Ron DeSantis and the battle of trans rights

 

Recently I went to my old job to attend a retirement buffet for my old boss. At some point I had to answer nature's call. I mentioned it and got giggles. I was warned that the bathrooms were all cross gender. I.E., there were no men's rooms or women's rooms. There were only rooms. Upon entering, I noticed that there was no difference in the facility since I worked there. Of course, the sign on the door was different. It said, "all gender restroom." I wonder how women navigate the urinals? 

It is this type of politically correct activism that the governor of Florida wants to save us from. He would not allow such travesties in Florida or the USA. Ron DeSantis has discovered the weakness in political correctness that he can exploit. In the old days he could fight against gay marriage. Unfortunately, gay marriage has entered the mainstream even in red states. Of course, there is women's rights. Again, equality for working women is now generally accepted. Cash poor states are allowing legal marijuana. That issue again waning. interracial marriage? Again, becoming mainstream.                 

The next frontier of liberalism that might scare the behooves out of suburban housewives?  Trans sexualism. He reads about a school in Philadelphia that has a drag queen story hour for kids. Trans gender rights. Here is a topic that is entering the political conversation. And one that people are ambivalent about. Most people never thought about this topic until recently, but Ron has instilled the fear in parents of girls who will have to compete in sports with boys who have sex change operations. There goes that scholarship. 

One of the great arts in politics is teaching the public to fear things that they never thought about before. It should be an interesting two years. 

Los Angeles as shown on Netflix

Recently I've been alternating between two Netflix shows, Flaked, set in Venice, and the Girls Guide to Divorce, set in the swankier parts of LA. Both shows have lots of exterior shots of Los Angeles, and serve as a travelogue. 

Girls guide is entertaining and shows how upper crust 30-40 somethings navigate divorce and love while living in gorgeous digs and dressing well. The characters have difficult children and exes and problematic boyfriends. In this show average looking, not so youngish women are shown to be attractive to good looking young men. Perhaps this fantasy is presented to attract women viewers. We also get an inside look at the world of television, media and law for these privileged characters. 

Venice has always had a special place in most baby boomers hearts for its hipness and at the same time being a little rough around the edges. This show, like Tales of the City, shows what happens when aging hipsters confront the high rents as their neighborhoods gentrify. This is a likeable show, and makes you want to spend a week in Venice, just to soak up the ambience. The male female equation is reversed here, with good looking women being attracted to less than remarkable guys. Guess they are looking for a more male oriented demographic. 

Both shows have some hard to believe plot twists. Love the bicycle built for two in Flaked. 

the kids on Better Things

I love Better Things. I watch it religiously when it's on and often watch the instant rerun that follows it to catch the nuances that I may have missed the first time around. I have often said that most of my experiences of family life comes from watching television situation comedies. In turn, most of what I know about raising daughters comes from watching Better Things.

Lately there has been some negative buzz about the show. It revolves around the behavior of the older girls. Do all American teenagers act like Max and Frankie? Granted, most middle class American girls are privileged, demanding, and view their parents as walking credit cards.  Such is life. Still, I predict that, although annoying as youth, they will succeed in the game of life.
My predictions for the girls:

Max is pretty and knows how to manipulate people to get money. She will do fine in life, she'll end up getting occasional roles and will  couch surf from upscale Hollywood apartments to mansions in the Valley with various male directors and producers.

Frankie will end up becoming a doctor. I suspect she is good at math. She has the personality of someone who is good at math. She will get a good job in a hospital but will not be known for her bedside manner.

Duke will get married and live in the suburbs of LA. She will be the one to cajole her sisters into visiting Mom for Mother's Day. She will be the only one of the girls to visit Grandma in the nursing home. When Grandma dies the two older sisters will turn up, demanding their share.

Aunt Agnes opines on Cynthia Nixon

At first  I was happy and grateful that one of Richard Nixon's grandchildren wanted to run for Governor of New York. Brother, that didn't last long. Turns out she is of no relation to the great man at all. Instead she is that lesbian that I never liked on that dumb show about rich girls and their shoes and so called boyfriends, "Let's have sex in New York City".

