Steve Martin's Birthday

Los Angeles, California 

I am a complicated woman. I have set the bar high for my own and others' behavior. I am easily annoyed and could use a 12-step program to kick my habit of complaining. But, I also spend a lot of time trying to be nice. I really like people, at least when they're not pissing me off. So I am friendly and I think, for the most part, considerate. And I am always gratefully blown away when someone shows me an unexpected kindness. Because since the pandemic, or maybe even before, people got kinda not nice. Maybe it started with the workforce who couldn't work from home during the pandemic. The cashiers and tellers who worked through it all and fought the Karens with the mask tantrums. About halfway through lockdown those employees got that look, like dead behind the eyes. And then a younger generation entered the workforce and that's a whole other zombie breed. Haven't quite figured it out, but I kindasorta think that after being the darling of the parents who fought with their teachers, coaches, and probation officers (because their kids could never, ever be in the wrong), these young adults have absolutely no idea how to be of service to anyone outside of their own little golden duck puddle. If you ask them how their day is going (and why aren't they asking me, I'm the customer?), they give you a blank 'huh' look. I know that look. It's the look of smartphone deprivation. So the one without that look, who is bright and makes eye contact with you, can really make your day. And give you some hope for civilization.

Earlier this month, on Steve Martin's birthday (I heard that mentioned on NPR that morning), I hit a trifecta of wonderfulness. And it couldn't happen on a better day. I love Steve Martin. For anyone who thinks he only makes comic films, they missed his stand-up genius, and are missing his writing: witty screenplays; insightful novels; his memoir, and the plays he has written. And then there is his banjo virtuosity, and his knowledge and love of fine art. And, by the way, he seems like a really nice guy. Plus, he dated Linda Ronstadt!!

One of my favorite things about Steve Martin is that he made balloon animals for us at Disneyland. My parents were kinda nuts about Disneyland. When I was growing up in Burbank, California, and freeway traffic was manageable, my family was known to spontaneously jump into the car and make our way to Disneyland. Often this would be on summer nights when my mom would say to my sister and me Grab a sweater. We're going to Disneyland. This would be after dinner but in time to drive there to watch the fireworks. We also went to Disneyland for whole days, especially when my cousins were in town. As kids, we knew how to navigate Disneyland. How to bob and weave through a slower-moving crowd on Main Street. How to get through a relatively-unknown passage to get from Fantasyland to Frontierland. We knew which rides to hit first before lines got long. And we knew that before we left, we would find the guy who made the balloon animals for us, while entertaining us with his funny patter. He was the same guy who worked at Merlin's Magic Shop in Sleeping Beauty's Castle. When he was behind the counter entertaining shoppers, you couldn't even get into the small shop which was located on the right side of the Main Street side of the castle (also located adjacent and nearby was the grotto and wishing well which was, frankly, the best place in the park to make out on a date). That creator of balloon-animals, the Merlin's Magic Shop comedian, was Steve Martin.

So, on Steve Martin's 79th birthday, I was running errands, hitting the bank, Sprouts and Trader Joe's. Everyone was cheerful and engaging. When I got to Sprouts, a multi-tattooed young guy who was shopping with his girlfriend/wife and small baby, gestured that I should go ahead of them with my handbasket filled with only two or three items. Are you sure? I queried. He nodded. And my question resonated after I checked out, thanked them again, and made my way out of the store. Has it come to this, that when someone offers kindness, we question and even give them an out? You know you just offered me kindness, right? I'm offering you an opportunity to reconsider. Maybe you've just had a stroke?

I really despair of getting back to a kinder and gentler world. I honestly think that the genie is out of the bottle and we will continue to live this way -- like rats crowded in a cage. We see it in the way people are driving. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there with everyone gunning for anyone who gets in their way. As I left Sprouts I reflected on what it feels like when someone offers what was once considered to be a common courtesy but is no longer common. Sadly, it is rare.

As I walked up to Trader Joe's, which shares a parking lot with Sprouts, I saw a severely disabled older woman walking, assisted by a cane, up to the store. I entered the alley where the carts are stored, and backed one out. Would you like this cart? Her face lit up. Thank you, she said as she took it. I think she was grateful. I was ecstatic. Here I was, exemplifying what I think is important: Paying it forward. It was the least I could do on a day like this. It was, after all, Steve Martin's birthday!

