A friend of mine forwarded me the following e-mail just now:

My sides STILL hurt from laughing!
I’d be so divorced!!!
hope it gives ya smile!
xoxo

………….

An Actual 1955 Housekeeping Monthly article.

Ok, when you girls stop laughing long enough to pick yourself off the floor, forward this to all the women you know, so they can have a good laugh, too.

I didn’t laugh when I read this article. In fact, I noticed that the vast majority of it is still very relevant for both men and women. Yes, some of it is completely antiquated, like the bit about never questioning your man. What concerns me more than some clipping from fifty years ago is the cranky attitude post-feminist women sometimes take toward the idea that they owe their men anything at all. Being dismissive, contentious, and demanding is no way to behave, unless you enjoy acting like a three-year-old having a fit. I’m a big fan of the Dr. Laura school of thought, and she wouldn’t disagree with too much of what’s written here, especially if the wife is a stay-at-home mom.

If your job — your economic contribution to the home — is to be a homemaker, then make the home. He brings home the bacon, so it’s your job to cook it. With a smile. That’s called a partnership. Doesn’t that sound like more fun than being a whiny, self-entitled bee-otch? The comment in the forwarded message “I’d be so divorced!!!” is true if you don’t think your husband deserves any kind of respect, support, or affection. It brings to mind a passage from one of my favorite books by Dr. Laura:

If your man comes home after a horrible defeat at work, and you look into his eyes and tell him, “Honey, I know you will be able to find a way to take care of this situation because I’ve seen you conquer problems for us so many times over the years. I believe in you,” he will be able to conquer. If, instead, you yell, scream, put him down, get all depressed, whiny, and blaming, and threaten him with the loss of his family, you’ll see quickly that your response was more destructive to his entire being than whatever happened at work. The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage p.16

Read: Cranky hags never get boyfriends. But if through some miracle they manage to trick a guy into marrying them, he ain’t never going to bring her roses at the end of the day once he sees what she really is. And Dr. Laura isn’t the only one who got it right. I can think of an even fancier way of saying it:

A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it . . . And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war where they should kneel for peace . . . Come, come, you froward and unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, My heart as great, my reason haply more, To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our lances are but straws, Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene ii

Shakespeare pre-empted Dr. Laura by 400 years and not only handed out great relationship advice, he put it in blank verse. Booyah. I’m grateful for everything feminism has done for us, but I don’t ever want to see the pendulum swing over so far that women become domineering shrews instead of affectionate, mutually supportive partners. Because a “good wife” should know her place; it’s right beside her spouse, putting a big happy smile on their face.

< / soapbox >

Country music is honest. It’s pure in its intentions and message and makes no bones about the fact that being lighthearted and goofy is just as relevant and rich as more serious life topics. In fact, you probably spend a lot more time joking than falling in or out of love. At least I’d hope so — if not, seek help. Country can be flat out silly as in Brad Paisley’s “I’m Still a Guy” or tender and sentimental like Dierks Bentley’s “My Last Name.” It can be hilariously vindictive like “Goodbye Earl” or stirringly apocalyptic like “When The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash.

Rap can’t do that. Rock can’t do that. For the most part, Pop can’t do it either. Other genres are plagued with the heavy burdern of Cool. They’ve limited themselves by becoming obsessed with fleeting moments of sex, money, and status instead of the more satisfying richness of everyday life. One of the sweetest mental pictures I’ve ever gotten from a song came from “From My Front Porch” by Lonestar:

There’s a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with her shoes on wrong
‘Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
The view I love the most is my front porch looking in

The honesty comes from Country music being simply an extension of Folk music, comes from the real lives of the singers who share them. For example: Tim McGraw is a real cowboy. Behold.

That’s right. Ol’ Tim grew up in rural Louisiana, has an awesome hat, his own football team, a smokin’ hot wife, is the proud and devoted father of three daughters, and will lay down the law on a deserving drunk jerk who tries to spoil the party. Not only did he grab the obnoxious fan by the shirt, shove a finger in his face, and then haul him up on stage like he was a handbag, he exercised judicious restraint by warning the guy that he could and would deck him. But only if he really deserved it. That’s a cowboy.

I will contrast this with gansta rappers, who encourage violence, obsession with wealth and status, sexism and violence toward women, and the unattainable ideal of being a baller, a thug, or a rapper for young urban men. Narcissism, not a desire for everyone to get along, is the motive. That’s pathetic.

