The Zeitgeist

          

Cameron Diaz in leggings and boots (left). The new FX drama, "Lights Out," The main stars of "Big Love" Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech" and Britney Spears' new album cover.

Things to Love About New York

Yeah, snowstorms and weather in the 20s with a wind chill in the teens is not exactly Margaritaville weather. More like Moscow with Napoleon besieging it. This week we got about nine inches which were quickly dispatched in the City and which is still frosting the suburbs on top of the 27 inches we got at the end of December. Whole bushes in my front yard are still buried in snow. It’s pretty though, as in the ‘burbs the snow doesn’t turn black and gray like in the City, so everything has that Currier & Ives kind of look. If you squint, Long Island can look like New England in the snow. One great thing about this kind of inclement weather is that the fashion gods have devised flattering female attire for it. Just as miniskirts are essential in warm climes, up in the Big Apple women are now presenting themselves in my new favorite outfit – rubber (or leather) high rain/snow boots on top of black leggings and a short-cropped jacket. This has become kind of a uniform on the streets of Manhattan for the svelte and fashionable but it affords a measure of sex appeal to the members of the male gender who in these desperately cold times of indoor hibernation crave some flattering female visages to cast their gazes upon live and in 3-D. All good, ladies, and thanks!

Speaking also of New York, New York Magazine has a “New York’s Greatest Ever Everything” issue this week (Jan 17-24). One of the points being argued by the pundits and editors of that periodical is New York City’s best-ever year. They nominated several for contention: 1898 when the Five Boros came together in the unified megalopolis we see today, 1947 with Brando on Broadway, Toscanini at Rockefeller Center and Jackie Robinson making baseball history in Brooklyn; 1963 with its “Mad Men-esque” appeal, 1978 because “there was nowhere to go but up” and finally 2011 (now). Coincidentally, I just happened to have been living in Manhattan in both 1963 and 1978 and they were very, very different. In ’63 they were burning everyone’s garbage every day in individual apartment building incinerators combined with ConEd generating electricity from coal, cars, trucks and buses running on leaded gas and littering seen as an inherent right. Let me tell you, if you think Manhattan is dirty now, you have no idea how it resembled Dickens’ 19^th Century London smog in ‘63. Yes, everyone was all dressed up all the time, people ate everything bad for them and drank and smoked and drank and smoked and everyone was having a great time in the last days of Camelot. But best ever? In ’78 I was living at 67 East 11^th Street at Broadway and attending NYU. As New York says, things were cheap in the City. My roommate and I were paying all of $360 a month (combined) to share a one bedroom apartment with a huge view of Grace Church. My Dad was upset with me because most everyone else was paying $250 a month for the same size space, but my building was one of the first renovations of those old cast iron industrial factories, so everything was new. The City was disgustingly filthy and crime was rampant. The economy (Carter was President) stank but things were still cheap. Everyone still rented, the subway was 35 cents, steins of beer at McSorley’s on 7^th Street were just 25 cents, you could get a sandwich and ice cream sundae at Schrafft’s on 5^th Avenue for about $2-$3. Best ever? You decide. Here’s the link: http://nymag.com/news/features/greatest-new-york/

New On TV

FX, the network that gave us “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me” premiered a new boxing drama “Lights Out” on Tuesday evening. This is the story of an Irish-American (and who isn’t Irish in boxing in films and television?) family comprised of a retired former champ, his neer-do-well brother, his dad the boxing coach and his hot (yeah, like in “Rescue Me,” the Irish-American women are hot) wife, teenage daughter and extended group of family and friends. Great cast starring Holt McCallany (CSI Miami) in the title role, Stacy Keach (he’s still alive?) as his dad and “Braveheart’s” Catherine McCormack  as his wife. Long story short: Through ineptitude, generosity and mismanagement, “Lights” Leary (our hero) loses all his millions earned from years in the ring and is now faced with the dilemma of how to maintain his wealthy suburban New Jersey lifestyle and support his extended posse. Does he become muscle for sleazy debt collectors? Does he go back in the ring against his wife’s wishes? Will be succumb to injuries from his days in the ring? This is not presented in a black and white fashion. “Lights” Leary is not all good nor all bad, but a complicated character both likeable and despicable in that Tony Soprano way, loving his family but full of human failings and bad deeds. I give this a B+ for execution and photography and a C+ for originality (this story has been done before) but worth setting your DVRs for at 10 on Tuesdays.

