of a Kindle Fire and let ‘em Angry Bird their life away.     Mom’s tired.

Hey, I understand the plight of some parents.  These are hard times.   There are dead tired single moms and dads who are driving on very bald tires.   There are married couples too who because of the economy, both have to work.    The problem  in this case?   When Mr. Slate pulls the bird’s tail indicating Fred Flintstone can quit for the day and slide on out of the quarry courtesy of the sleek, sloping back of  a back of  sauropod, that only means the end of the 9 to 5 work day.     Being a parent, being married has no schedule.  It just goes on and on….as it should.

So yeah, sure I get it and I sympathize, but mind-numbing medications especially prescribed for a still growing child, aren’t a panacea for frenetic family life.

I’d be all over Obamacare if it included had a fair and balanced mental health section that was truly fair and balanced and not agenda driven, regardless of the politics.    I’d be all over so-called” gun control, but as an American rather fond of our Constitution, I can’t be.   Keeping automatic weapons IN the hands of sane, law abiding citizens yes.  Out of the hands of the criminals and lunatic fringe, oh hell yeah..

But that won’t happen.  The black market and other aspects of illegal arms dealing will always offer access.    I’m not even holding my breath for mental health care that makes sense.   It’s costly and really, only effective if there’s therapy and if  person on the meds, stays on the meds.   The big problem facing us today is the fact that so many patients go off their drugs .  They hate the way they feel, they hate the drudgery of the routine of taking them, day in and day out.    Perhaps the choice of taking a pill or not taking a pill is one of the few controls they feel they have.

But look at the tragedies than can and do ensue when that happens.    Being medicated for a mental illness has to become a way of life….a lifestyle, but can never be construed as a lifestyle choice.     Then civil rights come into play.    We can’t ‘make’ people do anything.    Well, maybe its time we should.

Kids or adults who make threats and even hint at being a danger to themselves are others should be incarcerated.    Psych wards, asylums–penal institutions, I’m not picky.     Lives are at stake.    I’m sorry that mental health issues have been stigmatized, but the stigmatization is there for a reason.   Yes, I know I can’t lump all mental health illnesses  under one Freudian umbrella, but sadly when there’s a significant snap or detachment from reality,  there’s almost always  a body count.   If you produce a bad seed, admit it….  As a parent, I beg you, please DO NOT let  pride or ignorance gets in the way of getting help for your family member.   You must be held responsible on all levels.  And don’t depend on the government to pick up the tab for this safeguard.  This is your responsibility    Curtail the danger by placing the ill  person in an institution.  Slam the door and sign something that allows for little wriggle room.

Is this harsh?    I’m sure some will see it as harsh, then again so are 20 tiny little corpses.

Is this fair?   Not really, but it’s still your responsibility.     So, you get better insurance; get a second job, get a third mortgage.    Yes,  it’ll be expensive but in the long run, cheaper than all those wrongful death lawsuits.

Lastly, we’ll hear about the lack of faith.   How we’ve PC’d God out of the equation.    Some might even ask, where was God that Friday morning?   And some might respond, “He wasn’t in that first grade classroom  in Sandy Hook Elementary– that’s for sure!”

Epicurus one scribed:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

Is God able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is God neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I asked this question many times after 9/11.    In the wake of Friday’s massacre, many are asking it now.    And that’s a normal query.  It’s normal to try to figure out the ancient conundrum:  God vs Evil.     I think that if you’re a theist, one who unquestionably believes in a Supreme Being, then might I assume you view God as the ultimate Divine Source,  but one that also has oh–let’s call it “a responsibility”  to serve man.   I say that in the vein of God answering our prayers in the affirmative; you know–getting us through bad break ups, acing that LSAT, shrinking that tumor, landing that job after two years of abject unemployment….making that cute Jeremy Michael Holmstead The Third text me later, because he promised he would during fourth period math and I’ll just die…just DIE if he doesn’t.

I didn’t go to divinity school.   I’m a lapsed Catholic.   I’m fairly ignorant in the ecclesiastical ways and  means.   Even so,  I find absolutely no logical basis for this assumption, whether  right or wrong.  The reality is, there are necessary evils in the world we have to confront and endure.   If you live long enough, you will encounter the, and when those are encountered,  faith for some is the driving force that keeps forward momentum.    It’s a strength they can call upon.    I’m not even talking about the spiritual kind of faith.  I’m talking about the general kind,  that this too shall pass; that tomorrow will be another day.   Faith, regardless of its genus, is intangible.  It just is.   It’s what keeps some people  waking up in the morning despite horrific life events.   Yes, faith is important but  let’s not forget  19 hijackers were also men devoted to their faith.    They died–and killed–for what they believed in.   Theirr version of Allah.

Then again, maybe they were destined to do what they did.

