Is It Ever Enough?

As we age we tend to play this destructive little mind game, wherein we compare our accomplishments - carved out over half a lifetime of work - to that of every other human being on the planet.

Now keep in mind that “accomplishments” are not to be confused with what constitutes “us,” because “us” is psycho-babble designed to make people feel satisfied with the fact that they’ve been good fathers, friends, sons, daughters, husbands and/or role model for, say, kids who needed a leg up; all “bullshit” in the scheme of things. 
 
So “us” takes a subordinate role to “it” [i.e., superficial accomplishments].
 
Okay, so with this in mind, many people look back over their lives and start counting the things they have to show for it.
 
How many pigs do I own? Check.

How much gold do I have buried in the backyard? Check.

How many wives do I have tied up in the basement? Check, check, check.

But for these people, there is no way to win because someone else always has more. The guy next door may have two less pigs than you do, but he has 6 more chickens and 1800 more individual hairs on his head. So you’re still behind the eight ball.
 
Appraising life this way insures a good portion of your remaining life will be spent on a couch [the one that doesn’t belong to you, but you still have to pay for, albeit indirectly]. Alternatively, you could blow up the entire city of Los Angeles, with its legions of millionaire pig owners. But since Los Angeles is just one city amongst many others, you’ll have to take out the entire planet.

And even then…
  
Not to be deterred by rationalization, this game intensifies as the years pass, as we race around trying to cover our bases. Did we do this, or that? Will we be remembered for anything other than being arrested in the company of a teenage prostitute at a Holiday Inn Express?

Follow me through this process:

Frankie owns a string of Stop and Go’s worth an estimated 20 million dollars.

Jerry is the CFO of a major public company, and with stock options, has a net worth of 25 million dollars.

But when Jerry sits alone at night with his Rottweiler, smoking a joint next to his swimming pool, he thinks about Frankie’s wife; a woman half his age, with an ass that reminds him of bowling balls.  Suddenly the thought pops into George’s mind that maybe Jerry’s got one up on him — in spite of the 5 million dollar difference.
 
Now Jerry could divorce his wife, like Frankie did the first time around. But in those days, Frankie was just a petty criminal, running numbers for the mob. So the cost was minimal, including her burial.

But a decision like that today would cost Jerry half his estate, and there wouldn’t be any burial; only a lifetime of annoyance, as he’s forced to interact with his ex-wife and her 22-year old boyfriend. This may also occasionally include his friends, who are now hitting on your daughters.
 
Now what?

What this means for those of you in possession of such values [the ones where your self-esteem hinges on real life issues like how many acres you own in Aspen compared with someone like Bill Gates], you’re screwed.
 
Because no matter how you shake it, there is always someone who has something you don’t have - even if they don’t think it’s a big deal, because they’re too busy comparing themselves to some guy in Central Asia, in the same business, but employs more people and has a bigger bottom line.
The whole thing is a colossal mind fuck.

I’m sure you think I’m just trying to make you feel better about the ten thousand dollars you gave to your favorite charity - just because you felt strongly about the cause - rather than how much the tax deduction saved you.
 
I am.

And I know this is tough terrain for many of you, because our society celebrates superficial accomplishments; spectacular success stories that have nothing to do with dragging some kid out of a swollen river bed; although that might count for something if it leads to a book deal.
  
So here we are at the top of the world looking back down at everything we didn’t do on the way up, as everyone down in the valley wonders what it must feel like to be in our shoes… 

Two Objects, One Space

This morning I am unable to focus because I have more than one task occupying the same space in my head.

See I’m not particularly good at multi-tasking. I like to complete one thing before moving on to the next. But at the moment, I’m trying to complete two original spec scripts for Showtime’s Californication series, while also crafting blog essays to keep jayrusovichlive interesting [and active] to a growing audience.