Big Hunk of Love

Back on HBO for its final season starting this Sunday (Jan 16^th) at 9:00 is “Big Love,” that HBO drama set in the wilds of Utah’s polygamist Mormon community. Bill Pullman is back as the holy family patriarch (who also just happens to own a gambling casino) with three wives living in three adjoining houses along with his crazy extended family of dysfunctional polygamists living on a “compound” in the Utah desert and following a deviant stream of Mormonism. “Big Love” is “The Sopranos” set in the Southwest and if you’ve missed the prior seasons, shame on you. Easily one of the five best dramas HBO has come out with, and by extension, one of the best on television.

The King’s Speech

Let me say right off that I love British movies, primarily for the chance to hear English spoken at its highest levels by the folks who invented the language. “The Kings Speech” is actually a film about language and the ability to communicate it effectively. It’s the story of King George VI (the current Queen Elizabeth’s father) who suffered from a terrible stutter and speech impediment, particularly in public. This was brought on by a 19^th Century overbearing father (George V) and cold mother and older brother (Edward, played by Guy Pierce) who tormented him. Propelled by events beyond his control, namely Edward’s abdicating the Throne to marry Mrs. Simpson, George (played tremendously well by Colin Firth) is thrust into the limelight. As George V told his son earlier in the film, “It used to be that all a King had to do was look good in a uniform and not fall off a horse, now we have become actors,” as he said that monarchs now had to be the faces of their country because of the advent of mass media. So, Firth’s character needs to be able to deliver speeches on radio. To that end, George’s wife, Mary (the Queen Mum, played with precision by Helena Bonham Carter) seeks out a speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush. Rush’s character is a character of the highest order and therein lies the humor and pathos between the two protagonists. Rush does help George but I won’t say more in case you’ve not yet seen the film. British filmmaking at its best, on a par with last year’s “The Queen.”

Pop Music

Britney Spears, in many respects the Ur-blonde dance music nymphet, is back from her post-partum depression. And because she has kids to support and alimony to pay to K-Fed (or “Fed-Ex”) needs to keep working. She’s got a new song out called “Hold It Against Me,” which kinds of echoes the old number one Country and Western song “If I Said You Have a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?” by  The Bellamy Brothers in 1979 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAVUrq7jvtM). Britney also wants to have it held against her, but in a different genre, pop dance. Pretty decent song that will grow on you. Already all over the radio and number one in 16 countries on the iTunes charts (including the U.S.). Just released, here it is, so please don’t hold it against me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSm_QMO6zA (audio only, video isn’t out yet).

The Wonder of It All

One of my Top 20 favorite films is a Tom Hanks’ production called “That Thing You Do.” It seems to be on TV nearly every day on one channel or another. Probably because it’s the feel good story of four young garage band members from Erie, P.A., circa 1963 and their improbable rise to stardom with a pop tune by the same name. Hanks is in the movie as was the very funny Steve Zahn and the luminescent Liv Tyler. Great tune. I like the whole soundtrack actually. Maybe with this song, 1963 really was the best year ever in New York? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzllVlzzeuo.

But my favorite song in the movie is the only one fronted by Zahn called “Dance With Me Tonight,” which I think is even more rockin’ than “That Thing You Do.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29pZdMDDhJY&feature=related. Have a look and catch the film if you’re one of 10 Americans who hasn’t seen it yet. Will warm your heart.

The Zeitgeist

       

George Peppard kissing Audrey Hepburn in BatTiff; Edwards Maya's new CD cover, Avril Lavigne and the cover for "A Country of Vast Designs."