I don’t know–maybe I’m grasping at straws here, but I have to believe in the theory that good can come from suffering.   There was good that came out of 9/11.    September 11th created the TSA, an institution that’s  not without its problems, but frankly, they are the first line of defense against future hijackings.   Every plane that crashes teaches us about safety issues.  Invariably, air travel is safer as a result.   Earthquakes and tornadoes make us improve building codes.     Cars now have cushioning airbags that explode on impact;  thanks to medical research, a diagnosis of AIDS and cancer no longer mean death sentences.

Those who have died in all these situations, were martyrs of sorts, unwitting all of them, but martyrs nonetheless.     We have to honor them by making sure their lives and deaths weren’t in vain.  We have to do something.

In the hours after Friday’s shooting, all people could say when interviewed by the media is, “there are no words” to describe how they were feeling.   Of course there are no words.    Shock and awe are best expressed and dealt with in silence.    But we’re going on 72 hours since the shooting and soon, it’ll be a week and then a month and then a year.    Time makes it both easier and necessary to find our voices.  We have to find the words to talk about mental illness and how to keep any and all automatic weapons out of the hands of those sick individuals who pose a threat to society.   We have to have open and honest dialog, much of it will ask difficult and uncomfortable questions, but all necessary.   There has to be follow-up conversations and cooperation from BOTH sides of the Congressional aisle.    Bi-partisan give and take.    We have much to learn.    Much to accomplish.

Many lives to save.

Friday, December 14th will become a seminal date, much like 9/11.   And like 9/11,  there will be good that comes out of what happened in Newton, CT.

How do I know this?    I have faith that it will.

American Horror Story/Asylum: Episode Nine

It was an episode that would have made Margaret Sanger cringe.

Lana is pregnant with Dr. Thredson spawn and this doesn’t sit well with our incarcerated print reporter, mainly she was raped while being held hostage then was almost killed and secondly, she a raging lesbian but the biggest reason, I would surmise,  has everything to do with the fact that  Daddy is a maniacal serial killer with a thing for female skin .

Off the bone.

She decides to go all Joan Crawford on her uterus, so while in the midst of a little kitchen duty, she steals a coat hanger from a uniform cleaner’s rack and goes back to her cell to take matters into her own hands.    Apparently her Briarcliff version of a back alley abortion merely ‘scrapes the surface”.   She’s still pregnant and through the satanic omniscience, Sister Mary Eunice (Devil with the Black Dress, Black Dress, Black Dress….Devil with the Black Dress On) informs us that not only is the little fetus alive and well,it’s also a boy.

We meet ‘this boy” in the beginning of the episode.   It’s present day when we get to see the hunky Dylan McDermott–in a much more likable roll than that of P-whipped Ben Harmon–and he’s sought the help of a therapist who specializes in obessive compulsive disorders.   He has recently learned is the “SON OF BLOODY FACE” and like father/like son, he loves to skin and kill women.      Her specialty is smoking cessation  and she soon realizes that she’s not at all equipped to handle a patient with all his issues.  Hell, I don’t think a SWAT team is capable of dealing with this boy’s problems.    He begs her to help him because he knows his own murderous lineage and he’ll no doubt kill again and again.

Long story short—-he kills the therapist and her secretary.

We’ve also learned, however that he has moved into his father’s old digs which included the Basement from Hell which held Lana hostage 50 years ago and these days,  holds that  young just married chick who looks like an odd melding of Selena Gomez, Mila Kunis and Tobey Maguire.  We see her strapped to a gurney, Bloody Face Jr. in full cara and he’s about to skin her.

We all realized last week that after Jude stabbed another serial murderer after he attacked her, she’d become an inmate at Briarcliff and that this bit o’news would be a high point for so many nuns who she misused and abused.    But this was only attempted murder.   Lee Emerson is still alive…just a flesh wound in the neck and he tells police that he saw Jude kill the Security Guard.

She didn”t.

Sister Satan slashed his throat outside Emerson’s cell.

H;’s convinced the Father Narcissist (the monsignor) who has grandiose dreams of papacy and world domination that he’s a new man, repentant for his murderous ways and wants to walk a path of righteousness with the Lord.   This makes the Monsignor happy to no end.  What a coup for this guy!!   To be able to change a maniac…to convert him back into a contributing member of society.    An every man—who just happens to have killed 18 people over one long Christmas weekend back in 1962.

He turns the table on the priest and attempts to drawn him in the baptismal font.   The next time we see the Monsignor, he’s been crucified–literally–strung up on the cross in Briacliff’s chapel.   The next thing we see is Moira the Milk Eye maid from last season who this go round, is the Angel of Death, approaching the priest as he asks for help.    Does he live or die?   We’ll have to wait for that answer.