Cognitive Dissonance

Los Angeles, California

I'm frightened and amused. I'm framused. Have you, by any chance, read the manifesto named Project 2025? I kinda want to call it Project 225, because it harkens back to that year, AD. It's not a new concept and it dovetails well with MAGA. Or at least with the founders' ability to harness MAGA's moronic base. I'm just a little surprised that they have the balls to actually publish it after, I suppose, two decades or more (when was Obama elected?) of whispering about it in men's clubs and corporate retreats.

I should preface my comments on this by writing that I think the fringes on both sides of the political spectrum are pretty crazy. The woke stuff is from another planet. A lot of the progressive ideas seem unsound. While Trump was promising to build the wall and to make Mexico pay for it, Bernie was promising free college education for all. I pondered aloud, How would we pay for that? Joel's reply was Make Mexico pay for it. Joel, having been raised in Mexico, knew Trump was pissing in the wind about Mexico paying for the wall. But they, in their red caps, all seemed to buy it.

Meanwhile, women were going after men with a vengeance and a lot of men unfairly took the fall for it. Risqué jokes could be a reason for canceling men as well as their careers. And all the while, necklines kept getting lower and skirts kept getting higher. We can broadcast whatever we like, was the message. But you better not look at it, or we will lower the boom. Women had a lot of justified anger. We had been objectified for eons. But now with the power endowed they were, by God, going to use it, rightly or not. It was retribution time.

In addition, progressives were busy attempting to put the dairy industry out of business, wanting to outlaw everything they deemed unhealthy, and letting five-year olds or their parents, decide what, if any, gender would be applied to these little people. What kind of insanity is that? Down the rabbit hole we had gone.

But shifting a wee bit to the right, there goes our civil rights. Let's make everyone practice one or one and-a-half (we're thinking Judaism might pass, or maybe we'll pick them up later) faiths. And, for the love of heaven, let's keep women at home and not allow them to terminate unwanted pregnancies because in our new/old world, all pregnancies are wanted. And sex should solely within the confines of traditional, heterosexual marriage and initiated by the husbands in that union. Women have children because without it, they will become "crazy cat ladies" according to the MAGA VP candidate. But that's just the tip of the iceberg that is getting some press. How about we change the government so that all civil servants report under the president, and let's give him wider-reaching authority. Enough of this balance of power bullshit. What's good enough for Hungary should work pretty well here. Libertarianism was an experiment which failed in the everybody-do-your-own-thing '60s. Americans are stupid. They shouldn't be left to their own devices. They need to be made to understand that this country will be better if the government is left to white men who will eject Muslims and Hindus and the rest of those people outta here. And, by the way, the democrats have been inattentive to the tech industry needs and that's why some of these tech execs have come up with this cool plan.

Frightening. But still just a teensy bit amusing, as archaic ideas brought up in modern times can be. J.D. Vance is the poster child. Forget about Trump. He's old. He's only useful to them at this time in order to get this ball rolling. But what is not in any way amusing is that while this is going on, a generation of younger men are reacting to the world as a place they would like to get out of, and take a bunch of people with them while they are at it. It used to be that the cultists who wanted to drink Kool-Aid or jump on the Hale-Bopp Comet were rare. Now they're mainstream. And you don't even need to drink the Kool-Aid, just wear the red cap and Project 225 will gather you up.

I stopped attending Mass when I became increasingly aware of an American Apostolic Movement which professes a desire to make the United States into a Christian nation, despite it being founded on religious freedom for all. The more I read about this, the more I felt that I couldn't be a part of any Christian community. I experienced a personal shake-up in my faith in Christianity. Recently I attended Mass for the first time this year. It was a funeral Mass, but the ritual of Mass which I have now loved for decades was before me. I uttered the responses and repeated the Lord's Prayer. In my silent prayer, I felt my connection to God. But that occurred in spite of my knowledge of what is happening in the hearts and minds of many "Christians" who want to take their belief and dogmatism, politicize it and make it law. That is wrong.

I think those of us who are centrists with origins in either party have been asleep at the wheel. There are some really peculiar and dangerous movements brewing in this country and the manifesto of Project 2025 is a pinnacle of these. We live in a land of diverse cultures and faiths. We are a melting pot of these. And the concept of Making America Male, of Making America White, or Making America Christian is abhorrent. We all came from somewhere. My man is a Latino; my closest friend is Asian. I have friends in all colors, some whom are LGBQ and many who are Jewish. And that is, in my world, in my country, in my state, city, home, and heart, the way things should be. And I will do everything in my power to keep it that way.