Dating In The Big Town, Part II

Back for more of my ruminations about dating post-40 in The Big Apple: Best way to describe the situation? How about “Six Degrees of Desperation?” There is an enormity of disappointment, heartache and loneliness out there among New York singles of a certain age. A calcification of the heart so constricting and blocking of daylight that it’s amazing these people manage to function altogether. This is reflected in the near total eclipse of the hearts of so many men and women I meet these days. Masses of them don’t believe in love. Many don’t think they’ll ever achieve what they dream of while at the same time doing everything in their power to sabotage attainment of those dreams.

I’ve had an acquaintance actually “de-friend” me from Facebook for my temerity in disagreeing with her rantingly cynical wall posts disparaging the reality of love and happy marriage. Seriously. Because so many people have been alone for so long and have been so often disappointed or heartbroken they’ve erected sarcastic and bitter defenses on letting anyone in. Because they don’t want to be hurt and disappointed again, they choose not to take risks for love again. It’s an amazing accomplishment, particularly in Manhattan to get beyond a third date with anyone – because after that third date they’ve run out of the carefully constructed scripts they’ve crafted for themselves that they put on autopilot especially during the first two dates. Going to four or more means they might actually have to come up with new stuff or let their guards down and drop their poses, which opens them up to risk of heartache.

This cynicism is manifested by extreme pickiness. They have lists, big lists. Within the lists they have sub micro-lists, mini-lists and nano-lists. If you can break through half the list there is an automatic program that churns out more objections to refill the lists. There is also a bleakness of spirit which really is a numbness to feeling and emotion. It’s as though for many, their lives are really all about going to work, buying things, eating and going places. Consumer Lemmings who’ve become Vulcans – self-contained, devoid of emotion and feeling. As some people have experienced more than 20 years of hurts, any possible slight or failure by a prospective suitor to live up to an unattainable idealized Hollywood romantic ideal is immediately shot down with digital precision. The result of which is putting themselves right back on the hyper-dating merry-go-round instead of making a commitment to anyone or anything lasting.

To quote Gwyneth Paltrow in her new film “Country Strong,” "Don't be afraid to fall in love again, its the most important thing in life." Doesn't mean you can't be happy unmarried but being alone and fahrbisseneh for the next 40+ years is equally sad and also empowers whoever burned these people so badly to keep burning them over and over again. There is little to no self-awareness that by their hyper-pickiness and unrealizable fantasies that they are imprisoning themselves in their gilded birdcages (condos) and sentencing themselves to a life of eternal dating misery with no real emotional intimacy. There are a lot of people in New York who will never, ever, have children. And this is a tragedy. There is a prescription for unbinding one’s heart, and it was written by the late Truman Capote and articulated magnificently by George Peppard in his closing speech to Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” (See embedded video below, worth a few minutes). The joke of it all is that I’ve just come off an awesome heartbreak (divorce) and I’m not down on love, life, relationships, romance and marriage. It’s just that I’m Captain Kirk surrounded in a starship crewed mostly by Vulcans. Scotty, beam me out of here!

New in Culture

Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina, composers and crooners of the monster hit “Stereo Love” (more than 90 million hits on YouTube) have a new one out (only 275,000 hits so far) called “Desert Rain.” A worthy follow-up to their giant hit of the past two years. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY49R8nz01Q. This is what you would call “World Music” in that it’s not identifiable as coming from any one particular place and is not culturally specific to one either, but great beat and lyrics. Also new in music, the ubiquitous Avril Lavigne (pronounced like “Levine” – no, she’s not Jewish…!) who has gone Platinum many, many times has a great new song out called “What The Hell.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFIqdm75pw. This live video comes from this year’s Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve show, introduced by Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. This is from just this past week. Very fresh. Great girl-rock. Not dance music. “All my life I’ve been good but all I want is to mess around…What the hell.” Speaking of messing around, the late Ray Charles did this really well back in the day with “The Mess Around.” Catch this live video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgxQg3Z818.

