Friday Quickies, Vol. 7

1. I’ve been a lover of Go Fug Yourself from way back. I think Heather and Jessica are about the funniest bloggers plying their trade on the Internet today. While I find something just about every week that I want to draw people’s attention to and then animatedly discuss (Did you read that?? They described the dress M.I.A. wore to the Grammys as “Seussian”! Brilliant!), I need to create my own content. Besides, I don’t recall the Fug girls coming up with the phrase “ass cap,” now did they?

So let me just point out two things I can’t get out of my head. First, this on Jessica Simpson:
“Girlfriend CAN NOT DEAL with putting clothes on her bod, and if this is in fact the work of a paid professional, said professional needs to be fired like a flame-broiled Whopper. Giant platform heels + white corset + flannel + Spearsian-style, over-taxed cut-offs = FAIL.” 

Second, this bit on Gwyneth Paltrow:
“It’s as if Gwyneth has just swept imperiously past the top-hatted doorman and he’s staring after her, puzzled and hurt, because all he asked was if she’d had a good day and whether her lunchtime lentils and tree bark were cooked to perfection, and she blew right by so she could get upstairs and write a GOOP post about the lost art of genuflection.”

GEEENIUS. 

2. This is pretty cool: A never-before-released Pearl Jam single once destined for its 1991 album “Ten” has hit the mainstream Top 10 charts.

I haven’t heard “Brother” yet, but I wonder if its success is merely a reflection of Gen X’s love of its own nostalgia. You know, the people who would argue that the second Lollapalooza, with both Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, as well as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Lush and the Jesus and Mary Chain, with Rage Against the Machine on the second stage, was the most awesome assemblage of bands in history. And then in Toronto when Eddie Vedder climbed the stage rig and monkey-barred across the whole thing – stunt or spontaneous and impassioned expression of joy?

We’ll let those geeks battle it out.

3. That fact that I can find something to grouse over in the news that the Obamas are planting a kitchen garden at the White House probably means I’m a hopeless smart aleck. But when I hear that Alice Waters of Chez Panisse is thrilled, it sets my teeth on edge.

It was this quote specifically: ”It just tells you that this country cares about people’s good health and about the care of the land,” she said. “To have this sort of ‘victory’ garden, this message goes out that everyone can grow a garden and have free food.”

No, Alice, everyone can’t have free food. Do I even have to point out the obvious? Where are apartment dwellers or the homeless supposed to find a plot of land to grow organic rutabagas? How much yield can you get from community gardens in regions with short growing seasons?

Waters was on “60 Minutes” last Sunday defending herself against accusations that she’s elitist and a food snob. She didn’t help her cause much by making Lesley Stahl a wood-fire cooked breakfast. When you actually shudder upon hearing the word “frozen,” that’s the very definition of elitist. Surely Waters knows that frozen vegetables have all the nutrition of fresh and are sometimes even better than what you find in supermarkets since they’re processed immediately after harvest. Is she really going to tell a mom who needs to get dinner on the table that it’s unacceptable to cut corners that way?

Rachel Ray has also recently enraged me by claiming how inexpensive it is to eat well, and this is all probably the makings of a standalone blog post. It’s no coincidence that obesity is more prevalent among the poor. Good food is expensive. 

But, yeah, the Obamas are doing a great thing by setting a national example. I hope to hear more about how they’re involving other groups of kids in growing and preparing good food. If children never spend time in the kitchen they’ll forever be dependent on fast food and other junk and won’t know how to cook for their families.

4. Gmail’s undo send feature comes a few years too late for me. Twice in my office life I sent an interoffice e-mail to the person I was talking about. Once I was able to delete the message from the screen of the reader in an amazing covert-spy-like op that was, fortunately, witnessed by someone who thought the whole thing was too bad-ass for words. The other instance … er … YIKES. It makes me cringe even today.