Well I always thought those girls were more interested in each other than those unlucky men they hooked up with. Turns out they were all lesbians. At least one of them was. Now I hear tell that Cynthia Nixon wants to be governor of New York. Running on free love and gender free bathrooms and money for everybody who doesn't have a job. I'm glad I don't live there. Lordy mama, what is this world coming to.

The Phillip's head screwdriver

It's funny. The Phillip's head screwdriver keeps popping up in my life. I got a new tv. I quickly found out that the tv stands (yes there were two) had to be assembled using those four Phillip's head screws in the plastic bag. Later in the same week my Hoover floor cleaner wasn't putting any waste water in the refuse receptacle. Eventually I noticed the filter looked dirty. To get at the filter I needed to unscrew the thingamajig  attached with Philip's head screws.

I remember working in the basement with my father and he showed my a plyer and a Phillip's head screwdriver. It was a thrill to be allowed into the dark world of men and men's tools. Mother didn't know what a Phillip's head screwdriver was and neither did the girls up the street. Just like boys didn't know the dark arts of cooking and why you need self-rising flour for some desserts.

Today we are being told that it's time that men stop making more money than women. Yet when a woman needs to assemble a monitor to put on a presentation those damn Phililps' head screws show their faces. She has to find a man now. One who knows the dark arts of using Phillip's head screwdrivers and the difference between an awl and a  monkey wrench.

Girls weekends

As I have aged and have inevitably found myself with other people in the over 50 set, I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon, that of  "girls weekends". In this scenario, while the men are patching up the grout in the bathroom or trying out their  deck wash, the women are having "girls weekends". On these excursions the women get together and go to casinos, bars, garden shows, museums and antique shops while the men are left at home.

Yes men may go to the occasional car show or convention, but it seems that women are having more fun than we are. Why aren't men invited to "girls weekends"?   Is it because men of a certain age are bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons? 

Perhaps, alas,  it is because men of a certain age have become bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons, Yes it is true that some of us haven't aged well. Well, off to Lowes. I need to buy some deck wash. 

Netflix Internet

Again, I have moved a bit further into the 21st century. I have given up the cozy system of getting red envelopes with a DVD every month and moved to the new world of online Netflix. I seemed to find less and less I wanted in the old system and I was tempted to explore the new Netflix. I wanted to see the Gilmore Girls a year in the life, Chelsey Handler, and lots of other things I've seen reviews for but not experienced. My favorite so far is Love, produced by Judd Apatow of Girls fame. I like Bossgirl too.

I also bought a Chromecast gizmo. This allows me to watch Internet programming on my TV. It took awhile to set up but it seems to be working now. Youtube also benefits from this new gizmo. So far I have seen over half of the Jeeves series this way.

So how are the shows? I guess so far it's a mixed bag. I was disappointed with the Gilmore Girls. Remakes are never as good as the originals. Remember the New Leave it to Beaver and Mayberry RFD?

So I am still sampling the new programming.  Some of the shows are pretty bad, though. Friend from College? Atypical? M'yeh. Clearly a lot of the shows are trying to appeal to that elusive millennial demographic. Still for ten bucks a month it's not bad. And now I feel like a member of the middle class again.

Stop hiding your aging neck

It's that time of the year, at least for those of us who are too  cheap for premium channels, when the pickings on tv are pretty slim. It seems every night when I glide across the cable offerings I come upon "Stop hiding your aging neck". This show is starting to interest me.

When I think about problems I have, hiding my aging neck does not seem to be one of them. Perhaps it should be.  Is that why I spend Friday nights alone? Is it my aging neck? Perhaps it is an avant garde program disguised as a bad infomercial. I will have to watch it.

Editor's note: Finally watched "Stop hiding your aging neck". Especially liked the never before aired bondage scenes from the Gilmore Girls.

Girls reaches its finale if not its climax

I can finally say I have seen all six seasons of the most influential television program of the 21st century, Girls. Here is a flashback to earlier reviews.  Now that we have reached the end the girls are no longer girls but women, if women of a sort. Here are some comments about how each has grown and predictions for the characters and the actors who played them:

Hannah: She got published, got a writing gig, got pregnant, and apparently got a full time professorial job at a posh college. She is a woman now. She is even past Adam, getting wise when he admitted she would have to pay the bills if he was to be the step-dad. Lena Dunham is not pretty enough to get major acting roles, rather she will write some hit screen plays and be the Nora Ephron of her generation.

