From the archives; hope to be back Friday or sooner with something fresh
Sometime in the mid 1980’s
My dad, Max, a CPA calls me one day from his client/friend’s studio penthouse at One West 47th Street. His client’s a cartoonist and graphic artist who I have known since I was a child.
Max sounds perplexed but proud:
“I’m going to be in an MTV commercial.”
“That’s too cool, daddy. What are you…?”
He interrupts before I can finish my question.
“So what’s MTV?”
“It’s a TV station that only plays music videos. It has VJ’s instead of DJ”s. Get it?”
I have forgotten for a second that this is my father I’m talking to. He likes the world to fit his perceptions. If his perceptions don’t fit, he changes the facts around until they make sense to him. I know that he’s a brilliant accountant with the ability to quickly read, say a balance sheet, see the whole picture, and explain it. He calls himself an accountant. My mother, Marion, calls him a CPA. Most of his personal clients call him “my business adviser” or “my business manager.” He’s in his 70’s and each time he thinks of retiring a new and more prestigious client drops his way.
Yet I wonder how he can be so brilliant at his work, and still perceive ordinary life so wrongly. He also believes that Nixon and Reagan are the two best presidents ever. Except for some Russian émigrés he hates conservatives. Trying to understand Sam is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing. It just can’t be done. Yet….Of course he didn’t get my explanation of MTV. If my parents would get cable he could see for himself. But on principle they won’t. Don’t ask what principle. They’re a two person household with four TV’s.
He sighs. “No, you’re wrong. There can’t be a station that only plays rock music. An hour a day, I can see. But no station can survive by playing videos.”
“Why don’t you ask?”
He won’t. Admitting that he doesn’t know what MTV is would mean that he’s not in tune with pop culture. If Max doesn’t like the answer he can’t tell his client he’s wrong. Max only tells his clients they’re wrong on matters relating to business and politics. I don’t want to get into a fight over this.
“What are you going to do?”
“He told me that I was just going to hold a sign that says ‘MTV’ and stand in for the real actor. But when the people from MTV saw it they wanted me.”
He sounds a little incredulous. I smile because I’m sure that his client planned this the whole time. Max doesn’t look or act shy but he is. Sometimes he’s amazed at how his life turned out. He did the whole early 20th century, poorer than a Shul mouse Jewish boy bit. Marion and I are the only two people to realize that he’s always on poverty alert. In his head he’s still a boy in East Harlem.
Max’s a handsome man, I guess. He’s my father so it’s a little difficult to see him objectively. In 1969 he grew a moustache, and it’s remained black as his hair is graying so he kept the moustache. He has deep set eyes that are remarkably like mine though I was adopted, a small mouth like mine and large Slavic cheekbones that are also like mine. Only his nose is different; larger and with a bump. I have heard all the jokes, and no he definitely didn’t sleep with my birth mother. My friends think that they’re so funny.
Daddy’s going to be in an MTV commercial and he hasn’t even invited me to the taping. I gave up relationships with men in music a few years ago for attorneys with Doctorates in math or science. Now I seem to be going through a character actor and men who produce or are cameramen on TV stage. Once again Max tops me. Not that we’re in competition or anything. He doesn’t even know that I’m dating or who I’m dating. But I’m too happy for him to let this be anything but a passing thought.
“When’s the shooting?”
“Tomorrow. They told me what suit to wear, and to bring two shirts one in pink and one in blue. Know what the best part is?”
The hunky cameramen, I think.
“I have no idea.”
“They’re paying me. $250. I would have done it for free.”
“Did you call mommy?”
“She’s not home.”
I’m not home either. I’m a project manager for a litigation support company. It’s a stressful job, and I used to be always reachable by phone for family members until I stopped answering my own line. I talk if I have the time or it’s a real emergency.
The commercial turn out to be part of a series. Max’s client’s younger son plays the teenager or the expected viewer; Mrs. Havasi, the client’s mother-in-law plays the “old lady;” and Max’s the “successful middle-aged businessman.”