So with this in mind, I thought I would just let you know what’s been gowing through my head on the media front before posting a full-on essay tomorrow. Using this approach to productivity, perhaps, will see me through this temporary paralysis. The fact is I have always felt that doing something - even more than one thing at a time -is better than thinking about things like eternal nothingness, so here goes:

Amy Winehouse slugged some guy in the face because he happened to be standing in her way while she was playing pool at a bar in the Camden neighborhood of London.

Later that evening, she head-butted another guy who was trying to hail her a cab.

These incidents are the very latest in a string of incidents for which Ms. Winehouse is best known. I might also mention a certain video of her allegedly smoking crack shortly before she accepted five Grammys [this year] for her critically acclaimed album “Back to Black.”

But at least she’s consistent. Her equally integrated husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is in jail awaiting trial on charges of perverting the course of justice stemming from a case in which he is accused of assaulting a barman. By the way, he also overdosed on heroin while in the same jail.
 
Nevertheless, he did get a call-out at the recent Brit Awards in London from Amy. After Winehouse performed “Love is a Losing Game,” off her album Back to Black, she yelled to the audience, “I love you baby!”

“Make some noise for my husband, my Blake!”

You gotta love the irony.

When most schoolgirls were playing with their Barbie dolls, Amanda Brooks was dreaming of growing up to be a prostitute.

“When I was in fourth grade, it sounded like a good idea for me. To me it sounded like a really interesting way to make a living and not having to follow other peoples’ rules,” she said by telephone from Texas where she lives.

Retired at 29 with a steady boyfriend after two-and-a-half years working as an escort, she has published the Internet Escort’s Handbook series for aspiring call girls everywhere.

The series so far contains two books. The first book, called “The Foundation” covers “basic mental, emotional and physical considerations in escort work”. The second, “Advertizing and Marketing,” gives tips on how to set up a Web site and advertize online.”When I began working I had a lot of questions and there wasn’t really any way to find out answers. I did what they always tell authors to do: I wrote the books that I wished I had been able to read,” she said.
Brooks is unapologetic about a lifestyle that she says suited her perfectly. On her Web site she describes her frustration at being told she should get a “real job.”

“I’ve read many job books which list the symptoms to look for when a job is going bad: depression, stress, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain or weight loss, anger, ulcers, hair loss, hatred, suicidal thoughts, and feeling trapped.”

“How did I feel working as an escort? Happy, satisfied, in control of my life; wealthy, healthy, at peace with myself, free, successful and I slept like a baby every night.”

Brought up in a small town in Texas, she graduated from college with a double degree in photography and English before getting a job as a cocktail waitress at a strip club. She then worked as a stripper for four years before finally taking the plunge at 26 and placing an ad offering escort services.

At a time when global trafficking and organized crime are making prostitution more dangerous than ever, Brooks said the internet made it easier to go into business on your own — free from exploitation by agencies, brothel owners or pimps.

The main tip for staying safe is: do your homework. She used the Internet to screen her clients and turned down appointments when she had doubts.

The worst abuse she suffered was clients who refused to pay her fees, which she said were “standard prices in the U.S., between $250 and $500 an hour.”

The work became safer once she had a steady stable of regular clients. She found them easier to deal with than her boyfriend.

“Adding money to a sexual relationship does not necessarily make it violent or horrible,” she said.

“Relationships with my clients are fun and easy. They were kind of a break from real life and we all know that real life can be difficult.”

The comment about “real life” put me on the floor. She and Winehouse should spend more time together.

Priscilla Presley isn’t dead. She just looks like it.

Vladimir Putin’s new girlfriend. Can you blame him?

When Amy Winehouse referes to “my Blake,” this is the individual to whom she is referring. The graciousness of women never fails to amaze me…

Hair Salons:Minefields for Vanity

Hair salons are dangerous places if you happen to have issues with aging and death, in general. This is where middle-age men and women sit around and discuss what to do about the fact that they are no longer young.
 
Have you heard the latest news about jellyfish? Did you know that they possess certain chemicals that can permanently remove wrinkles — without Restalin or Botox?