Marnie was the girl next door cute one. She could sing but her looks have deteriorated so she is not as cute as she was. Allison Williams is destined to be a second rate star, perhaps perching on a CBS three camera sit-com in the future.

Shoshanna is another character who grew up. Joining the yuppie set, she has a new husband and better looking and richer friends now.

I don't know Zosia Mamet's future. Perhaps she will pop up occasionally on independent films. One thing she needs to do is get rid of the white hair and black eyebrows.

For me Jessa is the standout of the series. Sort of like a millennial Anita Pallenberg, she is the former classmate you hear about at parties. She joined a commune. She is in rehab. She is backpacking in Indonesia. She met a millionaire and is living on a yacht in Burma. Then one night she turns up at a party and you find out she is living with her mother.

I see a decent film career for Jemimah Kirke.

Adam Driver is the hot hipster who always gets layed at parties. Perhaps he will settle down with Jenna but the two of them will struggle, especially after she has twins.

Adam already has a decent film career.

I always thought the guitar player Desi had more talent than his partner Marne. Who knows, Girls tends to have weak male characters. At least Ray got the coffee shop and Elijah got a Broadway role.

Never lie to your mother

When I was a tot, I went playing with some of the older boys on Parker Avenue. When my mother asked me why I came in late for dinner I explained that I had been playing with the Mills girls on Kaplan Avenue.

The next morning, my mother said, "A little birdie told me that you were playing with some older boys on Parker Avenue yesterday afternoon." You always have to be careful about the neighborhood birdies who tell tales. Poor Ryan, losing all those endorsements. Just because, like the Rolling Stones in 1964, he had to take a leak in a gas station.  Moral? We should never lie to our mothers.

There are things men don't need to know about

Recently I was watching television and lawdy, I came upon Samantha Bee, those two Jewish girls from Brooklyn, and Amy Schumer. My oh my, things were different in my day. In those ancient times women didn't talk about tampons, bodily functions, or the baser things in life. Women were angelic things, well mannered, and deferred to their boyfriends on matters of politics and where to go out. 

I think I could spend the rest of my life not watching a television show about minstrel cycles and farting and not miss a thing. What is so funny about tampons anyway. Things have changed since my day. No wonder women have to work. No man would want to support them. 

Editor's note: Another blog from Aunt Agnes.

The return of the Gilmore Girls

Apparently the big news is that it's coming back. One of the great cultural institutions, a television series that sums up the hope and aspirations of  21st century Americans, is returning. Apparently it will surface on Netflix on line.

The guessing games are starting. What will they do about dear old granpaw now that Edward Hermann has hit the bucket? Will Luke's daughter come back? Will Luke and Lorelei be an old married couple by now?

I'm sure Christopher will make an appearance. And the daughter with the cute glasses. Kelly Bishop I'm sure will be featured and just as feisty, and Paris will make an appearance, even though she is in a hit show now.

Lane will be managing her mother's store since the old lady had by-pass surgery. Jess will be recently out of prison and managing the diner while Luke is the cook at the inn and will be living there. Melissa McCarthy will come back for the Thanksgiving show.

The hardest character to place will be Rory. Although the actress can use the work, the character will have gone on to a news job at WGBH in Boston. It would be tragic if she was home, living with Mom after all her fancy schooling. She will visit on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter so we'll get to see her.

I telescoped my prediction. The shows (there will only be four, albeit four long shows) will be based on holidays. Each show will take place around a holiday where people not living in Stars Hollow will be around, visiting family.

There will be a Thanksgiving show, a Christmas show, an Easter show and a Fourth of July show. Luke and Lorelei will be married but living up the street from each other.  Those are my predictions.

Halloween humbug

When I was a tot my mother insisted that our family never wore store bought costumes. My mother liked to show off her rural roots and sewing skills in late October. I was a little Dutch girl, a little Dutch boy, a farmer, Tom Sawyer, well you get the picture. Texas straw got re-used year after year.

Halloween was  okay. My brother, with my assistance, carved out a pumpkin. School had a Halloween party. We walked around the neighborhood with the girls up the street and collected candy.