I know this because Max calls one day to tell me to look at The New York Times. There’s a fawning article about the series. (Blechman does op-art and other cartoons for it.)
“Mrs. Havasi is younger than me.”
I can’t resist. As a child I was taught to read The Times with a skeptical eye. Max’s a rabid newspaper reader who thinks that The Times distorts the truth. When he was “progressive,’ it was regressive; now it plays fast and furious with the facts.
“You know to never believe anything you read in the Times. Except maybe the obits.”
“Well, Pia, sometimes even they are right.”
The commercials are nominated for Clio’s. (They don’t win.) Somebody from the TV show PM Magazine interviews Max. It’s in every market but the New York metro area. Nobody we know anywhere knows how to program a VCR.
“I was horrid in it anyway.”
“Why?”
“They asked if anybody followed me around asking for an autograph. Nobody ever has so I said ‘no.’”
I feel for Max I really do. Bui I would have said ‘just my daughters. They run down the street with blank checks for me to sign.’ Then I would have held up pictures of me and Cara. No I wouldn’t have been that tacky but…
It’s not that I’m in need of a job or a man, but just once I would like my father to introduce me to somebody who has a great job to offer or has a great job, is single, straight and looking. He loves to give us money but he would never introduce us around, and he knows so many people. Is he ashamed of us or just shy as Marion claims?
I don’t have a VCR so I lend my copy to my mother’s younger sister, my hippie Buddhist aunt. If I have one adage in life, it’s never lending anything you want back to somebody who has slept at the Dali Lama’s feet. Being Max’s daughter entitles me to be quirky, and while not anti-New Age (I’m sure that Yanni has some good qualities) I’m too New York, too cynical, too fast, and too in love with my own life to need Marianne Williamson, the Dali Lama, Gary Null, and everyone in between to tell me how to live my life.
Obviously Max knows that. People are always telling him how much they love my “fierce independence.” Many people assumed that I was going to be a daddy’s girl. I fought it, and now our relationship is one of equals. I know how much he needs me, and I’m beginning to believe that I need him also.
I meet rock stars like Iggy Pop; Max knows (and has kept me from meeting many times) Mick Jagger. True I have given up musicians but there’s a part of me that is and shall always be star struck. It’s Max’s fault, of course, he brought me up to expect the moon to fall into my hands if I want it badly enough.
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The post I wrote last week for Bring it on! is still garnering comments at blog critics where I will be crossposting posts from Courting, also. Just in case five more people who read blogs haven’t read Courting
I don’t care if people believe in Intelligent Design or not; but I don’t want government money spent on it. Today I want my tax dollars to go to Hurricane relief; next I want it to go to Stem Cell Research. I don’t think ID should be taught in public schools.
It’s that simple. Really. Only it’s not. And obviously I over simplified tax spending/
I’m linking to a post by Mulligan. I have never judged a person by political beliefs–well Nazi’s, but…
Mulligan talks about something that I know well. The radical right bloggers who change comments to make a person look stupid; delete the prior comments; I have even had whole posts changed on me to make me look like an idiot.
I am told that there are Google references to “the Idiot Pia.” Haven’t gotten the courage to look, but The Cranky Liberal said that it was true. Of course, Cranky’s my friend which means he can have a sarastic bent to his humor. Actually he didn’t really say it was true. He kind of nodded which is hard to do on the Internet, but Cranky’s an exceptional writer.
I am in more hall of shames than a person has a right to expect to be in a lifetime. I’m a registered Democrat, and you know the trouble we cause. I will be writing extensively on this subject for both Bring it on and Blog Critics.
I have delusions of literary grandeur, and will keep Courting as story friendly as possible. But what Mulligan describes is beyond belief. It goes way beyond changing comments or posts to making up blogs about people who are known for such horrible beliefs as wanting the war to end. The blogs are…for more go to Mulligan @ Can’t Keep Quiet.
And if you see a blog about me and it’s not Courting or in Bring it on! or Blog Critics, please let me know. If you want to argue politics now I have two places that you can argue with me at. Though I would love for some or many of my posts at Blog Critics to not be about politics; I’m just so darn good at it. And I can bite. Not that way, and not at Courting, usually.