Interesting that everyone in these places seems to know about the same obscure discoveries; as though they’re all members of the same research teams or websites. I could go from one end of town to the other, and know with absolutely certainty that everyone could pass the same multiple choice tests.

I personally know about jellyfish from the discovery channel, but my input on this subject was challenged by a large woman at a boutique out in L.A., with dye in her hair so black it resembled a wormhole into another galaxy.

“That particular species is the one that kills people in under 20 minutes,” she explained.

“Okay, so, could it possibly do the same thing to wrinkles?”

I was trying to keep things light because I could sense a creeping pathology in this creature that included the possibility of physical assault.

With storm clouds building, the hairdresser jumped in to showcase his new set of veneers. He also mentioned some revolutionary new workout regimen that involved performing lots of exercises all at the same time. But I noticed that he didn’t spend a whole lot of time on this topic, because he didn’t want to draw attention the same woman who was carefully analyzing the direction of the conversation for veiled references to fat or other contestable innuendo.

So the discussion turned to water [an emotionally neutral topic]. “Hydration” was the term he used.
 
“Did you know that most of us walk around dehydrated? We don’t even have to be thirsty.”

How many times have I heard this? Why do people keep repeating this ridiculous mantra? Why would our bodies not tell us to drink something before we keeled over and died? A century ago we would have all been dead, water or no water. These days we run around like adolescents trying to find meaning in the universe through face-lifts and multi-vitamins; something that always brings me back to the fact that there are too many middle-age people in America.

I remember a time when this strange demographic didn’t exist at all. But today we’re bombarded with images of older people. This month, GQ is featuring 43-year old Robert Downey Jr; Vanity Fair is featuring 50-year old Madonna; Men’s Journal is featuring 65-year old Harrison Ford; Outsider is featuring 41-year old Anderson Cooper; Uncut is featuring Jagger and Richards [ages off the charts for rock stars]; Rolling Stone is featuring Springsteen and Robert Plant [ also off the charts]; Elle is [also] featuring Madonna; and the music publication, Mojo, is featuring REM, The Stones and The Clash. For our purposes here, understand that The Stones started in 1964; a place in time where one could effectively employ radiocarbon dating.
    
On a related topic, a friend of mine informed me that he’s bringing a 26-year old stripper with him to an NBA game, where he will join a married collegue and and his 14-year old son. She’s inked from head to toe. His idea is to foist his arrested adolescence on members of an otherwise traditional family paradigm in order to solidify his eternal relevance. I just hope he has more interest in the stripper than the specific impressions he assumes she will leave in the minds of people who don’t really care in the first place.

If he were living in the 18th century, the fact that he was alive at all would have done the trick. And the stripper, by the way, would have been considered middle-age…and with fewer teeth.

All of this begs the question, is it time to panic? Or is life worth living in the absence of youth? These days it’s a legitimate question.

Comments???

The Trisha Walsh Smith Game.

 My friend Vance Degeneres just produced this video, which I think is hysterical. Just cut and paste away…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ6es6hO7Do&feature=related

Age-Differences Level Playing Field

Associated Press: A Moscow newspaper reported on Saturday that President Vladimir Putin is planning to marry an Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast, half his age.

Rumors of a romance between Putin, 55, and Alina Kabaeva, 24, who is also an MP in his party, have been circulating in Moscow for months.

The paper claimed that Putin had already divorced Ludmilla, 50, his wife of 24 years, and would marry Kabaeva in June, shortly after stepping down as president and becoming prime minister.

Some men cannot resist falling to their knees at the altar of youth anymore than they can admit that death is closer than it used to be.
 
The correlation here is academic.
 
Men are wired predators. We hunt. We always feel the need to conquer something, even if it’s directions to a major airport in a strange city. And after we’ve gorged ourselves on one accomplishment, we start the process all over again. It’s what affirms us as men.
   
In the context of dating, older men feel as though they deserve more by virtue of their experience. The level of need [to pursue] is a direct correlation to the man’s assessment of his life experiences, relative success and overall sense of accomplishment. So while aging may eventually preclude the extreme aggressiveness and impulsivity of youth, it now affords a certain balance of brute force with experience, coupled with relative affluence and an appreciation for the things they can no longer afford to take for granted.
 