Book ‘em, Danno

Robert W. Merry spent a dozen years as editor of the Congressional Quarterly. He’s also written a bunch of solid histories. Last year he came out with “A Country of Vast Designs, James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent.” Polk was president from 1844-48 and oversaw the Union’s acquisition of the states of Texas, New Mexico and California, all wrested from Mexico in a war that saw U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman all fighting together on the same side and Oregon and Washington pried away from the British without firing a shot. Perhaps bigger in scope than Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. This is a brilliantly written biography of one of America’s most underrated presidents. He was a Democrat at a time when the Democrats were anti-tax and anti-big government if you can imagine such a thing. A one-term president by choice, he died at 53 shortly after leaving office as a result of the stress and abuse of the job and the terrible political polarization in Congress and Washington that took it’s toll. Merry quotes extensively from Polk’s own diaries and from the newspapers and Congressional Record of the day. If you think Washington is a swamp today, just check out the mid 19^th Century. It was probably worse. Great book.

The Zeitgeist

Dating In The Big Town, Part I

 

I’ve written in this space about JDate and other online dating sites before. I took the liberty of copying this woman’s profile from JDate because it is so hysterically funny and cynical at the same time:

About Me

Yes... References Required. Or at least, they might be. Is that a problem? lol. It shouldn't be, should it? Wouldn't that be interesting...Anyhow , thanks for stopping by....Welcome to Jdate where everyone loves long walks, their job, the beach, going to the gym, is honest, and smart etc ...a magical land where the men are all handsome, and taller than they were before, and the women sport a lil black dress that looks equally as excellent and sexy as, those favorite pair of jeans... A place where museum admission has reached an all time high, and you are the minority if you don't sky dive regularly or have a fully stamped passport. :)

Physical Info

• ·                                 I am: 5' 2" (157 cm)

• ·                                 I weigh: 

• ·                                 My hair is: Dirty Blonde

• ·                                 My eyes are: Green

• ·                                 My body style is closest to: Athletic/Fit

Why do women on web dating sites feel the need to post photos of themselves with their friends? Don’t they know they run the risk of guys thinking that their friends may be cuter than they are? Do we really need or want to see their friends right now? Another big question is why do so many women feel compelled to post photos of themselves in Halloween costumes (or those from costume parties in general)? Do we guys really expect that once we start dating them that they will come over in Bat Girl or Naughty Nurse attire? Are we to assume that these kinds of sartorial choices are every day occurrences along with business suits and jeans?

I have a whole lot that I’d like to say about the state of dating in New York in one’s middle age but I’m going to hold my fire until next week as I want to devote most of my Zeitgeist space to that subject. Suffice it to say, it is a process fraught with cynicism, disappointment, nanosecond expendability and maddening frustrations. There is no comparison to dating at this stage of life and to dating twenty or twenty five years ago. No familiar road maps to reference or routines to follow.

A Kiss is But A Kiss

Having reluctantly reentered the dating world in earnest about seven or eight months ago after spending more than 14 years with the same person has exposed me to some truisms and new realities. One is about kissing and kisses. Living without them (and hugs) for extended periods can be deleterious to one’s health. Seriously. You don’t realize how much one needs them until you find yourself in a drought. When, in the course of dating, you do get to kiss, one is reminded that no two kisses are the same – everyone is different – like their fingerprints and DNA. Also, in Middle Age (and that’s where I seem to be at 52 even if I look younger) kissing is fraught with new meaning and challenges. Because I meet so many women on the north side of 38-40, they attach (as often do I) much more significance to kissing then when we were in our teens and 20s. A lifetime of relationships, jadedness, cynicism and even bitterness permeates the psyches of many women I encounter, especially those who haven’t been kissed a whole lot recently. This leads to a certain wariness about exchanging bodily fluids with new people as they often are battling the ghosts of relationships past in their brains. Some who have been lacking this basic human tenderness for extended periods “need to be kissed. And often, and by someone who knows how” to paraphrase Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.” (Actual quote: “No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”) See the scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACj50uq6_s)  But I digress. Probably the most challenging thing in dating at this stage of life is surmounting the kissing hurdle – not just getting to kissing but to finding a kiss that resonates, a kiss that you can get lost in, a kiss that you love, a kiss you can believe in. “If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss, that’s where it is…” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4KN6TFhy2I) Or the Cher version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZL_NCdhxVQ&feature=related.