Recommended Age Level

Certain things I can forgive in the name of cuteness and certain things attempt to be cute but are inappropriate and end up facing my folded arms and cold stare.

In the latter category we have these sisters Lennon and Maisy Stella, ages 8 and 12, performing Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” last week on Good Morning America. I caught a second of it on TV and scoffed but later looked it up on YouTube to see if it was as non-charming as I thought. It was. The girls sang a cappella with empty Parkay containers as their percussion. The vocals were OK for kids but would not get them past round one on America’s Got Talent.

Yeah, I’m an asshole, judging children. The thing is, if it were my family, I would applaud and think it was cute. But once these kids go on national television, there should be some kind of talent level justifying their appearance and there just wasn’t.

What really bothers me is that these girls sang a song way above their maturity level. I love Robyn as she records dance music with a tragic edge, songs that get smarter and more sophisticated the more I listen to them. “Call Your Girlfriend” is one of her best. On the surface, it seems like a sweet song, with a woman asking her new boyfriend to let his old girlfriend down easily. But I read the lyrics as callous and nasty. “Tell her that the only way her heart will mend/ Is when she learns to love again/ And it won’t make sense right now/ But you’re still her friend,” Robyn suggests to the boyfriend. This sounds like a gentle kiss-off but all the sentiments are total bullshit and Robyn sounds like she’s tossing off platitudes to get the girl out of the way, while acknowledging the more damning reasons why her man left his ex. Before the bridge of the song, she sings “You just met somebody new/ And now it’s gonna be me and you.” I just read those lines as possessive and cold rather than sweet.

And those girls on morning TV cannot possibly know enough about the world yet to grasp that song. They could be smart kids but what 8- or 12-year-old can identify with a verse like “Don’t you tell her how I give you something/ That you never even knew you missed/ Don’t you even try to explain/ How it’s so different when we kiss”? What kind of middle school break-up would contain that depth of feeling? This is a song from a perspective of someone who has been around the block and I don’t want to hear that from kids.

So I think child singers are better off sticking to songs in their age level. I have said before that I don’t care much about authenticity in pop; that if a song is a fiction, all that matters is that I’m entertained and that the singer sells it. But even if a singer did not write the song or experience the level of feeling therein, it should at least be plausible that the singer could have had that experience. Therefore, I just don’t buy love or break-up songs from tweens. They might have great voices but they can’t sell Annie Lennox’s “Why.”

That’s why I can’t even feign interest in YouTube videos of kids singing songs that are too mature for them. It would take a major act of will for me to pretend to be interested in such things and probably score me a Best Actor Oscar nomination. I don’t care about the 6-year-old Japanese boy who can sing “Paparazzi” exactly like Lady Gaga or the 10-year-old girl who does a mean impression of Adam Levine in “Moves Like Jagger.”

It’s creepy when kids try to sell adult songs. It’s like a parade of Jon Benet Ramseys who have been pushed on stage but are dead behind the eyes. It’s like a talking baby commercial where an adult voice is coming out of a child who is far too young to talk. It’s like robots with flawless voices but no real heart. It’s like somebody who speaks another language phonetically but has no idea what he’s saying.

Please stick to the recommended age level.

Let's Have a Kiki With the Scissor Sisters

The Scissor Sisters concert was, happily, exactly what I expected: a sleazy cartoon.

I’m quite happy I got to see them at the Electric Factory. At an hour and a half, the show left out a few songs that I might have liked to hear but it was like a tasty meal that offers you just enough. The show was more stripped down than I might have expected, given the band’s flamboyant image, but it was very high energy.

The material from the Scissor Sisters’ new album Magic Hour went over really well. Apparently the rest of the crowd likes the song “Let’s Have a Kiki” as much as we do. It’s a deeply goofy song, based on an Ana Matronic answering machine message that she left for a friend after the police raided the club she went to and she invited herself to the friend’s house to lock the doors, lower the blinds and “have a kiki.” Then the song cuts up, speeds up and slows down the answering machine message and adds frequent tribal drum breaks.