It is this combination of elements that perpetuates their distinctiveness and desirability within the herd, and it is also arguably why these men are at now at their prime.

Conversely, women are at their mating prime as healthy, young adults. And though they must swap youth for security in older men, they get the emotional and financial support they need; the commitment they rarely find elsewhere, and a level of appreciation virtually non-existent in young men caught in a sexual and financial feeding frenzy that includes - among other things - finding themselves; a line item most often discovered after it’s too late and the divorce papers are filed. 

The bottom line is that when older men date younger women, both parties are at their prime; and therefore both parties win.

Feminism is largely responsible for this shift in social dynamics because women are taught to be freer with their bodies, and more focused on their careers — not child-bearing and domesticity in general. They are told that pure egalitarianism is their birthright. And because men hunt what’s available, women tend to get screwed; particularly by younger men.

So putting all the philosophy aside, here’s what older men actually experience:

When they stare into the face of an older woman they’re reminded of their own mortality. So how’s a man supposed to hunt if he’s dead or dying?

Conversely, if a younger man dates an older woman, he may see a reflection of his youth, and feel a liberating acceptance of his station in life. In short, generational divides are about the sharing of differences, while perpetuating vitality and balance.
 
If I had to break this down I would say that a minimum age difference between a man and a woman should be at least 15 years. This means that a 40-year old woman should be looking at a man of 55…or the other way around, depending on your sexual perspective.

But in spite of all this rationalization, there is a problem here: Older women don’t particularly appreciate this scenario.

They tend to choose a partner based on age-relevance and experience, not youth and beauty. They don’t want to be someone’s mother. They don’t see youth the way men see it. They accept the physical changes, in part, because they tend to occur more rapidly in women than in men. In short, they utterly loathe men’s blinding and superficial obsession with what they consider to be transient attributes. Men often counter that the difference in age renders the physical changes minor over time, but once the argument escalates to this level, it’s best to exit the immediate vicinity. 
 
So the next time you ask yourself why older women seem so pissed off, I just answered your question.

When women reach their mid-40’s they know that most men their age are no longer interested in them. This isn’t a pleasant realization. And couple this with the fact that a man 10 years their senior might also share this view. A 45-year old man wants someone younger; someone with whom he can have a family, while also getting his visual fix and/or affirmation. Beauty is a man’s first priority as I’ve said before…and been beaten up over so many times since.
   
An older friend recently commented that it is as though we’ve all been “bitten by wolves.”

I like the metaphor, but I would have clarifyied the statement by including the adjectives, “hungry” and “numerous,” before the noun.

Juno: So Young, So Precocious

Without spoilers, the story follows a 9 month journey through an accidental pregnancy of a 16-year old high school student, who ultimately decides to follow her pregnancy to term.

The fact that this decision is tied to a negative exchange with a gothic receptionist at an abortion clinic is a tad flimsy, but she nevertheless concedes that she’s not ready to assume the responsibilities of motherhood. With this in mind, she finds an appropriately “cool” older couple interested in adopting, through an ad in a local newspaper.

But this is merely the sketch. The real story lies just beneath the surface.

The film is fundamentally a celebration of the power of youth. Juno conceives a child that is biologically out of reach to an adopting, older couple. This is further punctuated by her cavalier references to the “thing” in her stomach, as though it were a new toy in the window of FAO Swartz; something taken for granted by a kid too young to appreciate her station in life.

Then the woman’s husband discovers a connection [love interest] with Juno he never had with his wife, which is born out of a kind of arrested adolescence, coupled with a wife whose pathological obsession with having a child eclipses her connection with him. Finally, Juno discovers real love [can't tell you where] in spite of her precarious spontaneity, unfiltered insightfulness, and complete lack of boundaries.