And Sister Satan freed Dr. Thredson who Lana and Tate/Kit had tied up and hidden in some dark, dank storage room.    And this doesn ’t bode well for Lana.  She told him that she was pregnant thanks to his baby batter and he begged her not to abort it or give it up for adoption.  He would hate that since he knows a thing or two about the child welfare system.    Nope,  says Lana.   The baby’s a goner (or so she thought) and so will Dr. Thredson.  She promises to return to kill him’

But…

Not before Lana managed to get a confession out of Thredson–who he killed and why–and Tate/Kit was hiding in the wings with a huge solid state reel to reel recorder.  He got the whole thing on tape.

Anyway, she comes back to the storage room to keep her promise.  Her weapon?   The same coat hanger she thought she self aborted with.  Apparently if you bend it in half a couple of times its stable enough to stab–at least a feather pillow.

But when she enters the dark storage room, Thredson isn’t there.   His bindings are on the floor.  He’s loose!!!!!!

The scariest part of tonight’s show was watching a frightened Lana wander through the darkened halls after discovering he’d been set free.  I felt Dr. Crazy around every corner.   Lana was armed only with that coat hanger, adrenalin and a survivor’s instinct.   She doesn’t run into Thredson, but as mentioned earlier, she has an encounter with Sister Satan in the hallway and she gives us the impression that she will see to it that Lana’s baby has to be born at all costs .

In another odd plot twist, Dr. Arden actually shows Tate/Kit a little kindness and compassion.   He catches Tate/Kit hiding the recorded tape  reel of Thredson’s confession (which will exonerate Tate/Kit from the Bloody Face accusations) but there’s no punishment.  Instead, he invites Tate/Kit into his office, offers him a ciggie and pours him three fingers of a delightful 18-year-old single malt Scotch.   He tells Tate/Kit that he believes his story about the aliens because he encountered them too.   Even made a plaster cast of the ostrich like claw footprints that were left in the dust on the floor of the death chute.  If you remember, he was hauling off Grace’s body after she’d been shot by the Security Guard two episodes ago.   As he’s about to drop off the body, he hears the damnedest noise, sees a bright light and a fraction of a second later, he opens his eyes and Grace’s body is gone.

Several episodes right after the start, he removed this strange metal spider-like critter from Tate/Kit’s neck.  He’s convinced that these alien beings are studying Tate/Kit.   It seems every women he has sex with, eventually gets abducted.     Arden fee;s sure that if Tate/Kit is about to die, they’ll come for him, allowing Arden to figure out who and what they are.  So he decides to give Tate/Kit an injection with a needle that I swear was as long as a Jedi light saber.

Right in the heart.    Tate/Kit convulses; has a heart attack and clinically dies.    Arden knows he has about a four-minute window to resuscitate Tate/Kit, but just as his pulse slows to a stop, that damned bright light and noise is coming from another room, indicating the aliens are in the house.    Arden runs out of his office to investigate.  He opens a cell door to find Pepper the Pinehead attending to a very nude, very pregnant Grace huddled in the corner.    Pepper insists the baby is in a breach position and she can help.

Oh really???   The tiny noggin with boobs is in Briarcliff for drowning her sister’s children and cutting off their ears!!!!!

Episode nine is the last one for 2012.  We’ll have to wait a few weeks for episode ten.   It’ll air January second.  The previews indicate–at least the passing glance I gave them–that Jude might have an exorcism in mind for Sister Satan.     We know she goes to the forest dressed in Jude’s red lace slip,  maybe for a little sexual tryst with the Arden’s creatures????    We’ll also have to wait till then to find out if Arden missed the deadline to inject Tate/Kit with life restoring adrenaline.  We’ll have to wait to find out Grace’s story; whether Thredson finds Lana….what the deal is with Son Of Bloody Face 2012…and if the monsignor swapped spit with the Angel of Death.  If so, he’s out of the story line.

Guess his contract was up.

So, it’ll be a while before we commune again on this subject.   I hope you survive the Mayan apocalypse and if so, it’s my wish you have  a wonderful Christmas and a stellar New Year.

But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this:    I know this series is pure  is fiction and the writers at AHS writers have always allowed room for the inane and  incomprehensible,  but I like at least a  soupçon of credibility.  Therefore,   it’s really bothering me that the inmates,  Lana and Tate/Kit specifically, manage to get out of their locked cells all the time and roam the halls completely undetected.  How does this happen?  And not only that,  how do  they get access to recording equipment and knives, phones,  and stuff to bind hostages———BUT they can’t escape the asylum?????

I only wish real life could be written with such implausible plot twists as this season of AHS.

It reminds me of this one time back in sixth grade, circa 1970,  when I got into trouble.    I don’t remember the infraction, only my mother’s reaction, which was pure rage and I was facing being grounded for three months–tantamount to juvenile house arrest.   I tried to avoid getting three months ‘in the hole’ by flippantly telling my mother the warden an excuse for my actions.  It was one of the silly platitudes of the era…that  ‘the devil made me do it”.  

Man, that was the longest six months of my life.