The highlight of the show was the one-two-three punch of “Comfortably Numb,” “Invisible Light” and “Shady Love.” The first was a dark and sweaty performance of the disco Pink Floyd cover that I have loved ever since I saw Jake Shears falsetto and leap his way through it on Saturday Night Live. “Invisible Light” was as epic and mystical live as on record. “Shady Love” is where the sleazy cartoon comes in. It walks the line between wacky and trashy and the crowd was especially into it.

Also in the sleazy cartoon category were the opener “Any Which Way,” the new “Keep Your Shoes On” and the breakthrough hit “Take Your Mama.” Each of them was a fun, off-kilter ode to sexytimes.

“I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” sums up part of Scissor Sisters’ appeal to me: It’s a danceable, accessible song with vaguely ‘70s AM radio roots. It was one song during which I actually … wait for it … did feel like dancing! (See what I did there?)

My one complaint was that Jake Shears wore way too much clothing. I find him to be unreasonably hot. It’s something about his voice and his manic dance moves. The most naked he got was topless with baggy silver colored pants. Surely a former go-go boy could have done better than that.

Apropos of Nothing

I thought the reaction to the video of Karen Klein, the bus monitor who got taunted by school children, was just a tad hysterical. It was a shame and that’s about my full response. Some of the commentary was way too florid, with people writing as if this video actually showcased the worst that humanity can offer. No, it didn’t. Off the top of my head, I can thing of 15 million things worse than what happened on this bus. The fact that Klein got interviewed by every major media outlet was overkill and the public did not need to analyze and comment endlessly on her video as if it were the fucking Zapruder film. Nobody will remember it in six months anyway. I didn’t even watch it. I have no interest in watching some woman’s humiliation because I’m bored at work.

I can’t follow the whole Fast and Furious government scandal. I don’t even know what it’s about. The whole name for the scandal makes me think of the action movie so I don’t care. If a government scandal doesn’t have a catchy name, you’ve lost my interest. I know that’s shallow on my part but … meh.

I think Major League Baseball should announce the advent of intraleague play. I just want to see how many people get excited because they don’t know what intraleague means.

As much as I love thunderstorms, I’m happy we didn’t lose power last weekend. We just got a kick-ass light show. I don’t mind the heat but I’m spoiled by our efficient central air.

Of course I’ve been watching the new Dallas. It’s trashy fun with so many double crosses that I started to lose track of them. As expected, it’s much more fun to see the original cast than the younger generation. On the first episode, when JR came out of his near-catatonic depression, put on his cowboy hat and flashed the shit-eating grin, I wanted to cheer. It also brought a smile to my face to hear the old theme music and to see the scene of JR, Sue Ellen and Cliff exchanging barbs. The whole show could just be the original cast bantering and that would be fine with me.

Speaking of TV, we’re really getting into Battlestar Galactica and Mad Men through the magic of Netflix on demand. It seems we like our TV shows to be several years old or sometimes cancelled before we actually watch them.

Oh, I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Fiscal New Year!

We Are Not Special

That teacher was right when he told a crowd of high school graduates they are not special. I think more commencement speakers should say that. The message doesn’t have to be discouraging. It’s just a call to action that if you’re going to be genuinely special in the world following graduation, you should achieve something of actual note to merit a distinction that you are special. It’s a sobering reminder that you won’t receive a trophy just for showing up. The world is not like kindergarten.

But before anyone starts grumbling about “kids today and their entitlement,” this message should apply to adults as well. Most people need to hear a bracing message that we are not special because the world is crammed with entitled, narcissistic assholes.

It’s not “kids today” who are screaming “me me me.” It’s all of us. People feel entitled to skip standing in lines with commoners, break rules that apply to everyone and talk about themselves until they are blue in the face and passing out. “Oh, did everyone read my Facebook status update about myself? Look and me, mom and dad, I’m on the high dive! Keep watching!”

I’m not special. I’d like to think I’m special to people in my life, as they are special to me, but I’m not deserving of any more accolades than anybody else. I don’t enrich the world any more than the guy standing next to me. I don’t say this in some fatalistic way or to fish for compliments. It’s more like I shouldn’t say “Why me?” because “Why not me?” I’m some guy. And it’s OK.