I found it ironic that the key to the dreams of all the adults rested with a sixteen year old girl. Even her mother’s love of dogs was placed on hold until Juno grew up and out of the house [Juno is allergic to "dog saliva"]. But while this irony is compelling, Juno is one extraordinary teenager…and not in the sense that I’m used to seeing in anyone that age.

Her edgy, cavalier and distinctly adult dialog felt more like the hand of the screenwriter, which would place her character in a much older category. I also found the relationship with her parents to be superficial, given the circumstances. The fact that they accepted her pregnancy as a matter of course was a little farfetched, which tended to leave reality in the lurch.

In view of this, I allowed my willing suspension of disbelief to flow freely as I enjoyed the solid acting and good story line.
In the end, however, I could feel the screenwriter’s hand throughout every scene in the film, which left me a tad indignant towards a leading character that was just too far beyond her years.

Diablo Cody is the author of the bestseller, Candy Girl. This is her first produced screenplay.
 

Intimacy vs. Eroticism

Frank meets Sally, and the two of them copulate freely and often, because Sally makes Frank feel powerful, which in turn, makes her feel desirable. Their connection has everything to do with how they were raised, and its impact on their individual wiring. But at the moment, it doesn’t really matter because eroticism is now running the show and sweeping them both in the general direction of the falls.
 
But women are not men.

And thus, a month later Sue starts asking Frank questions about his personal life; questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with sex and everything whatsoever to do with why their sex sometimes feels like a circus act.

Frank bristles.

He isn’t sure he likes the direction of the conversation because it feels like she’s starting to chip away at his veneer. Was this all a game played by a woman who knew him better than he thought she did? Is she deliberately breaking the rules to test the mettle of their fragile connection? 

Of course she is.

And this means that his dick is going to take a beating in the process, as his intimacy skills are engaged for the first time since adolescence. Suddenly he’s forced to talk about family-of-origin issues; struggles he keeps to himself; but occasionally shares with his closest friends under conditions of extreme intoxication. Needles to say, images of his mother begin to hammer him like an exorcism he now wishes was his own.

What happened to the “big, hard cock,” now referred to as an “erect penis”? What happened to that wanton little vamp he twisted like a rubber band and pounded like a Viking on a mission from Hell?

In short, what happened to the power that stretched his veins like a flashflood?

There’s lots of debate about this, but there is no question that women initially fall into the same trap. The difference is that they eventually come to their senses and question the nature of the connection.

Not so with men.
 
For them, sex is an escape; like heroin. It’s addictive and powerful. And maintaining a wide berth between intimacy and eroticism insures that all the fears a man ever had as a little boy stay in the past, so that he can become the living symbol of his profession and perceived power.   The following is a brief transcript from a woman who faced these issues identical issues:

“I don’t understand male sexuality. We are a newly married family and I’m just starting to get to know his personality, character and eccentricities.”

Jay: This is the first problem. Women tend to project an entire life scenario onto a relative stranger, courtesy of a few line items on a resume.

“I discovered that he was keeping a couple of videos of himself having sex with a prostitute. It was a hidden video cam and the woman was, of course, not aware. The other one is OF HIM taking video of a woman who is wearing sexy lingerie (they were like shooting different underwear). When I confronted him about this he told me that they are friends and they are just having fun. But I don’t want to start a fight so I just stopped talking about it.”

Jay: This is what I mean by chipping away at his veneer. Men don’t like it. They feel exposed, vulnerable, weakened…and sometimes emasculated. This may or may not be something that a couple can overcome, but it is certainly an issue that must be broached before the man in question is referred to as husband.
 
“Then another thing happened. I discovered that he is continually collecting porn images and videos online. In fact he has a collection of them. I don’t understand this guy I married. Please tell me about this behavior. I love him and want to understand him. Why does a married family guy want to look at porn?

