How to Be Famous

The Beatles are unquestionably the most successful musical act in the entire history of the universe. It took years of playing questionable establishments and a lot of record company rejection before they made it big. That is how you did it back then. You played as much as you could wherever you could and your local following developed into a larger following.

Now all you have to do is go on one of the Pop Idol programmes and you are an instant superstar. Never mind the fact that none of the winners of any of those shows has ever become a pop idol. Britney Spears may be more well known for her public behaviour than her music but at least she went through years of auditions and rejections before she got the chance to make her first album. How did Justin Bieber earn his fame? As far as I know he put a video on Youtube and some record producers pushed him through marketing before he ever recorded anything. When did he pay his dues?

George and Ringo said it don’t come easy. They meant that it did not come easy back then.


Really?

Mother Courage

Lassie Come Home, Courage of Lassie, Jane Eyre, The White Cliffs of Dover, National Velvet, Life with Father, Cynthia, A Date with Judy, Julia Misbehaves, Little Women, Conspirator, The Big Hangover, Father of the Bride, Father’s Little Dividend, A Place in the Sun, Quo Vadis, Love is Better Than Ever, The Girl Who Had Everything, Rhapsody, Elephant Walk, Beau Brummell, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Raintree Country, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, Scent of Mystery, Butterfield 8, The Sandpiper, The VIPs, The Taming of the Shrew, Doctor Faustus, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Comedians, Secret Ceremony, The Only Game in Town, Under Milk Wood, Hammersmith is Out, Divorce His Divorce Hers, Night Watch, Ash Wednesday, Identikit, The Blue Bird, Victory at Entebbe, A Little Night Music, Return Engagement, The Mirror Crack’d, Malice in Wonderland, Young Toscanini, Sweet Bird of Youth, These Old Broads

She was Shakespeare’s Katharina, Christopher Marlowe’s Helen of Troy, Louisa May Alcot’s Amy March, Carson McCullers’ Lenora Penderton, Theodore Dreiser’s Angela Vickers, Dylan Thomas’ Rosie Probert, Agatha Christie’s Marina Rudd, Carrie Fisher’s Beryl Mason [playing a character Debbie Reynolds’ character does not like because they fought over a man a long time ago], Tennessee Williams’ Maggie Pollitt, Tennessee Williams’ Catherine Holly, Tennessee Williams’ Alexandra Del Lago, Rebecca in Ivanhoe, Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Velvet Brown, Kay Banks, Leslie Benedict, Gloria Wandroud, Jimmie Jackson, Louella Parsons, Cleopatra, Maggie Simpson.

She was directed by Vincente Minnelli 3 times, George Stevens 3 times, Richard Brooks 3 times, Mervyn LeRoy twice, Joseph Mankiewicz twice, Michael Curtiz, Stanley Donen, Mike Nichols, John Huston, George Cukor.

She starred with Orson Welles, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Margaret O’Brien, Joan Fontaine, Irene Dunne, Mickey Rooney, Jane Powell, Walter Pidgeon, Greer Garson, Robert Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Stewart Granger, Ava Gardner, Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Paul Newman, Rex Harrison, Peter O’Toole, Peter Ustinov, Alec Guinness, Roddy McDowell, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Michael Caine, Angela Lansbury, Debbie Reynolds and more often than not Richard Burton.

Tainted Love

While partying, drinking, eating, singing I met up with a friend whom I used to date more than 2 years and 9 months ago. Not that I am keeping count. He was also partying, drinking, eating, singing. His group of partiers, drinkers, eaters, singers met up with my group of partiers, drinkers, eaters, singers and we all partied, drank, ate, sang together. The thing about life is that one thing almost always leads to another and so it did. I don’t want to get into any details but evil, sinful fornication was involved. Dirty, hot, sweaty, evil, sinful fornication. Body parts were aroused and put inside of each other. Repeatedly. Orgasms were contracted by all and fluids from some aroused body parts were thrust into other aroused body parts.

You think love is to pray
But I’m sorry
I don’t pray that way

Ed Cobb

Cook of the House

I grew up in a country with Wimpys and Steers. Junk food is nothing new to me. But it was not something we ate in my family. We spent more time digging in the garden and cooking what we dug up in the kitchen than waiting in the drive thru and sitting on the sofa in front of the TV. I grew up in a time and place where most dinners were cooked at home and eaten as a family. Most people saw junk food as an occasional snack. Today there are millions of people who eat nothing but fast food and frozen dinners.



A wholesome dinner like mother used to thaw.


This is a real thing.


All the essential food groups. Vegetable group [French fries], dairy group [chocolate milk, artificial cheese product], unidentifiable group [hot dog], bread group [hot dog bun], chili group.


The ketchup counts as a vegetable.
If a school fed this to my child I would alert the police.


What American school children call mystery meat.


At least there is corn.

Shaking the Tree

Most countries give preference to educating boys over girls. Sons are far more likely to inherit money, property, titles, power than daughters. Men are the head of the household while women are in charge of cleaning it. Women are far more likely to be victims of domestic violence than men. Too many countries still allow ritual genital mutilation of girls where the clitoris and/or labia are cut out. I know of no country in the world where it is acceptable for boys to have their penises cut off.

Most sexual assaults are by men against women. Men can be raped but it is either very rare or rarely reported. Probably both. Most women who are raped will not report it either. We have a very strange sense of shame on this planet. I think the attacker should be the one who gets all the shame, regardless of his gender or the gender of whomever he attacked.

If you live in a country where something like International Women’s Day is obsolete, as I do, then you are lucky. Most of the women on this planet do not.

My Second First Shidduch Date

Photoshop these two into one and that is Aram.

After our walk and talk we left the park and had an early supper. All went well and I told the shadchan that I am up for another date. I want to be optimistic about it all but I’m too old and too experienced not to be realistic. Could he be my bashert? I have no earthly idea. It seems unlikely. China is nice but it was only a few years of our lives. And I will stop feeling guilty about the car accident as soon as he does something stupid or pisses me off. Or next week. Whichever comes first. It is not like it was my fault.