I discovered I’m not a narcissist, at least according to some online questionnaire. The normal narcissism rate was between 12 and 18 and I scored 12, which I guess means I barely escape low self-esteem. This surprised me because I do have some narcissism about my looks. On the other hand, I don’t think I’m a leader and don’t think I deserve to be the center of attention or anything like that. I should trumpet the hell out of this questionnaire that says I’m not a narcissist. Woo, look at me, everybody!

It’s a common refrain that we too easily give out trophies and that lowers the bar for success. On one of my self-reviews at my job, I told my boss it was hard to list accomplishments because I only wanted to list when I did something that was an actual accomplishment. I told him I didn’t expect accolades just for doing my job.

To have winners, you have to have losers. To have people who are special, you have to have people who are ordinary. By simple math, most of us are ordinary. We’re all unique but for most people, that uniqueness is not much to write home about. At the high school graduation, I loved the line the teacher said that even if you consider yourself one in a million, with 7 billion people on the planet, there are still 7,000 others just like you.

That may sound harsh but that message doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Most of us are not special but heed my new motto for life: I’m sure you’ll live.

Can you tell why I’m not a motivational speaker?

Speak to me not of Kennedys or curses

At what point will America be released from having to care about the Kennedys? Will it be sometime in the 24^th century when the genes of the Brookline Kennedys have spread to the point where most of the people in America have a bit of Kennedy in them?

I can see caring about John F. Kennedy and his siblings because most of them did noteworthy things. But their children and grandchildren? Nah. (Well, maybe Maria Shriver because she’s accomplished a lot on her own). I just can’t give a shit when one of Robert Kennedy’s 53 kids does something. I can’t muster even a sliver of interest of any type in Caroline Kennedy, America’s oldest 5-year-old China doll.

I suppose soon we’ll have to pay attention when one of the grandchildren or great-grandchildren bats an eyelash and in the future you’ll see articles saying “The Kennedy Curse struck again this week as Joseph F. Kennedy Jones VIII, the third cousin once removed of President Kennedy, broke his index finger while playing touch football.”

These people just get less and less interesting the further the genealogical tree branches out. I make it a rule that I care about prominent people but I’m totally uninterested in their family members, unless said family members are noteworthy on their own terms.

It was a shame that the woman who married one of Bobby Kennedy’s kids killed herself but I didn’t think it merited the coverage and attention it got. Regular people kill themselves every day but unless you’re a Capital K Kennedy, it’s just tragedy with a small t. Years ago, that Kennedy relative raped some woman and the national flipped out because it was a serious crime. I guess if women get raped by non-Kennedys, it’s just some garden variety rape and we have those every day so it’s a big yawn from America.

Then every time something bad happens to these people, we have to drag out the hoary old cliché of the Kennedy Curse. Ooooh! The Kennedy Curse! I just got a chill! Some legitimately terrible things did happen to that family, like the two assassinations, but not every single misfortune is due to a curse. The Kennedy gene pool is by now so wide that logically, the probability is greater that more descendants and their spouses will have tragedies befall them so they probably don’t experience any more misfortune than any other family. And the tragedies get less interesting as the gene pool waters down.

I’ve always suspected there is a group of people who wring their hands and clutch their rosaries when something bad happens to the Kennedys but they secretly love it. They wallow in the tragedies like pigs in the mud.

I get that America has no royalty and the Kennedys are our royalty and blah blah. Yes, except they don’t have a designated line of succession and the survivors don’t have the actual power that real royals have. The thing with the Kennedy-royalty analogy is, I’m not all that interested in royalty either. I do think the actual kings and queens are interesting, but try getting me to care about Queen Elizabeth’s cousins or great-nephews.

I should change my last name to Kennedy and see if the country starts caring about me or if it’s a national tragedy if my car battery dies.