Jay: Most men look at porn. An increasing number of women look at porn. There’s nothing wrong with looking at – and collecting – porn. But this is something a couple discusses when they are dating; not after they’re married. If everyone was as honest with their wives as they are with their hookers, we’d probably have fewer marriages, but the one that did occur would have a far better chance of surviving. If a man enjoys dressing up as a woman and being spanked with a riding crop, so be it. Tell the woman you happen to be dating what you like, want, need. Don’t dismiss people as insane who do “weird things like that” when you’re actually talking about yourself. Be who you are and let the chips fall where they may. You can’t have it all, and neither can she; particularly if she’s operating from the Cinderella, Snow White playbooks.
  
This is why men take hookers. They’re medications for men who don’t like the couch. They keep things in order. You fuck me. I fuck you. You pay me. We go our separate ways.

Intimacy vs. Eroticism, each in its own box.

So when his wife insists upon “making love,” the only way he can meet her expectations is by fantasizing about his dalliances with the aforementioned hooker. This, in turn, tricks the wife into believing that the man has finally conquered his fears; that their love is true…and that, above all else, she is still desired.

People – and particularly men – have always struggled with intimacy. And even a cursory look at literature on the subject of evolutionary biology brings all of this into sharp relief. Making matters worse is a media-driven version of what life’s supposed to look and feel like; a ubiquitous string of messages that have become like an I.V. piped directly into our veins from every conceivable angle.
 
I’m not a financial wizard, by any means, but even I can tell you with absolute certainty that you’d make a killing by dumping your entire investment portfolio into a public company comprised of 15,000 hookers with backgrounds in marriage counseling. Men would feel comfortable talking about issues that every hooker has heard a thousand times, and the hookers could then offer suggestions based on the track records of hundreds of similarly-afflicted men…over many years – and countless episodes – of sexual experience.
 
“Um, hello. My wife wants to have sex tonight, but I’d rather watch my favorite porn star get reamed by a mechanical fucking machine. Any ideas?”

Hooker: “No problem, sweetie. Just explain to her that you have an interest in watching live human beings interact with inanimate objects, because it metaphorizes your relationship with her before it became intimate; a time when you felt powerful and alive…just like the machine.”

The Ubiquitous Habitats of the Insane

When you’ve been around the block more than a couple of times, you start to notice certain patterns in people you encounter on the streets; particularly at night. For one thing, they tend to fall outside the norm, because abnormal people tend to favor the night. Why this is I don’t know. But it seems to have something to do with darkness, in general.

In the case of urban women, many otherwise educated, functional professionals with jobs and lives outside of bars, often come up empty-handed when it comes to facing themselves at night. So they maneuver in the shadows; veins jacked with medications designed to tackle a battery of psychiatric conditions as they sample expensive wines, chain-smoke and cavort with complete strangers.
 
See, the coupling of alcohol and prescription medications often leads to the emergence of another person [from the same body], because anti-psychotic drugs, like Lithium, don’t mix particularly well with alcohol.

These people can’t resist the safe-zones that coddle and encourage the disenfranchised, the socially maladroit and the disconnected…as long as they pay their bills, that is. But they usually do because the other person [the one that actually functions in broad daylight] supports the other one that shares a striking psychological resemblance to modern-day werewolves.

Most rural people are oblivious to this reality, primarily because they don’t want to believe it exists. So I’ll just keep my mouth shut about the fact that many of them were created in test tubes, and then released into the world to procreate with others of their kind who carry the same alien-human DNA.
 
Most have jobs at major corporations, put in 60-hour work weeks, and have rigorous travel schedules. Many are in their mid-twenties and married to other 25 year olds they meet at work. They don’t go to wine bars or performance art events in the middle of the night because a] their lifestyles preclude it and b] their minds can’t fathom it [see previous paragraph].
 
They see our inner-city lives through network television; a two-dimensional fantasy created for their amusement. They dwell in suburban enclaves - not dissimilar to artist depictions of future moon colonies - and carpool to work with their neighbors; people who often travel in the same direction. Soon the newlyweds have their first child, and the husbands’ work week increases to 80 hours [82 hours if you count his time with a stripper named “Carmen” ], as his new wife raises the kids and manages the household.

This is the way of the world…that world, anyway.