[Hysterical side bar to this story: A colleague sent an about message to the person during an off shift for the recipient. This colleague at first panicked and then realized she had a few hours to try password after password after password to get into the recipient's account and erase the message before he saw it in the morning. SHE GUESSED IT ON THE FIRST TRY, and it wasn't the name of one of his kids or something endearing and guessable like that. It was "king," which was even more hysterical because the message was about what an insufferably arrogant jackass he is.]

I don’t know if five seconds is long enough to realize one’s error or spot a typo, though. I’ll have to give this one a whirl before final judgment.

5. I appreciate how Judith Warner, in the later half of this New York Times blog, tries to cover her ass refocus the SAHM/WOHM debate on families truly suffering – not the Manhattan mom whose husband’s salary has dropped from $800k to $150k.

It’s nice of her to notice that in these struggling middle-class and lower families, gender roles are more flexible, with many women the main breadwinners and unemployed husbands helping out around the house – she write about these families, living in places like Idaho, as if she were writing about exotic creatures at the zoo – but it’s a smokescreen for her real purpose: to give a big “I told you so!” to the opt-out women.

The problem is, the only opt-out women she knows of live in TriBeCa and Long Island and have been tasked with managing the household and the children’s education and extracurriculars. (Note to Warner: When your world is this small, journalism is about the worst career choice you can make.) 

The stay-at-home or work-at-home women I know have done so because they believe taking a greater role in their child’s life is the best thing they can do with their time right now. Some also do freelance work or have found the SAHM holy grail, the part-time job, or are in some stage of starting a business. I read the blogs of dozens of women whose large families make do on one small paycheck. Sure, I know some on the fringes of my social circle that don’t work because they don’t have to and probably never will again. But outside Warner’s rarefied world, opting out is a choice and a sacrifice women believe in, and it doesn’t have much to do with income at all. (While I do know many families feeling the pinch of the economy right now, I don’t know any SAHMs who have “had” to go back to work, yet.)

If I were still working right now, I too might be crowing about bankers’ wives worried about where their next facial is coming from, but now that I know who these formerly faceless stay-at-home moms are, I’m in awe of their discipline and sense of mission. The difference is, I would have been running my uninformed mouth off to co-workers, not on the New York Times’ Web site.

6. I’m almost sad to read that facials don’t do much good. I should be praising this news. It’s not one bit surprising, especially if you’ve ever been to a spa with crazy rejuvenation claims on its “menu” or to an aesthetician who slathers on a series of creams and tonics with very vague declarations about what they do.

I guess I don’t care what they do. Or, rather, I don’t care so much what they’re supposed to do. I’m not one of the unfortunate who breaks out from facials, so for me they’re an hour of blissful pampering with no down side. For my relaxation dollar, I’ll take a facial over a massage any day. I’ve never found a massage therapist who manages just the right pressure for me, and I’m always second-guessing the process, wondering when she’ll get to my calves or feet or lower back and, hey, wait, you completely ignored my arms! If there’s one thing that ruins relaxation it’s thinking.

A facial on the other hand is full of yummy-smelling potions and soffft, sloooow rhythmic efflorages focusing on just where I store my stress – forehead and jaw – and you always get a hand and neck massage anyway, so it’s quite, um, cost-effective?

I know – it’s all moot right now. But when the taps of income are running again, I won’t let this official debunking prevent me from indulging in a facial once a year. 

7. In other spa news, the state of New Jersey is considering a ban on Brazilians after two women were hospitalized for infections after getting smoothies. I’m torn over where to go next with this … back-alley Brazilians? Blue states don’t vote for Bush? Jersey strip joints closing down en masse after losing clientele to clubs in bare-down-there states or deserted beaches at the NJ shore? That won’t be good for tiny mom-and-pop businesses along the boardwalk. Maybe once the New Jersey economy hits the skids further because of the Brazilian ban Bruce Springsteen can gather some musician buddies and record a “We Are the World”-like fund-raising song. “We Are the Thong”? Willie Nelson can take a break from Farm Aid and do Beach Aid or Club Aid, proclaiming that “Hirsute is Healthy”??

Related posts:

1. Friday Quickies, Vol. 10
2. Friday Quickies, Vol. 6
3. Friday Quickies, Vol. 8

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