Going to stop now before I dig myself into holes I can’t shovel out of.
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One of my favorite bloggers and people, JC, has a son: well, I copied her post, and linked to it. Not closing comments but please comment on JC’s site if you know anything; as bloggers we can be a helping community
If anyone should wander by, that has news of folks in Bogalusa La, please leave a comment. Bogalusa is a bit inland, but is in between New Orleans and Biloxi, so I would guess it was hit pretty hard. There are no calls going through at all and I know that the most important calls there, are to get folks off roofs, but would love to know how the city fared as my son is there. Thanks. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the storm today.
Need info on Ethel Davis on Warren street. Have been unable to get info any other way. Thanks
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From the Courting archives. It’s the last real week of summer; I’m not motivated. Hope to be tomorrow. Like this story.
Diana Ross stands on the drivers side of her limo with her mouth frozen in a huge smile, and her right arm soldered into what could be construed as a wave. Her office is down the street from my mini-loft, and I see her most nights on my way home from work. I can never decide whether this is her way of recognizing me.
Perhaps she is standing giving a mass greeting, or she suffers from some syndrome that freezes her body. I ponder this each time I see her for the thirty seconds it takes me to walk to my building. But I would have heard as Im tuned into New York and/or music gossip.
I hate Diana Ross. Her friend, Ed Koch, the otherwise occasionally fabulous mayor has let her put no parking signs on either side of her building. 63rd Street, between Madison and Fifth, is a deceptively quiet street where nothing ever seems to happen. Its a great place to live partially because people who insist on driving everywhere could always find parking, and cant bitch about the hour wait. Secretly, they love the hunt. Im a big proponent of banning private cars from Manhattan, but enjoy having company more.
Diana Ross is ruining my secret parking street as she almost ruined my birthday when she insisted on having that infamous concert in the park during a thunderstorm when young boys ran to Tavern on the Green to overturn tables, and frighten people. A new term will enter the lexicon that night wilding.
The boys wanted to take me to a club on the East Side that features Maria Monteyo, a singer in drag, who looks almost as good in gowns as I do. Actually she looks better as she knows how to walk in stillettoes. She has tried to teach me but I’m hopeless.
We’ve agreed to go to the club the next night so that the boys can come to my surprise birthday party. It’s going to be at my girlfriend, Lucia’s apartment, and I’ve planned almost every detail as one of my talents is planning parties. If only I had planned to get to the Upper West Side earlier, but how was I supposed to know that people wouldn’t be allowed to go from one side of the park to the other. Both Central Park South and Central Park North are cordoned off to traffic for too long.
My boyfriend has to work late, but Ive seen pictures of the ring hes going to give me. Its immense.
I cant get to the West Side until sometime in the wee morning hours. Everybodys blitzed; Im shown Polaroids of my birthday cake so I can see what I missed; my boyfriends making out with some unknown girl who he will impregnate that night and marry. He wont give her that ring.
He will call me every night for months and beg me to take him back.
It wasnt anything. She was there and you were nott.
Should have thought about it then.
Im nothing if not principled. Later I will realize that he was a good boyfriend who actually had money, values (though not that night) and loved me. I hold Diana Ross personally responsible for all that happened that night. Too bad she wouldnt give a damn if she had learned about it.
I spend a long time lamenting not accepting the boys invitation. It was the last year that they were all alive; and the last year before people begin joining “A” groups enmasse.
New York will lose some of its glimmer; stars literally will burn a little less brightly, and for the first time I won’t blame myself for everything that will go wrong. No, it’s all Diana Ross’s fault.
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I have long liked Kyra Sedgwick. She has a coolness about her even when she’s portraying a powerful woman cop who dresses “like ’70’s Talbot.” Her description of her character in The Closer. My new favorite TV show, until Boston Legal comes back.
Kyra Sedgwick’s character just can’t get the men to respect her. No matter how good she is; she’s quirky and laden with faults and I love her.