They don’t struggle with irrelevance as long as they still have a job. That constitutes relevance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not they have a bestseller on the shelves at Borders, or a screenplay in production. They also live through their kids, and eventually, through their grand-kids as I keep myself company in arrested adolescence. They worry about things like life insurance, while I worry about psychotic ex-girlfriends scaling the walls of my house at 3:30 in the morning.

The disparity here is always worth mentioning.

So back in the city, you can find a few grounded women who do things like stay at home at night and read, write, paint and/or socialize with friends in private settings and select social events before going to bed. But these women are also the same ones who frustrate men in public places with their all-consuming girl talks about how difficult it is to find a man, while surrounded by a room filled with 300 of them.

Needless to say, they leave alone, knowing that twice that number of emails await them on Match.com; another safe-house for the insane.

You can’t win. But at least you have more clarity as the disparity between rural and urban cultures threaten to split the continent in two. 

Note: Match.com is a place where people do a character sketch and then try to sell it as a commodity on the open market.

Fame Chooses Us [or does it]?

We all have dreams…and for some of us, being famous is one of them; right up there with breathing.
 
Typically, the list will also include such items as beauty, health and sex; but not necessarily in that order, because fame also tends to be synonymous with wealth, which pretty much takes care of the other three. It also pays for expensive narcotics, like heroin, for times when these same people hit middle-age and start thinking about the universe and how irrelevant they are; particularly when the only fame they’ve achieved is an outstanding arrest warrant for failure to pay their parking tickets.
 
This realization can occasionally lead to a complete psychiatric collapse; a condition common to people whose self-esteem hinges on television ratings, which they don’t have because they’re not on television…or anywhere else, for that matter; with regard to the aforementioned universe.
 
Anyway, dwelling on this is an exercise in futility, unless you’re Nietzche, in which case you take the heroin. If you’re not, and these thoughts approach levels consistent with pathological obsession, I usually advise people to count their blessings even if they have to make them up.   

Getting back to my point, somewhere along the line we all have fantasizes about being rich and famous — no matter what else is going on in the universe. We imagine what it must feel like being recognized the world over for our talent and uniqueness; whatever that means. But most people don’t spend a lot of time on it because it’s just a fantasy, and their emotional well-being doesn’t hang in the balance. It’s more about what’s happening in, like, the stock market, because they’re stock brokers and okay with that. Or they end up in suburbia with three kids and a husband who lives in Cincinatti with a stripper named Summer.
 
But when idle fantasy becomes need, it’s often a cry for recognition; particularly for those who felt marginalized as adolescents. I keep thinking about those kids in black trench-coats, but I don’t want to imply that kids without a lot of close friends are all homicidal maniacs just because no one is interested in their poetry.

But many people with this need grew up tripping all over the right words, or passwords, that they hoped would unlock the gates to recognition. But because the combinations were elusive - and the players around them the same - they suffered through it while trying to find a new audience with a different set of rules.

So they took risks that others would have avoided; statistical free-falls, if you will.  To these people, any odds were better than no odds at all, and if the reward - no matter how remote - was recognition, they’re took the bet.
 
In their minds, there was nothing to lose and everything to gain…and THAT was the right combination.

This is not to say that others who took less risk had no prospect of achieving greatness, but it always amazes me how much this one ingredient plays in favor of those who are willing to jump.  

It seems to be where the line is drawn.

Success stories includes names such as Marshall Mathers/Eminem [Rapper, hip-hop artist], Marilyn Manson [Musician], Ellen Degeneres [Comedian], Steven Tyler [Musician], Madonna [Performer] and A.K. Rowling [Writer]…to name just a few.
 
These stories are not all rags to riches; but from an emotional perspective, they probably felt that way. People don’t have to grow up in subways – or under bridges – to feel unfulfilled, marginalized, isolated and alone.

And while working as an office receptionist is arguably better than no job at all, some people would rather starve to death than answer someone else’s telephone.

Miss USA: Sanitizing the Real World

Honestly I almost choked.
 
