Blog Neglected

I've been absent.

There's no two ways about it.

I'm stretched a little thin these days. Between starting a new job, trying to keep a show afloat and some personal life events I've found myself unable to comment. Not publicly anyway. What is there to say?

I'm very concerned about being self-indulgent. As a result I tend to censor myself. I don't ever want to be that person who breaks out their ten trays of vacation slides at the merest mention of "how was your vacation?". I struggle with my self-image. I would like to see myself as interesting, but mostly I see myself as an opinionated, big mouthed bore. Then my writing suffers. What do I have to write about if I don't write about myself?

Cynacism and I are involved in a battle royale. I see how self-involved people are around me and I know that must be reflected in my own behavior. I also see how absolutely everything is for sale. There is a line in "The Princess Bride" that keeps coming back to me.

"Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

And that is exactly where I am at the moment. This rather dark view of clouds my normally sweet, perky demeanor. I'd be a leatherface, chain smoking, whiskey drinking, dragon lady with long acryllic nails growling at the patrons in the bowling alley bar if it weren't for the fact that I like being sober and, at 32, I still wear ponytails at the top of my skull. It's hard to be grizzled and surly when you have a ponytail flopping around on the top of your head. That's just a fact.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I've been neglecting my writing because two sides of my personality are doing battle and I don't know which one of them is going to take over. It is hard to channel my thoughts into anything coherent. So. You can start your bets now as to which one is going to win. Will it be Happy Go Lucky or the Dragon Lady?

I'm not sure which one I would like to win.

Gratuitous

Maybe it is the state of mind I'm in lately. Perhaps it is somewhat hormonal. It could even be that I am getting older and stodgier. Or maybe it is just the fact that I'm now a mother. Whatever the reason, the fact is that I find myself more and more impatient with cinematic violence.

This weekend my husband was all fired up to watch Deliverance. He had been glued to his film documentaries in his spare time all last week and I suppose it put a bug in his ear. He wasn't going to be satisfied until he watched it. God bless him, he wanted to share that experience with his darling wife. I had no desire at all to see this movie. I'd heard enough and was nervous that I would find its execution unsettling to my stomach. But that man is just so adorable, I couldn't say no.

I will admit, I have a weak constitution when it comes to these things. After many difficult years of finding excuses to chit chat with my friend's parents in the kitchen during slumber party screenings of D Grade horror flicks, I've come to think of my squeemishness as a badge of my ultimate humanity. When I watch people being murdered I can't help but imagine their last moments. It doesn't thrill me. It hurts. It actually hurts a lot.

Before the feature presentation we watched an overly reverent "making of". The 10 minute promotional film touted the author as an absolute genius, a robust Hemingway-type who laments human footprints on the majesty of nature. It made the film sound as if it was one of those "Nature Tests Man" stories that will make the viewer more appreciate the majesty of all that surrounds us. In my eyes, Deliverance did for eco-tourism what 9/11 did for air travel. The promo film was a lie. Deliverance does nothing to spur the viewer toward environmental protection. Instead it seems to make the argument that people who live an isolated life in the mountains NEED to be "civilized". Let's hurry up and build roads and Wal-Marts and get them cable so they don't go around raping tourists!

And THEN! AND THEN we need to be subjected to men making bad decision after bad decision just to give us that sick feeling of our stomachs dropping through our shoes. The text does not stop to examine their moral dilemma for longer than a cinematic nanosecond. It just plunges from one bad decision to the next. It isn't really the actions I have a particular distaste for- it's the world view I despise. This film could only be written by some macho intellectual who has gleened from his years as a university professor that humans are inherently evil and self-serving. If that is true, then why should I even care enough to pay attention to your story? If people are hard wired to make immoral choices in the absense of a governing authority then what can I learn from any story at all? The whole attitude just ticks me off.

I do not advocate that all stories must have a moral high road. But I do question why I should sit through something that offers no hope of redemption. Why should I watch something that is only going to make me sick? What good does it do to perpetuate the idea that people just plain, out and out suck?

A friend of mine recently recommended that I go to see Eastern Promises. However, she warned me that the violence is too much to take in only one... well two... maybe three parts of the film. Okay, maybe I might want to spend a good third of the film in the bathroom just to be safe because even the SOUND is horribly violent. I think I will pass. I suffer from no illusions. I know that war is hell, murder is wrong, and rape is terrifying. I don't need it spelled out for me in graphic detail. I don't think those that do need the visual representations are getting the point from the current wave of blood and guts on screen. Don't lie to me and tell me that this sensationalism is to reach some higher moral objective because it isn't working. Empathy does not seem to be on the rise in this country- but the output of blood and guts does. And really, all that does is make me sad.

The Art of the Pick Up

Anyone who has been within 10 feet of me for the last couple of months has heard me talk about it. As I type this I can hear a collective groan from the city of New York as my friends and loved ones wonder when the hell I am going to get over it.

Yeah. I was hooked on The Pick Up Artist on VH-1.

At first, I started watching because I just couldn't believe it. I'll admit, I went in with my high school feminist principles and my arms crossed and ready to be offended. But the nerdy guys were so sweet and I was hoping one of them would get laid because I wouldn't wish a sexless life on anyone.