Kyra’s married to Kevin Bacon; how many degrees of separation from him is she? I have no idea; and only think about it when I should be doing other things. How many degrees of speparation are their kids?
I forgot that some people might not know the game: Six degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon. He’s been in many movies and it’s generally assumed that every actor is one or three movies or TV shows or something away from him.
That last paragraph and this one are additions. A comment said that I made assumptions about Kyra Sedgwick and her family. If anybody knows the assumptions that I made please let me know. I didn’t talk about Kyra Sedgwick being quirky; I said her character is. That’s not an assumption. Also when one discusses a character one is entitled to express any opinion; same thing with a public figure. Fact: Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are married. Fact: they have children. Fact: Kyra Sedgwick said somewhere that her character wears ’70’s type Talbot clothes. I loved that statement as it said a lot.
I said that she has a coolness about her. That’s an opinion not an assumption. So where are the assumptions?
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One Memorial Day weekend my friends and I each read a Princess Diana special issue of People that explained cousins to the inth degree. I had it memorized. But when I met my cousins did I remember this? No of course not.
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If I can’t impress people with my incredible wealth of knowledge from People what good am I? And have you ever looked at the letters to the editor, and wondered why? Why do people write these letters? In case you’ve never read one I will make a few up:
To the Editor
I think that Brad should have stayed with Jennifer. She is such a lady and deserves much happiness in her life. Jennifer has suffered too much.
Sincerely
Rhonda J Burns
How do you know that Jennifer is a lady who suffered and is deserving of happiness? (I’m sure she is, and just wrote this because it was too easy.) She has much money, but we all know that doesn’t buy happiness, especially People readers and its clones
To the Editor
Angelina is a saint and as such should be with Brad because he’s the only person worthy of her.
Sincerely
Lara Kraft—People fact checked her name and yes it’s real. They also discovered that she’s Rhonda’s older sister but don’t say that, or that the name is real.
By this time who cares about any of them?
Then you think: why do I read the letters week after week? And I have a blog; isn’t that just as self serving? Then you want to get back into bed and spend the rest of your life there. But you don’t; because you have a blog. And a life that you’ve been neglecting for your blog(s).
So how many degrees of separation is Kyra from Kevin? That is a truly important question.
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I try to stay away from politics in Courting; it’s usually more true confessions by Pia. However when I read something like the following I feel compelled to talk about it.
SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq….The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays.
Granted it’s a small church, thankfully not part of a larger church. BUT I have been called unpatriotic, disloyal, and a staunch hater of the people in the military because I don’t support a war that I don’t understand.
I realize that most people will laugh at them, and their absurd idealogy. But they interrupted two funerals for service people, not I. They are the people spreading doctrines of hate, not I. They are the people who don’t support the military, not I.
I mean no disrespect to anybody who lives in Kansas; the title wrote itself.
We are a strong nation of people from diverse backgrounds. In the past decade, really more, people in this country have had a strong need to understand themselves and their problems through spirituality and religion. That’s great.
What’s not so great is the temptation to mix religion with politics, and then to be so sure of ones beliefs that a minister can take his congregation and interrupt servicemen’s funerals.
Can you imagine some of Bin Laden’s people interrupting the funerals of firemen in New York? Rudy G–who I don’t personally like but did respect for those first few weeks–would have kicked them on their asses.
Many people assume that I look at the seperation of Church and State from the perspective of a Jew. I do, but I also look at it from the perspective of every non-Christian in this country.
Now a new element has been added. Decent Christians against way sick Christians who have the unmititigated gall to interrupt a funeral. Continue Reading »
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Bring it On! has joined Blogcritics.org, and for some reason, beyond my understanding chose my post on Intelligent Design and The First Amendment for its first piece. It’s on the last right column; scroll and you will find it.
I was just thinking that when William Safire and I agree on an issue, it’s usually a threat to The First Amendment. Intelligent Design is based on faith and faith can’t be quantified so Intelligent Design isn’t a science, and shouldn’t be taught as an alternative or even adding to Evolution, something that has been quantified, postulated and has stood the additional test of time.