So before writing off Country, please take into consideration that a lot of the stuff shoved at you by mass marketing isn’t really country. A good rule: If it got its start on American Idol, it ain’t Country. If it’s real, if it tells a story worth hearing, and leaves you feeling good afterward . . . that’s Country.

Yes, he climbs rocks and drinks pee. But it’s really hard to believe that this guy is actually locked in a cataclysmic battle against the forces of nature when he has a camera crew following him around lugging heavy and valuable equipment. He likes to pretend he’s really roughing it, but when the cameras snap off, the crew heads for a hotel. Man vs. Wild not only gets a resounding “meh” from me, but it gets all the dissatisfaction of an ornery American disgruntled by a pretentious Brit.

I can appreciate that it’s a TV show, and it’s fiction, and it’s meant as a visual survival manual, and all that PR stuff Channel 4 Productions prattled on with when the show’s fakey status was exposed. But come on. This clean-shaven Teddy Bear might be strong, and he might be crazy enough to drink urine and eat rainforest bugs, but I don’t believe he’s in survival mode when he has a camera crew with him and looks like his biggest concern is missing his next manicure apointment. Man Vs. Wild is a show for posers.

Now, Survivorman is my kind of dude. No camera crew. No fresh-from-the-tanning-salon looks. No trendy buzzed hair. Just a scruffy, down-home Canadian boy who goes out into realistic survival situations with hand held cameras and his finely honed Canuck skills. Legend has it that Stroud was raised by Sasquatch, who taught him the mighty ways of the Forest Eagle. His show focuses on realistic scenarios survivors would have to face, including the consequences of bad decisions. Homeboy knows how to build a snare for a rabbit, and then skin and barbecue the sucker. He doesn’t drink pee. He doesn’t need to drink at all. He’s Canadian.

When you are faced with the troublesome quandary of which survival-themed television program to watch– a crappy, fakey one by a glam prince too busy sipping tea on an embroidered cushion to get his hands dirty, or a mind-meltingly awesome one starring a true hardcore outdoorsman . . .

Oh, wait. That’s not a quandary. Just watch Survivorman.

The biggest reason nobody cares about the Oscars anymore is that there’s a huge disconnect between the self-absorbed cokeheads running the entertainment world and what society in general really respects as an artistic achievement. Especially in the last 20 years, unless a film is about axe-murdering lesbian cannibals on death row giving harrowing confessions of childhood abuse, it doesn’t stand a chance of winning best picture. Funny movies don’t even stand a chance of getting a token nomination.

How many of the following films, if released today, would stand a chance of winning?

• It Happened One Night (1934)
• You Can’t Take it With You (1938)
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• Hamlet (1948)
• An American in Paris (1951)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• The Sound of Music (1965)
• Rocky (1976)
• Chariots of Fire (1981)
• Amadeus (1984)

These are just a few examples, and they bring to mind a stunning list of names: Frank Capra, Gene Kelly, Clark Gable, Sylvester Stallone . . . Think about it- would any of these win today? I doubt it, because there are no cannibals, lesbians, or explicit sex scenes that border on rape. A few movies in the 1990′s got it right– Braveheart and Forrest Gump were both solid Best Picture material. But was Shakespeare in Love really that good? Especially when contrasted against the stunning and poignant La Vita É Bella? And Titanic? Really? Lush, spectacular, and gorgeous historical re-creation deserves honor and recognition, but if you really hold that up against Good Will Hunting, can there even be a comparison?

Lately hype, not quality, seems to carry an awful lot of weight. And oh, the politics! All three Lord of the Rings films ought to have taken Best Picture, not just the token award given to the third. Which, incidentally, wasn’t even the best of the three– you gotta give it up for The Two Towers. A Beautiful Mind and Chicago were good, but not as good as the first two LOTR installments.

I signed off from the Academy Awards in 1991, when Beauty and the Beast was robbed by Silence of the Lambs. The artistic and technical achievements of Disney were astonishing, groundbreaking, and forever transformed filmmaking. This was the first feature film to really integrate computer technology with hand-drawn animation. It’s impossible to overstate the significance of what it did to legitimize the importance of computers in the future of filmmaking. I’m sorry, but that has to beat out a very well acted, but overrated, flick about a cannibal in a scary mask. Especially with the crappy movie-of-the-week cinematography, tawdry shock tactics, and predictable cliché ending.