Now, to catch you up in case you don't have cable or have more scruples than I have, the concept behind The Pick Up Artist is to take 8 guys who cannot talk to women and turn them into ladies' men. More or less. The guru on this show is a guy named Mystery who, apparently, decided to put his considerable brainpower to the task of getting laid instead of toward mastering World of Warcraft. As a result you have this tall, lanky guy who dresses more like an ex-member of The Jellyfish than your average barfly and has broken down the rules of attraction so that anyone can apply themselves and learn how to pick up women.

Of course I was skeptical. We women are complex, thinking, feeling beings and it is easy to resent the idea that some guy has created a method of getting into my pants. But, on the other hand, teaching some social skills to a few diamonds in the rough can't be all THAT bad, can it?

Well, I was hooked after the first episode. Unlike other reality shows, these guys weren't the scum of the universe. They weren't all backstabbing opportunists, but all in all, a bunch of really nice guys. With the possible exception of Pradeep who I just thought was a clueless moron at best, and a flaming asshole at worst. Yeah, it still gets my back up that he avoided elimination for so long. But I digress. The truth is, these guys just needed a little support to feel comfortable with themselves and to show the world (women) who they really are. It became an exercise in sweetness to watch every week, except for the weekly Field Tests.

In the Field Tests the fellas were taken out into the world to test their newly learned skills on real, live women. They had challenges and goals to accomplish, things like "Opening sets", "Number closing", "Bouncing", and "Kiss closing". One night they had to try to pick up a stripper. Most of these things just required a little tweaking in their social manner like being able to read body language and being able to just talk to people. These are not bad things to learn. The games were cheezy and the "Demonstrations of Higher Value" I found particularly irksome, but whatever. Those things would never work on me so have at it boys.

Then it happened.

I was in line at a coffee shop when a man behind me said, "Wow. You have such beautiful hair. That has to be your natural color." Now, this doesn't sound like a great pick up line because he could be either gay or just searching desperately for some reason to approach me. But then he added, "I'm a colorist, so I know." Okay. Still a little gay, but it was friendly and not sexually threatening (Something Mystery advocates is to keep sex out of the equation- you want nothing from her so she'll be more inclined to give freely). So I talked to him while we waited for our coffees. Here was the amazing thing, he kept the entire conversation about me. He asked me all kinds of questions and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. It is at this point that I became suspicious. I was very comfortable, but I KNEW I was getting played. That suspicion was validated when he "negged" me.

Negging is a playful way to put someone down to demonstrate your higher social value. When I heard about this concept I thought it was mean and nasty and I was sure that it would be an immediate turn off. (Although, now I realize that I do it ALL THE TIME to others!) But then I got negged.

When I told him I was a writer, actor and director he said, "I had you pegged for a director. You seem so sure of yourself and actresses in this town seem so twitchy and nervous, and scrawny. But you! You seem so self possessed and you certainly don't look like you're starving."

Do you want to know the sick thing? I liked it. I'll admit it. I liked it. He had said all of these other positive things first and he was talking to me for well over 5 minutes so I knew he found me attractive. It did make me stop for a second, because I couldn't believe he had said it and before I could consciouly choose my words I had found myself falling into his trap. I started to defend myself a bit, putting myself into a weaker position. I knew I'd been had, but I actually enjoyed the game.

At the end of our little exchange he said, "So, are you going to give me your phone number or not?". I did. It was a fake number, but I felt he deserved a momentary victory for his performance. If it wasn't for the fact that I am happily married I would have given him my real phone number. I think.

I was not happy with the guy who won The Pick Up Artist. It's not that I didn't like him at all. I just thought his attitude kind of stunk. The last challenge for the final two contestants was for each of them to take a guy in need of some help and teach him all that they had learned with Mystery in 8 hours. Then they had to coach these guys while they were 'in the field'. The guy who won, Kosmo, was all stressed out and he put a lot of pressure on his pupil. Brady, the runner up, he took pride in his pupil and wanted him to do well in the field because he honestly wanted to share what he had learned. Kosmo just wanted to win. Yeah. I didn't find that particularly attractive. Oh well. Perhaps I do find it attractive, I just won't admit it to myself.

I'm learning that I can have my high fallutin ideals about men and women, but what I actually like in a man is a lot different than what I THINK I like in a man. It is for this reason I believe every woman should Tango with a good dancer. I've been to a couple of milongas and danced with some really nice guys who refused to lead. The result was, "meh". But I will never forget dancing with that man who could not have been less attractive to me from across the room. He was in his mid-forties, paunchy, wearing pleated dockers and his shirt tucked in. He invited me to dance and... I have to catch my breath just thinking about it. I told him that I had only taken a few lessons and didn't know too many steps. He gestured for me not to talk and proceeded to take me about the room. My body had no choice but to follow his and I did steps that I had never done before. It was as if he saw possibility in me and then proceeded to show me what he had seen. It was hot. So hot, in fact, that I considered becoming Catholic again just so I could confess. He gave me one dance and then left me weak in the knees and panting. I'm sure he knew.

Good for him.

Not so bad for me, either.