Seventh grade my mother celebrated. No more Halloween. No more costumes. Her kids were too old for Halloween.

I lived a relatively Halloween free life until I moved to Denver. The branch manager loved the holiday and made the staff dress up in costumes. My mother was several states away so I had to design my own costumes. One year a few of us went as African Americans. It was fun, although it might be politically incorrect nowadays.

Now I am an adult and am still designing Halloween costumes. I have no ideas so far. In 2008 I went as the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulsen. Does anyone have any ideas? Halloween. Humbug.

Girls Season 3

I have been reviewing Girls every year and now I am onto Season 3. Yes I know they are showing Season 4 now but I'm too cheap to get HBO and have to rely on Netflix (the DVD version). Anyway, I finally saw Season 3.

In this season the "girls" seem to be moving on from adolescence to adulthood. They are starting to grow up. Adam, especially, is becoming a more mature person (although "I must concentrate on being an actor" phase is a little much). Hannah had a real job working for GQ, Shoshanna is aging from a cute college kid to an annoying young adult, Marnie is becoming the musical one (I see her with a real career in sitcoms after her Peter Pan debut). Jessa is the oldest but also acts the most immature. Still she is the pretty one and the edgy one, the one who is always the center of interest in any scene she is in. One new character who is weird but loveable is Caroline, Adam's sister. Sorry Lena but she is directly out of a Woody Allen Movie. 

I guess not wanting to imitate Sex in the City, the summer place scene took place on the North Shore of Long Island rather than the Hampton's. One feature of that episode is we got to see Hannah in a bathing suit.

Editor's note: I wonder if this is product placement for a cellulite removal system. 

Young girl's living in New York is one of the standard genres of tv and the movies. Sort of like westerns. In the sixties there was That Girl and Breakfast at Tiffany's. In the 90's and early 00's there was Sex and the City. In the teens there is Girls and Broad City (I don't count Too Broke Girls).  To be young, hip, female and living in the city. Us older men have to watch tv to discover what life is like for this trope.

Hillary

Well, us Democrats are starting to get close to the hour of decision. Will it be Hillary or the un-Hillary. We almost selected her last time then we went for exotic and got behind Barack Obama. Why not Hillary? One reason is that we know her too well. Most of us were first introduced to her when she made the remark that she had better things to do than sit around baking cookies. Then as a new first lady she threw a plate at dear Bill, not that he probably didn't deserve it.

We know her as the estranged wife, the feminist, the smart stock picker. The woman who went on a listening tour of New York. She went on to be a Senator, then a presidential candidate, then a Secretary of State. Her record isn't that bad but among men of a certain age, she doesn't pass the likability test. She reminds us of the sister-in-law who doesn't allow smoking in the house or the school teacher who keeps our sons from playing sports because she gives them C's instead of gentleman's B's.


There's also the question of which is the real Hillary. Is she the sincere but competent  person we see in her new book or is she the sarcastic boozer displayed in the New York Post favorite new title. The sarcastic boozer seems to be more fun than the dull narrator of her own book.


Oh what are we to do? Republicans like to nominate dull people, although Bob Dole and Mitt Romney never made it through a general election. Nixon did, but then that was the "New Nixon". He seemed so nice when he played the piano on the Jack Paar show.


The Republicans have some new faces. Christie and Ted Cruz come to mind. Rand Paul would shake things up. Democrats could live with them as opponents.

When we were in high school we didn't want the girls we knew from Kindergarten, we wanted the mysterious new girl who came in from out-of-state.  We don't usually buy the same model car. We want new.  I suspect this is because so many of today's problems are intractable that no normal person can solve them. Barack knows that by now. We want a wizard and one requirement of a wizard is they are new enough to us that they appear to have magical powers.  

The Democrats may well nominate Hillary. But if they are smart they will package her as the "New Hillary".  Dye the hair! Become a Seventh Day Adventist! Ditch Bill!  My political advice. 

My summer job

Just reading Amy Poehler's article in the New Yorker on her summer job. Cute. It reminded me of my summer job. I got a job with the Board of Ed. I had the lowly job, that first summer, of scraping gum out of desks. It sucked, but the pay wasn't that bad ($2.50 an hour). It took a political connection to get me the job. 