Luckily the Golden Globes, which is a far better barometer of what’s actually good, significant, and an achievement, got it right, giving Beauty and the Beast the kudos it deserved, making it the first animated film to take a Best Picture Award.

The ten minute speeches, the hype, the drawn out ceremony with too many commercial breaks, the narcissism and arrogance . . . Why waste four hours of your life when you can get that all crammed into a half hour of reality TV? Nobody cares about the awards any more, as evidenced by the fact that all of today’s news headlines about them focus on the low ratings, not the winners.

In the meantime, Hollywood, keep staring into that mirror and making kissy faces at yourself. At least when everyone else is tired of looking at you, you never get tired of your own reflection.

I have a lot of friends who are set builders, caterers, florists, PAs, camera operators, and producers. They are not part of the Writers’ Guild, which explains why the union has selfishly decided to strike without any concern for the ripple effect this will have on others. Thousands and thousands of people are at risk of losing their homes and livelihoods because the writers want more money. We’re not talking about a strike that occurred because unreasonable hours were required, or because workers were losing limbs in dangerous machinery. It’s just about money, and it’s hurting innocent people.

The point of unions is to protect the basic rights of the people. But white-collar unions like the WGA and the Screen Actors’ Guild do nothing but create a cartel that shuts out fresh talent and ignores the rights of everyone beneath them on the Hollywood food chain. Skilled artisans like actors and writers have no need to unionize. If they’re really good, then their skills will be in demand. It is an act of economic terrorism to bring Los Angeles’ third most valuable industry to a screeching halt over a purely financial issue.

Yes, Hollywood executives are evil. I know. But what’s worse? Executives withholding DVD and online revenue from writers, or writers withholding employment of any kind from everyone else in the industry and not allowing them to have any participation in the decision making process? This situation is no different from the intellectual terrorism brought onto children when teachers strike over wages.

I’m firmly of the opinion that unions have largely outlived their purpose, because basic human rights are now legally protected in this country. Unionizing is only necessary in an environment where there is no legal course of action for workers who have little to no ability to work for a different employer. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was a necessary act of unionization. The Pullman strike was necessary to show how uneducated blue collar workers could be starved into submission by the government and powerful rail magnates with the power of blacklisting.

Unions used to be critical for the social advancement of our society because no power or legal options were available to the exploited. When 150 young women perished in a warehouse fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York in 1911, it was because they’d been locked in to prevent theft by employees. The public outrage from that led to action by the government against employers who held their workers in virtual slavery.

Writers have many career options. They knew going into a Hollywood career that they would be working for some of the greediest cokeheads on the planet. It’s astounding to me that they would act so shocked that their greedy cokehead bosses would not want to pay them what they actually deserve in the form of residuals from DVD sales and online content. It is a matter of fact that massive businesses exploit passionate, creative people. As a price tag for being able to work in their chosen industry, those workers generally accept that they will not be paid very well. Teachers, writers, and other creative career folk know they will never get wealthy. But they choose to do it anyway– nobody is forcing them. The writers of SNL aren’t exactly going to get beat up by Lorne Michaels’ goons for not getting back to work.

That is the critical difference between disenfranchised serfs, Pullman car operators, textile mill workers, and child laborers and Hollywood writers. Strikes were originally intended to protest the violation of basic human rights– health, safety, dignity, and self-determination. Early strikes occurred because there was no legal option available to them. This is not the case today. Workers of all stripes, but especially white collar employees, are protected from discrimination and have legal channels of action in the courts. Instead of turning to legislators to pass laws or suing their employers in court, the Writers’ Guild of America has turned to economic terrorism.

Yes, it is wrong for Hollywood to withhold a share of DVD and online revenue from the creators of the content. I agree with that. But it’s not illegal, and that’s why the WGA has taken the wrong approach to solving the problem. The Clayton Act of 1914 ended the treatment of human labor as a commodity. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established a minimum wage, overtime, and banned oppressive child labor. There are still causes for strikes in our modern economy, but only if there is some kind of moral or ethical issue involved. That doesn’t include white collar workers who have the resources to sue, lobby for legislation, or find a better paying job elsewhere. Especially if it means hurting innocent bystanders.