I have known many compassionate conservatives. I usually use the late Andrew Heiskell, publisher of Time, founding board member of People for the American Way, major donator and for whom the New York City Public Library, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library is named as a great example of a compassionate conserative. My not so famous dad was another.
Arguably William Safire belongs in that category. Yes, we’re all Jewish and no matter how far removed from the shettel, carry the baggage of people who once weren’t allowed to speak freely or simply not allowed to be citizens. I feel honored to be part of the last generations to remember people who came here in the beginning of the last century determined that their children be educated and make it out of the ghettos.
Many of my friends were shocked when they found out that nobody sent my dad to college. He had two scholarships: math and basketball; but it was the depression and he had to support his family. He worked 45-60 hour weeks for the one rich relative, who gave relatives jobs and then proceeded to work them harder than anybody else.
I’m proud of both my heritage and my dad.
Oh this was just supposed to be a little shameless self-promotion for my piece at BlogCritics. So read it!
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Do I win a prize for having the longest post title? And covering the most amount of subjects in one post? I wrtote this post as an alternative to the one below. But I would love people to read it.
I live for summer; I do. But I have never been blog obsessed before. I think of it as a good compulsion because it forces me to write and that’s always good for my psyche, except when it’s depressing like the post below. Which was something I had to write in order to explain what comes next. And maybe what will come before.
Yes IECNYTBA, even I know that things are supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end. The person I just addressed claims to read this blog and should understand what the initials stand for. If not…I’m not going to explain.
I know; I know everybody wants sumer lite all year round now. According to technorati this is the number one blog right now. Okay, he’s a WordPress developer. Have to admit that I didn’t understand the significance of linking when I first got WordPress this past winter. Do love it, and am sorry that I took Mike’s link out but I had no idea how to play the blogging game. Still don’t really. I think of Courting as a slightly edgy indie film with some mass market appeal. Kind of like Sideways or anything with Parker Posey or Chloe Sevigny. Continue Reading »
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Some people thought that I was on the fast lane to the highway to hell. I was 22, already seperated from a boy who is the single friend that I kept from the days of everything happened so quickly, how did I end up living with a group of girls I had known in college who had turned into lesbian junkies?
Frankly I could have lived with the lesbian part, if Caroline had only told me. Some people thought that Caroline had been the most beautiful girl on campus; others thought Shelby had been. At least one person still claims that I was; so don’t ever expect me to trash my two second marriage. Caroline looked like the idealized WASP with perfect rich girl long chestnut hair, and a penchant for boots, jeans, expensive sweaters and fitted blazers; a style that I still emulate today. Though my personal style was ’30’s and ’40’s vintage with silver boots made out of mylar, crushed velvet smoking jackets, and lace. For a shy person with nearly no confidence, I had tremendous confidence in my abilty to dress uniquely, memorably, with flair and confidence. I retreated into my hair and clothes; they seemed to subsitute for a personality. People thought that I had one when I was just a girl who wasn’t afraid to experiment with style as I had nothing to lose.
I had been living in splendid solitude near the dock of the bay, when Caroline suggested that move into a house she and a few girls from school were moving into that winter of 1973, in another Long Island Sound town where we had many friends. I had been amazed when Caroline claimed me as her best friend. The anxious mannerisms that others found endearing were gross to me. I remembered idolizing Caroline but I don’t remember ever having a real conversation with her. Continue Reading »
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I saw the preview and thought it would be a request for a reciprocral link; and I would reply with “I blogroll who I feel like blogrolling at that moment in time, and am always plesantly suprised to find myself blogrolled.” Really.
Anyway If I were too reply to it, this is what I would have said:
You spamming bitch, if you going to send out a spamming business letter, you should f**king learn to spell. Bet you’re a male who took a service industry (spam letters) job from an American.” (No offense meant to anybody who lives in an outsourcing country; but we need jobs also.)
CLP dared me to put this in
IF YOU HAVEN’T READ MY SUMMER OF SAM STORY–THE POST BELOW THE ONE BELOW! Continue Reading »
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