Nazis at the Shore

Saturday was a picture perfect day at the beach at Island Beach State Park in New Jersey, where we went with our friends. It was warm and sunny with just enough breeze to keep us comfortable. The only thing that marred it was the Nazi propaganda.

One of those little planes flew by trailing a banner with swastikas on it. It had a swastika symbol, an equal sign and then a heart and a peace sign. It was like a little anti-Semitic rebus except it was completely wrong because love plus peace doesn’t add up to Nazism. At the end of the banner was a swastika superimposed on a Star of David. Oh, there was also some website. I won’t be checking it out. I don’t want this site in my browser history and certainly am not curious to look at the content (I can pretty much guess what it will say anyway).

So yeah, there was nothing like getting a full-body chill upon looking up into the blue sky and seeing an ugly reminder of the hatred that still lingers in our world. Usually those banners will say something like “All You Can Eat Crabs.” I did not expect bigotry to fly across my sky.

I’m not sure how many people saw it because there was no noticeable reaction from anybody else; no big gasps or pointing or anything. I hope a lot of people missed the banner because that’s not something kids need to see on a beach, or something adults need to see, for that matter. After we saw it, there was a feeling of “Did that just happen?” What was next, the KKK volleyball team setting up a net right next to us?

What I want to know is, how can some flight company fly this type of trash in good conscience? It’s not a freedom of speech issue because private companies have the right to refuse to spread messages they find objectionable. The First Amendment guarantees the right that the hate group will not get arrested but nobody can be compelled to be the group’s messenger. I hope somebody on the beach complained but I don’t know how to find out to whom to complain. I’m sure the neo-Nazis paid their money to fly a hate symbol over the beach but business cannot be that bad that this outfit could not have told these people to go to hell. Can you imagine being the pilot who had to fly this crap across the sky?

My friend later heard on the radio that this was the work of some cult in Las Vegas that believes the swastika is an alien symbol and is trying to "rehabilitate" the image or some bullshit. I am aware that the swastika was a symbol of luck and the Nazis corrupted it but it's pointless to try to "take back" the symbol. After millions of deaths, I'd say that ship sailed. 

Anyway, I felt like I needed a shower after that and it wasn’t just because I smelled like the ocean. Couldn’t I enjoy my afternoon without the hate?

Smell My Mandles

First there were manscaping, manties, man caves and mandals. Now we have to put up with man candles, which I guess we can call … sigh … mandles. Yankee Candle sells these things. I could infer that the 2x4 candle smells like sawdust and the Riding Mower smells like cut grass. 

However, when I heard about First Down, it confused me. Would it smell like … a football? Turns out it incorporates the scents of orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather. Aside from leather, I don’t know how any of those scents signify football and don’t even know what vetiver is. This is a dumb idea for trying to associate a scent with something that has no smell. 

There’s also the Man Town candle, which smells like spices, woods and musk, because the smell of musk would be welcoming in a mass quantity that fills the room. Sign me up.

I don’t understand the point of this. I can see people wanting to smell sawdust or mown grass but those smells would just remind me of work. I would light these candles and think of the home projects I’m too lazy to tackle or the lawn I should mow. I don’t need a football candle. I’ll just watch the game. 

I wonder if Yankee Candle has a mandle called BBQ. I would absolutely love a candle that smells like a barbecuing steak or burger. Actually, it might be a bad idea because food scents just make people hungry. I’m sure I’d be disappointed if I lit a candle and smelled steak but still had hours to go until dinner. Maybe a BBQ candle would be good for some people in the winter to remind them of summer but I barbecue all year so I don’t need such a candle. A sunscreen candle might be nice but not a particularly male scent. 

There’s not much a need to separate scents for men and women. Unless it’s something ultra feminine, men can enjoy it. Both men and women can appreciate a candle that smells like the beach or the rain or cotton. 

It’s just another obnoxious example of slapping “man” on every type of product. It works to signify some things that men don’t usually use, like a man purse, but I don’t understand the point of words like mandals for men’s sandals. Men have always worn sandals. It’s not like some recent trend of men doing something historically female. It just makes people sound stupid when they use the word. 

I’m not one for scented candles anyway.