For years a man we will call Dick lived behind us in Hackensack. He liked to cut through my parent's driveway on the way to O'Neals tavern and he often stopped by and visited with dear old Dad. Years later my father admitted he never cared much for Dick but he put up with him for the sake of my summer job. 

The things my father did for his children. 

7:30 AM was starting time. That was the most painful part of the job I think. I was assigned to the high school, the same place from which I had just graduated. When I arrived, they looked my skinny frame up and down. I would not be helping carry sheet rock for the construction crew. I would not be carrying the boards to repair the seats in the football field. I was assigned to the janitresses (lady custodians), given a putty knife, and told that my job was to scrape gum out of the bottom of desks for all the desks in the school. One of the teachers recognized me and wanted to hijack me. He wanted me to take his car for inspection. He was told where to get off. 

I got along with the janitresses. I didn't fib on them when they snuck into the girls rooms for smokes. I kept to myself and my gum. I scraped a lot of gum out of desks that summer. The last two weeks I got to clean desks, and as a reward, go to help put the liquid finish on them. By Labor Day the desks were ready for a new group of scholars. And I was ready for college. 

In the Senatorial debates, Lonegan talked about how he, unlike Cory Booker, worked when he went to college. I guess I can run for Senate, if that is the requirement. 

Girls season 2

Ray and Adam and dog

Thanks to Netflix, I have now season 2 of Girls. The seasons are only ten shows long, but that's modern TV I suppose. Some of you may remember when I reviewed Season 1. Season 2 is actually quite good. In an unexpected shift, the men, at least some of them, seem to have matured into real characters, while the women have shown themselves to be needy and problematic. I would definitely say this was the season of the men.

Ever since watching last season my self esteem has suffered. I have always defined life through television situation comedies and most of them lately seem to show men as being either weak or as assholes.  Today, according to Girls, it's okay to be a man again. I feel so much better about myself now.

Traditionally, in old movies, the solution to the problem of what do single girls do when they get to New York has always been solved by marriage to well heeled men. Ginger Rogers lived in a crappy room for most of the movie but married Prince Charming in the end. Such conclusions were played with in Season 2. All of the leads in one way or another got involved with older, richer men and seemed happy for a while but things fell through in the end. In classic movieland they would have married and lived happily ever after. It would be funny if in the series finale, Girls ends with marriage to men with good careers, suburbs, and babies.

Miss America

Yes, Sunday night, Miss America is back in dear old Atlantic City. I have many memories of watching this show on the old Philco as a kid. The different competitions were fascinating. We all had our favorites. My mother was always loyal to the girls from the South. "You know, Southern girls are prettier than those Northern girls."  The judges must have agreed with her.

I still remember the commercials where you got to see the contestants putting on Noxzema cold cream as they prepared. And at the end, the whole family would bawl as the lucky girl walked down the aisle with Bert Parr singing that same old song. It was one of the few times I saw my father cry. 

Now the major story is that one of the contestants has a tattoo. I know the younger generation love their tattoos. Mother would not have approved.  

Plan B

It looks like thirteen year old girls will soon be able to buy a morning after pill. No prescription needed. It may be expensive though. Perhaps the guy can chip in. Well if you're going to legalize it you might as well go all the way.

Mother at breakfast

It may be hard to believe, but I was never the most fun person to be around in the morning. My mother worked until 11PM at the hospital and woke up the next morning to her two grumpy children needing breakfast and to go to school. I would sit there staring at dry cold cereal and it was then that I was treated to Mother's stories of growing up in East Texas during the depression. 

Once she surprised me when she told me, "You know, when I was a little girl I had a friend up the street and she had this old woman living with her family who had been a slave."

"Really, I said where did she sleep?"

"In the kitchen."

Then there were the stories of nursing school. Apparently they had some wild times in nursing school. Once they tried to call Eleanor Roosevelt on the phone. The next day the girls were visited by someone from the Secret Service. 

They drank bottles of Coke in the morning, trying to beef up for a long day at Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital was in Shreveport and didn't have air conditioning in those days. 

Of course making fun of Papa's family also came with the orange juice and frosted flakes. As an eight years old I knew what were the natural color's of all of my aunt's hair. 

So here's to all the mothers out their with their testy charges. Enjoy your presents.