Here we have these women herded together like cattle, but treated like people from old Twilight Zone episodes.

“So…Ms Whatever [State], what how do you feel about the prospect of winning the Ms Congeniality title?”
 
“Oh, I really hate to say because so many of the wonderful women here girls are so sweet. I’m happy just being among them!”

“Great response! I think is going to be interesting!”

At this point I surf over to MTV, where I catch a female volleyball tournament.

OH DEAR MOTHER OF GOD HELP ME!

Two teams of ungodly fit babes in nail-my-nerves-to-a-wall thongs perform a kind of ritualistic dance reminiscent of those Discovery Channel programs, where adolescent women gyrate around a fire in the hopes of seducing men into copulating with them off in the woods.
 
These women were bouncing up and down like circus seals; bending over, hanging all over one another and generally pandering to the cameras; particularly for those high-resolution close-ups…and I’m not talking about close-ups of the volleyball.

That part’s incidental.

Surfing back over to Miss USA [I didn’t want to, believe me], I see Donnie and Marie Osmond [can you fucking believe this] standing on stage in some kind of 50’s time-warp where people never escape because the train they’re on is stuck in a series of redundant loops. I would love to see the decor in their homes. I bet they still have stripped wallpaper in their kitchens and bathrooms. 

So here I sit bored out of my freaking mind as these flat-ironed-to-death and over-sprayed women try to sell me on congeniality and facial structure. I’m dying here, folks. Where are the mini-skirts? Where are the 6-inch stilettos and thigh-highs? What the hell am I looking at? I don’t even get butt shots because the goddamned sanitation czars have edited it all out. Are these people completely insane? What planet are they on? And Donnie Osmond’s appearance almost sent me into convulsions…not to mention his sister, who sort of looked like a cross between a country music singer and wife to televangelist.
    
So, no close-ups whatsoever. Forget it. I didn’t even know who had the best ass, for example. The camera angles were the same ones I swear that they used during episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show. Why the hell do men want to see women in full evening gowns?

They DON’T!

And I just love the “bathing suit” competition. They don’t even refer to these articles of clothing as “bikinis’ because that would be inappropriate. My friend’s 13 year old nephew wouldn’t even watch the damn thing. He’d kept surfing back to the “volleyball” match.

I will admit that Crystal Stewart [Ms Texas] was the hottest. And her evening gown was worthy of a lot more airtime – and at least one close-up or two. But why not feature, for example, a fetish category? Or a “wear-whatever-you-want” category?
 
Anything would help this pathetic event.

The place also had tons of empty seats and the energy level was on the floor. And did I mention that the lighting resembled a CVS Pharmacy? I even saw one guy eating popcorn and playing with his iPod. It was like everyone was embarrassed to be there. Maybe a lot of them ran to the restrooms when they saw the camera panning the audience.

The bottom line here is this event needs more sex appeal. If you’re going to have the audacity to call it Miss USA, then don’t bore me to death. Society is far too saturated with sex to get excited about this stuff. The simple fact is Jessica Alba in a thong would beat the living hell out of MISS Anybody. When you’ve seen it all, you don’t take a giant step back and then expect to get a great response. People are so past this crap. They want more skin, more reality, less 50’s…no Osmond’s.

I could blow people away with my version of this contest. I’d have my own guys operating the cameras, and believe me when I tell you we wouldn’t miss a freaking thing.  Our audience would make the Super Bowl look like nursery school. You’d have every guy on the planet – including Al Qaeda - glued to their televisions. No car bombs. No burning shit in the streets for the duration of the show. We’d have flawlessly executed butt shots with the precision of tractor beams. We’d be under, over…and on top of all the action. The airwaves would be burning up the atmosphere. Advertisers would be happy to fork over 20 million bucks for 30 second spots because people wouldn’t risk leaving their televisions for even a second.

We’re talking about 100% impressions! Worldwide…and maybe elsewhere.

Anyway, I’ve got a video coming to nail this point home once and for all. Just work with the above image while we edit the video.